The Batmobile and all the gameplay around it is a bit of a controversy in Batman: Arkham Knight. Some people despise the slippery movement and pointless drone combat, while other players are crazy. But what if you could drive the Batmobile from the Tim Burton movie in the game? Rocksteady and Warner Bros. Entertainment is releasing the 1989 Movie Batmobile Pack next week and it will give players the sleek art-deco lines of the 80’s cinematic vehicle to drive in film-inspired tracks. According to the developers, it’s not just a skin. The handling of the car reflects the longer, slimmer wheelbase. The DLC also comes with the Michael Keaton version of the Batsuit, so your caped crusader doesn’t look out of place behind the wheel of this monstrosity.
The 1989 Movie Batmobile Pack is included with the Batman: Arkham Knight season pass.
Videogame or internet addiction isn’t recognized formally for classification by the American Psychiatric Association yet. In China though, they’re ready to cure your free-to-play habit. The China Young Mental Development Base has a strict regimen of exercise, corporal punishment, and will-crushing designed to break you of your gaming addiction in a scant six months. Vice sent a reporter into the camp to experience the gentle hand of reeducation as administered by Professor Tao Ran, a former army colonel. In the camp, mouse-clicking junkies like you see the error of their ways.
“The two most popular games among patients are League of Legends and World of Warcraft,” said Tao, who comes across as a gentle, friendly figure despite the reputation his job and views might suggest. “Some kids are so addicted to them that they wear diapers to avoid having to stop playing to go to the toilet. Their parents wonder why their teenager is buying diapers.”
Sounds serious! With results like this, the camp seems to be well on the way to curing this dread disease.
“This is the third time he has been here,” a patient sitting next to me said, pointing to his mate opposite. Tao claims an 85-90 percent cure success rate for the base, but the statistic hasn’t been verified. “I suffer from serious depression,” the patient’s friend said when I ask why he’s come back so many times. “Why am I depressed? I don’t know. I’ve been here one year in total.”
Riot, the developers of League of Legends, should watch out. Their monthly revenue stream is going to dry up with camps like this working against them.
Larian has announced Divinity: Original Sin 2. The Belgian developers are going back to Kickstarter to fund its development. Larian founder Swen Vincke explained that they are crowd-funding the game because they felt that the funding and feedback they received from pledgers was crucial to the development of the first game.
“When we made D: OS, we did a lot of experimentation with systems, constantly improving them and offering them to our players for feedback. I believe it was a shining example of the power of early access, which both provides a developer with feedback as well as the funding to integrate that feedback. It was also the best development process I’d ever seen.”
Larian also noted that because most of the tech development was done during the making of the first game, they believe the majority of work on the sequel will be a smoother process. Vincke stated that the studio will be able to use the improvements of the Enhanced Edition of Divinity: Original Sin in Divinity: Original Sin 2. The Enhanced Edition will be a free upgrade for owners of Divinity: Original Sin on PC later this year. The Kickstarter for Divinity: Original Sin 2 will begin on August 26th.
According to findings released by SuperData Research, Blizzard’s Hearthstone is bringing in $20 million a month. That’s a lot of virtual cards. The estimate is based on surveying gamers and tracking over 250 million digital collectible card game transactions between October 2011 to June 2015. Analysts at SuperData concluded that 37 million gamers worldwide play digital CCGs with Hearthstone leading the field at 17 million active players thanks to its strong ties to other Blizzard games.
“Being able to build on a vast, pre-existing narrative economy allows both existing and new players to quickly find a touchpoint with the game, thereby establishing a different relationship compared to the majority of free-to-play titles currently available on iOS and PC.”
SuperData noted that while Hearthstone makes about $2 million per month more than Valve’s Dota 2, it is absolutely crushed by League of Legends’ $123 million a month revenue. Hearthstone’s The Grand Tournament expansion will be the latest card pack in the series.
Team Evil Genius has won The International 2015 Dota 2 Championship. The winning prize was $6,630,109.00 out of the $18 million total prize pool. The finals on Saturday came down to team Evil Genius from North America versus CDEC from China in a best of five match-up. After a three to one victory, the members of Evil Genius secured the top spot and claimed the coveted title. This marks the first time that Valve’s The International tournament was won by a North American team.
As the second-place winners, team CDEC will “only” take home $2,854,630.00 from the pool.
Victor Vran is getting a Motorhead expansion. If you think that sounds like I’m drunk-posting, you can check out the press release here. Victor Vran already shared some similarities to Sacred 2, and now it will have another thing on which to relate. Heavy metal. The Motorhead through the Ages expansion will feature the music of the heavy metal legends, along with all-new enemies, areas, skills, and weapons. Get ready to take a trip through time and album art!
Motorhead defines the themes of the game as Victor faces evils relevant to our own world religious fanatics, corrupt politicians and power-hungry oppressive rulers.
Motorhead through the Ages is coming later this year. Victor Vran is available on Steam.
This is on the cover of the latest issue of Time. It’s the image that goes with the story Why Virtual Reality Is About To Change The World. It’s a largely positive look at VR technology and the race to incorporate it into everything from social media to gaming. You wouldn’t know that from the way the author describes Palmer Luckey, the founder of Oculus VR.
He’s a nerd all right, but not the kind who went to a top-ranked university, wrote brilliant code or studied business plans. He’s cheery and talks in normal sentences that are easy to understand. He was homeschooled, and though he did drop out of college, it was California State University, Long Beach, where he was majoring not in computer science but in journalism. He prefers shorts, and his feet are black because he doesn’t like wearing shoes, even outdoors. He doesn’t look like a guy who played Dungeons & Dragons so much as a character in Dungeons & Dragons. He’s a nerd from a different century…
Blizzard is making another expansion for World of Warcraft. Revealed at Gamescom today, World of Warcraft: Legion will bring Illidan Stormrage back to the game. His reappearance will allow players to become Demon Hunters, a new playable class featured in the expansion. That’s good because Blizzard says the expansion will center around the “largest demonic invasion of Azeroth ever.” Think of it as The Burning Crusade 2: Stormrage Boogaloo. In addition to a new heroic class, Legion will add a new continent called The Broken Isles, an increased level cap to 110, customizable Artifact Weapons, and a revamped honor system for player-versus-player progression. Order Halls, based on the existing follower system, will expand that concept with class-specific headquarters. Blizzard has not released any information on a release date.
According to the most recent financial disclosure from Activision Blizzard, the player population of World of Warcraft is down to 5.6 million subscribers. Last quarter’s population was 7.1 million, down from the Warlords of Draenor’s November launch number of roughly 10 million. At 5.6 million, this is the lowest the subscriber number has dipped since 2005. While subscriber numbers generally experience a bump with the launch of new content, it remains to be seen what long-term effect Legion will have on this trend.
There’s a new Mafia game coming. Mafia III, from publisher 2K and developer Hangar 13, takes a turn away from the first two games and puts the player in the shoes of someone taking down the eponymous mob from the outside. Protagonist Lincoln Clay comes home to 1968 New Orleans after a tour in Vietnam and immediately gets embroiled in a fight against organized crime leader Sal Marcano. In the announcement trailer you can see all the stuff that TV and movies have told us made the 60’s a great time to take on the mafia. You’ve got muscle cars, rock music, war angst, bad clothes, and terrific hair. You may also notice that the main character is not Italian. Hangar 13 told Game Informer that they’re not shying away from the complications of that within the setting.
“The language is going to be the language of the time, but the player’s reactions to that are going to be the player’s reactions to that – we’re not going to be prescriptive on that. We’re not forcing Lincoln to do anything specific based on what’s going on in the time period. I would also add that while race is one of the things that’s part of Lincoln’s identity, it’s not the only thing that defines him. It’s an important thing, make no doubt about it, but he’s also defined by the fact that he’s an orphan, by the fact that he’s loyal, that he’s a Vietnam vet – and all of those relationships.”
Mafia III is scheduled to launch on PlayStation 4, Xbox One, and PC in 2016.
Destiny is being retooled. Bungie announced that the level progression system is being overhauled with the September 15th release of The Taken King expansion. Currently, players of the shooter advance their characters by gaining experience from level 1 through 20. After that point, Light Levels are earned by grinding for gear drops that empower the character builds. It’s why you hear Destiny players talking about Crota’s End, or Trials of Osiris armor all the time. If the random number generator doesn’t cooperate during the drop, the unfortunate soul is doomed to try again. The new system will be based on a straight XP progression for levels 1 through 40 just like it is for the first 20 levels now. Gear will unlock as you level up giving more direct progression feedback. While the Light gear system was good for keeping players involved, the random nature of drops made the system frustrating and hard to balance.
The Taken King will also see another big change to the game. Peter Dinklage’s voice will be gone. Bungie has hired veteran performer Nolan North to redub all of Ghost’s dialog and to take the character forward. Lines like “That wizard came from the Moon!” may not have the same pizazz after the expansion is released. Luckily, we’ll always have “I don’t have time to explain why I don’t have time to explain.”
Gamescom 2015 kicked off with Microsoft’s press briefing today. While Sony decided that they had better things to do than talk to Europe, Microsoft took the opportunity to remind everyone that they had a lot of really great games on the Xbox 360.
A bunch of new Xbox One games coming up will come with a digital copy of the previous game in the franchise series, playable thanks to Xbox 360 backwards compatibility. Buy Just Cause 3 and you’ll get Just Cause 2. Purchase Rainbow Six Siege and you’ll get Rainbow Six Vegas. Plus, all future Xbox 360 Games with Gold titles will be backwards compatible on Xbox One. Current gen players will effectively be getting four games a month with their Xbox Live subscription. Backwards compatibility is something the PlayStation 4 can’t do, so it makes sense that Microsoft is going to push that feature for all it’s worth.
Microsoft and 343 Industries stressed how much they want Halo 5 multiplayer to be an eSports darling. Halo 5 has better balance and new fast-paced abilities built into players’ armor. The game has two competitive modes called Warzone and Arena. They’ve built live commenting tools like on-screen graphics and instant replays into the feature set of the game. They’re sponsoring a $1 million Halo 5 tournament. They all but begged for gamers to come back to Halo. Won’t someone think of the Spartan children?
Crackdown 3, Scalebound, Quantum Break, Forza 6 and Fable Legends were shown as Xbox One exclusives with some of the titles also coming to Windows 10 as well. A rep from Mojang, looking about as unenthused as possible, premiered Cobalt which appeared to be a lackluster multiplayer platformer. On the flipside, Cuphead, a side-scroller set in a faux-1930’s cartoon from Studio MDHR, looks more evocative than anything else Microsoft brought in their reel.
Remember Homefront? It’s back as Homefront: The Revolution. This time, it’s more of an open-world affair. You’ll still be fighting implausibly powerful North Korean invaders, but now you’ll do it on a motorcycle. There was a distressing lack of Hooters and White Castle in the gameplay video. Perhaps in the game’s dystopian future, North Korea has outlawed theme restaurants?
Finally, in a bittersweet moment, Microsoft announced Halo Wars 2. It’s being made by Creative Assembly and it’s coming in 2016. Pour one out for Ensemble Entertainment!
When Gears of War: Ultimate Edition was announced at E3, some fans were taken aback that the game wasn’t a bundle of the full saga like Halo: The Master Chief Collection. A remaster of the original Gears of War, with multiplayer enhancements from later games in the franchise, is a decent deal at $40 but how would the Gears crowd get the full Dom and Marcus bro-love experience? Here comes backwards compatibility to the rescue! Purchasers of Gears of War: Ultimate Edition will get digital copies of all four original Xbox 360 Gears games to play on the current-gen console.
By playing Gears of War: Ultimate Edition on Xbox Live from Aug. 25 through Dec. 31, 2015, you’ll get access to Gears of War, Gears of War 2, Gears of War 3 and Gears of War: Judgment in Backward Compatibility when it launches this fall.
Xbox One owners that already have the Xbox 360 version of the Gears games will be able to take advantage of backwards compatibility as well when the feature launches. In fact, Xbox One preview members can play the original Gears of War right now through the service.
With over 5 million downloads Rocket League is a hit. Digging into that number, we can see that roughly 500k come from paying customers on Steam, leaving about 4.5 million downloads on the PlayStation 4 where Rocket League is currently free as part of the PlayStation Plus program. Not too shabby for a game about cars playing soccer.
When you have 5 million players enjoying your game, you can be sure that some of them will buy DLC if you offer it. That’s good because in this case, most of them haven’t paid a cent yet. Developer Psyonix has outlined their strategy in that regard. The San Diego-based studio is going to support their game with a mix of paid and free DLC. First up, is the Supersonic Fury DLC Pack. It’s coming in early August and will feature an American muscle car and a Japanese street racer to round out players’ garages. A slew of cosmetic accessories will be included to collect. The DLC will be $3.99.
Alongside the paid DLC, Rocket League will be getting a free update for everyone that will add the Utopia Coliseum (pictured above) 70 more country flags, and beefed-up graphical effects. A new spectator mode will be added for players that just like to watch.
ZombiU is too good a game to languish on the WiiU. That’s the thinking behind Ubisoft re-releasing it for the PS4, Xbox One, and PC on August 18th (or “reanimating” it, as they put it in the press release). They’re partly right. But the part they’re right about is the part that only works on the WiiU.
As a zombie survival game, Zombi (awkward…) should be on par with any middling zombie survival game. A little less than a Dead Island, and little more than the half-baked Dead Rising 3, with a touch of Demon Souls for how you play through the risk/reward of your inevitable deaths. Fair enough.
But the real value of ZombiU is as a multiplayer game, in which two players in the same living room go head-to-head. The main action takes place on the TV screen, with one player trying to stay alive long enough to kill a certain number of zombies. Or, better yet, the mode in which one player tries to capture a certain number of flags. This latter mode introduces all sorts of cool strategy about running the map, collecting upgrades, retreating, rearming, dealing with specific kinds of zombies. The other player uses the WiiU’s gamepad for an overhead view, dropping zombies on the map, researching upgrades, and being the zombie god in a head-to-head real-time strategy game. There’s nothing quite like ZombiU’s multiplayer in terms of two people in the same living room having a grand old time with the undead. You and your friends can squander entire evenings this way.
Unfortunately, there’s no way to recreate this on the single-screen PS4, Xbox One, or PC. The main appeal of ZombiU is unique to the WiiU. Fortunately, you can get ZombiU here for $13. The WiiU will cost you another $300.
Amplitude Studios has announced Endless Space 2. While the first game was a solid, if unremarkable, entry in the 4x space strategy genre, Amplitude’s work on Endless Legend showed that the developers weren’t afraid of shaking up the 4x formula. It was one of the top 10 games of 2014! Hopefully, Amplitude uses some of that chutzpah to benefit Endless Space 2.
