Category: Games

Halo: The Master Chief Collection‘s big Season 6 “Raven” update is coming this week, and now developer 343 Industries has clarified some important details about it.

This includes content that won’t be included in the update, such as the “Edge” map for Halo 3. This map was previously tested, but 343 is holding it back for now until it’s ready. That’s a bit of a bummer, but fans are still getting the new map Waterfall in Season 6. Both Edge and Waterfall come from the canceled free-to-play Halo Online game for Russia.

Gameplay footage from beta testers showed off the new Edge and Waterfall maps, and they both looked very impressive. They represent the first new DLC maps in more than a decade for Halo 3; fans are now only getting one, and only for Custom Games and not public matchmaking, but that’s still something to be excited about.

Another item that won’t launch with Season 6 is the long-awaited Custom Game Browser, which Microsoft previously said snowballed into a “crazy, huge complicated feature.” As a result, Microsoft is taking more time to get it ready for everyone.

Finally, the “View Model Offset” feature won’t make it into Season 6 at launch. This allows players to customize their view model. However, testing revealed that it was “not as robust as players had hoped,” so Microsoft is taking more time to address that feedback.

All three items could debut in MCC at some point in the future, either through another beta test or for everyone through an official update. “As we get closer to final with each feature and piece of content, we will make sure to shout from the rooftops when they are ready,” the developer said.

What’s more, 343 said players who are in the middle of seasonal challenges will want to complete them ASAP because Season 6’s release on April 7 will bring an end to Season 5.

343 also said mid-mission checkpoints and theater films are going to be impacted by the Season 6 launch, among other things. Mid-mission checkpoints for every game in Halo: MCC won’t work after the Season 6 update, which means players will need to start over. Additionally, all theater files that you made before Season 6 launches on April 7 will “become invalid,” 343 said.

“There is quite a bit of new content being added and various bug fixes require content rebuilds for this update. So please make sure to go in and record the videos you want before next Wednesday, April 7, when Season 6 and the MCC update are released!” 343 said.

Another important thing to note is that a “small subset” of players may notice their MCC matches now connect to different server regions. This is happening due to “some efficiency changes to our global infrastructure,” 343 said. “This should not result in noticeable changes to your game experience, but we wanted to give you a heads up since the server regions listed in the UI may change.” You can get around this if you want, as the game allows players to manually choose their preferred server region.

The Season 6 update for MCC also adds 100 tiers of new battle pass content for the game, along with a new feature called The Exchange. Check back soon with GameSpot for more, including the full patch notes, which should be published when the update goes live.

Three new Clash of Clans spin-offs are in development, mobile developer Supercell announced. In addition to continuing its support for the existing Clash games, the company debuted three more: Clash Quest, Clash Mini, and Clash Heroes.

In a blog post, the company outlined the three games. Clash Quest is an adventure strategy game that introduces massive bosses to the Clash franchise. The other two games are coming from Supercell Shanghai, a new studio founded in recent years. Those are Clash Mini, an auto-battler where you place “minis” on a chess-like grid, and Clash Heroes, a dungeon-crawler where you assemble a team of heroes.

The blog went on to note that these plans don’t impact development or support for existing Clash games, and that if the games don’t ultimately meet their standards they’re leaving the door open to killing the projects. The studio says it doesn’t usually share games that are this early in development but it wanted to start getting feedback from the Clash community. And it did note that it has other, non-Clash games in development as well.

“We want the community to know the different types of Clash games being worked on–these new games are nothing like prior Clash games,” the studio stated. “We want to focus on creating new ways of enjoying and playing with your favorite Clash characters, while deepening the world through new environments and gameplay experiences. That last part is key–we want to offer new ways of playing Clash and hope these games add on to your current gaming experience. Of course, there’s a chance you might not like these games–and that’s okay, it’s all good. We totally understand these are very different from Clash of Clans and Clash Royale. On top of offering a new Clash experience to current players, we want to broaden Clash to new audiences who haven’t experienced Clash before.”

Update (4/4/21) – Capcom has announced that Monster Hunter Rise has officially shipped 5 million units worldwide since its launch on March 26, 2021.

Original story follows.

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Monster Hunter Rise, the latest game in Capcom’s long-running series, has shipped four million copies in its first weekend, the developer has announced.

The new Monster Hunter game is currently only available on Nintendo Switch, meaning all copies sold so far are just for that platform. For comparison, Monster Hunter World shipped five million copies in three days, but across both Xbox One and PlayStation 4 platforms.

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As of December 31, 2020, Capcom had sold 66 million units of Monster Hunter games across the entire series. With these new figures taken into account, the series has now sold over 70 million copies.

2021 is a big year for Monster Hunter; Rise has launched to glowing reviews, and a second game – Monster Hunter Stories 2: Wings of Ruin – is set for release on July 9. Additionally, this year saw Monster Hunter adapted into a Hollywood movie. And in early 2022, Monster Hunter Rise will come to PC, too.

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

Warning: Full spoilers for The Walking Dead’s (new) Season 10 finale, “Here’s Negan,” follow…

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“I am sorry that I named a stupid baseball bat after you.”

Though the bulk of the material presented in this year’s six additional Season 10 episodes had a super-strong “this could have been an email” vibe, The Walking Dead smartly saved the best for last, delivering the Negan origin tale most fans have been wanting for years – especially since the “All Out War” arc ended.

“Here’s Negan” — which borrows slightly from the character’s comic origins, but then nicely spins things off for the series’ sake — is an actual worthwhile, and heartfelt, rest stop before Season 11 kicks off at the end of August. Star Jeffrey Dean Morgan was fortunate enough to play opposite his wife, actress Hilarie Burton, and their real-life levels of familiarity really helped elevate this flashback story, since many of the scenes here were solely between Negan and Burton’s Lucille.

COVID-era protocols pretty much pared these six additional Walking Dead episodes down to a bare minimum cast, with most scenes over the past month (and some change) featuring only two or three people, maximum. And you could definitely feel the strain of that, especially during last week’s “Carol makes soup” episode. In “Here’s Negan,” however, that type of default intimacy was used as an advantage.

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The idea of Lucille, as not just Negan’s late wife but as someone who, at one point in time, could tolerate Negan enough to marry him, has been a long-standing mystery on the series. With only Negan’s barbed-wire bat serving as a recurring, and brutal, reminder, the very concept of Lucille implied that Negan, perhaps, was a very different person in the past. We’ve seen glimpses of a kinder, gentler Negan over the years, but it usually only emerges when kids are involved – like Carl or Judith.

At the top of this episode, you’ll easily notice that Negan is an extremely changed individual. Because even during his covert time behind enemy lines with the Whisperers, he was cocky and smarmy and held all the old hallmarks of Negan. And even before that, as a prisoner, he still maintained a swagger. But here, just walking with Carol, Morgan plays Negan with much more muted notes. Even his voice sounds different. He’s not the Negan “character” anymore.

As Negan travels back to the tree in the field where Rick slashed his throat, to find his lost bat, we’re whisked back into Negan’s life just a few days before the world falls apart. He’s an unambitious man-child with a tempter that recently cost him his job as a high school gym coach. We also enter Lucille’s life right at the tipping point, when she’s just about had her fill of Negan’s lovably lost ways. She’s grown out of her “I can fix him” phase and now wants more from her partner. Which is, of course, the perfect time to find out you have cancer, discover your man’s cheating on you, and – oh yeah –  learn that zombies are on the rise.

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Negan’s apocalypse origins are pretty wrenching and yet, at the same time, not wildly different from other people’s strife we’ve seen on the series. His perils out in the open freshly-decimated world are somewhat typical. He meets friendlies. He meets a-holes. It’s not a hugely original tale, but it feels elevated because it’s Negan and we’re invested in this oddball reverse redemption story where we see the caring person he used to be, and then how (and why) that all changed.

Almost everything about “Here’s Negan” works. Morgan and Burton’s chemistry is awesome, by wholly selling us on Negan being a man who, when faced with the worst, will totally circle the wagons around someone he loves. Of course, he’s also someone who takes advantage of people and doesn’t know how good he’s got it until he’s faced with losing his comfy setup. Within both of them, there are multitudes. Lucille comes to appreciate Negan’s devotion and spares him the knowledge that she knew about his affair until later on, while he’s able to go above and beyond while trying to save someone he loves.

Cutting up the flashbacks into a weird time shuffle felt unnecessary but then again The Walking Dead decided, years ago, that it was going to be less of a straightforward zombie drama and, instead, become more of a purposefully cryptic series that leans into arthouse narrative structures and showy camera setups. The other bit of “Here’s Negan” that hits, perhaps, in an opposite manner than intended, is the use of Joe Cocker’s “You Are So Beautiful” while Negan is crying and Lucille is a writhing walker. It just plays like a comedy, unfortunately.

Something that’s funny in a good way, though, is the reveal that Negan’s trademark leather jacket is basically a symbol of his old careless ways. The piece of clothing he thought he deserved because he’d made a few attempts (or claimed to) at finding a new job. He was someone who thought of responsibility as a big ol’ drag so it was wonderful to see him shift into a guy who was willing to absorb every ounce of responsibility for his wife’s care. So much so that he wouldn’t let Lucille die when she wanted to. Switching things up from the comics, Lucille takes her own life here, after weeks of recaptured time with Negan, holed up in their house, while the world crumbled into chaos around them. Negan then, upon realizing his toils and troubles out on the road were for nothing, coated his heart with a hard shell. A vengeful Negan emerged. One whose first extended kill came complete with a monologue.

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“Here’s Negan” matched the low-key, thinned-herd vibe of the other six episodes while also being the most rewarding. Negan’s decision to sort of let the chips fall where they may with Maggie was a curious one. It seems to represent a Negan who’s done apologizing for his past and now willing to accept her wrath should it come to that. Of course, none of this implies he won’t go down swinging.

Ghostrunner is a challenge and stylish cyberpunk-style action game, and it released for Nintendo Switch shortly after its launch on PS4, Xbox One, and PC. Now, the Switch version is available at a ludicrously cheap price, and there has never been a better time to snag it.

Normally $30, the Nintendo Switch version of Ghostrunner is on sale right now for just $7.50 on the eShop. Given how new the game is, the price was enough to make us do a double-take.

It can be completed in around 10 hours or so if you’re playing at a normal pace, though it’s also a great option for speedrunning because of its fast-moving action and difficulty. If you are hit by anything in the game, you’re dead, and the majority of enemies also die in one hit. This makes every battle play out like a dangerous dance, as you need to plan ahead and execute your moves flawlessly to avoid getting shot or sliced up.

Ghostrunner also features a pretty entertaining and atmospheric science-fiction story that, while reliant on common cyberpunk tropes, is still exhilarating and keeps the tension building until its final moments.

Keep in mind that the Switch version does look quite a bit muddier than the game on other platforms. Frame rate is also much lower, especially compared to PC, PS4 Pro, and Xbox Series X, but if you can look past these shortcomings–especially at this price–there’s a lot to like here.

2021 will be a big year for Ghostrunner. The game is receiving a Kill Run mode and photo mode this spring, as well as new paid downloadable cosmetic content. The fall will see additional cosmetic content, “Ultimate DLC,” and free next-gen upgrades for PS5 and Xbox Series X|S.

In our Ghostrunner review, Mike Epstein called its first-person action “intense and thrilling” and praised how it forces you to master its mechanics via its level design.