Author: Trafficblast

One of the defining features of 2020’s Watch Dogs Legion is that you’re able to take control of basically anyone in the game’s version of London. Associate producer Shelley Johnson said in a new interview that the technical underpinnings of Legion are “complex almost beyond description.”

“This is probably one of the most ambitious games Ubi has ever imagined,” Johnson told Stevivor. “It was certainly from a management standpoint and a creative standpoint, the biggest challenge yet, certainly for me personally.”

Johnson told Gamecrate earlier this year that there is no limit to the number of different NPCs that players can assume control of in Legion. “One of the numbers that was floating around at one point was 9 million,” she said. “They’re procedurally generated characters. So we’ve spent four years building the technology to be able to deliver on this promise and that includes the ability to piece together this huge city of characters as far as animation, dialogue, census data, like all those bio pieces that you see when you profile somebody, faces, character kids, all of this comes together to produce a unique character every time.”

Johnson told Stevivor that it was an expensive, time-consuming process to make Legion a reality as it relates to the ambition under the hood. “[To] play as anyone, as a pillar–to really fulfil on the promise of that–it’s expensive,” she said. “This game is, in as far as challenge is concerned, complex almost beyond description.”

Testing a game like Legion sounds like a big challenge, and Johnson said it’s the first game from Ubisoft that reached the limits of what human testing was capable of. She added that, in the future, games with the complexity and scale of Legion may need to make use of AI to pick up “some of the heavy lifting.”

Watch Dogs Legion launches in March 2020 for PS4, Xbox One, and PC. Check out the video embedded above to learn more.

It’s been three years since Pokemon Go burst onto mobile devices, and while the days of seeing players stopping traffic to catch rare Pokemon may be over, the game continues to be a huge success. Last month in particular was a big one for the title; market research company SuperData reports it was Pokemon Go’s best month since 2016.

According to SuperData, Pokemon Go generated $176 million during August 2019. Not only did that mark “its highest point since peaking in 2016,” it also made Go the top-earning game for the month on mobile devices, dislodging the usual No. 1 title, Honour of Kings.

August is typically Pokemon Go’s strongest month of the year in terms of revenue, and SuperData attributes last month’s huge earnings in part to the numerous events Niantic held in the game. The developer has been gradually ramping up the cadence of in-game events occurring in Go; August alone saw the debut of both Shiny Rayquaza and Jirachi, the return of the Water Festival, a gift-giving event, and more.

It doesn’t appear Pokemon Go will be slowing down anytime soon. Between the rollout of the game’s Ultra Bonuses and the debut of Gen 5 Pokemon and the new Unova Stone, September was an equally busy month for the game in terms of events. Before the month ends, the Legendary Pokemon Giratina is also returning for another stint in Raid Battles.

Meanwhile, Pokemon Go’s next Community Day is set for Saturday, October 12. The event will take place early in the day–from 11 AM to 2 PM local time–and will feature the Gen 3 Ground Pokemon Trapinch. You’ll also be able to earn three times the usual amount of XP for catching Pokemon during October’s Community Day.

EA’s FIFA 20 is just a few days from its global September 27 launch on Nintendo Switch, PC, PlayStation 4, and Xbox One. As tree leaves begin to fall, so too do the reviews for FIFA 20. While our own review is still in-progress as we test out a few more features like Pro Clubs and Ultimate Team, several outlets have published reviews for EA’s annual sports title. Check below for a roundup of what some critics thought of the game and its new Volta mode, and head over to GameSpot’s sister site Metacritic for even more FIFA 20 reviews as they funnel in.

FIFA 20 marks the 27th entry in EA’s long-running football simulation franchise, which first launched in 1993 with FIFA International Soccer on a plethora of systems including the Sega Genesis and Super Nintendo Entertainment System. FIFA 20 sees the addition of Volta Football, a new mode that has a lot in common with FIFA Street. FIFA’s popular Pro Clubs has seen some changes for this year’s iteration as well, adding greater customization options and increasing the impact player weight and height.

If you’re eager to try out FIFA 20, a demo went live earlier this month for PS4 and Xbox One. The demo includes six playable teams–with Liverpool and Real Madrid among them–and the option to play matches between them in regular game modes or FIFA 20’s new Volta Football.

• Game: FIFA 20
• Platforms: Nintendo Switch, PC, PS4, Xbox One
• Developer: EA Romania, Vancouver
• Release date: September 27
• Price: $60 USD / £48 GBP / $87 AUD

See FIFA 20 on Amazon

GameSpot — 8/10, In-Progress

“Flawed and iterative, but comforting, complete, and compelling, FIFA 20 is as frustrating and as essential as ever. The Journey and FIFA Street will continue to be missed, but Volta offers a genuinely different option for those who want to dip in and out across FIFA’s smorgasbord of game types, while Ultimate Team continues its route to world domination. It’s just a shame Career Mode continues to stagnate–even if EA has finally remembered it exists.” — Oscar Dayus [Full review]

Eurogamer — UnScored

“FIFA 20 is all these things but it’s also better than FIFA 19. I’ve already played loads of games against Eurogamer’s second-best FIFA player, Chris Tapsell, and I’ve had a great laugh. I’ve scored some screamers. I’ve lost to added time goals. We’ve leapt off the sofa at shocking refereeing decisions, missed open goals by Marcus Rashford and magic from Mason Mount. We’ve picked apart the game, worked out what’s changed, what’s better and what’s worse. We’ve had bloody good fun. And it’s all undermined by corporate greed and a stubborn refusal to do what’s right. A bit like real football, then.” — Wesley Yin-Poole [Full review]

GamesRadar+ — In-Progress

“Even so, we’ve reached the stage of this generation where I don’t believe EA can win over the FIFA community’s more vocal contingent. Battle lines are too entrenched and the more the series promotes itself as an eSports contest, the more its audience wants the RNG element–Sergio Aguero missing an open goal, AFC Wimbledon overcoming Arsenal–done away with. Ultimate Team remains a supremely moreish fantasy offering: when on song, the best mode in the entire sports genre. But it still isn’t one where the superior player always wins, and the likelihood of that changing anytime soon feels infinitesimal.” — Ben Wilson [Full review]

IGN — 7.8/10

“Volta is a significant addition to FIFA and while it doesn’t all hit the right notes, it’s a largely enjoyable way to play a wealth of content, including a story mode that’s more concise and engaging than The Journey. Elsewhere, improvements have been made to the core FIFA 20 experience, especially when it comes to defending, but overall controlling the ball feels less consistently fluid. For someone not attracted by the allure of Volta, the stilted pace, coupled with a neglect of offline modes such as Career, make it FIFA 20 an adequate but underwhelming entry into the series.” — Simon Cardy [Full review]

USGamer — 4/5

“FIFA 20 revives the old Street series with a new mode featuring futsal and outdoor soccer, but it’s the core gameplay that shines brightest this year, bringing down the pace in a way that feels nuanced and enjoyable. With additional updates to Career Mode and FIFA Ultimate Team, this year’s version is easy to recommend to lapsed fans and newcomers alike.” — Kat Bailey [Full review]

VG24/7 — 4/5

“Without much cosmetic polish to fall back on, FIFA 20 needed to bring something new to the table. Although the core gameplay isn’t mind-blowingly different, it’s still the best football game, and the addition of Volta is a whole new way to play.” — James Billcliffe [Full review]

VideoGamesChronicle — 4/5

“With the addition of Volta to the already numerous modes on offer, FIFA 20 may finally be the FIFA game where it’s impossible to play everything. Volta offers a fresh new way of playing the game, but the new reward-based Seasons in Ultimate Team means players invested in that will find it difficult to justify spending time playing Volta that could be spent in FUT earning more XP for their next reward. As long as you aren’t the type who needs to see and do everything, and are content with the idea of picking one or two modes and focusing most of your attention on those, FIFA 20 remains as high quality as ever.” — Chris Scullion [Full review]

A new Shift Code has been revealed for Borderlands 3, be sure to claim it before tomorrow night for the chance to score epic loot with a free Golden Key.

Sequels are a tricky business. The best of them not only manage to recapture what people enjoyed about the original, but also find ways to enhance them while effectively introducing new ideas. On the flip-side, there are plenty of instances where, despite a few new good ideas and generally high quality, the sequel doesn’t create quite as much of an impression. The Surge 2 fits snugly into the latter category: this return to the sci-fi Souls-like action game realm hacks and slashes just as hard – harder, in some cases – but falls just short of recapturing the same dismembering joy.

On paper, The Surge 2 does exactly what it should in order to achieve the goals of a sequel: it’s retained a lot of what worked in the first game, and throws in a few solid system updates and quality-of-life improvements aimed at making a better version of the original. However, there are some environmental design and storytelling decisions that eliminate some of the original’s charm and cause the story to trip over its own feet.

Continue reading…

With Sony’s State of Play presentation coming tomorrow, all minds are wondering what hotly anticipated games we’ll see. While we already know that Naughty Dog’s The Last of Us Part 2 will be there, and that we definitely aren’t getting any PlayStation 5 news, there’s still lots to wonder about. We asked IGN fans what they most hoped would show up at State of Play, and 17,134 of you answered.

So what game beat out the rest? Let’s break it down.

Continue reading…