Author: Trafficblast

The annual Destiny 2 Halloween event Festival of the Lost begins next week, but ahead of the event Bungie has issued a few warnings about how to claim your tricks and treats safely. The two event rewards, Candy and Chocolate Strange Coins, should be handled with care.

“While we await the festival’s return, we’d like to forewarn players about earning and deleting Candy and Chocolate Strange Coins,” reads a note in Bungie’s weekly update. “In order to earn these currencies, players must wear the Masquerader’s Helmet, purchasable from Eva Levante for 100 Glimmer. If players defeat enemies and complete activities without this helmet equipped, they will not earn Candy or Chocolate Strange Coins.

“Furthermore, players should be cautious when dismantling any items in their Consumables inventory. Any instance of dismantling Candy or Chocolate Strange Coins, intentional or otherwise, will delete the entire stack.”

The event will start on October 29 and includes special activities and rewards. You can take on the returning Haunted Forest–a spooky version of Mercury’s Infinite Forest–to get as far as you can in 15 minutes, face off against super-tough Terror enemies, and complete special bounties. Those activities will earn you Chocolate Strange Coins that you can trade for masks, which this year manifest as helmet ornaments. The event will also offer special Eververse rewards, like spooky glow-skeletons, and clearing out the Haunted Forest will earn you a Braytech Werewolf auto rifle.

Festival of the Lost will be open to all players, including those jumping in to the new free-to-play First Light edition of the game. The same day will also see the introduction of a new Exotic quest.

Mike Flanagan, the director of Doctor Sleep and creator of The Haunting of Hill House, is currently in talks with Stephen King about adapting another one of the legendary author’s works.

Talking to IGN, Flanagan revealed that he is currently engaged in “robust” discussions with the author of The Shining and Doctor Sleep. “I’ve been talking with Stephen King about what we can do next,” said Flanagan. “And being the fan that I am of his, there are so many of his books that I would love a chance to adapt. So it’s been about ‘Which one do you want to do next?’ We’re having robust conversations about what that could be. We have a plan and we’ll see.”

If that plan comes to fruition, this will be the third Stephen King book that Flanagan will have adapted. Prior to this year’s Doctor Sleep. Flanagan directed 2017’s Gerald’s Game, based on King’s 1992 novel.

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Due to “unprecedented demand,” London’s new pop-up Pokemon Center has been forced to take new measures to cope with the tidal wave of people looking to purchase a plush bowler-hat wearing Pikachu, among other London-themed Pokemon items.

The store, which is located at the Westfield London shopping centre, has reduced shop opening hours from 10 AM-10 PM to 10 AM-6 PM (Sunday 12 PM-6 PM), as well as tightening its limits on purchases. A week after the store opened, queue times still range somewhere between four and five hours on a typical weekday, according to the Pokemon Center London Updates Twitter account. Yesterday, queues were closed as early as 2pm to prevent them from growing even larger.

GameSpot was sent the following image of people queueing up outside Westfield London at 9am this morning.

Arriving early is key to getting into the store it seems, with some even opting to camp overnight to book their place at the front of the queue. However, Westfield has said that physically setting up camp is not permitted. “Customers wishing to queue overnight may have to wait outside,” the shopping centre said. “You will not be permitted to bring camping bags or tents. Please make yourself known to a member of the security team upon your arrival.”

The London Pikachu range has been limited to one item per customer since the Pokemon Center opened, but purchase limits throughout the rest of the store now extend to just six items. An FAQ thread from the official Twitter account says that this was done because it can no longer guarantee stock will be available until the store closes for good.

“We receive daily deliveries and endeavour to replenish stock as quickly as possible. However, due to unprecedented demand, some products may sell out before the end of the day,” the shop now says. “Our team are working hard to restock daily. However, as interest in the store has been unprecedented, some products may sell out before the shop’s closure on Friday 15th November.”

There’s clearly a demand for a permanent Pokemon Center in London, even if you look beyond the effect the store’s limited lifespan has on heightening people’s clamour to get in. There’s already a petition to make the store a permanent fixture, and it makes sense when you consider the online US store doesn’t even ship worldwide. If London can accommodate a three-story tall M&M store that actually makes money, a Pokemon Center shouldn’t be too far behind.

Monster Hunter World: Iceborne will be released on PC via Steam on January 9, 2020.

The much-anticipated release date was revealed alongside a new trailer that details all the new features headed to the PC version of Monster Hunter World’s expansion that released for PlayStation 4 and Xbox One earlier this year.

New to the PC version will be High Resolution Texture Pack support, 4K and uncapped framerate, Ultra-Wide Screen support, DirectX 12 support, and improved keyboard and mouse controls.

In addition, the “Yukumo” layered armor set, which changes the character’s appearance but does not include any weapons, will be available as a pre-order bonus.

There will also be a Digital Deluxe version of Monster Hunter World: Iceborne that includes the “Silver Knight” layered armor set, 3 gestures, 2 sticker sets, 1 face paint, 1 hairstyle, and 1 decor set (for room customization.)

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Terminator: Dark Fate is, once again, an attempt to reignite the time-travelling-robot series. Like Terminator Genisys before it, and The Sarah Connor Chronicles TV show before that, Dark Fate seeks to run closer to the tones and themes of the original two Terminator movies in order to find success. It does exactly that, too; it is the best Terminator film since Judgment Day without even breaking a sweat. However, it once again demonstrates something that’s fused itself the series since 1991: a refusal – or perhaps even inability – to escape Terminator 2’s formula.

Terminator 2 flipped the original film’s formula on its head by turning Arnold Schwarzenegger’s T-800 killing machine into a bulletproof protector. No longer hunting Sarah Connor, he was programmed to protect her son John, who will go on to become the future leader of the human resistance. Hunting John is the T-1000, a hyper-advanced melty man sent back to 1991 by the AI Skynet. This pairing – the good robot vs the bad robot – is thrilling in Terminator 2, but has become increasingly tiresome after being used as the central conceit of every film in the series since.

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Starbreeze will resume work on Payday 2, with some changes, in an effort to get the company back on track financially. A message from CEO Mikael Nermark posted to the Steam Community frankly outlined the company’s current struggles and how it’s aiming to make changes to its roadmap ahead.

To start, Nermark explains the background of Starbreeze going into reconstruction, a process similar to US Chapter 11 bankruptcy. It has remained afloat despite being very short on funds, but now the company is making changes to assure it can keep going. And part of that includes going back to developing content for its successful game, Payday 2. But in the process, Nermark also recognizes openly that the studio is “breaking a promise,” which he says they do not take lightly.

The Payday 2: Ultimate Edition was proposed as a way to get forever-free DLC, and that commitment is being broken. Nermark says, “We want to move forward and make more of Payday 2, and to do so we need your support to continue producing content.”

The Ultimate Edition is being replaced by a new Payday 2: Legacy Collection. The studio is also adding back an a la carte option for individual DLC. More Payday 2 content is coming as well, said to be coming soon.

Starbreeze has been struggling since late last year, when it filed for reconstruction amid low sales of its Walking Dead game. Shortly after, its office was raided as part of an insider trading investigation. Nermark was named acting CEO in December 2018.≈

Fallout 76 players are reporting a variety of problems that have been introduced following the latest patch, including significant issues that afflict Fallout 1st subscriber players.

A bug roundup thread on Reddit explains that players believe that “newly created” worlds within Fallout 76 are not new, but re-purposed server instances. While yet to be confirmed by Bethesda, players have come to this conclusion due to these servers containing dead NPCs and junk that has already been looted.

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Earlier this year, Capcom announced that Monster Hunter World: Iceborne would be coming to PC in January, five months after it was initially released on PlayStation 4 and Xbox One. That timeframe has now been narrowed down to a specific date: January 9, 2020.

A new trailer showcases what PC players can expect from the Nergigante-sized expansion to the critically-acclaimed Monster Hunter World. The PC version will include high-resolution texture pack support, 4K and an uncapped framerate, support for ultra-wide screens, DirectX 12 support, and improved mouse and keyboard controls. Those who pre-order the game on Steam will also receive a Yukomo layered armor set, while the deluxe digital edition includes gestures, sticker sets, a Silver Knight layered armor set, and more.

The trailer does an excellent job showing off all the visual enhancements available on PC. The extra time was clearly put to good use. Back in September, Ginny Woo praised the expansion in GameSpot’s Monster Hunter World: Iceborne review, saying “There’s no more fussing about with new systems or worrying about ruffling the feathers of hardcore fans with a direction change in the series; those teething problems have already come and gone. Iceborne is a confident step into the future of the franchise, and it’s hard not to think about what might come next.”

You can preorder Iceborne on Steam now ahead of its release on January 9.