New Overwatch Patch 1.43, Winter Event Coming Next Week

Blizzard has announced a clarification for Overwatch‘s upcoming Patch 1.43. There’s been speculation that the patch will release this week, but Blizzard has confirmed that it is, in fact, scheduled for next week.

“We’ve been seeing quite a bit of misinformation being spread about our December patch (1.43),” Overwatch head Jeff Kaplan wrote in a blog post. “The patch is scheduled to go live next week. Short of some unforeseen circumstance causing a delay, we’re expecting to go live with the patch next week.”

Patch 1.43 will launch alongside Winter Wonderland, Overwatch’s annual winter holiday-themed limited-time event. “I’m guessing everyone is as excited as we are for the changes to go live as soon as possible along with Winter Wonderland,” Kaplan said.

Kaplan has admitted that players should come to expect fewer content updates for Overwatch as development on Overwatch 2 gets into full swing. Overwatch won’t have any new Archive events, for example.

Overwatch is getting somewhat of a unique sequel in Overwatch 2, as a majority of the content included in the new game (at least at launch) will also release in the original Overwatch. The two games will get the same new characters and maps and both games will feature multiplayer cross-play with each other. The content exclusive to Overwatch 2 will be all of the new Story Mode content–which doesn’t look like much at first but could possibly grow to a much more significant difference over time.

Currently, the only new playable character scheduled for Overwatch 2 is Sojourn, who’s been hinted at in the original game’s lore for quite a while now. Though they haven’t been confirmed, four additional characters have already been teased.

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What Were The Worst Games of 2019?

2019 has graced us with some great games, from the fantastic Resident Evil 2 remake earlier this year to some surprise hits in Disco Elysium and The Outer Worlds. But, for every good game, there’s a dozen more that don’t quite stack up. That’s right, we’re talking about the worst reviewed games of 2019.

Click through the gallery below, or scroll down further to see the full list of games, according to Metacritic scores.

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Zack Snyder Confirms The Existence Of The Snyder Cut

The never-ending saga of the Snyder Cut, the rumored extended, original version of DC’s 2017 Justice League, just got a bit more interesting. Today, Zack Snyder himself took to Vero–a social media website everyone thought was dead long ago–to post an apparent confirmation.

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“Is it real? Does it exist? Of course it does” written overtop of film canisters labeled “JL Director’s Cut” with a runtime of a whopping 214 minutes, which clocks in at a little over three and a half hours. For those of you playing along at home, that’s about an hour and a half longer than the theatrical cut of the movie, which was around two hours long.

Still, the confirmation of the Snyder Cut’s reality doesn’t actually mean the film will ever see the light of day. Dedicated fans have been working nonstop for two full years, even going as far as to rent out billboards and advertisements at major pop culture events like San Diego Comic-Con to beg for the movie’s release to no avail. However, with this latest development, and the recent support shown by Justice League actors like Gal Gadot on social media, it certainly seems like there might be something brewing.

Regardless of the Snyder Cut’s hypothetical potential release, DC does have a new film coming that is right around the corner. Wonder Woman 1984 is going to hit theaters on June 5, 2020. Perhaps there will be some sort of cross-promotional Justice League re-release to celebrate the release of Diana’s latest solo outing? Only time will tell.

Now Playing: Best Things To Stream For December 2019 – Disney+, Netflix, Hulu, Amazon Prime Video

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Here’s How Flashpoint’s Batman Survived

Batman #84 serves as the penultimate chapter of Tom King’s nearly four-year tenure on the series. Even at this very late stage, there are still some huge mysteries left to be solved. Issue #84 finally resolves some long-running questions regarding Flashpoint’s Thomas Wayne, the true mastermind villain of the series.

How did Thomas survive the destruction of Flashpoint, and why is he so hellbent on convincing his son to stop being Batman? Read on to find out the dark secrets of this twisted, mirror universe version of Batman, but beware of spoilers for Batman #85!

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FIFA 20 Removes Dutch Player After Nazi Comment

EA sports removed famous Dutch soccer player Marco van Basten from FIFA Ultimate Teams in FIFA 20 after the former Dutch national team captain said “Sieg Heil” during a recent video interview.

Van Basten is currently an analyst for Fox Sports and during an interview between Fox Sports and a manager for a German Soccer team, Van Basten can be heard saying “Sieg Heil” as the manager leaves the screen.

He said he was mocking the German accent of the reporter, and Fox Sports has suspended Van Basten for a week following the incident. EA Sports also announced the removal of Van Basten’s likeness from FIFA 20 from an in-game message that pops up when players log in.

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Here’s What Comes in Persona 5 Royal: Phantom Thieves Edition

Persona 5 Royal is set to launch in the US exclusively for PS4 on March 31, 2020. (Sorry, Switch hopefuls — still no news there). This is an expanded and enhanced version of the 2017 original game, which we awarded a 9.7 in our Persona 5 review. The upcoming Royal edition includes a new character, new story lines, the ability to customize your Thieves Den, new cutscenes, additional endings, and more.

As usual with high-profile releases, Persona 5 Royal is coming out in a number of editions, all of which are now available to preorder. We have details about what comes in each one below.

Persona 5 Royal: Phantom Thieves Edition Preorder

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New Plants Vs Zombies: Battle for Neighborville Update Out Now; Full Patch Notes Revealed

December has just begun and EA is already in the spirit of giving. The publisher’s Plants vs. Zombies: Battle for Neighborville has received a holiday-themed update that includes new maps and modes, balance tweaks, and more.

The Feastivus Holiday update features a brand-new map for Team Vanquish, Ops, and Mix modes–Oozevoir. This map includes a springy pink goop that lets you bounce around for better vertical positioning. Other locations, like Giddy Park, have been reworked to fit into the holiday-theme.

You can earn seasonal costumes through Battle for Neighborville’s newly-implemented Festival Prize Map. Unlock holiday-specific wares like the Super Rare Abominable Chomper, Legendary Feastivus Master Engineer, and more by completing certain requirements on the prize map.

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Actor Patrick Stewart narrated a trailer outlining everything available in the update. EA also released the patch notes for the Feastivus Holiday update, which includes a new “Casual” setting for free-roam regions, updates to battle arenas, the opening of Rux’s Emporium, bug fixes, adjustments to things like controller settings and aim assist, and much more.

Plants Vs. Zombies: Battle For Neighborville Holiday Feastivus Update Full Patch Notes

General

  • Added an all-new Map: Oozevoir
  • Updated Giddy Park’s loading screen to a winter-themed version
  • Added new Grandmaster Ranks to the game so character levels now go up to 50 (current top rank is 20)
  • Updated the Social Tab to show the Grandmaster Ranks of all players in Giddy Park
  • Updated the Player Rank plates to make them easier to read
  • Moved completed Free-Roam Region Medals to the bottom of the screen
  • Updated the last Weekly Challenges so they now give Rainbow Stars instead of coins
  • Added a Vanquish/Vanquished Ratio to the end-of-round scoreboard for multiplayer games
  • Added new UI icons for Character Perks, including attack, defend, speed, and character-specific perks

Turf Takeover

  • Decreased capture time for certain objectives
  • Made it easier to hit targets on the final objective in Goopy Gully

Free-Roam Regions

  • Added new ‘Casual’ setting, reducing the amount of damage players will take when at low health
  • Added a cooldown timer to region Bounty Hunts and Gnome activities

Giddy Park

  • Added two new Festivals: Feastivus and Snowday
    • New set dressing for each festival with “snow” terrain and visual effects
  • Added three new activities in Giddy Park for Snowday Festival in January – Treasure hunt, Bounty, and Coin capture

Battle Arena

  • Updated so that the last player standing will now get a spotting and 10% speed increase buff to help them fight the enemy team

Rux’s Emporium

  • Included the ability for players to now purchase Costumes, Gestures, Emotes, and much more
  • Included the ability for players to purchase Rainbow Stars for use in Rux’s Emporium

Major Bug Fixes

  • Fixed the Scoreboard so that it can now be viewed when the player is vanquished
  • Adjusted mouse sensitivity options to have a wider range, allowing the user to adjust them to a much finer extent
  • Fixed the heal beam so that it’s no longer canceled when its target sprints
  • Fixed the issue where players could get a completed challenge after re-rolling

Controller Settings

  • Increased max aim acceleration
  • Reduced scale factor (ramp-up) for aim acceleration

Options

  • Extended our max value for controller sensitivity
  • Extended our max value for controller aiming sensitivity
  • Extended our max value for controller aim acceleration

Aim Assist

  • Adjusted assist settings when set to low
  • Adjusted acceleration thresholds
  • Reduced multiplier when facing aim assist targets
  • Reduced aim assist when pushing sticks to extremes
  • Reduced base aim assist area when aiming at a target

PC Controls

  • Adjusted ranges and step values for mouse sensitivity
  • Adjusted min mouse sensitivity value

Game Modes

  • Increased disarm time in Gnome Bomb
  • Reduced max time to be revived in Team Vanquish

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New Dead Cells DLC Coming Soon

Motion Twin and Evil Empire have announced that additional content will continue to come out for Dead Cells in 2020, starting with a brand-new DLC expansion. Both teams revealed that Dead Cells will continue to be supported going forward, with about two years of content planned.

In Q1 2020, Dead Cells will get its third DLC expansion: The Bad Seed. In a Steam blog post, Motion Twin and Evil Empire write that The Big Seed “brings two new early game biomes and a big #$&%-off boss for you to bash your head against.” The Bad Seed will cost $5 USD.

When The Bad Seed goes live, you’ll be able to journey to The Arboretum, a location described as “tranquil” with “nothing dangerous of note.” The other location, The Swamp, appears to be much more difficult, described as a “putrid, tick-infested cesspool inhabited by spear-wielding, blow dart firing jerks.” The teaser image of the boss isn’t much, it looks like a purple vine (and possible eyeball) extending out of the muck, but there’s an assortment of spooking-looking, crucified individuals in the background.

In the blog post, Motion Twin and Evil Empire wrote that both teams want to make gameplay adjustments and add plenty of new content to Dead Cells, including balancing changes to “glaring problems” and “building out a bunch of new creatures and replacing some of the more tired types with biome specific beasts.” Both teams plan on adding new weapons, additional secret areas, and lore too.

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Beyond this two-year plan, Motion Twins is working on two prototypes for brand-new projects and Evil Empire will continue to prototype new content for Dead Cells.

If you haven’t picked up Dead Cells yet, you should–GameSpot picked it as one of the top 10 games of 2018. In GameSpot’s Dead Cells review, Daniel Starkey wrote, “Dead Cells is a phenomenal effort to blend together some very disparate genres into a tight, cohesive whole. It’s one of the better examples of how to remix ideas without losing their individual strengths.”

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