Animal Crossing: New Horizons released near the start of the global coronavirus pandemic, and the online mode has allowed players to stay connected and interact despite quarantining in their homes. It has also led to several businesses and organizations using the game in creative ways to promote services, but Nintendo appears to be limiting what is actually allowed.
“While our services and products are generally for personal use only, we understand there may be situations in which businesses and organizations would like to use or reference the game in relation to their business,” Nintendo said. “As such, we would like to share a few guidelines with those businesses, organizations, and anyone representing them, to preserve the experience for the millions of people enjoying the game recreationally.”
Approved activities include inviting others to your island, providing custom designs or Dream Addresses you have made, or uploading your screenshots and footage to “family-friendly” websites and social networks. However, there are several activities Nintendo does not allow:
Bringing politics into the game
Sharing false information
Using the game as a marketing platform that directs people to campaigns or activities outside of the game
Selling custom designs or earning advertising revenue from the game
The mention of politics and direction players to a campaign outside the game seems to forbid things like Joe Biden’s Animal Crossing island. It had a website address listed for voting, meaning the Biden campaign team likely wouldn’t be able to do the same thing in 2024 should New Horizons still be popular.
Animal Crossing: New Horizons was recently nominated in several categories for The Game Awards 2020, including Game of the Year. The ceremony will take place on December 10.
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The Hannibal star said he’s “waiting for that phone call,” and can only reference what’s being reported in the press. He might know more than he’s letting on, for but now, that’s all Mikkelsen could say.
“Oh, that is on the rumor basis as we speak,” Mikkelsen said. “So I know as much as you do from the newspapers. So I’m waiting for that phone call.”
Fantastic Beasts 3 is expected to hit theaters in summer 2022, following a delay related to Depp’s exit and the search for a replacement. The film will see the returns of Eddie Redmayne as Newt Scamander and Jude Law as Albus Dumbledore.
With hardboiled rally enthusiasts and sim junkies currently well-served by the stern and serious spin-off Dirt Rally 2.0, Codemasters has swerved to reshape its main off-road series into a sort of Driveclub on dirt; Dirt 5 is an accessible and rowdy racer that’s easy on the eye and fun to pick up and play, even if it’s ultimately a shade on the shallow side relative to what I’ve come to expect from these games.
For a series with its own long and firmly established history, that Driveclub comparison I just threw at you may come as a slight curveball. However, it makes a lot more sense when you consider Dirt 5 was developed by Codemasters Cheshire – the studio formerly known as Evolution, which made Driveclub before being cut loose from Sony and scooped up by Codemasters in 2016. Like Driveclub, Dirt 5 is a mix of doorhandle-to-doorhandle arcade pack racing and bleeding-edge visuals. This game handles night lighting and extreme weather with particular panache.
That said, Driveclub is far from the single influence on Dirt 5. There’s a heavy handful of Dirt 2’s brashness, a dash of Dirt 3’s gymkhana mode, and a limited sprinkle of MotorStorm’s rough-and-ready brand of fender bending (Dirt 5 even features racing in Monument Valley, the location of the original MotorStorm). There’s even a touch of Trackmania’s custom track builder and some subtle hints of SEGA Rally Revo, RalliSport Challenge, and Gravel to boot. This cocktail of influences combines for a well-executed racer, albeit one that seems content to iterate rather than innovate. It’s solid but lacks exciting novelty.
Land Rush Hour
Ironically enough, one key game Dirt 5 roundly ignores is Dirt 4. Built on the bones of Codemasters Cheshire’s Onrush, Dirt 5 actually doesn’t feel anything like its direct predecessor, ditching its two-pronged “simulation” versus “gamer” approach to handling options for a single, easy-to-grasp driving model. There are certainly differences in the way a custom-built buggy tackles terrain compared to, say, a rear-wheel drive retro rally car (and there are also some subtle variations in grip across the different surface types – especially ice) but overall it’s a bit more basic and I found the handling quickly tameable.
Gone, too, is Dirt 4’s custom rally stage generator tool, and with it, any regular point-to-point rallying at all, actually. With Dirt Rally 2.0 competently overseeing that department nowadays, Dirt 5’s career mode is now an arcade-oriented mosaic of mostly pack racing events across tracks in 10 global locations, including New York, Arizona, China, Norway, Brazil, Greece, South Africa, Morocco, Italy, and Nepal. There’s even a light story woven throughout the career which unfolds exclusively in a series of in-game podcast snippets sprinkled between events as you progress. Hosted by Donut Media presenters James Pumphrey and Nolan Sykes, it’s a low-fi approach – no character models, no cutscenes – but even though the segments are entirely inessential I have to admit I bought into the silly back-and-forth and listened to every one of them. It was particularly entertaining hearing the highly-recognisable voices of video game VO veterans Troy Baker and Nolan North regularly sniping at each other in the guise of two rival races.
My key criticism of the career mode is that the variety it appears to offer doesn’t really stand up to scrutiny. I’ve been playing Dirt 5 for a week and there are still event types I can’t really tell the difference between. Land Rush and Stampede in particular both blur into one for me, and Rally Raid doesn’t feel much different to those either.
Path Finder events are a handful of hill climb time-attacks in a specialty rock bouncer but, while these courses are the steepest and narrowest, they don’t really require a particularly finessed approach so I didn’t find them as interesting to tackle as I thought I would. Sprint racing? Well, it feels like it’s in the wrong game.
The ice racing is probably my highlight – not only are they generally the best showcase for Dirt 5’s impressive lighting and weather effects, but ice is perhaps unsurprisingly the most satisfying drifting surface. These ice racing events require the most car control and, as such, I found them the most rewarding.
However, while Dirt 4’s custom stage generator may have got the chop, Dirt 5 comes with its own custom content solution: a stunt track editor Codemasters has dubbed Playgrounds. When career mode ran out of sizzle for me, I found myself in Playgrounds – and right now I suspect it’s here I’ll stay. It’s perhaps best described through a modern lens as a Dirt-flavoured slice of Trackmania-style madness, but more pertinently Playgrounds might be as close to a modern-day version of the 1990 MS-DOS cult classic Stunts (or 4D Sports Driving) as I’ve ever played. You may be unfamiliar with this 30-year-old relic but at one point as a kid I basically lived in it.
Whether you’re placing stacks of crushed cars or enormous corkscrews, Playgrounds’ editing tools are all quite straightforward – although I’m yet to build something I’m truly happy with. In the interim, I’m having plenty of fun attacking the user-created tracks already available.
In some ways Playgrounds feels a bit like it comes from a completely different game, but it’s an excellent addition to the Dirt 5 package – especially in conjunction with four-player splitscreen multiplayer.
Electronic Arts has become the latest giant gaming company to start charging $10 more for next-gen games. As part of a wider next-gen reveal for Madden NFL 21, the publisher announced a “NXT LVL” edition of the game for PS5 and Xbox Series X, and it will cost $70 USD.
This version also includes “additional high value” content for the popular card-based online mode, Madden Ultimate Team. However, the full contents were not announced.
To be clear, the NXT LVL edition is a standalone version of Madden 21 for PS5 and Xbox Series X. Anyone who bought the game for PS4 and Xbox One can receive the next-gen improvements, of which there are many, at no extra cost. The only catch is that you need to complete the upgrade by the time Madden NFL 22 launches in 2021.
The $70 NXT LVL edition is aimed at people who are buying Madden 21 for the first time on a new-generation console.
Madden NFL 21 launches for PS5 and Xbox Series X on December 4. That’s the same day that FIFA 21 releases on next-gen consoles, but it’s not clear if there will also be a standalone edition of that game for PS5 and Xbox Series X or if it will cost $10 more.
Earlier in November, EA CFO Blake Jorgensen alluded to price increases for its next-gen games, saying that a higher price point might be necessary to make up for the increases in development costs.
“We’ve always said games are getting more expensive. The experience is getting deeper. The time that people are playing games is getting longer. One might argue that that might require a higher price point over time, but we’ll address that as we get closer to more games coming into the next-gen console transition,” Jorgensen said earlier in November, before the PS5 and Xbox Series X released.
Jorgensen is not the first gaming executive to point out that the cost of game development has increased, and thus a price increase for the consumer might be in order. Take-Two CEO Strauss Zelnick defended NBA 2K21’s $70 price point by saying, “The bottom line is that we haven’t seen a front-line price increase for nearly 15 years, and production costs have gone up 200 to 300%.”
Before that, former PlayStation executive Shawn Layden remarked that the cost of developing games has increased by 10 times, and all the while, the price of new games has stayed steady at $60 USD. “If you don’t have elasticity on the price-point, but you have huge volatility on the cost line, the model becomes more difficult. I think this generation is going to see those two imperatives collide,” Layden said of the new generation of consoles.
More recently, PlayStation boss Jim Ryan defended the $70 price point for the PS5 launch game Demon’s Souls. Asked if $70 was a fair price, Ryan said, “Yes, yes, I do. If you measure the hours of entertainment provided by a video game, such as Demon’s Souls compared to any other form of entertainment, I think that’s a very straightforward comparison to draw.”
Update: Warner Bros. has confirmed that Wonder Woman 1984 will, in fact, be available in theaters and to HBO Max streaming service subscribers on December 25. In a press release, Chair and CEO of WarnerMedia Studios and Networks Group Ann Sarnoff said, “As we navigate these unprecedented times, we’ve had to be innovative in keeping our businesses moving forward while continuing to super-serve our fans. This is an amazing film that really comes to life on the big screen and, working with our partners in the exhibition community, we will provide that option to consumers in the U.S. where theaters are open. We realize that a lot of consumers can’t go back to the movies due to the pandemic, so we also want to give them the option to see Wonder Woman 1984 via our HBO Max platform.”
You can read the original story below.
It’s been something many have speculated would happen. It looks like Wonder Woman 1984, the next DC universe film, will be premiering on the HBO Max streaming service on December 25, 2020. However, it will also be available in movie theaters that are open during the COVID-19 pandemic.
The news was first reported in a tweet from user Wario64, who stumbled upon a trailer for the movie on YouTube, which reveals the HBO Max release. The video is now listed as private on YouTube, though GameSpot has reached out to Warner Bros for confirmation. The report has since been confirmed Warner Bros, which said the film will be available for HBO Max subscribers for a month.
The release of Wonder Woman 1984 has been something fans of the character played by Gal Gadot have been excited about for quite a while, only for delays to set the movie back. Originally, the film was supposed to hit theaters in 2019. However, it was delayed until June 5, before moving again to August 14 due to the COVID-19 pandemic. It then shifted to October 2, before settling on the current December 25 release date. However, with many theaters not open, there was speculation it would be pushed even further into sometime in 2021.
Instead, it seems like Warner Bros. is using a similar tactic as Disney did with the digital release of Mulan. Unlike the Mulan release, though, it’s worth noting that the alleged release date title card says the film will be available at no extra cost to HBO Max subscribers. To watch Mulan, Disney+ subscribers had to pay an extra $30 for access to the film.
As it stands, the move to offer Wonder Woman both in theaters and on HBO Max has not been officially announced by Warner Bros. Regardless, the release date for the film, at the moment, remains December 25.
Far Cry 6 was recently delayed out of its February 2021 release slot, with no new date set. Ubisoft still has not made any official announcement on when the game will arrive, but it seems that Xbox may have spilled the beans, with a new release date being listed on the game’s Xbox store page.
Twitter sleuth Wario64 shared that a date had been listed for Far Cry 6 by the store page, and it’s about three months later than was originally planned–May 25, 2021.
This does not mean that the game will definitely land on this date, but it seems likely. Hopefully we’ll get official confirmation from Ubisoft soon.
The game is coming to Xbox One and PS4, but it’ll be enhanced on Xbox Series X and PlayStation 5, making it the first proper Far Cry game for next-gen. The new game will bring back a voiced protagonist after Far Cry 5’s blank slate, and features Giancarlo Esposito (Breaking Bad, The Mandalorian) as villain Presidente Anton Castillo.
The Legend of Zelda: Link’s Awakening was one of 2019’s biggest Switch releases, but if you’ve yet to pick it up, Black Friday 2020 will be a great time to do so. The Switch exclusive will be discounted at various retailers as part of their Black Friday sales, giving you a chance to snag one of last year’s best titles for cheap.
Link’s Awakening is a full remake of the classic Game Boy game of the same name. Unlike a typical Zelda adventure, the game is not set in Hyrule proper but rather on the strange, dream-like Koholint Island, where Link must conquer puzzle-filled dungeons and gather eight magical instruments to wake the sleeping Wind Fish and return home.
“Though the remake has a couple of blemishes, it’s still an easy game to recommend,” we wrote in our The Legend of Zelda: Link’s Awakening review. “People speak of Link’s Awakening as the secret best Zelda game. That’s a tough call to make, but it’s definitely one of the best. If you haven’t touched a classic Zelda game in a while, Link’s Awakening will almost instantly transport you back to the ’90s. It’s simple, in many ways, but the orchestrated journey still conveys a sense of adventure, and this new version is without question the best way to experience it. And more than anything else, it will put a smile on your face.”
The Picross S series is getting another entry on Switch this month. Picross S 5 follows on from the first four games, offering more of what fans want–Picross puzzles, with a few variant modes and a simple, straightforward user interface.
Picross S 5 launches November 26 through the Nintendo Eshop, and it’ll cost $10. The game will feature a combined 300 Picross/Mega Picross puzzles, 30 Color Picross puzzles, 150 Clip Picross puzzles, and two “large” Picross puzzles, with up to three extras being added if you have save data for Picross S 1-3 on your system.
Unlike the last few entries, Picross S 5 does not add any new modes from S4, and just focuses on the puzzles. The main additions this time are an overall timer that tells you how long it took to complete every puzzle, and a high-contrast color option for Color Picross.
You can check out a trailer for Picross S 5 below.
The Picross S series has generally been well received as a pleasant, albeit low-frills, Picross series for Switch. Other Picross options on the system include the story-focused Murder by Numbers and the SNES collection’s previously Japan-only release Mario’s Super Picross.
If you’ve enjoyed the Picross series on Switch and have a 3DS on hand, check out Picross 3D: Round 2— maybe the best Picross game ever made.
EA Sports has released the first gameplay footage of Madden NFL 21 on PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X, and it looks very good. The developer also offered more details on how Madden NFL 21 will take advantage of the new consoles beyond just better graphics.
EA says the next-gen edition of Madden NFL 21 will deliver a “new standard of realism and authenticity.” As you can see in the trailer below, the game definitely looks better: player models, weather effects, and even the grass on the field appear to be more faithful to the real thing. But what might be more exciting about the next-gen editions of Madden 21 is how they’re using new player data from the real league.
For years now, NFL players have been wearing RFID chips in their jerseys to capture data about their performance, and now this is being shared with EA. The developer is using this data to make the in-game character models and their related animations appear more life-like.
“This data, called Next Gen Stats, is fed into Madden NFL 21 to drive fluid animation selection based on how players actually move when running, cutting, and changing direction on the field creating the most realistic player movement in franchise history,” EA said. “Next Gen Player Movement comes to life on both sides of the ball, with elite route runners running their actual routes logged by Next Gen Stats and showcasing explosive first steps and direction changes, while elite defenders will react more realistically to opposing routes and runs.”
Madden 21 on next-gen consoles will also include a new replay system that uses the player data to show you things like how quickly in seconds the quarterback released the ball or the distance of a completed pass. The idea is that, with these more granular numbers, players can make better decisions in the future about play-calling.
And speaking of play-calling, there is a new play-calling menu in Madden 21 that appears to prioritize star plays and lets you more easily involve them in key plays.
The new-gen editions of Madden 21 also boast faster loading times; EA said players can expect to get into games “in seconds,” while the developer said environments will load “with unprecedented speed.”
In addition, EA has added new “cloth animation” to make jerseys look more life-like with wrinkles that emerge during games based on how players move on the field. There is also now location-based audio to make the game feel as if the player is reacting to the sound coming from whatever direction they are looking.
On PS5, Madden 21 uses the DualSense controller to allow people to “feel the impact of passes, catches, tackles, hits, and kicks.”
Everyone who buys or has already purchased Madden 21 on Xbox One or PS4 can upgrade to their next-gen edition within the same console family for free until the release of Madden NFL 22 in 2021. All progress will carry forward from Madden Ultimate team, The Yard, and Franchise mode.
EA is also releasing a $70 “NXT LVL” edition of Madden 21 specifically for Xbox Series X and PS5. This appears to be EA’s first game that carries a higher price tag on next-gen. The game comes with “additional high value” content for Ultimate Team.
Madden 21’s PS5 and Xbox Series X editions launch on December 4, which is the same day that FIFA 21 comes to next-gen.
The Animal Crossing: New Horizons winter update–which adds events that align with Thanksgiving and Christmas–is now live. This brings the Switch sensation to version 1.6.0, and brings various other fixes and changes.
The big additions in the winter update are Turkey Day (November 26) and Toy Day (December 24), which bring new NPCs and events with them. In the former, Franklin the turkey will appear to help you make a feast. On Toy Day, Jingle the reindeer arrives to hand out gifts.
New Years items will also be available at Nook’s between December 26 and 31.
This update also lets you transfer save data between systems. Before this, moving to a Switch Lite, or getting your save back after losing or selling your Switch, wasn’t possible. Now you’ll be able to do so, which will be good news for the many people asking for this feature. Here’s how to transfer your Animal Crossing: New Horizons save.
Several other features Animal Crossing fans have been wanting and expecting–including a new Nook expansion and the appearance of Brewster, the series’ pigeon barista–still have not made their way into the game, nor been announced.
You can see the numerous changes introduced in this update in the full patch notes below.
Two seasonal events, Turkey Day and Toy Day, have been added.
Residents can visit Resident Services to put in a request to increase the capacity of their home storage.
Luna can now offer random dream destinations by selecting the “Surprise me” option.
A new feature for transferring save data between different systems has been added.
This feature only transfers save data for Animal Crossing: New Horizons. When necessary, please use the Nintendo Switch “Transfer Your User Data” feature as well.
The following content has also been added:
Additional Nook Miles redemption items.
Additional limited-time seasonal items from Nook Shopping.
Additional DIY recipes that use seasonal materials.