Week 4 of Fortnite Chapter 2's Battle Pass is in full swing, and flaming rings have been placed all over the southern half of the new map. As is usually the case with rings in Fortnite, one of the Dockyard Deal challenges tasks you with jumping through them. Only this time you have to do it in one of the new motorboats. There are numerous flaming rings spread throughout the rivers and lakes of Fortnite's island, but you only need to jump through three in order to complete the challenge.Where Are Motorboats And Flaming Rings?There are 23 motorboat locations in total, and many of them spawn near to where the flaming rings are located. You can find boats just north of Slurpy Swamp and north of Misty Meadows, with another near the bridge in between both locations. There are also boats to the south and east of Lazy Lake.Once you're behind the wheel of a motorboat, you'll find flaming rings spread out across the southern part of the map around Slurpy Swamp, Misty Meadows, and Lazy Lake. Just make sure you boost to safely reach each ring. Once you've jumped through three you'll be rewarded with another 52,000 season XP.Chapter 2, Season 1 runs until December 12, according to the official Fortnite website. You can see the full list of Chapter 2 challenges here, along with our guides on how to complete the trickiest ones. For more, be sure to check out our other Fortnite Chapter 2 coverage below. Fortnite News Fortnite Hidden T Location: Where To Search T Hidden In Dockyard Deals Loading Screen Fortnite Gas Stations Location - Where To Blow Up Gas Pumps (Chapter 2 Challenge) Fortnite Locations: Where Are Boat Launch, Coral Cove, And Flopper Pond (Challenge Guide) Fortnite Hidden "R" Location: Where To Search Letter R In Forged In Slurp Loading Screen Info from Gamespot.com

During the company's latest earnings call, Ubisoft expressed interest in making all of its PvP games cross-platform. Currently, cross-platform play is only supported in two of Ubisoft's games: Brawlhalla and Just Dance 2019."Our goal is to put cross-play on all the PvP games we have, over time," Ubisoft CEO Yves Guillemot said. "That's well on the way." Ubisoft has a lot of games that support PvP play, but we're assuming Guillemot is mostly speaking to the larger games that have still maintained their playerbase and are still scheduled to receive post-launch content. With both Microsoft and Sony's next-gen consoles aiming for a Holiday 2020 release, it's likely Ubisoft plans on implementing cross-play in the PvP games that are scheduled to get next-gen ports so players can bring their accounts over and still play with their friends on Xbox One and PS4. It's a future that's been made possible since Sony eased up on allowing cross-play support in PlayStation games.On the call, Guillemot pointed to Assassin's Creed IV: Black Flag as an example of Ubisoft porting a game from one console generation to the next, and the transition working out in the long run. Funnily enough, if Ubisoft keeps to tradition, the Assassin's Creed game for 2020 will also be releasing within that same Q4 window--though the studio has not confirmed a release date for the rumored Viking Assassin's Creed game, nor said anything about whether it will be a cross-platform title like Black Flag.Of Ubisoft's existing PvP titles, the two most likely candidates for cross-play support are For Honor and Rainbow Six Siege, both of which continue to see limited-time holiday events, new maps, and new characters. The former just saw the release of Zhanhu, the first brand-new hero for the Wu Lin faction--which was added to the game in the Marching Fire expansion. The latter is in the midst of its Halloween-themed event, Doktor's Curse, which adds a bunch of spooky new skins for its many Operators.After admitting Ghost Recon: Breakpoint could have used a bit more polish before release, Ubisoft delayed the launch of several of its games scheduled for early 2020. Rainbow Six Quarantine, Watch Dogs: Legion, and Gods & Monsters have all been pushed back to the latter half of 2020.Info from Gamespot.com

Call of Duty: Modern Warfare brings the series back to its popular contemporary setting, but one narrative choice struck close to home and has stirred up controversy--in part because it appears to attribute a real-life massacre to the wrong country. But narrative director Taylor Kurosaki defended the choice to GameSpot. Spoilers follow.One mission called "Highway of Death" takes place in the fictional country of Urzikstan, and alludes to Russian aggressors committing a massacre. This appeared to draw parallels to a well-known incident from the first Gulf War of the same name, in which American-led coalition forces attacked retreating Iraqi military vehicles. Some have expressed concern with using the name, and attributing the act to a different country.Kurosaki defended the narrative decision in an interview with GameSpot, saying that in the context of the game, the highway had already been referenced by that name before the mission takes place there, suggesting that the game isn't rewriting the event, just drawing upon it."I encourage you to go back and play start from the beginning of that mission, where you get the mission briefing," he said. "Farah talks about this location as the Highway of Death before the mission takes place. So the Highway of Death is not what came out of that mission. It was already that. And then if you look at the environmental storytelling, there's already bombed out vehicles and all kinds of, you know, things that are relating to previous episodes and it's even mentioned in there."He went on to suggest the phrase "highway of death" is not exclusive to the Gulf War incident, and that the narrative team did heavy research to find universal themes across war over the last several decades."The reason why Urzikstan is a fictional country is because we are taking themes that we see played over and over again in the last 50 years in countries and locations all around the world. We're not making assimilation of one particular country or one in particular conflict," he said. "These are themes that play out over and over again with a lot of the same players involved. We don't portray any one side as good or bad in our game."For more thoughts on the story of Call of Duty: Modern Warfare from Kurosaki, check out our full interview. Plus, read our review-in-progress for more. Call of Duty News Modern Warfare Dev Addresses Highway Of Death, Waterboarding, And The Intent Of Its Story Call Of Duty: Modern Warfare Spec Ops Beginner's Guide Call Of Duty: Modern Warfare Review In Progress - Shock And Awe Call Of Duty: Modern Warfare Beginner's Guide - Essential Tips To Help You Succeed Info from Gamespot.com

As October comes to a close, the Epic Game Store has received a handful of updates that should make the shopping experience on the storefront easier and smoother.In a blog post, the company went into detail about the new features added to the Epic Games Store, including a new storefront look and additional language support. The company also specified a couple of components currently in development, like wishlisting and updated library views.Headlining the October feature update is the improved storefront, which has received a visual overhaul and optimization. With the new enhancements made, you can now find out what games are trending, filter games by genre, and more. Epic Games has also smoothed the storefront's experience when incurring high-volume traffic by improving infrastructure and site call patterns. This has resulted in reduced queries to remote data stores and time spent accessing remote databases has almost entirely been eliminated, according to Epic.The Epic Games Store will also feature a checkout overlay, allowing developers to use the Epic Games' payment platform within their games. The company will share more details as it "develop[s] new features" for the game overlay technology.Elsewhere, the Epic Games Store has introduced two new features to the storefront: 3D Secure and Thai language support. 3D Secure is part of a new regulatory mandate in Europe called Strong Customer Authentication. It basically states that digital purchases require multi-factor authentication to secure transactional purchases. 3D Secure is Epic Games' answer to SCA; the feature has begun rolling out and will slowly become available across multiple countries over the next few months.Further, if you're already using the Thai language in your operating system, the Epic Games Store will update automatically to show the new translations.There are a few Epic Games Store additions you can look forward to in the future as well. Though the company didn't clarify when these features will get implemented, Epic Games is currently working on bringing wishlisting to the platform, which will notify you when promotions or sales are happening. An updated library grid view is also in development, with a visual overhaul and "multiple polish improvements" in the works. Lastly, Epic Games has announced a partnership with review aggregator OpenCritic, which will implement critic reviews to the game's detail page.The Epic Games Store is currently offering a handful of spooky adventures for free just in time for Halloween, including Observer, Alan Wake's American Nightmare, and Layers of Fear: Masterpiece Edition.Info from Gamespot.com

The reboot of the Modern Warfare subseries in the Call of Duty franchise reworks much of the formula at a mechanical level; the result is something that plays genuinely different from most entries. And as narrative director Taylor Kurosaki puts it, gameplay and story go hand-in-hand. Modern Warfare's single-player campaign, meanwhile, opts for a noticeably less bombastic tone, using parallels to real-world conflict and tragedy.However, questions of whether or not these things were handled properly in-game comes with the territory--GameSpot editors Michael Higham and Tamoor Hussain sat down with Kurosaki for a long conversation about the controversial direction Modern Warfare's campaign goes.We talk about Farah's waterboarding scene, the game's use of the Highway of Death, the killing of those who walk the line between threat and non-combatant, and how Modern Warfare attempts to build empathy with those involved in these very real conflicts.The following interview was edited for clarity and readability--you can also watch the video version above. Be warned, spoilers are ahead from this point on.Michael Higham: Modern Warfare is very story-heavy, which is a bit different from a previous Call of Duty games, at least recently, but it seems that Infinity Ward went all-in on crafting a full story for this game. Why is that?Taylor Kurosaki: Well, when we set out to sort of re-imagine this kind of branch of the Call of Duty tree, we not only used consultants, military consultants, cultural consultants, regional consultants, sort of for gameplay and mechanics, but we also used them as inspiration for the story. And as we like to say at Infinity Ward, you can't really separate gameplay from narrative. They kind of go hand-in-hand and narrative enhances gameplay. It enhances the way that the player feels on the stick and good mechanics also enhance the narrative. So going all in was to go in on both, really.Tamoor Hussain: I'm interested in Call of Duty as a franchise and the purpose of a narrative, even to you. It's so many different things right now with so many developers working on it. It's hard to get a good grasp on what the identity of the franchise is when it comes to storytelling. One Call of Duty is almost like a Michael Bay-style Hollywood blockbuster, and another one is trying to pull from real life events. When you come into writing a story, what was the purpose and what was the intent behind the narrative in Modern Warfare?TK: I would step back and say, that Call of Duty is almost a genre now. It's not just a franchise, right? We have so many different branches of the tree. And what Call of Duty means to me is, it's interactive entertainment in the military genre. So for us, our inspiration was from real-world events, and the purpose of the narrative is, frankly, to build empathy. That's what we're trying to do. We want our players to have empathy for the characters they play alongside and play as.When you're looking at motion pictures or TV, you're building empathy with a character that is on a screen, a character that is external to you. And we believe that one of the powers of interactive entertainment is that you can build empathy for a character, that you are literally walking, in this case, in the boots of. That is really the purpose of the narrative in these games.Farah Karim plays a major role in the story, giving a perspective of someone who grew up around tragedy and conflict.TH: How do you build empathy in these characters and with players when the game is so focused on the disposability of life and your input in that? You're dispatching them at an incredibly quick pace and the identity, as you said, has changed so many different times. It's not exactly known for being a franchise where you go to try and build empathy with characters? Those who come back year to year and treat this as a kind of like a yearly blockbuster franchise, how do you reach them? How do you think about those people when it comes to your narrative and it's, especially when it's a narrative where you're discussing events and inspiration is pulled from the headlines?TK: Again, I would look at Call of Duty more broadly than as a franchise. It now encompasses a lot of different takes on this sort of war genre in games. Now, for me and the team at Infinity Ward, the way we build empathy is, frankly, by putting characters under pressure. There's no greater source of pressure than being in conflict zones, than being in war. And so, seeing characters overcome pressure and overcome obstacles in their life is the stuff that we all look for in storytelling, in general. There is no story without conflict.If I have pressure in my life or I have an obstacle in my life, how am I going to overcome that? I can't just do the same thing over and over and expect a different result. These characters are under this pressure. They have to kind of figure out a way to solve it and that's sort of the point of kind of playing these games, kind of getting into the boots of these characters playing alongside heroes like Captain Price or new characters like Farah Karim and overcoming the obstacles that they face.MH: Part of this reboot of Modern Warfare is touching on very sensitive subjects. There are controversial things built into Modern Warfare and I imagine y'all did that for a purpose. But there are going to be a lot of conversations about whether or not it was handled correctly. Do you feel like you and your team handled all those things correctly--all the things that you put into Modern Warfare narratively?TK: I think that having a discussion about this stuff is very useful. We didn't invent the subjects that you're seeing in our game. We did painstaking research over years and years and these are the real-world scenarios that combat operators find themselves in, that local civilians on the ground find themselves in. So, our goals were twofold. One, [to portray] a Tier 1 operator who's going into a combat zone, where the delineation of where it's safe or where there's conflict is blurred, where enemies don't wear uniforms and don't identify themselves as such. So you have imperfect intel, how are you expected to go into those areas and conduct yourself perfectly? That's the burden that these combat operators face. And this was a theme that they thought we could convey and that was a goal for us. And again, to put the player in their shoes and figure out how they, with this imperfect intel, operate perfectly; it's the quandaries, the burden of those operators.But that's not where we wanted to stop. There are people in the world who are living in conflict zones today who didn't ask or choose to sign up, they didn't choose to deploy somewhere over there, the conflict comes to their local town, their families, their communities. And we also wanted to build empathy with those characters that don't have a choice and have to figure things out on the fly.TH: With that in mind, do you feel a responsibility to actually say something about that? Having played a majority of the campaign, and as someone who grew up with those conflicts in mind, I don't need to be told about them. They've touched my life in various ways. I've thought about these things since I was young. Perhaps it works for a few people, but in 2019 it's not a "light bulb" moment for a lot of people. They understand that stuff wherever they are in the world, those conflicts are readily apparent. So, is there then a responsibility for Infinity Ward to, instead of just saying this exists, which is unnecessary because everyone knows it exists, to make a statement about it? The majority of the campaign I played didn't seem to make a statement. What's your stance on whether you should have made that statement or wherever you feel the need to make that statement?TK: I think we're making a tremendous statement about this. You talk about you knowing these conflicts exists and knowing these situations exist. I would argue that the majority of our player base does not have a background anywhere similar to a character like Farah.And so for us to educate, to enlighten this player base about people like her, and again there are millions of people put in her position, I think is bringing awareness to something that's sort of outside of the understanding of a lot of people. If it encourages them to look more things up or do more research, or again, build empathy with people whose backgrounds, cultures, and ways of life are dissimilar to their own, I think that's a good thing.TH: I suppose the follow-up to that is, you're placing a lot of faith on people reading into that as something that has real-world implications. I don't want to minimize the Call of Duty audience or paint them all with the same brush, but for the past few years they've at least been trained to treat all these things as fictional, kind of like constructs. Whereas, these are very real-world events. There are echoes of the Haditha massacre, and the Highway of Death; these were American atrocities that have been turned into Russian atrocities. For the average Call of Duty audience, are they going to be able to distinguish between the fact that this is something that really happened, that these are people that really exist and this is just a construct that a few game developers have created to be this blockbuster set-piece?My argument would be, for people to make that connection, you would need to say 'this is based on real-world events,' or that these things are inspired by events to commemorate them in some way, as a way to create that line of what's real.TK: So, you know that they're based on real-world events and yet you don't give the player-base the credit. You're sort of saying that the Call of Duty audience should be talked down to or things should be simplified or dumbed down. In fact, we have tons of research that the Call of Duty audience wants more accurate portrayals of conflict areas. They don't want a dumbed-down experience. They want an experience where characters aren't purely good or purely evil, where there is moral complexity involved. We've done a lot of research into this. So, for me, I like to speak up to my audience and I do believe that they are sophisticated enough to make the parallels.When you mentioned the Highway of Death, if you, if you go back, I encourage you to go back and play start from the beginning of that mission, where you get the mission briefing. Farah talks about this location as the Highway of Death before the mission takes place. So the Highway of Death is not what came out of that mission. It was already that. And then if you look at the environmental storytelling, there's already bombed out vehicles and all kinds of, you know, things that are relating to previous episodes and it's even mentioned in there.MH: You mention pulling from real-world events, but then having it make sense in the context of what you're trying to do with Modern Warfare. Urzikstan is a fictional country, but you're bringing in a real-world event into a fictional country. Do you feel okay with the fact that the Highway of Death, literally name-for-name of an American atrocity during the first Gulf War that was committed by Americans, has a mission briefing with Farah saying that what happened there was a Russian military terrorist attack? Do you feel like that was necessary? Are you okay with taking a real-world event but flipping the script in the same breath?TK: I think you could probably find many instances of the words 'highway of death' being used in a lot of cases.The reason why Urzikstan is a fictional country is because we are taking themes that we see played over and over again in the last 50 years in countries and locations all around the world. We're not making assimilation of one particular country or one in particular conflict. These are themes that play out over and over again with a lot of the same players involved. We don't portray any one side as good or bad in our game. There are American characters who sort of betray the trust of other characters in the story. There are Middle Easterners who kind of resort to extreme tactics that you wouldn't think are sort of above board and, and there's also characters that are from the same sort of region that, that you think are, are more morally just, same thing for Russian characters.We have Russian antagonists and Russian heroes in this game. And again that was our goal. This is not some kind of propaganda or anything like that. This is reporting on what is happening in these conflict zones. To really break it down, these conflicts in the world today, these are proxy wars, super powers trying to gain influence in specific places. And the biggest victims of these proxy wars are the local people on the ground. I think that when you finish the campaign and look at it in its totality, that's really what we're trying to say here. I think that for people who are from a more privileged background or don't live in close proximity to these conflict zones, they don't think about the cost or the locals in these areas.I think that this is a thing that we're really building awareness for. When I was a kid, I learned a lot about stuff through things like Schoolhouse Rock, you know what I mean? I was singing songs and I was learning about real-world things, but in an entertaining fashion. And so I think that for people today, if we learn about some of these things, even while we're engaged in an interactive experience, I think that it's still valuable.TH: How do you select the moments of gameplay that you use to tell a story? Because at a very fundamental level, you're doing things like walking into a room, clearing it and almost taking out families just because they perceive you as a threat. There are gray areas where you're trying to find The Wolf and there are men with guns, but there are also women who react, and kids who react to you bursting into a room. You instantly shoot who's a threat and move on. And there are characters who mention that as a thing that's kind of unfortunately but you have to do.Then you have things like the gamification of waterboarding, a moment which a character is waterboarded and you're looking left and right and pressing a button to breathe. And the Russian leader is on top of you saying, 'Oh, you're really good at this.' There are these moments of dissonance where I'm like, this is one of the most horrific things, it's basically a war crime and I'm partaking in it in this very gamey way. How do you kind of factor that in? How do you justify that?Also, how's that relationship with the gameplay team where you need to dictate, 'we need a waterboarding scene' and how do you set the tone for that? Because for me, that missed the mark. Obviously, waterboarding is an incredibly awful thing, but then it was just a confluence of moving left and right and turning your head for these safe zones to breath while having this character almost goading me. How do you strike that balance?TK: You mentioned two things. You mentioned the clearing techniques in our new CQB [close quarters battle]. Again, this is the burden that these combat operators face. That people are not identifying themselves clearly, they don't talk about good guys or bad guys. They talk about threats, unknowns. These are the concepts that are actually being used in these operations. And the game does tons of heuristics, constantly, when you're playing in these areas. And if you take action against someone who has proven themselves to not be a threat to you or your team, you will fail. And it's the game's way of basically saying: that's not becoming of a combat operator. But if someone demonstrates themselves as a threat to you, then you need to protect yourself. You need to protect your squad mates and complete this mission. That's the metric there. And again, we spent a lot of time putting those heuristics into the game to try to read player intent.In the same way that if you're a combat operator and you acted in an unbecoming way, you might be court-martialed, you might be put in prison. The game has its own way of, kind of keeping you on the straight-and-narrow and we have tons of user test data that shows that our players care about the character they're playing as and with, and they are trying their absolute best to do the right thing in these difficult circumstances.And then your second question was about the waterboarding sequence and the gamification of it, as you put it. By that point in the campaign, you have played alongside Commander Farah Karim as a fully-fledged commander. You've also seen some of the more formative moments in her early life. So, for a player base that doesn't have the same background as she does, they now know enough about her and have seen enough of it to have a better understanding of who she is and what she stands for.There's nothing in the game that compels you to play along and there's nothing in the game that makes you gamify that moment as you say. The game doesn't fail you, the game progress is regardless. We are giving our players a choice and we believe that most players know who she is and know that she would fight in that circumstance, and we know that she would resist and use whatever means necessary to gain an advantage over her captor. If your instinct in that moment is to sort of retreat within yourself, the game allows you to do that and progress regardless.MH: There are a lot of traumatic moments in the campaign. One that sticks out to me is at the embassy in Urzikstan and The Butcher is behind glass. He kills someone's father, the child runs away into smoke, he then shoots into the smoke, implying that The Butcher killed a child. And there are many moments that do touch on those sorts of things. Do you feel like you were able to draw the line properly? Do you feel like you went too far? Do you see all of that as necessary to hone in on the point that you're trying to make with Modern Warfare?TK: When we first started talking, we talked about the philosophy of making games; design, mechanics, and narrative being inextricably linked. You can't make a story about something or say it's about something and not have the player experience be about that thing. So, if we're saying that the burden of a modern combat operator is that there are not always good choices, or there isn't always a clear cut way forward, that they're put in these no-win situations and they do their best, you can't just have a veneer of a narrative wrapper on top of the game and not have the player experience that. Otherwise, those [design, mechanics, narrative] are sort of disconnected, and then you might as well just be making a movie and a little minigame. If the game is going to be about that thing, we walk the walk and we talk the talk.Characters are what they do. They aren't what they say they do. That is the reason for these moments in the game. If we're making a game about the burden of these soldiers and the burden of these local fighters, then to not have those gameplay moments in the game decouples the narrative from the gameplay. Then you really got nothing.MH: You mention that Modern Warfare is very character focused story and by the end of it, Captain Price forms his special task force. Having played through it to the end, I noticed how it's weaving in things that we've seen in the original Modern Warfare and Modern Warfare 2, and it implies that there is more to be told.You're told to play Spec Ops to continue part of the story, but I know the team isn't leaving it at that in terms of the story. So, is this really a reboot for the series and will we see the story of Captain Price and Task Force 141 again?TK: We have big plans to continue this story and like we've said since we revealed the game, we're calling it a reimagining, you could call it a reboot. The point is that, like Christopher Nolan's Batman or Joker, or like Daniel Craig's James Bond, the reimagining of those series were not beholden to the specific plot points of the originals. What they're beholden to is the spirit of the originals. And so, us having Price in there and us referring to Task Force 141, we get to play with those ingredients.But we want to make it clear to our fans to not try to connect the dots too much. This is not a prequel. Again, when you watch Quantum of Solace, Daniel Craig's Bond doesn't have to [abide by] Moonraker right? But Daniel Craig is quintessentially Bond. And I'd say that Barry Sloane is quintessentially Captain Price. And so yes, many more stories to tell in this universe.Info from Gamespot.com

BlizzCon is traditionally a fan-favorite spectacle, a raucous celebration of all things Blizzard. This year, however, controversy may flare up during the event. A series of high-profile incidents, most recently its controversial decision to ban a professional Hearthstone player for speaking out in favor of the Hong Kong protests, has given the impending event a tone of trepidation, as the community waits to see how or even if the company will openly acknowledge it.Though this particular incident is only weeks old, high-profile changes at Blizzard and other news events had created a degree of skepticism and distrust among some in the community. At BlizzCon 2018, the announcement of the mobile game Diablo Immortal was highly controversial, especially as fans had been anticipating a long-awaited reveal for Diablo 4. Coming alongside executive departures and a new president, some felt anxious that this signaled a new direction for a company that had historically been remarkably close with its fanbase.The Hearthstone community, too, wasn’t without its share of controversies. On July 1, Blizzard announced that as part of its update to prepare for the new Saviors of Uldum expansion, it would be changing the artwork for several classic cards, many of which had been around for years. Fans on the Hearthstone subreddit quickly noted the impacted cards were ones that showed graphic violence, especially blood, and sexuality. The community quickly posited that the changes were in deference to the heavily censored Chinese market--a theory that Blizzard quickly denied. Still, a seed of doubt had been planted regarding Blizzard’s relationship with China.It was in that environment that the Blitzchung controversy took hold, and events unfolded extremely quickly.Timeline of Key EventsOctober 6During an interview on the official Taiwan Hearthstone stream, professional Hearthstone player Ng Wai Chung put on a ski mask and gas mask in solidarity with Hong Kong protestors, and said the slogan, “Liberate Hong Kong. Revolution of our age.”In a statement issued the same day, Chung said: “As you know there are serious protests in my country now. My call on stream was just another form of participation of the protest that I wish to grab more attention. I put so much effort in that social movement in the past few months, that I sometimes couldn’t focus on preparing my Grandmaster match. I know what my action on stream means. It could cause me lot of trouble, even my personal safety in real life. But I think it’s my duty to say something about the issue.”October 8Blizzard announced its official ruling that Chung had violated its 2019 Hearthstone Grandmasters Official Competition Rules section 6.1 (o), which reads in part, “Engaging in any act that, in Blizzard’s sole discretion, brings you into public disrepute, offends a portion or group of the public, or otherwise damages Blizzard image will result in removal from Grandmasters and reduction of the player’s prize total.”As punishment, Blizzard removed Blitzchung from the competition and rescinded his prize money, which was to be approximately $10,000. It also banned him for 12 months, to end on October 5, 2020. As part of the statement, Blizzard also announced it would no longer work with either of the shoutcasters who had been interviewing Blitzchung.Several Hearthstone players on the official subreddit quickly said they were quitting the game permanently in protest, and a “Boycott Blizz” hashtag began trending. Blizzard employees staged a walkout in protest, and the decision was criticized by US Senators Marco Rubio and Ron Wyden, among others.The evening of October 8, during an official collegiate event against Worcester Poly, the team from American University held up a sign reading, “Free Hong Kong. Boycott Blizz.”October 9-10Several professional Hearthstone players and casters voice disagreement with the severity of Blizzard’s ruling. Hearthstone caster Brian Kibler says he will no longer host or cast Hearthstone events in light of the decision. The first Hearthstone world champion, James Kostesich aka Firebat, called the decision "ridiculous" and "unreasonable," and implied Blizzard was trying to make an example out of Blitzchung.October 12Blizzard issued a statement partially rescinding its previous ruling. Though it stood by the rule infraction and that a punishment was necessary, it reduced the banned period from 12 months to 6 months. It also returned Blitzchung’s monetary winnings, and reduced the punishment for the casters to 6 months.“Playing fair also includes appropriate pre-and post-match conduct, especially when a player accepts recognition for winning in a broadcast,” read the statement from Blizzard president J. Allen Brack. “When we think about the suspension, six months for Blitzchung is more appropriate, after which time he can compete in the Hearthstone pro circuit again if he so chooses. There is a consequence for taking the conversation away from the purpose of the event and disrupting or derailing the broadcast.”In response, the player Blitzchung accepted the decision, but did say six months still seems long. He also said he was not sure if he would return to competitive play once the banning period was over. (Blitzchung has since accepted a position on Team Tempo Storm.)October 14In a statement issued on Twitter, Nintendo said Blizzard cancelled a planned Overwatch for Switch launch event that had been planned for the Nintendo store in NYC. Blizzard did not comment on the event.Please be aware that the previously announced Overwatch launch event scheduled for Wednesday, 10/16 at NintendoNYC has been cancelled by Blizzard. We apologize for any inconvenience this may cause. — Nintendo NY (@NintendoNYC) October 15, 2019October 16Blizzard banned the American University students who had protested in solidarity, matching their punishment to Blitzchung’s--six months.October 18A letter addressed to Activision CEO Bobby Kotick, co-signed by Senator Ron Wyden (D-OR), Senator Marco Rubio (R-FL), and House members Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY), Mike Gallagher (R-WI), and Tom Malinowski (D-NJ) urged “in the strongest terms to reconsider” the punishment decision. Notably, the letter referenced the original punishment decision that had been partially rescinded on October 12.What Comes Next?Though the decision has been partially reversed, tensions in the community are still high, and Blizzard has not announced whether or not it will address the concerns at its event. One element adjacent to the festivities is trying to make sure the issue is highly visible at Blizzard’s annual fan event, planned to begin November 1. A protest being organized by the group Fight for the Future aims to organize just outside BlizzCon. The nonprofit was founded in 2011 and focuses on digital rights advocacy. In the past it has organized around issues like NSA mass surveillance and net neutrality.At the center of the protest is Dayton Young, product director at Fight for the Future and the lead organizer behind Gamers for Freedom, a suite of advocacy steps the organization has taken in response to Blizzard. Those have included a developer scorecard for studios that have publicly committed not to take similar action, and an online day of action. GameSpot spoke with Young about what inspired the protests, how Blizzard should open its lines of communication and transparency, and its plans for the event.The interview transcript has been lightly edited for clarity.This controversy blew up surprisingly quickly. It was all over the news within less than 24 hours. Did that surprise you at all?Young: I think it was surprising to all of us, how quickly and how big it blew up, but I also think it's the appropriate response. In our messaging and in the people I've talked to, I've spoken to people who are older than I am who are still surprised to learn that one can be a professional video game player, and now they're hearing about this thing because it's on the news. So, given that context, I think it is a little bit surprising to see articles about this, and this very important issue being covered by a variety of major media outlets beyond just the gaming community. But I am happy that people are paying attention to it. Gaming is a worldwide phenomenon. It's the most popular form of entertainment worldwide, and so I think it's entirely appropriate that people are starting to pay attention to these issues that affect the gaming community and actually have a bigger impact outside of the gaming community as well.Blizzard partially rescinded its punishment to Blitzchung on October 12, after your protest had been announced. How did that impact your protest planning?Young: On the one hand, I was heartened that our protests were having an impact, that people were speaking up, and that this was not an issue that was going to go away, and that we had caught Blizzard's attention and let them know that the entire gaming community was very serious about this important issue.On the other hand, I think that the issue still remains. They've punished an individual for speaking out, advocating for his own freedom. They've done it under very loosely defined rules. I think it's really important for us to note that gamers around the world have expressed offense at Blizzard's punishment of Blitzchung. We're offended that they would sensor this person for what he did. There's been a lot of outrage. There's been a lot of public backlash. We've seen members of Congress taking Blizzard's task for their actions, so why is Blizzard not listening to all of us who are offended by their unfair censorship? Who has been offended by Blitzchung's comments, and why is Blizzard prioritizing those people's offense and outrage over these very vocal and very powerful members of the gaming community and US politicians? Those are questions Blizzard hasn't answered, and I think it's very important for Blizzard to start to engage with the gaming community in a dialogue. Everybody is speaking up, and we need to know why Blizzard isn't listening.It seems your implication there is, "Are they listening to China instead of us?"Young: I would like for representatives of Blizzard to start answering these questions. We can only speculate. There's certainly a much larger conversation going on about the Chinese government exerting influence over the NBA, South Park, and clearly over politicians and activists and things happening in Hong Kong. So, as long as Blizzard is staying silent, they're leaving it up to us to interpret their actions and their motivations. Within this larger context, it certainly appears as though their motivations aren't purely on upholding this very broad and poorly defined rule.So, I think they need to clarify. When we look at traditional sports leagues, the NFL, Major League Baseball, the NBA, we've certainly seen a lot of protests in those different leagues over the years. We've seen protests at the Olympic Games. Many of these organizations have guidelines and rules in place to advise their participants and their fans on what behavior is and isn't acceptable and where it is and isn't acceptable. Certainly those leagues get those decisions wrong quite often. I'm not going to make apologies for some of the problems that other leagues have had. However, those leagues have given this a great deal of thought. They have more clear regulations in place. And most importantly, many of the players have a union and a means by which to approach the league and make complaints if they feel like they've been unfairly punished. It does not appear the Blizzard has these mechanisms in place. It does not appear that many of the gaming companies in general have these mechanisms in place and has given this a great deal of thought.Again, we're asking for a conversation. Games are the largest form of entertainment worldwide. It's inevitable that we're going to have people from many different countries, many different cultures, many different backgrounds having conversations, participating in these events together. That's going to lead us to talk about issues that are integral to our identities and our freedoms and our basic humanity. These companies need to be prepared to address those issues in an intelligent way, in a way that gives participants a voice, in understanding what the rules are and regulations are and recourse for when we feel we've been wronged. I think there's some bigger things that we need to address, and hopefully this is the beginning of those conversations.Have plans for the BlizzCon demonstration changed at all, given the partially reversed statement?Young: Not at all. It kicked it into overdrive. We are excited that people are listening to our protests. We are excited that people are joining the protests. We're excited that people are starting subreddits. We're excited that everybody is paying attention because it's a serious issue. This is not the only time it's going to happen. This is a part of a broader issue about censorship in online media, and it's really, really important for us to win this fight. It's really important for us to show up at BlizzCon. It's very important for us to speak up and make our voices heard. Not everybody has the ability to make their voices heard, so we're going to show up, and we're going to show people how important it is and what an impact it can have when people all speak up and all speak out together.What do you think would be a good first step? Do they need to make a statement at BlizzCon?Young: I think that certainly they need to address this issue at BlizzCon. This is the biggest thing happening in regards to Blizzard as a company. It affects their future. It affects their stock price. It affects their fans. It affects the lives and well-being of people around the world. So if they fail to address this at BlizzCon, I think it will be absolutely outrageous, and I think they'll be doing a disservice to gamers around the world, as well as everyone interested in their business. As far as how to address it, they have many avenues. They can speak to our movement. They can speak to Blitzchung. They can make public statements. They can speak to other game companies. They can speak to the press. It seems to be that Blizzard has been very silent on the issue.They've been more than silent. They've been canceling public events as well. [Ed. This is in reference to the Overwatch event planned for the Nintendo Store in NYC.] They're not just staying silent, they're actually withdrawing. And certainly that's not going to get us to stop. That's not going to get us to not protest. That's not going to get us to stop sharing our voices and stay silent.What would you like to see from Blizzard, in terms of public communications about these decisions?Young: I think being able to have someone who can participate in these conversations we've talked about is going to be a very important step. We talked about different leagues previously and player's unions. Can we organize player's unions so that players have a representative to speak for many of their concerns? And can they have somebody at the league offices or at the company offices they can speak to about these concerns? Certainly there's a lot of precedent in other sports for how to handle these issues. Again, I don't think that every other league has handled these issues in a positive way in every situation, but I think that companies involved in e-sports should certainly take a look at what's been done historically and try to take the best pieces of those systems and apply them to their own e-sports leagues.If someone were to show up to the protest at BlizzCon, what would they see?Young: We're a big, friendly group of people. We are very outraged about what's been going on, but we're doing this out of love for everyone. We're doing this to support those who are advocating for their own freedom, and we're doing this to help people. So, I think what you're going to see is a big crowd of people who really care about other gamers and who are speaking up to make a difference and to make gaming safer for everyone to participate in.Do you have any kind of resource document that covers the dos and don'ts of protesting? How do you plan to keep people at a mass protest safe?Young: There's a handbook that's linked to on GamersforFreedom.com. We have discussed the protest with the Anaheim Police Department, with the ACLU. Our goal is to make this a safe and successful protest. There is information in the handbook. But, again, we're going to be protesting legally, and we're going to be having a great time, and we hope to see everybody there.Info from Gamespot.com

It's not even November, and already it feels like Black Friday is stalking us, leaving no chance to breathe for those of us who cover deals for a living. But for budget-savvy shoppers, it's nice to get a heads-up on some of the better deals that will be available during Black Friday, like this PS4 bundle spotted by noted Twitter user Wario64.On October 24, Wario64 reported he'd heard of a PS4 holiday bundle with three PlayStation hits--Horizon Zero Dawn, The Last of Us Remastered, and 2016's God of War--and a new Black Friday ad from American retailer Belk basically confirms that deal will be available. Belk's Black Friday ad shows the aforementioned PS4 bundle will be available for $200 USD starting November 24.Note that Belk's Black Friday ad shows God of War III Remastered alongside the bundle instead of 2016's acclaimed sequel. Wario64 purports the "ad made a mistake," which is highly plausible, but unfortunately, we can't be sure at this time.Belk Black Friday ad shows PlayStation 4 bundle for $199.99 (though shows God of War 3 Remastered instead of God of War, I think the ad made a mistake) https://t.co/ZsDxnadS6j pic.twitter.com/w41DZCLCE5 — Wario64 (@Wario64) October 31, 2019It's unclear when the deal will end, but we expect it to last through the Black Friday weekend while supplies last--and those last three words are key. During Prime Day, similar PS4 bundles were among the first deals to sell out, so if you have your eyes on this bundle, be ready to go when the deal goes live. As a Sony bundle, it should be available at all the major retailers beyond just Belk.During Black Friday, Belk will have a variety of other deals, but in terms of gaming, nothing else is particularly noteworthy beyond the PS4 bundle (a Nintendo Switch "doorbuster" is being promoted for $300, for example). You can check out the full ad scan at BF Ads. In the meantime, stay tuned to GameSpot as we highlight all the best Black Friday deals leading up to and during the event.Info from Gamespot.com

It's a big day for Netflix's upcoming series The Witcher, based on the popular Polish novels by Andrzej Sapkowski. The latest trailer for the show has arrived, and you can check out our breakdown for detailed information on the series. In the new trailer, we get to see the classic Witcher 3 moment of Geralt in a bathtub in all its live-action glory.But that's not all new we got. New imagery from the upcoming show was revealed by Netflix detailing some of the moments from the first season, one of which is more of a behind-the-scenes shot. You check them all about below.In the main photo, it looks like Geralt (Henry Cavill) is trying to stop Renfri (Emma Appleton) from killing herself. There is also a picture of Ciri (Freya Allan) inside of a hall. We also get a look at Yennefer (Anya Chalotra) protecting a woman, child, and guard. It almost looks like Geralt is in the background standing next to a carriage. Aside from other shots of Ciri and Yennefer, there's also a behind-the-scenes picture featuring Chalotra looking through one of the show's cameras, and Yennefer is looking pretty beaten up.The Witcher debuts on Netflix on December 20, and aside from the aforementioned actors, the series also stars Johi May as Calanthe, Anna Shaffer as Triss, Adam Levy as Mousesack, and Eamon Farren as Cahir.Info from Gamespot.com

Expect some changes to the Destiny 2 endgame in Bungie's next update for the game. In particular, the developer is changing how players work through the very top of the game's Power grind in the new Shadowkeep expansion. The tweaks should make it easier to hit the peak of your abilities in Destiny 2 as you take on its toughest activities.The latest This Week At Bungie blog post details the changes that players can expect to see coming next week. In short, Bungie is going to increase the speed of its toughest gear climb, toward the "hard" Power cap of 960. Right now, you need Pinnacle drops to reach 960 once you hit 950, and those will only drop at 1 Power point above the gear you already own--meaning for the hardest-core Destiny players, reaching the top of the climb is a slog. Bungie is changing Pinnacle drops to come in at +2 Power for each slot starting on Thursday, November 7, and adjusting how it calculates your average Power over 950 to help players climb faster.Right now, Destiny 2 carries several "soft" Power level caps that change your progression as you work to gain the game's best gear and increase your overall stats. From 750 to 900, any gear you earn from any activity will increase your overall Power stat, which is an average of all your gear's Power numbers. Over 900, however, you need to complete weekly activities to earn Powerful drops. These include running through a certain number of competitive Crucible matches, completing Strikes and Nightfalls, handing in bounties to specific vendors, and more. The Powerful climb isn't too difficult, but it does require more effort than hitting 900.Things change again when you reach the soft cap of 950. At this point, Powerful drops no longer advance you to the final gear cap of 960, and you need to switch to "Pinnacle" activities to get more boosts to your gear stats. Pinnacles include earning 100,000 points on Nightfall Strikes, completing the Garden of Salvation raid, and running through the new Pit of Heresy dungeon. There are a lot fewer Pinnacle opportunities than Powerful ones, because the Pinnacle Power climb is meant to represent the toughest, most elite activities Destiny 2 has to offer.Right now, Pinnacle gear drops only give you one additional Power point for their gear slot, and in order to raise your total average Power, you need one Pinnacle for each of your eight equipment slots. That means that the journey from 950 to 960 is a slow one, especially because there are generally a lot fewer opportunities to earn Pinnacles each week. Players have also complained about getting multiple Pinnacle drops in the same slot each week, further slowing their progression.Pinnacle drops going to +2 instead of +1 should make progression go a little quicker and easier. Bungie is also changing how it calculates your total Power level once you're in the Pinnacle band--instead of needing all eight gear slots to hit 951 before your total Power is 951, as it is now, you'll only need four gear slots at 951 to advance. That should mean that drops for your other slots will start to come in at 951 once you've achieved four Pinnacle drops, allowing you to catch up your other gear more quickly. That way, Pinnacle drops for slots that are lagging behind won't slow your progression as much. Once all your gear is 960, you can still advance your total Power by leveling up your Seasonal Artifact by gaining experience points.It seems like this is a change that should address a lot of player complaints about the top-tier endgame of Destiny 2 as it stands right now. You'll still have to work hard to get all your gear up to 960 and participate in Destiny 2's toughest activities, which was Bungie's overall goal for the system. But hopefully, these tweaks will make that climb less prohibitive, so that players who are trying to reach the absolute peak of their abilities in Destiny 2 will be able to show off their commitment a little more easily.Info from Gamespot.com

Pokemon Go's Halloween 2019 event wraps up on November 1, which means Darkrai will soon no longer be available in Raids. The Legendary Regi trio will briefly replace it from November 1-4, but after that, a new Legendary will make its debut in the game: Cobalion.The Iron Will Pokemon from the series' Black and White versions will appear in five-star Raid Battles beginning November 4, making it the first Gen 5 Legendary to arrive in Go. Cobalion is one member of the Swords of Justice--a group of Legendaries that also includes Virizon, Terrakion, and Keldeo, which suggests the other members will likely debut in the game soon.As usual, before you can catch Cobalion, you'll first need to team up with other players in-person and defeat it in battle. Cobalion is a Steel/Fighting-type, which makes it vulnerable to other Fighting Pokemon such as Machamp, as well as Fire- and Ground-types like Entei, Garchomp, and Rhyperior.Cobalion will be available in Raids until 1 PM PT / 4 PM ET on November 26. You can read more details about the Legendary on the official Pokemon Go website.Cobalion isn't the only Legendary making its debut in November. Regigigas is also set to appear in EX Raids for the first time later in the month. Niantic is giving players a chance to catch it early through a Special Research story event called "A Colossal Discovery," which takes place on November 2, but you need to purchase a ticket in order to participate.Meanwhile, Pokemon Go's November Community Day takes place on November 16--the day after Sword and Shield launch for Nintendo Switch. The featured Pokemon this month will be Chimchar, the Fire-type starter from the series' Gen 4 entries, Diamond and Pearl. Pokemon Go News Pokemon Go Adding Online Battles Next Year Pokemon Go Halloween 2019 Event Coming Soon, Adds Costumed Starters, New Shiny Pokemon, And Darkrai Pokemon Go: Darkrai Now Available In Raids For A Limited Time Pokemon Go Bringing Back Regi Trio For A Limited Time Next Month Pokemon Go's November 2019 Community Day Announced, Features Chimchar Info from Gamespot.com

For Honor's Wu Lin faction, introduced in the Marching Fire expansion, will get a new hero as part of the game's Year 3 Season 4 content next week.Immediately accessible to Year 3 Pass owners on November 7, the Zhanhu comes with devastating new Feats and a long, single-edged blade to deal damage with a bit of distance. The hero, playable as both male and female, is fast and powerful, relying on quick dodges and even quicker strikes to outmatch opponents. Those who don't have For Honor's Year 3 Pass can acquire the Zhanhu for 15,000 Steel starting on November 14.Season 4 also introduces a new Breach map showing off a great Wu Lin fortress perched on a narrow mountain pass, as well as various Hero tweaks and Feat balances.A Halloween event is preparing to wrap up in For Honor. Fangs of the Otherworld runs until November 1 and brings with it a plethora of themed loot, a new game mode, and much more.Publisher Ubisoft has confirmed its plans to implement cross-platform play in "all the PvP games" it has. CEO Yves Guillemot said that the feature is "well on the way" during the company's latest earnings call. Only two of Ubisoft's games support cross-play at present: Brawlhalla and Just Dance 2019.Info from Gamespot.com

The Outer Worlds plays just like a Fallout game. That's a pretty tepid description and an obvious comparison. It's easy to take one look at the game, which strongly echoes the mechanical form of the Bethesda RPGs, and think you know what to expect. The developer, Obsidian Entertainment, was responsible for the cult-favorite Fallout: New Vegas after all. But The Outer Worlds doesn't just play like a Fallout game. It is, surprisingly, the best possible version of a Fallout game--a potent distillation of what made that series so beloved in the first place.The Outer Worlds adopts the most compelling innovations of modern Fallout games, emphasising immersive exploration and impactful, action-oriented combat in a game engine (Unreal Engine) that actually makes those things feel good by contemporary standards. It shares Fallout's satirical but incredibly bleak look at the future, but is free of its tired tropes. Critically, The Outer Worlds exhibits the same depth of soul as the early Interplay and Black Isle Fallout games (as well as other games in the '90s PC RPG genre) with a genuinely complex, interconnected narrative web of relationships and events that feel like they can change in a seemingly infinite number of ways based on the character you want to be, the variety of choices you can make, and the actions you take.Given the studio and the key people responsible (original Fallout creators Tim Cain and Leonard Boyarsky), that last trait isn't surprising. But it's not the only element that makes The Outer Worlds an excellent space Western adventure--that's just the incredibly sound foundation that elevates the game's great world-building, wonderful characters, and multi-layered quest design, on top of punchy combat and consistently sharp writing.In The Outer Worlds, you are just one of the thousands of people left in hibernation on an abandoned colony ship, when a scientist of possibly ill repute frees you and enlists your help in saving the rest of your frozen peers. After a rigorous character creation process--involving a slew of variable attributes, perks, and aesthetic customization--you crash-land on a planet, alone, and from there, how you make your mark on the Halcyon system is up to you.The crux of this sci-fi setup is that, among other things, the Halcyon system is owned and run entirely by a board of corporations, and their presence is a big deal. Whole planets are owned by corps looking to use their ecosystems as part of a larger supply chain, and numerous vending machines from different companies populate towns, trying to attract you with their bright logos and jingles. In fact, The Outer Worlds is saturated with strikingly colourful locales; the planets you'll visit are impressively varied and sometimes beautiful, flaunting an H.G. Wells-like retro-futuristic aesthetic, the antithesis of grimdark cyberpunk.On the first impression, corporations appear as a mostly aesthetic layer folded into the world. A number of the companies mentioned seem to mostly just exist as manufacturers of weapons and consumables--a piece of flair to keep the tone light in the same way that the Circus of Values exists in BioShock, but it's far more ingrained than that. Corporate capitalism so deeply affects everything in The Outer Worlds, and explorations into how it can affect society on a variety of levels is a surprisingly well-considered constant, despite the semblance of parody. You'll meet sympathetic workers whose livelihoods are only made possible by offering themselves to exploitation and indentured servitude, white-collared outlaws who are more bureaucrats than pirates, and well-meaning middle-managers who are trying to change the corporate machine from the inside. You'll find moderates, idealists, extremists, and most things in between and around the fringes, all of which have their own feasible ideas about how to best serve the colony or themselves. By the time the climax hits, it's clear that The Outer Worlds has its own stance on this bleak future, but that doesn't stop the world it creates, the sojourns you take, and characters you meet along the way from being any less fascinating.There are plenty of characters in The Outer Worlds who I didn't like. Reed Tobson, for example, is a snivelling factory chief in the early hours of the game who I didn't have to think twice about undermining, and Felix, one of your potential companion characters, had such an annoyingly naive personality I avoided talking to him as much as possible. The Outer Worlds allows you to kill any character in the game (bar one), and the world will reshape and move on without them, but there's something to be said for game's depiction of its unappealing people, whose portrayal I admired despite my distaste. You'll talk to a lot of people in The Outer Worlds. How much you do is up to you--you're allowed to cut straight to get to the point or dive deeper--but chatting to the game's entire supporting cast of non-player characters is something that never gets tiring, even if you don't care for them, purely because of how strong the game's writing and vocal performances are.I never felt like I had to endure stretches of pointless or overly dramatic exchanges, both because of how focussed and subtle the script seemed to be, as well as the variety of response options for my player character which kept conversations flowing in largely natural ways. Numerous considerations for the world state let conversations take into account things you may or may not already have done throughout your campaign; brief and subtle injections of worldbuilding and lore stop conversation from being too matter of fact without losing the game's identity, and some exceptional low-key wit works very well in sparking a periodic laugh without humour feeling like a sticking point. Solid, consistent voice direction helps keep the tone firmly measured, meaning the hours you spend absorbing the world through its people are always engaging.Nowhere does the strength of the game's characters shine more strongly than in your companions, however (except for Felix; that guy is a weenie). You have the option to recruit six predetermined characters to accompany and assist you in your adventures, though the game does have tools to bolster a lone wolf character too. But having companions along for the ride is a delight, and that's, again, because of the strength of the character writing. Companions instantly feel like fleshed-out characters of their own accord, not like they simply exist to revolve around you. They'll converse privately with each other and chime in on conversations you have with other characters in the world, acting as sounding boards during key moments. They can, in extreme situations, leave you of their own accord if they strongly disagree with a course of action. It's all mechanically conditional, of course, but the illusion the game builds is so endearing--spending time with these folks feels just as valuable as your pursuing the overarching goal.Companions have their own customisable skill trees, equipment loadouts, combat tactics, and special abilities you can command them to use, which, with their cinematic camera angles, inspired battle cries, and useful status effects, never become unsatisfying to initiate. The other major tool at your disposal in combat, provided your character's weapon skills are high enough to use it, is Tactical Time Dilation (TTD)--a time-bending mechanic that slows the action to a crawl, allowing you to give yourself some breathing room in order to analyse enemies and take the time to execute precision attacks. Hitting certain locations on enemies will let you do things like cripple or maim them, or inflict weapon-specific effects like bleed damage or knocking them unconscious. Using TTD tactically to take out key targets and attempt to control the flow of battle makes it an entertaining and useful tool, but its availability is limited and not something you can rely on entirely until you get to meaningfully upgrade it much later in the game.Despite having strong RPG foundations, the combat in The Outer Worlds is very much focussed on first-person action, incorporating things like parries, blocks, and dodges on top of an array of melee weapons and firearms. There's a hectic and fast-paced fluidity to combat that feels very good, however. That's aided by some enthusiastic sound design, which does most of the heavy lifting in giving all weapons some satisfying feedback. A range of "Science weapons" bring some creative diversity in your arsenal, and features guns that have unique, entertaining properties like shrinking enemies or turning them against each other.The only problem with combat is that on the game's recommended Regular difficulty, it eventually turns into a cakewalk. This is satisfying in a way, of course--all the points I pumped into maxing out my handgun skills, thus becoming best gunslinger in the galaxy, did actually make me feel utterly invincible. But, it also meant I didn't feel pushed to explore the game's slew of combat-adjacent mechanics nearly as deeply as I would have hoped. Things like elemental damage, equipment modding, companion synergies, and the special effects allowed by consumables (which, by the way, are incredibly difficult to parse in the game's icon-heavy menu), could all be safely ignored. The Outer Worlds has a "flaws" system that lets you purposefully shoulder restrictive debuffs in certain situations in exchange for an extra perk point, but it's completely optional and rarely worth the tradeoff. Jumping into the "Supernova" difficulty level in a subsequent playthrough changes all that, however--combat danger increases, your ability to save your game becomes restricted, and survival mechanics like hunger and thirst are introduced, making all of the game's mechanical considerations feel far more vital. The game is more challenging and interesting because of it, but its demanding nature definitely makes it more of a second-run option.Toe-to-toe combat is not the only solution to your problems. The Outer Worlds allows for a variety of avenues for alternative and passive solutions--stealth, hacking, and speech-related options are available throughout the game, provided you pass the skill checks. It's nigh impossible to complete the game without getting into at least some combat, unfortunately, but to the game's credit, virtually every quest in the game, big or small, features branching options in terms of their paths to success and how you deal with the big, final choices you have to make to resolve disputes, which are often deliciously grey. It's at the level where you'll always be considering the additional ways you could have achieved something, whether that be taking a different route, finding more information out in the world, or killing the quest giver and everyone else in the town. When you hit the end, the game runs through a whole slew of epilogues that describe how you resolved the game's numerous major variables and what became of them, and being shown all your exploits after some 30 hours makes the whole journey and your unique path through it really feel quite meaningful. It's difficult to know the full extent of just how many directions something can go, and the end result of many quests can likely only ever differ in a small handful of ways, but this perception of freedom and possibilities on your first run is inspiring.I finished The Outer Worlds wanting more, eager to jump back into the world to see extra things. It's not a short game, but it's one packed with such a steady stream of wonderful characters to meet, interesting places to explore, and meaningful, multi-layered quests to solve, that it didn't feel like there was any room to get tired of it. I wanted to rewind the clock and do everything in a completely different way. The Outer Worlds is consistently compelling throughout, and it's a superb example of how to promote traditional RPG sensibilities in a sharp, modern experience. Info from Gamespot.com

HBO's Watchmen is full of all sorts of nods and references to the original comic book series--what else would you expect from the creator of Lost adapting one of the most famously dense graphic novels of all time?The show certainly doesn't hold your hand when it comes to playing in the Watchmen sandbox, which can be a little intimidating--but don't panic. That's why we're here. Whether you're still on the fence about diving into each episode or you simply want a refresher of the comics, we're going to break down the Watchmen mythology for you piece by piece. First up? Ozymandias, giant squids, and the end of the Watchmen story in the comics.Obviously, major comics spoilers from here on out, and some minor spoilers for the first two episodes of HBO's Watchmen. Please proceed with caution!In the show, there are squids everywhere in Tulsa, and presumably, the rest of the world, if the headlines about "interdimensional attacks" and "hoaxes" on newspapers like The New Frontiersmen are any indication. They occasionally rain down from the sky. Kids learn about them in school. So, what's the deal?It all relates back to Ozymandias's grand scheme to avoid nuclear annihilation and end the Cold War back in the 1980s. In a twist on the typical supervillain tropes of the superhero genre, Adrien Veidt, one of the smartest people in the Watchmen world, had concocted a plan that would, in his mind, be the only real way to prevent the Doomsday Clock from actually ticking down to midnight. By way of careful manipulation and liberal use of his public persona as a billionaire genius and former superhero, he set up what essentially amounted to a long con. He would stage a massive "alien invasion" with the help of experimental tech developed in secret by his company, in New York City. The "alien" creature--a giant squid-like monster--would teleport in, seemingly from another dimension or planet, and kill thousands upon thousands of people, both from the sudden destruction caused by its body appearing in the middle of Manhattan and because of a "psychic blast" it would emit that would fry onlookers' brains up to miles away.In reality, the creature wasn't an alien, or even from another dimension at all, but a genetic mutation Veidt himself had developed in a lab. The teleportation wasn't a gateway to another world or an attack, but teleportation tech Veidt had invented that would move objects from point A to point B, in this case with "point A" being one of Veidt's secret labs and "point B" being New York City. The psychic blast, however, was real--the creature Vedit designed did very much have the ability to fry people's brains, and it did. The resulting loss of life numbered in the millions.The goal of the squid was, for all its frills, pretty simple: The "attack" would functionally force every major government superpower in the world to stop looking at one another as enemies and immediately pivot their attention to this looming extraterrestrial threat. By Veidt's calculation, humans are simply not designed to be peaceful; they can only have their aggressions redirected and refocused on things that aren't one another--in this case, an enemy that they will never actually be able to find, much less fight or kill, because it doesn't actually exist. In that way, the squid attack had to be completely and 100% believable--the sort of wild goose chase that would keep every country in the world so distracted and fixated that the idea of blowing each other up wouldn't even be on anyone's radar anymore.Sure, the whole thing cost millions of innocent lives, but better that than a full-on nuclear holocaust, right?Of course, the graphic novel ends almost immediately after the attack. We get to see the dust beginning to settle, and it seems that Veidt was correct. Almost instantly, Russia and the United States come to a peace agreement, characters comment on the community's abrupt mood swing from anxiety and fear to peace and love, etc. But what we learn in the TV show is that things aren't that simple. For one, Rorschach--one of the only people to fully uncover Veidt's plan--did indeed have his journals published by the New Frontiersman. Unfortunately, Rorschach was also a known sociopath with a criminal record and a reputation for psychotic delusions, so the details he was able to lay out about Vedit and the attack were never widely accepted.In fact, rather than debunking the squid, the publication of Rorschach's journals really only managed to galvanize radical groups like the white supremacist organization The 7th Kavalry in Tulsa, Oklahoma, and provide dogma for conspiracy theorists.Interestingly enough, somewhere in the 30-year time jump between the end of the Watchmen comics and the start of the Watchmen TV show, someone involved in Veidt's plan--or perhaps Veidt himself--apparently engineered some sort of failsafe. Tiny squids rain down harmlessly from the sky in "transdimensional attacks," presumably meant to keep everyone on their toes--but where they're coming from or how they're happening remains a mystery. Veidt himself is missing and has recently been declared dead, but knowing what we know about his hoax, it's safe to assume that these squid rains are not random and certainly not actually coming from another dimension. Someone must be pulling the trigger somewhere.The question is who? And what would happen if, 30 years later, Veidt's carefully stacked house of cards were to come crumbling down? Would the peace he sacrificed so many to earn survive the collapse? Was it ever really peace at all?With any luck, these questions and more will be answered on the show in the future. HBO's Watchmen airs Sunday nights at 9PM. Info from Gamespot.com

Japanese gaming giant Nintendo has announced that Nintendo Switch sales have climbed to an impressive 41.67 million units, with 6.93 million units shipped in the latest quarter. These are big numbers, but how do they compare to other consoles?Niko Partners analyst Daniel Ahmad shared a helpful graph on Twitter that shows the cumulative global console shipments for most of the major systems. Looking at the numbers, after 31 months on sale, the Switch is on a similar growth trajectory as the PS4 and PS2, which are some of the best-selling systems of all time. Only the Wii got off to a faster start.Helping improve Switch sales was the recent introduction of the Switch Lite. It sold nearly 2 million units in its first 11 days to get off to a very good start for Nintendo.The graph doesn't include Xbox One, and that's because Microsoft no longer announces sales numbers for its consoles.Here is a look at cumulative global console shipments for key consoles (Launch aligned). After 31 months on the market, the Nintendo Switch has sold in 41.67 million units and is tracking alongside PS4 and PS2 which were at a similar total in the same timeframe. Wii was ahead. pic.twitter.com/Hd4ZKDXEkG — Daniel Ahmad (@ZhugeEX) October 31, 2019Looking at Nintendo consoles alone, the Switch is selling about as well as the original DS over its first few years. Ahmad notes that it "will be tough" for the Switch to match pace with the DS in 2020. DS sales picked up with the introduction of the DS Lite in 2006.Same chart as above, but this is the Switch compared to key Nintendo platforms when launch aligned. At this point in its lifecycle, the Switch is doing considerably better than the 3DS was and more in line with the original DS. Will be tough to keep up with DS next year. pic.twitter.com/s0Hw5aMEBD — Daniel Ahmad (@ZhugeEX) October 31, 2019In other news about console sales, Sony announced recently that PS4 sales have climbed to 102.8 million units, which surpasses the Wii (101.63 million) to become the second best-selling system in history. The PS2, with its 150 million units shipped, remains the best-selling console in history.Info from Gamespot.com

Following its October 15 launch on PC, ZA/UM's detective RPG Disco Elysium is preparing to make the jump to PlayStation 4 and Xbox One sometime in 2020.USgamer sat down with designer and writer Robert Kurvitz, who confirmed the in-development console port. "[W]e are going to port the game to consoles so you can play on your PlayStation and Xbox. So, you know, that's my message to you guys for 2020," Kurvitz said. "It plays really, really nicely on a controller because [...] you don't need to click around and give specific tactical commands, which the controller isn't very good at."Bringing Disco Elysium to consoles isn't the only job developer ZA/UM is currently working on. In conjunction with the console port, a Chinese localized version of the game is also in the works. Further, an art book with new behind-the-scenes art is in development, as well as an official release of the game's soundtrack.Disco Elysium launched on GOG and PC earlier this month. The game puts you in the shoes of a detective tasked with interrogating characters, cracking murders, and solving mysteries. It allows you to construct your own detective persona. You can be a hero, a prophet, or a madman, with plenty of choices to make and copious mistakes to contend with.Info from Gamespot.com