biteho.com

EA is appealing a potential €5 million fine in The Netherlands for its sale of FIFA Ultimate Team packs.

The Dutch government announced earlier in October that it would be enforcing a fine against EA for its implementation of paid-for loot boxes in its most recent FIFA games.

EA will have to change the way its loot box-like items work in FIFA 19, 20, and 21, or every week the company will be fined €250,000, up to a maximum of €5 million. That’s just in The Netherlands – the same fine is being levied against EA’s Swiss subsidiary, meaning it could double in practice.

EA Benelux issued a statement, noting its intent to appeal the fine. “We’re disappointed by today’s decision, and the possible impact of it on Dutch players. We do not agree that our products and services are in conflict with the local gambling laws,” the statement reads. “We do appeal against this decision and try to prevent a situation that impacts the full possibilities of Dutch players in FIFA Ultimate Team.”

[ignvideo url=”https://www.ign.com/videos/2020/10/06/fifa-21-review”]

“Electronic Arts attaches great importance to a positive playing experience: we strive to give all players choice, honesty, value, and pleasure in our games. We’re still open to take part in talks with the Netherlands Gambling Authority and other stakeholders to solve and understand their concerns.”

Players of FIFA Ultimate Team will be familiar with the game’s player packs, which can be purchased with FIFA Points, a currency that can be acquired with real money. The contents of the packs are randomised, hence why many take umbrage with their inclusion and see the packs as a form of gambling.

The Netherlands banned loot boxes back in 2018, and the ripple effect of this decision is still being felt by many publishers in the games industry.

[poilib element=”accentDivider”]

Jordan Oloman is a freelance writer for IGN. Follow him on Twitter.

Listen up gamers, if you’re investing a whole $500 into your new Xbox Series X or PlayStation 5, then you’re becoming the proud owner of a 4K Blu-ray disc drive, and it’s time to take advantage of it. With the release window right around the corner, there couldn’t be a better time to check out a whole slew of 4K Ultra HD Blu-ray the early Black Friday sales.

As Black Friday deals on 4K Blu-rays go live, we’ll continue to add the latest and greatest offers available to this article. Don’t forget, we’ve also rounded up all the best deals for Black Friday in our comprehensive post, alongside every single video game deal already available at Best Buy.

Early Black Friday Deals: 4K Ultra HD Blu-ray (Ends Sunday)

[poilib element=”commerceDeal” parameters=”slug=black-friday-films-tv-best-buy”]

[poilib element=”accentDivider”]

Robert Anderson is a deals expert for IGN, he’s both excited and terrified at the prospect of Black Friday. Be nice and ask him how his day is going @robertliam21

[widget path=”ign/modules/recirc” parameters=”title=&type=articles%2Cvideos&tags=us-shopping&count=3&columnCount=3&theme=article”]

A set photo from The Witcher Season 2 has offered fans a first look at the new and improved Nilfgaardian armour design.

As reported by Redanian Intelligence, The Daily Mail recently shared a barrage of photos from the set of The Witcher Season 2, including one of Nilfgaardian knight Cahir (Eamon Farren) and some soldiers, sporting a revised armour design. The new and improved uniform features smoother metal breastplates, protruding shoulder pads, and a pair of black and gold boots to match. Cahir is also pictured carrying a sleeker version of his infamous winged helmet. Check out the photos HERE.

[ignvideo url=”https://www.ign.com/videos/2020/01/09/the-witcher-showrunner-explains-why-nilfgaard-armour-is-so-ugly-ign-now”]

The original armour design, first spotted in set photographs leaked months ahead of the show’s launch, became the subject of much online confusion and even ridicule, as many criticised its “odd shape” and “wrinkled” appearance while unfavourably comparing it to the armour used for the CD Projekt RED video games. In response, showrunner Lauren Schmidt Hissrich explained the reasons behind the controversial design while making it clear that it would be “totally different” in the show’s second season.

“What was important for us about the Nilfgaardian army was to bring it away from the Cintran army,” Hissrich told IGN. “[Cintra has] an incredibly well-trained army that comes from a kingdom with a lot of money. We wanted to contrast that with Nilfgaard, which obviously is a very powerful army as well, but is moving northward and has been for a while, and conscripting new people into its army. [The armour had to] look like they picked it up, they did it quickly, and they put them on them.”

[widget path=”global/article/imagegallery” parameters=”albumSlug=live-action-versions-of-video-game-characters&captions=true”]

The Nilfgaardians are not the only ones to be getting a new wardrobe this season. We previously glimpsed Henry Cavill’s Geralt suited up in an all-black studded leather outfit with large shoulder plates and extended wrist cuffs, together with some belt and buckle detailing ensuring that he’s harnessed in for the training sessions that he might be having with Freya Allan’s Ciri, who looked ready for combat in her official character snaps. The Witcher Season 2 is expected to premiere sometime in 2021.

[poilib element=”accentDivider”]

Adele Ankers is a Freelance Entertainment Journalist. You can reach her on Twitter.

If you blinked this morning, you missed out on the first wave of RTX 3070 cards available to purchase. Just like the RTX 3080 and RTX 3090, the mid-range Nvidia RTX 3070 went out of stock in mere minutes. But not all hope is lost! Newegg has prebuilt PCs with RTX 3070 and even RTX 3080 cards available for purchase, although three of the four available are preorder only (with a November 4 release date, so not too bad).

Nvidia RTX 3070 and 3080 PCs

[poilib element=”commerceDeal” parameters=”slug=newegg-prebuilt-rtx-3070-and-3080-pcs”]

These are ABS computers, which is Newegg’s in-house PC brand. The specs are extremely respectable, and this is about the best possible way to get yourself equipped with a new RTX 30-series graphics card for the time being. You’ll pay about as much for a pretty beastly prebuilt as you would on the secondary market for the card alone, with the added bonus of not having to keep refreshing 100 different tabs in hopes a new round of orders pop back up.

Make sure to check out our RTX 3070 review to see what we thought of this new mid-level card from Nvidia.

Horror can be hard to get right in an interactive story. When you have the freedom to make your own decisions it can inadvertently interrupt the building moods and provocative themes the genre is built on, but developer Supermassive has proven before that it can still tell a (mostly) cohesive story no matter what players decide to do. It’s such a shame then that Little Hope, the latest in its Dark Pictures Anthology, feels like a step backward compared to the studio’s previous games. It’s an odd, anemic thriller that I struggled to get invested in, and its choice and consequence system feels strangely superficial.

Little Hope’s story about a group of college students stranded in the abandoned, eponymous New England town after a bus accident lacks the overt love of the horror genre woven through the DNA of Supermassive’s 2015 gem Until Dawn. Nor does it have the sense of glee that came from slicing and dicing the characters in 2019’s first Dark Pictures game, Man of Medan. In fact, when you’re not actively running from monsters, it’s…kinda dull.

[widget path=”global/article/imagegallery” parameters=”albumSlug=the-most-terrifying-scares-in-video-games&captions=true”]

You spend most of your time in Little Hope wandering around town trying to figure out what to do. Ultimately, your goal is to find the missing bus driver, but that’s broken into smaller, more mundane tasks, like ‘find a phone,’ or ‘find something to break this window.’  This would be fine if there was a ratcheting sense of needing to survive, but there’s not much tension to speak of within its first two hours. Little Hope’s characters spend the majority of this time freaking out or bickering at one another, with rarely any levity to balance out its ubiquitous sense of dismalness – barring the occasional supernatural time jump to the past where an ongoing storyline about the 1692 witch trials briefly distracts them from their misery.

It doesn’t help that they’re not a very interesting bunch – which is weird considering they’re meant to be part of a creative writing class! – even when you try and choose dialogue or relationship options that might introduce more depth. They have little to no backstory; John, the 40-something class teacher, is a recovering alcoholic, apparently, but there’s no meaningful exploration of that beyond the ability to test his will with a glass of whiskey. At one point you’re told that 20-year-old Andrew has known 50-something-year old Angela for years, yet they had no notable dynamic to justify the line in either of my two differing playthroughs. There simply doesn’t seem to be much to any of Little Hope’s characters, so I quickly stopped caring who I was in control of.

[widget path=”global/article/imagegallery” parameters=”albumSlug=25-scariest-games-of-this-generation&captions=true”]

Some life could have been injected through incidental dialogue while you explore, but what’s here is wooden, and the actors delivering it feel divorced from the material and each other. As characters wander through Silent Hill-inspired fog, they utter dead-eyed quips like: “I have a bad feeling about this” and “I don’t like the sound of that.” At one point, as he entered a museum, John revealingly proclaimed “this place is a museum of some kind.” It’s rough. [poilib element=”quoteBox” parameters=”excerpt=Incidental%20dialogue%20is%20wooden%2C%20and%20the%20actors%20delivering%20it%20feel%20divorced%20from%20the%20material%20and%20each%20other.”]

You can affect the relationships between characters with your decisions, but rarely does it result in any particularly noteworthy action. No matter how much of an asshole to one particular character I was, for example, he tended to react the same way in both playthroughs. There could very well be more subtle differences at play here, but there were few moments where it felt like my choices actually had a tangible impact.

The town of Little Hope itself is much more interesting and gorgeous to wander around in. Interiors are lovingly crafted and feel genuinely lived in, and I found joy in exploring the corners of old houses and abandoned trappings of what was once a struggling tourist region. With this in mind, I wish its secrets, scattered throughout Little Hope to offer up ‘premonitions’ of what might happen were you to make a certain fateful decision, were more thoughtfully hidden and designed. There’s little excitement in finding a ‘secret’ that’s right in front of you on the main path.

[widget path=”global/article/imagegallery” parameters=”albumSlug=every-ign-resident-evil-game-review-ever&captions=true”]

As you explore, you’re pursued by a plethora of nasties who appear in scripted sequences designed for jump scares, and they’re mostly effective. Like in all of Supermassive’s previous work, a series of quick-time events is all that lies between you and certain death, though Little Hope has dialed the previously punishing timing those games required just a little too far toward ‘easy.’ You get a very generous amount of time to get your bearings and hit the right button.   This is not to say that being chased and prompted to hit a very specific button on the controller to escape doesn’t incite panic – and a lot of these sequences had me extremely stressed – but it’s now much harder to fail. On my first playthrough, all of my characters survived even though I wasn’t trying very hard to keep them alive. [poilib element=”quoteBox” parameters=”excerpt=On%20my%20first%20playthrough%2C%20all%20of%20my%20characters%20survived%20even%20though%20I%20wasn%E2%80%99t%20trying%20very%20hard%20to%20keep%20them%20alive.”]

This would be understandable if I felt like my decision-making had real, impactful results elsewhere, but I didn’t. Unlike Man of Medan or Until Dawn, I didn’t experience any really significant divergence in the storyline throughout my two playthroughs, each taking roughly four hours to complete, despite playing them quite differently. There were small anomalies, certainly, like when I decided to pick up a gun in my second playthrough, or I handed a knife to another character in my first. But nothing big or dramatic enough to encourage me to play it through a third time in an attempt to unfurl more of its secrets.

Like its predecessor, Little Hope is still best played with a friend in co-op. You can either play online in Shared Story mode, where you’re each controlling characters experiencing the same story from different perspectives, or Movie Night mode, where you can pass the controller back and forth locally. Sharing the experience is always more delightful than playing alone, as you and your co-op companion may choose to play through Little Hope very differently and that conflict can result in some more natural feeling twists (though it can’t make the writing any better no matter how you and your partner get along).

Earlier this year, Hideo Kojima posted an image of concept art that suggested he may be working on a Death Stranding sequel – he’s now told IGN that it doesn’t represent “major plans, but just fragments of new ideas.”

As part of the interviews for our new video, How Death Stranding Foresaw Our Future, we asked Kojima about the image he tweeted (below), which appeared to show a new vehicle type branded with “BRIDGES”, the name of Death Stranding’s post-apocalyptic corporation-government:

Spotted by @latonglibre. pic.twitter.com/d8zEoYSP6P

— French Stranding (@FrenchStranding) June 27, 2020

He explained that, while it does represent an idea he’s had, it doesn’t necessarily mean a Death Stranding sequel is in the works: “I’m always thinking about ideas as I’m working on games. These aren’t major plans, but just fragments of new ideas. I think about these ideas myself, and then I explain them to other people, in order to get opinions about them. For example, I’ll ask Yoji [Shinkawa] if he is sitting next to me.

“Oftentimes, he’ll create some drawings based on my ideas, and show them to me a few days later. The image I tweeted recently was one of these drawings.”

Of course, this doesn’t mean Kojima isn’t working on Death Stranding 2 – after all, we know that Kojima Productions has begun work on a new project, and Kojima has discussed his ideas for a sequel before – but it may also mean that this vehicle concept wouldn’t necessarily be a part of it. Equally, Kojima recently said that a “big project” had been scrapped at Kojima Productions, which potentially could be that version of a sequel.

[ignvideo url=”https://www.ign.com/videos/2020/10/29/how-death-stranding-foresaw-our-future”]

[poilib element=”accentDivider”]

Joe Skrebels is IGN’s Executive Editor of News. Follow him on Twitter. Have a tip for us? Want to discuss a possible story? Please send an email to [email protected].

A new image discovered by ResetEra users reveals that a cloud version of Resident Evil 3 Remake could be coming to the Nintendo Switch.

Nintendo has dabbled in cloud gaming to bring games that likely otherwise wouldn’t be playable on the Switch to the console. It began with Resident Evil 7 in 2018 and was followed up by Assassin’s Creed Odyssey later that year. Those two cloud games were only playable in Japan but yesterday, Nintendo launched Control on Switch as a cloud game and revealed that the upcoming Hitman 3 would be a cloud game on Switch a well. RE3 might be the next game if the image below is any indication.

The image above was discovered in this ResetEra thread by user Jqui, as reported by Kotaku, and it was found on the the website used by the company behind the Switch’s cloud capabilities, Ubitus GameCloud. It’s important to note that the existence of this image doesn’t necessarily imply a cloud version of RE3 is coming. Perhaps it was in the works but has since been canned. Perhaps it’s a mock up image for the simple possibility.

It’s anybody’s guess at this point, but it matches earlier rumors this year after modders discovered code in the demo that references the Switch back in March. Game analyst Daniel Ahmad said around that same time that a cloud version for Switch was being explored, but that there were no plans for a native version.

If you’re looking to test out how a potential RE3 cloud version might run on Switch, you can try the cloud version of Control right now. Sometime in the future, you’ll be able to play Hitman 3 on the Switch as a cloud game as well, although there’s not currently a release date for that. In the meantime, check out our Switch cloud gaming wiki and then check out our Resident Evil 3 Remake guide for any and all questions you might have about the game.

[ignvideo url=”https://www.ign.com/videos/2020/10/28/control-nintendo-switch-performance-vs-enhanced-graphics-demo”]

[poilib element=”accentDivider”]

Wesley LeBlanc is a freelance news writer and guide maker for IGN who made the site’s guide for Resident Evil 3. He would love if you checked it out. Follow him on Twitter @LeBlancWes.  

Sony will seemingly continue to release new PS4 games for the next few years, after SIE CEO Jim Ryan explained that it’s “crucial” to keep the console’s huge audience of owners “engaged and happy”.

Speaking to GamesIndustry, Ryan explained that the effects of the COVID-19 pandemic – and the boost given to many gaming brands as a result of so many more people staying home – has caused the company to reassess how it looks at serving owners of its soon-to-be last-gen console:

“Obviously, our eyes and our horizons have lifted with regards to what’s possible with that PS4 community, based on what we’ve observed over the last six months. That can be quite powerful, because in 2021, 2022… that PS4 community that we’ve spoken about, they will be the vast majority of people on PlayStations during that time. It is crucial that we keep them engaged and happy. And the last six months have demonstrated that we could do that to an extent that we didn’t think possible when we were setting our minds pre-COVID.”

[widget path=”global/article/imagegallery” parameters=”albumSlug=the-best-ps4-games-summer-2020-update&captions=true”]

That may explain the recent shift in public philosophy we’ve seen from PlayStation regarding its PS5 exclusives. As recently as May, Ryan gave an interview in which he said he’d prefer developers to “make the most” of PS5’s features, seemingly above making games that work across two generations of console. However, we subsequently saw the likes of Spider-Man: Miles Morales and Horizon: Forbidden West announced for PS5 and PS4, which appears to push against that ideal somewhat.

From a business standpoint, it’s not an enormous surprise, of course – Sony’s sold over 100 million PS4 consoles, meaning PS5 will have a far smaller market for years to come. That said, the company’s aiming high with its new hardware, saying it hopes to sell more PS5s in its first fiscal year than PS4 managed.

Ryan’s clearly energised for the next generation, saying, “It’s really exciting now. We are right on the brink. Everybody is four or five years into this, and it’s really great to be so close to the big moment. You know, I’ve done them all, and this has easily been the most extraordinary of any of them.”

[widget path=”global/article/imagegallery” parameters=”albumSlug=confirmed-playstation-5-games&captions=true”]

Preorders for the PlayStation 5 are currently sold out, but if more go up they’ll be in our PS5 preorder guide right away. For everything you need to know about PlayStation 5, check out our PS5 guide.

[poilib element=”accentDivider”]

Joe Skrebels is IGN’s Executive Editor of News. Follow him on Twitter. Have a tip for us? Want to discuss a possible story? Please send an email to [email protected].

Full spoilers follow for this episode.

[poilib element=”accentDivider”]

After a brief misstep last week, Star Trek: Discovery finds its groove again with “People of Earth,” which properly reunites Sonequa Martin-Green’s Burnham with her long-lost (from her perspective anyway) crewmates on the Disco. Along the way, the episode also manages to feel particularly Star Trekkie, like its story of the week could’ve been plucked right out of The Original Series or The Next Generation.

A brief log entry from Burnham catches us up on the year that she has spent in the “future” of the 32nd century. Not knowing when, or if, the Discovery would ever show up, she had no choice but to adapt to the time and place where she found herself, becoming a partner to Book (David Ajala) and working as a courier while scrounging up dilithium scraps and attempting to determine what caused the galaxy-shaking The Burn, the devastating event which essentially led to the end of the Federation as we know it.

[widget path=”global/article/imagegallery” parameters=”albumSlug=star-trek-discovery-season-3-photos&captions=true”]

What a lovely scene it is when Burnham is reunited with her friends in the transporter room, with director Jonathan Frakes pouring on the warmth as his camera gets lost amid the characters while they take turns hugging the emotional Michael. Even Michelle Yeoh’s Georgiou, who was particularly grating last week, gets a nice beat here, with her simply staring at Burnham from across the room saying tons.

Another long-wondered about moment comes shortly thereafter, as Saru (Doug Jones) officially becomes captain of the Discovery. No more “acting” in that rank! Of course, Disco has been fluid with its captains, first giving us Lorca (who, at this point, we’ll almost certainly never see gain, non-Mirror version or not) and then Pike. And the question of whether Saru or Burnham would take over in this new time period has had fans guessing since the end of Season 2, but here Burnham, changed by her experiences of the past year, just hands it to Saru, saying, “I don’t know if it’s ever been me.” Huh. Not very Burnham like, actually.

One might say Tilly’s wall of badges commemorating those who’ve been lost is a little too reminiscent of Battlestar Galactica’s memorial hallway, though then again isn’t it just a natural display of grief? And it also, thanks to Mary Wiseman’s performance, drives home the gulf of time that has separated the crew from their lives back home. Sadly, she also senses a gulf between the Burnham she knew yesterday and the one standing before her today.

And that continues to be a thread throughout this episode, as Burnham confronts the reality of being part of Starfleet again — albeit a Starfleet of basically one ship — after living the life she’s led for the past year. It’s not the most convincing aspect of “People of Earth,” however, as a year doesn’t seem like that long a time. Then again, we don’t really know what she’s been through since we last saw her, though Georgiou sees that Michael has changed and is seemingly egging her on to follow her newfound feelings of independence. (Notably, Michael doesn’t put on a Starfleet uniform until she’s forced to as a form of disguise.)

[ignvideo width=610 height=374 url=https://www.ign.com/videos/2020/08/23/star-treks-unsung-heroes-animate-this]

But there are more pressing matters to deal with. The Discovery still has its spore drive, which means Michael can finally return to Earth. And what do you know? When they get there, the crew learns that Earth is no longer part of the Federation. And indeed, nobody seems to even know where (what’s left of) the Federation and Starfleet are these days. The Earth government is seemingly more concerned with fighting off dilithium “raiders” than anything else, reminding us how small and petty the galaxy has become.

It’s another case this season of Burnham and Saru and the rest being shocked — shocked! — by how things have turned out, but everything winds up coming together rather nicely in a very classic Star Trek way as our heroes realize that the pirates they’ve been fighting off are actually human as well, the desperate remnants of a long-forgotten Earth colony on Saturn’s moon Titan. Of course, this kind of situation is a Starfleet specialty, and Burnham and Saru are forging a new peace between the two as quickly as you can say Organia. Who says the Federation isn’t around anymore?

And then there’s Blu del Barrio, who makes their debut as Adira here. A seeming engineering prodigy and busybody, Adira turns out to actually be a teenage human who somehow is carrying a Trill symbiont within them. (Deep Space Nine fans know what this is all about.) The character appears to be the next clue to the Disco crew’s tracking down Starfleet, and del Barrio is well-served here, bouncing off of Anthony Rapp’s Stamets in what will hopefully become a recurring friendship (and maybe even mentorship?).

The episode culminates with a great bit as Tilly and the bridge crew return to the former site of Starfleet headquarters to find the same tree they once used to study under, only some 900 years older (and, no doubt, bigger). The more things change…

[ignvideo width=610 height=374 url=https://www.ign.com/videos/2020/07/23/star-trek-universe-official-panel-comic-con-2020]

Questions and Notes from the Q Continuum:

• “Time travel, man.”
• So dilithium didn’t just go kablooey in The Burn, but it had also become scarce in the years prior to that disaster.
• Also, alternatives to warp drive didn’t prove viable, which seems surprising considering we know of other types of interstellar travel in the Star Trek universe. (Uh, spore drive anyone?)
• Only millions died in The Burn? That actually seems like a relatively small number, all things considered.
• Those repair robots fixing the ship, and which are also part of the opening credits this season, have been seen before. Called the DOT-7s, we saw them repairing the Enterprise in last year’s finale, “Such Sweet Sorrow: Part 2,” as well as in, of course, the animated Short Trek “Ephraim and Dot.”
• Love that black alert sound!
• David Ajala’s Book is back this week, and has some fun business as a sort of sidekick to Michael, but the two do part ways by episode’s end. One wonders what circumstances will lead to his return…