Next Microsoft Event Confirmed For May, Xbox Show Might Be Sooner

The next Microsoft virtual event has been set, but don’t expect it to house big gaming announcements. The Microsoft Build conference is an annual event aimed at software developers and engineers, and the company has set the dates at May 25-27.

Microsoft confirmed the dates to GameSpot sister site ZDNet following an appearance on a public events page, though it’s still not present on the dedicated Build event site. Registration details have not been shared yet.

Microsoft has been sticking with virtual events so far this year due to the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic. It is also planning a series of “What’s Next” virtual events that will focus more narrowly on particular areas of interest. A “What’s Next for Gaming” event is reportedly expected in the coming weeks as well, separate from the Build conference. GameSpot has contacted Microsoft regarding the events schedule.

This could be in addition to whatever Microsoft has planned surrounding E3 or other summer reveal events, which are still unconfirmed. The ESA has confirmed it is planning a digital show, and in response to reports that it would be charging a fee the company has confirmed it will be free, at least in part. More details are said to be coming soon.

Halo Infinite’s First In-Person Esports Tournament Teased For 2021

Halo’s long history with esports will continue with Halo Infinite, and now the game’s first tournament has been teased. The franchise’s competitive gaming lead, Tashi, announced on Twitter that Microsoft just recently finalized a date and venue for the first Halo Infinite event in the Halo Championship Series.

Tashi didn’t share any further specifics, but more details will be announced this summer. Also, everything could change as a result of the pandemic, Tashi cautioned.

Microsoft has been planning Halo Infinite’s esports efforts for a very long time. Back in February 2020, when the game was still on track for release in 2020 and before the pandemic reached its height, Microsoft announced a huge deal with Esports Engine to run the Halo Championship Series.

As part of the deal, the Esports Engine team will work alongside Microsoft’s own Halo Championship Series team inside of developer 343 Industries. The two will collaborate on “ecosystem design, format and league operations, broadcasts, and more.”

Adam Apicella, the head of Esports Engine, tweeted about the news in less direct terms. He teased, “Signed the biggest thing I’ve ever been a part of in my career. Vroom vroom 2021.” He joked about building a hover craft in the tweet as well.

Apicella also retweeted Tashi’s tweet about the Halo Infinite competitive gaming news, saying, “Let’s go!”

After a big delay, Halo Infinite is now slated to release this fall for Xbox One, Xbox Series X|S, and PC. The multiplayer is getting a big shakeup as well, as Microsoft is making it free-to-play for everyone.

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JoJo’s Bizarre Adventure Part 6 Is In Production and Will Adapt Stone Ocean

During the JoJo’s Bizarre Adventure the Animation Special Event, it was confirmed that the series’ sixth season is in production and will look to adapt the Stone Ocean story arc from the Japanese manga series of the same name.

As reported by CBR.com, the anime design for the next JoJo, Jolyne Cujoh, was also revealed and can be seen in the poster below.

EyIBaakU8AMs4ZhWhile no premiere date was given, a teaser trailer was shown that celebrates the history of JoJo’s Bizarre Adventure while also teasing its exciting future with Jolyne.

Yashahime: Princess Half-Demon’s Ai Farouz will voice Jolyne, who is also the first female protagonist in the JoJo’s Bizarre Adventure franchise.

Fairouz shared her excitement of her new role with fans, saying that Jojo is what inspired her to take on voice-acting as a profession.

“I cannot live without the JoJo’s Bizarre Adventure series, and it is also what inspired me to take on voice-acting as a profession,” Fairouz said, as translated by Anime News Network. “So when I heard that I was going to be able to participate in the series, I was lost for words and surprised that “Even a Stand would be blown to the moon.” I cried so much as it was literally the moment my dream came true, which I have chased over for 12 years.

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“I love and admire Jolyne as a character and her beautiful, strong nature gave me strength especially during my student years, so I am grateful for the opportunity to voice Jolyne.”

It’s been nearly two years since JoJo’s Bizarre Adventure: Golden Wind came to an end, so this news is very welcome to fans waiting for more.

The Star Ocean manga ran in Weekly Shonen Jump from 1999 to 2003 and totaled in 17 volumes.

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

Halo: MCC Season 6 Update Won’t Have New Edge Map For Halo 3

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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Three More Clash Of Clans Games Announced

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

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

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

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

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New Disney Plus Loki Trailer Has Avengers Villain Travelling Through Time And Signing Dull Paperwork

With the debut of the new trailer for the Disney+ series Loki, MCU fans finally have a good idea as to what the show is about. And actually, it is a lot weirder than we all thought it would be.

Debuting on the streaming service on June 11, Loki (Tom Hiddleston) finds himself in the crosshairs with the TVA–the Time Variance Authority. Stealing the Tesseract in Avengers: Endgame wasn’t the best idea, as Loki was supposed to die. Check out the trouble Loki has landed himself in the trailer below.

Owen Wilson (Wedding Crashers) will be accompanying Loki on this journey as a TVA agent. Loki is supposed to fix the timestream, as a bunch of variations have been created over the years–quite possibly due to all the MCU movie shenanigans. But of course, Loki working with others has been troublesome in the past, as he tends to stab people in the back–something Wilson’s character points out.

Loki also features Gugu Mbatha-Raw (Belle), Sophia Di Martino (Yesterday), Wunmi Mosaku (Lovecraft Country), and Richard E. Grant (Gosford Park). Sex Education’s Kate Herron will direct Loki, which features Michael Waldron (Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness) as head writer.

While WandaVision will take the award for most bizarre MCU TV show, Loki looks like it might be a solid second place in that regard. And we’re still a couple months away from the premiere, so we’ll be learning more about the series as we get closer to the launch date.

Loki will be the third MCU series to arrive on Disney+. Currently, The Falcon and the Winter Soldier (FAWS) is airing and just hit the halfway point. While FAWS isn’t an “out there” Marvel story, it does feature Captain America’s two best friends, teaming up to take on a global terrorist group. If you’ve been enjoying the series, check out all the Easter eggs you may have missed.

Man Arrested At Disney Resort After Refusing Temperature Check

Authorities in Florida arrested a man at the Disney Springs resort after he refused a temperature check, reportedly telling officials that he spent $15,000 on the trip so they could not ask him to leave. The incident occurred in February but the body cam footage was released recently and was obtained by The Orlando Sentinel.

The man, Kelly Sills, said no multiple times to a temperature check at the resort, according to the Orange County Sheriff’s Department, as reported by Deadline. When police arrived on the scene, Sills continued to decline a temperature check, which is standard practice.

Sills was escorted out of the Boathouse restaurant by authorities, at which point he changed his mind–but it was too late.

“Will you take my temperature before you kick me out, please?” Sills asked when he was taken away, in handcuffs. A deputy responded, “They’ll do that in jail, sir.” Sills replied, “Well, that’s good.”

After being told he was trespassing, Sills reportedly told officers that he spent $15,000 on the vacation. Sills also reportedly brought up how he is a Disney stockholder. However, this approach didn’t work. Sills would end up pleading not guilty to misdemeanor trespassing charges.

Sills is one of multiple men who have been arrested so far in 2021 for refusing to adhere to Disney’s new rules about health and safety amid the pandemic. Disney spokesperson Andrea Finger previously told the Sentinel, “Millions of guests visit our theme parks each year, and in rare instances when things of this nature occur, we hold them accountable.”

Disney World has been open since July 2020, while Disneyland in California is slated to open again on April 30.

Why Game Preservation Is So Important To Microsoft

One of the big advantages of owning an Xbox Series X|S console is that it isn’t just a platform on which the latest games can be played on; it’s also a device that celebrates the entire Xbox legacy through a huge library of backwards compatible titles. For the team that worked on this system for Xbox, it was less about placing a dollar value on older games to drum up sales and more a drive to preserve the history of video games on the new Xbox consoles.

“As we got to working on the program, I got to realize that it was much more than that,” Xbox compatibility lead Peggy Lo explained to director of programming Larry Hyrb on his Major Nelson podcast.

“That these games didn’t just represent like a dollar amount to somebody; it became a lot about the history of what gaming is to the fans, to the people who developed those games, and to the industry itself. These are games that influence the way that games play today. Preserving that history has become so important to the team just so that people can continue to play these games, share them with new people, and kind of celebrate that legacy there.”

On Xbox Series X, users won’t just have access to Xbox One, Xbox 360, and original Xbox games, but also enhanced versions of those titles. Microsoft recently introduced Xbox FPS Boost, a new upgrade for specific games that almost doubles their frame rates and has so far been implemented in Sniper Elite 4, Far Cry 4, Watch Dogs 2, UFC 4, and New Super Lucky’s Tale.

Select titles from the backwards compatible library went live on Xbox Cloud Gaming–the service formerly known as xCloud–at the end of March. Xbox Game Pass Ultimate subscribers can now play 16 titles from across the original Xbox and Xbox 360 on an Android device.

Sony in comparison has focused less on backwards compatibility since it launched the PS5. While its latest console is capable of playing most of the games from the PS4 library, its other platforms are slowly being sunset. The PlayStation 3, PlayStation Portable, and PlayStation Vita storefronts will close later this year, and Sony has also silently killed off its old web store that let users buy PS3, PSP, and PS Vita digital games.