Assassin's Creed: Valhalla is one of the first major game releases to acknowledge the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic. An email from one of the game's modern day segments includes a message about the virus."I don't have Covid, no," writes Layla Hassan, Valhalla's modern day player-controlled character. "And I'm well isolated. It's just the three of us, traveling together, staying out of sight."Assassin's Creed Valhalla emailThe pandemic has continued to worsen amidst the 2020 election, with case numbers rising all over the United States. President-elect Joe Biden announced his COVID-19 task force, including 12 doctors and experts, earlier. The video game industry, including the launch of the PS5 and Xbox Series X, has been impacted in major ways.Continue Reading at GameSpotInfo from Gamespot.com

Descenders, the downhill biking game that first released in Early Access on Steam in 2018 and eventually came to PC, Xbox One, and PS4, has now landed on Switch--and it's done very well there. Mike Rose, head of publisher No More Robots, has tweeted out some figures following the game's launch on Nintendo's hybrid system.According to Rose, Descenders was the publisher's biggest ever Switch launch. Previous games published by No More Robots on Switch include Yes, Your Grace, Hypnospace Outlaw, Nowhere Prophet, and Not Tonight: Take Back Control Edition.Rose says that the game brought in "6 figure revenue" across its launch weekend. The game also hit a peak concurrent player figure of 6100, breaking its previous record.Continue Reading at GameSpotInfo from Gamespot.com

Destiny 2 is about to undergo maintenance ahead of the launch of the Beyond Light expansion, with the servers shutting down a little earlier than you might expect. Bungie previously announced that the game will go offline tonight, Monday, Nov. 9, and come back online with Beyond Light after the usual weekly reset on Tuesday, Nov. 10.If you've got Destiny 2 things you want to do ahead of the expansion--and the removal of lots of content, including several destinations--you need to do it before 7 PM PT / 10 PM ET Monday night. That's when the servers go offline. Bungie says Destiny 2 will be back online around noon PT / 3 PM ET Tuesday.There's a lot that's leaving Destiny 2 in Beyond Light, including the destinations Titan, Io, Mercury, Mars, and the Leviathan, and all their associated content and raids. They're making room for the new destination of Europa, and Bungie has suggested that the content might come back into the game in the future--but how and in what form, we don't yet know.Continue Reading at GameSpotInfo from Gamespot.com

While it might seem like a decade ago at this point, it was only earlier this year that Bloodshot, a movie adaptation of the Valiant Comics title, arrived in theaters. In it, Vin Diesel starred as a marine killed in action and resurrected via nanite technology to be used as an unkillable weapon. Unfortunately, few got to see it on the big screen as it premiered right before the COVID-19 pandemic led to theaters closing around the world. Instead, the film quickly shifted to a digital release.While Bloodshot didn't break any records during its short run at the box office, the home release seems to have been enough to make the movie a success. How much of a success? Well, it seems there's a follow-up in the works.Speaking to Comic Book Resources, executive producer Dan Mintz revealed a sequel is being developed. What's more, Diesel will evidently return to play the character again. "[Are] Vin Diesel and all those people going to still continue? Yes, because it did so well and the response to it has been so well, it's just that the response has been in a non-transparent environment, as opposed to a transparent environment like box office numbers."Continue Reading at GameSpotInfo from Gamespot.com

When in doubt, make more movies about people repeatedly trying and failing to kill a character played by Gerard Butler. That seems to be a winning formula, as a fourth Has Fallen movie starring the actor is in development. What started with Olympus Has Fallen in 2013 has become a very successful franchise of films, each one seemingly trying harder to kill secret service agent Mike Banning (Butler).According to The Hollywood Reporter, the next film in the series will be titled Night Has Fallen. In it, Butler will once more team with director Ric Roman Waugh, who helmed the franchise's third entry, Angel Has Fallen. That movie's screenwriter, Robert Mark Kamen, is also returning for Night Has Fallen.It remains to be seen exactly what kind of situation Banning will find himself in for the next movie. However, the last movie introduced Nick Nolte as the character's estranged father, teaming the two up. Hopefully, he returns for this film, as well.Continue Reading at GameSpotInfo from Gamespot.com

Exit the Gungeon, which was previously released for PC, Switch, and Apple Arcade, is now coming to the PS4 and Xbox One. The spin-off from Enter the Gungeon, which sees players escaping from dungeons while surviving waves of enemies, arrives digitally this week, alongside a major update for all systems.Developer Dodge Roll has announced that the game is coming to these systems on Friday, November 13, alongside a new update for all systems. This update is called "Hello To Arms," which is an inversion of Exit the Gungeon's "Farewell to Arms" update. Clever.This update, which will be available from day one on PS4 and Xbox One, adds various new guns and items, as well as an "Arsenal Mode" and something called a "Glocktopus". We're guessing that's an octopus...but armed. Continue Reading at GameSpotInfo from Gamespot.com

From the guy who co-created skits like East/West Bowl and the Substitute Teacher on Comedy Central's Key & Peele have come two of the weirdest and best horror movies in recent memory: Get Out and Us (not to mention his Twilight Zone revamp). We wouldn't have expected it either, but now, Jordan Peele's name is all it takes to get us excited about an upcoming film--even if that's literally all we know about it.But now we know not only that Peele is working on his next horror movie, we now know when we can look forward to it. Universal set the release date for his next film this week. In hopes that movie theaters will have re-opened and returned to normal by then, Universal has Peele's next film set for July 22, 2022. That's just a week after Warner Bros' third Fantastic Beasts film premieres (without Johnny Depp).And that's everything we know about the movie. Peele keeps details about his films close to the vest. Themes of racism unite both Get Out and Us, along with many of the best Key & Peele skits, but the two movies are otherwise different enough that we're deeply curious about what Peele has in store. Get Out netted Peele an Academy Award for Best Original Screenplay, and the two films have grossed an estimated $510 million for Universal.Continue Reading at GameSpotInfo from Gamespot.com

The PlayStation 5 begins its international rollout on November 12, and while that date fast approaches Sony is still revealing new details about the system. Now, in an extensive FAQ on the PlayStation Blog, we know more about the recording functionality tied to the DualSense's "Create" button--and it's even stronger than what the PS4's innovative "Share" button offered.The PS5 will automatically capture the last 60 minutes of gameplay--and when you press the Create button, you can choose to "save recent gameplay" to capture it. You can choose the full 60 minutes, or as little as the last 15 seconds, depending on what you want to capture and share.By default, footage is captured at 1080p with 60fps. However, if you want to manually record a section of gameplay--meaning that you start the recording yourself--you can capture at 4K. This means that getting higher-quality footage requires slightly more forward-thinking.Continue Reading at GameSpotInfo from Gamespot.com

The launch of the next generation is almost here, kicking off with the Xbox Series X and S's release tomorrow. Preorders for the next-generation consoles have been sold out for quite some time, though some retailers like GameStop have announced they'll have stock online tonight. Computer and electronics store Newegg will also have both the Xbox Series X and S available tonight at 9:01 PM PT / 12:01 AM ET.Newegg announced the news via Twitter, though the company hasn't said how much stock it will have. Other retailers have mentioned having "limited stock" on launch day, and it's unlikely things will be different at Newegg. Because of this, both consoles are expected to sell out very fast, so you'll want to act quickly if you're interested. Newegg is also limiting orders by one unit per customer. Xbox Series X See at Newegg Xbox Series S See at Newegg Continue Reading at GameSpotInfo from Gamespot.com

The Call of Duty franchise is in a unique position currently with multiple games in the franchise--Call of Duty: Warzone and Modern Warfare--continuing to perform very well, and a third, Black Ops Cold War, scheduled for release very soon (and this is to say nothing of Call of Duty Mobile which is hugely popular, too). Due in part to the gigantic success of the free-to-play battle royale game Warzone, Activision is introducing a new "synchronized" levelling system where XP and levels apply to all three games.We recently had the chance to speak with Black Ops Cold War lead designer Tony Flame about this new approach where earning XP in one game applies to all three, and he shed some light on why and how Black Ops will become baked into Warzone."Warzone is a 2020 game. It's not even a year old; it's barely half a year old. And people are still really highly engaged with it," Flame said. "So we didn't want to be splitting players with a game that wasn't even a year old and has a lot of steam. So we decided to double down on Warzone and make our battle royale experience for Cold War within Warzone. So you're going to have Cold War guns, you're going to have a Cold War story."Continue Reading at GameSpotInfo from Gamespot.com

In Assassin's Creed Valhalla, protagonist Eivor will be tasked with securing alliances with the existing rulers of ninth century England. After building your settlement at the start of the game, you'll have the choice of first aligning with Grantebridgescire (kicking off "The Song of Soma" story arc) or Ledecestrescire (kicking off "The Sons of Ragnar" story arc). The former includes a multi-part mystery investigation where you have to oust a traitor, and one of the clues you need to find--a yellow longship--is a bit tricky to locate.It's worth noting that you can technically deduce and/or guess the correct answer to the traitor's identity without finding all of (or any) of the hints. However, collecting all of the evidence certainly helps make the decision easier, especially the yellow-painted longship, as it is the most important clue to find, recontextualizing many of the other pieces of evidence.Full warning: the rest of this article assumes that you have at least reached Chapter 5, Part 1 of The Song of Soma, titled The Stench of Treachery. We won't tell you the answer to who the traitor is, but we need to discuss the mission and the area it takes place in to point out the location of the longship.Continue Reading at GameSpotInfo from Gamespot.com

Call of Duty: Black Ops Cold War is the first entry in the series coming to PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X, and it will make use of the power of those next-generation consoles, including the PS5's DualSense controller.Speaking to GameSpot, lead game designer Tony Flame said players on PS5 and Xbox Series X can expect better graphics and smoother frame rates. He also stressed that, because there is cross-gen, cross-platform multiplayer, the studio has spent extra time making sure the game doesn't give players on more powerful machines an advantage."In general, with next-gen, we had to make sure that across the board, people would have a fair experience, no matter what platform they're on," Flame said. "So the graphics are going to be a higher fidelity--kind of like on PC. If you have a better graphics card it will run at a higher resolution, it can run higher frame rate. But we're paying extra care this time because of cross-platform play, that there is no inbalances due to any particular setting; that any setting that's available on one platform that could give a gameplay advantage is available on another, like the FOV slider, for example."Continue Reading at GameSpotInfo from Gamespot.com

Sometimes, the name is the game. Bugsnax, the new game from Octodad developer Young Horses, is all about catching bugs made of traditionally appetizing foods like pizza, strawberries, carrots, and lollipops, which turn your body parts into food when you eat them. They’re bugs, but made of snacks. Bug... snacks? Bugsnax.It's a wacky, whimsical conceit that, when paired with the game's cute and colorful art style, puts a smile on your face and pushes your imagination to run wild. The surprisingly powerful desire to discover more about this world and its weird, wonderful creatures fuels every aspect of the experience. Its clever, if somewhat temperamental, puzzles revolve around catching Bugsnax. The story sends you off to investigate the mysteries of their home, Snaktooth Island, and its colonists. And though that drive is purely superficial--your real motivation will be to see all the clever Snak names and designs--the game you experience along the way has a lot of substance.How do I even begin to explain what's happening in Bugsnax? You control an investigative journalist who's reporting the expedition of explorer Lizbert Megafig to Snaktooth Island, where she's discovered evidence of an ancient civilization and the delicious, mysterious Bugsnax. When you arrive, Lizbert has gone missing and her colony, Snaxburg, has disbanded. Your goal, for most of the game, is to find the colonists around the island and convince them to get back together so you can get your story and find out what happened to the lost explorer. Most of the time, "convincing" means feeding them Bugsnax.Continue Reading at GameSpotInfo from Gamespot.com

Assassin's Creed Valhalla fully embraces the series' heritage. The 12th major Assassin's Creed game shows a keen awareness of the history and gameplay innovations of the saga, and it feels like a love letter to the franchise as a whole. This makes the game a far more rewarding experience for longtime fans, though newcomers can still enjoy Valhalla's combat, emphasis on exploration, and mystery-driven narrative without years of time spent in the Animus.In Valhalla, you once again play as present-day protagonist Layla Hassan, who's still a bit shaken up after the unfortunate events at the end of Assassin's Creed Odyssey's second DLC, The Fate of Atlantis. Understandably ostracized from her old team, she's now partnered with fellow Assassins Shaun Hastings and Rebecca Crane. The trio find themselves facing the daunting task of needing to save the world, and their only clue as to how is a mysterious message of unknown origin that contains coordinates to a grave. With no other leads, Layla hops into the Animus machine with a DNA sample taken from the skeletal remains, allowing her to relive their life in the distant past. This time she'll be Eivor, a Viking who lived during the ninth century.The Assassin's Creed games have traditionally struggled with the modern-day storyline that runs alongside the stories that take place in the past, and Valhalla is no different. However, its modern-day plot is the most focused it has been in years. There's a clear and present danger, and a nice setup for the throughline of the game's campaign: the concept of fate.Continue Reading at GameSpotInfo from Gamespot.com

The Xbox Series X and Series S aren't due to officially release for a few more days, but some lucky players have had their consoles delivered early. As it turns out, that's totally fine with Microsoft, and the company gave these lucky few the green light to start playing the console early.The team is aware some fans are starting to receive consoles ahead of launch. For those of who receive them early, you are welcome to fire it up & start gaming!FYI: We are still making final touches for launch so please expect multiple platform and game updates pre-launch. — Xbox Support (@XboxSupport) November 8, 2020We saw an Xbox Series X that appeared to be delivered too early to a player in Portugal last week, but it's unclear if this person is who the Xbox team is acknowledging. However, while Microsoft did welcome players to start playing if they got their system already, it said that more pre-launch patches--both for the system itself and for games--are still on the way. The experience early players get could be slightly inferior to the one players get on launch day.If you are waiting until November 10 to play your new Xbox Series X or S, you can still take some steps to make the transition smoother. On Xbox One, you can move your games to an external drive, and this can be plugged into the Xbox Series X/S for immediate access to Xbox One games. You can also get the Xbox mobile app on your phone, as you'll be using it for setting up your new console. The process of booting it up will take only a few seconds because of its super-fast SSD. Loading games will also be very quick. Continue Reading at GameSpotInfo from Gamespot.com