Shroud Teases Post-Mixer Plans

Michael “Shroud” Grzesiek, has begun teasing his return after the Mixer shutdown. Like Ninja, Shroud was one of the big streamers that signed an exclusivity deal with Microsoft’s platform after finding success on Twitch. It’s unclear what exactly Grzesiek is teasing, but he has posted two animated kill montages.

Both teases appear to show footage from Valorant, Riot Games’ tactical team shooter. Valorant was one of the many games Grzesiek would stream and has been compared to Counter-Strike: Global Offensive, which Grzesiek played professionally on Cloud9’s team before retiring to streaming.

Incidentally, Cloud9 responded to the more recent tease, “we are ready.” It is possible that Grzesiek could be joining a professional team for Valorant, but for now we must wait for an official announcement.

Next Song From Halo Infinite’s OST Released, Listen Here

Microsoft has shared a new song from the Halo Infinite OST. The track “Reverie” was composed by Curtis Schweitzer, who is working on the game’s music alongside Gareth Coker.

“Reverie” was featured in the “Discover Hope” trailer for Halo Infinite, while it was also heard in the campaign demo for Halo Infinite in July. You can listen to it below.

Schweitzer explained on the Halo Waypoint website that he’s been a fan of Halo for a long time. “I’ve been composing most of my life, and also playing Halo for a good chunk of it, too, so the chance to put those two things together is something I’m very excited about,” he said.

Schweitzer said he was contacted by Microsoft in 2019 about working on the music for Halo Infinite, and he didn’t take long to respond.

“It was (of course) an immediate ‘yes’ from me,” he said. “I’ve played (almost) every Halo title, and the unique way that it can elicit deep feelings from an experience that is so tremendously fun has brought me back again and again.”

“Music is such a critical part of understanding the success of the Halo franchise, and a big reason that the games have such a deep emotional impact,” Schwetizer added. “Personally, I’ve probably spent the most time in Halo 3 (let’s just say it came out during a formative part of my life) and have to go with “Never Forget” as one of my all-time favorite tracks.”

Go to the Halo Waypoint to read the full interview with Schweitzer–it’s a great read that touches on numerous other subjects pertaining to Halo, music, and more. Before Halo Infinite, Schweitzer composed the music for the indie games Earthlight and Starbound.

Halo Infinite’s other composer, Gareth Coker, previously released the first song from the OST, “Set a Fire in Your Heart.”

Halo Infinite is a launch title for the Xbox Series X, releasing this holiday. The game will also come to the standard Xbox One as well as PC. For lots more, check out GameSpot’s video overview that covers everything you need to know about Halo Infinite.

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A Steam Error Is Removing Games From Players’ Libraries

Every Tuesday afternoon, Steam carries out scheduled maintenance on its systems, sometimes causing outages while in progress. This week, after maintenance was completed, players found that some games in their library that had already been bought were showing a “purchase” button instead of “play.” Even if the player tried to purchase it again, it would cause an error saying the content was already in their library–rendering the games unable to be played.

The bug is described in a Resetera thread, with a number of reports showing up on the Steam subreddit. Dead By Daylight seems to be adversely affected, as well as Bethesda games–with one player describing issues with Fallout: New Vegas, and another saying that all Bethesda games in their library had been affected. One Reddit user has said that the issue is affecting all games in their library that are currently on sale on Steam. This checks out with Dead By Daylight, which is currently 60% off in the Steam store, while Bethesda is also having a sale on most of its content.

The Dead By Daylight Twitter account has put out a notice about the issue, though it appears to be an issue on Steam’s side.

Players found a workaround that appears to work for most users–the fix requires users to delete their Download Cache in settings and then restart Steam.

Steam has put out an announcement that the bug has now been fixed, and that players should restart the client if it’s still occurring.

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Disney Suffers Multi-Billion Dollar Loss Due To Park Closures

Entertainment giant Disney has suffered a rare financial hit due to the COVID-19 pandemic that has led the company to close its marquee parks in California and Florida.

The House of Mouse reported earnings on Tuesday, and the company pulled in $11.79 billion in revenue, which was down 42 percent compared to last year. Disney’s theme park division specifically had a challenging quarter, taking a $3.5 billion hit that led to an overall loss of $2 billion.

Disney closed Disneyland in Anaheim, California and Disney World in Orlando, Florida back in March as the virus spread through the US and the world. Disney World and most of the company’s international parks have since re-opened at a limited capacity, but the marquee location in Anaheim remains closed.

“The impact of COVID-19 and measures to prevent its spread are affecting our segments in a number of ways, most significantly at Parks, Experiences and Products where we closed our theme parks and retail stores, some of which have now re-opened, suspended cruise ship sailings and guided tours and have seen an adverse impact on our merchandise licensing business,” Disney said.

It wasn’t all bad news for Disney during the quarter, however, as Disney Plus subscribers jumped to 60.5 million. Disney also confirmed that Mulan will skip theatres and release on Disney Plus for $30 USD.

CEO Bob Chapek explained that Mulan is currently being considered a “one off” for digital releases. While the company is going to be carefully monitoring its success on the platform, there are currently no plans to repeat the procedure for any major upcoming Disney films, such as Black Widow, which is still set for release on November 6.

Super Smash Bros. Ultimate Update 8.1.0 Is Live, And It Adds A New Free Stage

Super Smash Bros. Ultimate has just received a new patch with Update 8.1.0, and it has made a surprising addition–a new stage. Small Battlefield–which is like Battlefield, but smaller–is now available for all players.

As of this update, you will be able to pick Small Battlefield as a preferred rule for online matches, which is good if you want a tighter arena for you and your opponent to battle on. You can also now pick any usually stage-specific music for this level, as well as Battlefield, Big Battlefield, and Final Destination.

This update includes some adjustments to online, including a lower eligibility to qualify for Elite Smash in the quickplay menu. This means that more players will be allowed into this mode. “Additionally, the way initial values for Global Smash Power are calculated has also been adjusted,” the update reads.

Beyond this, several other tweaks have been made, but the patch notes do not get into specifics.

Super Smash Bros. Ultimate’s last major update was 8.0.0, which added Min-Min from Arms as a new fighter.

Now Playing: Super Smash Bros. Ultimate – Min Min Classic Mode Gameplay

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Detroit: Become Human Reaches New Sales Record After Launching On Steam

Quantic Dream’s latest game, Detroit: Become Human, has reached a new sales milestone. The French developer said in a news release that the game passed 5 million sales across all platforms following its release on Steam. The game launched earlier on PC through the Epic Games Store.

Detroit started out as a PS4-exclusive, but Quantic Dream has since ended its publishing agreement with Sony and is now planning to be a multiplatform game developer and “boutique” publisher.

Quantic Dream also announced that Detroit’s Twitch extension, Community Play, was a big success. Nearly 500 streamers used the Twitch overlay to call on their viewers to vote for what decisions should be made in the game. In total, more than 1.5 million votes were cast.

Quantic Dream co-CEO Guillaume de Fondaumiere said in the news release that Detroit has enjoyed an “incredibly positive” response overall, though he cited Asian markets as being of particular importance.

The developer has no officially announced projects for the future just yet, but the company’s next game will be a self-published title for next-gen consoles.

Now Playing: Detroit: Become Human Video Review

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Diablo Immortal Is Part Of A Wider Mobile Strategy, Activision Says

Diablo Immortal, the mobile spin-off Diablo game, is still in the works despite lots of blowback from fans, and Activision Blizzard has spoken more about it in the context of their mobile strategy. As part of second quarter calendar 2020 results conference call, CFO Dennis Durkin has spoken about Activision’s mobile slate, citing the success of Call of Duty Mobile as a good model.

PC Gamer picked up on the comments from Durkin, who said that “there’s a lot more to come” for Activision’s mobile releases. “CoD Mobile is off to a really great start, but we’re just scratching the surface of what that franchise can be on mobile,” he says, in direct response to a question about Diablo Immortal and how Call of Duty has impacted it.

Durkin says that the success of Call of Duty on mobile serves as a good indicator of the success of franchise releases on mobile. “And it certainly applies to a lot of other franchises that we have,” he says. “We see that our current players really want more ways to engage with their favorite IP, be it through mobile or other platforms, and that offering authentic and really deep experiences on new platforms can drive much much higher engagement.”

“And to your question, it’s not just Diablo, but it’s also across all our franchises, and our teams see an opportunity to drive a greater reach, engagement, and player investment, greater than ever before, across our franchises,” he added.

The company has previously said that it is looking at all of its franchises and thinking about how mobile versions could work.

In Activision Blizzard’s PowerPoint presentation of these results, they said that internal testing with expand in the coming weeks, with a wider test happening across the company. Earlier this year, before COVID-19 struck, regional alpha tests were being planned for mid-year.

New footage from Diablo Immortal recently debuted. There’s an early BlizzCon coming in early 2021, where we’d expect to find out more about Diablo IV.

Now Playing: Diablo Immortal – Cinematic Trailer | Blizzcon 2018

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Call Of Duty: Modern Warfare/Warzone Season 5 Patch Notes Coming Soon

Call of Duty: Modern Warfare and the battle royale game Warzone are set to grow again, and in a big way, with the launch of the huge Season 5 update on August 5.

The update will go live by way of a very large patch. If history is any indication, the patch should start to arrive on PS4, Xbox One, and PC at around 11 PM PT on August 4. The patch notes will be released this evening, senior communications manager Ashton Williams said on Twitter.

The Season 5 update adds new multiplayer maps for Modern Warfare, a new Ground War map, and a new Mini Royale mode for Warzone. There is also a new Battle Pass and more Operators, while the Warzone mode is getting refreshed with new areas and a freight train.

For lots more on the Season 5 update, check out GameSpot’s breakdown of everything you need to know. You can also check out the image embedded above to learn more.

The Season 5 update comes at a strong time for Modern Warfare and Warzone. The battle royale game recently crossed 75 million players, while Modern Warfare is enjoying incredibly strong sales of the game and microtransactions, due in part to stay-at-home orders keeping people inside, playing games, and spending money on them.

Even with Modern Warfare and Warzone doing so well right now, Activision will release the next mainline Call of Duty game later this year. It is now confirmed to be a new title from Black Ops creator Treyarch. And while there are no official details on the game yet, it’s rumored to be Call of Duty: Black Ops Cold War. Activision management said on an earnings call today that this new game from Treyarch will connect to Warzone in some capacity.

Now Playing: Call Of Duty Season 5: Everything You Need To Know

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Lord Of The Rings Actress Shares A Tease About The Big-Budget Amazon Fantasy Show

Amazon’s big-budget Lord of the Rings TV show is one of the most-anticipated and most secretive projects in Hollywood right now. Actress Nazanin Boniadi has now shared a tiny morsel of insight on the show, saying in an interview that she and the rest of the cast are “very excited” about where the show is headed. “It’s really magical,” Boniadi told SBJCT.

“You can expect a lot of secrecy. My lips are sealed. But I can tell you that we had already started production before New Zealand had to lockdown because of the pandemic. We are all so very excited about what we’ve seen and experienced so far. It’s really magical. Just beyond. Ugh, I so wish I could share more. This is torture!” she said of her experience on the show so far.

Boniadi is one of the 15 cast members for the Amazon show whose involvement with the show was officially confirmed in January. There is no word on specific characters that will appear in the show, so we don’t know who Boniadi or anyone else is playing.

Recently, it was reported that Galadriel, Elrond, and Sauron will all be featured in the Amazon show. The fantasy series is set in the Second Age of Middle-earth, which is thousands of years before the events of The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings.

Filming is set to resume again soon in New Zealand, a country that has just 2 active coronavirus cases as of August 5.