Apex Legends has been facing numerous issues since launch, including dealing with cheaters, but Respawn Entertainment is committed to improving the game and providing enough content to keep returning players satisfied. The California-based company isn't divulging too many details yet, but it has teased what's to come in Season 2 and announced an upcoming, limited-time event that will begin in the free-to-play battle royale game just before E3. Full details on Season 2 will be shared during the EA Play livestream on Saturday, June 8. Ahead of that reveal, Respawn's lead product manager, Lee Horn, posted a blog on EA's website to discuss what's to come next week.The headliner is the beginning of the new Legendary Hunt limited-time event. It will last a full two weeks and kicks off on Tuesday, June 6. The event will add an Apex Elite queue (where those who make it into the top five in any match will continue to play against other top fivers), Legendary Hunt rewards (including skins for Bloodhound, Wraith, various weapons, and more), and Battle Pass bonus experience for top fivers in any match. Additionally, double experience weekend returns, starting on Friday, June 7 at 10 AM PT and ending on Monday, June 10 at 10 AM PT.We've heard a few rumblings about the Season 2 Battle Pass for Apex Legends. Though Respawn wants to keep the information as close to the chest as possible, Horn did give some minor details about what to expect from Season 2 of Apex Legends.To start, daily and weekly challenges will allow you to level up easier. Should you miss any challenges or start late, weekly challenges will remain available to complete and can be completed all at once. Three new Legendary items have been added and one Legendary item will unlock at every 25 Battle Pass levels in the premium pack. Those that reach Battle Pass level 100 will receive an evolving weapon skin, and those that reach Battle Pass level 110 will receive a special recolor version of the skin. Badges and basic stat trackers have been removed from the premium track, while seasonal win trackers will remain in the free track but will be earnable in the first 10 levels. Lastly, voice lines have been replaced by crafting metal. The Season 2 Battle Pass should make earning crafting metal easier and quicker so you can craft that item you've been eyeballing.E3 2019 is just around the corner. With Respawn set to present more information during the EA Play livestream at 10 AM PT on Saturday, June 8, we should walk away from the presentation with a greater understanding of what Respawn's ideas are for the upcoming season of Apex Legends.Info from Gamespot.com

Nintendo is rolling out a new patch for Super Smash Bros. Ultimate this week. All the company has said is the update will make an assortment of "fighter adjustments," but it appears there will be a few new features on the way as well, including Labo VR support.The in-game notification for the 3.1.0 update was uncovered ahead of the patch's release (via Twitter). According to that, the update will roll out at 6 PM PT / 9 PM ET today, May 30 (2 AM BST on May 31) and add a VR mode, which will give players "a whole new perspective on the Smash action." To play this mode, you'll need to have the Toy-Con VR Goggles from the Labo VR kit.In addition to the VR mode, it appears the 3.1.0 update is adding some new Amiibo functionality. According to the leaked notification, players will be able to send their Amiibo fighters off on "journeys to train" and have them battle against other Amiibo fighters. Additionally, Amiibo fighters will now be able to join Battle Arenas.Beyond the upcoming update, a new Spirit Board event has been announced. This week's event is called Super Smash Sisters, and it features heroines from an assortment of different games, including the Legendary Spirits Pyra, Mythra, and Krystal. On top of that, players will be able to unlock a brand-new Spirit Peachette. The Super Smash Sisters event runs from May 31 to June 5.Super Smash Bros. Ultimate launched for Switch in December 2018 and has quickly become one of the system's best-selling games. GameSpot awarded it a 9/10 in our Super Smash Bros. Ultimate review and said, "Ultimate's diverse content is compelling, its strong mechanics are refined, and the encompassing collection is simply superb." Be sure to also check out our 20th anniversary feature on the original Super Smash Bros. game.Info from Gamespot.com

A new week-long event is kicking off soon in Pokemon Go. Niantic is holding another Adventure Week beginning Tuesday, June 4, and it'll give players a chance to earn extra rewards, catch some rare Rock-types, and even find a couple of new Shiny Pokemon.During Adventure Week, Geodude, Rhyhorn, Omanyte, Aron, Lileep, Anorith, and other Rock Pokemon will appear in the wild much more frequently than normal. You'll also be able to hatch certain Rock-types--such as Onix, Larvitar, Lileep, Anorith, and Shieldon--from 2 km Eggs, and Onix and other Rock Pokemon will appear in Raid Battles. On top of that, you'll have your first chance to catch Shiny versions of Onix, Lileep, and Anorith.In addition to increased Rock Pokemon spawns, you'll earn four times the usual amount of Buddy Candy during Adventure Week, as well as a whopping 10 times the usual amount of XP the first time you spin the Photo Disc at a new PokeStop. If you have Adventure Sync turned on, you'll also be able to earn 50,000 Stardust and 15 Rare Candies when you walk 50 km.Finally, Niantic is distributing special Field Research tasks during Adventure Week. As usual, you'll be able to collect these tasks by spinning the Photo Disc at PokeStops. Adventure Week is scheduled to end at 1 PM PT / 4 PM ET / 9 PM BST on June 11. You can read more about the event on the official Pokemon Go website.Adventure Week isn't the only Pokemon Go event on the horizon. The game's next Community Day will take place on Saturday, June 8. The featured Pokemon this month will be Slakoth; not only will it appear in the wild more frequently than normal, it will also be able to learn an event-exclusive move if you manage to evolve it into its final form, Slaking, up to an hour after the event ends. The Legendary Pokemon Cresselia has also returned for a limited time.The Pokemon Company held a press conference earlier this week, where it announced a handful of new Pokemon games and services, including a new app called Pokemon Sleep that aims to "turn sleep into entertainment." To coincide with the announcement, the Sleeping Pokemon Snorlax is spawning in the wild in Pokemon Go until June 3.Info from Gamespot.com

Darksiders 3 didn't go over well at launch, with our reviewer scoring the game a 4/10 back in November 2018. Despite the lackluster reception, the latest installment is certainly not the last in the action-adventure franchise. According to the E3 Coliseum, a new Darksiders game will be revealed during an E3 panel.Called Darksiders: Action Adventure Evolved, the panel is set to address "the inception of the Darksiders universe and where it's headed next." It's scheduled for Thursday, June 13 from 10:30 - 11 AM PT. While there are no concrete details about what to expect from the panel, the discussion will unveil the "fresh direction" the franchise is headed and coincides with the reveal of a brand new Darksiders title. The official panel description is below."A discussion about the inception of the Darksiders universe and where it's headed next. This panel will coincide with the E3 2019 unveil of a brand new Darksiders game that takes the franchise in a fresh direction. This is a panel discussion about the art and business of creating and maintaining an action adventure franchise rich in-game and corporate lore."In our Darksiders 3 review, we said, "There are remnants of a good game here, buried within the vivacious combos of a combat style this game doesn't want to embrace. Unfortunately, it's buried far too deep to ever salvage."E3 2019 starts on Saturday, June 8 with the EA Play livestream kicking off the convention. Be sure to check out the schedule to see all the latest announcements and game reveals.Info from Gamespot.com

"This isn't Agatha Christie. There won't be a convenient set of clues leading to a tidy conclusion." That's what protagonist Edward Charles Harden tells his 17-year-old ward Lissie, and by extension the player, halfway through Draugen's fjord-noir mystery. A good ending is only as important as the joy of the journey to get there, but can a fascinating mystery succeed in its own right without a Christie-style "tidy conclusion"? Draugen's conclusion is certainly an untidy one, but regardless of whether you like your mysteries neatly solved, the somewhat unsatisfying ending does not eclipse the fascinating characters, gripping story, and breathtaking town of Graavik.It's 1923 and Edward and Lissie have traveled from Hanover, Massachusetts to a fishing village in Norway in search of Edward's younger sister, Elizabeth, who has gone missing. Everything you learn about these three central characters is through conversations between the stoic academic Edward and his vivacious young ward. The interplay between the two is delivered through naturally flowing dialogue; you can interject, begin conversations, continue them, or choose to stay silent. This enhances your involvement in embodying Edward, which is important, as he is otherwise a fairly single-minded character in a linear narrative.In stark contrast, Lissie has a wild and liberal approach to life. In fact, Lissie is the antithesis of Edward, a fact that becomes more significant as the central mysteries of the game wear on. On top of that, the strong performances behind each of the central characters bolster their personalities. In particular, Edward's mutterings, pauses, and audible skimming through letters and selecting what to read aloud to Lissie makes those interactions feel more genuine.The countryside village of Graavik is positively beautiful. Sunlight filters through glowing orange leaves on trees, shadows drift across your path, and the snow-capped mountain tops are such a bright white that they fade into the clouds. Lissie is animated with a loving attention to detail; the minor curve of her lips or a slightly raised eyebrow do much to convey her opinions and relationship to Edward. Alongside the stunning vistas, the sound design establishes a palpable sense of place; the wind is constantly roaring through the mountain valley and rustling trees, and there are rushing falls and singing birds. Everything is, in fact, so perfect that it feels unreal, and it's no mistake that that is one of the central dualities that underpin the narrative. The town is, as it happens, completely empty, and all of that natural beauty gives way to a tangible tension as you uncover how deep secrecy and tragedy run in the otherwise unassuming village.Because it's a first-person exploration adventure, the familiarity of certain narrative tropes that have become expected in this genre--a creepy mine, an abandoned house, a curse, a gregarious companion--have less of an impact. Draugen is most effective when it steps away from expectation--when you engage in and explore the curious relationship between Edward and Lissie, when it calls upon you to second-guess the assertions of its protagonists, and when the imagined blurs with reality, sometimes imperceptibly.The central mystery of the town revolves around unique and interesting characters with intricate lives, but it's Edward's personal character arc that takes precedence. Draugen deals in simple themes, like its noir whodunit narrative, and more complicated ones, like psychology, trauma, and the perils of isolation. The complex ideas are explored more thoroughly through Edward, forcing the base mystery into the back seat. Though this creates a more satisfying psychological journey for Edward, it rips the narrative away from the mystery of Graavik's inhabitants at a pivotal moment. Edward carries a journal with him, though there are no consistent entries; rather, it houses an annotated map and his drawings of the town. Given Draugen's focus on Edward's evolution and motivations, it's a missed opportunity that his journal doesn't offer up a deeper analysis of his inner workings. But while some elements of the game's mysteries remain unresolved, Edward's literal and emotional journey is ultimately satisfying, and his character becomes extremely sympathetic.To explain much more would be a disservice to the joy of unraveling Draugen's mysteries for yourself. It's exciting to piece apart the history of the abandoned town, and the horrors the befell it, even though it's up to your interpretation to decide if there's supernatural elements or foul play at work. There is a central narrative path to follow, though even if you pore over all of the intriguing newspaper clippings, handwritten letters, and other optional documents, the story comes to a close in three hours. The final chapters are somewhat abrupt, and while certain elements--like the character arc of Edward--are satisfying to see come to their natural end, it feels as though there's too much left undone. My laundry list of questions upon finishing the game would be a frustrating final takeaway, were it not for the joy of watching Edward and Lissie evolve, running the gamut of serene to terrifying moments, and ultimately echoing one of Edward's final utterances: "I almost wish we had more time to dig into the history of Graavik."Leaving questions unanswered doesn't present a failure in the narrative, but rather the notion that Graavik feels like a town with so much more to say, whose inhabitants deserve to have more of their stories told. It's a theme the game vocalizes through Lissie's dialogue several times, and yet it rarely provides concrete answers as to what precisely happened in the town. In this way, leaving Graavik behind is disappointing--but more significantly, that feeling is a hallmark of how fascinating the world and its characters are. Graavik is beautiful and unforgettable, and the joy in watching Edward and Lissie grow and change is the core of Draugen's success in character building and writing. The puzzle pieces of the central mysteries you can slot together are satisfying, and the picture they begin to create is truly captivating, even if you are left wishing you could see just a bit more of it.Info from Gamespot.com

We're still fairly early into Season 9 of Fortnite, but it's already proven to be quite different from previous seasons. Along with the standard assortment of weekly and Utopia challenges, Epic has introduced a new collectible to the game called Fortbytes, which can only be obtained by completing certain tasks. On top of that is the ongoing Downtown Drop limited-time mode, which features its own unique set of challenges to complete and rewards to unlock.Unlike a standard game of Fortnite, Downtown Drop takes place in a self-contained area and is all about momentum. The mode has players sliding around as though they were on a pair of skates, and the map is littered with boost pads and ramps to send you rocketing around. This also makes your character much trickier to handle, however, which can be a pain when you're searching for specific items hidden around the map, as many of the Downtown Drop challenges have you do. If you find yourself having a hard time completing these, we're here to make your life a little easier.A handful of the Downtown Drop challenges are to find Jonesy--one of the original Fortnite characters--in various places around the map. There are three separate challenges of this nature. The first is to find Jonesy hidden behind a fence. That's an awfully vague hint, but if you hug the north side of the map, you'll eventually come upon a drop that'll dump you behind a curved wooden fence, changing your momentum. Head to the end of that alleyway and you'll see Jonesy behind a chain-link fence.The second challenge is to find Jonesy in the sewers. This one is fairly easy to spot. On the eastern side of the map is a secret tunnel--you'll see a trail of coins leading you into it. Head into the tunnel and you'll be dropped onto a boost pad, which will send you hurtling along other pads into the sewers, where you'll come across the Jonesy cutout before trampolining back up to the surface.The final challenge has you finding Jonesy in three different locations: near the basketball court, near the rooftops, and in the back of a truck. The basketball court can be found at the end of the first slope down at the beginning of the map; head inside and you'll spot Jonesy against the back wall. The rooftop is a bit trickier. Find the crane that's dangling a car and use an Impulse Grenade to send yourself up onto the building that is still being constructed, where you'll see the Jonesy cutout. The truck is also easy to miss, as it's located at the end of an alley near the beginning of the map. If you need more help finding them, we walk you through where every Jonesy is located in the video above.The Downtown Drop LTM is slated to end on June 3, so you only have a few days left to complete its challenges. Week 4's challenges are also now available. Most of these are fairly straightforward, but one that may give you a bit of trouble is to dance inside the holographic tomato head, holographic Durrr Burger head, and dumpling head. You can find more guides in our our complete Fortnite Season 9 challenge roundup.Info from Gamespot.com

Void Bastards never lets you get too comfortable. As you explore spaceships, scrounging around for supplies to push yourself that little bit further, your strategy has to be flexible. An electrifying zapper is good for immobilizing some enemies, but it's useless against those with shields. A lobbed grenade is handy against those shielded enemies, but it prevents you from taking more devastating firepower with you to fight beefier foes. Void Bastards forces you to make small decisions with each stop at a not-so-abandoned vessel, which makes these encounters challenging and exciting.Void Bastards puts you in the space shoes of numerous rehydrated "clients" aboard a stranded personnel vessel, whose AI has had no choice but to rely on its dangerous cargo to repair the ship for a final jump to its destination. You are tasked with searching any nearby ships for special items and other resources, using components you find to craft new weapons and tools that will help you both evade and combat the numerous nasty enemies protecting these rewards. This encapsulates the main loop you'll find yourself in throughout the 15-hour campaign.The game hops between a frenetic first-person shooter when you board ships and a galactic exploration adventure outside of them. Your small vessel requires fuel to travel, while you need food to survive each passing day in the empty void. Both of these resources are found on nearby ships, which you can inspect from afar to identify its possible inhabitants, lucrative rewards, and unique modifiers before making a choice on whether to board or pass by. Modifiers can include anything from security systems being graciously offline to the hallways being stripped of lights to make your journey through them more treacherous. These small modifiers keep your ventures on ships exciting, providing knock-on effects for you and its enemies to play off of.Punchy one-liners and some dark humor drive Void Bastard's world-building, which is primarily conveyed by your AI handler and occasionally by intercom systems on ships you board. Neither expand on the lore enough to make the setting any more interesting than it is at face value, but it's entertaining enough to earn a few chuckles throughout. The story is supported by gorgeous comic book-style cutscenes that bookend each completed objective. It has a distinct style that immediately gives Void Bastards an identity.The comic book aesthetic transitions over beautifully into gameplay, where the action looks like it was ripped from the narrative panels preceding them. Explosions litter the screen with onomatopoetic descriptions of their destructive power, represented visually with bold colors and thick black outlines. Enemies move as if they're 2D sprites living in a 3D space, rotating at fixed increments to face you. It's a striking style that makes Void Bastards immediately recognizable and imbues its adventure with personality.With its rogue-lite structure, Void Bastards is as much about staying alive as long as you can as it is about dying. You won't lose all your progress when your current character expires, but you will lose any hoarded ammunition, fuel, and food. You'll also lose your current character, who might be equipped with both useful and detrimental abilities. One might be capable of silently sprinting, letting you get by enemies faster without alerting them. Another could do the exact opposite by randomly coughing and giving away your position. It's fun to work with and around these traits, but Void Bastards graciously lets you keep any weapon and gadget upgrades as well as objective progress intact should you lose a character early.Crafting these items is streamlined, too. A clear and concise upgrade tree shows you exactly what you need to build a new item, as well as what components you should look out for to upgrade them a tier. You can even tag certain pieces of gear and have any possible nearby locations with their required components show up on the galaxy map, clearly charting you a course towards them. Void Bastards rewards you with items for upgrades frequently. You'll likely have something new to craft after most dangerous expeditions onto nearby ships, which not only helps shake up each combat encounter with some new weapons and toys, but also expands your options for engagement with the numerous types of enemies you'll come into contact with.The game's enemy variety is key to keeping each expedition surprising, and they start off simple enough. Slow-to-react but explosive blue alien blobs and dim-witted Janitors litter the halls of your first few ships, eventually giving way to quick and foul-mouthed Juveniles and skittish Scribes that run away from danger. As you descend into deeper nebulas with more rewards, the dangers increase, with formidable variations on previous enemies. Hard-hitting Stevs will make quick work of your health bar while Secs can quickly render your loadout redundant, as their impenetrable shields block everything you throw at them.The randomized selection of enemies on ships and their increasing ferocity keeps you thinking about which weapons to take on board, as well as how they can combine for particular strategies. You're given the choice of three items to bring with you as you dock, and your loadout cannot be changed once you've boarded the vessel, making your understanding of the perils aboard paramount to your selections. For example, if a ship's security systems are down but it's overrun with hulking Stevs, it might be better to leave behind a stun gun and bring along the autonomous and explosive Kittybots, which do a great job of distracting foes as you slip past. Ships with smaller enemies in large numbers might benefit from a weapon with a faster rate of fire over a semi-automatic pistol. Since each slot serves a purpose (weapon, explosive and gadget) it's fun to play around with different combinations and see which combine in both creative and effective ways.There are hundreds of weapons at your disposal, but the variety between them and the tools you have allows for this experimentation. It's satisfying to use an immobilizing stun gun to freeze groups of enemies in place before launching a package of small grenades that bounce and ricochet off the walls of a narrow walkway to deal devastating damage. A silent dart gun can let you poison enemies from afar, letting you watch them slowly die as you soak up their incoming fire with a personal shield should you be spotted. Or you could take a more indirect approach by sucking up an enemy into your rift gun, placing them in an airlock and launching them out into space. The careful distribution of ammunition for each weapon prevents you from stockpiling enough for your favorites all the time, which pushes you to become familiar with your entire arsenal too. It avoids being frustrating because of how fun each weapon is to use in the right situation, but also makes you carefully consider when to use the right tool for the right job.The ships you board can also throw up strategic combat options for you to exploit through their randomized construction. Simply being able to lock doors lets you create traps for enemies to wander into, letting you slide in a few explosives before locking them into a hallway with no escape. You can override security systems and make them fight for you if you have enough credits to spend, while environmental hazards such as nuclear spills and severed electrical cables can serve as nuisances or convenient traps depending on whether you see them in time or not. Void Bastards gives you maps for each of the ships you board from the start, letting you focus on the foes lurking in their halls rather than remembering how to get back to your exit. Resources are hidden between enemies and hazards; this keeps exploration fun and interesting while ditching the tedium of basic navigation.Void Bastards succeeds because it keeps you moving forward and rewards you on the way, without feeling like a pushover as a result.Void Bastards doesn't introduce changes to its gameplay loop throughout its course, and its narrative objectives don't shake it up meaningfully. But there's a steady flow of new weapons and suitably challenging enemies to test them on, so you don't get stuck in a rut. And because you maintain some progress between deaths, dying doesn't dissuade you from jumping right into the next run. Void Bastards succeeds because it keeps you moving forward and rewards you on the way, without feeling like a pushover as a result.This delicate balance highlights the assortment of randomized levels, enemy compilations and uniquely designed weaponry that all make Void Bastards an absolute delight. It's wildly entertaining to go from ship to ship and eradicate enemies with constantly shifting strategies, and equally engaging to use your scavenging gains to make yourself feel increasingly powerful. It's a satisfyingly stylish shooter that manages to play as well as, if not better than, it looks.Info from Gamespot.com

Star Wars: Galaxy's Edge is about to open at Disneyland, giving fans of the space opera saga the opportunity to experience what living in a galaxy far, far away is actually like. From interacting with rebels and First Order officers to sampling the local cuisine, Disneyland has gone above and beyond in creating an immersive experience. However, for those who enjoy a good old fashioned Easter egg hunt, there's also plenty of ground to cover looking for nods to various corners of the galaxy.The best Easter egg in all of Galaxy's Edge has nothing to do with Star Wars, though. Instead, it's a tribute to Harrison Ford's other iconic franchise, the Indiana Jones movies. If you're standing in just the right spot on Dok-Andar's Den of Antiquities--to the left of the lightsaber display--and look up, you'll see none other than the Ark of the Covenant from Raiders of the Lost Ark. You'll have to look hard, but hidden behind a plethora of items, the golden chest stands out. It's hard to snap a photo of, though, as you can see below.This piece isn't just any Ark of the Covenant, though. This particular item is a nod to both the Indiana Jones franchise and a former ride at Walt Disney World's Hollywood Studios. According to a Disneyland employee who spoke to GameSpot, this particular Ark was pulled from the Great Movie Ride at Hollywood Studios after it closed. It was then shipped cross-country to its new home in Galaxy's Edge.Its placement in the Den of Antiquities is thanks to Lucasfilm creative executive Pablo Hidalgo. According to the Disneyland employee, all of the items on the second floor of the shop were hand-picked by Hidalgo to point to a variety of Star Wars and Star Wars adjacent properties, from Return of the Jedi to the animated series Star Wars Rebels--and, of course, to Indy.We'll have a deeper dive into the Easter eggs in the Den of Antiquities soon. In the meantime, check out GameSpot's photo tour of Galaxy's Edge, as well as a look at the most expensive item you'll find for sale in the land. Star Wars: Galaxy's Edge opens Mat 31 at Disneyland and August 21 at the Walt Disney World Resort. Info from Gamespot.com

Season 9 of Fortnite is well underway, and along with the usual weekly and Utopia challenges, Epic is holding a Downtown Drop limited-time mode, which comes with its own assortment of tasks to complete and rewards to unlock. Most of these are fairly self-explanatory, but one that'll require a little more work is to search O-N-F-I-R-E letters. These are scattered around the map, so if you need help finding them, we're here to show you where to go.The Downtown Drop LTM takes place in its own self-contained map, which greatly limits the area you'll need to search to find the letters. Even so, the map can be confusing to navigate thanks to all of the ramps and corners it features, especially since you're constantly slipping and sliding as you play the mode, so knowing exactly where to look for the letters will greatly alleviate the frustration of this challenge. You can see where each of the letters is located below:O: Next to the red car in the southeast cornerN: Near the basketball courtF: Near the Durrr Burger food truckI: Near the secret tunnel leading to the sewersR: In front of the crane truck at the end of the mapE: By the subway turnstileOnce you've found all six letters, the challenge will be complete, and you'll earn a stylish back board for your troubles. If you need more help finding the letters, we show you exactly where each one is located in the video at the top of this guide. You'll need to hurry if you're hoping to unlock the back board, however; the Downtown Drop LTM is slated to end on June 3, giving you only a few more days to finish this challenge.While most of the Downtown Drop challenges are fairly straightforward and should be easy enough to complete with a little persistence, another one that may give you some trouble is to find Jonesy. There are actually three separate challenges of this sort, and they task you with finding a cutout of the character in various areas of the map. You can see all of the locations in our video walkthrough.Beyond the Downtown Drop LTM, Week 4's challenges are also now available. These are likewise mostly straightforward, but the trickiest of the bunch is to dance inside the holographic tomato head, holographic Durrr Burger head, and dumpling head. You can find tips for previous challenges in our complete Fortnite Season 9 challenge guide.Info from Gamespot.com

Xbox boss Phil Spencer has announced his team's final E3 2019 rehearsal is finished and that Microsoft has "lots to show" this year. In fact, 14 of the games being shown at E3 this year are Xbox One first-party titles."Just finishing our final E3 rehearsal here with the team in Redmond," Spencer tweeted. "Feel really good about the briefing. Lots to show. We have 14 Xbox Game Studios games in the show this year, more first party games than we've ever had in the show. Fun times." All Microsoft first party titles now typically release as Xbox One console exclusives (so you can find them on PC as well). Microsoft also usually launches its first-party titles on Xbox Game Pass the day they release.Microsoft's list of Xbox Game Studios includes 343 Industries (Halo series), inXile Entertainment (Wasteland series), Obsidian Entertainment (Fallout: New Vegas and The Outer Worlds), The Initiative, Turn 10 Studios (Forza Motorsport series), Undead Labs (State of Decay series), Compulsion Games (We Happy Few), The Coalition (Gears of War series), Mojang (Minecraft), Ninja Theory (DmC: Devil May Cry and Hellblade: Senua's Sacrifice), Playground Games (Forza Horizon series), and Rare (Sea of Thieves and Battletoads series).Many of these studios are 2018 acquisitions. During E3 2018, during E3 2018, Microsoft announced it had acquired Undead, Playground, Compulsion, and Ninja Theory and had also established The Initiative. Microsoft acquired inXile in November 2018 and announced soon after that it had bought Obsidian as well.Microsoft hasn't announced the full list of Xbox Game Studios that will be showcasing games at E3 2019, but a few have already been revealed. 343 Studios' Halo Infinite and The Coalition's Gears 5 have both been confirmed for E3 2019. InXile Entertainment's Wasteland 3 has been confirmed for E3 as well, although the game is not an Xbox One first-party title. Though they haven't been confirmed, there's a plausible chance Gears Pop and Rare's new Battletoads game make an appearance as well, as both were teased during E3 2018. There are also rumors that Ninja Theory will be announcing a new sci-fi game scheduled for 2020 called Bleeding Edge, a fourth Fable game will be announced to be released in 2021, Ori and the Will of the Wisps will get a final trailer and release date, The Outer Worlds will get a new gameplay trailer and launch window (which has seemingly been confirmed via an Obsidian tweet), and Gears Tactics will get a new trailer and 2019 release date.But even if all of the rumors and speculation are true, that's still only 10 of the 14 first-party games, and Microsoft may have some third-party titles to showcase (such as Cyberpunk 2077). There are also rumors that Microsoft is unveiling at least one of its next-gen Xbox consoles during E3. It would certainly fit the announcement that Xbox is going to "go big" at E3 this year.Info from Gamespot.com

As has been the case for the past few years, post-release content for Call of Duty: Modern Warfare will launch first on PS4 before coming to other systems. This was confirmed in a trailer for the game posted on PlayStation's YouTube account.The message states: "Play new content first on PlayStation 4." The fine print goes on to clarify that the exclusivity period is one week. "New playable content, when available, will launch on PS4 seven days prior to launch on other platforms."This is no surprise, given Activision has partnered with Sony for Call of Duty exclusivity deals every year since 2015 with Black Ops III. Before that, Activision had a deal with Microsoft to launch Call of Duty DLC first on Xbox platforms.What's different with the new Modern Warfare is that all post-release maps will be free, whereas in the past Activision charged for them. Also new for Modern Warfare is cross-play support between PS4, Xbox One, and PC. It remains to be seen how cross-play might be impacted when PS4 players have access to content that Xbox One and PC players do not. We've followed up with Activision in an attempt to get more details.Modern Warfare--which is a reboot of sorts of the popular sub-brand that began in 2007--launches on October 25. GameSpot recently visited developer Infinity Ward's studio to learn more about the game; check out the story below for more.Call Of Duty 2019 Is Modern Warfare - What We Learned Visiting Infinity WardInfo from Gamespot.com

Twenty-three people died last night. I couldn't do anything about it. Even if I had known how to save them I doubt I'd have been able to succeed. In Pathologic 2--a reimagining of the original Pathologic, itself a nightmarish adventure game from another era--you play a doctor who can barely save himself, let alone the wretched lives of those he encounters. Failure is your constant companion. Some games make you work hard for success, promoting that the rewards taste greater this way. Here, you're reduced to a beggar, pleading for the merest scrap, and even then Pathologic 2 will likely deny it to you.Right from the outset, Pathologic 2 leaves you feeling disoriented. The prologue flits from one short, cryptic scene to the next, pausing only to let you ponder whether what you just experienced--a man waking from a coffin on a train, a fistfight among stone monuments, a giant bull, you murdering three men--actually happened or if it was a dream sequence or even some kind of hallucination. Once you've reached the game proper, two things become clear. One, you have arrived in town at the summons of your father, a respected surgeon, only to find him dead and you a suspect. Two, no one can give you a straight answer about anything.This may give the impression that Pathologic 2 is something of a murder mystery. And in a sense, it is. Your father's death is the driving narrative force behind your exploration of your childhood home town. However, as you wander the streets seeking answers from important figures and old acquaintances, you reveal more mysteries to investigate. Why is the supply train late? Why are crows suddenly circling the old cathedral? What is this game the gangs of street children are inviting you to play? What's up with the impossibly-designed structure looming over the western horizon? And most notably, what's behind the apocalyptic plague now sweeping the town?For the most part, Pathologic 2 is content to provide little in the way of answers to such questions, preferring instead to deal in metaphors, obscure Steppe mythology and sudden leaps of dream logic. Talking to a major NPC can very often feel like two people slinging nonsequiturs at each other until dialogue options are exhausted and the plot ticks inexorably forward. The writing here is mostly good, drawing on a range of rich imagery, so this is a deliberate stylistic choice to unsettle players through confusion and obfuscation rather than the result of inadequate translation from the developer's native Russian.This sort of scattered, dizzying feeling of events that just won't quite come into focus is illustrated by what passes for the game's quest log. As you accumulate clues, they are added to your Thoughts screen and are represented by a floating collection of nodes, each one an idea or hunch that may connect to others or may be drifting all alone. Some of them do correspond to specific locations on the town map, helpfully proffering a rare moment of explicit instruction to "Go here," but typically they're little more than reminders of leads you should try to follow up somehow, if you have the time.The passage of time is a constant pressure that reaches its heavy, nagging hands into every aspect of your travels. It's there in the day/night cycle that sees the streets become dangerous when the sun goes down and the plague's death toll ringing out when the clock strikes midnight. And it's also in the urgency felt by leads that expire if their deadlines pass unattended, causing you to lose out on experiencing situations that only occur at certain hours. You can't be everywhere and you can't save everyone, as the loading screens are at pains to frequently remind.It's hard enough finding the time to save yourself. Not because you've been accused of murder and it's going to be difficult to clear your name, but because Pathologic 2 is a survival simulation at heart, and one that is unusually obsessed with the physical body. You have an overall health bar that is supported by secondary hunger, thirst, exhaustion, and infection meters, and it is to the game's detriment that you spend most of your time fretting about survival instead of contemplating the more metaphysical matters of the story.These survival mechanics might have made you feel stressed about the dire circumstances you're in--and on a deeper thematic level got you thinking about the collection of blood, nerves and bones you comprise--but the execution here is lacking. You're in a desperate situation, there's a plague that has everyone scared, there's a genuine shortage of supplies, so yes, it makes sense that you'd be forced to scavenge for scraps of food and barter with other townsfolk for some repairs to your clothes. The idea is sound. In practice, Pathologic 2 has you rummaging through every trash can, hitting up every NPC for a trade, and breaking into every home you pass in the hopes of finding a way to support the dozen or so meals you need to consume each day just to stay alive.Worse, this tedious busywork is a huge distraction from the reasons why you're doing any of it. I love all these strange people, and their haunting, inscrutable ways. I want to understand their strange, bleak lives in this strange, bleak town. But the trials you're forced to endure to reach that understanding are too painful. It hurts. Ultimately I just wanted to walk across town to chase up a plot thread without having to first break into a house to find some peanuts in a drawer that I could trade with an urchin for a fish that I could eat so as not to collapse from hunger before I reached my destination.Pathologic 2 is the product of a perverse design philosophy. It's alternately intriguing and off-putting; it draws you in with its eerie, dreamlike setting and cast of unnaturally eccentric characters, but then it pushes you away with its nagging, mundane demands. In the end, I was resigned to let failure take me. Info from Gamespot.com

As it's a first-person shooter, it's not hard to imagine Blood and Truth working without VR. But the ways it reinvigorates some of the genre's mechanics also wouldn't be possible without it. Its first-person shooter action is still beholden to some of the inaccuracies and annoyances with PSVR and its less-than-precise tracking. But it also uses these forms of input to give you a satisfying amount of control over each firefight and the various activities between them. Whether it's tearing off grenade pins with your teeth or hanging from scaffolding while returning fire, Blood and Truth does an admirable job expanding on familiar shooter concepts while maintaining a comfortable VR experience.Blood and Truth can only be played with two Move controllers. You're explicitly told to play from a seated position, and you’re given numerous points around your torso to interact with. Putting a hand to your chest, for example, will let you grab stored ammunition for reloading, while you can find handgun holsters on both your hips and slings for larger weapons behind your shoulders. Blood and Truth makes you move to reach the weapons you need at the moment you need them, while also making these movements easy and natural to remember.There's a slightly long calibration process that helps make each of these motions smooth and accurate. A lot of care is taken to ensure that you're being tracked correctly at all times, which helps when you're flung into some fast-paced shootouts. The accurate tracking produces one of the most comfortable experiences I've ever had using PSVR. Although Blood and Truth doesn't completely eradicate some tracking issues (which are more hardware related), it entirely sidesteps common issues such as camera drifting and annoyingly erratic motion-tracking losses.That isn't to say issues aren't frustrating when they do crop up. It's common to wrestle with a two-handed assault rifle and its attached scope while the game struggles to determine the angle that you're trying to aim at. This leads to numerous frustrating deaths when the situation demands more dexterity than the hardware is capable of providing you, deflating otherwise challenging encounters with failures that feel out of your control.Blood and Truth almost successfully distracts you from this by giving you much more to do with your hands, enhancing its otherwise rote first-person shooting. Weapons such as a pump-action shotgun feel more satisfying to use when you're grasping the pump handle with your free hand and actively pulling back to reload after every shot, while a silenced pistol has tangibly more accuracy after you rest your free hand over to the side of it for added stability. Blood and Truth lets you get ridiculous with how you approach combat, too, allowing you to wield a powerful assault rifle in one hand and a sawed-off shotgun in the other at the expense of accuracy.Your movement in Blood and Truth is limited, but that helps the action flow smoothly. Blood and Truth only ever has you facing in a direction it determines, giving you the control to move to predetermined areas in front of your or strafe to the side at the press of a button. There are no confusing segmented rotations to grapple with, so you're free to focus on how to navigate your way forward and use what cover is available in effective ways.With this in mind, it's comforting that enemies can't find themselves in inaccessible spaces behind you, and you have enough choices in a firefight to keep it dynamic rather than simply on rails. Transitioning to new cover and the freedom you're given to make slight adjustments to your firing angles with strafing are smooth and responsive, letting you satisfyingly flank enemies with ease. There are some sparse stealth sections to break up the sometimes unrelenting action, giving you options to navigate through cramped office spaces or derelict apartments and pick off enemies with silenced weapons. It is exhilarating to string together a number of silent kills before being spotted, again highlighting how much space Blood and Truth gives you to work with despite being so restrictive with your movement.When you're not poking your head out in between gunshots, you're doing anything from picking locks to shimmying your way across construction supports and crawling through open vents. Each of these actions (and more) make good use of the Move controllers, making your movements feel more intimate than they ever could with a standard controller. Lock picking, for example, tasks you with rotating one Move controller slowly and then using the other to quickly lock the pin in place when in the right position. It feels both precise and natural, and goes a long way to making the otherwise mundane action of unlocking a door surprisingly engaging.Although Blood and Truth doesn't completely eradicate some tracking issues (which are more hardware related), it entirely sidesteps common issues such as camera drifting and annoyingly erratic motion-tracking losses.The same can be said for the many ways in which Blood and Truth lets you climb around its many environments. You'll have to reach out to grab overhead bars or protruding rebar pieces from walls to gracefully pull yourself upwards, carefully making sure not to unclench both hands when you're dangling over a deadly plunge. Some set-pieces make use of this to create some memorable shootouts, as you hang for your life using one arm and frantically return fire with the other. Having to physically grip to hold on, while remaining aware of where your hands are positioned, makes these actions feel all the more natural and satisfying.With some strong action and creative uses of VR, it's a shame that Blood and Truth fails to encapsulate all of this into a story that doesn't feel as disjointed and hokey as it does. Following the escapades of a London-based crime family under threat, Blood and Truth flicks through every gangster story cliche in the book. Moments of gravitas are undone by stilted voice acting and poor writing, while others can't decide whether they're trying to be a grounded crime tale or a globe-trotting James Bond imitation. Blood and Truth never settles on a consistent tone that helps move its story along, which make its narrative-focused stages (that feature no action) drawn-out and dull.Blood and Truth is uneven, especially when it's determined to get you to focus on an uninteresting story while you're putting up with the shortcomings of VR. But the beauty of Blood and Truth is that it also does marvelous things with the platform. The addition of motion control make familiar and mundane mechanics engaging, while also breaking up the smartly designed first-person shooting and establishing a great rhythm to the six-or-so-hour campaign. Blood and Truth doesn't manage to stick the landing in all aspects, but it's definitely a step forward for PSVR shooters.Info from Gamespot.com

If Justin Roiland's name wasn't on the title screen, it would still be glaringly obvious who was responsible for Trover Saves The Universe. It would be clear within 10 seconds of hitting the start button when a massive blue alien shaped like the galaxy's most abominable chicken nugget shows up and uses your two adorable pet dogs as his new eyeballs; it would be undeniable the second our hero, the neurotic purple alien Trover, opens his mouth and the voice of Morty comes streaming out. The fascinating thing isn't that we've got another video game from the twisted mind behind Rick & Morty. It's in watching those twisted M-rated ideas mingle with all the trappings of a bog-standard 3D E-for-Everyone platformer.The bonkers premise is that the aforementioned chicken nugget, named Glorkon, has somehow obtained god-like power from sticking your dogs in his eyes and will be kickstarting the apocalypse post-haste. You, meanwhile, are a hapless, milquetoast sucker from the suburban world of Chairorpia, where the entire population is bound permanently to floating couches, doomed to forever watch a soap opera that suspiciously feels like it's trying to teach you the game's controls. Our hero, Trover, eventually shows up on your doorstep and tells you he needs your help to take down Glorkon. Using the unstoppable might of power babies--an entire species of adorable multicolored cherubs who actually belong in the eyeballs of Trover's people--and with you at Trover's back controlling his actions, the two of you set out on a galaxy-spanning quest to figure out how to take Glorkon down.There's a lot going on there, and it's not even scratching the surface of the absolutely bewildering cavalcade of profane oddity that follows. The very first level, your quest for a special crystal that will allow you to visit Glorkon's home dimension, is interrupted by an annoying little cuss named Mr. Popup who tells you about an alien neighbor who not only ate his family and is holding several pregnant Popup species females hostage so he can eat their babies, but more importantly, has no regard for his neighborhood's real estate zoning agreements. That's what kind of ride this is, and it only gets weirder and darker from there. Probably the best running gag in the game is a recurring one in which you inadvertently ruin the lives of the misshapen folks who sell you upgrades, each time accidentally killing their pets or relatives. Conceptually, it's wonderfully devious and outlandish, peppered in with moments of stomach-churning bodily function humor.It's the execution that's less consistent, mostly due to the long, stuttery, and often yelled improv takes of Roiland and the rest of the cast just endlessly riffing to fill time. The game rarely allows for moments of silence to let the jokes that work land. More annoyingly, it allows too much time for the more obnoxious characters to work your every last nerve. Meanwhile, there's rarely enough silence to think your way through the more involved puzzles, which sometimes turns tricky into infuriating unless you turn down the dialogue for a couple of minutes. And that's a shame, because many of the dialogue-based jokes often do land, though you'll just have to take my word on that since absolutely none of the best examples are even remotely repeatable here. What I can say is the runtime of my first playthrough was likely tanked because I would spend minutes on end just listening to unaware enemies talk amongst themselves about being clones of Glorkon, going on about their workout routines, their weird alien sex lives, and how they'd kill Trover and how much he sucks.Eventually, though, you need to take out some of those hilarious guards, and unlike Squanch Games' previous title, the too-obtuse-for-its-own-good Accounting+, Trover Saves The Universe is almost laughably simple when it comes to the action side of being an action platformer. You can jump, deal both light and heavy attacks, and roll. It's all much like the most elementary action-platforming principles in recent memory, with very few surprises or close shaves or tension until the latter hours. The only real complexity comes from the fact that the game is predominantly designed around VR. The game can be played without it, but the camera in particular is locked to fixed points in the stage and only reorients when Trover stands in a specific point along his path, allowing you to hit a button and teleport to his location. You can raise and lower your chair in-game to get a better vantage point, but the angles still aren't always where you want them to be, and it's awkward overall.There's a telekinesis ability you pick up later to move blocks and environmental items around, and it's not nearly as intuitive using the right stick instead of your head to swing the camera around. For most of the game, though, there isn't really anything you need to formulate strategy around. Enemies are painfully basic grunts, usually taking three or four hits to go down. Shielded enemies have only one attack with a huge wind-up. Combat only gets harder extremely late in the game once enemies with body armor, who can only be taken out using Telekinesis, show up. The only real trick is getting the right perspective to see everything in the environment. You need to be diligent about this to find the extra power babies hidden around every stage, which are worth collecting; they give you extra health, and the descriptions for each are some of the best writing in the game.Ultimately, even with all his neuroses and nonstop running mouth, Trover is the game's saving grace.There's nothing special about Trover Saves The Universe from a gameplay standpoint. There's some lip service towards branching paths depending on decisions made during gameplay, but none of them drastically change the game one way or the other, aside from some alternate dialogue in the ending and a few extra trophies (the descriptions for which are hilarious, I might add). That leaves it to the comedy and concept to do most of the heavy lifting, much of which is very aware of its basic nature, and it makes it hard to be bored or unmotivated by how rudimentary it all is when Trover and many of the characters in the world around them are just as irked as you are at having to deal with a lot of the middling parts. Ultimately, even with all his neuroses and nonstop running mouth, Trover is the game's saving grace. The more Trover adjusts to being your sidekick, the more invested he gets in seeing this quest through, and the more relatable he becomes (even if he is, by his own admission, racist against Chairorpians). He's the guy trying to save the universe, but just so he can get back to his original plan, which is telling his boss off and getting sloshed at his favorite bar.Essentially, Trover Saves The Universe is a really messed up alien buddy comedy. The work involved in spending time in this universe with these creatures is easy to a fault, but it's work being done with a hilarious partner who's often just as bored, annoyed, angry, or grossed out as you are. It's not the smoothest ride, but you've got the right company.Info from Gamespot.com

Rockstar has released the next big update for Red Dead Redemption 2's online mode, Red Dead Online. The update is out now on both P4 and Xbox One, and it introduces a new challenge that involves hunting, as well as a Showdown mode, a cool raccoon hat, and more.The new challenge is the Wild Animal Kills Challenge, and it's exactly what it sounds like. In the new free roam event, you face off against other hunters with the aim of bagging the biggest animals. Small animals are worth 1 point, medium are 2 points, and large are 3 points. As the match progresses, terrifying animals like wolves, cougars, and bears will appear, and you can earn bonus points for killing them. You cannot attack other human hunters in this new challenge.uh ohThe new Red Dead Online multiplayer mode, meanwhile, is called Head for the Hills. A Showdown mode, it sounds like a lot of fun. Here is the description:"Players take turns making a last-ditch run across no-man's-land to their safe house, while opponents have only one objective: to hunt you down. Stake out the high ground, hide in the shadows or stalk your enemies out in the open, but don't let them get to safety."Two more Showdown modes, Public Enemy and Sport of Kings, will be released over the next two weeks, and more details are coming soon, Rockstar said.Also new in Red Dead Online with the update is a nice bonus of $50 RDO for completing the first Land of Opportunities mission, which is called Honor Among Horse Thieves. Players can get $75 RDO for beating the Kill Them, Each and Every One mission, while you can also earn 10 Gold bars for completing the Destroyed by Grief mission.Additionally, Rockstar is giving all Red Dead Online players a care package that comes with:5x Potent Miracle Tonic5x Potent Snake Oil5x Potent Health Cure5x Potent Bitters120x Express Revolver AmmoYou can pick up the package in your camp lockbox or through the post office.Also new in Red Dead Online this week are a variety of new outfits, including the Flora Corseted Chemise and Paddon shirts, as well as the plaid cap, racoon hat, and shaffer chaps. A new emote, "How Dare You," is also now available. Finally, everyone who enables 2-Step Verification gets a special version of the raccoon hat; you can see it below. Players who enabled 2-Step Verification also get 10 Gold bars and $500,000 in cash for GTA Online.Go to the Rockstar Newswire to see a full rundown of what's in the new Red Dead Online update.Red Dead Redemption 2 has shipped 24 million copies, making it one of the most successful games ever released. The online mode recently left beta, and Rockstar has big plans to continue to support it with new content over time. Info from Gamespot.com