Author: Trafficblast

It’s a new month and a new year. And because we’ve breezed passed the first Tuesday in January, a fresh set of six games is available for free to all PlayStation Plus subscribers. So whether you have a PS4, PS3, or PS Vita, you can head to the PS Plus page to add the freebies to your library. Just make sure you do it before Sony changes them out for next month’s games on February 5.

PS4 owners can grab the Ubisoft extreme sports game Steep, which takes place on an open-world version of the Alps that you can descend using skis, a snowboard, or wingsuit. The other PS4 game is Portal Knights, a co-op RPG that incorporates Minecraft-like building mechanics.

If you have a PS3, you can pick up the trippy music-rhythm game Amplitude (also playable on PS4) and the robot battling bundle Zone of the Enders HD Collection. January’s games for Vita owners are the action-RPG Fallen Legion: Flames of Rebellions (playable on PS4 as well) and the arcade action-platformer Super Mutant Alien Assault.

If you use PS Plus mainly to fill out your PS3 or PS Vita game libraries, here’s a friendly reminder: starting in March 2019, Sony will no longer give away free PS3 and PS Vita games for PS Plus members. It’s unclear if anything will replace these freebies, but if you subscribe to PS Plus primarily for those free titles, consider turning off your subscription’s auto-renewal option or canceling it by then.

PlayStation Plus Games For January 2019

PS4

• Steep
• Portal Knights
• Amplitude (also on PS3)
• Fallen Legion: Flames of the Rebellion (also on PS Vita)

PS3

• Zone of the Enders HD Collection
• Amplitude (also on PS4)

PS Vita

• Fallen Legion: Flames of the Rebellion (also on PS4)
• Super Mutant Alien Assault

Monster Hunter World is welcoming another crossover from a fellow franchise, this time bringing in characters and costumes from the Assassin’s Creed series. You can earn one of two signature looks straight out of the assassin’s guild wardrobe, as long as you have the chops to take down some monsters first.

A new event quest SDF: Silent, Deadly, and Fierce drops you into an arena against some fierce monsters: Odogoron and Deviljho together, followed by Lunastra. Taking down all three will grant you a Senu’s Feather item, which Assassin’s Creed fans will recognize as a reference to Bayek’s eagle from Assassin’s Creed Origins. You can trade two feathers for a layered armor that makes you appear as Bayek himself. An Assassin hood gives you a speed boost to running, climbing, and croaching, and deals extra damage if you attack from stealth.

Capcom released a trailer showing off the special duds, complete with a (sort of) leap of faith. This is an event quest, so you’ll have a limited time to take part and earn your rewards.

Monster Hunter World has received lots of continued support, including an anniversary event coming this month. Another planned crossover will bring in Geralt, the famed monster hunter from The Witcher 3, into the game. Its first big expansion, Iceborne, is coming this fall. The user-friendly revisions paired with a lot of continued support helped earn it a spot among our favorite games of 2018.

You might have been enjoying a rare break over the festive period, but Fortnite definitely was not. Epic Games has been continuing to expand its battle royale phenomenon, and its latest update adds a new item, the Boom Box.

A specialist structure-counter, the Boom Box delivers “blasts of music that deal structure damage in a large area,” according to Epic. “Newly built walls in the radius of the box are destroyed with every blast.” Boom Boxes are discoverable in chests, and they are destroyed when shot. They deal no direct damage to players, but completely stop buildings and structures from forming and destroy them if already built.

Elsewhere, two new weapons have been added to Save the World. The Pain Train Assault Rifle has a slow rate of fire but high damage, and it’s available in the weekly store until January 9. The Tree of Light Sword, meanwhile, is available as a weekly challenge reward, and is also a high-damage weapon–it does take a while to swing, however. Check out the full patch notes below, via Epic.

Fortnite is currently in Season 7, which offers a bevy of new cosmetics for those who complete the Battle Pass. You can check out our challenge guide for tips on how to complete the various tasks and earn your stars. Meanwhile, Epic is fending off legal challenges from the most unexpected of places: various celebrities and viral video stars suing over the use of their dances.

Fortnite 7.10 Content Update 2 Patch Notes

Battle Royale

Limited Time Modes

• The 14 Days of Fortnite event will feature both new and returning LTMs. Large team modes switch every two days and small team modes rotate every 24 hours.
  • Log in each day at 9 AM ET(1400 UTC) to find out which modes are available to explore. Let us know which LTM is your favorite on our social channels!

Weapons And Items

• Boom Box
  • Activate to create powerful blasts of music that deal structure damage in a large area!
  • Newly built walls in the radius of the box are destroyed with every blast.
  • Shoot the Boom Box to stop its effects.

Creative

What’s New?

• Ice Castle Prefabs: Sculpt your masterpiece in Creative with 8 new Ice Castle Prefabs!

This is an early release so you may experience client crashes, loss of progress, or other unexpected errors.

Weapons And Items

• Boom Box added to Creative Inventory Consumables
  • Activate to create powerful blasts of music that deal structure damage in a large area!
  • Newly built walls in the radius of the box are destroyed with every blast.
  • Shoot the Boom Box to stop its effects.

Prefabs

• 8 Ice Castle Prefabs
• 5 Ice Castle Galleries including with and without snow

Save The World

What’s New?

• Pain Train Assault Rifle: Bring the pain with this heavy hitting assault rifle, available in the Weekly Store.
• Tree of LIght Sword: Chop down Husks and stun enemies with the light from this melee weapon! Unlock this reward from Frostnite Weekly Challenges.

Missions And Systems

• Weekly Frostnite Challenge Missions:
  • Each week during the Frostnite event, there will be a new Weekly Challenge mission in the Frostnite zone.
  • These zones include specially crafted challenges to push player’s skills using a variety of modifiers
  • Weekly Frostnite Challenge 1: Slip Out
    • Touching snow or ice will cause players to slide. Use building to your advantage!
    • Weekly Frostnite Challenge 1 Quest rewards include:
      • Challenge Banner 1
      • Tree of Light Sword
      • Snowflake Tickets

Heroes

• Crackshot Soldier available as a quest reward from 14 Days of Fortnite.
  • A Legendary variant of the Rescue Trooper subclass.

Weapons And Items

• The Pain Train Assault Rifle will be available on the Weekly Store
  • Assault rifle with a slow rate of fire that packs a punch per shot. Slow and steady wins the race!
  • Available in the Weekly Store from January 2 at 7 PM ET until January 9 at 7 PM ET.
• The Tree of Light Sword will be available as a Frostnite Weekly Challenge reward
  • A slow, edged weapon with high damage per hit.
  • Includes a new 6th perk that stuns nearby enemies after 8 hits.

Bethesda parent company ZeniMax has filed a trademark application for a new game called “Deathloop.” The goods and services description in the trademark application filed with the United States Patent & Trademark Office on December 26, 2018 states that Deathloop could be an online-enabled mobile game. That’s all there is to go on at this stage, however.

Trademark applications are not necessarily good predictors of future products, but they’re still intriguing to look over and consider. ZeniMax originally filed a trademark application for Starfield back in 2013, and it wasn’t until 2018 that the company officially announced Starfield as one of Bethesda Game Studios’ next projects.

Bethesda enjoyed tremendous success with its first mobile game, Fallout Shelter, so it’s no surprise that the company may be returning to that arena with a new game. Bethesda opened a new studio in Montreal back in 2015, and that branch was dedicated in part to mobile game development.

Bethesda did not respond to a request for comment outside of regular business hours.

A so-called death loop in a video game is when a game reloads after a save with players finding themselves thrust into a situation they can’t get out of without dying. A death loop is also a problematic situation that can happen in kitesurfing. While we don’t know what Bethesda’s Deathloop video game is about, it’s probably not related to kitesurfing.

It’s also possible that Deathloop never becomes a video game, because it could be that Bethesda is merely trademarking the name to protect its potential future use.

Bethesda’s latest big game was Fallout 76, which launched in November for PS4, Xbox One, and PC. Critics had mixed reactions, and the game sold relatively well in the United States. One of Bethesda’s next mobile games is The Elder Scrolls Blades, the first entry in the long-running RPG series, for mobile devices. It’s due out in early 2019.

Gears of War designer Cliff Bleszinski has revealed his next project, and it’s probably not what you expect. Bleszinski is becoming a co-producer on the musical Hadestown. The game developer, who also founded LawBreakers studio Boss Key which has since closed down, invested in Hadestown at an undisclosed amount to become a co-producer.

“Crazy, eh?!” Bleszinski said about the announcement.

At the end of December, Bleszinski said he would probably never work in the video game industry again. He found massive success at Epic with the Gears of War franchise, and he no doubt made a sizeable chunk of money when Tencent invested in Epic. After leaving Epic he started his own studio, Boss Key, but its games–LawBreakers and Radical Heights, failed to find audiences, and the studio closed down.

In a deleted tweet captured by Eurogamer, Bleszinski said he was distancing himself from video games because the culture around them can be “toxic AF.”

As for Hades town, it’s a Greek history story from singer-songwriter Anais Mitchell that tells two connecting love stories between Orpheus and Eurydice and king Hades and Persephone.

In addition to his co-producing role on Hadestown, Bleszinski is writing a book about his life.

The Gears of War franchise is now run by Microsoft, which bought the series from Epic back in 2014 for an undisclosed sum. As for Epic, it’s doing quite well right now thanks to the massive success of Fortnite. In fact, it was Bleszinski who revealed Fortnite to the world seven years ago.

Activision Blizzard, the gaming giant behind franchises like Call of Duty, Overwatch, World of Warcraft, and Diablo, has lost one of its senior executives. The California-based publisher announced that chief financial officer Spencer Neumann was notified on December 31 that his contract with Activision Blizzard was terminated.

The company decided to terminate Neumann’s contract “for cause unrelated to the Company’s financial reporting or disclosure controls and procedures,” Activision Blizzard said in US Securities & Exchange Commission filing.

Neumann is now on paid leave, and he’s been given the opportunity to “demonstrate why cause does not exist to terminate his employment or why termination of his employment is not otherwise justified.”

Activision Blizzard chief corporate officer Dennis Durkin is taking over for Neumann as CFO in the interim. Should Neumann end up leaving Activision Blizzard, Durkin will officially step into the role of CFO, the company said.

A source told Reuters that Neumann is leaving Activision Blizzard to join video streaming giant Netflix. Netflix’s former CFO, David Wells, announced last August that he was leaving the company after 14 years. The source told Reuters that Netflix wanted its next CFO to be based in Los Angeles, which Neumann is.

According to Reuters, Neumann is expected to start at Netflix in early 2019, so an official announcement might be coming soon.

Neumann had been Activision Blizzard’s CFO since May 2017. Before joining the company, he rose through the ranks at Disney, eventually becoming the CFO of Walt Disney Parks and Resorts.

Aquaman, the latest DC superhero movie, has been and continues to be a juggernaut at the box office. After another weekend at No. 1, the movie has now made $751.8 million worldwide. According to The Hollywood Reporter, the Jason Momoa-starring film is now on track to make $900 million during its theatrical run. If it does, it’ll end up becoming the biggest DC movie since 2012’s The Dark Knight Rises ($1.09 billion).

After just a few weeks, Aquaman has already exceeded the lifetime gross figures for DC movies Man of Steel ($668 million), Justice League ($657.9 million), and Suicide Squad ($746.8 million). Aquaman is expected to soon pass Wonder Woman ($821.8 million) and Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice ($873.6 million).

Aquaman is doing much better from international markets. It’s made $562.4 million from international markets, including a whopping $260 million from China alone. The film has pulled in $189.4 million from the United States.

Aquaman stars Jason Momoa as Aquaman, with a cast that also includes Amber Heard, Willem Dafoe, Patrick Wilson, and Nicole Kidman.

For more on Aquaman, you can check out GameSpot’s review and related feature content linked below.

Destiny 2‘s weekly reset brings another Ascendant Challenge to complete, this one ending the Dreaming City’s six-week rotation. You can see what this entails in the video above, and check out our guide for full details.

After grabbing the Ascendant Challenge bounty from Petra in the Dreaming City (she’s conveniently located near the landing zone this week), you’ll need to head to the Starlight Chamber Lost Sector in Rheasilvia–but be sure you have a Tincture of Queensfoil on-hand. Progress all the way through the Lost Sector and use the Tincture to gain the Ascendance buff. You’ll find the portal behind the Lost Sector reward chest. Inside, you’ll have to deal with enemies and some platforming to make your way to a knight enemy that has to be killed to complete the challenge and bounty–netting you some Powerful gear.

The Dawning, Destiny 2’s holiday event, is over this week as well, and you’ll need to wait until the January 8 reset for new content. That’s when the final of the four Forges, the new activities in The Black Armory expansion, is released. In the meantime, here’s everything you need to know to unlock the Izanami Forge.