We recently got hands-on with the much anticipated PlayStation 4 exclusive The Last Of Us Part II. One element that’s making a significant change to how gameplay will flow in the sequel is the inclusion of enemy dogs. These canine foes will make stealth much more challenging and involved this time around.
GameSpot editor Phil Hornshaw spoke to the game’s co-director Anthony Newman, and Phil noted that–during his gameplay session–he couldn’t just watch enemies for their patrol routes and take them out safely because they’re a lot more proactive. But that’s not the only reason why stealth is tougher.
Newman noted, “In stealth gameplay, in almost every stealth game you’ve ever played, the goal is to just stay out of sight. If you just stay out of sight, if you just hang back, you’ll be fine. What I’m really excited about with attack dogs is that not only do they create an interesting melee challenge, an interesting aiming challenge where they’re so fast and low to the ground it can be really difficult to aim at them, but by sniffing out your trail, you can’t do that anymore. You can’t just hang back.”
From Phil’s experience, enemy dogs force you to be more mobile, but you can distract them by throwing objects to make noise or keep moving to break your scent trail. Newman continued, “You can’t just remain unseen because now there’s this new dimension of perception that you’ve never had to deal with before. You’ve always had to try to stay quiet; always had to try to stay out of sight. Now you actually have to worry about the sense of smell of your enemies as well. I’m really excited about that new dimension that’s opened up.”
We have the game covered from every angle; be sure to read our in-depth The Last Of Us Part II preview and watch our hands-on impressions from the preview event. Sony’s recent State of Play livestream showed new gameplay from The Last of Us Part II which also hinted at the involvement and roles of some very important returning characters.
This is going to be a big game, and it was revealed that The Last of Us Part II will come on two discs, a rarity for PS4 games. Special editions of the game are flying off shelves, and if you manage to get one, you’ll get a heartfelt note from co-director Neil Druckmann. The Last Of Us Part II launches on February 21, 2020 exclusively for PS4.
If you still want to hear more about The Last of Us Part II, check out the latest episode of the GameSpot After Dark podcast.
Infinity Ward studio art director Joel Emslie is appealing to the Call of Duty: Modern Warfare community for some civility following a volatile week of Call of Duty: Modern Warfare announcements and rumors. Particularly over a yearlong PlayStation 4 exclusive and rumored microtransactions.
“Take a second and think about who on the production side comes to this sub and reads through the comments, IW Dev,” Emslie writes “We all have a pretty thick skin here but yeah it can kind of get to you.”
The Call of Duty: Modern Warfare community has been reacting to news that the Special Ops Survival Mode will be a yearlong exclusive to the PlayStation 4. Infinity Ward narrative director Taylor Kurosaki explained online that the decision to make Special Ops Survival Mode a console exclusive as “above all our pay grades,” but that hasn’t calmed down the internet discourse.
A lot of big changes are coming to Destiny 2 with the release of the Shadowkeep expansion. Bungie is reworking systems related to weapons and armor, as well as its premium currency Eververse Store. That means if you’re an avid Destiny player, a lot of your gear is about to become obsolete. Other items are going to matter quite a lot, at least for the first few weeks of Shadowkeep. And some things are better off deleted to convert them into currency you can use on other things.
If your vault is full of gear you’ve been collecting over the course of Destiny 2 up to this point, it can be confusing deciding what you need to hang onto through the launch of Shadowkeep, and what you can toss to make room. Here’s a quick rundown of what’s safe to delete, what you absolutely should shard, and what you want to hang onto through the start of Shadowkeep on October 1.
Delete Old Eververse Items
Shadowkeep is bringing a big change to the Eververse Store, and it means you’ll want to shard a lot of your Eververse gear before the launch of the expansion. In short: deleting Eververse items won’t give you Bright Dust after October 1. Bungie is changing the system so that there’s no incentive for players to buy items with Silver, Destiny 2’s premium currency, to delete them for Bright Dust. In Shadowkeep and beyond, you’ll earn Bright Dust for playing the game, and Eververse items won’t require Bright Dust to pull them from Collections. That means if you delete your Eververse items now, you’ll get Bright Dust you can spend in Shadowkeep.
In general, any Eververse item you don’t absolutely want to keep or wouldn’t want to re-roll, you should delete. You’ll get Bright Dust you can use in Shadowkeep, and you’ll be able to reclaim any Eververse thing you want from your Collections. This is a big one, though: You want to delete all that stuff before Shadowkeep’s pre-launch maintenance begins on September 30, or you’ll miss your chance.
Save Your Bright Dust
This is your last chance to buy items from the current stock in the Eververse Store after it refreshes on October 1, but if you’re not dying for new weapon ornaments or Eververse armor, stockpile your Bright Dust. As mentioned above, the Eververse economy is about to change and nobody knows just the costs of items will be, either from the store itself or when pulling things from Collections. While it’ll be possible to earn Bright Dust from bounties in the new Eververse economy and it’s tempting to spend it now while you’re inundated from clearing out your Eververse stuff, being flush with cash for cosmetics will allow you to grab the things you want from Destiny’s new system without having to grind for it at the start of the expansion.
Keep Your Armor With The Best Rolls
The new Armor 2.0 system is going to change how players approach their character builds and armor, but none of the armor you currently own will be converted into Armor 2.0. You’ll have to earn new pieces of armor by playing in order to get into the new system, and it’ll allow you to customize your character builds much, much more than was possible in Destiny 2 and Forsaken.
However, getting good stuff in the Armor 2.0 system is going to take time, and you’ll need to Masterwork your Armor 2.0 gear to get the most out of it. That means you probably won’t be using good Armor 2.0 gear for at least the first few days of Shadowkeep, and possibly for the first few weeks, depending on how much you play. Similarly, any armor you have with Enhanced perks is worth holding onto, because those perks will be tough to come by in Armor 2.0 gear. In short: keep your best Year Two armor, especially if it has Enhanced perks that you really like. Chances are good you’re going to be using your best Forsaken-era gear for at least a while after the launch of Shadowkeep. You’ll also want to hold onto your old armor mods if you intend to use them on your Forsaken armor–after Shadowkeep, you’ll only earn new mods for Armor 2.0. But any armor and mods you don’t use regularly or don’t think you’ll need are safe for deletion. And don’t worry about infusing any armor with good rolls to get it up to the current level cap ahead of Shadowkeep; when the expansion launches, all of your gear will automatically be elevated to 750 Power.
Keep One Of Each Weapon Mod
The weapon system isn’t undergoing the same massive overhaul that armor is in Shadowkeep, but weapon mods are changing slightly. Instead of being single-use consumables that you’ll lose once you equip them, having a weapon mod will unlock it for use on any gun you have. That’ll allow you to use mods more freely in experimental capacities, without worrying about wasting them. When Shadowkeep launches, any weapon mods you currently have will automatically be added to your inventory to use on all your weapons.
You only need one weapon mod of each type for it to unlock for all your guns, so feel free to delete any duplicates you have in the meantime. Just keep in mind that mods that are already equipped on guns won’t count–they need to be in your inventory. You might want to visit the Gunsmith and Ada-1 to acquire new mods if you’re missing some.
Save Your Best Guns
While the Destiny 2 armor system is getting an overhaul with Shadowkeep, the same is not true of weapons. Yes, weapon mods will stop being consumable, but that’s the only change that’s coming to your guns (other than a series of damage changes and perk nerfs). Your good guns are likely to still be good in the post-Shadowkeep ecosystem, and until we know exactly what the new meta for weapons will be, it’s a good idea not to go too crazy sharding weapons. That doesn’t mean you should keep every gun you’ve got just in case it winds up being good, and especially when it comes to Year One stuff, you’re probably free to clear some space. But it’s a good idea to hang onto a smattering of different guns you can use in a variety of situations to see what works best under Destiny 2’s new changes.
The news that Sony Pictures and Marvel Studios have made a deal to keep Spider-Man in the Marvel Cinematic Universe has made Spider-fans happy around the world. There’s a catch, of course — the agreement is only for one more solo film and one more cameo or appearance in a Phase 4 Marvel movie. But which MCU movie will that be…?
With the schedule for Phase 4 already announced, we have a few ideas about where Tom Holland as Spider-Man may pop up for his next (and possibly final?) appearance in the Marvel Cinematic Universe.
Mario Kart Tour is out, and it’s already setting records. This shouldn’t be surprising. Mario Kart has always been more accessible than the more technical sibling spin-off Smash Bros., and mascot racers are already popular on mobile devices. But while it is deeply odd in some ways–from its fake-out multiplayer to its aggressive monetization–it has certain redeeming qualities. The game itself is merely a passable facsimile of its console counterparts, but buried inside are a handful of ideas that Nintendo should migrate to the next full-fledged Mario Kart installment.
In most ways, Tour follows the blueprint established through years of Mario Karts. You pick one of Nintendo’s gumball-sweet mascots and race around a course while dropping hazards picked up from item boxes. It has made a few compromises in service of the touchscreen interface, including auto-acceleration and a generous auto-steer, and two equally awkward steering options: regular and drift. Regular strangely doesn’t manipulate the camera so you’ll find yourself making blind turns, while the more advanced drift control feels confusingly inverted. It also automates the use of some items. But it’s in the ways that it breaks out of its blueprint that set it apart.
Most significant is the use of a scoring system to determine course completion. Your placement in a race is usually the single biggest contributor to your point total, but you can add to your score through a number of other criteria–from selecting certain equipment for the race to completing stunts and boosts.
In part this is a concession to the game’s free-to-play model. It uses gacha-style mechanics to unlock various racers and kart parts, and it incentivizes you to grow a large collection by tying those bonus points to racers you may not have yet obtained. At the same time, it makes races more active and varied, presenting you with choices aside from the ones that will give you the best race position. Do you sacrifice a half-second to steer towards a jump for the bonus, or stay more confidently in the lead? Better yet, this system lets you have hybrid wins, allowing your trick points to help make up for the gap if you’re passed at the last second due to a wild Blue Shell. In standard Mario Kart, your only recourse is to start over again. In Mario Kart Tour, you may come in 2nd place and still get the maximum score cap.
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Selecting the correct racer for an occasion can also grant you more items or other advantages. This is again a concession to Mario Kart Tour’s F2P hooks, but at its core it’s a mechanic that challenges you to try racers you might not otherwise. Every experienced Mario Karter has a handful of favorites, but that also means that the average player leaves 95% of the roster untouched. Why not give incentive to try out a wider array of characters, or even challenge players to finish races with characters or karts that make the course more challenging? It could add a more dynamic type of challenge to a series that otherwise relies strictly on higher speeds and increasingly cheap rubber-banding.
These tweaks wouldn’t make sense outside the context of one of Mario Kart Tour’s other new addition, seasons. The game takes all of the available maps and mixes them into set order for a two-week period. Mario Kart as a live game is a fantastic idea if it were well-implemented. It’s too early to say if Mario Kart Tour’s seasons are differentiated enough to keep players coming back, but there’s no reason a proper console game couldn’t implement a similar structure. Rotating maps with a mix of challenges would help give the game legs beyond scoring gold across each cup.
All of this is made possible by a constant reward structure, giving out badges, coins, and other items upon completing challenges. Finishing a certain number of seasonal cups entitles you to a reward package with some items and a new kart or racer, and you always know exactly which reward is coming next. This is vastly preferable to the opaque unlocking system of Mario Kart 8, and as the game progresses, the challenges and unlock order could shift with the seasons.
Mario Kart Tour is managing to maintain my interest, for the time being, thanks to these features. If it loses me, it will be because of the subpar steering controls more than any issue of presentation or monetization. But by that same token, it draws a roadmap that other Mario Karts could and should follow to make them more varied, challenging, and fun.
October is normally a month for wearing costumes, eating way too much candy, and watching the leaves fall from trees. It’s also filled with some of the final days of the year where you won’t need a jacket when you go outside. However, you’ll probably want to stay inside this month and watch a whole bunch of Netflix because there is plenty you’ll want to watch.
In the video above, we have a few highlights for the month, including El Camino: The Breaking Bad Movie. Directed by Vince Gilligan, the film follows the aftermath of AMC’s Breaking Bad series finale, as Jesse Pinkman (Aaron Paul) is on the run. This would be a great time to refresh yourself with the Breaking Bad series, and luckily, it’s all currently streaming on Netflix right now. El Camino arrives on October 11.
If you’re in the mood for horror–and seeing as it is the month of Halloween, that makes sense–then the new made-for-Netflix movie In The Tall Grass will be up your alley. Based on a Stephen King and Joe Hill novella, the movie follows a group of people trapped in a large field of–you guessed it–tall grass. While that may not sound terrifying, something sinister lies between the stalks as these prisoners of nature try to escape. It releases on October 4.
Be sure to watch the entire video above for even more recommendations for October on Netflix, and for more streaming service info, check out what’s coming to Hulu and Amazon Prime Video for October.
After Microsoft announced a delay during E3 2019, developer Techland has opened up about Dying Light 2. It seems the open-world action-RPG will reportedly feature over 100 hours of content, but the main storyline can be completed in 15-20 hours.
Prankster 101 asked lead designer Tymon Smektala how long it would take to finish Dying Light 2. Though Smektala said the story quests could be completed in 15-20 hours, he confirmed that “it is very hard to measure in an open-world game because of the things that happen between points A and points B of a quest.” Despite the relatively short length of the game’s story, Smektala clarified that “the whole [game] is more than 100 hours [long].”
Earlier this month, Techland’s chief technology officer Pawel Rohleder revealed that Dying Light 2’s setting is “four times bigger” than the previous game’s. This includes all of Dying Light and its DLC, The Following.
Dying Light 2 is expected to launch Spring 2020 on PC, PlayStation 4, and Xbox One. Pre-orders are available now at multiple retailers, though no bonuses have been announced as of yet.
The Last of Us Part II has a February 21, 2020 release date, much sooner than some of us thought, but it feels like a hundred years for fans waiting for the follow up to Naughty Dog’s PS3 masterpiece.
If you haven’t preordered The Last of Us Part II and you want to get the Collector’s Edition, it’s already sold out at Amazon. However, you can still get it from Walmart, GameStop and Best Buy, but it’s hard to know how much longer they’ll last.
Where to Get The Last of Us 2 Collector’s Edition
The Collector’s Edition may have sold out at Amazon, but you can still claim your preorder and get it on launch day if you buy from Walmart. Not only do you get it on launch, shipping is also free, or you can opt to pick it up in store.
The Pokemon Company International and Nintendo have announced that they will be hosting a 24-hour livestream for Pokemon Sword and Shield called Pokemon Live Camera that will broadcast footage from the Glimwood Tangle forest in the Galar region.
Those who tune in to Pokemon.com,YouTube, or Twitch beginning on October 4 at 6am PT/9am ET/2pm BST will “be able to observe the ecology of the Pokémon that live in this forest, and viewers may even notice things that surprise them.”
Apex Legends Season 3 is almost here, and Respawn is further advertising its launch with a brand-new cinematic launch trailer. The trailer sees newcomer Crypto join the current roster of Apex Legends and foster a new rivalry with Apex Games veteran Mirage as they fight on the battle royale game’s new map.
The Apex Legends Season 3 launch trailer begins with a shot of the Legends’ new jumpship, which has been outfitted with individual hangout spaces catered to each character’s taste as well as a common room where everyone can converse before a match. For a cool Easter egg, you can see Octane playing Titanfall 2 at 0:09.
Both Lifeline and Gibraltar urge Mirage to talk to newcomer Crypto, only for the hacker to immediately become annoyed by Mirage’s presence and cocky attitude. Before the argument can go any further, however, Crypto and Mirage are put on the same team with Lifeline, so the two decide to continue their competition by racing to see who can get more kills. All the Legends drop onto a new map that’s very different from Kings Canyon; it hosts extreme environmental obstacles, industrialized city-like environments, and a moving train.
By the end of the trailer, Crypto and Mirage are much more amiable with one another, their relationship evolving into more of a friendly rivalry. The brand-new map, World’s Edge, was initially teased with Crypto’s first in-game appearance. It will be the temporary home of the Apex Games as the Syndicate fixes the damage to Kings Canyon.
As a cinematic, the trailer doesn’t reveal any concrete details about what’s coming in Season 3 other than that we’re getting a new map. However, we do see further evidence that Crypto’s abilities are tied to his drone and that the new Charge Rifle weapon will behave similarly to its Titanfall counterpart.
Apex Legends is available for Xbox One, PS4, and PC.