If you've had a hard time finding a Nintendo Switch at the store, there may be good reason for that. The Friday through Saturday sales for Nintendo's latest console surpassed the first two-day sales for any system "in Nintendo history," according to tweets from the New York Times' Nick Wingfield. The info comes from an interview with Nintendo of America president Reggie Fils-Aime.
Source: Nick Wingfield (Twitter)
When I last left off, I was lost somewhere along the northeastern coast of Hyrule. I had yet to experience one of the game’s dungeons, didn’t have a horse in the stables, and hadn’t even figured out how to cook yet. 20 hours later, that’s all changed. I’m no longer lost. With a new sense of determination, I’ve set Link on a path north to find more Shrines and hopefully The Blade of Evil’s Bane.
Just like my first review in progress, this post will contain spoilers. Consider yourself warned.
With around 480,000 copies sold in its first month on Steam Early Access, Conan Exiles is working out for Funcom. The company says the floppy and nude survival game was able to recoup its development budget in under a week, and these initial signs of success have culminated in plans to "[invest] another 5 to 10 million USD into the development before final launch" in Q1 2018 on PC, PS4, and Xbox One.
Along the way, players can expect to see patches for bugs and stability "every one to two weeks," around four to six "big game updates" while Conan Exiles is in Early Access, and additional large, staggered updates that add things like creatures, different types of terrain, and god avatars.
There's a whole mess of other forward-looking details in this roadmap posted by the development team, if you're curious. The short of it all? Conan is getting siege warfare, NPC raiders that will launch coordinated attacks on settlements, horse- and even rhino-mounted combat, sorcery, a settlement command system complete with thrall scheduling, and the highland biome.
This is a game I'm perfectly happy to wait on. For now, I'll stick to catching the occasional bouncy gif.
A look at things to come [Conan Exiles]
Twitch is starting to look a lot like Facebook or Twitter. Following the addition of private messaging and live update tools, today Twitch unveiled Pulse, the next step in the site's transformation into a full-on social networking service. Pulse allows Twitch streamers and users to post updates that show up on one newsfeed-style page, including stream clips, YouTube videos, links, photos and written messages.
Source: Twitch
It has been a few years since free-to-play MOBA Gigantic first hit the scene. Gigantic was immediately notable for its charming art style and its emphasis on slaying the opposing team's behemoth guardian. It was poised to make a big splash among competitive multiplayer games.
Somewhere along the way, it seems as if Gigantic couldn't quite figure itself out. It was supposed to be a Windows 10 PC and Xbox One exclusive but Microsoft pulled out of publishing about a year later. There has been a series of betas, but no real indication of an imminent release. Along the way, developer Motiga has been forced to lay employees off, the most recent case being in February of 2016.
The most recent until now, that is. Destructoid has received reports that Motiga had another round of layoffs today. An affected former employee (who wishes to remain anonymous) confirmed this to us. Although they aren't sure of the exact number of cut jobs, they believe it's greater than ten. For what it's worth, LinkedIn broadly predicts Motiga's employee count at 51-200.
Might this forecast the way Gigantic is shaping up? Layoffs usually don't happen when everything's rosy. Our source left with a positive impression. "As for commenting on Gigantic, I feel that the product itself is in a good state," they said before declining to elaborate any further.
We've reached out to Motiga asking for self-confirmation that the layoffs took place, how many people were affected, what explanation there is for cutting staff, and what the current state of the game is and how this development affects it. We haven't received a response at time of writing. We'll update this article if/when we hear back from Motiga. As always, best of luck to the folks who find themselves suddenly displaced.
Even though the video says it's a paltry five seconds long, the meat is actually even less. It's two seconds. Orc looking like he wants to fight, ranger riding a dragon, everyone yelling. Wham, bam, thank you ma'am, we're out.
But, this teaser is in service of a March 8 Middle-earth: Shadow of War gameplay reveal. While Warner Bros. will have its take on what's new, so will we. We saw Shadow of War in San Francisco at GDC last week, and we'll have our thoughts on all the changes that WB showed us.
For now, enjoy these two seconds of teaser. You can watch it a whole lot of times between now and Wednesday.
If a worker unit can end up becoming a fleshed-out character for Heroes of the Storm, I have to wonder what other weird paths Blizzard might one day take the roster down. Probius, "the bravest of the probes," has that oddball appeal. But what else do we know about the little fella?
Quite a lot, actually. This spotlight video covers a bunch of ground for the ranged specialist character and is useful even if you're just planning to play against Probius, not as him. It's helpful to pore over a list of abilities and traits, but sometimes you've just gotta see everything in action to get a feel for how a hero handles and whether or not it meshes with the role you like to take on the team.
Probius checks off my preferred boxes. Ranged? Yes. Burst damage? Yes! The ability to oh-so-satisfyingly warp in Pylons and Photon Cannons? Yes yes yes! All that in an unassuming package.
GOG has certainly been doing the Discount Dance lately. The Markdown Mambo. The Sale Samba. The Cheap Game Cha Cha. Those are all ways that I have personally described GOG's sales events to my friends. (I consider you all my friends.)
You kind of have to be down with throwing lots of these shindigs when Steam is one of your main competitors. Steam's many sales a year are the stuff of legend among PC consumers. You have to be able to match that, or at least get close, in order to hang.
GOG's making a valiant effort. The DRM-free PC sales site has another major discount event that started today. It's the Spring Sale and it features more than 500 games. Unlike past offerings, everything has its price slashed today; there's no slow roll-out of new titles every day. It's just "Here it is, buy something or don't."
It can all be a bit overwhelming, though. Sifting through 500 games can be an arduous task. To help, GOG has sorted things into different collections like a bunch of RPGs or "Games you'd hang up on your wall."
We haven't rummaged through the bargain bin yet, so we'll leave it to you to share particularly good discounts. Some of the ones that GOG felt were worth bringing up in an email to us were: The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt Game of the Year Edition ($29.99), Darkest Dungeon ($12.49), Vampire: The Masquerade -- Bloodlines ($4.99), and Shadow Tactics: Blade of the Shogun ($35.99). That's 4 of 500-some. Good start, but a long way to go.
The Spring Sale [GOG]
The follow-up to hit survival-horror game Outlast is coming to PC, Xbox One and Playstation 4 on April 25. Outlast 2 will attempt to raise the creep factor with more genre-defining "WTF" moments than were possible in the first game, due to budgetary restrictions.
Nothing feels better than getting your head patted for a job well done, especially when it's delivered by another fellow android. Unfortunately for us, said robots exist in an action video game, namely NieR: Automata. The action title from Platinum Games (and published by Square Enix) is releasing tomorrow on PS4. PC gamers will receive their ported Steam version on March 17.
Happily, there is finally a pre-order deal available on the PC/Steam copy of NieR: Automata with GMG introducing a 18% discount to $49.29. Unlike years past where discounts were plentiful for Square Enix-published titles, we're noticing less aggressive pre-order prices during release period as both publishers and retailers curb back on discount incentives. In fact, we originally filed NieR as one of those PC titles that wouldn't see a deal until weeks after launch, if that.
The PC port appears to be doing well in sales regardless, as it's currently sitting on the #3 top-seller slot both at Steam and Green Man Gaming. With a strong review for the PS4 version, and as long as the port holds up, we suspect this will be a top-selling PC title in 2017 for Square Enix.
Away: Journey to the Unexpected is the new game from Arkedo co-founder and The Next Penelope creator Aurelien Regard, and it looks like a total aesthetic trip. The environments are 3D, but the characters and enemies are expressively animated in 2D. It's best seen in motion. For now, there's this teaser trailer at GameSpot with an anime-as-hell opener and a spot of gameplay footage.
Details are light going into this weekend's PAX East, but we do know a few fundamental details about Away: it's a first-person adventure in which you'll need to find the right words to convince "strange characters" to join your efforts and, based on the early screens, you get to whack creatures with a stick. I also see a few slots in the HUD for fast character switching. Seems really neat!
Expect this to appear on PC, PlayStation 4, Xbox One, and Nintendo Switch later this year.
Away [Playdius]
SpatialOS is the technical foundation that makes massive, persistent, online world-building possible, even for small video game studios. Think of large, mainstream games like Destiny or Elder Scrolls Online: These are huge universes that support thousands of players at a single time. It typically takes millions of dollars and hundreds of people multiple years to make one of these games -- let alone support it post-launch -- which is one reason it's notoriously difficult to secure funding for the development of massively multiplayer online games.
However, SpatialOS puts a spin on this standard. Improbable's computational platform offers cloud-based server and engine support for MMO games, allowing developers to easily create and host online, multiplayer experiences with persistent features. SpatialOS first made a splash at GDC 2015, when it promised to power MMO games with a swarm-like system of servers that switch on as they're needed in locations around the world.
It's amazing how bright the ocean can be, and yet still be so accursedly dark. My searchlights barely cut through the murk, and the shadows of ancient hulks say I have no place down here. My sonar pings off of an even bigger wreck, a tiny glow on its deck. Was this what I was looking for?
My ship shakes as cannon fire upon it, my HUD flaring the angry red of an imminent torpedo barreling down on me. There is no time to dodge. I slam “ascend” and hope I make it back to base.
The damn crab lied, it wasn't better under the sea at all.
It won't be much longer now before we'll be sending our dispensable [Space Marine / Ork / Eldar] fodder into battle with reckless abandon. Relic Entertainment is prepping Warhammer 40,000: Dawn of War III for a worldwide PC release on Monday, April 27. That's one way to start your week off.
Unsurprisingly, Sega is holding back some stuff for pre-orders, as depicted in this trailer:
It's been just shy of two years since we unveiled Public Access, our grand experiment in community contribution. In that time, we've seen some excellent stories published on the platform by you, and we are grateful for those efforts. Today, however, we are moving the Engadget community in a new direction and will be shutting Public Access down this Thursday, March 9th. For those of you in the community, you can rest assured your contributions aren't going anywhere -- the links to your stories will remain live and shareable, even though your profile pages will disappear. That said, we will be removing all site navigation to Public Access stories, so you need to copy the links to your stuff if you want to be able to read and share them moving forward. And, if you have any questions, just email publicaccess at engadget dot com, and we'll answer them!
While your Public Access profile will be no more, you can (and should) sign up for an Engadget account that'll let you continue contributing to the Engadget community by submitting comments and gadget reviews. We've got some new features (including new and improved profile pages) planned for our community that are coming soon, so sign up, tell us what you think, and enjoy the ride!
Ever since gamers discovered that the Nintendo Switch's Pro Controller works with computers, there's been a lingering question: what about the Joy-Cons you get with the system itself? Yes, thankfully. Both Nintendo Actu and Sam Williams have verified that the peripherals work as Bluetooth controllers on Macs and Windows PCs so long as you use an app that binds buttons to mouse and keyboard controls. They should work with Android, too, although Nintendo Actu warns that it saw serious lag -- your experience may vary depending on the mobile device you're using.
Source: Nintendo Actu (Twitter), Sam Williams (Twitter)
Having just picked up my Pro Controller on launch day, after playing Zelda: Breath of the Wild entirely by way of the tablet and Joy-Con grip, I've since gravitated towards use it almost exclusively. While the former two options are just fine I really like the heft of the Pro, and the traditional d-pad is amazing.
But there's also a hidden little Easter egg embedded in this $70 monstrosity, found first by Reddit user Tropiux. It's under the right analog stick, and states "THX2ALLGAMEFANS." It's such a little thing, but it's cute nonetheless. I went back to my Pro right after discovering this bit and news and can confirm that it does exist -- I just had to do a lot of finagling in a well-lit area, as the message is inside the controller through the glass.
Check out a shot of my controller in the gallery below to see it for yourself.
There's a hidden message under the right stick of the Pro Controller [Reddit]
For weeks now there has been leaked knowledge of a Hori Fight Stick for the Nintendo Switch, which at the moment is probably only going to be useful for Ultra Street Fighter II.
But still, with those C-button-esque Joy-Con inputs it makes sense that folks would want a better option beyond just the Pro Controller, so lo and behold the Real Arcade Pro.V Hayabusa is a thing. No specifics, date, or pricepoint have been announced.
I know some real hardcore folks will probably pick this up just for Street Fighter, but I hope that any number of developers have more fighters planned for the Switch in the future. I'd love to see some wacky stuff like Tatsunoko vs. Capcom, but on a system people will actually play it on.
Hori [Twitter]
Possibly 2017's biggest game and its host system both came out last Friday and they're better than "It might rain" and "I'm broken with exhaustion after 40 hours of wage slavery that has seen only diminishing returns in my lifetime" as reasons to veg the fuck out and do absolutely nothing but play video games all weekend.
While Chris Carter and a handful of others played (and loved) The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild in advance of this weekend, I definitely noticed a lot of folks over in the Quick Posts section live-share nothing but Zelda all weekend, including some numerical appraisals of exact time spent, topped, to the best of my knowledge, with Fenriff nearing 40 hours.
What about you? How much Zelda did you play this weekend?
I'll start: 0 hours. Sorry. I don't have a Switch yet! I did eat a lot of (free) crab at a dinner on Saturday and then convince myself that I was going into anaphylactic shock like five hours later despite 1) the amount of time that had passed before I was even unnecessarily worried and 2) I've had crab tons of times before and have no history of food allergy whatsoever. I also stayed in bed until it was dark out on Saturday because the prior week of GDC stole my soul, but even if I had BotW, I don't think I had the energy for anything other than following antifa action on Twitter and hugging my dog.
How much Zelda'd you play, though?
For months now we've been wondering what is to become of Bloodstained: Ritual of the Night on Nintendo platforms. With nearly every other developer canceling their work on Wii U in favor of the Switch, most people just assumed that Bloodstained would meet the same fate. But as of this week, we now have at least one piece of the puzzle.
According to a Nintendo of Europe advert, Bloodstained is now slated for the Switch. I mean they have plenty of time to fine-tune it with a 2018 release date, and the Switch is apparently much easier to developer for than past Nintendo systems, so it makes sense. But there's still a chance that the Wii U version could get canceled -- hell, there's a chance Nintendo will shut down all of the Wii U's online capabilities before the end of the year.
So stay tuned for a possible "Kickstarter backer platform swap" poll or announcement on the fate of the Wii U edition.
Bloodstained: Ritual of the Night heading to Switch [Nintendo Everything]
The Nintendo Switch is lacking a lot of party games at the moment, but Bomberman R and Fast RMX have been pretty big hits among my group of friends (along with Snipperclips which has amazing two player co-op).
Fast RMX developer Shin'en Multimedia may have reached 60FPS with split-screen (on the TV and tablet), but they aren't done with the game yet. A new update is coming that will add 90 time attack trials to the game, as well as online friend support -- a feature that didn't launch with the original build. It's coming "soon."
There isn't much to be said about this news other than bring it on! Fast RMX is one of the handful of "must haves" on the Switch. Honestly, Nintendo should just contract out Shin'en to do an F-Zero game on it. F-Zero with a remastered soundtrack and 60 FPS from this dev? It would sell itself.
FAST RMX Developer is Already Working on an Update for the Switch Launch Title [Nintendo Life]
Outlast was once of 2013's best surprises. New independent developer Red Barrels took a considerable risk dedicating themselves to a horror game focused on evasion rather than direct combat, making for one of the most frightening experiences in recent memory. Two years later, Red Barrels announced Outlast II and that it would release in August, 2016.
However, it was one of many games caught up in the great 2016 delay storm, where game after game was pushed from Q4 2016 to Q1 2017. Despite announcing a Q1 release, today Red Barrels announced the game will launch on PC, Xbox One, and PlayStation 4 on April 25, 2017, nearly a month into Q2.
If you opened up your copy of Zelda: Breath of the Wild Wii U and were all excited to test out the touchscreen features on the GamePad -- you were probably disappointing to find out that the only "Wii U" thing about the port was off-TV play, which the Switch can now do by default. Yes, there was a chance that the Wii U version would have actually been superior from a gameplay standpoint if you could manage your inventory on the fly on the second screen, but according to the game's director, Hidemaro Fujibayashi, it wasn't in the cards.
Speaking to IGN, he states, "In doing our testing without the touch features we noticed looking back and forth between the Gamepad and the screen actually took a little something away from this type of Zelda game. Without the touch features it actually turned out to be a really strong gameplay experience. After more experimentation and testing out, we realized that this is the best way to experience the game. That’s how we ended up with the current gameplay style in the production version"
It's natural to move on to the next big thing, but does anyone remember when Nintendo was heralding the Wii U GamePad as the current next big thing? Unlike a lot of other gimmicks that marketing teams push out of obligation, I thought the GamePad actually was unique. Having that second pad that you can manipulate or touch as a live map would have made perfect sense with the Sheikah Tablet so embedded into the game, and "looking back and forth" didn't stop any number of amazing Wii U games, like Xenoblade Chronicles X.
Every time I hear a story like this I just pour a little bit out for the Wii U.
Zelda: Breath of the Wild's touchscreen features [IGN]
Ah, World War II. The good ol' Dubya Dubya Dos. It's been such a long time since unstable right-wing reactionaries preaching ethno-nationalism wrested control of a major world power, threatening the stability of the entire world, that we're free to make fun lil' games out of it. "Woah grandpa, D-Day must've been tough, it took me like nine tries to beat that Medal of Honor level. You saw your childhood friend drown in the surf while bleeding out? Yeah, those heavy guns were OP."
Developer Eugen Systems (Act of Aggression) is returning to familiar stomping grounds with Steel Division: Normandy 44, which I got an early look at during GDC last week. The team has found an appropriate partner for the upcoming strategy game in publisher Paradox, while the French developer is excited to offer a "personal point of view on the subject." A note to our American-learned readers: Normandy is an area in France.
You don't hear many people talk about the Drakengard or NieR series. It's pretty well-known in some circles, but others are mostly just aware of it through silly boar riding and fishing .gifs.
I think that'll change with NieR: Automata.
It's easy to disassociate game developers from the success or failure of their titles. The average gamer might not notice if a company's most recent releases aren't selling well, and would be none the wiser if one of their favorite companies was teetering on the edge of bankruptcy. That's where FunCom was before it decided to make Conan Exiles.
Despite the popularity of its previous Conan games, critical acclaim for titles like The Park and being the developer behind the LEGO Minifigures Online MMO, the company was hemorrhaging money. "We were basically loaning money from our investors for wages," FunCom creative director Joe Bylos told Engadget at GDC. "We were pretty close to bankruptcy." If its next game wasn't a hit, the company was done for.
It was hard to imagine what Ghost Recon Wildlands would be in a post-Sicario world. Denis Villeneuve's taut crime thriller portrayed a world of drugs and murder where there were no easy answers and no good guys; the kind of moral relativism that makes you feel bad about your place in the food chain. Conversely, the early hours of Wildlands has the player character shoving the business end of their pistol into a bad guy's face and calling him a "fuckstick." Mama mia.
I feared the worst -- that our gradual shift towards portraying the drug war in shades of grey would have fallen on deaf ears, and we'd be treated to another unironic depiction of macho American exceptionalism in an era that super does not need any more of that, thank you very much. And although I have not finished Ghost Recon Wildlands (hence the "in progress" you see in the headline), I've seen little to convince me otherwise.
Pity that Wildlands has such an ill-timed release date, because it's got some of the smartest mayhem-focused open-world design I've seen this side of the Just Cause games. By playing off the player's inherent desire to cause a ruckus, Wildlands makes its plentiful side activities feel meaningful, even when you'd rather be doing something else. If Ubisoft is looking for a new sandbox template to viciously beat into the ground, they could do a lot worse than this.
Welcome to your Monday. We have wrapped up our coverage of MWC (all things mobile) as well as GDC (all things gaming) over the weekend, played laser tag with a smartphone, and learned that you can screw up an anti-harassment bot with typos. The big events aren't over, either: SXSW kicks off later this week. We'll be there.
If you've noticed fewer cheaters in your League of Legends matches in recent weeks, you now have a good idea as to why. Riot Games has won a settlement in its lawsuit against LeagueSharp, the subscription cheating service that offered automated play (that is, bots) to win in League games. The agreement has LeagueSharp paying $10 million, bans its software and gives Riot control over its websites. LeagueSharp technically shut down in January, but the terms of the settlement weren't circulating until now.
Via: PC Gamer, Law360, Gamasutra
Source: Dot eSports
