Xbox Responds To Fortnite And Battle Royale

Fortnite and battle royale genre overall has been and continues to be one of the biggest trends in video games over the past year. Now, gaming giant Xbox has responded to the massive phenomenon. Marketing boss Aaron Greenberg said in a new interview that Fortnite has not necessarily taken away players from other games, but instead helped grow the gaming business all up as new players come in to try out the battle royale game.

“We were watching for the impact: is this going to impact our other third-party partners? And we largely haven’t seen that,” Greenberg told MCV UK. “For the large part Fortnite seems to have been additive; it has definitely grown gaming. It’s a game that has brought a lot more people into gaming, and then the people that came in went and spent more time playing games.”

Greenberg added that “hardcore gamers” didn’t stop playing their favourite games to go spend all their time with Fortnite. Instead, what it did do was “take people who were casual or very light gamers and they’re now spending more time playing. It just brought a lot of new people, which is great, it diversifies the population.”

Greenberg said many of the gamers who came to play Fortnite are not what might be considered “core gamers,” but instead people who were looking to “spend time, and money, on entertainment.”

It could have been a new music album or TV show that caught fire and brought people to it, but instead it was Fortnite that became “that thing” for players.

Given the popularity of the battle royale genre–including all the money it brings in–the industry overall has seen a surge in new battle royale games. But will Microsoft ever join in with a game of its own? Greenberg said it’s an “attractive” idea, but added that it could be problematic to chase a pre-established idea that someone is already doing.

“The ability to get scale and to remove as many barriers as possible is definitely attractive, but you have to be careful about just focusing on a business model, as that alone doesn’t generate success,” he said. “If you take a paid game and make it free-to-play that doesn’t mean it will be more successful, in many cases it could ruin a game. You see how many people are trying to do battle royale right now.”

While Microsoft does not have its own battle royale game, there is always the possibility that an existing or new Xbox game adds a battle royale mode within the game. Mark Serrels of GameSpot sister site CNET would like to see Halo Infinite add a battle royale mode, even if the company has no plans for it as of yet.

Microsoft just recently announced a Fortnite Xbox One bundle, which joins the existing PUBG Xbox One bundle. PUBG, which came before Fortnite, is exclusive on console to Xbox One–at least for now.

Destiny 2’s Iron Banner Is Changing, Here’s How

On September 18, Iron Banner returned to Destiny 2 for the first time since the launch of the Forsaken expansion. Since Iron Banner’s release, Bungie has been monitoring the mode, and the developer isn’t completely content with what its seen.

In a blog post, senior designer Jeremiah Pieschl wrote, “One of the goals we have for Iron Banner is that it’s an opportunity for lower-Power players to catch up or reengage in their pursuit of Power. Based on [player] feedback and our analytics, we’re not meeting that goal.” In response, Bungie is rolling out two changes in Iron Banner, which the company hopes will level the playing field between high-Power and low-Power players.

The first change will reduce how much you’ll have to do to complete a bounty in Iron Banner. The adjustments are listed out below.

Iron Banner Bounty Changes

  • Lightbearer: Super kills has been reduced to 20 from 25
  • Iron in the Blood: Match completions has been reduced to 15 from 30
  • Shine On: Orbs generated has been reduced to 50 from 100
  • Iron Victory: Match wins has been reduced to 7 from 10
  • To Be Precise: Precision kills has been reduced to 50 from 100
  • All in a Week’s Work: Kills has been reduced to 150 from 250

The second change increases drop rate during Iron Banner’s bounties, making it easier to acquire high-Power gear more quickly. Bungie will continue to monitor Iron Banner going forward, specifically to make sure that the multiplayer mode’s new direction makes sense. Previously, Destiny 2’s Iron Banner normalized Power level for all players. Since the launch of Forsaken, Bungie has transformed Iron Banner into, as the developer describes it, “an arms race” where the only way to hold your own is to equip your highest level gear.

Destiny 2 is available for Xbox One, PS4, and PC. In our Destiny 2: Forsaken review-in-progress, Kallie gave the expansion an 8/10, writing “After being let down by Curse of Osiris and Warmind, I’m enjoying Destiny 2 again.”

Fortnite Season 6’s New Shadow Stones Removed Due To A Bug

One of the biggest changes added to Fortnite in Season 6 is the introduction of a new consumable called Shadow Stones. Using one allows you to transform into your Shadow Form, which gifts you with a couple of supernatural powers. [Update: Not long after they were added, Epic has pulled Shadow Stones from the game entirely due to an unspecified bug. “Due to an issue with Shadow Stones, we’re disabling them until we have a fix,” the company said on Twitter. There’s no timeline for their return.]

In Shadow Form, you won’t be able to use weapons, but whenever you stand still, you’ll go completely invisible. You’ll still be slightly visible whenever you move in Shadow Form, and walking around leaves behind a Shadow Trail that people can easily follow. Running around isn’t all that bad though, as you’ll have increased movement speed and jump height, and you won’t take fall damage.

The true fun comes in your other supernatural ability, Phase. Using Phase propels in whichever direction you’re facing. If there’s something in your way, like a rock or a wall, you’ll pass right through it. With Phase, you’ll be able to easily escape anyone who discovers your Shadow Trail, or scare someone with your ghostly apparition in an ambush.

Shadow Form only lasts up to 45 seconds–and can be ended early by holding down the Alt Fire button–so you’ll have to figure out when’s the best time to use a Shadow Stone after you’ve found one. Shadow Stones randomly spawn around the map, but can usually be discovered in corrupted areas.

Fortnite Season 6 also puts Impulse Grenade, Suppressed Submachine Gun, Light Machine Gun, Bouncer, and Remote Explosives into the Vault. Grapplers have been updated so that connecting to a moving object incorporates its momentum into your launch force, and the charge for Grapplers has been reduced from 15 to 10.

Fortnite is available for Xbox One, PS4, PC, Nintendo Switch, Android, and iOS.

Epic Removing Fortnite’s ‘Embarrassing’ Boob Physics

Along with all of its planned new content, Fortnite’s sixth season has also brought with it an accidental new inclusion that Epic Games is working to fix.

As first spotted by Twitter user @Agony, Fornite’s new Calamity skin showcases exaggerated boob physics, which Epic Games says will be removed.

“This is unintended, embarrassing, and it was careless for us to let this ship,” an Epic representative spokesperson told IGN. “We are working now to fix this as soon as possible.”

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Batman: White Knight Gets a Sequel

DC Comics announced today that Batman: White Knight will be getting a sequel in 2019. Titled Batman: Curse of the White Knight, this new limited series will introduce a drastically different version of Batman’s occasional ally Azrael.

As revealed by Paste, Curse of the White Knight will again be written and drawn by Sean Gordon Murphy and be set in the same alternate DC Universe as the original series. Curse of the White Knight will be published as part of the new mature readers-focused DC Black Label imprint.

Batman: Curse of the White Knight #1 cover by Sean Gordon Murphy. (DC Entertainment) Batman: Curse of the White Knight #1 cover by Sean Gordon Murphy. (DC Entertainment)

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Score V-Bucks and Exclusive Skins With a Fortnite Bundle

If you buy something through this post, IGN may get a share of the sale. For more, read our Terms of Use.

Season 6 of Fortnite is here, right now. There’s just so much Fortnite news dropping it only seems fair to help steer your Fortnite fanaticism to bold new heights and point you to some exclusive skins. With the bombshell announcement Sony is finally allowing crossplay for Fortnite, there are going to be plenty of unfamiliar skins battling it out for victory. Here’s how you can lock in some of your own.

How to Get the Fortnite Double Helix Skin

The Nintendo Switch Fortnite Double Helix bundle isn’t quite as generous as the Xbox One S bundle, at least when it comes to V-Bucks. The Switch Fortnite bundle includes 1,000 V-Bucks and the Nintendo Switch exclusive Double Helix skin. This one isn’t out yet, but you can preorder for next week. Expect to see a sudden influx of Double Helix skins in Fortnite when the bundle comes out October 5.

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Fortnite Is so Big It Can Bully Sony and Nintendo

Fortnite is undeniably one of the biggest games in the world, but today we saw an example of just how big it is. Sony’s long-standing (and, frankly, embarrassing) stance against cross-play with other consoles is finally coming to an end, and Fortnite is pretty much leading the charge.

Developer Epic Games has been vocal in the past about wanting Sony to embrace cross-play (alongside developers like Psyonix and Bethesda), and actually accidentally enabled the feature briefly last year. Sony even caused a big headache for Epic during Fortnite’s launch on Switch as players who had previously played on PS4 discovered their accounts couldn’t carry over – an issue Sony didn’t have much to say about at the time.

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Nintendo Wins Lawsuit Against Unlicensed Tokyo Mario Kart Ride Company

Tokyo tourists will no longer unofficially be suiting up as their favorite Mario characters and riding go-karts around the city. Nintendo won a lawsuit against an unlicensed Mario Kart ride company today, resulting in damages and the company being banned from using Mario costumes.

Wall Street Journal Tech Reporter Takashi Mochizuki first reported that Tokyo’s Mari Mobility company, which was previously known as MariCar, would have to pay Nintendo 10 million yen (about $88,000 USD) and stop using “Nintendo-related” outfits. “The street go-cart company operates services in Japan, and Nintendo was complaining it was damaging its ‘Mario Kart’ franchise,” Mochizuki wrote.

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