Author: Trafficblast

Pokemon Go‘s Detective Pikachu event may be winding down, but the game’s next Community Day is just around the corner. Niantic is bringing the monthly event back this Sunday, May 19, giving players around the world another chance to catch a rare Pokemon and even come away with a special event-exclusive move.

Pokemon Go Community Days typically only run for three hours, but the specifics of each event–such as what time it begins and what bonuses you’ll be able to earn–tend to vary month by month. To help you get ready for the event, we’ve rounded up all of the most important details about May 2019’s Community Day below.

What Is The Featured Pokemon?

Niantic designates one “featured” Pokemon ahead of every Community Day. During the event, this Pokemon will spawn much more frequently in the wild than it normally does, and you’ll even have a chance of coming across its Shiny variant. Moreover, if you’re able to evolve the featured Pokemon into its final form by the end of the Community Day, it’ll automatically know a special, event-exclusive move that it wouldn’t otherwise be able to learn in Pokemon Go.

For May’s Community Day, the featured Pokemon is Torchic, the Fire-type starter from Pokemon Ruby and Sapphire. Throughout the event, Torchic will be much easier to find in the wild than usual, and you’ll have your first opportunity to catch a Shiny Torchic. On top of that, if you’re able to evolve Torchic all the way into Blaziken up to an hour after the Community Day ends, it’ll learn the powerful Fire attack Blast Burn. This applies to any Torchic you evolve, even those you’ve captured prior to the event.

What Time Does It Start?

For most of the time the event has been around, Niantic held each Community Day during a specific window of time, which varied depending upon your region; North America’s event, for instance, would always run from 11 AM – 2 PM PT, while Europe’s Community Day would take place from 10 AM – 1 PM UTC.

Beginning this past March, however, Niantic changed the schedule for Community Days. Now, rather than holding the event during a different window of time in each region, it will take place everywhere from 3-6 PM local time. This should make it much easier to remember when the Community Day is happening in your area, as you no longer need to convert the event hours to your time zone.

What Other Bonuses Are There?

On top of increased Pokemon spawns, Niantic offers a couple of other bonuses as an extra incentive to participate in its Community Days. This month, you’ll earn triple the normal amount of Stardust for capturing Pokemon during the event hours. Additionally, any Lure Modules you use will last three hours, rather than their usual 30 minutes.

In what can only be called tradition at this point, Steam’s 2019 Summer Sale dates have leaked. The Steam Database Twitter account initially spotted the date on a Chinese Steam community page, SteamCN, and reportedly confirmed the date with multiple sources. If the leak is accurate, Steam’s Summer Sale will go live on June 25 at 10 AM PT / 1 PM ET / 5 PM GMT (and June 26 at 3 AM AET) and last for about two weeks.

In the past few years, start dates for the Summer Sale fell between June 21 and 23, so the reported 2019 date doesn’t stray far from precedent.

It’s likely this year’s sale will bring back the Steam trading cards and mini games of previous years. Last year’s game was Summer Salien, a browser game where you traveled the galaxy to rescue games that had been abducted by aliens. You could earn XP and unlock new abilities, and defending certain planets gave you the chance to win the corresponding game for free.

Steam has even more reason to pull out all the stops for this year’s Summer Sale, as the Epic Games Store is apparently gearing up to hold its first big store-wide sale. News of the Epic Mega Sale first leaked on a Fortnite message board and was later confirmed by Epic Games, which tweeted that more details are coming soon. The Epic Games Store continues to pick up exclusive PC versions of major titles, such as The Division 2 and Borderlands 3, but there’s no question Steam still has the greater volume and diversity of games that make its Summer Sale such a huge event for PC gamers.

We’ll update this piece as soon as Valve has confirmed dates for the Steam Summer Sale, but it’s safe to assume it’ll kick off near the end of June as usual. That leaves you some time to start prepping your wallet for one of the biggest game sales of the year.

In terms of Batman villains, Ra’s Al Ghul may not be as famous as someone like The Joker, but he’s definitely no slouch. One of the few enemies to ever learn Bruce Wayne’s identity, Ra’s has been a near constant threat for decades, always toeing the precarious line between full-blown supervillain and deadly rival–a dynamic that makes him the perfect candidate for a featured role in DC’s Year of The Villain event, which showcases some of the world’s most iconic evildoers in a brand new light.

Batman Vs. Ra’s Al Ghul #1, courtesy of DC Comics

Starting this August, Ra’s will star in a new six-issue miniseries written and drawn by his co-creator, comics legend Neal Adams. The story will focus on a Gotham City under siege by terrorists with Ra’s apparently offering his “help” to the officers of the GCPD. Additionally, a mystery uncovered by Boston Brand, otherwise known as Deadman, leads Bruce straight into the sights of the Demon’s Head himself.

To help celebrate the launch of the mini-series, DC will also be re-releasing a “facsimile edition” of Batman #232, which will reprint Ra’s now-iconic first appearance in “The Daughter Of The Demon” in its original format.

Both Batman Vs. Ra’s Al Ghul #1 and the Batman #232 facsimile edition hit shelves August 21.

The Division 2‘s Title Update 3 is now live on PS4, Xbox One, and PC. Not only has the patch brought new features, apparel, and other tweaks to the loot shooter, it’ll kick off the game’s first Raid, Operation Dark Hours, tomorrow, May 16. However, it appears you’ll need to manually squad up with other players if you’re hoping to tackle it.

During the latest State of the Game stream, Ubisoft confirmed that the Operation Dark Hours Raid will not feature matchmaking, contrary to what it has said in the past. Community developer Hamish Bode read a prepared statement about the topic: “We decided to not include matchmaking, as we don’t think this would make a good gameplay experience for random groups. The Raid will test your ability to communicate well, have a good build set up, and will require great teamwork to beat encounters.”

The publisher shared additional details about how Raid groups are formed on the official Division 2 website. The overall eight-player team is comprised of two traditional four-player parties. Moreover, the player who creates the Raid group will be the leader, which means that player is the only one who can initiate the Raid. You don’t need to have a full eight-player team to begin the Raid, but Ubisoft notes the challenge will not scale to your team’s size. All players will also need to be at least level 30 and have reached World Tier 5 to participate.

Operation Dark Hours goes live at 9 AM PT / 12 PM ET / 5 PM BST. The first team to complete the Raid will earn a special reward: their team photo and names will be displayed in The Division 2’s White House. Those who complete the Raid by May 23 will receive a commemorative Arm Patch, while everyone who clears it after that date will earn a clan banner icon and a trophy in their clan space.

In addition to Operation Dark Hours, Title Update 3 has added two new Classified Assignment missions for Year 1 Pass owner. It also introduced an assortment of new outfits, masks, emotes, weapon skins, and more to the game. You can find the full Title Update 3 patch notes on the Division 2 website.

The third Guardians of the Galaxy movie isn’t coming out anytime soon. It doesn’t even have a release date. However, we know for sure that writer/director James Gunn is back on board after being fired and rehired by Disney’s Marvel Studios. Before he heads back to the Marvel Cinematic Universe, though, Gunn is making The Suicide Squad for DC Entertainment.

Still, that doesn’t mean he’s not thinking about what’s to come of the Guardians. In an interview with Deadline that explores his firing, Gunn shares what sounds like the aspect of Guardians Vol. 3 he’s most excited about, and that’s Rocket’s (Bradley Cooper) story.

“I relate to Rocket and I feel compassion for Rocket, but I also feel like his story has not been completed,” he explained. “He has an arc that started in the first movie, continued into the second and goes through Infinity War and Endgame, and then I was set to really finish that arc in Guardians 3. That was a big loss to me—not being able to finish that story—-though I was comforted by the fact that they were still planning to use my script.”

While the Guardians movies–and much of their roles in the larger MCU–have been among the most comedic moments in the franchise, these characters also haven’t shied away from telling serious and sometimes heartbreaking stories. Whether it’s Gamora’s (Zoe Saldana) relationship with her father and sister, or Drax (Dave Bautista) mourning the deaths of his family at the hands of Thanos (Josh Brolin), there’s plenty to feel for in those movies. And while Rocket is, perhaps, the funniest piece of the puzzle, his story has also been a harrowing one.

Beginning with his genetic enhancement, which is called being “torn apart and put back together over and over again and turned into some little monster,” the character has been a tragic one. And his relationship with Groot (Vin Diesel) makes him an incredibly sympathetic figure.

While Tony Stark (Robert Downey Jr.) losing Peter Parker (Tom Holland) in Avengers: Infinity War was seen as the movie’s most emotional moment, Rocket watching Groot turn to dust and blow away, at which he offered a mortified “No…” is heart-wrenching.

Given that Gunn wrote the script for Vol. 3 before he was fired, he’s clearly known where Rocket would end up for some time. Now it’ll be interesting to see what resolution looks like for a character that has been put through so much.

Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3 does not have a release date. However, there is a slew of Marvel dates on the upcoming Disney slate of films.

Ubisoft has released a new trailer for one of its two new Operators coming to Rainbow Six Siege in Operation Phantom Sight. The new trailer (which can be watched above) showcases Danish Jægerkorpset Operator Nøkk and teases her unique gadget ability.

The trailer begins with identifying Nøkk as an Attacker before cutting to an underground location. Though the video occasionally glitches out, the shimmering outline of a person can be seen. It appears as if Nøkk has some form of cloaking technology, which makes her nearly invisible save for a Predator-like outline. Later on in the video, Nøkk stops moving and completely disappears, which may imply that she can go fully invisible while going prone or remaining motionless. The trailer ends with a close-up of Nøkk, but her hood shrouds her face from view.

In a blog post, Ubisoft revealed additional details surrounding Nøkk and announced Operation Phantom Sight’s full reveal will occur May 19, during the Pro League Finals in Milan (which takes place May 18-19). “[Nøkk’s] gadget is just the icing on the cake for an already dangerous operative,” the post reads. “The HEL, which she worked on to improve with specialist Grace ‘Dokkaebi’ Nam, makes Nøkk nothing short of a ghost, and leaves her opponents looking over their shoulders.”

Ubisoft first teased Operation Phantom Sight’s new Operators with a tweet (seen below) that showcased one sneaking up on the other. We now know the one doing the sneaking is Nøkk, and the yellow glow in her hand is her HEL gadget. The image of the two Operators is structured like a yin-yang symbol, with Nøkk shrouded in darkness and the other Operator looking towards the light. So perhaps, just as Nøkk is someone who uses her glowing yellow gadget to hide in the shadows, the other Operator use his glowing blue gadget to bring attention to–illuminate, if you will–the position of Operators geared towards stealth.

In Rainbow Six Siege’s latest update, Ubisoft reversed the effects of friendly fire. The hope is that the update curbs the game’s team-killing problem. Thanks to the update, shooting an ally will now cause all the damage you deal to be inflicted on yourself. The effects aren’t immediate, so accidentally shooting a teammate won’t net you any punishment. However, continuing to shoot a teammate will cause the reverse friendly fire to take effect. The update affects all primary and secondary weapons, as well as direct hits from most unique Operator weapons and gadgets. Explosives are affected too, although there are several exceptions. It’s not the final version of the system, according to Ubisoft, and patches are already planned for the next season as part of Ubisoft’s new policy to push out game updates more regularly.

Rainbow Six: Siege is available for Xbox One, PS4, and PC.

The battle between the Epic Store and Steam continues to grow hotter, with a plethora of developers choosing the former over the latter because of the 88/12% revenue split and exclusivity deals with Epic. While enticing to some, Terraria developer Re-Logic has vowed not to make its games Epic Store exclusives.

According to a tweet by Re-Logic’s vice president Whitney Spinks, nothing the indie studio develops will ever be exclusive to the Epic Store. Spinks goes so far as to say the studio won’t “sell our souls” but is sympathetic to those who opt for the guaranteed cash from an exclusivity deal. Whether this

Spinks was responding to concerns from Terraria players about the studio making an appearance at the PC Gaming Show at this year’s E3, which is scheduled for Monday, June 10 at 10 AM PT / 1 PM ET. Because the Epic Store is involved with the PC Gaming Show, fans thought either Terraria or whatever Re-Logic is working on next may get the Epic Store exclusivity treatment. Spinks has otherwise dispelled this by saying, “There is no amount of money we could be offered to sell our souls.”

This news is in stark contrast to the multitude of games skipping Steam. Big titles, such as Detroit: Become Human (as well as other Quantic Dream games Beyond: Two Souls and Heavy Rain) and Metro Exodus, have chosen to forgo Steam for the Epic Store. Ubisoft’s recently-released The Division 2 and newly-announced Ghost Recon Breakpoint are opting for Epic Store exclusivity. Even Mike Bithell, developer of Thomas Was Alone and Volume, is placing John Wick Hex on the Epic Store exclusively.

Epic Games CEO Tim Sweeney said that if Steam changes its revenue shares, the Epic Store will alter its exclusivity policy. “If Steam committed to a permanent 88% revenue share for all developers and publishers without major strings attached,” he said, “Epic would hastily organize a retreat from exclusives (while honoring our partner commitments) and consider putting our own games on Steam.”