Author: Trafficblast

While there’s a certain amount of unavoidable uncertainty when something atypical like the Bungie-Activision split happens, Destiny 2 fans needn’t worry, at least about the immediate future of the game. The company insists it isn’t abandoning the plans it’s already outlined for Destiny 2, which will see new content continue to be released in the months ahead.

“Today is a big news day for Bungie. Change is afoot for us,” wrote Bungie’s David Dague on Twitter. “Our plans for Destiny are unchanged. All of these game updates are still on the calendar.” The tweet included the image below that outlines Destiny 2’s roadmap new content between now and the end of August. That includes both free and paid additions, the latter of which will be available to those who have purchased Destiny 2’s Annual Pass. Among other things, the game will add another new Raid, Exotics, seasonal events, a “Gambit experience,” and much more.

Bungie’s weekly blog post, This Week at Bungie, has been on hiatus recently due to the holidays. It was scheduled to resume today, but likely due to the big news, it’s been pushed until Friday, January 11, Dague confirmed on Twitter. It will feature “the latest details on the Destiny player experience,” he said, but don’t expect it to offer up any further specifics regarding the split from Activision. “We don’t have more news to report on the business of the franchise,” he said.

Despite Bungie taking control of Destiny, Destiny 2 will remain on Blizzard Battle.net, the Activision Blizzard-owned gaming platform.

The announcement of the split comes amid apparent tension between the two companies. Last year, following Forsaken’s release, Activision said it had been a commercial disappointment. This prompted Destiny 2 game director Luke Smith to respond, saying, “We are not disappointed with Forsaken.”

Regarding Bungie assuming control of the Destiny series, the studio said, “The planned transition process is already underway in its early stages, with Bungie and Activision both committed to making sure the handoff is as seamless as possible.

With Forsaken, we’ve learned, and listened, and leaned in to what we believe our players want from a great Destiny experience. Rest assured there is more of that on the way. We’ll continue to deliver on the existing Destiny roadmap, and we’re looking forward to releasing more seasonal experiences in the coming months, as well as surprising our community with some exciting announcements about what lies beyond.

Thank you so much for your continued support. Our success is owed in no small part to the incredible community of players who have graced our worlds with light and life. We know self-publishing won’t be easy; there’s still much for us to learn as we grow as an independent, global studio, but we see unbounded opportunities and potential in Destiny. We know that new adventures await us all on new worlds filled with mystery, adventure, and hope. We hope you’ll join us there.”

This week was a big one for Destiny, as the last piece of big content from the Black Armory expansion was released. This was marked by the start of a complex new puzzle for players–specifically, the most hardcore fans and streamers–to crack. Their success would open the fourth and final Black Armory forge activity. However, after more than a day only resulted in a partial completion, Bungie decided to go ahead and unlock the Bergusia Forge for all players.

One of the biggest surprises to emerge from The Game Awards last month was Mortal Kombat 11, the next installment in the long-running fighting series. Developer NetherRealm unveiled the title with a brutal trailer, and now series co-creator Ed Boon has given us a glimpse at its cover.

Boon revealed the game’s cover artwork on his official Twitter account. Much like Mortal Kombat X‘s cover, it’s very minimalistic, featuring a single character: series mainstay Scorpion, who appeared in the game’s reveal trailer alongside another MK veteran, Raiden. You can take a look at the art below.

NetherRealm hasn’t announced many details about Mortal Kombat 11 yet, but based on its reveal trailer, it appears the series’ trademark gore is very much intact. The developer has also teased the game will feature a “time bending story,” which was hinted at in the trailer; after Raiden dispatches Scorpion, another Scorpion–dressed in the character’s classic garb–appears and continues the fight.

Fans will get their first extended look at Mortal Kombat 11 on January 17, when NetherRealm broadcasts a reveal event on Twitch. The game is scheduled to launch a little later this year, on April 23. It’s coming to PS4, Xbox One, PC, and Nintendo Switch, and those who pre-order a copy will receive Shao Kahn as a playable character.

PS4 and Xbox One owners have an added incentive to pre-order the game, as doing so will get you access to a pre-launch beta. The test will be held for those two platforms sometime in March, although further details have yet to be announced.

A new set of Season 7 challenges has arrived in Fortnite, providing another opportunity to level your Battle Pass up and unlock rewards. As usual, if you manage to finish all of the objectives from a given week, you’ll also complete a related Snowfall challenge, netting you a special loading screen that hides a clue to a free Battle Star or Banner waiting somewhere around the island.

The loading screen you’ll get depends on how many weekly sets of challenges you’ve completed. Once you’ve finished six weeks’ sets, you’ll unlock the one pictured below. It depicts a character wearing the Durrr Burger onesie standing at the titular eatery, burger in hand. This time, the clue can be found on the chalkboard in the lefthand corner of the image, which features a drawing of a Banner floating about the Crown of RVs–the same spot you needed to visit to complete Week 1’s dancing challenge.

The Crown of RVs is located south of Paradise Palms, at the edge of the map near the desert village. Your best bet for finding the Banner is to glide to the area at the start of a match and make your way to the crown-like formation. As teased, the Banner will appear at the top. Collect it and finish the match, and you’ll be able to use the Banner as a swanky profile icon.

We’ve marked the Banner’s location on the map below to help you find it. However, as always, the Banner will only appear on the map if you’ve completed the necessary number of challenges and unlocked the aforementioned loading screen; you won’t simply be able to waltz over to the right spot and find it unless you’ve done the required work.

You have until the end of Season 7 to complete any outstanding challenges; if you need help, you can find tips in our Season 7 challenge roundup. We’ve also put together guides on where to find all of this season’s other free Battle Stars and Banners below.

Fortnite Season 7 Snowfall Challenge Guides

Anyone concerned that Bungie ending its publishing arrangement with Activision for Destiny would mean Destiny 2 will be removed from Battle.net can breathe a sigh of relief. Blizzard has confirmed that Destiny 2 will continue to receive “full support” on Battle.net going forward.

Destiny 2 and its extra content remains available to buy on Battle.net, and it appears it will not be removed from the store, at least not yet.

Destiny 2 was the first non-Blizzard game to be released on Battle.net. It was followed up by Call of Duty: Black Ops 4, which, like Destiny 2, was published by Activision. Both titles skipped Steam and other digital PC stores in favour of launching through Blizzard’s digital PC store.

Given that Bungie is taking over publishing responsibilities for the Destiny franchise going forward, it would appear that Bungie will get to decide where it sells its games in the future; this could theoretically include Steam or the newly launched Epic Games Store.

For more on the big Destiny news, check out GameSpot’s coverage through the stories linked below.

At CES 2019, GameSpot’s sister site, CNET, saw and occasionally tried several new pieces of technology that could change the way people play games in the future. Below, we’ve gone ahead and highlighted the ones that stand out the most, but you can also head over to CNET’s CES hub to browse through everything.

Some folks showed up to CES with pieces of third-party tech that allow you to play Nintendo Switch in new ways. The first is something that people have been asking Nintendo to make for a while: a means of charging Switch Joy-Cons while playing with them. Both Xbox One and PS4 controllers can be charged while in use, as can wireless mice and keyboards on PC, but Switch Joy-Cons will only charge while docked. GameSir also showed off a portable mouse and keyboard combo that can connect to Switch, which would probably be helpful for playing shooters like Fortnite and Splatoon 2, should Nintendo decide to update them with support

VR had a pretty heavy presence at CES this year as well. HTC unveiled two new headsets, one of which, the Vive Cosmos, is specifically built for gaming. The other, called the Vive Pro Eye, isn’t designed for games just yet, but it supports impressive eye tracking technology. The company also announced Infinity, which is a new subscription model for Viveport that offers unlimited access to select VR titles for less than their full retail price. Holoride showed off a brand-new VR experience where you wear a headset while riding in the back of a car, allowing you to swiftly travel through worlds of fantasy or moments in history while on road trips. CNET also tried out Cyber Shoes, which allows you to feel like you’re running in real life while playing VR, as well as a foot controller that should help make PSVR more accessible for those with a motion disability. CNET got to try out Oculus’ new VR headset too, called Quest, which promises full motion and no cables.

There were also just your typical pieces of new tech at CES. We always expect to see new laptops each year, many of which have the specs to be used as gaming computers. Spherical gaming chairs aren’t a stranger to CES either, although CNET notes the Predator Thronos is probably the best of what they saw.

AMD also had a fairly big year at CES. The company announced its third-generation Ryzen CPU and new Radeon VII GPU. Xbox boss Phil Spencer also came up on stage during the AMD keynote and hinted the partnership between Xbox and AMD would continue into the next console generation.