Category: Games

The name Liao has been present in Overwatch lore since 2016, leading to much speculation about who the sixth Overwatch founder is. A tweet from the official Overwatch account has broadcast a screenshot of the “Personal Log of Dr. Mina Liao”–finally giving the character a full name.

From the log, we can now gather that Mina Liao is an artificial intelligence researcher who worked on the Athena prototype.

Earlier this year, Overwatch lead writer Michael Chu tweeted a response to a fan’s questions about Liao, stating that they were “definitely still an important character.”

For years Liao’s gender was unknown, and for some time the character was assumed to be an unidentified male character in an artwork tied to Ana’s release. It’s still possible that the unidentified white-haired woman on the cover of the cancelled Overwatch graphic novel First Strike could have been Mina Liao.

While this teaser could just be an expansion of the game’s lore, it’s likely that the cryptic tweet is leading towards the release of a new hero. Fans have speculated that it’s most likely to be Echo, a robotic character who was first teased over a year ago. It’s possible that Dr. Mina Liao could be a playable character herself, however.

Blizzard is currently in development on Overwatch 2, which is still without a release date but will come to PC, Switch, PS4 and Xbox One when it’s ready. It’s unclear whether Overwatch will release any new content for the base game before the sequel is released.

Doom Eternal, which releases on March 20, will not have a traditional deathmatch mode, and is instead shipping with its own unique twist on multiplayer: Battle Mode. Deathmatch was the most maligned part of Doom 2016, but since the original 1993 Doom essentially created the mode, some might wonder why the latest game in the series would abandon it.

Now, in an interview with Shacknews, Bethesda VP of public relations Pete Hines has explained why Doom Eternal has done away with deathmatch. Hines gave a decisive answer when asked if he was “concerned” about the mode not being in the game: “No. That mode is eons old.”

Hines recalls how deathmatch in Doom 2016 was handled by another studio, and ultimately did not fit with the tone of the game: “(It) felt really disconnected from the base game that everybody loved.” Hines indicated that there was a disparity between single-player and multiplayer in that game. “”Whether you’re playing by yourself or with others, we want it to feel like you’re all playing the same game.” That’s as opposed to, “I’m a badass demon slayer in single-player, but when I go over to multiplayer, there are no demons, and it’s just deathmatch.””

“I don’t know what that has to do with [Doom] other than that, well, a couple of decades ago we had that, so we should just have that again,” he says.

Hines believes that Battle Mode is a much better fit for what Doom has become. “For the Doom Slayer, it’s the same experience you know [from the campaign] with the added complexity of playing against humans who are controlling the arena and adding to the challenges you have,” he says. “There’s still an AI element, obviously, but what a player can come up with and throw at you can be far more interesting.”

If you’re wondering whether you’ll be able to experience Doom Eternal on your PC, here are the minimum and recommended specs. Doom Eternal will release at a later date on Switch.

Fast & Furious: Crossroads, the new Fast & Furious game announced during the 2019 Game Awards, could be facing a delay. The game was due to release in May 2020 to coincide with the release of the next movie in the series, F9, but that film has now been delayed into 2021 due to concerns over cinema attendance in the wake of COVID-19 (coronavirus).

Codemasters is now assessing whether Crossroads will move its release date, too. In a statement, the company clarified that the launch of the game is now “uncertain,” although that does not necessarily mean that it will be delayed. “Provided the company releases the F&F Game in Q1 of FY21, the Board anticipates that the later release date of the F9 Film will not have a material impact on its financial expectations for FY21,” the statement says.

“A further announcement will be made in due course to confirm the release date of the F&F Game, following discussions with Bandai Namco Entertainment Europe and Universal Games and digital platforms,” it continues.

This is purposefully uncertain language, but it seems that the benefits of releasing the game early are being weighed against the benefits of delaying it.

COVID-19 continues to disrupt gaming events worldwide, including E3, but very few games have had their releases delayed. The Switch version of The Outer Worlds will now arrive later than expected, however.

The last Fast and Furious game was 2015’s Forza Horizon 2 Presents: Fast & Furious, which is no longer available to purchase.

The Division 2 will go into weekly maintenance on Tuesday, March 17, starting at 4:30 AM ET / 1:30 AM PT for around 3 hours, on PS4, Xbox One, and PC. According to the patch notes, this update will fix issues that players have reported as part of the game’s Warlords of New York expansion, which rolled out in early March.

One of the most substantial bugs that has plagued the game since that launch involves players manually resetting seasonal manhunts, with some players reporting that they lost progress, or the game failed to properly calculate it. This update disables the ability for players to reset the manhunts until publisher Ubisoft can develop a final fix for later in March. It also fixes an issue where certain encounters were giving players too many keys.

The Division 2’s Warlords of New York expansion added new maps to the game’s New York City environment and a totally-overhauled gear and power system, as well as raising the level cap to 40. It costs $30.

Full patches notes below:

• We are temporarily disabling the ability to reset seasonal manhunts to prevent lost progression towards a manhunt. This is a temporary solution while we are working on a more permanent fix meant to release later in March. Once the final fix is implemented, we will reactive the ability to reset manhunts.
• Fixed a progression blocker where an NPCs became stuck at the last stage in Castle Clinton.
• Fixed an issue that granted an incorrect number of Specialization Points pr. SHD level.
• Fixed an issue where blue quality items dropped from regular NPCs in the DZ regardless of player max level.
• Fixed an issue where players would gain multiple seasonal caches.
• Fixed an issue with seasonal cache rewards becoming contaminated if players leveled in the season whilst in the DZ.
• Fixed an issue that prevented players from gaining seasonal XP from DZ activities.
• Fixed an issue where enemy NPCs would disappear at The Nest Control Point, halting progress at the “defend stage”.
• Fixed an issue that prevented completion of The Nest Control Point on challenging difficulty.
• Fixed an issue that would cause some NPCs to be stuck at spawn in various Control Points.
• Fixed some puzzle reset issues on all Hunter encounters.
• Fixed an issue causing Hunter encounters to give too many keys.
  • If you received too many keys, you won’t receive new keys until your completed encounters match your amount of keys.

Digital Extremes has delivered a massive update to console versions of the popular multiplayer shooter Warframe. Dubbed “Warframe Revised,” the update first hit PC at the beginning of March, and it totally overhauls major aspects of the game from the ground up.

In the extremely lengthy patch notes, Digital Extremes details how it has changed or reworked many of the game’s major systems. This includes the Rising Tide quest, which was added late last year, and allowed players to build their very own Railjack ship. The team behind the game felt that only a tiny portion of their most hardcore players were finishing it, so they’ve reduced the costs on the quests by large percentages. The update also scrunched the game’s size considerably, from 48 GB to 29 GB on PS4.

This is all part of Digital Extremes’ plan to improve Warframe over the course of the year, especially by making it more accessible to new players. Since it first came out in 2013, Warframe has become one of the most successful online shooters out there. In our 2019 review, our critic Alessandro Fillari noted the game’s many improvements.

“While there are inevitable bouts of frustration here and there, I always manage to center myself once I move on to other opportunities. In a lot of ways, that’s what Warframe manages to do best. One moment you’re taking part in a random spy mission on Saturn, and the next, you’re partnered up with a powerful squad of players that help you through several void fissures. Just when you feel like you’ve hit a lull, a better, and more fulfilling opportunity will likely present itself. Perhaps most importantly, Warframe makes sure that the time spent in its world is almost always well rewarded.”