Category: Games

Rockstar Games has revealed the next big update coming to Grand Theft Auto Online, and it’s all about cars. The Los Santos Tuners update goes live on July 20, and it focuses on the “underground tuner scene” across Los Santos.

The expansion adds new missions and races and what’s known as the LS Car Meet, which is a new social gathering where players can get together and show off their whips. The Meet is located at a “non-descript, graffitied warehouse” in Cypress Flats. You can spot it by listening for the sound of revving engines or by looking for a finish line that’s painted on the road outside it.

The LS Car Meet includes a Reputation progression system that lets you unlock new “benefits” with each level. You also get access to a test track where you can race without needing to worry about crashing into pedestrians or getting chased by the police. This space also lets you try out new cars before buying them.

You can spend GTA $50,000 to become a “member” of the LS Car Meet to get access to “Prize Ride” challenges that may reward you with a special car, along with access to the merch shop, the tattoo shop, and a modding area to show off your custom creations.

As for the new races, the Los Santos Tuners update introduces a new head-to-head series, a “Scramble” event where up to four players race to reach 20 checkpoints, and time trials for players competing for the fastest times. Outside of the test track, there are new street races through famous Los Santos neighborhoods, along with a new “pursuit” type of race where you compete against fellow drivers while the police are coming after you. Another type of race, Sprint, has players racing to various checkpoints against up to three other drivers.

Another component to the Los Santos Tuners update is a new commodity known as Reputation. You can earn this by taking part in and winning races, checking out the test track, hanging out in the car meet, or simply logging into the game. Reputation can be spent on new gear and car customization options, among other things.

The Los Santos Tuners update also adds new cars, including the Annis, Dinka, and Ubermacht. In total, there are 17 new cars on the way, 10 of which will be released on July 20, with the rest coming later. Rockstar also mentioned that some vehicles have special upgrades that are only available on the upcoming PS5 and Xbox Series X|S editions of GTA Online that release in November. More details about this will be shared later, Rockstar said.

Another new element of the update is a “Meet Up” event rewards everyone with a special Los Santos Customs t-shirt. All you have to do is log in to GTA Online. You can get the Los Santos Tour jacket by taking part in any Impromptu race.

Rockstar also mentioned that anyone who steals and sells a vehicle to LS Customs in Freemode will get the new Los Santos Customs coveralls clothing.

Finally, the developer said the Los Santos Tuners update will have new robbery-themed contracts involving high-speed getaways, and more details will be announced next week. A “familiar face” from The Music Locker is also set to appear, Rockstar teased.

It’s not just GTA Online that continues to get big updates, as Rockstar also just released the major Blood Money update for Red Dead Online that invites players to be their bad selves.

Atlus has uploaded its official story trailer for Shin Megami Tensei V, detailing the various allies, factions, and battles you’ll encounter in the game’s campaign. Like previous games in the series, Shin Megami Tensei V is set in a demon-infested world where players have to make hard choices, turn enemies into comrades who can assist you in battle, and explore the expansive world of post-apocalyptic Tokyo.

This version of the game is built around the Press Turn Battle System, which Atlus says allows for players to pinpoint enemy weaknesses so they can perform consecutive actions, but there’s a high price to pay for any mistakes.

Atlus has been teasing Shin Megami Tensei V since 2017, eventually announcing the game in last year’s July Nintendo Direct Mini presentation. Shin Megami Tensei V is scheduled to release worldwide exclusively for the Nintendo Switch on November 12. Like several other upcoming games from Atlus and its parent Sega, Shin Megami Tensei V is part of a strategy to bring the studio’s games to a wider audience much sooner.

In other Atlus news, the studio took to Twitter this week to tease not just one but several new Persona announcements, which will roll out over the course of a year.

Christopher Judge, the voice actor of God of War’s Kratos, will be lending his voice to King T’Challa/Black Panther in Marvel’s Avengers when the War for Wakanda expansion launches later this year.

As reported by EW, Judge shared his reservations of taking on the role, especially following the death of Chadwick Boseman, the star who played Black Panther in the Marvel Cinematic Universe.

“I turned it down straight away,” Judge said. “There’s many Black Panthers, but I really didn’t believe that anyone should ever do T’Challa again [after Boseman]. The actual talks proceeded and, basically, I wound up doing it because my mother and my children said if I didn’t do it, they would disown me.” As EW puts it, a “bellow of laughter in his recognizably resonant timbre erupts at that thought.”

“To be quite honest, I was fearful of being compared to what Chadwick had so wonderfully done,” Judge continued. “The only way I could really wrap my head around it was to not even attempt a voice match, to let my performance stand on its own. I put all that into it and hopefully people like it.”

Judge worked with Beth McGuire, the dialect coach on the MCU’s Black Panther film, and she helped him find the right Wakandan accent for this role, which is a more higher-pitched voice than he is used to. Judge joked about his signature deep voice, saying that he has “the ultimate respect for true voiceover actors because they have a catalog of voices. I pretty much have this.”

Judge also loved exploring the question of what a technologically advanced nation like Wakanda owes other people.

“How much aid do you give to others? How much do you involve yourself in others’ conflicts?” He asks aloud.

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On his performance, Judge shared that, during recordings, there were things “going on emotionally that I was able to tap into.”

“There were days when…” He goes silent for moment. Tears begin to well up. “…things had gone on in the country, world, specifically Chadwick’s passing… We just talked,” Judge says of game’s crew. “We didn’t record the full session because there was so much hurt. The ability to talk to people who I’ve never met, I’ve never met them face to face, it’s all been over Zoom. To have just conversations when conversations were tough, if not impossible to have after some things, uh, was a real lifeline, it really was. To be able to tap into other’s frame of reference was really important through a lot of this process.”

Evan Narcisse, the writer of Marvel Comics’ Rise of the Black Panther and narrative consultant for the War for Wakanda expansion, is also doubling down on the idea that this will be its own iteration of the “Black Panther mythos,” and will not try to recreate what has already been done.

“I want to double down on the idea that this is its own iteration of the Black Panther mythos,” Narcisse said. “Even if you know the comics and can quote the movie by heart, there are still going to be some surprises.”

Considering the story of War of Wakanda take place five years after Marvel’s Avengers’ A-Day event, this story is already in a much different place than the comics or films.

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Spoilers ahead for Marvel’s Avengers.

Wakanda and King T’Challa were in talks with Steve Rogers/Captain America before his death on A-Day to ally with the Avengers, but following the sad events, Wakanda closed off its borders to the world. In the DLC, T’Challa has no choice but to fight following A.I.M. and MODOK hiring Ulysses Klaw to procure vibranium.

“[Klaw] has a personal vendetta against Wakanda that I don’t want to spoil. It’s different than the comics,” teases Hannah McLeod, War for Wakanda’s narrative lead. “We’ll say he has this sonic technology he developed that is used specifically to make vibranium tech vulnerable, but it also has this issue where it causes corruption in vibranium. That corrupt vibranium is starting to sprout all over the earth, which is why the Avengers get involved.”

Further adding to the differences from the comics and films, T’Challa is “older and a little bit more wisened” than we usually see him. He isn’t just coming into the role of Black Panther or dealing with the immediate death of his father.

“Chadwick’s performance was somebody who had more questions about how to perform the role of Black Panther and king. This version doesn’t have those questions,” Narcisse says. “He already thinks he has all the answers. I think one of the cool things in this expansion is there’s tension between him and Shuri” — his tech-savvy sister — “like we haven’t seen before about how best to move Wakanda forward.”

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According to EW, the War for Wakanda expansion “runs more than 25 hours.” This would make it more than double the length of Marvel’s Avengers’ main story, which lasts an average of 11.5 hours via HowLongToBeat.com. IGN has reached out to Sqaure Enix for clarification on that point.

The story will feature new adversaries that include two central villains, a “robust cast of Wakandans” like the Dora Milaje and sorcerer Zawavari, locations like Shuri’s laboratory and the Wakandan War room, new missions for the Drop Zone and Threat Sector, and more.

As for the story itself, McLeod teases that Narcisse’s The Rise of Black Panther has had a huge influence on this story, which will focus on T’Challa’s history and family.

“We really wanted that focus on family but [also] potential conflicts in family,” McLeod notes. “If your family doesn’t all have the same goals anymore, what does that look like?”

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The War for Wakanda expansion for Marvel’s Avengers will arrive in August 2021 and is part of the game’s 2021 Content Roadmap that will also include Omega-Level Threat Missions, Multiplayer Mega, Hives, Post-Level 50 Progression, and more.

Black Panther will also arrive before Spider-Man makes his way into Marvel’s Avengers on PlayStation consoles.

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Have a tip for us? Want to discuss a possible story? Please send an email to [email protected].

Adam Bankhurst is a news writer for IGN. You can follow him on Twitter @AdamBankhurst and on Twitch.

The latest Call of Duty: Black Ops Cold War update seemingly added support for the PS5 DualSense controller’s adaptive triggers feature on PC.

Support for DualSense controllers on PC including haptic feedback has been reported around Reddit, YouTube, and social media, though the official Season 4 Reloaded patch notes don’t mention anything about it. Apparently, trigger haptics are only supported when the DualSense controller is connected to PC via cable and not wirelessly.

The PC settings menu for Black Ops Cold War on PC now specifically mentions trigger haptics, as you can see in the image below shared on Reddit (via Eurogamer). A video further down the page shows the trigger haptics feature running in a game setting.

Black Ops Cold War’s adaptive triggers with the DualSense controller make weapons feel different in your hands depending on what gun you’re using and how you’re firing it.

“So when you’re pulling the trigger, it’s shaking, every time a gun fires there is a little motor in there that’s firing every time,” Treyarch’s Tony Flame said. “There is sensitivity on the trigger that represents the trigger pressure on a real weapon. All of that has been tuned in the game for each individual weapon. So it’s quite a lot to take in, but it’s pretty awesome, and it gives the guns a feeling like they’ve never had before.”

The adaptive trigger feature for Black Ops Cold War has been available on PS5 (and wirelessly) since launch.

The Black Ops Cold War and Warzone Season 4 Reloaded update is a big one. It adds a new round-based map for Zombies called Mauer der Toten, while Warzone gets its first-ever objective-based mode in the form of Payload. Black Ops Cold War’s multiplayer offering, meanwhile, now has a paintball mode. For more, check out the full Season 4 Reloaded patch notes.

Pokemon Unite, the first strategic team battle game MOBA for the series, will release on July 21 for Nintendo Switch, The Pokemon Company has announced. Additionally, it was announced that everyone who logs into the free-to-play game by August 31 will get Zeraora to use. The freebie offer will eventually be available on mobile when the game is released there.

Zeraora is an electric-type Pokemon that can do “massive damage in the blink of an eye.” Zeraora’s special Unite move emits an electric blast that puts out plasma.

Pokemon Unite is also coming to mobile devices, but not until September. There will be cross-play between the Switch and mobile editions of the game. Cross-progression is available, too, by logging in using your Nintendo Account or Pokemon Trainer Club account.

Pokemon Unite is set on Aeos Island, which is the home to the Unite Battle Committee. This group organizes Unite Battle tournaments that players take part in. Teams of five battle against each other to rack up the most points before the clock runs out.

To get points, players gather Aeos energy by defeating other Pokemon and then putting the energy into one of the opposing team’s designated zones. There are multiple battle stadiums in the game, and each has its own unique rules that determine things like match length and what types of Pokemon will appear.

Pokemon Unite has a ranked matchmaking system that starts with the Beginner Cup and advances up to Master Cup. There is also a global leaderboard so you can see how your statistics match up with the rest of the playerbase.

You can dress their Pokemon in different clothing, and you can customize the look of their trainer, too, with different clothing and accessories. Pokemon Unite also has a seasonal battle pass that gets you various rewards for use in the game.

Pokemon Unite has an in-game shop that accepts three types of currency, including Aeos gems, which are paid for with real money. There are also Aeos coins and Aeos tickets. Coins and tickets are available simply for playing the game, and they can be spent on “licenses” that allow you to partake in the Unite Battles. There is an Aeos Emporium shop that accepts coins and gems where you can buy cosmetic items and more.

If Pokemon Unite doesn’t seem like your speed, The Pokemon Company is also developing a new RPG called Pokemon Legends: Arceus for release in 2022 on Switch.