Category: Games

Blizzard recently launched Hearthstone‘s Forged in the Barrens expansion, and the first balance patch of the new season will take aim at the game’s most annoying card, Pen Flinger. The 20.0.2 patch also makes a big change to major Mage and Paladin cards, and makes the new expansion’s Outpost cards a little less hearty.

The Pen Flinger card is likely to get the most attention for its sheer trolling. The card was part of the Scholomance Academy set, and it’s modeled after the worst kid in your high school class. As the name implies, it flings pens for 1 damage, shouting “Hey, Loser!” as it enters play, and then gets bounced back into your hand as a Spellburst effect with an innocent-sounding “Wasn’t me!” With two Pen Flingers in your opponent’s hand, you would often hear “Hey, Loser! Hey, Loser! Wasn’t me! Wasn’t me!” several times in a single turn.

The problem, as Blizzard identifies, is that it was a little too versatile, and low-cost spells like various Rogue cards or the Paladin’s Librams made it effective at chipping down health and taking over the entire story of a game. Since it can bounce back into your opponent’s hand, they can control if it’s left vulnerable on the board, and savvy players would just never give you any opportunity to remove it. So you could have a game where Pen Flinger slowly chips away your life, calling you a loser all the while, and there’s very little you could do to answer it. With the change, it will only be able to damage minions, not heroes–making it a very efficient tool but removing its ability to act as a game-finisher. Who’s the loser now?

Another big change is coming to Deck of Lunacy, a Mage card that has been the centerpiece of a popular Lunacy deck lately. The nerf makes it cost 4 Mana instead of 2 Mana, meaning it can still act as a wild game-changing effect, but it requires more investment and can’t shift the tide quite so early in the game. Similarly, the Mage/Rogue card Jandice Barov is having its cost increased from 5 Mana to 6 Mana, since the rotation of the new expansion cycled out some weaker 5-cost minions it could have summoned and made the overall pool stronger.

Some new Forged in the Barrens cards are also getting nerfed, after only a few weeks in play. Those include the Paladin weapon Sword of the Fallen, which is having its durability reduced from 3 to 2; Far Watch Outpost, which is having its health reduced from 4 to 3; and Mor’shan Watch Post, which is having its health reduced from 5 to 4. Of those, the Paladin change is likely the biggest, since it enables a Secret Paladin deck that has been ruling the meta recently.

Forged in the Barrens is the first of this year’s storyline that will center on new mercenary characters, with a separate Mercenaries mode coming later this year. For more on Hearthstone, check out our interview with Blizzard’s designers on how they reimagined the classic dragon cards.

Hearthstone 20.0.2 Patch Bug Fixes & Game Improvements

• Fixed a bug where Sunwell Initiate’s Divine Should could not be silenced.
• Fixed a bug where Shadowjeweler Hanar could Discover secrets from outside of Standard in Ranked Standard.
• Fixed a bug where the Battlecry for Reckless Apprentice would not apply the Freeze effect from Ice Walker.
• Fixed a bug where the Battlecry for Reckless Apprentice would still trigger if the Hero Power was disabled.
• Fixed a bug where playing Wildfire before Metamorphosis could cause your original Hero Power to gain an extra damage.
• Fixed a bug where Lakkari Felhound could discard newly drawn cards, such as when played in sequence with Hand of Gul’dan.
• Fixed a bug where Celestial Alignment would work inconsistently with cards that reduce mana costs, such as Librams or Cutting Class.
• Fixed a bug with Kazakus, Golem Shaper where the Firebloom ability could target the same minion twice.
• Fixed a visual bug where G’huun the Blood God would leave the blood drop mana cost icon behind when played.
• Fixed a bug where casting Twisting Nether into Oh My Yogg! would not allow for more cards to be played.
• Fixed a bug where the VFX for certain spells would continuously play after being transformed by Oh My Yogg!
• Fixed a bug where Pit Master would appear in Collection results when filtering for Nature cards.
• Fixed a bug where Holy Wrath was not tagged as a Holy spell.
• Fixed a bug where Dragon’s Pack had the Nature spell school tag. It is no longer part of a spell school.
• Fixed a Battlegrounds bug where Minions could show an outline of their Tavern Tier icon when played.
• Updated the appearance rate of cards in Arena to ensure class balance remains close to the ideal 50% win-rate. Specifically, the win-rate of Demon Hunter and Priest should now be decreased. The win-rate of Druid, Hunter, Rogue, and Shaman should now be increased.
• Removed Far Watch Post, Mor’Shan Watch Post, Crossroads Watch Post, and Kargal Battlescar from Arena.
• Fixed a bug where the Arena could fail to load properly for new players.
• Fixed a bug where some Boomsday puzzles were causing desync issues.
• Fixed a bug with the Achievement It’ll Take More Than That where credit could be granted without playing the Warrior class.
• Fixed a bug with the Achievement Barrens Neutral Collector where incorrect Collection quotas were listed.
• Fixed a bug with the Achievement Final Frontier where progress would not be credited from discounted minions.
• Fixed a bug with the Achievement Do it for the Vines where Dual-Class cards would not count as progress.
• Fixed a visual bug where Achievement XP and end of match XP gains could show incorrect numbers but reward the correct amount of XP.
• Fixed a visual bug where, in some cases, XP gains benefitting from XP bonuses were not highlighting with a green font color.
• Fixed a visual bug where the Tavern Pass bonus XP displayed on the Achievement detail view would be incorrect.
• Fixed a bug where the mass disenchant preview would count some cards twice but would give the correct amount of dust when used.
• Fixed a bug where the disenchant button would glow regardless of whether there were extra cards to disenchant.
• Fixed a bug where some player ranks and rewards were not populating from the correct ladder on the friends list and elsewhere.
• Fixed a visual bug where names on the friends list could be overlapped by their rank, and where a friend’s rank would show even when they were offline.
• Fixed a bug where a star bonus would appear on the deck selection page for Legend ranks.
• Fixed a bug where an erroneous pop up would appear saying a Demon Hunter class pack was granted for completing the Ashes of Outland Prologue.
• Fixed a bug where the Hamuul Card Back would not show properly during pack opening.
• Fixed a bug where the Play button would always be highlighted in the main menu.
• Fixed a bug where players could become locked out from creating or deleting decks when they previously were not.
• Fixed a bug where “Click to Convert” would persist on decks regardless of what mode you’d swapped to.
• Fixed a bug where mousing over decks that are behind the “You have no Classic Decks. Go create one!” pane would show pop-up info.
• Fixed a bug where mousing over a Classic deck with the mode set to Casual would display a tooltip stating: “Not useable in Wild format”.
• Fixed a bug where players could re-roll into the Win 5 Games of Ranked Play Mode weekly quest after already completing it that week.
• Fixed a bug where the the Crossroads bundle and the Barrens Tavern Pass were showing incorrect art in the purchase window.
• Fixed a grammatical error in the card text for Warsong Wrangler.
• Fixed various translation issues across several languages.

Fortnite version 16.20 is just around the corner, and Epic has once again taken to Twitter to share the basic patch notes. As is often the case, players will want to dive in firsthand to see all that’s new, as the patch notes tend to only cover the broad strokes these days, but the Fortnite 16.20 patch notes still include reference to some fun new additions players have been waiting for.

Chief among them is probably the allusion to “new wheels,” which is likely a reference to the remodeled Whiplash car you may have caught in the Fortnite Season 6 launch trailer. Already the fastest car in the game, the Whiplash looks primed to be tricked out with new tires and suspension that should solve the car’s previous issues with offroad traction. The question remains, though, whether other new cars will be landing on the island as well. For now, we await the overnight update–or more likely the dataminers ahead of time.

Version 16.20 will also introduce a new bow-focused Duos Cup, though its proper name and start date have not yet been revealed. It sounds like it’s time to practice your accuracy with this season’s themed weapon.

The last major highlight is a new 50 versus 50 mode coming to Fortnite’s Creative hub. Like the rest of the patch notes, we’re still waiting to learn more about this when the update goes live tonight, a bit earlier than usual, mind you. Players can expect downtime to begin around 11 PM PT / 2 AM ET, and Epic warned that it will extend later than usual this time.

The patch will become available to download during the downtime and before the game comes back online, so if you have automatic updates applied, you should be good to go once the game comes back online tomorrow morning. You can find the full patch notes below.

Fortnite 16.20 Patch Notes

• Trick out your ride with new wheels
• Sharpen those bow skills and focus up for a special Duos Cup
• 50-player matchmaking in Creative

A new Spire Quest will also launch with the patch, and we’ll be sure to bring you a complete guide to that once it’s available.

A staff member at Raven Software who worked mostly on Call of Duty games for 14 years has left the studio. Senior executive producer Ryan Burnett announced on Twitter that Monday, April 12 is his last day at the studio. He did not say what his next job will be.

Burnett’s Linkedin page lists ten different Call of Duty games as projects he worked on, including Warzone, Black Ops 4, WWII, and Modern Warfare Remastered. He worked as a tech programmer before transitioning into a producer/project management role, where he slowly became more senior over his years with the company.

Though Raven Software first made a name for itself with first-person shooters like Heretic, Hexen, and Soldier of Fortune, it has served principally as a Call of Duty support studio since 2010. Back in 2019, reports suggested that Raven and fellow CoD developer Sledgehammer were slated to lead development on Call of Duty 2020, but those plans were scuttled and Treyarch was tapped to lead development. That game eventually became Call of Duty: Black Ops Cold War, with Treyarch and Raven co-developing.

In other Warzone news, the game’s ongoing zombie event continues to get worse. Players have seen the long-rumored nukes falling from the sky, but that was apparently just a bug. Additionally, a recent update added a new sniper rifle to both Cold War and Warzone.

Pokemon Go‘s new Friendship Day event is set for Saturday, April 24, developer Niantic has announced. The event runs from 11 AM to 2 PM local time and features increased spawns of Grass-type Pokemon, as well as a new Collection Challenge and various in-game bonuses.

Throughout Friendship Day, Grass Pokemon such as Chikorita, Tangela, Cottonee, Foongus, and others will appear in the wild much more frequently than normal. As previously mentioned, there will be a new Collection Challenge during the event as well. If you can complete the challenge before Friendship Day ends, you’ll earn 100,000 XP.

Niantic will also hold a Friendship Day Global Challenge during the event. This will be comprised of several hourly challenges, and each one you complete will net you 20,000 XP.

Rounding out Friendship Day will be various bonuses. First, any Incense and Lures you use during the event will remain active for three hours. You’ll also earn triple the usual amount of Stardust each time you capture a Pokemon. Finally, Niantic is increasing trading distance to 40 km for the event, and you’ll have a better chance of receiving a Lucky Pokemon from trades. You can read more details about the event on the official Pokemon Go blog.

In the meantime, Pokemon Go’s Rivals’ Week begins on April 13. Throughout that event, Pokemon known for their rivalries such as Hitmonlee, Hitmonchan, Seviper, Zangoose, and others will appear in the wild more frequently than usual. Niantic is also introducing a handful of new Pokemon as part of the event. The Gen 6 monsters Skrelp and Clauncher will be available for the first time, while Therian Forme Landorus will debut in five-star Raids.

The head of Cyberpunk 2077 studio CD Projekt Red is optimistic that the studio will be able to improve the game over time to help it continue to sell well for “years to come.” Studio head Adam Kicinski told Reuters that abandoning Cyberpunk 2077 is not an option.

“I don’t see an option to shelve Cyberpunk 2077,” he said. “We are convinced that we can bring the game to such a state that we can be proud of it and therefore successfully sell it for years to come.”

Cyberpunk 2077 released in December and received swift criticism in particular for its PS4/Xbox One versions that had many bugs, oddities, and other issues. The problems were so pronounced that the game was removed from sale on PlayStation Network–and it’s still absent.

The problems with Cyberpunk 2077 sparked bigger changes at CD Projekt Red. Going forward, the company has promised to showcase its future games on all platforms, instead of higher-end ones specifically. Additionally, CD Projekt Red says it will stay quiet for much longer on its new games, instead opting to show them off when they are closer to release.

Despite the issues with Cyberpunk 2077 at launch, the game sold 13 million copies right out of the gate to become one of the most successful RPG launches of all time. CD Projekt Red has released a handful of major updates so far to address the game’s issues, the latest of which, 1.2, contained more than 500 fixes.

While the full picture isn’t clear at the moment, commentary from CDPR management has suggested that the planned standalone Cyberpunk 2077 multiplayer game may no longer happen. Right now, CDPR is focused on fixing Cyberpunk 2077’s issues, and after that, the company plans to release the first of the game’s planned expansions.

The strange, multi-font, ever-changing logo for Marvel’s Loki works as a pretty good teaser for what the show is about, according to Loki himself, Tom Hiddleston.

Talking to Empire for the magazine’s June 2021 issue, Hiddleston refused to explain what the show is truly about, but pointed to the “shapeshifting logo” as a good indicator as to the show’s theme.

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“I think that shapeshifting logo might give you an idea that Loki, the show, is about identity, and about integrating the disparate fragments of the many selves that he can be, and perhaps the many selves that we are,” Hiddleston said. “I thought it was very exciting because I’ve always found Loki a very complex construct. Who is this character who can wear so many masks, and changes shape, and seems to change his external feeling on a sixpence?”

He also notes that Loki is the “quintessential shapeshifter” and that this means audiences are never quite sure if the Asgardian trickster god is a hero, villain, or anti-hero.

Loki is due to launch on Disney+ in June, and could well feature Lady Loki. While the first season is yet to air yet, reports suggest Loki season 2 is already in development.

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Matt Purslow is IGN’s UK News and Entertainment Writer. 

A remaster of Sonic Colors has been seemingly leaked by a German voiceover studio.

As discovered by Twitter account Gum | Kupo, German voiceover studio iksample had a listing for Sonic Colors Remastered, detailing that the studio worked on localization for the game in December 2020. You can see in the tweet below a screenshot from the listing, although since that posting iksample have removed the page from its website.

I found out that the German dubbing studio of the Sonic games dubbed Sonic Colours Remastered in 2020 :O
I’m excited now. @LennFennex
Source:https://t.co/vpUmHxUg65 pic.twitter.com/n4tj5ExLqk

— • Gum | Kupo (@Kutairo_) April 8, 2021

Sega has not officially announced a Sonic Colors remaster, and so this appears to be the first indication that the project may be in the works. And, should the project be real, it seems sensible to predict that it may have German localization, considering iksample’s location.

Additionally, French games retailer Sogamely currently features a pre-order page for Sonic Colors Ultimate for PS4. As leaks such as the infamous drop from Walmart ahead of E3 2018 show, retailers can know about unannounced games ahead of time. But retailers can and do get things wrong. As such, it’s worth waiting for any official announcement before assuming a Sonic Colors remaster is definitely in the works.

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Sonic Colors released in 2010 on Wii and Nintendo DS. Our review back then was impressed, calling it the “best Sonic game in 18 years”. If you prefer your blue hedgehog live action, though, then you’ll be pleased to hear about the movie sequel, Sonic the Hedgehog 2.

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Matt Purslow is IGN’s UK News and Entertainment Writer.