It’s pretty common knowledge that Cyberpunk 2077 had a less than perfect launch, with many players encountering a number of bugs during their playthroughs, whether they played on PC on console. However, no group suffered more than those on PS4 and Xbox One, who encountered everything from huge frame rate drops and low textures to unsightly glitches and abrupt crashes. CD Projekt Red co-founder Marcin Iwinski has issued an apology, an explanation, and a roadmap for the future.
In the video above, Lucy James, Jean-Luc Seipke, and Jake Dekker dissect CD Projekt Red’s apology and help unpack what went wrong with Cyberpunk 2077’s launch. Much of the issues with the PS4 and Xbox One versions of the game were due to the streaming technology used, according to Iwinski, and the ambitious nature of the game led to difficulties adjusting this aspect of the game for last-gen consoles.
Iwinski also gave updates about upcoming free DLC and future patches to fix bugs in the game, as well as the free PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X/S upgrades coming in the second half of the year. For a deep dive into the apology, check out the video above, and make sure to subscribe to youtube.com/GameSpot for all the latest updates.
Fortnite Season 5 has new daily challenges that are a bit harder than usual. These challenges will send you to different named locations where you’ll need to track down a handful of Gnomes. They take time if you don’t know where to look. This guide will help you through each challenge.
The challenges are listed as “Find Gnomes in Sweaty Sands,” although the named location will change from day to day based on what challenges you complete. A regular weekly challenge also involved finding gnomes, but these challenges are different. Gnomes will be found sitting on piles of dirt with a bright blue glow around them. You’ll be able to interact with them once you are close enough.
Here is a guide for how to find all the gnomes for every named location that can come up for these daily challenges.
Where To Find Gnomes At Sweaty Sands
Fortnite Sweaty Sands Gnome Locations.
Gnome #1 is located right outside the big hotel on the left hand side of the map, just below a palm tree.
Gnome #2 is located in the alleyway between three buildings in the center of the named location. It’ll be found right next to a dumpster.
Gnome #3 is below the pier right next to the water at the southern tip of the named location.
Where To Find Gnomes At Coral Castle
Here is a map with all three gnome locations in Coral Castle.
Fortnite Coral Castle Gnome Locations.
Gnome #1 is located right outside a small building on a hilltop. It’s on the outer edges of the named location.
Gnome #2 is located northeast of the first gnome, outside another building with a golden roof.
Gnome #3 is up on the hill on the western side of the name location, right outside another ruined building.
Daily challenges change each day, so you’ll want to check the quest menu to see which challenges you need to tackle before you play. More gnome-based challenges could come as the seasons progresses. Be sure to complete each and every Predator challenge, including finding the mysterious pod, in order to unlock Season 5’s mystery challenges.
Electronic Arts’ exclusivity rights to making Star Wars games has come to an end as LucasArts has opened its portfolio to other studios–in fact, The Division 2 developer Massive Entertainment has already announced it’s creating an open-world Star Wars game. This is exciting; I’m happy to see that other big studios are being given the opportunity to try their hand at Star Wars, and I can’t wait to get more games like Star Wars Jedi: Fallen Order and Star Wars: Squadrons. But I also can’t help but think that any Star Wars game we get from a AAA studio may just cover genres and storylines we’ve already seen before. Massive Entertainment, for example, is doing what it does best and making an open-world game. But there are so many more exciting opportunities, and I hope LucasArts chooses to let a few indie studios take a stab at Star Wars to realize them.
I have no doubt that Massive can create a good Star Wars game, but I also assume it will cater to the strengths and gameplay systems that Ubisoft studios already know sell well. I’m willing to bet that this new game will be another open-world action game with RPG mechanics and a skill tree that stars a character who can be a man or woman and has enough side quests to keep audiences playing for over 30 hours–and then painted as Star Wars. That’s not shade, I’m down for it, that sounds super fun, but it isn’t all that weird for a Star Wars game. And Star Wars is at its best when you explore the stranger parts of its universe.
Indie studios traditionally don’t have as big a bottom line to meet in comparison to AAA developers, allowing them to be a bit more experimental with what they make. We’ve seen this before with other major film, TV shows, or comic book properties. Bithell Games transformed John Wick into a top down strategy game with John Wick Hex, for instance, and Telltale Games made The Walking Dead into a choice-driven episodic adventure series. Neither are obvious genre choices for their respective franchises–personally, I’d expect John Wick to be a shooter and for The Walking Dead to be a survival horror game–but both worked surprisingly well.
So imagine Echodog Games–developer of Signs of Sojourner, a deck-building game that uses cards to convey the intricacies of how relationships change through conversations–making a game about soon-to-be Mandalorian duchess Satine Kryze, the woman who Obi-Wan Kenobi almost left the Jedi Order for. You could take this entirely unexpected gameplay format and tell a story about her striving to make a peaceful Mandalore and coming to terms with needing to let Obi-Wan go. Or maybe Happy Ray Games–the studio behind Ikenfell, a turn-based RPG that incorporates timing mechanics into its challenging combat, has a bangin’ soundtrack, and includes excellent gender identity representation–making a queer as hell story-driven game about a Dathomir Nightsister trying to discover herself on a new planet.
Or perhaps see if MERJ Media–the team that created Floor Kids, a breakdancing game where you must carefully match your moves to the audience’s expectations and the rhythm of the music–wants to make a game where you’re a Twi’lek living in the bowels of Coruscant during the reign of Palpatine and you’re trying to be recognized as a talented dancer. As a non-human who’s not good at manual labor, maybe it’s the only way a second-class citizen like you can move up to the more prestigious levels of the city. Hell, or what if Lucas Pope–the developer behind Papers, Please, a game where you’re an immigration officer at a border crossing–designed a game where you’re in charge of flight control for a Separatist world during the Clone Wars, having to do your best to determine who’s allowed planetside and who’s too risky to be let in because they might be a Republic spy or terrorist saboteur?
Star Wars is so huge and so weird. And I get it, maybe a studio like Massive doesn’t want to tackle a Star Wars game about Mandalorian politics, or an all-women society of witches ostracized for being different, a rhythm game that points out how Palpatine’s xenophobic policies shaped many planets, or the different sides of immigration. But maybe there are indie teams that do–folks who have grown up on Star Wars and have always wanted to explore the really niche parts of the universe, the stuff that mainstream media usually glosses over. That’s the stuff that turns someone from being a Star Wars fan to a Star Wars obsessive because it explores relatable and valuable parts of the universe in unexpected and meaningful ways.
Star Wars is more than blasters, lightsabers, space battles, the Force, Mandalorians, and Wookies, but that’s what usually sells and so that’s typically what AAA studio Star Wars games cover, and only cover. I mean, the franchise is called Star Wars, but except for Jedi: Fallen Order, I can’t think of any Star Wars video game in the last decade that acknowledges that a galaxy that’s filled with war after war is likely to leave behind a lot of people with severe trauma. The whole point of the Clone Wars was that one side had droids and the other had clones genetically bred to not suffer mental disorders, and yet there were still victims of mental and emotional trauma on both sides. And that’s getting into the weeds of a completely different tangent for a different article–my point is that there are fascinating aspects to Star Wars that the games almost always overlook because they aren’t easy to convey.
And like I said before, I get it, a AAA studio that’s investing millions of dollars needs to make something that appeals to the mainstream to recoup those costs. But if that’s the case, then just let a smaller indie team tackle riskier stories that maybe won’t sell a million copies but that still sound really cool or fun, and will create new fans or make old ones see Star Wars from a fresh perspective. I’m willing to bet that a popular AAA Star Wars game will find the success that LucasArts expects, and that can also create room for indie games to get experimental and reach a new audience, despite any potential risks. I mean, LucasArts probably has enough money to cover for any deficit already–it’s Star Wars, for god’s sake.
Now, admittedly, I’m guilty of wanting more AAA games too–I say as much in our feature about Star Wars games we’d love to see, as I want Ninja Theory or Obsidian Entertainment to make an action RPG about Asajj Ventress. And beyond that, I hope EA DICE is allowed to take another stab at Battlefront and make a Battlefront III, and that Respawn can make a sequel to Jedi: Fallen Order. I don’t think these giant AAA games are bad–but many of them cover ground we’ve seen in games before or utilize game mechanics that have been used in Star Wars games before. Star Wars has had shooters, it has had space battles, it has had action games, it has had RPGs, and it has even had racers. There are so many other game genres and storylines that could be explored with this property. And why wouldn’t you? Especially when licensed games can already feel a bit redundant anyway, seeing as they cover an established universe and run the risk of repeating something that’s been done before, but better.
LucasArts opening its vault of properties to other studios is sure to lead to some popular games, but I hope that a few are at least made by indie studios. Because it’s with indie teams where I think we’ll get the chance to see sides of Star Wars and storylines that even some of the most hardcore fans of the franchise haven’t even thought of. And that just sounds so cool–way cooler than just playing as another Jedi or Sith or bounty hunter or soldier again.
With Lucasfilm’s announcement that all video games based on its properties will now live under the “Lucasfilm Games” umbrella, it appears that a new age is about to begin for the company’s video games ambitions. We already got a glimpse of what this new strategy is with the reveal of a new Indiana Jones game by Bethesda’s studio MachineGames. And more recently, Ubisoft confirmed that it’s making an open-world Star Wars game, which is all the more surprising, given Star Wars titles have been predominantly developed by Lucasfilm’s longtime video game collaborator Electronic Arts for the last few years.
With Star Wars and other Lucasfilm properties handed off to competing publishers and developers, it seems like EA will no longer have exclusive rights to the property’s gaming-related projects. A shift in strategy like this now makes it open season for just about any notable developer in the industry to work with Lucasfilm properties. All this echoes how Marvel’s games division approached making games based on its IP, where there was a greater emphasis on matching the right developer with the right property instead of handing off the entire catalog to one company.
Naturally, all of this got us thinking about Star Wars games that we’ve always dreamed of being made. And because of Lucasfilm’s new strategy, any developer can now potentially helm projects based on any Star Wars or Lucasfilm-related property, so this has our imaginations running wilder than ever before. Below, you can read about our dream Star Wars games and who want to make them.
A Jedi Knight VR Game By Valve
Valve will do what Valve wants to do, but in our fake world of imagination, we’d love to see what it could do with the Star Wars Jedi Knight series template in VR. As we saw with Half-Life: Alyx, Valve can make a gripping adventure in VR with multifaceted and intuitive gameplay mechanics that come together seamlessly as a whole. With expert level design, the game never feels like a series of segmented set pieces. And with the backing of a big franchise (Half-Life, Valve’s own), we got to see a world we thought we knew up close and personal. Now imagine all that in the context of a Jedi Knight game.
While we’ve had The Force Unleashed and Jedi Fallen Order, the last proper Jedi Knight game was Jedi Academy in *checks notes* 2003. Before that, Dark Forces and Jedi Outcast set the bar for single-player action-focused Star Wars games, which gave us exciting levels across many planets, tense firefights, and most importantly, wild lightsaber battles. With Valve’s sensibilities proven through Half-Life: Alyx, those elements of the Jedi Knight games could thrive like it hadn’t before in VR and bring us closer to the Jedi experience.
With Vader Immortal: Episode I, the potential for a Star Wars game in VR has already been shown, but it more or less feels like a VR showcase than a full game (although we’d like to see what future episodes have in store). If we could dream up a collaboration, though, the Jedi Knight series in VR by Valve would be something else. — Michael Higham, Associate Editor
Chewbacca’s Big Adventure By Young Horses
The unsung hero of all of Star Wars is Chewbacca. Wookiee general, Rebel secret agent, Millennium Falcon co-pilot, protector of young Jedi–Chewbacca has about as great a direct and indirect impact on the galaxy far, far away as any other single person, barring maybe Emperor Palpatine himself. My favorite part of his character is how often he plays into the whole “I’m a seven-foot screaming monster who rips people’s arms off just because I feel like” idea of a wookiee, when he’s demonstrably a big softie.
Chewie has never had a game of his own, and it’s high time that situation was remedied. But I don’t want a story about Chewie the warrior from Revenge of the Sith or Chewie the crime sidekick from Solo: A Star Wars Story. I want the Chewie from The Empire Strikes Back–the regular dude who happens to be huge, super-strong, and impossible for most people in the galaxy to understand. Chewie’s Big Adventure is a comedy game in which Chewie tries to do some Rebel spy stuff, or maybe just some regular smuggling business, with the added struggle of being a wookiee.
Imagine choosing dialogue options like, “I’m the co-pilot of the fastest ship in the galaxy” but having it come out as a series of shrieks and growls that send people screaming and scattering in fear. Life for Chewbacca can be tough and frustrating when everyone thinks you’re huge, dangerous, and nearly unstoppable, but you also have unique talents that let you gather information for the Rebellion, get your best bud out of life-threatening scrapes, and poorly repair droids. Give Chewbacca’s Big Adventure to a studio like Bugsnax and Octodad developer Young Horses, turn it into a story-driven semi-stealth game, and let Chewbacca finally get his due. — Phil Hornshaw, Editor
Knights Of The Old Republic Remake By Larian Studios
My fondest Star Wars experience isn’t one of the original movies; it’s Knight of the Old Republic from 2003. It’s what made me a Star Wars fan, and with BioWare’s RPG-making chops, KotOR soared as one of the greatest games of its generation, but also one of the best Star Wars games of all time. You didn’t really need to know anything about the franchise to get into it since it was set 4,000 years before the original trilogy’s timeline. KotOR eased you into the world effortlessly with a captivating standalone story, a strong cast of original characters, and the Light/Dark morality system that made you conscious of every choice you make in the game, big and small.
A developer that has made its mark in the RPG world as of late is Larian Studios, best known for Divinity: Original Sin and Baldur’s Gate 3. Larian’s penchant for in-game decision-making and the seemingly infinite possibilities of consequences–whether it be good, bad, or anything in between–is what makes its games so fascinating. Games have moved past binary morality systems more or less, so an exciting KotOR remake would require some creative liberties to subvert our expectations. KotOR was also rooted in pen-and-paper Dungeons and Dragons gameplay systems, and that’s Larian’s expertise, which would allow our dreamed-up KotOR remake to evolve gameplay-wise while staying true to its original design.
I believe Knights of the Old Republic largely holds up today because of its sharp RPG systems that stand the test of time and because it’s a unique Star Wars story that provides its own spin on all the things you expect from the franchise. Some of KotOR’s best moments come from sidequests or the multiple ways you can resolve main quests through dialogue and action, and Larian would be well-equipped to bring those things to new heights today. — Michael Higham, Associate Editor
Star Wars Musou By Omega Force & Koei Tecmo
Say what you will about the Dynasty Warriors series and its spin-offs, but it has consistently done well with leveraging its settings and familiar gameplay loop to offer up some satisfying large-scale brawler action. While your enjoyment of the series can be something of an acquired taste, I always managed to find the fun pretty quickly in a great Musou-style game. With its recent releases, Hyrule Warriors and the upcoming Persona 5: Strikers, it doesn’t seem like there’s any sign of developer Omega Force letting up with its signature approach to action, and I truly believe that the Musou genre could shine in a galaxy far, far, away.
I want to see a Star Wars-Musou game. Getting to play as the many heroes and villains throughout the sci-fi franchise’s history, leveling them up, outfitting them with new skills and weapons, and exploring massive maps to take down tons of enemies has all the makings of a great time. While the Dynasty Warriors series can be formulaic, I genuinely believe that’s something of an advantage in the case of Star Wars. The fans generally want to have those moments of fan-service and to relive iconic events throughout the saga’s history, and that’s undoubtedly what Musou-style games do best. Darth Vader would essentially be this hypothetical game’s Lu Bu, a similar big bad who tore his way through the battlefield, and that has me feeling excited for what could be. Just imagine playing as Darth Vader using his red lightsaber and force powers to score up to 100 KOs against rebel soldiers–it almost seems too perfect.
While I recognize that Lucasfilm Games would probably just want to focus on only AAA games for the Star Wars series, I still feel that a game that exists outside of the canon and lets the fans cut loose with their favorite characters has potential. A couple of years ago, I actually spoke with the president of Koei Tecmo Hisashi Koinuma, and he stated that the one IP he had the chance to work on would be the Star Wars series. The interest is there, and right now, the ball is in Lucasfilm Games’ court. Let’s make this happen. — Alessandro Fillari, Editor
An RPG Starring Asajj Ventress By Ninja Theory Or Obsidian Entertainment
My favorite Star Wars character is Ahsoka Tano–her evolution into a talented Jedi before becoming a traveling rōnin-like figure is stellar. But a very close second for me is Asajj Ventress, who almost feels like the dark foil to Ahsoka. Her story is one of tragedy, one that leads to her becoming the personal assassin and dark apprentice of Darth Tyranous/Count Dooku. And much like Ahsoka, Asajj is cast out by her allies and pursues a more neutral path between the dark and the light, becoming a bounty hunter. If Ahsoka is the story of finding purpose after leaving the Jedi, then Asajj is the story of finding purpose after leaving the Sith.
Getting a video game about Asajj Ventress covering her story following her failed attempt to assassinate Dooku and her decision to become a bounty hunter sounds awesome. Asajj is a fascinating character. She’s a good person, but the trauma of her abusive upbringing has compelled her to keep even her closest allies at arm’s length. Though Asaji knows she’s stunningly beautiful, she only flirts with others as a means of disarming them, not because she believes someone would genuinely want to be with her.
Though Star Wars Jedi: Fallen Order touches on it with Cal Kestis, Star Wars video games do very little to explore the trauma of folks growing up and living through war. It’s a huge part of the novels and TV shows that just haven’t crossed into the games yet, and Asajj’s story presents an ideal way to finally dig into that. Plus, she’s a badass bounty hunter with Force powers and such a commanding presence that she can charm or threaten her way through most problems without needing to draw her weapon–the ideal protagonist for a narrative-focused action RPG. I’d love to see Ninja Theory or Obsidian Entertainment take a stab at a game like that, especially if the studio works with writer Katie Lucas and author Christie Golden to capture the right tone for the game’s story–both made Asajj Ventress into such an incredible character throughout The Clone Wars, Kindred Spirits, and Dark Disciple. — Jordan Ramée, Associate Editor
A Star Wars Space RTS By Relic Entertainment
Real-time strategy is something we’ve seen Star Wars dabble in before with Empire at War, but it’s been a long time since we’ve had a game of that sort, and Relic is just the studio for a comeback. While it is best known for Company of Heroes, Relic first rose to prominence on the back of the Homeworld games–two terrific RTS games set entirely in space. These featured a blend of small, agile fighter-sized ships and huge capital ships, the most iconic of which is the Mothership that is used to produce most everything else.
It’s easy to see how this formula could work for Star Wars, letting you command both the biggest ships in the Empire and Rebel fleets alongside the X-Wings and TIE fighters we’re more accustomed to controlling in the context of action games. My one concern with a Star Wars RTS is the prospect of it being simplified to work on consoles, but I want this to be every bit as complex as the RTSes that Relic is known for on PC, controller support be damned. — Chris Pereira, Senior Editor
Star Wars: Mercenaries By Respawn Entertainment
If The Mandalorian has proven one thing, it’s that the day to day life of the Star Wars Universe is woefully unexplored in modern video games. Jedi are extremely rare given the size of the galactic civilization where most people would never actually encounter one. The average citizen is just trying to survive day to day without getting caught in the crossfire between the Empire, Rebels, and various crime factions. The Clone Wars series touched on this in the episode “To Catch Jedi,” which was set in Coruscant’s lower levels and followed a character whose parents were collateral damage to Jedi action. I would love an open world ground-to-space immersive sim focused on the daily life of someone just trying to get by. Think Firefly, but in the Star Wars universe.
Specifically, the Star Wars game I’d love to see would be a cross between Wing Commander: Privateer and Mass Effect. Mechanically, the dream would be to seamlessly go from drinking in a cantina to flying into space, landing in the hanger of a Capital ship, and then fighting your way to the bridge. I’d love tons of ship and vehicle customization inspired by the Incredible Cross-Sections books. But I don’t mean cosmetic–I mean dealing with full-on parts and components or cobbling together a speeder bike from scratch after being stranded on a desert planet. Let us not only do things like walk through an AT-AT but build a mobile base out of one like we saw those ex-Clone Troopers do in the Star Wars Rebel series. Let us crash on planets and navigate local wildlife, slavers, and bounty hunters to survive.
I can’t think of a more creative or exciting studio to do this than Respawn Entertainment, who made Star Wars Jedi: Fallen Order and Titanfall. Respawn has proven themselves capable of adapting and reinventing genres in new ways and testing gameplay mechanics to sweet perfection. The studio has also shown that it can grapple with deeper themes, like how it tackled the trauma of the Clone Wars in Fallen Order. Bring on Dave Filoni as a story advisor who has single-handedly shown us the best Star Wars has to offer, and this game will be a dream come true. – Aaron Sampson, Senior Producer
Evil Genius: Star Wars Edition By Rebellion
As a fan of classic Bond movies since I was a little kid, Evil Genius has always felt like a game designed just for me: a strategy game in which you design and run the hidden headquarters of a Bond-style villain. But I see no reason why this Dungeon Keeper-esque formula couldn’t also work for the Star Wars franchise, letting you design a base to fend off unwanted visitors and allow you to initiate offensive missions of your own. It’s easy to imagine this letting you design your own Death Star when playing as the Empire, which would be an exciting proposition.
Many of Evil Genius’s elements could even carry over directly here, like allowing you to capture enemy agents who attempt to infiltrate your base and then torturing them. But you could just as easily play as the Rebels, who might require a base that is designed less for defense and more set up to enable your troops to go out and stick it to the Empire.
Aspects of the Dungeons series could also be integrated here, allowing you to control units in the style of an RTS when they leave your base to go on missions. But I’m most interested here in the strategic element of designing and running your headquarters. Rebellion feels like the right studio given its past involvement with Evil Genius and work on the upcoming sequel. — Chris Pereira, Senior Editor
Star Wars: Galactic Dance Battle By Harmonix
Perhaps one of the most underrated Star Wars experiences of all time is Kinect Star Wars. Developed by Terminal Reality, the studio behind The Walking Dead: Survival Instinct, Def Jam Rapstar, and a whole bunch of other guff, the Xbox 360 title used the console’s ill-fated motion peripheral to present a bunch of mini-games set in the Star Wars universe.
They were of questionable quality, but Galactic Dance-off, admittedly, was one of the best things to happen to Star Wars ever. It allowed players to pick from a selection of iconic characters and then used the Kinect camera to task them with dancing in sync, kind of like Dance Central. Why is it good? Well, because it did not take Star Wars overly seriously, which is one of the things I wish Lucasfilm Games starts to embrace. Yes, Star Wars is important to many people, but also, let’s just have fun with it. I think we all deserve that after the last few years of tiring Star Wars discourse.
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I’m Han Solo – Kinect Star Wars Gameplay
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Galactic Dance-off had a version of Jason Derulo’s Ridin’ Solo that had been modified for Han Solo, and it was just incredible. It featured lyrics like, “I’m feelin’ like a star, you can’t stop my shine // I’m lovin’ Cloud City, my head’s in the sky // I’m Solo, I’m Han Solo // I’m Han Solo, I’m Han Solo, Solo.” Come on; that is just inspired. And then, “I’m pickin’ up my blaster, puttin’ it on my side // I’m jumpin’ in my Falcon, Wookiee at my side // I’m Solo, I’m Han Solo.” Also, he dance battles Lando while a Storm Trooper absolutely cuts up the dance floor in the background, and C3P0 stands there, paralysed as if he’s having a flashback to one of those many battles where he spent all his time looking like a butler power walking through a field of landmines.
We need more of this. And I think Harmonix, the studio known for making Dance Central and numerous other superb rhythm games, is the ideal candidate for it. They’ll know what to do. – Tamoor Hussain, Managing Editor
The Elder Scrolls Online: Gates of Oblivion reveal event has been pushed from January 21 to January 26 due to the U.S. presidential inauguration taking place on January 20.
The January 26 event will be streamed on Bethesda’s Twitch channel beginning at 2 p.m. PT / 5 p.m. ET / 10 p.m. GMT, the company announced on Twitter. Bethesda’s Pete Hines, ZeniMax Online studio director Matt Firor, ESO creative director Rich Lambert, and other members of the development team will be on hand “to talk about the Gates of Oblivion’s new worlds, challenges, systems, and adventures.”
Gates of Oblivion was announced at The Game Awards with a 2021 release window. The MMO’s previous three expansions were all released between late May and early June, though Bethesda has yet to announce a date for Gates of Oblivion.
ESO’s last expansion, Greymoor, offered players a return to the province of Skyrim. IGN’s ESO: Greymoor review called it “a strongly nostalgic return to the northwestern corner of Skyrim” marred by a “formulaic story [that] isn’t as compelling.”
Pokemon Go‘s Sinnoh Celebration event is underway until January 17, and it’ll be followed by a Hoenn Celebration next week. That event will kick off on January 19, and now developer Niantic has shared more details about what Pokemon and bonuses will be available.
Throughout the Hoenn Celebration event, the following Pokemon will be appearing in the wild more frequently than usual:
Treecko
Torchic
Mudkip
Taillow
Loudred
Nosepass
Aron (and Shiny Aron)
Meditite
Roselia
Carvanha
Numel
Baltoy
In addition to those wild spawns, the following Pokemon will be hatching from 5 km eggs throughout the event:
Skitty
Aron
Corphish
Lileep
Anorith
Bagon
Beldum
You’ll also be able to encounter various Gen 3 Pokemon through event-exclusive Field Research tasks and in Raids. As part of the festivities, Niantic is bringing the Legendary Groudon and Kyogre back to the game from January 19-26. You’ll also be able to encounter a Rayquaza that knows the Charged Attack Hurricane if you complete all of the event’s Timed Research tasks.
Pokemon Go’s Hoenn Celebration runs until 8 PM local time on January 24. You can read more details on the Pokemon Go website. The event will be followed by a Johto Celebration that’s scheduled to run from January 26-31, although further details about that event will be announced at a later date.
In the meantime, the Sinnoh Celebration runs until January 17 and features a variety of Gen 4 Pokemon, including the Legendary Heatran. January’s Community Day is also just around the corner. That event takes place this Saturday, January 16, and features Machop. February’s Community Day is scheduled to follow on February 7 and will feature the Grass Pokemon Roselia.
Little Nightmares 2 is less than a month away from release, and to celebrate, publisher Bandai Namco is giving away free copies of the first game on PC. From now until January 17, you can claim a free Steam code for Little Nightmares via Bandai Namco’s website. Codes will be delivered via email within two weeks, and the sign-up page says “while supplies last,” so you may want to get your name on the list quickly.
This isn’t the only way to snag Little Nightmares for free this month–Xbox Live Gold and Xbox Game Pass Ultimate subscribers can claim Little Nightmares right now as part of January’s Games with Gold offerings. It’s free on Xbox One and Xbox Series X|S for members until January 31.
Released in 2017, Little Nightmares is a horror puzzle-platformer about a little girl named Six trapped in an underwater vessel called the Maw. Similar to games like Inside and Limbo, Little Nightmares doesn’t have any dialogue and instead tells its story through its atmospheric setting and disturbing background visuals. As Six makes her way through the Maw in an attempt to escape, you’ll have to avoid capture by the Maw’s creepy residents and solve puzzles to navigate the various rooms.
The game earned an 8/10 in GameSpot’s Little Nightmares review for its haunting narrative, tense cat-and-mouse-style chases, and enthralling visuals, though editor Matt Espineli lamented the game’s shorter length.
“It’s likely you’ll finish Little Nightmares in one or two sittings; its brief length may diminish the spark of its highs, making you wish there was more to prolong the time it takes to overcome its tense set pieces,” he wrote. “But regardless of how you view the time you spend with the game, its strange and distorted world is enough to pull you back in for a second playthrough. The journey to reach its provocative conclusion is filled with unnerving questions and imagery that take hold of your morbid curiosities and pull you deep into introspection. While its puzzles are at times too straightforward, Little Nightmares is a chilling odyssey well worth taking.”
On February 11, you’ll be able to explore the world outside the Maw in Little Nightmares 2, which follows a new young protagonist, Mono, as he teams up with Six to explore a mysterious signal that’s distorting the world around them. Little Nightmares 2 preorders are available now for PC, Nintendo Switch, PS4, PS5, Xbox One, and Xbox Series X|S, including a preorder bonus and physical Day One edition. Plus, check out our early impressions of Little Nightmares 2, including our most recent experience playing through the game’s school level.
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CD Projekt Red co-founder Marcin Iwiński appeared on a video today to apologize on behalf of the company and the leadership team over the launch of Cyberpunk 2077. Iwiński promises more updates will be regularly delivered along with free content, including the promised free next-gen upgrade for PS5 and Xbox Series X, now targeting the “second half of 2021”
CD Projekt never revealed when a next-gen upgrade for Cyberpunk 2077 will be released, other than that it would be released for free sometime in 2021. But now, Iwiński confirms that players will likely not see the update until the latter half of the year.
Iwiński’s video, which is nearly five minutes long, briefly touched on several questions about Cyberpunk 2077’s launch, including why there’s such a gap between PC and console versions of Cyberpunk 2077, and over how it handled review copies.
Dear gamers,
Below, you’ll find CD PROJEKT’s co-founder’s personal explanation of what the days leading up to the launch of Cyberpunk 2077 looked like, sharing the studio’s perspective on what happened with the game on old-generation consoles. pic.twitter.com/XjdCKizewq
In regards to bringing Cyberpunk 2077 to consoles, especially older ones, Iwiński says “things did not look super difficult at first, while we knew the hardware game, ultimately, time has proven that we’ve underestimated the task.”
He says the main culprit was the in-game streaming system, which is “responsible for ‘feeding’ the engine with what you see on screen, as well as the game mechanics.” Iwiński cites the disk bandwidth performance on older systems as being unable to keep up with the packed city design.
Iwiński also says its internal testing “did not show many of the issues” players experienced and that each day of work “saw significant improvements” to performance. But even then Iwiński says the developers were working on optimizing the console version for the Day 0 patch up until launch. This accounts for the delay between getting PC review codes out and console review copies out on December 8th, according to Iwiński.
As for early 2021, CD Projekt will push several patches regularly throughout the year. The first update will be released “in the next 10 days” and a larger “more significant update” will be released weeks after that.
CDPR’s new road map. Source: CD Projekt
There are still plans to release free DLC as with The Witcher 3, but they may not target “early 2021” as previously expected as CDPR has shifted its priority to “working on the most important fixes and updates” and DLC will follow afterward.