Author: Trafficblast

The developer and publisher for Cooking Mama: Cookstar have moved to quash speculation that the game allows for background cryptocurrency mining when running on Switch.

Last week, IGN reported on the confusing release and provenance of the new Cooking Mama game, which has seen the digital version pulled from Nintendo eShop, while making its way to select stores as a boxed game. Subsequently, a tweet including a supposed screenshot from Discord chat about the game began circulating.

That screenshot alleged that, while running, the game is “Usiing your system to mine Crypto Currency and potentially handig your personal info as well [sp]“. Cryptocurrency mining (a.k.a. cryptomining) is a process of authenticating cryptocurrency payments, earning a small payment in the process – if true, this would mean your Switch hardware was being used to earn money for a third party. A reply to that original message includes a series of follow-up details, some of which are drawn from IGN’s report, and several of which are provably false.

We looked at these options as a means to allow players to trade in-game assets. However, we only explored the theory behind the concept, not the implementation. Cooking Mama: Cookstar, nor any of our other titles in the past or near future will utilize crypto technology.

— Cooking Mama: Cookstar (@CookstarMama) April 6, 2020

Following that tweet, both developer 1st Playable and publisher Planet Entertainment (through the Cookstar Twitter account) have refuted the allegation. Tweeting for the first time since 2017, 1st Playable explained: “As the developers we can say with certainty there is no cryptocurrency or data collection or blockchain or anything else shady in the code. The Nintendo Switch is a very safe platform, with none of the data and privacy issues associated with some mobile and PC games.”

The Cookstar Twitter account echoed the same point, and referred to a much-discussed 2019 press release that indicated publisher Planet Entertainment did aim to add blockchain technology to its games, including Cooking Mama – a goal it says never came to fruition.

“We looked at these options as a means to allow players to trade in-game assets”, reads a follow-up tweet. “However, we only explored the theory behind the concept, not the implementation. Cooking Mama: Cookstar, nor any of our other titles in the past or near future will utilize crypto technology.”

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Independent sources have supported the developer and publisher’s statements. Several Twitter users that reverse engineer games have reported that the game contains no code related to blockchain or cryptomining. IGN has verified with players that do own the game that claims of it causing the Switch to overheat also appear to be false, although battery drain does seem to be an issue (this could be down to any number of factors, however). Cookstar can also be played offline, contrary to claims that it was an always-online game to allow for background cryptomining.

This controversy has also has helped clear up some of the previous confusion around Cooking Mama: Cookstar, primarily who made the game, and its connection to blockchain technology. However, aside from acknowledging “distribution issues”, neither developer or publisher has addressed why the game was pulled from Nintendo eShop in the first place. IGN has, once again, reached out for comment.

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Nintendo has reduced the number of “some eggs” players will find in Animal Crossing: New Horizon’s Bunny Day event – seemingly responding to public outcry about how many freaking eggs there are right now.

The news was revealed in a set of patch notes from Nintendo, which detailed changes coming to the game as part of Version 1.1.4. “During the Easter event, the appearance rate of some eggs has been adjusted until April 11, 2020,” the patch notes read. Below, it mentions that the rate of eggs will increase again on April 12th to commemorate Easter Sunday.

It’s not immediately clear which egg types have seen the reduction in numbers, although it seems likely that eggs caught while fishing would be a target.

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If you’ve been playing Animal Crossing: New Horizons recently you will have been forced into the Bunny Day event, where Zipper the ‘rabbit’ has infected the island with countless eggs, replacing many of the normal resources players are trying to collect on their daily adventures.

Despite the fact that Zipper is objectively terrifying, this eggstravaganza has caused chaos for players who don’t care much for the Bunny Day exclusive crafting items, which include an absurd variety of egg-infused furniture, and outfits that turn your islander into an egg. You can check out the full list of Bunny Day DIY Recipes here. Many players have turned to social media to address the issue, putting Zipper in the firing line.

아니…공포게임 동물의숲 pic.twitter.com/gRayrRiJHP

— 산개 (@SUPERMAGlCPlG) March 31, 2020

It’s a lot to deal with and can be overwhelming for those players who just want to go about their day fishing for Sea Bass. Water Eggs have replaced some of the fish in the water, meaning you can waste precious tools reeling fish-shaped, bait nibbling eggs out of a pond. Here’s every egg type currently in the game – It’s a nightmare.

Here’s all the fish coming to N. Hemisphere Animal Crossing players this month:

– Water Egg
– Water Egg
– Water Egg
– Water Egg
– Water Egg
– Water Egg
– Water Egg
– Water Egg
– Water Egg
– Water Egg
– Water Egg
– Water Egg
– Water Egg
– Water Egg
– Water Egg
– Water Egg

— Ben Bertoli™ (@SuperBentendo) April 2, 2020

The same can be said for Sky Eggs, which replace the gifts attached to balloons you can shoot down with your slingshot. You can’t even whack a rock for iron without receiving Stone Eggs.

Luckily, Nintendo has seemingly listened to the fans on this occasion and quickly issued a fix to address the distaste towards Zipper and his insane eggpocalypse.

If you’re still striving to attain a 3 Star Town Rating amidst this egg-onomic crisis, check out our guide to help summon K.K. Slider sooner rather than later.

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Jordan Oloman is a freelance writer for IGN who loved Zipper in Silent Hill 3. Follow him on Twitter.

Apex Legends is one of the biggest and best battle royale games out there, but it’s missing what many consider an important or essential feature–console crossplay, which would allow PS4 and Xbox One players to team up or fight against each other. In a new interview with Game Informer magazine (as relayed by GameSpot sister site Comicbook.com), general manager Dusty Welch and director Chad Grenier have talked about wanting to include this feature.

Welch told the magazine that they saw how crossplay is now “something that is kind of expected in the industry and is important to a game like ours.” He says that he and Grenier personally play on different systems at home, and wish they could team up.

“On a personal level, yes, we’d love to do that and party up on the weekends,” Welch says. “I think it’s an important thing to get to.”

Crossplay was teased for Apex Legends at the time of its launch, too. It’s a difficult feature to implement, of course, which is why only a few major titles–like Fortnite and Destiny 2–have it as a feature. The Call of Duty franchise also has crossplay as of Modern Warfare and Warzone.

Apex Legends is adding map rotation as part of the game’s next event, so you’ll be able to pick between both maps for the first time.

It’s inevitable that we’ll see another Grand Theft Auto game at some point, but over six years after Grant Theft Auto V released, we don’t know a lot about what’s coming next. Ned Luke, the actor who portrayed Michael De Santa in Rockstar’s open world game, has been asked about a theoretical GTA 6 for years, and now he’s got a message for everyone who is buying into rumors about the game.

In an Instagram live video alongside Shawn Fonteno, who voiced Franklin Clinton in the game, Luke has called out the people who make up rumors about the series, claiming that no one outside of Rockstar itself knows anything.

The video is no longer on Instagram, but one Twitter user, OhMrZack, managed to capture it. It’s embedded below.

“They say GTA 6 is gonna be made in Vice City–how do all these people get all this information?,” Luke says, incredulously. “People, do you not understand? Do not believe anything you see on the Internet from BossManF***TheWorld, or whatever his name is, or any of those guys,” he says, referencing a specific GTA “leaker”.

“They have no inside information,” he continues. “They’re just clickbait. If you hear it from Rockstar, then you know.”

Otherwise, Ned Luke did not address what’s happening next with Grand Theft Auto–nor would we expect him to.

GTA VI is likely still a while away, since nothing has been revealed as of yet. Besides, GTA V is still selling in incredible numbers, and making a lot of money through GTA Online. However, reports have suggested that we nearly got a GTA: Tokyo, and back in 2013 Rockstar already had ideas for a sequel. In 2018, Rockstar’s Dan Houser said that making another GTA would be difficult in the current political climate; he has since left the company.

Rockstar Games recently sent its employees to work from home amid the COVID-19 pandemic.

Ubisoft has confirmed that the Rocksmith team is no longer building new Rocksmith DLC, bringing an end to an epic 383 weeks of song releases for the respected guitar instruction game. The encore is over and the house lights are on.

“As of this week’s Opeth Song Pack, Rocksmith Remastered has concluded its scheduled DLC releases,” explains a statement published on Ubisoft.com. “After 383 weeks of DLC releases, this pack brings us to a total of 1570 songs in the Rocksmith library, spanning over seven decades (or three centuries, in the case of Bachsmith) and covering a multitude of genres for guitar and bass.”

While there will be no more new songs, the team has stressed weekly online content is still planned for Rocksmith fans.

The shift in focus is attributed to the fact the Rocksmith team is currently “hard at work on a new project”, which is a mystery for the time being.

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The original Rocksmith was first released in October 2011 for Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3 and arrived on PC a year later. The finger pickin’ good follow-up, Rocksmith 2014, was released in 2013 (and Rocksmith 2014 Remastered was released in 2016 for PC, Xbox One, and PlayStation 4). Pitched as a guitar (and bass) teaching tool rather than a traditional game, Rocksmith differs from Guitar Hero and Rocksmith by allowing users to plug in their own electric guitars to play along and learn the tracks.

For those who chose to rock, we salute you.

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Luke is Games Editor at IGN’s Sydney office. He doesn’t always listen to rock at home but when he does, so do his neighbours. You can find him on Twitter every few days @MrLukeReilly.

The Last of Us Part II director Neil Druckmann has discussed the recent delay of Naughty Dog’s highly-anticipated PlayStation juggernaut, explaining the frustration of having the game on the “one-yard line” but held up due to reasons beyond their control.

“It’s a bit rough,” Druckmann told the Official PlayStation Blogcast. “You’re working on something for so long – some of us, for years – and there’s a built-in anticipation when you’re doing this thing. Like, you can’t wait for this thing that you’ve been crafting and honing and sometimes dreaming about; you can’t wait to get it in people’s hands and then see their reactions. See what they like or didn’t like, or where the story takes them. And now you gotta put all that on hold because the world is conspiring against us!”

“Internally we know we have a great game and it’s just we have to wait a little bit longer to get it out there to fans. I know fans are disappointed and believe me when I say this: we’re just as disappointed, if not more so, to not be able to get the game out on time.”

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On the question of why not release The Last of Us Part II digitally on the planned date, Druckmann explained there’s still no new plan yet but the key priority is getting the game to all fans – not just some.

“Well, there hasn’t been a final decision yet; right now we’re just reacting,” said Druckmann. “You know, it’s a different retail chain – whether we could get physical copies to people. What is the internet infrastructure there to support it in all countries? This is a worldwide game that people in every country are waiting for, and we want to make sure we’re fair.”

“If we just get it to a small fraction of people, what about all the people that don’t get it? Right now we’re looking at all sorts of different options: what’s the best way to get it to all of our fans as soon as possible? But that’s gonna take time for us to shift and figure things out, and also see where the world’s at. You know, things are changing from day to day.”

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Druckmann also stressed that turning the previous press demo into a standalone demo that could be downloaded by the public would be a “massive amount of work” and that the team would rather focus on finishing the game itself instead of rebuilding an outdated demo.

“We’re at the one-yard line, I would say,” said Druckmann. “There’s still some bugs that we’re finding that we’re squashing – we want to polish it as much as we can, taking our time to review each section and making sure it’s all Naughty Dog quality.”

“It’s there; that’s the frustrating part for us! The game is there. We just have to sit on it for a little bit and figure out what’s the best way to get it to our fans.”

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The Last of Us Part II was initially set to arrive on February 22, 2020. That initial release date was confirmed late last year alongside a story trailer and our first chance to go hands-on with The Last of Us’ long-awaited sequel.

Shortly after, Naughty Dog announced The Last of Us Part II would, in fact, be delayed until May 29 for additional polishing. In the wake of this delay reports emerged that the shift to May allegedly led to sustained crunch at Naughty Dog rather than alleviating it.

The Last of Us Part II was also supposed to have its first public hands-on at PAX East 2020 but, due to concerns over the spread of COVID-19, Sony pulled out of PAX East.

Sony and HBO also recently announced that a The Last of Us TV show adaptation is in the works, set to air on HBO with Druckmann and Chernobyl executive producer Craig Mazin behind the series (and the TV show will replace The Last of Us movie that was previously in the pipe). No casting has been announced, but we’ve offered plenty of suggestions for who should play Joel and Ellie in The Last of Us TV show.

For more on the upcoming sequel, we spoke to Druckmann about Joel’s role in The Last of Us Part II, why The Last of Us Part II isn’t an open world game, as well as how dogs affect stealth and combat.

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Luke is Games Editor at IGN’s Sydney office. You can find him on Twitter every few days @MrLukeReilly.