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Super Mario Maker 2 Version 1.1.0 is available now and adds the long-awaited option to play with friends online in either Multiplayer Versus or Multiplayer Co-op modes.

Announced by Nintendo, the “Play With Friends” option also allows players to select courses uploaded to Course World as well as those that have been saved to Coursebot.

In addition to playing with friends, this update adds new features to “Nearby Play,” adds “LAN Play,” adds a list of Official Makers (Like Nintendo!) in the Leaderboards section that will contain new courses and “special ones created for collaborations or special events.”

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With the 2018-2019 NHL season begging this week, EA Sports has released the results of its annual simulation of the season using the latest NHL video game. The results of the NHL 20 simulation predict that the Boston Bruins will return to the Stanley Cup Finals for a second year in a row. But instead of ending their season in a crushing Game 7 loss to the Blues, the Bruins will defeat the Las Vegas Golden Knights in six games to claim their first Cup since 2011.

Bruins winger Brad Marchand will win the Conn Smythe trophy for being the MVP of the Playoffs with 32 points in 25 games, according to the simulation.

The Bruins will defeat Leafs, the Lightning, and the Capitals before advancing to the Stanley Cup Finals where they beat the Knights to win the Cup, the prediction says.

EA’s Stanley Cup predictions have been incorrect for a few years in a row. Last year, the simulation predicted the Toronto Maple Leafs would win the Cup, but that didn’t happen. In 2017, EA’s simulation stated that the Winnipeg Jets would defeat the Boston Bruins in the Stanley Cup Final, but in reality both teams were eliminated in earlier rounds.

The NHL 20 simulation also predicted the following events from the 2018-2019 season:

• Jack Hughes records 87 points in his rookie season to win the Calder Trophy (best rookie)
• Nathan Mackinnon wins the Art Ross and Hart Trophy with 119 points to lead the league
• Alexander Ovechkin scores 55 goals to lead the NHL and win the Rocket Richard Trophy
• Erik Karlsson records 85 points to lead the league’s defenseman and takes home the Norris Trophy for a third time
• The Tampa Bay Lightning end the regular season with 109 points to lead the league

In other news, NHL 20 released a big new update this week that makes a raft of changes, improvements, and tweaks to the hockey game. Check out the full patch notes here.

Amid the launch of Destiny 2 Shadowkeep and Destiny New Light, Bungie pulled down Destiny 2’s servers to complete a round of “emergency maintenance.” That maintenance, which lasted multiple hours, is now complete.

While the servers are back up, Bungie told fans that they may have to wait in a server queue before playing. Server queues are normal for online games, and are meant to help ease the strain on servers that could cause other network-related problems.

“Emergency maintenance on Destiny 1 and Destiny 2 is now complete. Players may encounter a sign-in queue as the population returns,” Bungie wrote on Twitter.

The Destiny downtime came on the launch day for Shadowkeep and New Light. Despite the issues, Destiny 2 was able to reach an impressive 217,845 peak concurrent players on Steam. Big numbers were expected given New Light is free and Shadowkeep is a much-anticipated expansion.

Popular battle royale games Fortnite and PUBG have cross-play support, and Activision’s Call of Duty: Modern Warfare will introduce it as well at release later this month. But what about Blizzard’s hero shooter Overwatch? Principal producer Wes Yanagi told GameSpot that cross-play is “definitely compelling,” but it’s not likely to happen for Overwatch anytime soon.

“Cross-play is something that would definitely be compelling for players, and as a player, I would love to see it happen. The truth is that implementing cross-play for Overwatch is more difficult than people realise,” Yanagi said.

That being said, Yanagi went on to say that Blizzard is currently looking into cross-play support for Overwatch. “We are exploring how to bring this to Overwatch, but do not have anything to share at this time,” he said.

The issue doesn’t appear to be political or specific to Nintendo, as Nintendo already allows cross-play on Switch with other titles such as Fortnite and Rocket League. Additionally, Phoenix Labs’ upcoming game Dauntless will support cross-play on Switch with PS4, Xbox One, and PC.

No version of Overwatch currently supports cross-play, meaning those on PS4, Xbox One, PC, and Switch can only play with other members of the same community.

Earlier this year, Blizzard spoke about how the company was “excited about the potential” for cross-play support with Overwatch. However, the company said in a statement to Engadget, “There’s still a lot of work to do on both our side and the platforms’ side to determine whether this is something that makes sense for Overwatch, and we’re keeping an eye on how cross-play systems and technology develop.”

Overwatch’s Legendary Edition launches on October 15 for Nintendo Switch. It includes all 31 heroes and 28 maps from the other versions of the game, and voice chat won’t be limited to Nintendo’s own app. For lots more, check out GameSpot’s interview linked below, in which Yanagi talks about the origins of Overwatch on Switch, the possibility of Overwatch characters coming to Smash Bros., and lots more.

EA Sports has released a big new content update for NHL 20 that makes a series of changes and bug fixes across the professional hockey game’s various modes, and more.

Starting with gameplay changes, the patch notes confirm that NHL 20 has added the real-world NHL rule change for the 2019-2020 season for when the puck goes out of bounds. The rule change states that when the attacking team sends the puck out of bounds in the attacking zones, the ensuing face-off will take place in one of the two dots in the attacking zone. This should now happen in NHL 20.

Additionally, the NHL 20 patch fixes an issue where the skaters in some situations were unable to pick up the puck after a penalty shot in Threes mode. Outside of these changes, the new update makes some physics fixes, one of which eliminates a gruesome-sounding bug that could cause players to get their limbs stuck in the net. Ouch. There were also instances of when the puck could magically move through the goalie’s pads, but that bug has also been fixed.

There are also AI improvements in the newest update, including defenders making smarter plays on odd-man rushes. Additionally, the new NHL 20 update makes goalies smarter by improving and expanding on goalie animations.

Elsewhere, the social hub–World of Chel–has been updated with reduced requirements for the weekly challenge card, while a number of new jerseys for multiple teams have been added. You can see the full patch notes below, as written by EA Sports.

EA typically releases a tuning update around this time, but that isn’t happening this year because the baseline gameplay is “in a good place,” EA said in a blog post. That being said, EA is still looking into a few areas and asking players for advice on how to improve them. These include:

• Interceptions from behind
• Inconsistency of low relative speed hits from console to console
• Puck loss when pivoting at high speed

NHL 20 was originally released in September for PlayStation 4 and Xbox One. GameSpot’s NHL 20 review scored the game a 9/10.

NHL 20 October 1 Patch Notes:

Gameplay

General

• Added NHL 2019-2020 season rule change for puck out of bounds
• When the attacking team is responsible for the puck going out of play in the attacking zone, in all instances, the face-off will be conducted at one of the two face-off dots in the attacking zone
• Fixed a case where the player is sometimes unable to pick up the puck after a penalty shot in Threes

Physics

• Fixed a case where players could get their limbs stuck in the net
• Fixed multiple cases where the puck could go through the goalie’s pad
• Improved cases where slap shots would be missed when taken near the boards

AI

• Improved a case where the weakside defender would overcommit on an odd man rush allowing the puck carrier a breakaway
• Fixed a case where AI players would start to accelerate when passed to without player input

Goalie

Various goalie animation fixes

• Fixed cases where goalies were sometimes trying to perform controlled/redirect saves when the puck had a high chance of being deflected and would leave them more vulnerable than they should be
• Improved goalie tracking when the puck is behind the net

Shooting

• Improvements to shot angle selection logic for some rare cases
• Improved cases where players on loose pucks would perform a snap shot when a slap shot would be expected
• Fixed rare cases where one-timers would miss the puck completely

Presentation

• Added ability to preview the play-of-the-period replays in action tracker
• Various environment camera clipping fixes
• Player lineup animation and camera improvements
• Play-of-the-period/game animation and camera improvements
• Various Play of the Game/Play of the Period selection logic fixes
• Multiplayer hug improvements
• Fixed cases where penalty replays in EASHL don’t show the penalty being taken

Franchise Mode

• Added the season standings to the calendar screen
• Added Auto Staff Setting that allows the CPU to assign scouts for the user team
• Fixed an issue where Alumni Player’s Ages don’t show correctly in a fantasy draft in Franchise Mode
• Fixed an issue where the PP and PK columns in Hire staff were reversed
• Misc stability improvements

Art

NHL

• Updated Nashville Predators Scoreboard
• Center Ice Changes
• Updated the following Center Ice layouts

AHL

• Binghamton Senators
• Canadian Hockey League
• London Knights
• Cape Breton Eagles

Uniforms

The following uniforms have been added to NHL 20:

NHL

• Buffalo Sabres Alternate
• Chicago Blackhawks Home and Away
• Edmonton Oilers Alternate
• Carolina Hurricanes Away

Canadian Hockey League

• London Knights Home and Away
• Tri-City Americans Home and Away
• Cape Breton Eagles Home and Away

SHL

• Farjestad BK Home and Away
• HV71 Home and Away
• Rogle BK Home and Away

Liiga

• Mikkelin Jukurit Home and Away
• Lahti Pelicans Home, Away and Alternate
• Tappara Tampere Home, Away and Alternate

EBEL

• Dornbirn Bulldogs Home and Away
• EC Panaceo VSV Home and Away
• EC-KAC Home and Away
• EC Red Bull Salzburg Home and Away
• EHC Liwest Blackwings Linz Home and Away
• Hydro Fehervar AV19 Home and Away
• HC TWK Innsbruck Home and Away
• Graz 99ers Home and Away
• SPUSU Vienna Capitals Home and Away

HUT

General

• Fixed a desync issue which was causing the opening faceoff to loop in some Online Games
• Fixed an issue where players could see their opponent’s PSN ID/Gamertag before loading into a Competitive Seasons/HUT Champs games
• Fixed an issue where Goalie Mask items may have become invisible when navigating the Apply Consumable screen
• Fixed some issues where items may have not been properly revealed in Choice Packs

Squad Battles

• Save last-used difficulty as default (complete games only)
• Now display ‘Possible Points’ for each opponent as difficulty is selected

World of CHEL

Improvements

• Having heard the community feedback, we are reducing the requirements for the World of Chel weekly challenge card. Now, user will only need to complete a reduced number of the 5 columns to earn that week’s Special Reward.
• Added a link to Edit Player from the Recent Items screen so the user doesn’t have to manually back out and enter the flow from the WoC HUB
• Added the ability to have EA Custom Stock Team Branding uniforms be equipped by clubs. Stay tuned throughout the year for future uniform releases that can be earned by clubs through hockey bags.

Bug Fixes

• Fixed an issue where the current leader in Ones was not displaying correctly after the user has won the final Ones Eliminator round
• Fixed an issue where we display the wrong error message if a club is in a Threes Eliminator dressing room, and the session falls below the minimum users
• Reskinned the “Waiting for All Users to Resume” screen that comes after the pause menu so that the text is more legible
• Fixed various clipping issues and enabled several additional goalie intro animations that previously had clipping issues
• Fixed a failed to retrieve data issue that could occur when trying to enter any Dressing Room without the Lead Profile
• Fixed an issue where a user could crash upon another user closing the game while loading into gameplay
• Fixed a timing issue where desnyc’s could occur when a Player Class Tuning file or a Gameplay Tuner Set upload happens while games are about to get underway from the Dressing Room
• Fixed an issue where very long club names could overlap each other in the dressing room after matching up in a clubs game

Niantic has announced another round of Legendary Raid Hour events for Pokemon Go. As usual, the events will occur every Wednesday evening throughout October, and fittingly, this month will feature some “spooky” Legendaries.

For one hour each week, a greater number of five-star Raids will occur at Gyms around the world, giving you more chances to catch a Legendary Pokemon. Each Raid Hour will take place from 6-7 PM local time. On October 2, 9, and 16, the featured monster will be Pokemon Go’s current Legendary, Altered Forme Giratina, which returned to the game late last month.

Altered Forme Giratina is scheduled to leave Raids again on October 17, and the remaining Raid Hour events in October–on October 23 and 30–will feature an as-yet unannounced Legendary. You can see October’s full Legendary Raid Hour schedule below, while more details about the events can be found on the official Pokemon Go website.

Pokemon Go’s October Community Day, meanwhile, takes place next Saturday, October 12. The featured Pokemon during this month’s event will be Trapinch, the first form of the Ground/Dragon Pokemon Flygon. You’ll have your first chance to catch a Shiny Trapinch during this month’s Community Day, and you’ll earn triple the normal amount of XP for each Pokemon you catch during the event.

In other Pokemon Go news, Niantic has teased some new Team Rocket characters. The official Pokemon Go Twitter account recently shared distorted images showing the profiles of three unfamiliar characters, and each had Team Rocket’s iconic R symbol next to their pictures, suggesting they could be high-level members of the villainous team.

Pokemon Go October Legendary Raid Hour Schedule

October 2, October 9, October 16

• Altered Forme Giratina
• 6-7 PM local time

October 23, October 30

• To be announced
• 6-7 PM local time

Following the launch of Destiny 2’s new Shadowkeep expansion and New Light – the new free-to-play entry point for Destiny players – Destiny 2 has now reached an all-time concurrent players record on Steam, which has seemingly caused Bungie to take the servers entirely offline due to an overload, according to their tweet as of 2:13pm PT.

The tweet read: “Destiny 1 and Destiny 2 are being taken offline for emergency maintenance. Please standby for updates,” and another update was sent out at 2:46pm PT which read, “Emergency maintenance for Destiny 1 and Destiny 2 is still ongoing. We apologize for the continued delay. Please stay tuned for updates on our progress.”

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