Season 2 of Apex Legends is just around the corner. The new season of Respawn’s battle royale game kicks off on July 2, and as EA revealed during E3 2019, it’ll introduce a new playable character to the game, as well as new skins, other cosmetics, and a few new weapons, which we’ve now learned some more details about.
In a post on Reddit, Respawn’s principal weapons designer on Apex Legends, Sean Slayback, discussed some of the weapon changes coming in Season 2, starting with the L-Star LMG–a returning weapon from Titanfall. The L-Star fires slower projectiles than other guns in the game; however, these projectiles are also much larger than normal, allowing players to get good hits in even if their aim isn’t completely accurate.
Respawn warns the L-Star will also overheat if you hold the trigger down too long; when this happens, the gun’s lens will break and need to be replaced. The developer says this process “takes some time,” so you’ll need to be careful using the weapon. The gun also comes with a limited supply of ammo, and you won’t be able to find additional rounds for it, so once you’ve run out, you’ll no longer be able to use the gun.
Beyond the L-Star, Respawn is also introducing two new hop-ups to the game in Season 2. The Disruptor Rounds are compatible with the Alternator and RE-45, and they dish out more damage to shielded enemies; the Hammerpoint Rounds, on the other hand, can be used with the P2020 and the Mozambique, and they deal increased damage to unshielded foes. Respawn is also adding new Energy Mag attachments for the Havoc, Devotion, and Triple Take guns.
Additionally, Season 2 will introduce a new set of gold weapons in King Canyon; Respawn says the full list of these will be shared in the Season 2 patch notes. The developer is also making some other balance tweaks to the Arc Star and adjusting ammo stack sizes. You can read more details on Reddit.
Season 2’s new Legend is Wattson, a young technology prodigy who can lay down electrical walls and pylons. Like Fortnite, Season 2’s Battle Pass will also be challenge-based, and Respawn is adding a new competitive Ranked mode. Season 2 is still a couple of weeks away, but ahead of it, dragons have started appearing in the game, potentially heralding some kind of world event ahead of the new season.
Kraven The Hunter sits in an interesting place in terms of Marvel’s larger mythology–he’s not quite an A-list villain, but he’s definitely no slouch. He’s not iconically famous, but he’s well known. And, as the largest threat in one of the greatest Spider-Man stories of all time, Kraven’s Last Hunt, he provides a unique challenge for Peter Parker, historically speaking.
Kraven The Hunter is–surprise–a hunter! In the supervillain sense, of course, meaning his focus is usually on The Most Dangerous Game-style prey–humans, superheroes, etc. Kraven’s psychosis drives him to constantly test his own strength by stalking and killing more and more challenging targets–something that proves unfortunate when he’s pitted against superheroes like Spider-Man, who, as a rule, don’t tend to go down easily.
Kraven would make a truly unique addition to the MCU, not only for his strangely narrow and deeply personal (albeit totally crazy) motivations, but also for the way he tends to relate back to Peter as both a target and an equal. Kraven’s obsession with Spider-Man is less born of hate or resentment and more desperation–he must defeat him, not for money or fame, but to establish his personal value and overcome his own demons.
Having issues signing into Xbox Live right now? It’s not just you. Microsoft has confirmed the service is down and suffering from issues right now, often producing the error code 0x87DD0006. This could mean you’re unable to get online or play games on Xbox One, PC, and any other devices that rely on Xbox Live. These problems have lasted for several hours now, and we don’t yet know how soon a fix might be implemented. [Update: Microsoft says it’s beginning to see improvements, so you might now have luck getting online.]
The news was confirmed on the Xbox Support Twitter account, which initially acknowledged reports of sign-in issues before delivering a more recent update that states, “We’re currently still investigating error code 0x87DD0006 when attempting to sign into our services across devices, we appreciate your ongoing patience. We’ll update again here, as well as our status page, when we have more info.”
We’ve caught your reports of sign-in errors on Xbox One and have sent this over to our engineering teams. We will update everyone here when we have information to share. Thank you for reporting.
The status page referenced in that tweet has slightly more encouraging news, stating, “We believe we have identified the issue causing some members to have problems signing in to Xbox Live. Thanks for your patience as the team works to resolve the issue.” That update was posted at 1:58 PM PT.
The page identifies the issues as impacting Xbox Live’s “core services,” which includes things like the ability to sign in–which is obviously essential for doing anything that relies on Xbox Live, such as playing games online or even accessing certain online-only games, like Fortnite: Battle Royale and Destiny 2.
There’s no word on when Xbox Live will come back online. We’ll update this story when more details are shared. In the meantime, catch up on all the recent Xbox One news.
Go Go Power Rangers: Forever Rangers #1 may be priced quite a bit higher than your typical chapter of the series, but it’s definitely a must-read for anyone following this retro-flavored Rangers book. This oversized special ties up many loose ends and essentially serves as the dramatic finale of the series’ second year. In the process, it easily justifies that cover price.
Coming into this issue, it’s fair to question why BOOM! Studios published this story in this form rather than simply splitting it up into issues #21 and #22 of the monthly series. Luckily, writer Ryan Parrott and artists Eleonora Carlini and Francesco Mortarino have no trouble justifying this change of pace. Given the way this story is structured and the many plot points it juggles, trying to split the narrative in half simply wouldn’t have worked as well. At best, readers would have been given one chapter of nonstop action and one that serves as a prolonged epilogue. Instead, Parrot is able to organically wrap up the current Alpha-1 conflict while also giving the various other subplots and teases the attention they need.
E3 was a good week for retailer GameStop. The company announced that it saw a 63 percent uptick in pre-orders during the week of the big show covering titles that were announced or shown off more at the event.
New game consoles from Microsoft and Sony are in development, but the head of Bayonetta developer Platinum Games is not all that excited by them, apparently. Studio head Atsushi Inaba told Video Game Chronicle that the new systems, the PlayStation 5 and Project Scarlett, are “more of the same.”
“It’s OK. And by that I mean, I’m sure that things will move faster, graphics will be better and maybe it will be easier with less wait times… that’s good for the consumer,” Inaba said. “But it’s more of the same, quite frankly, compared to previous generations. It’s nothing that’s disruptive or super innovative, if you ask me.”
Inaba went on to say that in the past, game consoles formerly featured “custom chips” that were not possible on PC. But today? “Now you look at it and they’re just grabbing stuff that already exists,” Inaba said.
He pointed out that the Nintendo Switch uses the Tegra chip that was used in other systems before it, even if it was updated or changed in some ways. The PS5 and Project Scarlett, meanwhile, feature custom chips from AMD. We don’t know all the specifics yet about each console, but both companies have said their new systems will offer things like backwards compatibility, ray tracing, and faster load times, while they will also apparently feature faster load times thanks to solid-state drives.
Inaba said he’s more excited about cloud gaming instead of “stuff that kind of already exists but has been repurposed to a certain degree.”
“That’s why for me, things like cloud platforms represent innovation and something very, very different–they’re platforms that excite me and where I feel there is a lot more innovation happening,” he said.
Project Scarlett is launching in Holiday 2020, while Sony’s PlayStation 5–which has only been revealed at a high-level–is said to also release around that time.
Platinum is currently working on a number of projects, including Bayonetta 3 which is coming to Nintendo Switch.
During the NHL Awards tonight in Las Vegas, EA Sports officially announced NHL 20, and the developer is promising some big changes for this year’s instalment across gameplay, presentation, modes, and more. It appears to be one of the biggest and most substantial changes to the NHL series in years. EA released a lot of details about NHL 20, and to help make sense of it all we’ve broken it down by section into the key categories of things you need to know.
Auston Matthews is NHL 20’s cover star
NHL 20 Cover Star
Auston Matthews of the Toronto Maple Leafs–a three-time All-Star and 2016 No. 1 overall draft pick–graces the cover of 2019’s game. He had a monster debut season, scoring 40 goals and taking home the Calder Memorial Trophy for best rookie. In February 2019, the Leafs invested heavily in Matthews’ future on the team when they signed him to a five-year, $58 million deal.
RPM Changes And Improvements
Moving to new gameplay features, EA Sports updated its Real Player Motion (RPM) technology with new “Signature Shots.” This brings the unique shots of NHL superstars into the game, including Matthews’ toe-drag wrist shot and PK Subban’s heavy and powerful slapshot. Alexander Ovechkin’s smooth-as-butter one-timer has also been brought into the game for NHL 20. Overall, EA Sports is promising “hundreds” of new shot animations.
What could be a bigger update are changes to passing and puck pick-ups. In the past, players had to slow down to execute passes or perform skill moves. But now, these happen faster and more fluidly, according to EA Sports. Creative director Will Ho tells GameSpot that EA’s playtests show that the speed of play feels faster, even if it actually isn’t in practice. The overall aim is to replicate the speed of the real NHL, Ho says. Additionally, goalie AI has been changed with a “full offensive threat analysis” so players won’t get as many cheap or scrappy goals.
Doc And Eddie Are Out
On the presentation side, EA is changing things up substantially. Famed NBC commentators Eddie Olczyk and Doc Emerick are out, and the entire NBC licensing package is gone. The new commentators are Ray Ferraro (who appeared in previous NHL games as a rink-side analyst) and hockey broadcaster James Cybulski. Ho, the game’s creative director, tells GameSpot that EA went with new commentators because they better represent the kind of youth and energy that fans want to see. Not only that, but they were able to record 300 hours’ worth of commentary compared to 30 hours for Doc and Eddie due to their relatively busier schedules. Doc and Eddie are based in Chicago, and this was not very convenient for EA. Not only that, but Doc and Eddie were likely expensive, given their history in the league.
Doc and Eddie are two of the biggest and best-known commentators in hockey, so some fans will surely miss them, but this is not uncharted territory for EA Sports. EA’s Madden NFL series dropped Jim Nantz and Phil Simms from the franchise’s broadcast booth in favor of lesser-known, more youthful commentators in recent years. With NHL 20, Ho says Cybulski and Ferraro have a more playful and lighthearted banter that comes across as more natural-sounding.
Celebrity Commentators And New Graphics
Another interesting element of NHL 20’s broadcast package is that EA plans to bring in celebrity guests. Hockey fans will no doubt recall Snoop Dogg and Will Ferrell as his Anchorman character Ron Burgundy doing commentary for L.A. Kings games. It helped bring more attention to the sport of hockey, and EA appears to be attempting to do something similar with NHL 20.
The developer isn’t confirming any celebrity guest appearances yet, but a slide shown to GameSpot included people like Snoop Dogg, Will Ferrell, Drake, and Wayne Gretzky.
Also in terms of presentation, NHL 20’s graphics and scoreboards will look different this year. You’ll immediately notice that the scoreboard is now on the bottom of the screen, while there are brand-new overlays and motion graphics, too. Additionally, there are new sequences that aim to showcase the flashiest and most exciting moments in NHL 20. This includes “play of the period” and “play of the game” highlights that showcase those moments, as well as new celebration animations.
NHL 20 Adds Battle Royale
Moving to game modes, NHL 20 is adding battle royale–yes, really. Called “Eliminator” in NHL 20, this competitive mode is a “winner-take-all competition inspired by battle royale,” EA says. It comes in two versions: Ones and Threes Eliminator.
In Ones, 81 players compete against each other–though not at the same time–in what EA calls a “survival tournament” that plays out until one player wins. The Ones mode was introduced in NHL 19, and it features groups of three players duking it out solo. These matches will continue until one player is crowned grand champion. In the Threes variation of Eliminator, which is basically Squads from battle royale, teams of three will compete until one team remains.
One of the biggest criticisms of NHL 19 was that its pond hockey mode, Ones, was only playable through online multiplayer. NHL 20 adds an offline, local multiplayer mode for Ones where players can compete against other humans or the computer. Also new for Ones this year is even more outdoor ponds to skate on, including one set on a glacier and another based on the Rideau Canal in Canada.
Hockey Ultimate Team Adds Squad Battles
The Hockey Ultimate Team mode, meanwhile, adds a feature called Squad Battles. Similar to Squad battles from FIFA Ultimate Team, this has players competing with their fantasy team against squads made by famous people like singers, athletes from other sports, and hockey influencers. Additionally, more Icon players are being added to Hockey Ultimate Team mode, bringing the total number of them up to more than 400.
New Stuff For World Of Chel
Finally, the online hub, World of Chel, is updated in NHL 20 with new weekly in-game events, called Chel Challenges, that players can complete to earn customization items and character XP. Some of the newly added items include ski goggles and various caps. In total, NHL 20 will offer more than 2,000 customization items for players to create a unique character.
Hockey Is A Bruising Sport
One element of ice hockey that is synonymous with the game is hitting and general physicality. It makes the sport exciting to watch in real life, and in the game the physics and collision engine adds to this as well. At the same time, there is a human cost to hockey’s physical nature, as demonstrated recently and on a longer timeline with regards to head injuries and concussions.
We asked Ho for his thoughts on EA’s responsibility as a developer to making NHL 20 fun to play but also a game that respects and demonstrates how dangerous the game can be.
“As developers, we want to the game to mirror the real-world sport as closely as possible, while still being fun first,” Ho said. “Physicality is definitely an element that adds to fun gameplay and so it’s an important part of our game, just as it’s an important part of hockey. That said, we do have a responsibility not to encourage or celebrate the negative side effects of physicality, like injuries; which is why we take great care to make sure our game enforces rules, the same way the NHL does, and doesn’t celebrate those negative consequences.
“We think the NHL has done a great job of prioritizing player safety in the real world and we want to do the same. We’re proud to be able to provide players with a really fun, physical experience that doesn’t come with any risk of injury in the real world.”
Franchise Mode Updates
There are a number of granular changes coming to NHL 20 in regards to the Franchise mode. Scouting was introduced in NHL 19, and in the new game you can hire–and fire–coaches. Additionally, there is a new “line chemistry” feature that allows players to select players who match the right chemistry for a particular line to have the most success. NHL 20 also adds a new Trade Finder feature that should make the trading process easier. It was a laborious process in NHL 19 to make a trade, but now the CPU will auto-propose trades and then you can choose to accept or reject. Alternatively, players can also propose their own specific trades.
No Nintendo Switch Or PC Versions
NHL 20 is confirmed to launch on PlayStation 4 and Xbox One. Fans have been clamoring for years for EA to bring the game to PC, but it’s not happening–at least not this year. Additionally, there is no Nintendo Switch version, though Ho tells GameSpot that EA is constantly thinking about which platforms are the right fit for the NHL series.
NHL 20 Release Date
NHL 20 launches on September 13 for PS4 and Xbox One. The NHL 20 Deluxe and Ultimate Editions, which come with various digital extras, unlock three days early on September 10. Additionally, EA Access subscribers can play a trial of NHL 20 starting on September 5.
Cyberpunk 2077 is finally releasing in April 2020, and it appears launch will be just the beginning for The Witcher developer’s next big RPG. The game’s UI coordinator, Alvin Liu, told Prima Games that he expects the game to receive expansions after launch, just like The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt.
“We want to make sure everything’s complete, but we also want to build open worlds,” he said. “I know when I was playing The Witcher 3 and I finished everything, I still want to know what everyone was up to. I think we’re going to have opportunities like that as well for Cyberpunk 2077.”
Throughout Cyberpunk 2077, players will encounter characters and see them develop over time. The ending to the main game will be “rewarding,” Liu said, though there may still be room for additional storytelling just like The Witcher 3.
“So I don’t want to spoil anything right now, but very satisfying story arc, right? You’re going to see characters and you’ll see them develop,” he said. “You’re going to see them go through conflicts and resolve those conflicts. It’ll be a very rewarding ending. We’re not withholding content, we’re not withholding story for the future to try to, you know, monetize it or sell it in pieces or anything like that. You’re going to get the whole, full value game here.”
The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt offered heaps of free DLC before it released two major paid expansions, Hearts of Stone and Blood and Wine.
CD Projekt Red has yet to officially announce any expansions or post-release content for Cyberpunk 2077, which makes sense given the studio is focusing on preparing the base game for release.
Back in February 2018, Sony CEO Kaz Hirai announced that he would be stepping down and transitioning to a director-chairman role. Then in March of this year, the executive confirmed his retirement, leaving then-CFO Kenichiro Yoshida in charge of the company. Hirai’s last day at PlayStation and Sony as a whole was Tuesday, June 18. It was previously reported that he will serve as senior advisor and “will continue to provide counsel as requested by Sony’s management team.”
Hirai joined Sony Music in 1984 and moved to Sony Computer Entertainment (now Sony Interactive Entertainment) in 1995 before becoming CEO and president of the company in 2012. At the time of his promotion, Hirai said his mission was “to ensure Sony continues to be a company that provides customers with kando–to move them emotionally–and inspires and fulfills their curiosity.” Games like God of War, The Last of Us, and Uncharted 4: A Thief’s End–among many others–are some recent examples that have instilled Hirai’s vision of kando.
With Hirai heading off to live his best life, he’s entrusting Sony to the newly-appointed Yoshida, who assumed the position of CEO and president on April 1, 2018. Speaking of his successor, Hirai said Yoshida “possesses the breadth of experience and perspective, as well as the unwavering leadership qualities required to manage Sony’s diverse array of businesses, and as such is the ideal person to drive the company forward into the future.” As the baton was passed, Yoshida said he aims “to build on the business foundations established by Mr. Hirai, and execute further reform measures that enhance our competitiveness as a global enterprise, and enable us to realize long-term profit growth.”
Hirai’s decision to step down was partly because he was “worn down from the travel schedule he’s maintained during the past six years as CEO,” a Variety source said. Now that he’s finally able to wind down after being reportedly worn down, Hirai plans to spend more time with his family in his California home.
Toy Story 4 hits theaters this week, and box office predictions suggest that it’s going to be one of the biggest movies in the studio’s history. But while anticipation for this sequel is high, the studio also continues to make original movies. The animated fantasy Onward has already been confirmed for a release next March, and Pixar has now announced another movie for 2020, titled Soul.
News of this latest Pixar movie was revealed via Twitter alongside a logo and the release date of June 19, 2020. The tweet also states that Soul “will take you on a journey from the streets of New York City to the cosmic realms to discover the answers to life’s most important questions.” Check it out below.
One year from today, @Pixar Animation Studios will take you on a journey from the streets of New York City to the cosmic realms to discover the answers to life’s most important questions. Disney & Pixar’s “Soul” arrives in theaters on June 19, 2020. pic.twitter.com/YvHsrIQ3ga
Soul will be directed by Pete Docter, who previously helmed Pixar’s highly acclaimed Up and Inside Out. No further details have been revealed yet, but expect casting news to follow in the coming months.
Onward will arrive on March 6, 2020. The movie features Spider-Man star Tom Holland and Guardians of the Galaxy’s Chris Pratt as teenage elf brothers who embark on a magical quest–check out the first trailer, which was released last month.
