Author: Trafficblast

Following his guest appearance in SoulCalibur VI, The Witcher 3’s Geralt of Rivia is venturing into Capcom’s hit action RPG, Monster Hunter World. The White Wolf will arrive as a free update for the PS4 and Xbox One versions today, February 7 (with a PC release to follow later), and he’ll come alongside new Witcher-inspired quests.

The update is scheduled to go live at 4 PM PT / 7 PM ET (12 AM GMT on February 8). Capcom hasn’t shared many details yet on what the new quests will entail, but the publisher says they’ll have “a unique flavor, blending the RPG mechanics of The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt with Monster Hunter World’s game systems.”

According to Capcom, the Witcher collaboration event was developed closely with CD Projekt Red, the studio behind the Witcher series and the upcoming Cyberpunk 2077. Geralt’s original voice actor was also brought in to provide new voice over work for the collaboration.

Geralt arrives in the midst of Monster Hunter World’s first anniversary event, the Appreciation Fest. The event will continue to run on all platforms until February 21, and it brings back most of the game’s previous Event Quests alongside some new ones. Players can also craft new anniversary gear sets for their hunters and Palicos.

Monster Hunter World has been a huge critical and commercial success for Capcom since it launched last January. The publisher recently revealed the title has sold more than 11 million copies world. Its positive critical reception also helped Capcom claim the honor of being Metacritic’s top publisher of 2018.

Capcom still has a lot more new content planned for Monster Hunter World. This fall, the publisher will release Iceborne, a major paid expansion that will introduce new monsters to hunt, locales to explore, gear to craft, and other content.

Now that Week 10’s challenges have arrived on all platforms, Season 7 of Fortnite is finally winding down, although developer Epic Games still has a few more surprises in store for players before Season 8 begins. The studio has announced the Valentine’s-themed Share the Love event, which kicks off on February 8 and will encompass new challenges, rewards, and more.

Once the event is underway, players who support a Creator or enter a Creator Code will receive the Cuddle Hearts wrap for free. The wrap will be available following next week’s 7.40 update and sports a very Bret Hart-esque pink and black design, as you can see below.

Also arriving with the 7.40 update will be a new set of Overtime challenges, which will be available through the end of the season. Completing the challenges will unlock five new rewards, such as the Valentine wrap and Vines contrail. Battle Pass holders will also be to unlock new styles of the Trog, Powder, and Onesie skins.

On top of the new challenges, Epic will hold two double XP weekends in Fortnite, on February 15-17 and February 22-24, giving players one final chance to level their Battle Pass up before Season 7 ends. The developer has also announced a Share the Love Competitive Series, with placement matches set to take place on February 9 and 10.

Finally, Fortnite Creative is getting a Featured Island Frenzy event. Epic will rotate a new set of featured islands in the mode each day between February 12 and 22. You can read more details about the Share the Love event on Epic’s website.

Season 7 of Fortnite is scheduled to end on February 28, so you only have a little more time to complete any outstanding challenges. You can find tips to help expedite the process in our complete Season 7 challenges guide.

Apex Legends, the free-to-play battle royale game from Titanfall developer Respawn, continues to have a strong opening week. The game has now crossed 10 million players, with a record of more than 1 million concurrent players, Respawn announced in a blog post.

“This has been a truly incredible journey. We tested and tweaked. We argued and agreed. We got to a point where we felt some magic. We knew it would be risky to take the franchise in this direction, to go free to play, and do a surprise launch,” Respawn founder Vince Zampella said. “But we fell in love with Apex Legends and wanted, needed, other people to play it too.”

He added that the massive success of Apex Legends so far has exceeded the company’s “wildest dreams.” Zampella went on to say that launch is “just the beginning” for Apex Legends. As announced previously, the title will offer a Fortnite-style battle pass that will deliver seasons’ worth of new content over time.

In fact, Respawn said it hopes the game can live on until 2027 or longer. Players can expect “exciting changes and gameplay evolutions” for the game as it progresses.

By comparison, the latest statistics from Epic Games show that Fortnite has 200 million players and a peak concurrent record of 8.3 million players. But Fortnite is a sensation unlike almost anything else.

Apex Legends was announced and released earlier this week on PS4, Xbox One, and PC. It was a quick success, as it picked up 1 million players in eight hours, going on to reach 2.5 million players not much longer and a peak concurrent user record of 600,000 players. As today’s numbers demonstrate, the game is enjoying a nice growth trajectory, and it’ll be interesting to see how much bigger the game becomes over time.

Apex Legends is far from the first competitor to Fortnite and PUBG, but it’s different in that it comes from a massive, established publisher in Electronic Arts.

In addition to Apex Legends, Respawn is working on something new in the Titanfall universe to release later this year, though whether or not it is the much-requested Titanfall 3 remains to be seen. Additionally, Respawn is developing a Star Wars game called Jedi: Fallen Order, and it is also slated to launch in 2019.

We’ve been enjoying our time in Respawn’s new free-to-play battle royale game, Apex Legends, exploring the diverse ability sets of the eight different Legends. However, two Legends, the psychotic Caustic and goofball Mirage, are locked from the start. You can either drop some real-world cash to buy both immediately, or earn in-game Legend tokens to unlock them. We’ve finally discovered how long it would take to do the latter.

Phil Hornshaw, who wrote up our early impressions of Apex Legends and is currently putting together our review of the game, earned the necessary 12000 Legend tokens to unlock one of the two Legends when he reached level 23, which took him about 17 hours. He still hasn’t earned enough to unlock a second character, as Legend tokens unlock more slowly after reaching level 20.

Obviously, this amount of time could fluctuate for you, as you can level up faster by completing bounties and hunting down the featured Champion. Surviving for longer periods of time, getting high kill counts, reviving allies, respawning allies, killing the Champion’s squad, killing the Kill Leader, or playing with people you’re friends with (instead of randoms) nets you moderate to large experience bonuses too.

Killing the Champion or their squad or surviving for a long time are the fastest ways to level up. Defeating the Champion nets you a 500 XP bonus, and it’s another 500 for taking out their whole squad. You get about a 200 XP bonus for every minute you survive, according to PSU, which means you can get huge bonuses for just hiding and surviving until the very end of a 17-20 minute match. If you’re playing with two friends, you get an extra 300 XP bonus if your squad makes it to the top three as well.

You might also be able to unlock new Legends and cosmetics faster once Apex Legends’ Battle Pass comes out. Respawn hasn’t provided a definite release date for the Battle Pass, but it’s currently scheduled for March. Although Respawn has confirmed cross-progression won’t be added, cross-platform play could still happen in Apex Legend’s future.

Apex Legends is available for Xbox One, PS4, and PC.

The private beta for The Division 2 has begun, and like any real beta this one appears to be exposing some technical hiccups for Ubisoft to mend. The studio has already outlined some tips to avoid common problems in the beta, and announced upcoming maintenance.

On its known issues page, Ubisoft outlines two relatively serious issues that it says will be fixed before the full game launch, but that may present problems for beta players. The first is that extended play sessions could either degrade the experience on PS4, or crash the game altogether on PC and Xbox One. To avoid this, the studio recommends restarting the game every two to three hours.

The second known issue is that receiving a game invite from a friend within the game, while you are outside the game, will cause the client to crash once you launch it. The practical solution offered here is to simply make sure you start the game first and then join the group from within the game client.

In a tweet, Ubisoft says server maintenance will be performed on Friday, February 8, starting at 12:30 AM PT / 3:30 AM ET, and last approximately three hours. That scheduled time is just before an extra piece of content was to be added: a piece of endgame content called an Invaded mission. Presumably that will now hit as soon as the maintenance ends.

Other beta content includes two main missions, five side missions, open-world activities, and one new Dark Zone. The player cap is set at 30 for the beta.

You can check the official Twitter account for updates on any issues that come up, and visit the forums to offer feedback and report new issues. The Division 2 launches on March 15.

We’re in the final stretch of Fortnite Season 7, but there’s still plenty to see and do in the hit battle royale game before Season 8 kicks off. That includes Week 10’s challenges, which are now available across all platforms. You’ll find the usual assortment of tasks in this batch, including another search for Expedition Outposts.

As usual, completing challenges will reward you with Battle Stars, which in turn will level your Battle Pass up and unlock Season 7 cosmetics. If you finish all of the tasks from a given week, however, you’ll also complete one of this season’s Snowfall challenges and unlock a special loading screen that points you toward a free Battle Star (good for leveling your Battle Pass up by one tier) or a Banner (which can be used as a profile icon) hidden somewhere on the map.

If you’ve finished all 10 sets of weekly challenges, you’ll complete the final Snowfall challenge, which will reward you with the loading screen pictured below. This one depicts the Prisoner–the Legendary skin you unlock for completing 60 weekly challenges–sitting beside a campfire atop a hill. Look to the left of the campfire, however, and you’ll spot a Banner waiting beneath a tree in the distance. That’s where you’ll need to go to find the item.

The tree in question can be found at the edge of the desert, near the race track just east of Retail Row. Once you’ve jumped into a match, glide to the area, locate the tree, and the Banner will appear beneath it, just as in the loading screen. Collect it like you would any other item then finish the match, and the Banner will be yours to use as an icon. You can see its exact location on the map below. We also show you where to go in the video above.

Like always, there are a couple of caveats for this secret Banner. The item won’t appear in the game unless you’ve completed all 10 sets of weekly challenges, so you can’t simply go to the right location and expect to find it unless you’ve done the necessary work. If you need help finishing up any remaining tasks, you can find tips in our complete Season 7 challenges guide.

Season 7 is scheduled to end on February 28 according to Epic’s website, so there isn’t much time left to complete this season’s challenges. Of course, with Season 8 quickly approaching, some unusual things have begun happening in the game, namely earthquakes. What this means for the new season remains to be seen, although it wouldn’t be surprising for the tremors to result in some portion of the map being dramatically transformed.

Fortnite Season 7 Snowfall Challenge Guides