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Welcome to our first ever Review Q&A, where GameSpot reviewers and friends take a deep dive into our review process (and hopefully answer some of your biggest questions). First up: Kingdom Hearts 3! Reviewer Tamoor Hussain and superfan Lucy James talk about the 14-year wait for Kingdom Hearts 3, the hardest parts of the review, and how nostalgia factors in to it all. Make sure to let us know if you’d like to see more behind-the-scenes reviews features like this one and how we can make them even better–but first, enjoy!

Tamoor Hussain is UK Editor and Global Head Of News for GameSpot. He reviewed Kingdom Hearts III, giving it an 8/10. On top of working at GameSpot, he’s got a side hustle as a full-time weeb. More importantly, he has been a lifelong fan of Kingdom Hearts since the series began.

Lucy James is Senior Video Producer at GameSpot. She’s a part-time weeb who cried in the audience of the Sony 2013 E3 press conference when Kingdom Hearts III was announced. She can and will explain the plot of the series to you if you ask nicely.

Tam: When you walk away, you don’t hear me say, “Pleaaaaaaaaaase, oh baby, don’t go.” Simple and clean is the way that you’re making me feel tonight. It’s hard to let it go….

Lucy: Hi Tamoor. Thanks for that Simple And Clean intro. We both have a very storied history with Kingdom Hearts. We’re probably the biggest fans on staff, and we’ve both been very excited to play III for… jeez, well over a decade now. I think my first question to you has to be: Just how the hell did you prepare to do this review?

Tam: Like this:

Lucy: Oh good grief.

Tam: Okay so, let’s break that picture down. Left hand: Full-size Keyblade that lets the world know that I’m a Kingdom Hearts fan. Right hand, flipping the bird to the world to say, “Yeah, I love Kingdom Hearts and I don’t care what you think.” Up top: Sunglasses because I’m quite sensitive to light and the brightness was giving me a headache.

Lucy: Fair. San Francisco was pretty sunny that day. I wore a leather jacket and remember deeply regretting it.

Back to my question: what kind of mindset were you in when you tackled the review? When we played the game at a preview event back in June 2018, we both came out of it saying, “That’s a game Kingdom Hearts fans will love, but I wonder how people unfamiliar with the series will react to it.” We didn’t say that in unison, though. That’d be weird.

Tam: Honestly, I was very nervous. I remember when our all-powerful reviews editor Kallie asked me if I’d be up for it and I knew I wanted to do it. I wanted to take on that challenge, but a part of me did think about how stressful it’d be. Now, let’s be clear, I was reviewing a game–hardly a thing to get upset about, but I was thinking about what that game represents and how much it means to fans. I feel okay saying this because I am a Kingdom Hearts fan, but Kingdom Hearts fans are INTENSE. Like, in my review I open by saying how hearing Dearly Beloved emotionally cripples me every time, and there’s loads of people saying I’m not a fan and I don’t have any experience with the series.

But anyway, I started second-guessing myself, thinking, “Do you really know everything you need to know about Kingdom Hearts? Because if you get one thing wrong, you will hear about it.” In the lead-up I thought it would be a good idea to refresh myself on everything, but that turned out to be a bad idea because then I started treating it like studying for an exam. I am not good in exams. I threw up in my GCSE maths exam and got sent out. Also I am not good at maths.

Lucy: I was going to make a maths joke about 358/2 Days here, but thought better of it.

Tam: Eventually I just stepped back and reminded myself that I love this series, I’ve played the games, I know the characters, I’ve followed the story, and all I needed to do was approach it in a genuine way. I focused on taking my experience as a reviewer that’s critiqued and analysed many games and properly balancing that with my passion for the series.

I hope that comes through in the review, which echoes what you said and what we discussed after the preview event. I think fans of the series will love it for sure, but one of the strengths of Kingdom Hearts as a series is there’s always something to enjoy regardless of whether you’re a long-time fan or not. Since publishing the review I’ve talked a lot of people who, for one reason or another, are considering playing the game. Many of them say they don’t know Kingdom Hearts, but I tell them that the Disney worlds are still fantastic on their own, the combat is a lot of fun, and it’s overall just a joyous game. Sure, it does get a bit tied up in its own mythos and has some rough patches, but as a whole it’s still a fun and charming game.

Tl;dr: It was daunting. You’ve got it now, how are you finding it?

Lucy: I think daunting is the right word for it. I’ll say that it wasn’t an easy start. It honestly took me a couple of hours to get into the swing of it. The game starts with a pretty scrappy prologue, Kingdom Hearts 2.9 (I’m not joking), where it’s dropping in story beats, and getting the player up to speed with the combat changes, etc. Honestly, I was pretty worried for a second, because the whole thing didn’t feel very cohesive. I think while I was mid-music video (the second or third), I texted you “REALLY??????”, because I genuinely thought it was going to be indicative of the rest of the game.

I hit the Kingdom Hearts 3 title screen, and it just felt like everything… eased, and I’m really enjoying it now. Pretty familiar to the start of Kingdom Hearts II in that regard, really. I feel like because I did the History Of Kingdom Hearts recently, I’m as familiar as I can be with the intricacies of its story, and I’m starting to get these payoffs, and they’re really hitting. I know in your review you called out the game for getting bogged down in its own lore–how intense is that stuff going to get?

Tam: So one of the things I tried to do is to think about how the game would feel to people with various levels of familiarity. I think that was important to do because, like you, I know the story, so how “intense” it felt was different from someone who doesn’t know it. And also there’s sure to be plenty of people who are attracted to Disney that decide to play the game, with little to no prior experience, so I think that was an important consideration.

The funny thing was, even with my familiarity it felt very intense at times. Like I said in my review, I think the problem is that it tries to do too much and resolve–or at least reference–every narrative thread or lingering question about a character, and that’s to its detriment. Thankfully, for the most part these moments are bookends to the Disney world and stories. You’ll arrive on a planet, have the Kingdom Hearts story, then play through a nice little Disney adventure, then have another Kingdom Hearts story. That made it way more manageable. However, the final third of the game is pure Kingdom Hearts bants and it is very overwhelming.

I’m going to put my cards on the table here and say, in hindsight, I think Organization XIII is the worst part of the game. In previous games they’ve been likable characters–I know Axel is your guy–but, for me, in KH3 they dilute the story and there’s just far too many of them. They also enable the laziest kind of storytelling, where a character waffles on about nothing in particular while acting shady and mysterious. To me, that just says the character didn’t really serve any purpose in the story and is just there for the sake of being there. That’s particularly evident in this game, which tries to give fans of all of these lads and ladettes some time in the spotlight. Honestly, I didn’t need it–it just made the overall story worse.

Lucy: I know that diehard fans will appreciate that though. To me, Kingdom Hearts 3 seems to be all about the story payoffs so far.

Tam: I’m suddenly very aware of how negative that sounded and the fact that you’re very early, so I’m going to temper that by also saying there’s wonderful stuff throughout, even at the end. The story has some really nice moments too, so don’t feel discouraged by me being a grump.

I’ll be honest, there are some games that I just needed to enjoy.

So one of things I think about a lot, especially for a series as storied as this, is at a certain point people are so invested in something that they’re able to ignore a lot of the issues with the thing they love and have loved for years. When you’re reviewing a game, you don’t have that luxury. You’ve reviewed games before, so it can be difficult to switch that part of your brain off, but for something like Kingdom Hearts I imagine you might be able to–I certainly can with stuff like Metal Gear. I’ll be honest, there are some games that I just needed to enjoy, like MGS4, which is a flawed game in many respects, but I needed to love it, if you get what I mean.

Lucy: Metal Gear is such a fantastic example of what you’re talking about, because the highest of the highs totally outweigh the lowest of the lows, and that’s what you end up remembering about those games. When I think of Kingdom Hearts 2, for example, I immediately think of a dozen incredible things I loved in that game: the music, the varied Disney worlds, fighting Sephiroth, battling Organization XIII, etc., before things like the slow opening or Atlantica’s daft music mini-games even come into my mind. It’s like a rising tide raises all (Gummi) ships.

I know that you got through Kingdom Hearts 3 pretty quickly so that everything would be ready for the review embargo. Do you think you lost anything from the experience? And for someone who’s been waiting just as long as I have, were you sad that you had to play it that way?

Tam: I did have to get through it quite quickly, but I don’t think I lost anything from the experience because of that. In fact, I think it helped me push through rougher spots where, without a deadline, I probably would have walked away from it for a day or two.

Whether I was sad about having to do that goes back to what I said earlier. This is one of those games that I also needed to enjoy, but since our wise and benevolent reviews editor Kallie asked if I wanted to review it, I had to pick between that and taking on the challenge of writing a review for it. In the end, I felt that it would be better and more beneficial for me to do the review. I didn’t mention it above but, at the same time as being nervous about the whole thing, the challenge of reviewing the game was also very appealing. I knew that it had to be on point, and since there would be a lot of people reading it, both internally as part of QA and externally by the general public, it was also an opportunity to kind of get a measure of how I’m doing as a reviewer–it doubled up as a reviewer exam, in a way.

Lucy: So you’re saying this review was your Mark of Mastery exam?

Tam: Hahah, very good. Yeah–but did I pass like Riku or am I still an apprentice like Sora? That is the question! [Wise and benevolent editor’s note: He passed.]

So, yeah. I would have loved to have played at my own pace, but like I said, I don’t think I lost much by not doing so. Also, playing it for review meant I could play it early and make myself impervious to spoilers, which was big factor too. I do think that playing it in smaller chunks like you are is a good way to go about it. Like I said previously, each of the worlds are neatly contained–as with past entries–so it makes it easy to split up sessions. A Disney world a day keeps the Heartless at bay.

One of the things I was thinking about for the review, but didn’t end up using as an angle in this exact way, is nostalgia. A lot of people came to Kingdom Hearts because of their love for Disney or Final Fantasy and their nostalgia for it. But over time that element of the series has shifted in different ways. For Final Fantasy, it’s completely dropped off, and for Disney, the emphasis is more on the modern era, for which the nostalgia isn’t as potent. How do you feel about that? Is that important to you? Or do you think Kingdom Hearts as a whole has distinguished itself enough to no longer rely on those elements?

Lucy: That’s an interesting point about nostalgia, and to be honest, I think it does still rely on it to an extent. Square has been really clever about the choice of Disney worlds, and I feel they’ve struck a good balance between older versus newer movies. I certainly feel less of an emotional connection to Frozen and Big Hero 6, y’know, but at the same time, flying around with Baymax is cool as heck, so I’m glad they’re experimenting with new worlds. I’m also incredibly glad they’ve put new twists on returning worlds. Not just that they look better, or have a better layout, but in the case of a world like Olympus, it’s a completely new side to that place that we haven’t seen before.

I think that’s nice that it’s come full circle–a game that could only exist because it’s built on nostalgia now inspires its own.

Kingdom Hearts has been around for so long now that my feelings of nostalgia are less about the Disney and Final Fantasy parts and more toward the little threads between the games. The menu sounds, movement, combat, in particular the music. Like said in your review, when you hear the opening bars of Dearly Beloved, it’s like this gut punch that opens the nostalgia floodgates. I think that’s nice that it’s come full circle–a game that could only exist because it’s built on nostalgia now inspires its own.

With that all said, with everything riding on Kingdom Hearts 3, do you think it lived up to expectations? Was it worth the wait?

Tam: It did live up to expectations for me. It gave me the same feelings that I had when I played the original on the PS2 and fell in love with it–and that’s quite an achievement if you ask me. Ultimately, the issues the game has are overshadowed by everything else. Though they can’t be discounted, they don’t get in the way to the point where they ruin the experience. I had a blast playing it, so, yeah, it was worth the wait for sure.

I just hope that, now that the Dark Seeker Saga is complete, the wait until the next chapter of the Kingdom Hearts story isn’t as long.

The Humble Bundle has partnered with PlayStation for a sale on a bundle of indie titles along with bonuses. The Humble Indie PlayStation Bundle offers up to nine PS4 games, with some proceeds going to charity, for a limited time.

At the lowest tier you can get Grim Fandango Remastered, The Bard’s Tale Remastered, and InnerSpace. Those three games are available if you pay at least one dollar. The next level up unlocks if you pay more than the average, which as of time of writing is approximately $9. That tier includes Layers of Fear, Wasteland 2 Director’s Cut, The Talos Principle, and Broken Age. Finally, the last tier unlocks at $15 or more, granting you Killing Floor 2 and Shadow Warrior.

Those nine games are joined by the soundtracks for Grim Fandango and InnerSpace at the dollar level, and the Layers of Fear and Broken Age soundtracks at the more-than-average level. As always you can pay what you want and select how the money is distributed to Humble, charity, and developers.

These discounts will be available through February 12 at 11 AM PT / 2 PM ET. Most of the games are individually priced at or more than the cost for all of them combined, so it’s a good deal to get a lot of games you may have missed for cheap.

Pay $1

• Grim Fandango Remastered
• The Bard’s Tale Remastered
• InnerSpace

Pay more than average

• Layers of Fear
• Wasteland 2 Director’s Cut
• The Talos Principle
• Broken Age

Pay $15

• Killing Floor 2
• Shadow Warrior

The much-anticipated new movie adaptation of the classic sci-fi novel series Dune continues to add some big names. Following the news earlier this month that MCU stars Dave Bautista and Stellan Skarsgård will play key roles, it has now been reported that Star Wars actor Oscar Isaac is in talks to join the cast.

According to Variety, Isaac is in negotiations to play the role of Duke Leto, the father of lead character Paul Atreides, who will be played by Timothy Chalamet (Call Me By Your Name). As well as playing Poe Dameron in the recent Star Wars movie, Isaac is known for roles in Ex Machina, X-Men: Apocalypse, and Annihilation.

Skarsgård is set to play the evil Baron Harkonen, while Bautista will appear as “Beast” Rabban, Harkonen’s nephew. The cast also includes Mission Impossible star Rebecca Ferguson, and the movie will be directed by Denis Villeneuve, who previously helmed Blade Runner 2049 and Arrival. Dune does not yet have a release date.

The multi-book series was written by Frank Herbert, and the first volume was published in 1965. The movie was first announced in February 2017, when Herbert’s son Brian suggested that it could be the first part in a series of films. It was previously adapted for the big screen in 1984 by David Lynch and starred Kyle McLachlan, Patrick Stewart, and Sting. While this version was a commercial failure, it has since gained a cult reputation.

The Sci-fi Channel (since re-branded Syfy) also produced a Dune mini-series in the early 2000s. There have been several unsuccessful attempts to get a new movie version off the ground, most recently with Patriots Day director Peter Berg at the helm.

On top of the ongoing PS Essentials sale, a new selection of PS4 game deals has gone live on the US PlayStation Store. From now until February 5, Sony is holding the PS Plus Specials sale, which offers discounts on an array of PSVR-compatible games–but only for PlayStation Plus subscribers.

Capcom’s critically acclaimed horror game, Resident Evil 7, is one of the many titles on sale this week. The standard edition is available for $15, while the Gold edition–which includes all of the game’s DLC–is $25. You can also pick the DLC up individually at a discount; Banned Footage Vol. 1 is $5, Banned Footage Vol. 2 is $7.49, and End of Zoe is $9.

Beyond that, Dark Souls developer From Software’s experimental VR game, Deracine, is $27. The VR version of The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim is down to $36, while Ubisoft’s unsettling Transference is $17.49. You can also get Until Dawn’s VR prequel, The Inpatient, for $12, and the spin-off rail shooter Until Dawn: Rush of Blood is $4.49.

Some other notable deals include Batman: Arkham VR for $12, Astro Bot: Rescue Mission for $32, Creed: Rise to Glory for $21, Psychonauts in the Rhombus of Ruin for $4, Race the Sun for $3, and Sprint Vector for $21. You can find other good deals below, while the full list is available on the PlayStation Store.

Both the PS Plus Specials and PS Essentials sales are scheduled to end on February 5, so you have until then to take advantage of these offers. While the PS Essentials sale is open to everyone, PS Plus members will take an additional percentage off of every item, so you can grab some of 2018’s biggest games like God of War and Battlefield V at a great price.

GameStop has announced that it is no longer trying to sell itself to another company. The video game retail company did not provide further details as to what that means for its future, but its stock price has plunged dramatically as a result.

“GameStop’s Board has now terminated efforts to pursue a sale of the company due to the lack of available financing on terms that would be commercially acceptable to a prospective acquirer,” GameStop said in a blog post. The announcement caused investment stock in GameStop to plummet, with the trading value decreasing by more than 25 percent to $11.24 USD at the time of this writing.

The company first began looking for a potential buyer in June 2018. GameStop went into talks with private equity firms and also hired a financial advisor, according to sources familiar with the situation. However, GameStop never confirmed a sellout was a definitive final outcome, and said in a statement that it was exploring other solutions to its financial difficulties as well.

In a report by Variety, Wedbush Securities analyst Michael Pachter said that GameStop’s decision to shift gears might mean that company was simply unable to find an investor. “A new console without a disc drive–unlikely, but possible–could kill [GameStop’s] business,” Pachter explained. “And all this talk of Amazon, Apple, and Google [streaming games] causes some to question whether there will be consoles at all.”

GameStop has struggled to remain a relevant part of the game consumer model with the rise of digital distribution. As a result, the company has tried to account for lost sales by increasing its pivot towards used game sales and pop culture collectibles. However, the former has most likely been a shrinking margin for the company as well, with subscription services such as Xbox Game Pass, Games With Gold, and PlayStation Now offering a steady stream of older titles for less than their combined retail price.

Grand Theft Auto Online is debuting a new RC toy car with all sorts of custom options and dangerous weaponry to pack a tiny wallop. But if you’re not sure you want to buy yet, you can sample it in a series of new races and earn double rewards in the process. Plus just logging in can net you some free cash.

First off, logging into GTA Online each weekend in February will get you $250K in GTA cash, so coming back over and over will net you a total of $1 million. Each week’s reward will populate into your Maze Bank account the following weekend.

You can also get both double cash and RP in any of the eight new races centered around the new RC Bandito: All Downhill From Here, Trailer Park Dash, Air Traffic Control, Beach Please, Docking Around, Paleto Bae, Go For ‘Broke, and Tee’d Off. In addition, you can get double cash and RP from any Stunt Race, or from the Running Back (Remix) mode. Rockstar teases that a variety of modes will spit out double cash and RP the whole month of February as well.

To make the RC Bandito your own, you’ll need to first own an Arena to store it. Several Arena items are on sale now for 30% off, including Workshop Mechanics, Boost Upgrades, and more. Then you can head to Southern San Andreas Super Autos, which comes with its own workstation to modify it. You can add special liveries and lids, or mod it to make vertical jumps or drop mines.

Finally, a variety of vehicles are 30-35% off, including several high performance machines and aircraft. Those include:

• Ocelot Swinger – 30% off
• Hotring Sabre – 35% off
• Overflod Tyrant – 30% off
• Pegassi Tezeract – 30% off
• Vapid Hustler – 30% off
• Ocelot Pariah – 30% off
• Hydra – 35% off
• Buzzard – 35% off
• Hunter – 35% off
• Engines (Vehicles & Aircraft) – 30% off
• Brakes & Handling (Vehicles & Aircraft) – 30% off
• Suspension – 30% off

Even though the latest movie in the long-running Child’s Play series was released less than two years ago, last July it was announced that the franchise was to be entirely rebooted as a new film without the involvement of creator Dan Mancini. However, it has now been confirmed that Mancini’s story of killer doll Chucky will continue as TV show.

The show will be simply titled Chucky and is being developed at Syfy. Mancini will write the series, and will produce alongside long-term partner David Kirschner, as well as Nick Antosca, who worked with Mancini on the hit horror anthology series Channel Zero.

In a statement, Mancini said: “I’ve long wanted to bring Chucky to television and Syfy is the perfect network for us. The show will be a fresh take on the franchise, allowing us to explore Chucky’s character with a depth that is uniquely afforded by the television series format, while staying true to the original vision that has terrorized audiences for over three decades now.”

The Chucky series kicked off in 1988 with Child’s Play, which was followed by two direct sequels in 1990 and 1991. The series took a more overt comic turn with 1998’s The Bride of Chucky and three subsequent films. Mancini has written every movie in the series to date and directed the last three, including 2017’s The Cult of Chucky.

The Child’s Play remake is being produced by MGM but will not have any involvement from Mancini. In a recent interview on the Post Mortem podcast, he explained that he wasn’t happy about the new movie version. “Obviously my feelings were hurt,” he said. “You know, I had just done two movies… forgive me if I sound defensive, [they] were both at 83 percent on Rotten Tomatoes. Even though they didn’t get theatrical releases, they were well regarded. And I did create the character and nurture the franchise for three f***ing decades.

“That’s how I feel. The people who are making that movie, they don’t know how that’s going to affect my livelihood. It’s not just a paycheck. It’s very personal. MGM’s screwing with that potentially.”

Epic Games continues to iterate on its hit battle royale game Fortnite, and today is no different with the release of update 7.30 for PS4, Xbox One, PC, Switch, iOS, and Android. The patch adds a new item named the chiller grenade, a new ‘Solid Gold’ limited-time mode, and controller support for mobile players; read on for the full patch notes.

The chiller grenade knocks enemies back, causing them to slide along the ground. Be warned, though: it also affects teammates and vehicles, and will cause them to slip around with icy feet or wheels for seven seconds. Chiller grenades can be found in common rarities only inside vending machines and as floor loot; they drop in stacks of three with a max stack size of six. Fortnite’s latest LTM, meanwhile, is Solid Gold, a game mode where all weapon spawns are legendary, with increased material gathering.

Update 7.30’s final big feature is the much-anticipated addition of controller support for mobile players, as well as the introduction of 60 Hz gameplay on select Android models. Most Bluetooth gamepads can be used with Android phones, while iOS players can use MFi controller brands such as Gamevice and Steelseries. Take a look at the full patch notes below, via Epic Games.

Fortnite Update 7.30 Patch Notes

Battle Royale

LTM: Solid Gold

Summary

All things that glitter are gold in this Limited Time Mode! All weapon spawns are Legendary with increased material gathering. Drop in now and earn that Victory Royale.

Mode Details

• All weapon drops are Legendary.
• Increased amount of materials received from gathering.

Weapons And Items

• Chiller Grenade
  • The Chiller Grenade will knock players back, causing them to slide along the ground.
  • Allies, enemies, and vehicles hit with the Chiller Grenade will slip around with icy feet/wheels for a duration of 7 seconds.
  • Drops in stacks of 3.
    • Max stack size of 6.
  • Common rarity.
  • Can be found from Floor Loot and Vending Machines.
• Cozy Campfire – Updated Visuals
  • We’ve updated the visual effects of Cozy Campfires to more clearly indicate when a campfire is in use or burnt out.
• Vaulted
  • Bolt-action Sniper Rifle
  • Burst Rifle
  • Heavy Shotgun
  • SMG
    • Common, Uncommon, and Rare
• Unvaulted
  • Suppressed SMG
    • Common, Uncommon, and Rare
• Reduced the drop chance of Dual Pistol from floor loot from 2.24% to 1.38%.

Bug Fixes

• Balloons no longer collide with vehicles.
  • This resolves an issue where vehicles could be damaged when using Balloons while on a vehicle.

Gameplay

• Memory and networking optimization for Apples and Mushrooms.
• Added unique vehicle specific messages in the feed when players are eliminated or downed.
• Edit Delay
  • Re-enabled client-side editing improvements.
  • These were turned off in 7.20 due to an input bug they were causing.
• Fixed Boogie Bombs not affecting players that are wearing the Sneaky Snowman when struck on exposed legs/feet.
• Fixed Sneaky Snowman’s last charge breaking away right after applying if another Sneaky Snowman is present in a different inventory slot.
• Fixed an issue where the glider would auto-deploy closer to the ground than expected when holding glider redeploy from the bus.
• Fixed the X-4 Stormwing’s health bar occasionally not displaying.
• Fixed an issue where players could get stuck in a Sneaky Snowman if it landed next to them.
• Increased the amount of materials gained from looting Chests and Floor Loot from 20 to 30.
• Increased the number of materials received from Supply Drops from 40 to 60.

Bug Fixes

• Aim assist now targets enemies on vehicles rather than the base of the vehicles they’re occupying.
• Quickly switching to Traps then weapons on gamepads no longer causes players to shoot or swing pickaxes.
• Supply Drop balloons now take environmental damage, including damage from explosives or biplanes gun.
• Fixed instances of a free wall piece showing as placeable but not building.
• Fixed player cameras from becoming distorted when another player enters a Zipline.
• Fixed an issue where the magnet on the Zipline could be invisible on use.
• Fixed an issue where boost visual effects could appear while operating a vehicle near a Zipline.
• Players can now properly progress through and complete the Week 4 “Use an X-4 Stormwing plane in different matches” Challenge.
• Screens no longer shake uncontrollably after after walking on icy surfaces.
• Players will no longer lose the ability to turn the X-4 Stormwing after hitting terrain/structures.

Playground

• The Guided Missile has been removed from Playgrounds.
• Removed the Spiky Stadium Supply Drop.
  • This will remove the ability to loot the Spiky Stadium as well as Impulse Grenades.
  • This was done due to an issue that was sending players back to the Lobby.

Events

• New Tournament Added: Architect Pop-Up Cup (Solo, Duo, and Squads)
  • Settings from previous Pop-Up Cup tournaments still apply to this tournament.
  • Within this mode, player built structures can now be edited by any player, regardless of team status.
    • This is an experiment that we’d like to try out in this testing environment, but aren’t quite sure of the full impact. We’d love to hear feedback from your experiences playing with this change.
• Tournaments may now feature leaderboards for each event session, highlighting top performers.
• Participating in tournaments now requires a minimum account level of 10.

Performance

Bug Fixes

• Smoothed out drops in framerate that could happen with large changes in view direction and rendered character counts.

Audio

• Added a fuse sound to the Grenade.

Bug Fixes

• Fixed emote music overlapping with lobby music depending on the way volume sliders were configured.

UI

• Show total party eliminations on the HUD if your team wins.
• Added additional models to the “Cycle Models” list when viewing Wraps in the Battle Pass or Item Shop.
• The party colors have been restored to Blue, Red, Purple, and Yellow. To distinguish players in LTMs like Food Fight.
  • There are new icons for non-squad teammates and the opponent icons on the minimap.
• Rotating the camera on the Battle Bus no longer has an oscillating/swimming effect on the minimap.
• Fixed an issue in the Net Debug UI that would cause it to show a ping value that was too high.

Bug Fixes

• Fixed issue where weapons were not equipping when double-clicking in the inventory after swapping their quickbar slots.
• Fix an issue where teammates scores would not be displayed.
• Fixed incorrect elimination count information occurring in large team modes.
• Fixed player sorting order in the player reporting UI.
• Fixed an issue where some of the leaderboard UI could sometimes blink repeatedly.
• Fixed an issue where the ‘Spectator’ button in the Player Reporting menu would only select the first player you spectated.
• Fixed an issue where the playlist selection screen could sometimes show an incorrect selection after leaving a party.
• Fixed a display issue with the item pick-up prompt that would sometimes occur after opening an ammo box.
• Fix lobby preview lengths of Pumpernickel, Running Man, Dance Therapy, and Hot Marat emotes.

Art And Animation

• Celebrate Super Bowl LIII with new Los Angeles Rams and New England Patriots uniforms added to the Fourth Down Outfit set. Drop in and represent your favorite team!
  • All players who previously purchased the Fourth Down set will be granted these variants.

Replay

Bug Fixes

• Fixed weapon animations playing twice for each shot fired in replays.
• Fixed an issue where camera/lens settings could display incorrect initial values.
• Fixed an issue where attempting to play an out of date replay selects another replay.
• Fixed players appearing jittery while using Ziplines in replays.
• Fixed Boombox music not playing when watching replays.

Social

• The Streamer Mode setting has been replaced with two separate settings:
  • Anonymous Mode
    • This will display your name as “Anonymous” to all players that are not in your squad.
    • Your account info will still be attached to reports submitted by other players using the Player Reporting feature.
  • Hide Other Player Names
    • This will display all other player names as “Player” unless they are in your squad.
  • Neither of these settings will be functional when playing in a Tournament match.

Bug Fixes

• Party Invite Notifications will now appear when in the Game Mode select screen. Accepting the invite from the notification will take you to the proper game mode and join the party.
• Fixed an issue that could cause some party members to fail to matchmake with a “Version Mismatch” error if a party member joined, readied up, and matchmaking was started in rapid succession.

Mobile

• Mobile Controller support
  • Android: most of Bluetooth controller adapters, such as Steelseries Stratus XL, Gamevice, XBox1, Razer Raiju, and Moto Gamepad.
  • iOS: MFi controllers, such as Steelseries Nimbus and Gamevice.
  • Disabled phone vibration if a gamepad attached.
• 60Hz on select Android models
  • We are rolling out 60Hz support (to be enabled in settings) on select Android devices. We have been working with our partners on optimizations and are rolling this out initially on the following specific models.
  • Samsung Galaxy Note 9 (USA variant)
  • Huawei Honor View 20
  • Huawei Mate 20 X
• Added audio visualization icons for vehicles and Balloons

Bug Fixes

• Fixed an issue causes players to be unable to build multiple structure types while simultaneously holding down the build button and changing build types.
• Fixed Harvesting Tool button no longer swaps back to the previously selected weapon
• Fixed Multiple simultaneous button presses on mobile can disable the fire button
• Fixed No padlock icon appears on the directional pad when locking with auto-run on mobile.
• Fixed Several UI buttons having lower resolution than the other buttons.

Creative

Piano Keys + Music Blocks

Jam out in Creative! Become a musician with these two new additions and imagine your very own original tracks.

Arctic Base Prefabs

Imagine and create your own frozen wonderland with the newest Prefabs available in Creative mode.

Islands

• Added an option to set edit permission per player on your Island.

Gameplay

• New option to control respawn times.
  • Range 1 – 30 seconds.
• New option added to end games.
  • The first team to reach a set number of eliminations wins.
    • Range 1 – 10 or Off.
• New option added: “After Last Spawn Go To Team”
  • After running out of spawns in a game, you can now either become a spectator or be switched to a different team depending on the game’s settings.
  • Range includes “Spectator” and “Team 1 – 16”.
• The Game Stats screen displayed after Creative games conclude now contains buttons for immediately restarting the game and restoring the Island.
• Increased the speed that Islands load after a game.
• Renamed “Game Modes” to “Score Preset” to better clarify what that option does.
• When joining a game in progress, players are now put in spectator mode until the game ends.

Bug Fixes

• Fixed a server crash that could occur when a prefab was despawned.
• Fixed an out of memory server crash.
• Fixed Storm damage not applying if the health mutator was set to invincible.
• Creative mode games now properly set player orientation as well as location.
• Fixed spawn direction to always face the same direction when spawning.
• Fixed the Victory Royale animation when using Last Standing option.
• Fixed the Victory Royale animation when using Last Standing option.
• Fixed an issue where games would not end if a player was spectating.
• Fixed an issue where joining players would occasionally be able to play a Creative game despite having exceeded respawn limits.
• Fixed an issue where players would occasionally return to the Creative Hub in Spectate Mode.
• Fixed an issue where players could go outside of the playspace of the Creative Hub.

Weapons + Items

• Chiller Grenade added to Creative alongside its release to Battle Royale.
• Removed Guided Missile.
• Fixed the Wood Resource quantity to be consistent with the other material resources in the Creative Consumables screen.
• Fixed an issue where the Six Shooter displayed incorrect rarity color in the Creative Weapons menu and game.
• Fixed an issue where some Balloons would remain stuck in the air after being equipped.

Creative Tools And Phone

• Added a drop indicator when holding copied prefab assets or props in the sky, to better predict drop placement.

Bug Fixes

• Fixed cases where players had Creative permissions on Islands they did not own or have rights to.
• Fixed an issue where sections of a prefab would disappear and reappear when copying with the Phone tool.
• Fixed an issue where the Phone tool would occasionally disappear upon ending a game on a Creative island.

Prefabs

• Added 6 Arctic Base Prefabs.
• Added Arctic Base Galleries
• Added a new Piano Key Gallery.
• Added a Music Blocks Gallery.
• Added an Ambient Gallery, which offers 8 color variance of Torches, Glow Sticks and Spotlights
• Added a Challenge Gallery, which are new elements that disappear when ran through by the player. More functionality coming in future updates.
• Added Random Chest and Ammo Box Gallery.
  • Spawn rates use the latest Battle Royale loot rates.
• Added Windmill to the Farmstead Gallery.
• Added additional Winter Village Building Color Gallery.
• Added a Challenge Gallery, which are new props that disappear when ran through by the player. More functionality coming in future updates.
• Torches now cast light with shadow casting disabled.

Devices

• New Starting Inventory Device added,
  • Allows you to choose what players start within their inventory during games. Works just like the Item
    • Spawner except items are not spawned but added to the player’s inventory at the start of games.
    • Assign a team to the device to give items to a specific team only.
• New Barrier Zone added.
  • This is a zone you can place that creates collision barriers that prevent players from moving past them.
• New Movement Modulator added.
  • Allows you to change the speed of a player or vehicle
  • Speed options are Super Slow, Very Slow, Slow, Normal, Fast, Very Fast, Super Fast
  • You can set a duration in seconds 3, 5, 10, 20, 30, 60, 120.
• When an Item Spawner has finished spawning all of its items during a game, its visual effects turn off to indicate it’s dormant.

Bug Fixes

• Fixed an issue causing Item Spawners to stop spawning new items if the item it spawned was combined with a nearby pickup of the same type.
• Removed extraneous stats from vehicle spawner devices.
• Sentries will no longer reload infinitely when running out of their range.
• Duplicate Sentry has been removed from Traps.
• Fixed the Christmas Tree that was appearing in prefabs that would shrink when grabbed by the Phone.
• Fixed an issue with the Ice Cliffs were they would lose collision when grabbed by the Phone.
• Fixed an issue with the Elimination Zone where the visual effects would not rotate with the trap.
• Fixed an issue where the Elimination Zone displayed an incorrect mesh upon placement.
• Fixed an issue where the Elimination Zone visual effects were not displayed correctly when the boundary limit was changed.
• Fixed an issue with the Elimination Zone where the boundary settings would occasionally return to default.
• Fixed an issue where players could not attach the Elimination Zone to walls.
• Fixed an issue where players with invincibility settings were not affected by the Elimination Zone.
• Fixed an issue where players who were down-but-not-out were unaffected by the Elimination Zone.
• Fixed an issue where traps were not destroyed after harvesting the floor underneath them.
• Fixed an issue where the effects from the Ice Block trap would trigger before players stepped onto the tile.
• Fixed an issue where adjacent Sentries were destroyed when damaging one with a Sniper Rifle in a Creative game.
• Fixed an issue where the lantern from the Lucky Landing Gallery would fall through the map when attempting to paste it in a Creative island.
• Fixed an issue where the vines from the Nature Snow Gallery and the Nature Shrub Gallery would fall out of the map when attempting to paste them in a Creative island.

UI

Bug Fixes

• Fixed an issue where elimination counts would not be correct for other teammates when playing in large team modes, Playgrounds, and Creative mode.
• Fixed a crash related to Player Suggestions.
• Fixed an additional potential input loss that could result from receiving a gift while viewing the Add Friends screen.
• Fixed an issue where “Victory Royale” would occasionally fail to display at the end of a Creative game.
• Fixed an issue where “Victory Royale” would occasionally be presented to the wrong player after a Creative game ends.
• Fixed an issue where vehicles were displaying the damage stats of traps in the UI.
• Fixed overlapping Seat Switch and Rotate buttons on the mobile platform.
• Fixed an issue with a settings tooltip getting cut off screen.
• Fixed an issue where mobile players did not have a dedicated button to fly downward, in Create mode.
• Fixed an issue where players were prompted to ‘edit’ player built structures even though the setting to Block Building in Game was turned on.
• Fixed an issue where players were shown build previews on player built structures though the Block Building in Game was turned on.

Performance

• Optimized performance when using the Phone.
• Fixed an issue where players would run into low frame rate and instability when placing a lot of torches, from the Castle prefab, in a small area.

Save The World

X-Ray Llamas

Quiet Please! I am seeing! Take a peek inside the new X-Ray Llamas.

Spectral Blade

Cleave through enemies…with a ghostly slash! Earn the Spectral Blade by completing this week’s Frostnite Challenge.

Missions And Systems

• Weekly Frostnite Challenge 5: Uncharted Territory
  • No maps or mini-maps.
    • Survive for 30 minutes three times to collect the Week 5 Challenge Banner.
    • Survive for 30 minutes to earn the Spectral Blade.
  • Available on January 30 at 7 PM Eastern Time.
• Caches have been removed from Chests in Frostnite.

Bug Fixes

• Increased the drop rate of quest items in the Canny Valley quest “Ray on a Rooftop”.
• “Liner Notes” and “Encore” quest items now also spawn in higher-difficulty theaters.

UI

• X-Ray llamas have arrived!
  • Llamas in the X-Ray tab of the Item Shop will show all of their contents and upgrades without requiring a purchase.
  • X-Ray Llamas must be purchased one at a time.
  • X-Ray Llama contents will reset when the daily store refreshes.
  • Note: Choice packs will not appear in X-Ray Llamas.
• New ammo icons in the inventory screen.
• Updated the onboarding announcement popup to show a message informing players to bind any missing keybinds.
• Updated the Repair the Shelter mission to only show the current health bar that is taking damage in the world instead of showing both the Shield and Shelter at the same time.
  • Shelters health bars are now visible from across the map.
• Players can now craft certain items in bulk.

Bug Fixes

• Fixed cases where players could get stuck at the end game screen when leaving a SSD mission in the middle of a game.
• Fixed Ceiling Gas Trap damage numbers all appearing as critical hits after the first critical hit.
• Fixed a layout issue on the “Add To Collection” confirmation dialog if there are a large number of recycled items being returned to the player.
• Fixed a bug where players who were far away from the End of Match screen when the match ended would not see the screen correctly.
• Fixed an issue where the Frostnite Exploration quest would not display a notification when the player completed the quest.
• Fixed an issue where the Storm visual effects would not stop, even if the Storm Mission ended.
• Allow Crafting Options dialog to craft Deliver The Bomb Tracks.
• Fixed an issue that prevented Auto Slotting when leveling Survivors from the Survivor Inspect Screen.
• Fixed the HUD vote timer not disappearing correctly in some situations.
• Fixed an issue with scroll focus being lost when leveling an item in the collection book.
• Fixed the details panel on the Llama reward summary to show the acquired amount of stackable rewards rather than the player’s total amount.
• Selecting a message on the Team Chat radial no longer opens the Menu when switching to the Team chat channel.
• Fixed an issue allowing players to build through the Deliver the Bomb launcher.
• Fixed an issue in the Deliver the Bomb mission which allowed enemies to walk through the Depot and Launcher.
• Fixed an initial selection problem when entering the Perk Recombobulator using keyboard and mouse.

Performance

Bug Fixes

• Fixed a hitch when navigating between Mission map nodes on the Mission Select map.

Heroes

• Several Heroes from past events have been added to the Collection Book.
  • This update includes Heroes who were previously only available in the Event Store and some quest Heroes.
  • Heroes from the Event store and Quests can be slotted, but cannot be recycled. These Heroes will not consume inventory space on your account.

Bug Fixes

• When taking damage from the Wild Rift, the character should now play the correct flinch animations.
• Fixed an issue that caused the Ice King to have an incorrect pose in the lobby.
• Fixed an incorrect tooltip with Lynx Kassandra
  • She is now properly classified as the Fleetfoot subclass with updated descriptions.
• Fixed a bug where Lynx Kassandra was playing the wrong idle animation in the main menu.
• Fixed an issue that granted players 30% building reduction instead of 20% with the perks Preplanning and Creative engineering.

Weapons And Items

• Added Bulk Crafting.
  • Now multiple traps, ammo, and ingredients (Blast Powder and Duct Tape) can be crafted at the same time by selecting a quantity in the crafting interface.
    • These are crafted all at once, taking a single craft time to produce.
  • Players can also bulk craft Downtiered items
• Added Grenade and Rocket launchers to the list of possible results for the Ranged Weapon Transform Key and the Weapon Transform Key.
  • This includes the Hydraulic and Scavenger Launchers).
• The Jabberwocky Launcher has been added to the Weekly Store
  • Fires cannonballs that explode and break into three more explosive mini-cannonballs.
  • Available on January 30 at 7 PM Eastern Time until February 6 at 7 PM Eastern Time.
• The Spectral Blade Sword will be available as a Frostnite Weekly Challenge reward.
  • Deals high sustained damage, with moderate impact.
  • Spectral Slash – Warp to the targeted enemy performing a spectral cleave, dealing heavy area damage which may stagger smaller enemies.
• Leap Attack can now be used in the air and correctly interrupts basic attacks when used.

Bug Fixes

• Fixed not being able to drop Remote Explosives that are out of ammo.
• Items removed from the Collection Book will now grant PERK-UP & RE-PERK when recycled or reset.
• Recycling or resetting Common/Uncommon/Rare schematics will only grant PERK-UP & RE-PERK from the perks that are actually available/visible on the item.
• Hit Markers should no longer show up when shooting anything that cannot be damaged.
• The Cozy Campfire Trap will now heal multiple players simultaneously.
• The Tier 1 Dragon’s Might Shotgun now shoots the correct projectiles.

Gameplay

• All Players now receive a message when a Storm Chest has been discovered.
• Storm lightning strikes will now damage objects they hit, instead of destroying them.
• Patrol Wards now protect against Storm lightning strikes.

Bug Fixes

• The Storm Shield now has the same transparency between all Save The World game modes.
• Traps placed in the Storm Shield will now correctly store their durability when exiting and re-entering the Storm.
• Prevented the camera from going below the water surface when looking downward.
• When fighting the Storm King with a controller, the aim-assist will lean towards any weak spots, if able.

Art And Animation

• The Tail of the Dragon Perk visuals has been updated for the trail of energy AOE that persist in the world.

Bug Fixes

• Fixed Canny Valley undeployed telescopes changing to deployed visuals after being hit.
• Fixed an issue with certain Rocket Launchers not showing explosions whenever hitting the ground in Frostnite.
• Corrected an issue where some elemental Rocket Launchers were losing their muzzle flashes.

Social

Bug Fixes

• Fixed an issue that caused players in other game modes to not be able to properly join a party through an invite.

Audio

• Updated the Frontend Map sound
  • Storm and lightning now have sound.
  • Added more ambient sound for the Command, Heroes, and Armory tabs.

Bug Fixes

• Music no longer restarts when switching tabs in the Item Shop.
• Fixed an issue with the audio effects for the transformation of Lars’ van playing twice.
• Fixed audio temporarily cutting out after skipping intro cinematics.

General

• Added notification sounds for matchmaking that can play even when the game is inactive or minimized. This can be configured under “Allow Background Audio” in the settings menu.

Bug Fixes

• Adjusted the timing code for automatic weapons to reduce the effect that frame rates have on fire rates.
• Fixed an issue where some car destruction visual effects were not rotated properly, causing the car’s position to visibly jump once the car was destroyed.
• Fixed an issue preventing building repair animations from fully playing in some cases when being damaged and repaired simultaneously.
• The “leafy” particle effects no longer permanently remain on players after moving through corn fields.
• Fixed an issue where some audio sources would be audible over shorter distances than other platforms.

Performance

• Switch Optimization (Battle Royale + Creative)
  • Moved to a more efficient memory allocator on Switch; significantly reducing crashes due to out of memory.
  • Reduced hitches on Switch caused by garbage collection.
  • Improved level streaming performance on Switch, speeding up building load times.
  • Increased texture pool size on Switch by 100MB to reduce issues with blurry textures.
  • GPU performance improvements for Switch – improved screen resolution.
  • Doubled the limit for the number of cosmetics that can be displayed on the screen as we now have more free memory.
• Mobile Optimizations (Battle Royale + Creative)
  • Enabled 60 FPS mode:
    • Samsung Galaxy Note 9 (USA variant)
    • Huawei Honor View 20
    • Huawei Mate 20 X
• Enabled client-side prediction for high-end mobile devices in order to reduce networking/movement correction hitches.
• Optimized most weapon-based projectiles.