Category: Games

The new Resident Evil 2-themed mode, titled Zombie: Survive Till Dawn, has gone live in PUBG Mobile. The crossover introduces Resident Evil 2’s enemies into the mobile version of PlayerUnknown’s Battlegrounds, and also adds the extra challenge of bosses to the battle royale game.

Added in patch 0.11.0, Zombie: Survive Till Dawn, has 60 players face off in a 30-minute battle royale match that’s divided into three days and two nights. During the day, you still must contend with other players and scavenge for weapons and resources, but wandering computer-controlled enemies from Resident Evil 2–such as lickers and undead police officers–present an added challenge. Killing these enemies rewards you with resources, but doing so might telegraph your position to other players.

At night, the game gets even more tricky. The darkness makes it hard to see, and computer-controlled enemies become much more aggressive. During both the day and night, you’ll have to be on the lookout for the mode’s bosses as well. William Birkin, aka G1, spawns in PUBG Mobile’s police station. Regardless of the time, you’ll have to contend with him if you want the location’s excellent loot. Resident Evil 2’s Tyrant, aka Mr. X, randomly appears around air drops to pursue those who try to claim them. To help hold back these threats, the Zombie: Survive Till Dawn introduces the new MI34 minigun.

If you play Zombie: Survive Till Dawn, you can unlock Leon and Claire skins for use in PUBG Mobile, as well as costumes inspired by Ada and Marvin. PUBG Mobile is available for both Android and iOS.

After braving the horrors of Resident Evil 2 in a battle royale setting, consider picking up the actual game as well. In our Resident Evil 2 review, we gave the game a 9/10, describing it as “a stellar remake of the original” that “delivers anxiety-inducing and grotesque situations” and tops “some of the series’ finest entries.”

January saw the release of two of the year’s most anticipated titles, Kingdom Hearts III and Capcom’s Resident Evil 2 remake, and both unsurprisingly had strong debuts in the US. According to the NPD Group’s latest sales report, the two were the best-selling games in the country last month, with New Super Mario Bros. U Deluxe following at third.

While the NPD Group doesn’t disclose sales numbers, it notes that Kingdom Hearts 3 was the US’s best-selling game for January. Furthermore, the title’s total launch month dollar sales were two-and-a-half times higher than the series’ previous best, Kingdom Hearts II.

Resident Evil 2 took the runner-up spot last month and similarly had 2.8 times higher dollar sales than the original, which released on PS One back in 1998. New Super Mario Bros. Deluxe, meanwhile, generated 30% higher launch month dollar sales than the original Wii U title did when it released alongside the system in 2012.

While Kingdom Hearts may have been the best-selling game, the Nintendo Switch was the US’s best-selling console last month in both units and dollars. Moreover, NPD says Switch was the only platform to grow year-on-year, and the Switch Pro Controller was the best-selling accessory last month.

Despite these strong sales, NPD reports that overall video game spending last month was down 19% compared to January 2018. That’s not all bad news, however, as the group notes that January 2019 still had “the second highest market total achieved in a January month since the $917 million reached in January 2013.”

January 2019’s Best-Selling Games In The US

1. Kingdom Hearts III
2. Resident Evil 2
3. New Super Mario Bros. U Deluxe
4. Call of Duty: Black Ops 4
5. Super Smash Bros. Ultimate
6. Red Dead Redemption 2
7. Ace Combat 7: Skies Unknown
8. NBA 2K19
9. Mario Kart 8 Deluxe
10. Grand Theft Auto V
11. Madden NFL 19
12. Tales of Vesperia
13. The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild
14. Battlefield V
15. Super Mario Party
16. Minecraft
17. Assassin’s Creed Odyssey
18. Marvel’s Spider-Man
19. FIFA 19
20. Super Mario Odyssey

Captain Marvel is coming on March 8, and the studio has started to screen the film for critics. That means we’re seeing the very first impressions rolling in via social media, and they’re by-and-large very positive. Even Goose the Cat has attracted a fanbase.

This film takes place in the 1990s, and introduces a brand new hero to the Marvel Cinematic Universe. Captain Marvel is one of the most powerful characters in Marvel comic continuity. Following the disastrous events of Avengers: Infinity War, Nick Fury sent out an emergency distress call to her just before he faded into dust. This prequel explains just how Fury came to know Captain Marvel, and more importantly, why she’s his trump card.

The reactions on Twitter are glowing, praising its fresh approach and sense of humor. Aside from that consensus, some critics shared more specific reactions. Collider EIC Steven Weintraub remarked on how far Marvel’s de-aging tech has become.

“The de-aging technology being used has become so seamless that I forgot it was being used,” Weintraub said. “We are on the precipice of something both exciting and scary. Can only imagine what Scorsese will do with it in ‘The Irishman’.”

Check below for a roundup of reactions. Captain Marvel releases on March 8.

An erroneous tweet referencing post-credit sequences originally included in this story has been removed.

Respawn Entertainment has said it intends for Apex Legends to be a live-service game, and that means we’ll see changes and events pop up in the future. What exactly those are isn’t quite clear yet–the game’s first season, and the new content Respawn has teased with it, doesn’t come until March–but players are just getting their first taste of long-term Apex Legends today, along with a new update that makes a few fixes.

In a new trailer, Respawn showed off the first new gun it’s adding to Apex Legends since the game’s launch earlier this month. The weapon is the Havoc energy rifle, which looks to be a fully automatic assault rifle that handles in a similar way to current weapons like the R-301 Carbine or the Devotion light machine gun. The Havoc is live in the game now–check it out in action in the trailer below.

The most interesting thing about the Havoc as seen in the trailer is that it’s different from the rest of the guns in Apex Legends. It accepts two kinds of “hop-up” attachments; these are rarer items you can add to certain guns that change the way they perform, but usually guns only support one kind of hop-up. For the Devotion LMG, for instance, you can add the Turbocharger hop-up, which speeds up the charge time when the gun begins to fire. The Prowler submachine gun can take the Select Fire hop-up, which can switch the gun from its default burst-fire mode to a fully automatic mode that makes it even more deadly.

The trailer shows that the Havoc can handle either the Turbocharger hop-up or the Select Fire hop-up, and each has a different effect on the gun. The Turbocharger speeds up the rate at which the gun hits its top speed in fully automatic mode–like the Devotion, the Havoc seems to have a short charge time before it gets up to its full energy bullet-spewing potential. With the Turbocharger, the gun looks pretty effective at short and medium ranges.

The Select Fire hop-up allows you to switch the Havoc to a single-fire mode, which fires one charging shot. In the trailer, Select Fire makes the gun effective at longer ranges and, from the looks of things, can turn the Havoc into a sniper or scout rifle.

That’s a whole lot of versatility in one gun, and more than we’ve seen so far in Apex Legends. The Havoc also suggests that future additions to the Apex armory could offer even more customization depending on the attachments and loot you find in the game once you drop into a match. That could make the potential changes coming with Apex Legends’ first season pretty powerful, but we’ll have to wait until March to find out for sure.