Among Us: The Airship Map Release Date Announced

The Airship, Among Us’ new map, will be released on March 31, 2021 alongside a new update that adds the ability to pick which room you start in, ladders, a basic account system for moderation, and more.

Announced by Innersloth, this new map, which was revealed at The Game Awards 2020, is based on the Toppat Clan Airship from the developer’s Henry Stickmin series.

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Innersloth also shared what the team has been doing these past months and why this new map and update took longer than it wanted them to.

One of the biggest challenges in getting this new map out into the public was ensuring it worked on all platforms and devices. While Among Us is available on PC, mobile, and Switch, it will also be arriving on Xbox consoles in 2021.

The Among Us team is only five people and, while the game has seen an incredible amount of success, Innersloth wants to focus on caring for its team members instead of growing too large to do so. It will be hiring new people, but it wants to do so responsibly.

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It also wanted to launch The Airship with the basic account system as the team understands there have been issues with toxic players. Instead of pushing out content, Innersloth wants to ensure Among Us is a safe and fun place for all its players.

This is the second bit of exciting news for Among Us this week, as Fall Guys’ announced that Among Us costumes will be headed to the game. Furthermore, there will be “something unique” about them.

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Adam Bankhurst is a news writer for IGN. You can follow him on Twitter @AdamBankhurst and on Twitch.

The Snyder Cut: What Was Up With The Joker In Zack Snyder’s Justice League?

The Joker may not actually say the now-infamous “we live in a society” line in Zack Snyder’s Justice League, but he does say a lot–all told the Clown Prince of Crime has a scene that lasts several minutes in the “nightmare” sequence, a continuation of a similar vision Batman experienced in Batman V Superman: Dawn of Justice.

In this scene, Batman, Mera, Deathstroke, Cyborg, and The Flash are doing their best to survive the post-apocalyptic wasteland of Darkseid’s siege on Earth. Everything is destroyed or overrun by Parademons and they have to keep moving, as Cyborg explains, because they can be caught if they stand around in the open for too long. Unfortunately, this is when Joker decides to intervene and make sure they do exactly that–though the dream-logic of the nightmare sequence makes it hard to tell exactly how “real” Joker actually is in that moment.

He’s sitting on an abandoned Mad Max-flavored car in a SWAT vest when he begins taunting Bruce for his past failures, specifically his inability to save “an adopted son.” Of course, anyone familiar with DC Comics lore will know that the son he’s referring to here is Jason Todd, the second Robin, who was brutally beaten with a crowbar by The Joker and then murdered in an explosion during a story called A Death in the Family.

While Batman has never had an on-screen Robin in any of the Snyder directed films, this isn’t the first time Robin has been referenced. In Batman V Superman, a brief shot of a vandalized Robin costume was visible, implying that there had indeed been a Boy Wonder at some point or another. In the dream sequence, Joker makes the existence of a Robin canonical.

Batman has had multiple sidekicks over the years, however, and while the story the Joker tells is clearly a nod to Jason, it’s never made explicitly clear which Robin is actually being discussed–either way, it would seem that they’re long dead in this universe, and the guilt Bruce is experiencing has yet to subside. It’s so intense that Bruce even vows to murder the Joker for it while brandishing a gun–though Joker seems very confident that Batman’s bark is much worse than his bite. He offers Batman a truce in the form of a joker card, and says that as long as Batman has that on him, their feud will be on hiatus.

Notably, he also addresses him as “Bruce,” but it’s entirely possible that’s another element of the dream-logic. The vision Bruce is having may be prophetic, but it’s still a nightmare. Though it’s equally possible that this version of the DCEU just has a publicly known Batman–the Snyder Cut also includes a scene with Lex Luthor telling Slade Wilson who Bruce Wayne actually is, and that moment is certainly not a dream.

Either way, it’s not likely that we’ll see a pay off for this particular stinger any time soon. Ben Affleck has officially passed the Batman reigns on to Robert Pattinson for the upcoming film, The Batman, and there are currently no announced plans for Snyder to direct a Justice League sequel. Meanwhile, Jared Leto is not currently signed on to reprise his role as Joker in the upcoming movie, The Suicide Squad.

Mundaun Review: Dark Secrets And The People Who Find Them

The journey, rather than the destination, is the focus of Mundaun–the reasons you take it and the travel required to reach its conclusion. In this way, it feels like a spiritual successor to Half-Life 2’s Highway 17, a mid-game chapter that finds crowbar-toting protagonist Gordon Freeman traveling by buggy along the lonely coast. It’s a lengthy, melancholy section of the 2004 shooter where the driving is occasionally interrupted by combat, puzzles, and on-foot exploration. Mundaun is like Highway 17 expanded to a full 10-hour experience. In your journey to the mountaintop, you sit passively in a bus, drive a hay-baling truck along bumpy terrain, and ride a sled across quiet alpine slopes. You’re guided through a series of dark, labyrinthine tunnels by a trolley car the size of a toaster. You ride a chair lift. The inclusion of vehicles might not sound noteworthy on its own, but traversing the mountain in all these different ways–on foot, by sled, by truck–has the effect of making the mountain feel like a real place; a peak that must be considered to be conquered. You don’t cover dozens of virtual miles in your quest, but Mundaun feels like a journey nonetheless–personal and physical–as a result of this fixation on the vehicles we use to make our pilgrimages.

This horror adventure game’s distinct point of view is obvious the moment you see it in action. Each first-person frame looks like hand-drawn pencil art, and the entire game is presented in black and white. Developer Hidden Fields uses this to terrific, eerie effect. The mountain lake where those beekeepers are doing their work is beautifully alien, a rocky landscape that’s empty except for these strange beings in their protective suits accompanied by an unnerving buzzing. Night on the mountain’s snowy slopes feels eerie in a different way–dark, save for the light of the moon, and quiet, save for the sound of your snowshoes or sled on the powder. With winning art and sound design, Hidden Fields brilliantly brings home the feeling that you are alone, and that this lonely journey is one you must take on your own.

Mundaun's art style is distinctive and impactful.
Mundaun’s art style is distinctive and impactful.

As that journey begins, protagonist Curdin sits on a bus winding its way up narrow mountain roads to the sleepy alpine town where he often visited his grandfather growing up. The young man is returning to the village to attend his grandfather’s funeral after receiving news that the old man died when his barn caught fire. But something’s wrong. Despite the village priest’s claims that his grandfather was already buried, Curdin finds a charred corpse in the barn. When he goes to see the priest, the chapel is locked. He goes to the graveyard–grandfather’s grave is empty. As Curdin attempts to get to the bottom of these mysterious events, he begins a trek to the top of the mountain, whose towering pincer-like twin peaks can be seen from almost anywhere in the game.

This overarching mystery–what happened to grandfather?–is interspersed with smaller questions presented by the game’s strange iconography. You go to sleep with a spiked paddle balanced on your chest to ward off evil spirits. You defend yourself against malevolent beekeepers with puffs of pipe smoke. You engage in meaningful conversations with the disembodied head of a goat. It may sound like weirdness for weirdness’ sake, but Mundaun’s refreshingly eccentric perspective has the effect of giving you itches that you can only scratch by continuing to play.

It takes some time for the game to fully come into its own, though. When you first arrive on the mountain, the church is locked, the graveyard is locked, and multiple rooms in grandfather’s house are locked. The solution to enter the graveyard involves hearing a girl’s singing and a goat’s bleating–which initially seem like they might just be background noise–looking up on top of a cliff where the goat and girl are standing, and talking to the girl, who will then throw a paper airplane that loops around the steeple, causing the sun to move. This casts a ray of light to a tree near the graveyard, where you can now find the key. I’m spoiling this puzzle because it’s the only bad one in the game. The dream logic required to progress here is an annoying early roadblock in a game that otherwise relies on concrete solutions to concrete problems. I was compelled by the mysteries and by the promise of the locked doors, but frustrated that all my early efforts were funneled to this unintuitive skill check.

Once you progress past this obstacle, though, Mundaun has terrific pacing as you progress up the mountain–a varied loop that cycles effortlessly from on-foot exploration to puzzle-solving to vehicle-based traversal to combat to playable flashbacks that reveal your grandfather’s past. I always had something to do and somewhere to go, and each new location cried out for exploration. This is driven by the main plot, to be sure. But it’s also driven by smaller tasks along the way. For example, making coffee is an optional task that’s introduced early in the game. If you find all the components–a cup, coffee grounds, a pot, a pump to fill that pot with water, a stove and a piece of wood and matches to light a fire–you can brew and drink a cup of coffee, which permanently raises your health. This optional quest was a welcome break if I ever felt stumped on where to go next.

In the early game, the only weapons you have access to are breakable pitchforks, which you may or may not be able to reach when an enemy appears. As you attempt to escape your pursuers, an extra bit of health may be the difference between success and death. So, in addition to desiring to explore because the game’s locations are beautiful and varied, I wanted to explore to find coffee grounds. In the process, I often found something unsettling, helpful, or both. A monstrous biped made of haunted hay. A hut filled with hanging carcasses that make music when you touch them. A paper boat serenely floating on a lake’s surface inked up with clues from some unseen benefactor on how to defend yourself against an enemy. Mundaun’s hills are alive with intrinsic and extrinsic rewards.

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The initial segment in the village concludes with Curdin gaining access to his grandfather’s hay truck, which you can use to travel more quickly up the roads. And, as you travel ever upward, the personal component of your trek is slowly revealed through playable flashbacks. Through these eerie scenes, you get glimpses of Curdin’s grandfather’s involvement in a war decades before and a deal with a mysterious, malevolent figure who spared the lives of him and the men in his regiment. These story threads are introduced early on when you meet that dark figure near the wreckage of your grandfather’s barn. He clutches your wrist, leaving you marked with a charcoal black hand. As you continue, these threads serve as connective tissue between your current journey and your grandfather’s past, woven through each leg of the journey. You meet a character who knew your grandfather; another character descended from one of your grandfather’s contemporaries. Each has ties to events we have seen unfold in the past. These links communicate that our journey is connected to the broader history of the mountain and that, as we uncover the mystery of what happened to grandfather, we are also unearthing the community’s dark secrets.

The environment, and the secrets it hides, is as interesting as any personal revelation. When you reach your grandfather’s house, you are immediately confronted with multiple locked doors, and the process of discovering how to unlock them is slow but rewarding. In its mechanics as in its storytelling, Mundaun effectively mixes long-term question marks (Where will I find the key to unlock grandfather’s study?) with concrete short-term goals (I need to enter the chapel to progress the story). Some puzzles on the route to solving these problems are a little obtuse, but most are satisfying to solve. I especially enjoyed one that required that I find the right spot to stop a model truck on its tracks to open a hidden drawer. Additionally, the presence of locked supply rooms that you can use any of a number of disposable keys to open and stoves where you can prepare coffee to increase your health kept me interested in exploration, even when I wasn’t sure what to do to advance the critical path. All of these tasks have a central aim: progressing further up the mountain or preparing yourself for what you will face as you progress up the mountain. As a result, even momentary diversions have an enjoyable utility. None of this feels like a waste of time. How could it? Is it a waste of time to pack your bag before a flight?

Unfortunately, in its prerelease state, Mundaun is beset by bugs as disruptive as a flat tire. For example, at one point, while riding on a ski lift, the lift stopped. My mouse look was suddenly, inexplicably limited to the vertical axis. I couldn’t tell if this was intentional or a bug. After a while, I restarted the game and played through this same section again. Again, my movement was limited to looking up and down. I tried every item in my inventory, hit every button; nothing worked. Eventually, out of desperation, I restarted the game a second time. When I reached the same section on this try, my vision was unhindered and I easily figured out how to progress. I encountered similar problems at multiple junctures, and this kind of bugginess sows doubt about whether you’re actually stumped by a puzzle or hobbled by jank.

A pitchfork in Mundaun.
A pitchfork in Mundaun.

Mundaun is an adventure game first and foremost, but it does include combat. The weapons at your disposal are limited to breakable pitchforks and an heirloom rifle. Combat isn’t particularly involved, but the presence of enemies helps to differentiate the free and easy exploration of the day from the anxiety-inducing sprints of the eerie night. Using the rifle never feels twitchy; you slowly line up shots, and the gun moves back and forth with your breath. Much of the game passes before you acquire this weapon, but, even once you get it, Mundaun remains a horror adventure game, first and foremost. The shots that you must fire are rare and the rifle’s report is a loud, echoing crack. It feels like you are breaking the mountain’s quiet peace, disrupting the inherent solitude of the place, each time you fire off a round.

Thankfully, your time on the mountain runs low on ammunition and high on strange, wonderful mystery. Mundaun is a darkly original work. This is an impeccably paced game with satisfying gameplay that fits hand-in-glove with its narrative focus on the process of taking a journey. That journey is rich in atmosphere and imagery, sustained by questions until it is satisfied with clever answers. My trek was well worth the effort for the view from the peak.

If Zack Snyder Did A Justice League Sequel, It Would Include The New Gods

Zack Snyder’s Justice League is finally out, which now ushers in the era of the director both being asked and speaking frankly about his previous plans for a sequel–and whether they have any bearing on current plans for one. In a recent interview streamed live on YouTube with Wonder Meg, a channel “dedicated to all the nerdy things,” Snyder was asked exactly this by the titular Megan.

To which, Snyder replied: “All of the New Gods would be rolling in at some point. In the full invasion of Earth… I think you’d have to go full pedal-to-the-metal with the New Gods at that point. ‘Cause the third movie is a New Gods invasion movie in a lot of ways.”

Unfortunately, Snyder didn’t get into any deeper specifics. Beyond what was discussed in passing, even if Snyder won’t get a chance to tackle a New Gods story, Emmy-winner Ava DuVernay (Selma, When They See Us) will. Way back in 2019, it was announced that DuVernay would be teaming up with Batman writer Tom King on a New Gods film from a script the pair co-wrote. In another recent YouTube interview, Snyder told The Minutemen in February that his version of Justice League would “tease” at the New Gods with “the implication that the rest of them are there… in this movie you see DeSaad, you see Darkseid, you see one other in the throne room of Apokolips.”

Meanwhile, on the day of its release, Zack Snyder’s Justice League has reportedly been in so much demand that it crashed HBO in Asia.

Xbox Creator Shares Vaccination Story, Urges Others To “Show Up” For Appointments

Seamus Blackley, the designer of the original Xbox, took to social media to share his experiences getting the coronavirus vaccine, and urged others to show up for their vaccine appointments despite misinformation about its safety.

In a brief Twitter thread, Blackley said that he got the Moderna vaccine. He explained that there had been 150 people who missed their appointments in a Los Angeles clinic, and that the medical staff there had to use the vaccines or throw them away. He went on to say that misinformation is dangerous and that the doctors and nurses were putting themselves at risk to help others. He also noted that he had been waiting his turn behind higher-priority groups, so learning that some doses were getting tossed out due to missed appointments was frustrating.

“The misinformation is tragedy,” he said. “There’s no danger. Get your vaccine. Please. Stop this f***ing virus. It will mutate and get worse.”

In a follow-up, he joked that it’s been 24 hours and he hasn’t gotten free WiFi or the ability to communicate with Bill Gates–a reference to one of the wilder vaccine conspiracy theories. Of course, in the course of his career, Blackley has actually met and worked with Gates.

Blackley is credited for designing the original Xbox in 2001, though his career has also spanned work on games like Ultima Underworld, System Shock, and Trespasser. He also represented video game developers at the Creative Artists Agency. More recently, he became the CEO of the tech startup Pacific Light and Hologram.

New Mighty Ducks Series Will Bring Back Original Cast For One Episode

Some of the original cast of The Mighty Ducks will appear in an episode of the new series, Game Changers, which premieres on Disney+ later this month. Entertainment Weekly reports that episode 6 will see characters from the original three movies reprise their roles as adults.

These characters include Elden Henson as Fulton, Vinny La Russo as Adam Banks, Matt Doherty as Averman, Marguerite Moreau as Connie, Garret Henson as Guy, and Justin Wong as Kenny Wu.

Mighty Ducks creator Steven Brill explained that these characters will have an “interesting run-in” with Coach Bombay (Emilio Estevez), who is a series regular for the new show.

“This chance meeting between Bombay and Fulton leads to a bigger story,” according to Brill.

There will be a “Spirit of the Ducks” gala in the new show that honors the history of the Ducks, which is where the characters from the original movies show up.

Game Changers takes place 25 years after D3: The Mighty Ducks. At this point, the Ducks are no longer the scrappy underdogs but instead a powerhouse hockey institution. Bombay leads a new team of aspiring hockey players to defeat the Ducks, and probably learn some life lessons along the way.

Estevez told EW that Game Changers will still have “Disney magic,” but it’s also more grounded. “It leans into reality a little bit more than one would expect, which excited me,” he said. “That’s really like life; something that looks like a curveball that you couldn’t hit ends up being something that’s a gift later on.”

Henson, who played one of the Bash Brothers knowing for his physical play, said it was “incredible” to fall back into the roll, and specifically his outfit. “It really hit me when we had the wardrobe fitting and they broke out the bandanas and the boots and the camouflage. It was so surreal and awesome,” he said.

Joshua Jackson’s Charlie was the main character of the original movies, but he’s not among the returning characters confirmed for Game Changers, at least not yet. Brill said Charlie and Bombay aren’t on speaking terms in the universe of Game Changers, which explains his absence. In reality, Jackson was “too busy” to appear in Game Changers, and the pandemic also played a part in his absence, but Brill said he’s hopeful that Jackson makes an appearance down the road.

Kenan Thompson, who played Russ “Knuckle Puck” Tyler, is also not coming back for revival, but Estevez said he would like to see more cast members from the original Mighty Ducks films appear if there are more seasons of Game Changers.

Shaun Weiss, who played Goldberg the goalie in the original Mighty Ducks movies, is not involved in the new show either, it seems. Weiss struggled with meth and heroin addiction and lived on the streets for years before getting sober in 2020.

Game Changers premieres March 26 on Disney+. In addition to Estevez, the show stars Gilmore Girls’ Lauren Graham in a recurring role, along with a new cast of youngsters who make up the team.

PSA: Don’t Delete Marvel’s Avengers PS4 Before Transferring Save To PS5

The next-gen version of Marvel’s Avengers has been released, and while you can transfer your save from the existing version, the process is somewhat inelegant for those on PlayStation. Players will need to hold off on deleting the PS4 version of the game until some specific steps have been completed.

Users are instructed to update the PS4 version of the game to the latest update, Patch 1.5.0, and head to the in-game “Save Migration” tab in order to start the uploading process. Crystal clarified that “the latest update for the PS4 version” is required to download the PS5 version.

How To Transfer Marvel’s Avengers PS4 Save To PS5

  • Launch the fully patched PS4 version
  • Navigate to the Save Migration tab
  • Start the uploading process
  • Launch the PS5 version
  • Download PS4 save data

Because the PS4 version of the game must be updated in order to initiate the save migration process, users won’t see the “Save Migration” tab unless their PS4 copy has been updated to the latest 1.5.0 patch. That means you need to avoid deleting the PS4 version in order to download the PS5 one until you’ve completed the migration process. The studio noted that Save Migration is “necessary to boot the save on the PS5 version” even if PlayStation users have the PS4 and PS5 versions of the game on the same console.

Once the migration is complete, players can boot up their PS5 copy of Marvel’s Avengers, download their PS4 save data, and continue from where they left off.

The enhanced port includes the usual accouterments, like higher-resolution textures and smoother frame rates. Additionally, Marvel’s Avengers Patch 1.5.0 update introduces a number of fixes, as well as the option to replay the game’s main campaign. Crystal Dynamics studio head Scott Amos and executive producer Morgan Gray sat down with GameSpot to talk about what’s next for Marvel’s Avengers and how the studio is strengthening the game. It was recently revealed that Black Panther is part of Marvel’s Avengers roadmap, along with new Black Widow content that coincides with the forthcoming film dropping this May, more missions and enemies, an increased level cap, additional outfits, and more.

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Marvel’s Avengers Devs On Strengthening The Game The Right Way

Marvel’s Avengers should have been the biggest success story of 2020. Given the incredible popularity of the MCU and Marvel’s iconic characters as a whole, some would say the game should have been a slam dunk. And yet, it stumbled out of the gate in August of last year and has been struggling to pick up momentum since.

The circumstances that have contributed to this are numerous, not the least of which is tougher working dynamics as a result of working from home. Content updates have been meager and quality-of-life changes have been slow to make their way into the game. All this, on its own, has frustrated the dedicated sections of the community, and caused others to abandon the game. What has compounded this, however, has been a lack of transparency and communication.

That is something that developer Crystal Dynamics has acknowledged itself and pledged to change. And it has already taken a stride forward in doing so by detailing its roadmap for the game. What players of Marvel’s Avengers can expect for the coming months has been laid out fully–some with timeframes for their launch, others with more vague “as soon as it’s possible” timing.

Prior to the Square Enix showcase where Crystal Dynamics detailed the roadmap, GameSpot spoke to studio head Scott Amos and executive producer Morgan Gray about the game’s changes, the concerns the community holds, and their vision for its future.

One of the big things that players have asked for is endgame content. Looking at everything that you’ve shown and the roadmap, what amongst that constitutes that endgame content to you? And when, on that timeline, do you feel will be the moment where we people will feel comfortable in saying, “We’ve got good endgame content.”

Scott Amos: That’s a great question because for us, Omega Level Threats are certainly endgame content, having your own customizable HARM room, you can make that feel certainly like endgame content, in that context. Looking at the stuff we’re adding, even with the Tachyon Anomalies that we’re going to broaden their power range would give you a great reason to go back and say, “What’s it like with four Hulks? What’s it like with four Iron Mans?” and be able to try things different, and you can do multiple heroes on any of the content once that event happens–they’re not just two Tachyons, they’re literally once that event happens you can have four heroes in anything that you play. So we believe this is exactly what [we mean when] we say we’re changing, how we make and what we make–ll of this stuff starts to gear us up towards that high-end, as you say, late-game content for people that are maxed out. Omega Level Threats are the biggest one for us that we’ve put like, “This is the stuff for people to come back and be able to try it.”

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Now you get to play an Omega Level Threat–once it gets out there–with four Hulks at the same time. We’re like, “Oh my God, okay, now we can test that to make sure it’s right before it gets out there,” but it’s worth it. It’s that stuff that we look at it and say, “All of these pieces, we’re designing explicitly for those people who played since September or people who keep coming back and saying, “What am I doing next? Where am I going?” New stories are great, cinematics having some extra expansion on that universe, but all this stuff, including like even The Cosmic Cube with Monica, making it a Villain Sector that actually scales to that higher power level means that is content you can go back and play and replay since we’re focusing on upgrading the gear so that it has that meaning, saying, “This is a custom event that you want to go and fight at a certain time to get custom resources from fighting.” That to us is when you wanna go back and play again and again, and replay it to harvest the best stuff. That’s the spring, summer, and beyond like, that’s this next roadmap for us saying, “Yeah, we hear you. This is what we need to do to get those long-term players engaged, keep them engaged.”

So from your perspective, it’s a case of building up to that instead of having this one big moment where it’s like, “Here it all is.” You’re kind of laying the foundation block by block piece by piece. You’re working your way up to giving people that experience. Is that fair to say?

That is fair to say. I mean, from our side, we would love to have gotten all this to you today. We play this stuff every day. That’s why we wanted to show it, instead of just saying it in a static image, you’ve seen it now. This stuff is real. People were playing it and we’re saying as fast as we can get it done and tuned and ready, it’s yours to have. And really, it is a good statement [to say] we didn’t release it all at one moment. Like, “Here’s everything, good luck.” It is building the blocks and putting it in place. And that’s partly our learnings from how we launched in September and saying, “Oh my God, like we gotta get these other things.” Because if you have a shaky foundation, it’s terrible. So being able to build up to where we are now, with our extra platforms coming [with] PS5 and Xbox Series S|X, now we feel like we have a stable base with all these things in there that we can build on top of.

The tricky thing for you guys is you have a plan and it is focused on creating a stable foundation, strengthening it, and then building on top of it. But from the audience perspective the way it launched, which by your own account you’ve said wasn’t that stable, it leaves them in a deficit where for months and months now they have felt starved of that content and, playing devil’s advocate, what they’re going to see here is a roadmap for the future which will look like crumbs when they want a meal. How do you address the fears they won’t feel satisfied?

Amos: I think we have both though. And I think that’s the fun. We’re having six heroes now, seven with Kate now, eight with Clint we still have a bunch of people that have looked at these heroes, but they haven’t gone back and dug into some of the other alternate heroes. And that has always been from the beginning, like, “Hey, you’ve got all these different heroes to play, let’s make sure we give you reasons to go and enjoy them. Let’s make sure there’s a better path for why they should feel powerful, how to experiment with them in the different content types you get to play with them.” And even the example with Black Widow, focusing on the Red Room event saying, “Let’s make sure to showcase a hero, say, ‘Hey, there’s something cool here that it’s worth your time to go play,’ and actually get people into that.” Like, okay, I’ll go take a look at this Black Widow thing and then like, “Oh my God, there’s a whole bunch of character and game in here that I may not have touched.”

And there’s folks who’ve done that, they have just mainlined one or two of the heroes. And so for us, it’s the Avengers, right? We love the fact that you have your hero that you want to max out and there is stuff you can go and do. And this is all about us pivoting to giving them those things and those excuses, including the progression stuff, looking at it from a hero max cap and saying, “Yep, there’ll be a hero level cap increase.” That’ll come in the Wakanda timeframe, but looking at it right now, we want to make sure that there’s a reason for you to take your mainline hero and continue playing them because there’s new things you can do and unlock and customize inside of that hero, that kind of over-the-top max progression that when people get their hands on it, they’re gonna be like, “Okay, this is good. This is something for me to do.”

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You say a meal, I say that we’ve had a mainline story. We’ve got tons of war zones. We’ve seen people that haven’t even finished the Scientist Supreme mission. That is the first major thing to do after when you go into Avenger’s Initiative, after assemble is done. That is a massive mission that unlocks tons of new content on the war table. If you haven’t played that, there’s content you’re just missing that you haven’t even seen. How do I get to a vault and how do I start these faction missions? Oh my God, we got to be better at educating folks like, “There’s the stuff you’re missing that active players right now haven’t even found.” I think there is more content there than they know, because they got stuck in a badly communicated wrap from us. Like, “Okay. We finished that. I can not pay attention to that mission.” No, if you go do that mission, it opened up worlds of stuff to go and hunt. How do you unlock a vault? What does a vault even mean?

So when Adam talked about communication and PR and we talked about being transparent, that is also part of our problem. That there’s stuff I had mentioned the other day to Adam. Like there’s things in the game right now that we didn’t do a good job of broadcasting. Like if you use quick match and you use a random hero, you’ll get a 10% XP boost. We’ve never publicized that. We’ve never mentioned that to players in the game. Like, dude, how stupid do we have to be, like, “Wait, this is a good thing that we need to broadcast.” And so it’s just the transparency level and being able to say, there are things for people right now who want to engage in high-end content and actually challenge themselves and what they can do to challenge themselves, to feel like it’s worth their time. That’s something that Morgan, myself, Adam, we’ve talked about a lot of, how do we change the weekly communications and make sure that people know, wait, there’s things. You’re just, you’re just not seeing, because we didn’t communicate it well enough in game. Right.

The thing with the community is they look for these big staples in these kinds of games, and one of them being the raid, for example. Everyone’s waiting for a raid, and we had [streamer Fran Mirabella] accidentally trip and fall into one. I guess the question from everyone is going to be like, when is that stuff just going to be there and available to them? Speaking to that communication, people found it, and it seems like from your side it’s been like just act like it didn’t exist. No one’s really talked about it.

Morgan Gray: To be quickly just jumping in on this one in particular, just because this is really near and dear to the development team, we’ve used different imprecise public language, but we like to say, the first high-end or hardcore content for the most skilled, the most diligent player crafters and teams is the Omegas. We actually don’t particularly want to call that a raid, because we have ambitions that far exceed what the Omegas want for the highest of high-ends. But we see that we’re both building up to that in terms of the community, and we’re building up to it in terms of the designs and the things that we want there.

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Clearly whenever someone uses “high-end content,” the synonym is raid. It’s like Kleenex for tissue. It’s just going to go hand-in-hand. But our first stop with the Omegas was like, let’s create the first challenging content that demanded multiplayer, that demanded some competency of player skill with the character, that demanded smart builds. But we actually don’t want to call that the raid, because our ambitions for where we want to go for coordinated high-end content go far and above. Again, the question is, well, what are those ambitions and when? That is not to be answered today, but I did just want to put that out there.

Part of it is our stepping stone progress of trying to serve content across all the bands, because we have players with committed mains that have hit max, they want high-end content. Some of those players with committed mains are trying other heroes for their style, so that’s exciting. We have people coming on board. So we’re really trying to work on content that’s hitting players at all aspects of their life, their ecosystem or their evolution from the beginning to the end, and trying to make sure we’re scratching all those itches as much as possible simultaneously.

This one’s near and dear to my heart, which is the Omegas are the first thing we’re saying you have to be really good at the game and committed, but I feel we do them a disservice in the community by calling them a raid, because our ambitions are much higher in terms of what is the highest of hardcore content. I can tell you, the players have not found that, because it has not existed in a downloadable form or pirateable form yet to be discovered.

Okay. So it requires some rethinking, the traditional labels for that kind of stuff requires some readjustment from the community.

Gray: Yeah. I mean, yeah. Yeah. It’s just calling your current hardest-core content a raid is probably not the most accurate thing, given where some people have reached. These raids that are now legendary in people’s minds in terms of commitment, ask, complications, understanding, and all this stuff that comes in. We have some big ambitions as we get down the roadmap to how we want to leverage our most extreme content.

Okay. One of the things that you guys talked about multiple times, and I want to get a better grasp of, is working on making sure players feel powerful. So the best way I can ask the question is to present what I struggle with, which I have a maxed out Kamala, I have a maxed out Hulk, and then I jump into a mission and I’m still kind of pounding on enemies that Hulk should eviscerate in seconds. Is that something you’re addressing, or do you mean the power levels are being addressed in different ways?

Gray: Sure. Yeah. So there’s several things that play, I guess, if it’s okay I can answer your question in multiple parts. I guess the first thing to touch on is, our first goal for empowering heroes is to make sure at boot, first time you’re playing, that we’re doing better tunings to hit that heroic fantasy. We feel like we’re slightly too stingy for the broadest hope, and we’re trying to make sure that just by default, your relationship to the enemies in terms of damage output or whatever is a little bit more in your favor. And then as you purchase more skills and whatever, clearly you power up. When it comes to, at what point does your hero wipe the floor with enemies? It does get a little complicated, right, because we have mission types at scale to you, and we have missions that come above you. So for every mission that comes above you, you’re still going to be fighting enemies that, even though they’re enemies you’ve seen before, are going to be statistically better than you.

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For missions that scale to you, which I’m hoping isn’t your default case, but I’m taking that it might be, that’s one of those things where I think the use of gear and the perks and the attributes come into play. Because some people also, you’ve probably seen online, have done the “watch me melt a boss in three hits.” So some people have found where we have found that. I think to Scott’s point, in terms of how the game self-promotes, build efficiencies, use of gear, and certain content types to more streamline your characters, is not doing its best job. We’re even talking about how we do that with the community directly, from our own words, but just making the game make that clear, I think we can do a better job to show the ways in which you hit that obscene power. Because a high level Hulk, a high hero level with all the skills unlocked and a high power level should be fundamentally wiping the floor with a lot of the basic enemies more often than not.

In the end of the day, balance is in the eye of the beholder. So I don’t want to say that we have gotten all the balance solved, but we definitely hear two sides of the coin. Those that are saying, “I want to beat face better than I have,” and then those that are like, “Check it out, Reddit. Two square buttons and a triangle, done. Where’s my challenge?” That’s just to put it in context, is where we’re looking at. And then there’s other things too, I guess, that come into play, whether it’s online matchmaking or whatever, which type of mission and the power level.

But any time we’re hearing feedback that people say, “I’m committing time and my character doesn’t feel like a superhero.” I mean, to be blunt, that’s the kind of sh-t that’s like, hit the red button, stop everything, this is a problem to solve, because our game is about being superheroes and feeling heroic and beating the enemy, but also feeling rewarded and having a rewarding challenge. We’re always going to want to make sure we get that balance absolutely right. So we pay attention to that, both with comments, but actual analytics every day of the week. We’re trying to make sure people are feeling heroic.

Lastly, free to play, is it happening or not?

Amos: We have no announcements today.

WoW Launches New Charity Campaign For COVID-19 With These Two Adorable Pets

Blizzard has announced a new charitable campaign where players can buy an in-game pet for World of Warcraft with proceeds going to humanitarian aid groups fighting COVID-19.

Now through April 26 (or until donations reach $1 million), WoW players can donate any amount of money they want to Doctors Without Borders/Medecins Sans Frontieres to help the entire WoW community receive at least one new in-game pet. The money will go to the groups’ Crisis Fund that helps with various initiatives related to the pandemic.

If funding reaches $500,000, everyone will get a new monkey pet named Bananas for use in World of Warcraft, regardless of if you personally donated to the campaign. Should funding reach $1 million, every WoW player will receive a pet sloth named Daisy. You can see both pets in the image below; use the slider to quickly see each of them.

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Blizzard also released the descriptions for Bananas and Daisy, and they are delightful. You can read those descriptions below, while the full details on how to donate can be found at the bottom of the page. Blizzard wrote the descriptions for these segments, as published in a blog post.

Bananas: Born on an island off the coast of Stranglethorn Vale, little Bananas is a son of King Mukla, a fierce leader of Skymane Gorillas. Luckily, Bananas fell far from the tree and his gentle disposition makes him an ideal travel companion who will brighten your days on Azeroth and beyond.

Daisy: Born on an island off the coast of Stranglethorn Vale, little Bananas is a son of King Mukla, a fierce leader of Skymane Gorillas. Luckily, Bananas fell far from the tree and his gentle disposition makes him an ideal travel companion who will brighten your days on Azeroth and beyond.

HOW TO DONATE

  • Navigate to the MSF DonorDrive site and select the “Donate To This Event” button at the top of the page.
  • Fill in your Donation Amount and select your currency type from the drop down next to it.
  • For USD only—Choose PayPal, Amazon Pay, or credit card as payment method.
  • For all other currencies click “Next” and enter credit card billing and payment information.
  • Click “Pay” to process your donation.

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Animal Crossing: How To Get The New Sanrio Villagers And Furniture In New Horizons

Animal Crossing: New Horizons’ 1.9.0 update has introduced a variety of new content to the game, but the most notable additions are all the new Sanrio-themed villagers, clothing, and furniture. These characters and items are tied to the Animal Crossing Sanrio Amiibo cards, so you’ll need to have those cards before you can invite the villagers and order the furniture in your game.

The Sanrio Amiibo cards first launched in Japan and Europe in 2017 following Animal Crossing: New Leaf’s big Welcome Amiibo update. The card set was not originally available in the US, but they’ll go on sale stateside at Target stores starting March 26. The pack costs $6 and contains all six Sanrio Amiibo cards, each of which unlocks villagers and items themed after popular Sanrio characters like Hello Kitty and My Melody.

If you’ve previously imported the Sanrio Amiibo cards, you’ll be able to use those now to unlock the new villagers and items in New Horizons; otherwise, you’ll need to wait until later this month to pick up a pack up once they go on sale in the US. Once you have the cards, here’s how to get the new Sanrio villagers and furniture.

How To Get Sanrio Villagers And Items

Once you have the Animal Crossing Sanrio Amiibo cards, you’ll need to invite each character to your campsite as you would invite other Amiibo villagers. Select Invite Amiibo from the NookStop terminal in your Resident Services building, then scan one of the Sanrio Amiibo cards to have that villager visit your campsite. You can also scan the villagers in Harv’s island to take screenshots of them in the game’s Photopia mode.

Once you’ve scanned a Sanrio Amiibo card, you’ll be able to order that character’s associated furniture and clothing. These will all be listed in the Promotions tab in Nook Shopping, the same place you can find the recently added Mario items. Note that the fastest way to unlock the Sanrio items is to either scan the villagers at Harv’s island, or scan the cards at NookStop but not invite them to your campsite. Since you can only invite one Amiibo villager to your campsite each day, it would take at least six days to invite the entire set and unlock all of the Sanrio furniture in your game without time skipping that way.

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There are six Sanrio Amiibo cards in total. You can see the full list and the associated character each one unlocks below:

  • Hello Kitty – Rilla (gorilla)
  • Pompompurin – Marty (cub)
  • Kiki & Lala – Étoile (sheep)
  • Cinnamoroll – Chai (elephant)
  • My Melody – Chelsea (deer)
  • Kerokerokeroppi – Toby (rabbit)

If you’d like to invite these characters to live on your island, you’ll need to go through the same process as with other Amiibo villagers–which means it will take up to three days to convince them to move in. Talk to the villager when they’re in the campsite and they’ll ask you to craft an item for them. Repeat that two more days and the villager will eventually agree to move to your island. The characters don’t need to move in for you to unlock their items, so if you’re strictly after the Sanrio furniture and clothing, all you need to do is invite each character to your campsite once.

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