Category: Games

The new Solos mode in Apex Legends is a free-for-all, every-person-for-themselves affair, where there can be only one winner.

The new mode, which launched alongside the Iron Crown event, is a traditional battle royale set-up, where 60 players are dropped onto the map and only one ultimately survives. Everyone is in it for themselves in this mode — at least in theory. As it turns out, many people are teaming up before the match has started, making pacts to work together to make it to the final circle.

Posts on Reddit (like this one) point towards an issue with players teaming up, giving them a huge advantage over players who are legitimately playing solo. As Eurogamer discovered, queuing up at the same time as a friend so as to end up in the same Solos round is not difficult – they were able to do it four times out of five.

Solos mode is intended as a limited-time event, but the game is also in hot water with fans for some expensive weapons that have been introduced for the Iron Crown event – the Raven’s Crown axe will cost you the equivalent of $170, according to Kotaku. Because of this, a lot of Apex Legends fans are unhappy with the game this week.

Whether or not restrictions will be introduced for Solos, or matchmaking will be changed, remains to be seen. You can track the changes being made to Apex Legends through the game’s public Trello board.

SUPERHOT studio has announced ‘SUPERHOT Presents‘, a new fund aimed at helping independent developers make and release small, unusual games. According to the announcement, the team wanted to assist in the creation of other people’s games, and to start off with they’ve signed on to assist with two games that are nothing like their own output. The games in question are the Frog Detective series, developed by Grace Bruxner and her new studio Worm Club, and Knuckle Sandwich, developed by Andrew Brophy. Both games are being developed in Australia.

So far one game has been released in the Frog Detective series, ‘The Haunted Island’. SUPERHOT studio has this to say of the game: “It’s simple. It’s perfect. We love how wholesome and warm and funny it is, we enjoy the game, we like the team, so we offered to help.” The trailer, below, should give you some idea of the game’s tone. A sequel, Frog Detective 2: The Case of the Invisible Wizard, is currently in the works.

Knuckle Sandwich is developer Andrew Brophy’s RPG “about a boy looking for work in a new city,” styled after old Game Boy Advance titles. It’s a weird, distinctive title, and it features both a missing persons mystery and a cult, according to its Steam page. The game is, according to Brophy, reaching the final stages of development, although a release date has not yet been set.

SUPERHOT is not becoming a publisher, but instead wants to help indie developers who “just need some finishing (or starting) funds,” along with some mentoring and advice. Assistance will be offered by the four “businessy types” SUPERHOT studio currently employs, alongside the funds offered.

SUPERHOT studios is more famous for the game that the studio was named after. In his 8/10 review of the game back in 2016, Peter Brown praised the game’s storytelling: “while the core gameplay didn’t evolve drastically, the story that drives it did, taking me along for a ride that I never saw coming.

A new post on Fortnite’s website, credited to ‘The Fortnite Team’, explains why the B.R.U.T.E. mechs were added to the game and the impact they’ve had so far.

The post acknowledges that the mechs have been controversial, but explains that they were added because one of the goals of Fortnite is “to bring players of all skill levels together to have a fun experience where anyone can win.” The random nature of the mechs, which could give any player a massive unexpected advantage, gives less-experienced players a greater chance of racking up eliminations, or even a Victory Royale. “Right now, we know there are players out there who have never had that opportunity,” the post says. They also want to provide “spectacle and entertainment”, which means trying new things and introducing interesting wrinkles.

The post also contains two charts, showing how many eliminations B.R.U.T.E. mechs are typically racking up during a match, both as a number and then as a percentage of total kills.

These two charts show that the mechs, while significant, are not necessarily dominant in an average match of the game. “B.R.U.T.E. encounters should feel like a unique engagement and not be the dominant experience during a game,” the post says. The B.R.U.T.E. was adjusted slightly in update 10.10, and now has an aiming laser so other players can see where they are pointing. They’ve also been tweaked to spawn less often in competitive Arena modes, hence the much lower percentages we see in the charts above.

Fortnite’s tenth season is likely to run until early October.

Playtonic has, in its own cheeky way, announced a release window for Yooka-Laylee and the Impossible Lair, the upcoming second game in the series.

The game will release in October, although a specific day within October has not been clarified. The news came via a video tweeted out by the official Playtonic Twitter account, along with the caption “Good things are coming in October…” In a follow-up tweet, the developer said that the music in the original video was from a new Grant Kirkhope track that will be released in full next week.

The new game, announced in June, is a 2.5D platformer created by many of the key talents who were behind the original Donkey Kong Country. It’ll mix platforming and puzzles, and a sidescrolling platforming sections with a 3D top-down overworld. If it’s anything like the original Yooka-Laylee, it’ll be full of retro throwbacks. The game is coming to Nintendo Switch, PS4, Xbox One and PC.

In her 6/10 review of the original Yooka-Laylee, Kallie Plagge said that “despite attempts at modernizing the formula, its style of gameplay is still outdated, and it doesn’t stay challenging or interesting for long as a result.”

Bethesda surprised gamers with releases of Doom, Doom 2, and Doom 3 for Nintendo Switch, PlayStation 4, and Xbox One during QuakeCon 2019. While exciting, fans quickly discovered that all three re-releases required a Bethesda.net account to access the game and/or certain features. A new patch now provides the option to skip the login altogether.

Bethesda tweeted that a new update for Doom and Doom 2 lets you skip the Bethesda login screen. The patch will also remove the message that you have disconnected from the server during gameplay, letting you slaughter demons in heavy metal peace.

While there isn’t a release date yet, Bethesda says it’s working on a permanent fix to “reduce [the login’s] visibility.” Bethesda notes that the login is optional, though several outlets–including Eurogamer and Kotaku–have pointed out that though Doom and Doom 2 can be played offline, an internet connection and a Bethesda account are required once before playing either title offline.

Bethesda and developer Id Software are gearing up for the hellish release of Doom Eternal, which is expected to launch for Google Stadia, Nintendo Switch, PC, PlayStation 4, and Xbox One on November 22. It serves as a direct sequel to 2016’s Doom and aims to be a “fantasy combat puzzle,” a phrase creative director Hugo Martin used to describe the “well-crafted experience” the team’s making.