Author: Trafficblast

Call of Duty: Black Ops 4 launched with Blackout, Treyarch’s foray into the massively popular battle royale genre. Though the genre is rife with potential, it’s steadily becoming oversaturated with content, something developer Infinity Ward seems to be aware of. As it stands, Infinity Ward is uninterested in a battle royale mode for the upcoming Call of Duty: Modern Warfare.

Joe Cecot, Infinity Ward’s multiplayer design director, told IGN that Black Ops 4 and Modern Warfare are different vibes, saying the studio is honing in on the core multiplayer experience. “[We’re] big fans of battle royale. We’re excited for large player counts and things like that, but right now we’re really focused on core multiplayer.”

So it seems Modern Warfare will feature nothing similar to Black Ops 4’s Blackout. Cecot explained, saying, “We really focused on Modern Warfare, authentic and gritty, realistic weapons and it’s a different experience. It’s really… just about pulling back to Modern Warfare and keeping that pure.”

Currently, Modern Warfare’s largest player count is found in Ground War, which supports up to 40 players. When the reboot launches this October, however, the plan is for Ground War to support more than 100 players in a single match. The new Gunfight mode is Modern Warfare’s smallest player count, featuring 2v2 battles reliant on skill and tactical positioning.

Starting in September, Infinity Ward will host private and public betas for Modern Warfare. Scheduled exclusively for those who pre-order on PS4, the first round kicks off on September 12 and 13. The second round, available to all PS4 owners, will run from September 14-16. Those who pre-order on PC and Xbox One can play between September 19-20. It all culminates to the final beta, accessible to anyone with internet access, which is scheduled to run between September 21-23.

It appears yet another leak for a Ubisoft game has made its way onto the internet. This time it’s for Rainbow Six Siege and the rumored Operators scheduled to release for the game’s Year 4 Season 3 expansion.

Two pieces of concept art for Siege’s next two Operators have leaked onto Reddit. On ResetEra, user Kormora–a reliable Siege leaker according to VG247–has confirmed the leaked images are legitimate and do showcase Year 4 Season 3’s two Operators. Both Operators seems to hail from, or at least work out of, South America.

The first appears to be some kind of demolitions expert and the second looks like an adventurous archaeologist. Both roles would fit with an earlier leak that revealed the gadgets for Siege’s next two Operators: one would carry a deployable shield that would release combustible canisters and the other would be armed with a grappling hook that would allow them to climb up through hatches on the ceiling. Both gadgets sound like something that an explosives expert and tomb raider would use.

A popular limited-time mode in Rainbow Six Siege, Outbreak, is being expanded into a full-fledged game called Rainbow Six Quarantine. Unlike Siege, which is primarily co-op PvP, Quarantine is a co-op PvE game. Outbreak saw several members of Team Rainbow break off from hunting terrorists to be part of a special task force–led by FBI agent Eliza “Ash” Cohen–to combat and cure a virus that was mutating humans into zombie-like creatures. Quarantine seems to pick up where Outbreak left off, but Ubisoft hasn’t confirmed story details for the new game. Rainbow Six Quarantine is scheduled to launch in early 2020, specifically before March 31.

Until then, Siege continues to be a popular co-op first-person shooter, with regular updates rebalancing Operators and creating a better experience with additional gameplay features. In GameSpot’s Rainbow Six Siege review, Scott Butterworth wrote, “My experiences weren’t always perfect, but when Siege works, there’s nothing else like it. It’s not designed to appeal to all players, and that’s exactly what allows it to be something special. With so much strategic depth, those periods between firefights actually become some of the most rewarding, while firefights themselves are made all the more intense by the knowledge that you’re fighting for your life, not just your kill/death ratio.”

Halo: The Master Chief Collection is coming to PC, and now developer 343 Industries has shared some new insight on two hot-button issues: mods and anti-cheat.

In a blog post, 343 said it continues to be in “full support” of modding games within The Master Chief Collection on PC, but there are some important details to be aware of. First, all mods must conform to Microsoft’s terms of use. Also, players must have a legally purchased copy.

“We encourage the modding community to update the games the way you see fit to play with your friends. This is something the Halo community has done for a long time and as long as it follows the Xbox Content Usage rules there should be no reason to stop,” 343 explained.

Moving on to anti-cheat, 343 said it will make use of an “industry-leading anti-cheat solution” to lessen the impact of bad behavior for games played on dedicated servers. “We are doing this in order to allow modded content to be used by the community for other game modes they would like to customize,” 343 said. “Our goals are to protect players while also providing freedom to players who mod as long as it doesn’t negatively impact others. We will have a lot more to talk about on this in the future as development progresses.”

343 did not specifically mention the name of the anti-cheat software it will use likely because doing so would give cheaters a head start on devising ways to get around the system.

343 launched the first beta test, or “flight,” in the Halo parlance for Halo: Reach on PC in July. It was promptly illegally distributed, and Microsoft was swift to threaten bans.

In other news, 343 shared a series of videos of some of the silliest bugs they encountered in development; you can see these posted below.

The first trailer for the next movie from famed director Christopher Nolan (The Dark Knight, The Prestige, Inception, Interstellar, Insomnia, Dunkirk) has premiered, but there is a huge catch.

The trailer for the movie, Tenet, is currently exclusive to theatres where it is airing in front of the Fast & Furious spinoff Hobbs & Shaw. According to Variety and other sources, viewers were treated to a 40-second teaser, and the video might have been only shown in preview screenings for Hobbs & Shaw. It’s unclear when the video will be released online.

IGN has a full breakdown of what’s in the Tenet teaser. It begins showing off star John David Washington and a tagline, “It’s time for a new protagonist.” Another line says, “It’s time for a new kind of mission.” Officially, the movie is described as “an action epic in the world of international espionage.” IGN describes Tenet as potentially being something like “Inception with time travel.”

Tenet opens on July 17, 2020. The movie also stars Robert Pattinson, Elizabeth Debicki, Clemence Poesy, Kenneth Branagh, and frequent Nolan collaborator Michael Caine.

It’ll be Nolan’s first movie since 2017’s Dunkirk. Before that, Nolan directed Interstellar (2014), The Dark Knight Rises (2012), Inception (2010), The Dark Knight (2008), The Prestige (2006), Batman Begins (2005), Insomnia (2002), Memento (2000), and Following (1998). He has been nominated for five Academy Awards.

His brother Jonathan Nolan created the HBO show Westworld with his wife Lisa Joy.

The latest weekend box office numbers are in, and the Fast & Furious spinoff Hobbs & Shaw starring Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson and Jason Statham, opened to a massive number.

The action film took in $60.8 million during its US/Canada opening this weekend, which made it far and away the biggest movie of the weekend, according to box office numbers from Entertainment Weekly. Hobbs & Shaw made a further $120 million from its overseas opening to bring its global haul to $180 million after just one weekend. As it happens, $180 million is also the estimated production budget of Hobbs & Shaw.

At $60.8 million in North America, Hobbs & Shaw performed substantially lower than almost every other movie in the series, but that is to be expected given it is a spinoff. You can see the domestic opening-weekend figures for every Fast & Furious movie posted below via Box Office Mojo.

Hobbs & Shaw is directed by Deadpool 2 director David Leitch. The movie also features Idris Elba as the villain, alongside Helen Mirren, Eiza Gonzalez, and Eddie Marsan.

The entire Fast & Furious franchise has now made more than $5 billion in box office receipts worldwide since it premiered all the way back in 2009. Hobbs & Shaw is the ninth instalment.

GameSpot’s review of Hobbs & Shaw called it “wildly fun, but very dumb.”

Elsewhere, Disney’s The Lion King finished No. 2 with $38.2 million to push its domestic haul to $430.9 million. The movie has now made $764.9 million from international markets to push its global haul to $1.195 billion. Quentin Tarantino’s Once Upon a Time in Hollywood, meanwhile, added $20 million this weekend in the US and Canada to push its total haul to $78.8 million; the movie opens later in August in other parts of the world.

August 2-4 Domestic Box Office

via Entertainment Weekly

1. Fast & Furious Presents: Hobbs & Shaw — $60.8 million
2. The Lion King — $38.2 million
3. Once Upon a Time in Hollywood — $20 million
4. Spider-Man: Far From Home — $7.8 million
5. Toy Story 4 — $7.2 million
6. Yesterday — $2.4 million
7. The Farewell — $2.4 million
8. Crawl — $2.2 million
9. Aladdin — $2 million
10. Annabelle Comes Home — $875,000

Fast & Furious Franchise Opening-Weekend Box Office (Domestic Only)

1. Furious 7 (2015) — $147.2 million
2. The Fate of the Furious (2016) — $98.8 million
3. Fast & Furious 6 (2013) — $97.4 million
4. Fast Five (2011) — $86.2 million
5. Fast & Furious (2009) — $70.95 million
6. Hobbs & Shaw (2019) — $60.8 million
7. 2 Fast 2 Furious (2003) — $50.4 million
8. The Fast and the Furious (2001) — $40 million
9. The Fast and the Furious: Tokyo Drift (2006) — $23.9 million