Not only is March packed with events for Pokemon Go, but also Legendary Pokemon. In addition to Thundurus, which recently made its debut in the game, Niantic is bringing back a handful of Legendaries for special Raid weekends throughout the month, and now you’ll get another chance to catch a few other Legendary Pokemon that could help bolster your PvP teams.
To help players prepare for the inaugural season of the Go Battle League, Pokemon Go’s online PvP mode, a few powerful Legendaries like Registeel and Cresselia will return to Raids for a limited time. Niantic hasn’t yet announced how long the Legendaries will be around, but you’ll be able to encounter them starting at 8 AM local time on March 10.
The first season of the Go Battle League kicks off at 1 PM PT / 4 PM ET on March 13. As was the case in its preseason, you first need to walk 5 km to gain entry into the Go Battle League, and its format will rotate every two weeks, beginning with the Great League. As you win battles, you’ll improve your rank and earn rewards, including encounters with rare Pokemon, such as the aforementioned Thundurus and the exclusive Pikachu Libre.
To help you prepare for #GOBattle League, Pokémon competitive in Trainer Battles, like Registeel and Cresselia, are arriving in raids. Prepare to battle them starting on March 10 at 8 a.m. local time. 🥊 pic.twitter.com/u9QXTDEvQH
Beyond that, there are a lot of events lined up for Pokemon Go this month. A “mysterious” weekend event is set for March 20, and the following week will see the return of the Psychic Spectacular, which will make Psychic-type Pokemon more plentiful for a limited time. March’s Community Day will also feature a Psychic Pokemon, Abra, when it takes place on March 15.
On top of that, a new Team Rocket Special Research quest is available this month; if you can defeat Giovanni, you’ll earn a chance to catch Shadow Entei. A new batch of Field Research tasks is also available. Each time you achieve a Research Breakthrough this month, you’ll encounter the Gen 5 Pokemon Ferroseed, whose evolved form–Ferrothorn–is another handy Pokemon in PvP battles.
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Following Black Ops 4‘s battle royale mode, Blackout, Activision is going much bigger in the battle royale space with a standalone free-to-play game called Call of Duty: Warzone that supports 150 players.
The game will be available beginning Tuesday, March 10 on PS4, Xbox One, and PC. Activision is surprise-releasing it much like EA did with Apex Legends last year. It’s not a complete surprise, however, as the opening cinematic for Modern Warfare Season 2 strongly hinted at a new battle royale mode, and numerous leaks have emerged in recent weeks. The latest was an actual gameplay video, which was soon after followed by the addition of an in-game countdown clock that pointed to a release on March 10.
But this is more than a mode for Modern Warfare. It’s a free-to-play game that everyone can play. We’ll report back as we learn more, but in the meantime, check out the trailer above.
Capcom has had a strong run the past few years, putting out major hits like Monster Hunter World, Resident Evil 2, and Devil May Cry 5. Now, Capcom’s biggest games are getting major discounts in a big sale on Fanatical, a PC games retailer that sells keys for Steam and other launchers. The latest batch of Capcom deals can all be redeemed on Steam.
The Capcom sale encompasses the entire Resident Evil catalog, including Resident Evil 3 Remake pre-orders. The upcoming remake, which releases April 3, is down to $47.18. You’ll also find the Deluxe Edition of last year’s Resident Evil 2 Remake discounted to $22.49. Plus, Resident Evil 7 is discounted to just $13.79.
From Devil May Cry 5 to Monster Hunter World: Iceborne, Fanatical’s Capcom sale includes some fantastic games for great prices. You can check out more of our picks from the sale below, or see everything on offer at Fanatical.
Capcom sale: Best game deals
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Electronic Arts has official Command & Conquer Remastered Collection news on the way. The game’s YouTube page is currently teasing the official reveal trailer.
Premiering March 9 at 7 AM PT / 10 AM ET, The Command & Conquer Remastered Collection reveal trailer will give us our first extended look at the package, which includes the original and Red Alert with their expansions. The games feature remastered audio and visuals, including 4K support. They also include reworked multiplayer built on dedicated servers meant to discourage cheating, as well as custom matches, one-on-one quickmatch mode, and lobby chat.
The series is famous for its FMV cutscenes, and these are also getting the remastered treatment in the collection. The original footage was upscaled rather than reshooting it in order to preserve the nostalgia, and the development team used AI in order to improve the resolution. Developer Petroglyph Games contains members of the original Westwood Studios team.
Command & Conquer Remastered Collection doesn’t currently have a release date. This could be announced in the official trailer.
EA’s other Command & Conquer game is the free-to-play mobile game Command & Conquer Rivals. It’s a simpler game, but still requires you to master your army’s units in order to overwhelm your opponent. With no new traditional game announced for the series, players weren’t too pleased when it was announced.
Ori and the Blind Forest was a surprise hit for Moon Studios. The small, decentralized company put together a Metroidvania with heart, thanks in large part to writer Thomas Mahler and composer Gareth Coker. As the studio approaches its sophomore effort with Ori and the Will of the Wisps, the duo spoke with GameSpot about how they approached the sequel, which moments touched fans, and how they continued Ori’s legacy.
Spoilers for Ori and the Blind Forest follow.
When you began working on the sequel, was the ending of the first game a natural jumping off point? How much consideration was there of how much of that to use versus doing something completely new?
Thomas Mahler: Well, we thought we were done with it to be honest. So I mean the original ending that I had for Ori and the Blind Forest, it’s actually the ending that we used for Will of the Wisps. But during the Blind Forest development, it became obvious that [the game] became the story about two mothers that, at the end, will finally face each other and [in] some way, one inspires the other. It just made sense to end [the game] in that way, where [one] mother is now taking care of the [other’s] child. That always was a touching ending to me. So when we came into Will of the Wisps, we had no idea what the story would be, but it made the most sense to just start with, well why don’t we just continue right there? Like what happened to that egg? That’s where it started.
You touched on one of the things about Blind Forest that is a resonant theme: that there’s a connection between these two mothers because they’re both parents and understand each other on that level. Is that a theme that you continue to explore in Will of the Wisp?
Mahler: I would say the story is heading in a different direction. Obviously, I don’t want to give anything away at this point. I think this time it’s a much bigger theme that is more about life in general and not focusing on a specific thing. I don’t really want to say more than that.
Transitioning to the composition: What was the difference in the mood you were trying to inspire with the overall musical themes in the first game versus the second?
Gareth Coker: Thomas just hinted that the overarching theme of this game is quite different and I think, over the time, that becomes more and more apparent the further you go through the game. But also I think one of the biggest differences between this game and the first one is we just said there’s just simply more characters and we also get to spend more time with those characters on screen.
If you think back to the first game, you encounter Kuro and you encounter Gumo and you were with Naru at the beginning, but you don’t actually spend that much time on screen with them. So there’s less of a chance to create themes for them and develop them throughout the game experience. Whereas in [Will of the Wisps], various characters pop up throughout the game and it’s a continuation of what we had in Blind Forest, but it is very, very much an expansion. It’s really just a reflection on the largest scope of the game, both with the characters and the different direction that the story has gone in.
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Ori And The Will Of The Wisps Boss And Exploration Gameplay
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At least in the first game, there wasn’t a ton of dialogue, there was more narration. So is that the same approach this time? Is a greater percentage of it dialogue versus narration?
Mahler: The way to tell an Ori story: if you can shut up and if brevity can prevail, then we should do that. I just loved the approach of, well, if you don’t need to say it, don’t say it. If you can get everything across with just the animation and then with the music, to us music is a huge storytelling tool. There’s tons of cinematics in the game, but if you ever listen to that without music, it totally does not work, like at all. So, to me, it’s just one of the storytelling tools, where [the story] doesn’t work if the animation isn’t there and it also doesn’t work if the music isn’t there.
We don’t want to have a cinematic sequence and then just have tons of text or anything like that when you could have these characters just act, like in a Pixar film or in a Disney movie or something. Then the music is the final thing on top of that that really pulls it together. So yeah, [the storytelling] was approached in very much the same way.
You mentioned how you want the animation and the music to tell the story in a quiet way. You have to explain what the characters are doing, but you’re not writing dialogue. So how does that collaborative process work between the writing, animation, and the composition?
Mahler: We try to go to animatics as soon as possible so we can simulate what it would be at the end of the day.
Coker: What usually happens is that really, really rough mock ups are done by one of the animators and that allows us to get a feel for the basic pacing of the scene. It’s not going to be perfect, but having established basic pacing allows me to write something, a piece of music that hopefully has some substance. And then after they have the first piece of music and it’s kind of working with this super rough animation, then it goes back to the animators who dial in the detail. It really is a back and forth process.
A lot of projects do cutscenes and the composer comes on at the end and says, “Well, here’s the cutscene, do the music.” And that’s not fantastic. I mean, it is often part of the job, but it’s much better if you have a back-and-forth editing process with the music and with the animation team where everyone’s involved. It means that I’m not restricted in any way. I can come up with a musical solution rather than having to chop and change too much, to write music to a fixed animation. I think that is very unique about this studio.
I think there’s one really simple example that I can use to illustrate this point. Back in 2017, we did our teaser trailer, which was the very first time we were sharing Will of the Wisps. There’s the scene right at the end of the trailer where Ori comes on screen and puts his arm around Ku. I remember very clearly, this is the kind of difference that music placement can make, about half of the team wanted the theme to come the second Ori hit the screen. But I said, “No, the emotional moment is when Ori puts his around Ku.” So I mocked up both and the difference is only like three seconds in terms of when the theme actually comes in, but the difference it makes emotionally is absolutely huge.
When you made the first game, you were a very small studio. As far as I understand, it’s grown pretty significantly as you’ve ramped up for this game?
Mahler: Yeah, when we shipped Blind Forest, we contracted everything and were about 20 people, now we’re a studio of 80 people. It’s still all decentralized. We still don’t have an office. We have people from literally all over the world from Europe, US, Israel, Japan, even South Africa and so on, all coming together to make a game, and yeah, it just works.
Coker: I live in America so obviously I’m getting the American reaction to this. But with the studio being the way it is, a lot of people share from around the world different reactions. You get more global insight into what people are thinking about the game. That’s not something I’ve really had on any other projects.
Mahler: For Blind Forest, at least I can speak for myself, I didn’t expect the reactions at all. When we first did our user research testing and so on, we had nobody crying because well, it wasn’t done yet. The beats didn’t hit in that same way. There’s such a minute difference [when] something is a work-in-progress and some music piece is a little off or the timing isn’t quite right yet and so on, and then it doesn’t work.
But then when the game came out and we had all this polishing, suddenly it worked and you had all these streamers coming online to play the first 10 minutes of the game and you see tears running down their faces.
The other thing is, one of the reasons why we actually ended up doing Will of the Wisps was simply because of all the fan feedback that we got, that was amazing. Just getting all these emails from people that really connected to the story and had really gotten something out of it. Like, for example, we had one email that was sent by a father where the wife just died and he played Ori and the Blind Forest with his little daughter, to explain to the daughter what death is. That was just, holy shit. You can never expect that–when you read about how what you just made really affected people. The game is five years old now, even today people are writing about how much the story meant to them and that’s as good as it gets.
There’s a very fable-like quality to the Ori universe. Its environments are nature-based, its creatures interact and impart a simple, universal lesson about how people relate to each other. Did you try to approach the world-building that way?
Mahler: Well, storytelling goes back to allegory, that’s the theme with Blind Forest and Will of the Wisps. We have all these fantastical creatures but really it’s a very human story.
At the start of Blind Forest, if you play the prologue, I know exactly as a creator, that if you see the mother starving to death and the loss of a loved one, what immediately pops into your head as your audience is if you went through something like that yourself, that’s what you will think about. It will remind you of things you went through in your own life. So it touches people on that human level and it’s not at all about what this game is.
We have forest creatures and all these beautiful vistas but [Ori] is not about that. The story is all about this kid that goes out and does something great after having gone through hardship in their childhood.
Coker: Just to latch on to that, I think the strength with our character storytelling is that every character is relatable in some way. For me, I’m most interested to see which characters people latch onto, which moments in the game people are affected by. Because sometimes there are moments that you obviously want to hit certain [emotions], but then there are other moments in the game where it’s like, “Oh, I didn’t expect people to notice that or feel something from that moment.”
Do you have something in mind in Will of the Wisps that you’re really looking forward to seeing people react to?
Mahler: I think everybody in the team probably has their own thing that they also really want to see reactions on. There’s a moment where I think people will fall apart and will work in a really big, big way. I can’t wait to see people get to that spot. Yeah, we’ll have to see. I’m sure Gareth has something in his head that he really wants to see.
Coker: I am proud of what the studio achieved for the conclusion of this title, for sure. Again, I am not going to say anything else because I will get in trouble and Thomas will kill me. But there’s a sequence of gameplay that leads into a cutscene. That whole sequence is Moon Studios at its absolute finest. I played through that a couple of days ago again. I’ve played through it many times and it still gets me every time. I’m like, “Man, I cannot wait to see how other people react to it.”
All three Gigantamax Pokemon will spawn in Max Raids more frequently until 4:59 PM PT / 7:59 PM ET on March 25. Unlike past events of this sort, none of the Gigantamax Pokemon are version-exclusive; you’ll have a chance to encounter their raids in both Sword and Shield.
Gigantamax Snorlax was previously available in Max Raids earlier this year. If you missed your chance to catch one back then, you now have another opportunity to add it to your collection. Snorlax’s G-Max Move is G-Max Replenish, which inflicts damage on the opponent and restores any Berries that Snorlax or its allies have consumed during the battle.
In addition to the new Max Raid events, a few freebies are still up for grabs in Sword and Shield. Until the end of the month, you can claim 20 free Battle Points as well as a free Bottle Cap. The former can be used to purchase competitive battling items from the Battle Tower, while the latter can be used to Hyper Train one of your Pokemon, increasing its base stats. You can see all the free gifts available right now for Pokemon Sword and Shield here.
Indie game developers are having a tough time right now, with the postponement of GDC and other big events that, in a normal year, can provide a big boost to a game’s marketing. It’s even more challenging when you find out that your intended release date is close to that of big-name AAA games in the same genre, as Rockfish Games has.
An update on Everspace 2‘s Kickstarter has outlined the game’s bad luck around timing, and given a little insight into how uncertainty around coronavirus has impacted their small studio. “It sounds like right out of a sci-fi horror movie: An aggressive virus is spreading around the globe, causing great uncertainties, severe supply chain issues and cancellations of big international events pretty much everywhere,” the studio said in the Kickstarter update.
“Unsurprisingly, all our GDC meetings with major platform holders and potential console co-publishing partners have been canceled, too. We are now setting up conference calls or meetings at upcoming events. Right now, we are prepared for everything and are hoping for the best. In short: We have to deal with a lot of uncertainties regarding business development, external game production as well as marketing and PR.“
The developer ultimately made the decision to push back the Steam Early Access release from its intended date in September to early December this year, which is not easy for a game that has to answer to almost 8000 Kickstarter backers, but a better option than competing with industry giants.
“Some AAA blockbuster titles will hit our initial Steam Early Access release date,” the Kickstarter update reads. “The hotly-anticipated open-world sci-fi shooter RPG Cyberpunk 2077 was recently pushed back to September, plus the brand new sci-fi looter shooter RPG Outriders from Square Enix has just been announced to release the same month, too.”
“Obviously, there is quite an overlap between those audiences and ours, so we have decided it wouldn’t be wise to directly compete against two sci-fi shooter RPG juggernauts, leaving not much room for any other sci-fi shooter coming out at the same time.”
The subsequent delay to Everspace 2’s release will also impact its Alpha and Beta releases, with the closed Alpha now scheduled for the end of May, and the closed Beta for August.
Everspace 2 is a sequel to 2016 sci-fi roguelike Everspace, and promises space exploration, RPG elements and plenty of loot in its single-player adventure. The game will be available initially for PC, with console releases on PS4 and Xbox One scheduled to drop six months later.
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Former PlayStation executive Adam Boyes sounds as if he is happy for the “console wars” period of his life to be over. Boyes, who was vice president for third-party relations at PlayStation from 2012-2016, told USgamer that he loved what he did, who he worked with, and what he achieved during his run at Sony. But there was also a lot of stress.
“Sometimes I feel like I have an opinion, but it doesn’t matter because I did that,” Boyes said about the forthcoming launch of the PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X later this year, and all the pressure that comes with being an executive at a company launching a new system. “I put in my all. I loved it. Built an incredible team, had an incredible experience. […] So you think that I would have a FOMO that I’m not part of it, but it really isn’t. There was so much stress and I think the whole console battle concept, it takes you over. It’s like, that’s all you think about.”
Boyes was an executive at PlayStation for the launch of the PlayStation 4 in 2013. The “console battle concept,” as he calls it, is surely in reference to how PlayStation and Xbox are historically known to push very hard against each other as they try to position their own console as the one to buy. Boyes has a history in that kind of upfront strategy.
Boyes and PlayStation executive Shuhei Yoshida stoked the flames of the console with a jab at the Xbox One’s used-game policy during E3 2013. Here they are in their video that puts Microsoft on blast for its strategy (one that was later reversed).
Boyes now heads up Iron Galaxy Studios as its CEO. The company is known for its work-for-hire titles, including the Switch ports of Skyrim, Overwatch, and Diablo III. The developer also makes original games, their latest of which was 2018’s Extinction.
On the subject of console wars, Microsoft’s longtime Xbox executive Phil Spencer has rejected the idea. Go to USgamer to read their full interview with Boyes.
The PS5 and Xbox Series X are both scheduled to release this holiday. Microsoft has been much more forthcoming about the system so far, sharing images of its design and specs. Sony is staying more mysterious, but with both systems due for release soon, that should change any time now.
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Activision and Infinity Ward are reportedly launching a free-to-play, standalone Call of Duty: Modern Warfare battle royale game called Warzone.
The report comes from YouTuber Chaos, who recently posted a gameplay impressions video that has now been removed. The video explains in detail that Warzone is free-to-play and does not require players to own Modern Warfare. It’s multiplatform and cross-play, too.
Warzone is reportedly a 150 player battle royale with support for solo, duo, and three-person teams. There are two modes: one which seems a fairly traditional fight-to-the-last-player-standing, and another called ‘Plunder’, which the video does not detail beyond it being a respawn-based mode focusing on collecting cash.
Cash is apparently part of the traditional mode, too; it can be looted across the map and is used at buy stations to purchase killstreaks, as well as revive tokens to get killed team members back in the fight. It looks like building a good stockpile of cash may be important for long-term survival.
Purchasing revives is not the only way to bring back dead squaddies; when you die you reportedly are taken to the gulag, where you must compete in a 1v1 match that is essentially Modern Warfare’s Gunfight mode (the map used in the video is even Gunfight’s Gulag map). Winning this 1v1 will throw you back into the match. Apparently this feature won’t be available in the later minutes of a match.
Warzone’s map is apparently large and completely custom made – meaning no reused building assets – and, like Black Ops 4’s battle royale mode Blackout, will feature classic maps. This time they will be from Infinity Ward’s back catalogue, such as Broadcast, Overgrown, Scrapyard, and Terminal.
Currently there is no official word from Activision or Infinity Ward regarding Warzone, but Chaos notes in his video that he attended a pre-release preview event in order to capture his gameplay footage. It’s currently unclear if Warzone is due for imminent launch or is still some months away.
The team on EA’s new Command & Conquer Remastered have been hard at work hunting down the original assets used in 1995, though some creativity is needed when files go missing.
EA has posted a new video with Producer Jim Vessella, chronicling his search for the original HD copies of Command & Conquer‘s iconic FMV cutscenes. The team decided that they had to use the original footage, as remaking the cutscenes would never be the same, but finding the files was a challenge.
While Vessella managed to track down archival tapes of the footage, it was only saved in a low quality VQA format. The only option left was to upscale the footage, using AI to improve resolution, increase frame rate, and improve the audio.
To get the best result, Vessella went to the community, with some fans having already worked on their own upscaling projects for C&C’s beloved FMV cutscenes. The final result was only possible with the help of fans, which underlines how much passion is going into this remake.
The result is shown as a side-by-side in the video, and while it’s not perfect, it’s still a smooth graphical update on some of the most iconic FMVs in gaming.
As a bonus, the team managed to unearth over four hours of never-before-seen B-roll footage, which will be packaged with the remake on release.