GOG's winter sale is winding down, but the digital retailer has a post-holiday surprise for PC gamers. From now until January 1 at 6 AM PT / 9 AM ET, tactical RPG Tower of Time is free at GOG. All you need to do to claim the freebie is create a free GOG account.Developed by Event Horizon, Tower of Time is an isometric RPG that blends fantasy with science fiction in a post-apocalyptic setting. It has a rather interesting setup, as you play as the main character during only the first section of the game. After the introduction, the protagonist sits takes the throne atop of the eponymous tower and watches and influences the group of champions that explore down below.While you start off with just two champions, you'll eventually have seven characters--each with their own distinct class and skills--to choose from when assembling your party. Tower of Time's combat takes place in real-time, but it can be slowed down and even paused. Success hinges on planning your moves in advance. Though Tower of Time has a story that reacts to your decisions, you can move through the roughly 50-hour adventure much faster by playing in the combat-focused RPGlite mode. For those who like tough challenges, permadeath is an option.Tower of Time is the only freebie at GOG, but you still have time to save on tons of PC games during the winter sale. Most notably, The Witcher Universe Collection is available for just $27 until January 5. The bundle includes all three mainline games in CD Projekt Red's fantasy series, Thronebreaker: The Witcher Tales, and The Witcher Adventure Game. See Tower of Time at GOG Best Christmas Deals Star Wars Jedi: Fallen Order Is The Cheapest We've Seen It (PS4, Xbox One) Amazon's Huge End-Of-Year Sale Includes PS4, Xbox One, And Switch Games Best Buy Is Practically Begging People To Buy Starlink: Battle For Atlas Free Game Available For 48 Hours In GOG's Winter Sale Finale Steam Winter Sale 2019: Best Games Under $10 Info from Gamespot.com

Starlink: Battle for Atlas didn't exactly fly off the shelves when it released in 2018. Late to the toys-to-life trend, Ubisoft's spaceship shooter retailed for a whopping $75. Yes, it came with a customizable toy spaceship that attached to controllers, but the price likely deterred many from trying it out. Battle for Atlas' price has predictably plummeted, and right now Best Buy is practically begging customers to clear its remaining stock of the starter pack for Switch.For a measly $6, you can take home the starter pack, which comes with the game, Fox McCloud's Arwing ship, a Fox figurine, a couple of Arwing attachments, and a poster. The Switch version even has an exclusive Star Fox mission and comes with a digital version of the Zenith starship.Here's the thing: Starlink isn't a bad game. In fact, it's pretty fun, and the Switch version is the best of the bunch because of the Star Fox crossover. In GameSpot's Starlink: Battle for Atlas review, writer James O'Connor praised the game's ship combat and Star Fox content but wasn't a fan of the repetitive objectives.Ubisoft did an admirable job of making Fox's appearance feel like a genuine part of the story. If you want, you can even pretend that Battle for Atlas is a Star Fox game. Please make a new (preferably good) Star Fox game, Nintendo. See Starlink at Best Buy Best Buy's offer is only good for pickup in-store, so you will actually have to tell a Best Buy employee that you're there to pick up Starlink. Even if you end up not liking the game, you'll still have Fox's Arwing. I personally think the ship alone is worth the price of admission. Best Christmas Deals Star Wars Jedi: Fallen Order Is The Cheapest We've Seen It (PS4, Xbox One) Amazon's Huge End-Of-Year Sale Includes PS4, Xbox One, And Switch Games Best Buy Is Practically Begging People To Buy Starlink: Battle For Atlas Free Game Available For 48 Hours In GOG's Winter Sale Finale Steam Winter Sale 2019: Best Games Under $10 Info from Gamespot.com

2020 is almost here, so we've asked GameSpot's staff to share which games they're looking forward to most in the new year. New consoles are going to dominate the headlines, but at the end of the day it's all about the games, and there are a ton of exciting ones to look forward to. When you're done reading this entry, follow along with all of our other end-of-the-year coverage collected in our Best of 2019 hub and our Most Anticipated of 2020 hub.I love it when I can get my hands on a fantastic cyberpunk-themed RPG. Deus Ex: Human Revolution was a game that was pretty much that, and I absolutely adored it. And even though its sequel Mankind Divided was lackluster, it was still a world I enjoyed because it exhibited those sweet Cyberpunk qualities. I bring all of this up because CD Projekt Red's upcoming Cyberpunk 2077 seems like an all-new experience that--as to be expected--totally caters to my love for all things cyberpunk. As a first-person RPG set in a futuristic society where you're given freedom in the ways you choose to play, it embodies what I've desired in a game since I finished Mankind Divided a few years back.I love the game's adherence to the classic sci-fi subgenre's aesthetic and themes, with cybernetics playing a routine part in people's lives, which inevitably leaves us all to ask what it all means to be a human. One of the most significant parts of Cyberpunk 2077's gameplay mechanics is how you implement these cybernetics onto your character. I can't wait to find out all creative ways you'll be able to apply them utilizing the various ripperdocs who install them, as well as which enemies you'll encounter who've cyborg'd up themselves.The prestige behind Cyberpunk 2077 also had me excited. After all, Witcher developers CD Projekt Red is handling development, and that alone has me sold on the game. While The Witcher games are based on the fantastic fantasy novels by Andrzej Sapkowski, much of their world-building was unique to CD Projekt Red. As such, I can't wait to see how the studio handles world-building with the popular Cyberpunk tabletop RPG series, and how that transfers into your time spent exploring the world of Night City.'From watching various trailers, moving through the world, whether on foot, a bike, or a car, feels like something straight out of Blade Runner with massive corporate skyscrapers and dense slums. I can't wait to see where in Night City all the various main quests and sidequests take you. The latter is something I'm particularly excited about purely due to CD Projekt Red's talent for creating some of the most fulfilling and well-written sidequests in an RPG.There's so much about Cyberpunk 2077 that has me excited. With a release date of April 16, 2020, the game literally can't come soon enough. The next few months are going to be quite the grueling wait. For more information about Cyberpunk 2077, including its multiplayer, microtransactions, and more, be sure to check out our extensive feature detailing everything we know about the game so far. See Cyberpunk 2077 at Amazon Info from Gamespot.com

After a strong showing from Watch Dogs 2, Ubisoft is going back to its hacker-centric open-world formula with Watch Dogs: Legion. We got a pretty close look at the third game in the series at E3 2019, and it looks to expand on the ideas of the games of the past pretty significantly. You'll still use your amped-up smartphone to hack the planet in every mission, turning security cameras, alarms, weapons, traffic lights, and lots of other connected devices to your whim. But with Legion, Ubisoft is adding a lot of systems that make the world of DedSec feel deeper and more customizable. You're not just a part of a hacker revolution--you're building it from the ground up.Though there haven't been many more details about Watch Dogs: Legion since E3, we did spend some time going hands-on with the new game, getting a sense of how it handles and how its new NPC-centric character system works. Here's everything we've learned about the game, from its announcement at E3 2019 to now, including when we might expect it to be released. We'll continue to update this as more information is revealed prior to its release.Table of Contents [hide]What Is Watch Dogs: Legion?How Legion's NPC System WorksCharacter Classes, Perks, And SwitchingLegion's Five Stories And How They WorkCombat And The New Melee SystemIs There Permadeath?Is There Multiplayer?Crowd-Sourced MusicWill It Be On Xbox Series X/PS5?Release DateWhat Is Watch Dogs: Legion?Ubisoft's Watch Dogs series puts you in the role of a hacker trying to bring down a corrupt government surveillance state. In the first game, set in Chicago, you played Aiden Pearce, a hacker outlaw with the ability to tap into and manipulate ctOS, a city-spanning computer system that surveilled and collected data on just about everybody. The bones of Ubisoft's open-world game were similar to what the developer has turned out in other franchises--it was a third-person cover shooter that mixed in stealth elements, and in which you also could hop into just about any car to reach various destinations and evade the pursuit of police cars. What Watch Dogs added was the hacking element, which let you change traffic lights to cause collisions and stop pursuers, jack into surveillance cameras to see enemy patrol routes and more carefully stealth your way around them, or set off enemies' radios or weapons to create distractions.In Watch Dogs 2, Ubisoft switched to a new character, Marcus, and his group of anarchist hackers known as DedSec. In that game, ctOS had spread to San Francisco, and the hackers were trying to overthrow the system and free the city. It also had a fairly political bent, satirizing tech culture in the city and leaning into a few charged topics of the modern world, such as police violence against minorities and people of color.Watch Dogs: Legion continues down the path set by Watch Dogs 2. You're again working with DedSec, but things have gone full-on dystopia. The game is set in a possible future of our current world, taking place in a post-Brexit London that has become a police state as the government has struggled to deal with the fallout from the current political climate. Instead of joining a hacker collective of various characters as in Watch Dogs 2, however, in Legion, you're building DedSec from the start of the game. You do that by recruiting various non-player characters into the fold. The biggest change in Legion is the fact that every character in the game could potentially become a player character if you do what's necessary to recruit them, which includes exercising your hacker abilities to learn about their backstories, changing their opinions about DedSec, and completing loyalty missions to turn them to your cause. Any NPC in the city is a potential recruit, and they all have randomized abilities and foibles that can make them assets to your team under the right circumstances.While most of the hacking gameplay systems from the past two games persist into Legion, it's the NPC system that really sets it apart.How Legion's NPC System WorksIn past Watch Dogs games, your hacking repertoire included the Profiler, a system that let you instantly dig up a little bit of information on passing NPCs and characters you might interact with. That info sometimes gave you gameplay options, like siphoning some funds from a person's bank account, but mostly was just window dressing to make various folks wandering Chicago or San Francisco seem a little more real.The Profiler is an essential tool in Legion, however. Every time you use it to scan an NPC in the game, you learn key information about that person. You'll see their occupation and what they're currently up to--all the NPCs have jobs and schedules in Legion--as well as their intrinsic traits. A given person might deal significantly more melee damage than other characters, or be adept at hacking. They might also have physical ailments; one elderly character we played at E3 was a great hacker but physically weak, and moved more slowly than our other recruits because of her advanced age. (In the same way you learn about potential recruits, you can also use the Profiler on enemies to learn their strengths and weaknesses ahead of a battle.)You'll also receive a little backstory about each NPC you scan and get a look at their opinion on DedSec. The authorities in London consider DedSec a terrorist organization and rail against it in the media, so some people have a critical view of the hackers, while others are more sympathetic to their cause.In order to recruit an NPC, you first need to raise their opinion of DedSec, which you can do by helping them with their problems you learn about from the Profiler or doing deeds they appreciate in a Robin Hood-like way. Characters also remember negative things about DedSec's actions, so you'll need to be careful about what you do and how people see you. As you raise those opinions, you'll eventually get a chance to complete a specific mission for that character tied to their backstory. One character we recruited at E3 was being blackmailed by corrupt cops, requiring us to infiltrate New Scotland Yard and erase the dirt they had on our would-be DedSec addition. After completing the mission, the guy joined up, which added him to the roster of up to 20 DedSec characters we could have at any given time.Character Classes, Perks, And SwitchingOnce you have characters, you open up a host of other systems related to them. Legion includes three character classes, and when you get a new recruit, you assign them one of your choice: Enforcer, a combat-heavy class for characters who are good at shooting.Infiltrator, a class better suited for stealth and melee fighting, with the ability to briefly become invisible.Hacker, a class that can control London's police drones and gets a spider bot to help with sneaking around, manipulating computers. You generally want to choose classes for your characters that align with their intrinsic traits; melee fighters are better as Infiltrators, while characters who can soak up a lot of damage make good Enforcers, and so on. Playing as your character can also level them up to unlock additional abilities and perks over time, so it's worth investing time in your recruits.As you recruit characters, you'll be able to switch to them on the fly whenever you want. Since everybody still has a job and a schedule, characters you're not playing as will go about their lives in the meantime; when you swap to them, you'll find them wherever they are in the city. When you're not using characters, they're still an active part of the group, however. They'll chime in on the radio to comment on your missions and actions, and some have passive perks that can affect your gameplay even when they're not around. In our E3 demo, we found ourselves fleeing police, and got a notification that another character's passive trait would increase police response times to make it a bit easier to get away. Abilities like that effectively make it feel as if the rest of DedSec is working with you and helping you out, even when they're not around.Legion's Five Stories And How They WorkLegion finds the city of London "facing her downfall." Various hardships in the post-Brexit era have crippled the government, allowing power-hungry opportunists to take advantage. One such is Albion, a private military company hired by the government to keep the peace, but which vastly infringes on the rights and freedoms of the citizenry. Our time with Legion also suggested there's some intrigue in the crumbling government itself, with spies and other actors trying to consolidate their power in the chaos.According to Ubisoft, Legion doesn't just tell one big story across its campaign; instead, it features five distinct storylines that sound like they'll work sort of like episodes that you'll uncover as you play."Each of those storylines tackles a variety of topics, from AI and automation and their effect on society to oppression from a private military controlling the city, and obviously playing a resistance with that team is caught up in that," lead producer Sean Crooks told us at E3. "It's crucial. It's very important and critical to the story and the team."It sounds like it might be tough to tell a convincing story using a cast of random NPCs, but our time with Legion suggested Ubisoft has a pretty good handle on that idea. When you hit a story cutscene, whatever character you happen to be playing becomes its protagonist, just like when you're playing the rest of the game. Characters have distinct animations, voice actors, and dialogue lines, so it doesn't feel like you're seeing a set of generic animations and lines with your character's particular appearance added in. That works to help make it feel as though the characters you recruit are the fully fleshed-out stars of the game, even though you can pull them from literally anywhere.There are other nice touches to go along with the cutscene system. Characters interact with each other and chime in on what's happening over the radio when you're not playing them, lending them a little more personality. While you're in charge of their actions, little touches like these help to make the cast feel more real and alive. Given the fact that a big part of Watch Dogs 2's success was its solid and well-written cast of characters, Legion's NPC system initially sounded like it would undercut the game's ability to tell its stories--but from our time at E3, at least, this doesn't seem to be the case.Combat And The New Melee SystemAs in past Watch Dogs games, you'll get into your fair share of gunfights in Legion. Once you recruit a character to your team, they seemingly get some special ops training, because every member of DedSec can handle themselves with a gun, a taser, or a punch to an enemy's face. Combat is similar to previous games when it comes to guns--you'll be able to snag both lethal and non-lethal options, taking cover behind objects and shooting around corners or over their tops to avoid taking damage yourself.One big change to the Watch Dogs formula is a new melee combat system that gives you more options for dealing with enemies. In the past, getting into a gunfight was a pretty sure way to wreck your attempts at stealth, with enemies pouring in to take you down from all directions once you'd opened fire. The melee system solves that problem, giving you a way to dispatch baddies without necessarily tipping off every single person in a building that you're there.The melee system is pretty robust, as well. In addition to stealth takedowns, it also includes the ability to dodge and block, and combos you can execute against enemies. You won't just be slamming the punch button when an enemy turns around and spots you at an inopportune moment--you'll have to think about how to beat them hand-to-hand.Is There Permadeath?With a roster of characters you can recruit from anywhere, it stands to reason that if you can add characters, you can also lose them. Legion includes a system in which your characters can die for good, although it's more of a risk-reward proposition than a looming threat throughout the game.When a character takes too much damage, they can be captured by authorities and arrested, requiring you to free them, or they can be grievously wounded and require some time in a hospital. In both cases, the character is out of commission, and if you lose them on a mission, you'll fail it and have to try it over again with someone new. But there's also a system that lets you rally from a defeat, at the risk of potentially losing a character to permanent death.As we saw at E3, if a character takes enough damage that they would be knocked out, you can choose to succumb and let the mission fail, keeping the character alive but incapacitated. Conversely, you can also choose to fight through the pain, giving the character a chance to continue. You get a second chance at completing the mission without losing your progress, but at a serious risk: If your character takes too much damage a second time, they'll die for good. In practice, that means permadeath is possible, but something you can avoid if you're willing to repeat missions. Should you be willing to go for broke, however, you might find members of DedSec will fall in battle, never to return.Is There Multiplayer?Yes, there's multiplayer. As with Watch Dogs 2, Watch Dogs: Legion will support cooperative play online with as many as four players. You'll also share your progression through both single-player and cooperative modes, so playing with your friends won't be a setback to your progress when you're alone.Crowd-Sourced MusicAs with Beyond Good and Evil 2, Ubisoft announced it has partnered with HitRecord, actor Joseph Gordon-Levitt's media company, to create music for Legion. HitRecord's deal is that it works with artists to basically crowdsource content. Artists can collaborate through the community to make various works; in the case of music, one artist might write a guitar riff or piano line, while another contributes a different instrument, and so on. Ubisoft contracted with HitRecord for 10 songs that'll play on in-game radios, with each song earning its creators $2,000, split between collaborators. Their names will also appear in the credits. Creators whose songs aren't chosen for the game get no compensation.Will It Be On Xbox Series X/PS5?Yup. As Ubisoft confirmed in October, Watch Dogs: Legion will be a next-generation console game, popping up on both Sony's PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X consoles from Microsoft. Ubisoft CEO Yves Guillemot said the game will "take full advantage" of the power of those machines, but of course, we don't yet know what that means. Legion will also be released on PS4, Xbox One, and PC, for those who aren't keen on a console upgrade, and on Google's Stadia streaming platform.Release DateUbisoft originally slated Legion's release date for March 6, 2020. In November 2019, however, the company announced that it was delaying the game into its 2020-2021 fiscal year, without giving it a new release date. That means as of right now, we can expect Legion to release sometime after March 2020--but we don't know exactly when. Info from Gamespot.com

CD Projekt Red's The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt is still going strong four years after launch. With the recent release of Netflix's The Witcher on December 20, the open-world action-RPG has seen the highest player count on Steam to date.According to Marcin Momot, CDPR's global community lead, The Witcher 3 hit a concurrent Steam player count of 93,835 on Sunday, December 29. Surprisingly, this number has since been beaten by today's peak of 94,651. Steam indicates that the open-world action-RPG is one of 2019's top-selling titles, standing next to From Software's Sekiro: Shadows Die Twice and Respawn Entertainment's Star Wars Jedi: Fallen Order.New player record for @witchergame on @Steam, over 4 years after the release! ❤️ pic.twitter.com/mTGvmrMM5a — Marcin Momot (@Marcin360) December 29, 2019The Witcher 3 also saw an increase in Steam players right after Netflix's The Witcher debuted and has steadily grown ever since. The TV series is based on the books, not the games, and has been renewed for a second season.CDPR and The Witcher author Andrzej Sapkowski have settled their dispute last week, with the agreement "confer[ing] new rights" to the developer while keeping its existing title rights for everything The Witcher related. Sapkowski had previously filed a legal demand for $16 million and CDPR responded by saying it "will go to great lengths to ensure [an] amicable resolution."The Witcher 3 has received a plethora of accolades since its 2015 launch, including several Game of the Year awards. It is also one of the few games to earn GameSpot's coveted 10/10 "Essential" rating, with our review calling it 'incredible, sumptuous, captivating, and inspiring."Info from Gamespot.com

Talk about the big business battles of the video games industry, and it's tough not to focus on the wars between gaming consoles. In the 1990s, SEGA and Nintendo were engrossed in a public, often odious back-and-forth banter in an attempt to grab hold of the majority market share of the gaming industry. In 2019, the big console makers are still duking it out for dominance, but there's another battle taking place. This war is being waged for control of the PC gaming market.Created and released by Valve in 2003, Steam was designed to be a digital platform that would allow Valve to push automatic updates to some of its online games, like Counter-Strike. After realizing the potential of its platform, Valve kept evolving Steam, and by 2005, it was set to sell its first third-party game on PC.As the years went on, Steam continued to increase its influence over the PC game distribution market, surviving any competition that dared to try and take it down. In 2017, Steam had earned Valve an estimated $4.5 billion dollars, up almost $1 billion dollars from 2016's figure, according to the third-party analytical firm Steam Spy. Up until this point, Steam had come to dominate the PC gaming market and outlasted any competition that dared to stand in its way, simply because it held so much of the market share. (It's worth noting that this is excluding first-party PC distribution platforms like Uplay or EA Origin, as these platforms tend to only distribute their own games.)However, in the past year, a formidable competitor has entered the ring and it's looking to disrupt the hold that Steam has had on the PC gaming market for almost two decades. The Epic Games Store was launched in December 2018, promising a much larger revenue share for developers than that of Steam. Despite being launched by the parent company of the Unreal Engine and Fortnite, most didn't expect the Epic Games Store to shake things up in the way that it has so far. After all, Steam has gone virtually uncontested for almost 20 years, so why should things be any different now?Within months, the Epic Games Store started picking up a handful of notable PC exclusivity deals for games like Borderlands 3, World War Z, Super Meat Boy Forever, and many more. The most logical reason that dozens of publishers and developers began flocking to the Epic Games Store had to do with its generous revenue share. Epic offers all developers an 88% cut of all sales on the Epic Games Store, with the store taking 12% of sales. Steam, by contrast, offers most developers a 70% cut and keeps 30%, with bigger games having the chance to earn up to 80% revenue share.Exclusives are deals between developers or publishers and a digital storefront, making that store the sole distributor of an intellectual property (IP), usually for a set amount of time. In exchange for exclusivity, Epic (and other distribution platforms) will typically offer the developers a sum of money, as well as an agreed-upon revenue share and a handful of other perks, which will vary based on the distributor."...I am glad someone is coming along and going, ‘Maybe we can give more back to developers.'"You might be wondering why developers don't distribute games themselves, especially when they have to give up a portion of sales. The short and simple answer is that most developers simply don't have the audience, and potentially finances, to launch a game alone.Digital storefronts like Steam and the Epic Games Store already have millions of active users looking to buy games from its platform. So, if they want their game to be seen and played, they are forced to launch with a digital distributor, and potentially sign an exclusivity deal. Thus, it's critical to find a partner who will offer the best return to developers, which is why there has been an increase in Epic Games Store exclusives."Epic Games Store's 88/12 split is very generous and I do think that's a large draw for developers," Tommy Refenes, co-CEO and programmer at Team Meat, the developers of Super Meat Boy Forever, told GameSpot. "Steam's 70/30 cut has always been great and I have benefited greatly from it, but I am glad someone is coming along and going, ‘Maybe we can give more back to developers.' That's not something I ever thought would happen."Refenes was very clear that Team Meat saw great benefits with Steam, but found even more success upon partnering with Epic. "When Epic approached me, they offered me a deal that gave me more support than I've ever had from any deal with any store or console ever," Refenes told GameSpot.It also seems that Team Meat is not the only one who has benefited financially from a deal with Epic. "Releasing World War Z on the Epic Store was probably the best move that Saber has ever made as a studio," according to Matthew Karch, the CEO of Saber, which recently launched World War Z on PC as an Epic Games Store exclusive. "We make more money on Epic than on any other platform by a huge margin," adds Karch.According to these developers and others, the support Epic offers goes far beyond finances as well. "...Most importantly was the level of support Epic Games offers its partners," Nick Clifford, director of marketing at Phoenix Labs, told GameSpot. The studio launched Dauntless as an Epic Games Store exclusive in May 2019."We have an open line of communication with their team, talk daily, and share best practices. We've been out to their offices multiple times and they've visited us as well," said Clifford."The guys at Epic are very accessible and pragmatic, it's not a big business corporation with ties, long communication, and various approval levels, no, they have both feet on the ground and they are gamers like us," said Henning Schmid, a representative for Yager, who recently released The Cycle as an Epic Games Store exclusive. "Frankly, I don't see any disadvantages to being on the Epic Games Store from a development studio perspective... We wouldn't have been able to release our vision of The Cycle without Epic and their help."In addition to studios profiting from Epic exclusivity deals, players are receiving benefits as well. With sales on Epic eclipsing that of the Xbox and PlayStation Store at Saber, Karch shared that they have been able to pass along some of those savings to "gamers." "We actually lowered the price of World War Z by about five bucks on PC, to pass along savings to gamers because of Epic Games Store's smaller cut."With Saber's deal, aside from being able to offer the game for a discount on PC, Karch said the exclusivity deal has allowed the studio to have financial stability and confidence to make the best game possible for its community.The idea that Epic Games Stores exclusives benefit the gaming community as a whole is a foreign idea to many. To a lot of the community, exclusives are an annoyance that exist because of greedy developers and publishers. However, Karch has a different viewpoint. "Epic is not some outsider to games, nor is it a greedy corporate publisher," he said. "It's a game developer with an unimpeachable pedigree."It's hard to say exactly where the bias for exclusives began, but a lot of initial hate came from the fact that Epic's platform isn't as developed or advanced as Steam. As a newer platform, it is lacking a lot of features that its competition already has in place. After all, Steam has been around for nearly two decades, so to say that its platform has been tweaked and fine-tuned almost to perfection would be more than fair.It shouldn't really come as a surprise that those on PC would rather use Steam instead of Epic, as it simply is more user-friendly and already has an established user base. "Some community members complained about our decision [to release as an Epic Games Store exclusive] as they are used to a rich feature setup like Steam, but most of them simply don't care. Knowing the ambitions of Epic, I am sure that they will catch up in the future," said Schmid.He is right, Epic has addressed some of the complaints from users since launch, and is continuing to add in new features. While Epic is trying to catch up to Steam, it's certainly understandable that some users would prefer to play on Steam in the meantime. However, Schmid suggested that "most simply don't care," so if the lack of features on the Epic Games Store isn't a problem for most, what else could it be?Perhaps the biggest issue that consumers have with the Epic Games Store boils down to one simple word: change. The Epic Store is trying to shake up the world of PC gaming. It is trying to come along and disrupt the status quo. If we are being honest, buying a game off of the Epic Store versus Steam only involves a few extra clicks and maybe five minutes of your time. It's not that big of a deal--but it is a big change.There has never been a real threat to Steam in the past. Sure other PC gaming distribution stores have popped up over the years, but none of them have ever disrupted the community this much. The Epic Store isn't just picking up exclusivity for a few tiny games and helping out indie developers here and there, it is coming after AAA and indie developers alike. Change is hard and often times scary, but sometimes it's necessary for a better future. Epic believes it is creating a better future for gaming, but the verdict is still out.Passionate fans are often very vocal when they feel betrayed by a company, which is what tends to happen when exclusivity deals are made. Often times the "bad press" is due to a lack of communication on the part of developers, leaving the community alienated from the reasons behind the decisions that were made."Unlike other Epic Games Store exclusive games, we did not get a lot of negative feedback [from the community], as our players knew where we came from and that this exclusivity helps us to turn our vision for The Cycle into reality," said Schmid. "We spoke very open and transparently with our community and they fully understood our decision."Aside from the support Epic offers developers, Epic also offers a more limited library, which allows games to stand out better than they would if the storefront is constantly being flooded with new games. It's no secret that Steam is the best place to go if you're looking for a large library of games. However, with that comes the chance that a developer's game could get lost in the shuffle."I feel like I'm working with a partner to launch my game and not like I'm just going to put the game out there and hope for the best. That's huge in this market where there are new games coming out every single day. I don't feel that once we launch on the Epic Games Store that we will be buried under a ton of new releases. We are going to be front and center in front of millions and millions of customers for a while. That's huge," said Refenes.However, is that the case for all developers? What about the big studio that already has as much social support as needed? Do Epic Games Store exclusives benefit them as well?"If developers have enough funding and resources available to finance and grow its games and business, they probably will be better off if it is not limited to only one platform," Patrick Rose, the founder of Games Analyst, told GameSpot.Rose told us that there are three things that a studio must determine when trying to decide if an exclusivity deal is the right move for its game. To start, developers need to first understand its products. Once a studio has figured out exactly what kind of product it wants to release, the focus should be turned to the market. This phase is where the developers must decide who its target audience is."The internet is fantastic at painting a negative picture and terrible at painting a realistic one."Once those two initial questions have been answered, it's time to figure out where that audience is located. Are they on consoles? Steam? Epic?This step is perhaps the most important of all. At this point, developers have already narrowed down who they want to sell their games to, but they must now accurately determine where the audience is located. Making the wrong choice here could be detrimental to any game, no matter the size of the studio behind it. At the end of the day, it simply comes down to what's best for the game. Contrary to popular belief, size doesn't matter.After talking with Team Meat, Yager, Phoenix Labs, and Saber Interactive, it seems that at least in the case of these four studios, choosing to become an Epic Games Store exclusive was the right move. Not only did all four developers speak highly of Epic as a company, but they all shared similar experiences of financial stability, profitability, and ultimately freedom.While exclusives may be an annoyance to some in the video game industry, the good seems to far outweigh the bad for developers and the community at large. Despite what the internet may tell you, exclusives are a necessary and good thing for developers and the community as a whole. As Refenes told us, "The internet is fantastic at painting a negative picture and terrible at painting a realistic one." Signing an exclusivity deal with the Epic Games Store not only leads to major funding boosts, but also support, experience, and exposure that otherwise wouldn't exist for many development teams.Info from Gamespot.com

As with every holiday season, it's been a busy few months for deals as stores and publishers compete to offer appealing prices on games, consoles, and accessories. But the hectic shopping season is finally coming to an end, which means retailers are now clearing out their leftover stock at low prices. So while it may be too late to pick up a gift for that special someone, there's still time to snag something on your personal wishlist at a nice discount.Amazon's massive year-end sale has replaced its Christmas sale, and with it come thousands of deals across categories like electronics, movies and TV, headphones, and, of course, gaming. While many of the best deals were offered earlier this month, Amazon is still discounting quite a few games. As usual, some of the best prices are for PS4 and Xbox One games, but PC and Switch gamers still have some nice options as well. One of the standouts is Star Wars Jedi: Fallen Order for just $33.74 (full discount shown at checkout). You can also find Gears 5 for just $25, The Outer Worlds for $40, and NBA 2K20 for $30. Some first-party Switch games like Super Mario Maker 2 are $10 off, which is about the cheapest you'll find them outside major sales like Black Friday and Prime Day.Speaking of Black Friday: If you missed out on the popular PS4 Slim bundle that comes with God of War, Horizon Zero Dawn: Complete Edition, and The Last of Us Remastered, you can still find it in stock at Amazon for a discount, although not quite as cheap as it was in November. The bundle is currently selling for $249, down from $300. The Xbox One S All-Digital Edition is also discounted to $172.90, down from its usual $250. And while Nintendo Switch deals are unsurprisingly nowhere to be seen at this point, you can snag a Switch Pro Controller for just $55, an excellent purchase if you got a new Switch for Christmas.Check out some of the best post-Christmas gaming deals at Amazon below. You can also see more year-end deals across other categories at Amazon. See more gaming deals at Amazon Best end-of-year deals at AmazonGamesAssassin's Creed Odyssey -- $15 (Xbox One)Astral Chain -- $49.94 (Switch)Call of Duty: Modern Warfare - Battle Pass Edition -- $65 (Xbox One)Civilization VI -- $19.93 (Switch)Civilization VI - Platinum Edition -- $48 (PC)Death Stranding -- $40 (PS4)The Division 2 -- $12 (Xbox One)The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim - Special Edition -- $17 (PS4, Xbox One)The Evil Within 2 -- $9 (PS4, Xbox One, PC)Fallout 76 -- $10 (PS4, Xbox One)Gears 5 -- $25 (Xbox One)Just Dance 2020 -- $18.74 (PS4, Xbox One, Switch)Mario & Sonic at the Olympic Games Tokyo 2020 -- $40 (Switch)NBA 2K20 -- $30 (PS4, Xbox One, Switch, PC)Ni no Kuni: Wrath of the White Witch -- $37.68 (Switch)The Outer Worlds -- $40 (PS4, Xbox One)Rage 2 -- $15 (PS4, Xbox One, PC)Red Dead Redemption 2 -- $30 (Xbox One)Star Wars Jedi: Fallen Order -- $33.74 (PS4, Xbox One)Super Mario Maker 2 -- $49.94 (Switch)Super Mario Party -- $50 (Switch)Wolfenstein: Youngblood - Deluxe Edition -- $17 (PS4, Xbox One, Switch, PC)World of Warcraft: Battle for Azeroth -- $30 (PC)Consoles and accessoriesNintendo Switch Joy-Cons -- $69 ($80)Nintendo Switch Pro Controller -- $55 ($70)PlayStation DualShock 4 Wireless Controller -- $46 ($60)PlayStation Gold Wireless Headset -- starts at $69 ($100)PowerA Wireless GameCube-Style Controller for Nintendo Switch -- $37 ($50)PS4 Slim Only on PlayStation bundle -- $249 ($300)Xbox One S All-Digital Edition -- $172.90 ($250)Xbox One Wireless Controller - Gears 5 Limited Edition -- $59.90 ($75)PC accessoriesBengoo G9000 Stereo Gaming Headset (PS4, PC, Xbox One) -- $29 ($40)HyperX Cloud II Gaming Headset (PS4, PC, Xbox One) -- $75.90 ($100)Razer DeathAdder Elite Gaming Mouse -- $25 ($70)Razer Firefly Chroma Hard Gaming Mouse Pad with RGB Lighting -- $35 ($60)Razer Huntsman Gaming Keyboard -- $86 ($150)Razer Kraken Gaming Headset (PS4, Switch, PC) -- $50 ($80) Best Christmas Deals Star Wars Jedi: Fallen Order Is The Cheapest We've Seen It (PS4, Xbox One) Amazon's Huge End-Of-Year Sale Includes PS4, Xbox One, And Switch Games Best Buy Is Practically Begging People To Buy Starlink: Battle For Atlas Free Game Available For 48 Hours In GOG's Winter Sale Finale Steam Winter Sale 2019: Best Games Under $10 Info from Gamespot.com

Upgrading the Sundial obelisks scattered around the solar system is a big part of the Season of Dawn, Destiny 2's current content season. You'll need to complete bounties from each of the obelisks and Saint-14 to earn the materials you need for the upgrades, but doing so increases your rewards significantly throughout the season. Destiny 2 News And Guides Destiny 2: Transponder Locations And Where To Find Saint-14's Ghost Destiny 2: The Dawning 2019 Recipes, All Cookie Ingredients, Gifts, And Rewards Guide Destiny 2 Patch Notes For The Dawning Update, Live Now Destiny 2: Where To Find All 15 Vex Transformers For "An Impossible Task" Quest Destiny 2: A Matter Of Time Quest Steps -- How To Unlock The Sundial In order to upgrade the obelisks, you'll need to visit and interact with each one. But many players have reported issues with the obelisk in the EDZ. Walk up to it, and you might find that there's no prompt to interact with the obelisk's control panel, and therefore no way to spend the Polarized Fractaline materials needed for the upgrade. As Bungie has noted, the obelisk is bugged, and it can seem like your progress in the season is stalled if you don't know what to do about it.Fortunately, there's a workaround. Apparently, the obelisk's issue has to do with the requirement to unlock it in the first place--you need to complete a mission in the EDZ in order to power up the obelisk and make it work. Unlike other obelisks in the solar system, though, the EDZ one isn't just checking if you have completed the requirements; if anybody in your instance hasn't activated it, it won't give anyone the prompt to interact with it.Bungie suggests repeatedly spawning in at a different transmat location and then returning to the EDZ obelisk, which is located in the EDZ's Gulch section. The idea is that you can try to enter the area over and over, in hopes of finding an instance in which everyone has activated the obelisk. It can be time-consuming, but eventually, it should work.That method works if you're on PC, although it can be annoying. If you're a console Destiny 2 player, however, you have an easier method. While your character is in orbit, go into your console's Settings menu and adjust the date and time, picking any day in the past. Once that's done, spawn in at the Gulch transmat zone and head to the obelisk. You should now be in an empty instance, having tricked Destiny 2 into thinking you're playing at a different time than everyone else. With nobody around, the obelisk should work.That's still a bit of a pain, but we've found altering the console's date makes the obelisk work every time. Bungie hasn't said when it'll get a fix together for the obelisk, unfortunately, so be prepared to put in a little extra effort to advance your way through the Season of Dawn's requirements.Info from Gamespot.com

We've spent the last few weeks looking back at some of the best games of 2019, but now it's time to look ahead at what the new year has in store, and it seems 2020 is already shaping up to be another exciting year for gaming. Both Sony and Microsoft will launch new next-generation consoles during the holidays, but in the meantime, there are plenty of big-name titles on the way to current systems.While most of 2020's biggest releases are still a few months away, there are a handful of major games on the way to each platform in the first month of the new year. Bandai Namco's Dragon Ball RPG, Dragon Ball Z: Kakarot, hits PS4, Xbox One, and PC on January 17, while Switch gets a port of the underrated Wii U RPG, Tokyo Mirage Sessions, on the same day. This month also sees the PC release of Monster Hunter World's acclaimed Iceborne expansion, as well as Blizzard's anticipated Warcraft III remaster.Those are only a few of the games on the way next month. You can see all the biggest PS4, Xbox One, PC, and Nintendo Switch games of January 2020 below, and for a look at all the other announced games on the way next year, be sure to check out our list of game release dates in 2020.Monster Hunter World: Iceborne (PC) -- January 9Following its release on PS4 and Xbox One back in September, Monster Hunter World's big Iceborne expansion finally arrives on PC on January 9. This expansion takes players to an arctic region known as Hoarfrost Reach, which is home to a diverse array of new and returning monsters to hunt, not to mention a wealth of new gear to craft and quests to take on. The PC version of Iceborne also boasts high-resolution texture pack support, 4K and an uncapped framerate, support for ultra-wide screens, improved mouse and keyboard controls, and more.Further reading:Monster Hunter World: Iceborne Review - A Very Ice TimeMonster Hunter World: Iceborne Has A Release Date On PCMonster Hunter World: Iceborne Review Roundup - Is The New Expansion Any Good?Dragon Ball Z: Kakarot (PS4, Xbox One, PC) -- January 17Bandai Namco's new Dragon Ball action-RPG, Dragon Ball Z: Kakarot, arrives on PS4, Xbox One, and PC on January 17. The title is a retelling of the entire Dragon Ball Z series, encompassing all of the major story arcs and even some of the anime's filler material, such as the famous driving test episode. And despite the title, Goku won't be the only playable character; you'll also take control of Gohan, Vegeta, future Trunks, and the fused warrior Vegito throughout the course of the adventure. The game even introduces a brand-new character named Bonyu, who was designed by series creator Akira Toriyama.Further reading:Dragon Ball Z: Kakarot's Opening Cinematic Is A Blast Of NostalgiaDragon Ball Z: Kakarot Will Feature Vegito As A Playable CharacterDragon Ball Z: Kakarot Will Cover The Cell Saga And Filler Material, Including The Fan-Favorite Driving Test EpisodeTokyo Mirage Sessions #FE Encore (Switch) -- January 17Launching alongside Dragon Ball Z: Kakarot is Tokyo Mirage Sessions Encore, an enhanced Switch port of the 2015 Wii U RPG. A crossover between the Fire Emblem and Shin Megami Tensei series, Tokyo Mirage Sessions follows a group of teens who must command Mirages--reimagined Fire Emblem heroes--in order to stop otherworldly invaders from draining Tokyo of a creative energy called Performa. The Switch edition includes the base game and all of the downloadable content released for the Wii U version, along with some new content in the form of additional story elements, characters, and songs.Further reading:Tokyo Mirage Sessions Is Coming To SwitchTokyo Mirage Sessions #FE Wii U ReviewWarcraft III: Reforged (PC) -- January 28Capping off the month is Warcraft III: Reforged, which launches on PC on January 28. A complete remaster of Blizzard's beloved real-time strategy game, Warcraft III, and its Frozen Throne expansion, Reforged features completely overhauled visuals and a host of other changes, such as improved social and matchmaking features, "rebalanced" online play, and more. The standard edition of the game retails for $30, while the Spoils of War edition runs for $40 and includes a variety of in-game bonuses for Reforged and other Blizzard titles.Further reading:Warcraft III: Reforged Has A Release Date, And It's Not Far AwayFull January 2020 Release ScheduleRelease DateGamePlatformsPre-OrderJanuary 9Monster Hunter World: IcebornePCN/AJanuary 17Dragon Ball Z: KakrarotPS4, Xbox One, PCAmazon, PlayStation, Microsoft, SteamJanuary 17Tokyo Mirage Sessions #FE EncoreSwitchAmazonJanuary 23Oddworld: Stranger's Wrath HDSwitchN/AJanuary 23The Walking Dead: Saints & SinnersPCN/AJanuary 28Journey to the Savage PlanetPS4, Xbox One, PCAmazon, PlayStation, Microsoft, Epic StoreJanuary 28Warcraft III: ReforgedPCN/AInfo from Gamespot.com

Sony's Uncharted film adaptation has incurred an unexpected setback. Travis Knight, who signed on to helm the project in September 2019, will no longer direct Tom Holland and Mark Wahlberg, according to a new report.Deadline states that Holland's work with the next Spider-Man installment has caused scheduling conflicts with Knight. As a result, Knight has been pushed out of the director role and the film will receive a brand-new release date. Uncharted was scheduled to hit theatres on December 18, 2020. Sony still plans to move the film forward with a new director, but an announcement on who will lead the project has not been made.Knight, an animator at stop-motion studio Laika, made his live-action directorial debut with 2018's Bumblebee. Knight has also worked on 2009's Coraline, 2012's Paranorman, 2014's The Boxtrolls, 2016's Kubo and the Two Strings, and more. Uncharted would've served as Knight's fifth directorial project.2019 marked a year of consistent changes for Sony's Uncharted film adaptation, a project that has been in the works since 2008. It was reported over the summer that the film had been rewritten, with Joe Carnahan penning the first draft. The current script was written by Art Marcum, Matt Holloway, and Rafe Judkins. In addition to several script changes, Uncharted has seen a number of directors sit in the chair, from Shawn Levy to Dan Trachtenberg to Seth Gordon. Knight is the latest director to walk away from the film.Info from Gamespot.com

Though the holidays are just about over, it's time to start spending those gift cards and pick up some games and accessories for your new console. GameStop's latest weekly ad features deals on a number of Xbox One, PS4, and Switch games. PC gamers can also save on some awesome Corsair gear.The weekly sale technically runs until January 4, but most of the game deals are deemed "special offers" and are only discounted until January 1. The Division 2 drops all the way down to $12 on PS4 and Xbox One, which is a remarkable price for a game that released in 2019. Gears 5 is 50% off, lowering the price from $60 to $30.For those who received a new Nintendo Switch this Christmas, you can pick up Mario & Sonic at the Olympic Games Tokyo 2020 for $40. Arcade multiplayer phenomenon turned console game Killer Queen Black is a steal at $15, and Assassin's Creed: The Rebel Collection is $30. The Rebel Collection compiles Assassin's Creed IV: Black Flag and the underrated Assassin's Creed Rogue.PC gamers can save on three excellent Corsair products. The Corsair K70 RGB MK 2 mechanical gaming keyboard is $50 off, slashing the price from $160 to $110. You can pair that keyboard with the Corsair M65 RGB gaming mouse that happens to be on sale for $40 (was $60). And if you want to round out your desk space, you can plop both of those peripherals on the $15 Corsair MM300 anti-fray extended mouse pad.You can browse the full ad at GameStop and check out our favorite deals below--some of which are holdovers from GameStop's winter sale. You'll also probably want to take a peek at Amazon's end-of-year sale, which includes a larger selection of game deals. See all deals at GameStop Best deals at GameStopAssassin's Creed: The Rebel Collection -- $30 (Switch)Borderlands 3 -- $30 (PS4, Xbox One)Call of Duty: Modern Warfare -- $45 (PS4, Xbox One)Death Stranding -- $40 (PS4)The Division 2 -- $12 (PS4, Xbox One)Gears 5 -- $30 (Xbox One)Ghost Recon Breakpoint -- $20 (PS4, Xbox One)Killer Queen Black -- $15 (Switch)Madden NFL 20 -- $30 (PS4, Xbox One)Mario & Sonic at the Olympic Games Tokyo 2020 -- $40 (Switch)Mario + Rabbids Kingdom Battle -- $20 (Switch)NBA 2K20 -- $30 (PS4, Xbox One)Need for Speed Heat -- $40 (PS4, Xbox One)The Outer Worlds -- $40 (PS4, Xbox One)Red Dead Redemption 2 -- $40 (PS4, Xbox One)The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt Complete Edition -- $20 (PS4, Xbox One)PS4 Gold Headset -- $80Corsair K70 RGB MK 2 mechanical gaming keyboard -- $110Corsair M65 RGB Elite gaming mouse -- $40Corsair MM300 anti-fray extended mouse pad -- $15 Best Christmas Deals Star Wars Jedi: Fallen Order Is The Cheapest We've Seen It (PS4, Xbox One) Amazon's Huge End-Of-Year Sale Includes PS4, Xbox One, And Switch Games Best Buy Is Practically Begging People To Buy Starlink: Battle For Atlas Free Game Available For 48 Hours In GOG's Winter Sale Finale Steam Winter Sale 2019: Best Games Under $10 Info from Gamespot.com

Pokemon fans can claim a few different freebies right now in Pokemon Sword and Shield, including a free Gigantamax Meowth and a handful of rare Pokemon balls. On top of those, The Pokemon Company is now offering another free gift for players for a limited time, and it's a pretty nice one.Until January 30, you can claim 20 free Battle Points in Sword and Shield. These points are a special kind of currency that can primarily be earned by competing in the Battle Tower, which only opens up after you've cleared the main storyline, and they're used to purchase helpful items like Nature-changing mints and other competitive-focused equipment for your Pokemon.To receive the free Battle Points, you'll need to select Mystery Gift from the games' menu and follow the steps below:Select Mystery Gift from the menu screenSelect Get a Mystery GiftSelect Get Gift via Code/PasswordFollow the prompts to connect onlineInput the download code G1GANTAMAX when promptedAs previously mentioned, a handful of other free gifts are available in Sword and Shield, although time is running out to claim those. You have until January 15 to download the aforementioned rare Poke Balls. That's also the last day you can claim a free Gigantamax Meowth, which isn't otherwise available in the games. You can see all the freebies available in Sword and Shield right now in our roundup.Pokemon Sword and Shield launched for Switch last month and quickly set new sales records for the series. GameSpot awarded the pair a 9/10 in our Pokemon Sword and Shield review and also selected them as some of the best Switch games of 2019. You can read more about the eighth-generation Pokemon games below. Pokemon Sword And Shield News & Guides Pokemon Sword & Shield Eevee Guide: How To Get Every Evolution Pokemon Sword & Shield: How Do Fossils Work? Pokemon Sword Vs. Pokemon Shield: Exclusive Pokemon, Legendaries, And Raids Pokemon Sword & Shield: Every Gen 8 Pokemon Info from Gamespot.com

Christmas has come and gone, which means this year's biggest sales are officially behind us. But while Black Friday may have brought some of the best gaming deals of 2019, gamers looking to pick up Respawn's brand-new Star Wars game, Star Wars Jedi: Fallen Order, were limited to Xbox One bundles and a slight discount on the Deluxe edition. If you held off on picking this game up during Black Friday or if you received a new PS4 or Xbox One for Christmas, you're in luck, as the standard edition just hit its lowest price yet in Amazon's big year-end sale.Star Wars Jedi: Fallen Order has an initial discount of $45 right now, down from the usual $60. To sweeten the deal, Amazon is offering an additional $11.25 off the price, which drops your total cost to $33.74. While you should see extra savings on the product listing right underneath the price, you'll see the full discount applied during checkout. If you have Amazon Prime, you'll receive free shipping as usual.The Deluxe Edition, which is only $10 more than the standard edition at full price, includes a director's cut with behind-the-scenes features and additional cosmetic items, but it's not discounted on Amazon right now. See Star Wars Jedi: Fallen Order at Amazon The third-person action-adventure game earned a solid 8/10 in GameSpot's Star Wars Jedi: Fallen Order review, in which Phil Hornshaw praised its challenging, Souls-like combat; intriguing characters; and vast world for exploration."Especially as it wears on, Fallen Order becomes perhaps the strongest conception of what playing as a Jedi Knight ought to really be like," Hornshaw wrote. "It's true that Fallen Order borrows liberally from other action games, but those elements work together with Respawn's combat and environment design, and a story that finds humanity in the Force and in its characters, to hone in on what makes the world of Star Wars worthy of revisiting again and again. Even with some rough edges, Fallen Order represents one of the most compelling game additions to the Star Wars franchise in years." Best Christmas Deals Star Wars Jedi: Fallen Order Is The Cheapest We've Seen It (PS4, Xbox One) Amazon's Huge End-Of-Year Sale Includes PS4, Xbox One, And Switch Games Best Buy Is Practically Begging People To Buy Starlink: Battle For Atlas Free Game Available For 48 Hours In GOG's Winter Sale Finale Steam Winter Sale 2019: Best Games Under $10 Info from Gamespot.com

2020 is just around the corner, and Pokemon Go is kicking off the new year with a variety of in-game activities. Niantic has outlined some of the events it has lined up for the hit Pokemon mobile game in January, and they include the return of a Legendary, a new Research Breakthrough reward, the debut of new Gen 5 Pokemon, and more.First, Niantic will roll out another new Special Research questline revolving around the villainous Team Rocket. Like December's Team Rocket Special Research, this questline will culminate in a battle with Team Rocket boss Giovanni, and if you can defeat him, you'll earn a chance to capture another Shadow Legendary Pokemon, Moltres.A new month also means a new batch of Field Research tasks to complete. Each time you achieve a Research Breakthrough in January, you'll encounter a special Lapras with either Ice Shard or Ice Beam. The last time you could get a Lapras with either of these attacks was back in 2018, making this another chance to add one to your collection if you missed it the first time around.On top of that, the Adventure Sync Hatchathon event is coming back from January 2-16. During that time, you'll be able to earn rewards like extra Stardust, Rare Candies, and a Unova Stone--which is useful for evolving certain Gen 5 Pokemon--by walking certain distances. You'll also be able to hatch and encounter wild Pokemon that are wearing party hats during the event.Shortly after the Hatchathon kicks off, the Legendary Pokemon Heatran will make its return to Pokemon Go. You'll be able to find the Lava Dome Pokemon in five-star Raids from January 7 to February 4, and this time around, you'll also have a chance to encounter its Shiny form.Finally, Niantic is teasing that some more new Pokemon will begin appearing in Pokemon Go soon. The developer has hinted that more Pokemon originally discovered in the Unova region are on their way to the mobile game, although it hasn't shared any more details beyond that, so it remains to be seen which new Gen 5 monsters will debut next month.You can read more details about Pokemon Go's January events on the game's official website. In the meantime, you have until January 7 to catch the game's current Legendary, Virizion. Pokemon Go's January Community Day is also set for Sunday, January 19, although Niantic hasn't revealed what the featured Pokemon will be just yet. You can catch up on more Pokemon Go news below. Pokemon Go News Pokemon Go: New Legendary, Virizion, Now Available Pokemon Go's First Community Day Of 2020 Dated Pokemon Go Adding New Buddy Adventure Feature Pokemon Go December 2019 Field Research Task List New Pokemon Go Event Makes It Much Easier To Get Evolution Items Info from Gamespot.com

2020 is almost here, so we've asked GameSpot's staff to share which games they're looking forward to most in the new year. New consoles are going to dominate the headlines, but at the end of the day it's all about the games, and there are a ton of exciting ones to look forward to. When you're done reading this entry, follow along with all of our other end-of-the-year coverage collected in our Best of 2019 hub and our Most Anticipated of 2020 hub.More than two years after its release, I still regularly think about Golf Story. A Nintendo Switch exclusive developed by Australian studio Sidebar Games, Golf Story spliced Mario sports-style role-playing gameplay with the idiosyncratic humor of Earthbound to create one of the most endearing games I’ve played in a long time. So when Sidebar Games showed off Golf Story’s sequel during December’s Indie World Showcase, Sports Story instantly vaulted to the top of my wishlist.Though we only have a one-minute trailer to go off of, it’s clear that Sports Story will up the ante when it comes to absurd hijinks. The title gives it away: Sports Story will move beyond golf. In the trailer, golf is well-represented, as is tennis, volleyball, soccer, baseball, and even cricket. It’s also clear that sometimes these sports will mash together in strange mini games like the one shown in the trailer. An NPC pitches a golf ball over a tennis net, and the main character proceeds to smack it with a racket into a soccer goal on the other side. All of these sports will come together in the "Decasportathon," which will hopefully be as awesome as its name. Golf Story’s three-click golf gameplay was fun, especially when it strayed away from the traditional in favor of ridiculousness. However, it wasn’t all too complex. While some of the late-game objectives offered a few daunting challenges, the overall simplicity made a decent number of missions feel far too easy, bordering on monotonous. With the sheer variety of activities on display in Sports Story, I’m hopeful that the core gameplay will remain fresh across the entire adventure. It sure looks like Sports Story will mix things up in a big way, as there will also be some dungeon exploration and stealth objectives.That said, the sports gameplay is only part of the reason why I’m jazzed for Sports Story. Golf Story had a lasting impact on me because of its novel personality and boundless charm. The characters stuck with me. The NPCs that hung out around Golf Story’s country clubs often muttered passive aggressively and told off-kilter jokes. That may not sound pleasant, but the writing teemed with life and even the grouchiest of characters were lovable. To this day, Golf Story remains one of the funniest games I’ve ever played.My hope is that Sports Story replicates and expands upon the humor and oddly charming storytelling of its predecessor. The protagonist will once again be taking lessons with his peers--this time at a tennis academy--but the wider scope makes me think that an even grander, more off-the-wall story will be told. Even just from the brief glimpse at the Stardew Valley-esque environments, it looks like the various country clubs and locales will be packed with far more stuff to tinker with, people to talk to, and secrets to uncover. Sports Story doesn’t have a release date yet, but it’s expected to launch in mid-2020 as a Switch exclusive, which gives me plenty of time to replay Golf Story a few more times. See Golf Story at the Eshop Info from Gamespot.com