Fight offline with friends in new ‘Star Wars Battlefront’ mode
With the Battlefield 1 closed alpha raging on and the full game launching in October you might think that developer DICE is forgetting about its other shooter, Star Wars Battlefront. That’s not the case. Come July 20th, the game will have a new offline gametype dubbed “Skirmish.” A post on the EA Star Wars site says that Skirmish is playable against bots, either solo or with a co-op partner in Walker Assault and Fighter Squadron modes. The free update is welcome, of course, but I’m not sure how many people still playing this are jonesing for a new AI-based bot mode. Or if they’ve abandoned the game, if this could win them back. This is a problem of publisher Electronic Arts’ own making, though.
The last time EA mentioned the Death Star expansion pack we had a vague “fall 2016” launch date, but that was it. Now the fog has cleared a bit and we know that it’s coming out in September. Next month, EA will probably give us an exact date. It’s frustrating, but that’s unfortunately how this stuff tends to go.
The post goes on to say that the pack will feature ground-and-space based maps (fingers crossed for a trench run gametype a la Walker Assault’s Battle of Hoth reenactment), new weapons and a pair of shiny heroes. Specifically, “one larger-than-life character we know you’ve been patiently waiting for.” Who could that be, hmm?
Source: EA Star Wars
‘Hyper Light Drifter’ is touching down on consoles this month
Hyper Light Drifter is finally making its way to consoles soon, after a few harrowing months of waiting for PS4 and Xbox One owners. Developer Heart Machine’s neon wonderland, which originally launched on PC and Mac in early 2016, is touching down on both systems on July 26th. The information was outed early via Sony’s summer sale announcement — Heart Machine has now confirmed it.
While the game will launch on both consoles, there’s no mention just yet of whether or not its co-op mode will be included at launch. The playable mode was originally present during the PC beta on Steam, then removed for tweaks. It only just returned to the game in May.
If you’re interested in trying the game out, you’ll have three options as far as how you want to experience it. Pick it up on Steam here if you don’t want to wait.
Via: Destructoid
Pilot a disembodied head on July 26th with ‘Headlander’
Headlander, the Adult Swim game with a ’70s science fiction vibe, comes to the PS4 on July 26th. First announced last December at the PlayStation Experience, it puts you in the head of the “last organic life left in the known universe,” according to the PlayStation blog post. Even though you’re just a disembodied head, you do have a spacesuit helmet and rocket booster. That lets you dock your dome on any object with a “universal docking ring,” including humanoid shepherds, robot dogs and even vacuum cleaners.
After that, you visit levels in the “Pleasure Port” with help from your personal assistant Earl, blasting enemies with increasingly powerful lasers or deflecting fire with a bounce shield. All the while, you’ll be trying to figure out who you are and why you’re the only human around. The trailer (below) captures the look, fun and nonsense of classic films like Dark Star and Westworld, and if the side-scrolling game can live up to that, it should be a hoot to play. It arrives on the PS4 and PC on July 26th.
Source: Sony
NPD finally adds digital tracking to its game sales reports
For years, the NPD Group has tracked and reported video game sales figures. Every month, the company issues an email to the media detailing the top ten selling games for the month prior, total amount spent on games, hardware and accessories and year-over-year and generation-over-generation growth or decline. The glaring hole in those reports is that they didn’t account for digital game sales from places like Steam, PlayStation Network or Xbox Live. But that’s changing and with this month’s data, we’ll finally have steps toward a true, comprehensive picture of how much a particular title has sold, both from retailers and digital distribution.
It’s something that’s been in the works for five years, and the NPD Group has struck agreements with a number of publishers to track their digital data. Those include Activision, Capcom, Deep Silver, Electronic Arts, Square Enix, Take-Two Interactive and Warner Bros. Interactive. You’ll notice some pretty big gaps there: Bethesda, Microsoft, Nintendo and Sony. NPD spokesperson Liam Callahan said that if the group waited for everyone to come on board, that the tracking wouldn’t have ever launched. “If we waited to have every publisher in the world to sign up it would take forever,” he told GamesIndustry.biz.
In addition digital full-game purchases, add-on packs and micro-transactions will be tracked as well, but those sales numbers won’t be divulged to the press or public. And instead of separating the digital sales numbers from physical sales, they’ll instead be combined — much like the company doesn’t break down game sales by system. Games that come from publishers who aren’t disclosing digital sales data will be denoted as such.
Frankly, it’s about time that the NPD did this. As digital sales have ballooned (especially with the current crop of consoles), the firm’s reporting has been incredibly incomplete. With this, we’re getting closer to actually knowing exactly how popular a particular month’s games are in terms of sales.
Can you hear that? It’s the sound of the NeoGAF crowd and comment sections cheering over more data to scrub through and lord over each other’s heads come the third Thursday of every month.
Build your very own vault in ‘Fallout 4’ June 26th
Whereas Fallout Shelter has become more like Fallout 4 in recent months, come July 26th those actions will swap. The “Vault-Tec Workshop” expansion hits PC, PlayStation 4 and Xbox One that day according to a post on Bethesda.net. What’s this add-on bring to the table? Creating a vault of your very own (like you did in Fallout Shelter on mobile) where you can attract folks to your custom-built domain, play dress-up with them and then put ’em to work. The company is sending out early beta access to folks on PC this week.
Anyone who’s spent a fair bit of time exploring the wastes of previous games has probably encountered at least a few vaults where overseers were running experiments on the dwellers. Now, you can do that yourself. The details of how far that will go aren’t clear just yet, but at least there isn’t much longer to wait.
Source: Bethesda.net
‘BioShock: The Collection’ hits PS4, Xbox One and PC in September
Break out the wetsuits — you’re going back to Rapture. BioShock: The Collection contains all three BioShock games and their single-player DLC packs, remastered for current-generation consoles. It’s due to hit PlayStation 4, Xbox One and PC on September 13th across North America and Asia (that’s September 15th in Australia and September 16th worldwide), and the whole bundle costs $60.
Specifically, BioShock: The Collection includes remastered versions of BioShock, BioShock 2 and BioShock Infinite, plus all of their single-player DLC packs. There are a few caveats here: BioShock 2 in particular won’t feature multiplayer content in the new bundle. Also, BioShock Infinite has not been remastered for PC because “it already meets current-gen console standards and runs smoothly on high visual settings,” 2K Games says. Note that Infinite landed on Xbox 360, PS3 and PC in March 2013.
A few extra goodies are thrown into The Collection, including a director’s commentary reel called Imagining BioShock starring series creator Ken Levine, and a behind-the-scenes tour of the original BioShock’s development called Museum of Orphaned Concepts. BioShock’s Challenge Rooms also make an appearance in the bundle. The Collection includes BioShock 2’s Minerva’s Den and Protector Trials DLC packs, plus BioShock Infinite’s Burial at Sea, Clash in the Clouds and Columbia’s Finest add-on packs.
Fans have long been clamoring for current-generation versions of the BioShock trilogy, and just yesterday 2K Games revealed the series’ official twitter account. News of the remastered collection leaked a little early thanks to a series of images uploaded to the official 2K Games website this week. But of course, when you’re dealing with an elaborate underwater city, leaks are expected.
Welcome to Rapture! Would you kindly follow @BioShock? pic.twitter.com/f010t1WS0O
— BioShock (@bioshock) June 29, 2016
Stream PS Vue’s cord-cutting service from your Android device
Sony’s attempt at killing your pay-tv subscription is available on Android now — just like the company promised. What’s more, PlayStation Vue also has a few new features on the PlayStation 3 and PlayStation 4. On the former, the channel guide has a video window in the upper right now, so you can keep an eye on what you were watching as you scroll through other viewing options. It’s essentially what cable and satellite guides have offered for years. If you’re using your PS3 as a media machine, the addition of a quick navigation overlay, which offers a “last channel” option among other tweaks, should be welcome; it’s also available on PS4.
Using the app on a second-gen Fire TV? You’ll find 60 FPS video support in addition to the aforementioned quick nav overlay next time you access the service. Sony says that a few of these new bits were the result of fan-requests, so maybe, just maybe, the outfit will hear the pleas for Android TV and Apple TV apps next.
Source: Google Play, PlayStation Blog
Intense music game ‘Thumper’ is a PlayStation VR launch title
Chalk up one more game available day and date alongside PlayStation VR. Drool has revealed that Thumper, its PSVR “rhythm hell” music title, will launch in sync with the headset on October 13th at a reasonable $20 price. As the developers put it, this isn’t just a 2D game with virtual reality slapped on top. While regular TV gaming is an option, Thumper is built to create an “overwhelming sense of speed” when you’re wearing PSVR. In short: if you take breaks, it may be less about VR queasiness and more about needing a respite from the game’s relentless pace.
You may have a good reason to splurge on the game, too. Drool is teaming up with iam8bit to offer a $45 Thumper Collector’s Edition that includes a code for the game as well as a vinyl soundtrack with art from key influencer Robert Beatty (who created album art for Neon Indian and Tame Impala). It might be overkill for a game that hasn’t made a name for itself yet, but rhythm games have a way of sticking in your brain… it’s worth considering this version if you know you’ll get an earworm.
Source: PlayStation Blog, Iam8bit
PS Plus members get free early access to ‘Paragon’ on July 5th
In more Games That Aren’t Overwatch news, Epic Studios is offering PlayStation Plus members a $20 Starter Pack for its hero brawler Paragon for free. That includes early access to the game over a month before the open beta launches on August 16.
Once it replaces the Founders Pack on July 5th, PS4 gamers can choose the Starter Pack and start playing. It also includes a few skins, in-game currency boosts, emotes and challenges for a couple characters. While it’s not a lot of goodies compared to the feature-filled but pricier Challenger- and Master-tier bonus packs, the gifted extras are nice for a free-to-play game that players won’t need to spend another dime on.
Unlike Blizzard’s hero shooter, Paragon inherits more gameplay from the Massively Online Battle Arena genre with a third-person camera and upgradeable skills. The game opened early access for both PC and PS4 in March, but Epic is going out of its way to court console players. In addition to the free invitation, weekly rewards await the entire PS4 playerbase if they hit certain accomplishment targets.
Source: Epic Games blog
Delays plague PlayStation 4 ‘Fallout 4’ mod update
If you were looking to further explore Fallout 4’s modding community as a PlayStation 4 owner, unfortunately you’re going to have to wait a little longer. Bethesda has announced a delay to the PS4 Mods Beta, and hasn’t yet given an ETA on when we can expect to see them become available.
Bethesda, it seems, is having quite a bit of issues with the PlayStation 4 version due to some size differences. Sony has chosen to limit mods for the system to just 900 MB, where as Microsoft allows for 2GB. Combined with several issues that seem to come from problems with the PlayStation 4 edition in general, Bethesda is currently unable, it seems, to push out the mods just yet.
The company has taken to Twitter to address the problem, offering an update “when they can” give one, but offered no further insight on what corrective measures were being taken or a window of time that might see the update coming through. On the bright side, if you still needed more time to play through Fallout 4 in its original state, there’s still time to do it before you get lost in the world of mods.
We regret to say that the PS4 Mods Beta for Fallout 4 has been delayed. We will update everyone when we can.
— BethesdaGameStudios (@BethesdaStudios) June 29, 2016
Via: Destructoid
Source: Twitter
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