Month: January 2019

Wakanda for Black History Month and Forever.

The Lunatic Fringe is headed for the exit. Former WWE Champion Dean Ambrose will leave WWE once his current contract expires in April. The news was first reported by PWTorch, before the company commented on the manner.

“Dean Ambrose (Jonathan Good) will not be renewing his contract with WWE when it expires in April,” WWE said in a statement. “We are grateful and appreciative of all that Dean has given to WWE and our fans. We wish him well and hope that one day Dean will return to WWE.”

The news comes as a surprise, given the last few months of Ambrose’s career. After returning from injury, he briefly reunited with fellow The Shield members Seth Rollins and Roman Reigns. After Reigns took a leave of absence from the company to battle leukemia, Ambrose turned heel and became Intercontinental Champion, entering into a lengthy feud with Rollins.

In recent weeks, Ambrose lost the title to Bobby Lashley, before being eliminated from the Royal Rumble match by NXT’s Aleister Black. On this week’s episode of Raw, he was attacked by Nia Jax.

“I’m going to assume that Nia simply tripped and fell into me, and was not trying to start some physical altercation with me, a man,” he said in an interview after the exchange. “Because that’s insane, right? So, I’m going to accept her, what I assume is an apology is what she was yelling at me from the ring as I was being escorted away by referees, like I would do something. Can you imagine? I’m going to accept her apology. And we’re all good.”

Ambrose, who first made his name on the independent wrestling scene as Jon Moxley, first signed with the company in 2011 and began training in the Florida Championship Wrestling developmental territory. He debuted on the main roster in 2012 as part of The Shield.

As for what Ambrose does next, that’s anyone’s guess. With Ring of Honor, New Japan Pro Wrestling, and All Elite Wrestling looking to bolster their rosters, though, it should be an interesting few months if he’s looking to stay in professional wrestling.

Gaming giant EA is removing FIFA Points, a form of virtual currency for the franchise’s lucrative Ultimate Team mode, across all titles from the franchise in Belgium following the country’s crackdown on loot boxes. In a blog post, EA said it came to the decision to remove FIFA Points following “discussions with the Belgian authorities.”

The FIFA Points will be removed from all FIFA games on console and PC by the end of January, EA said. While FIFA Points will no longer be purchasable for Ultimate Team, people can still of course play Ultimate Team; going forward, all extra content can only be unlocked through gameplay. This was always the case, as the FIFA Points were available as an option for players who wanted to unlock new content faster. The game’s other in-game currency, coins, along with the transfer market, will remain up and running in the wake of this news.

Gamers in Belgium will get to keep any unspent FIFA points, but, as mentioned, they will no longer be available to buy more. “We apologize to our players in Belgium for any inconvenience caused by this change,” EA said.

With all of its games, EA said its goal is to provide players with “choice, fairness, value, and fun.”

EA also pointed out that franchises like FIFA and others with loot box mechanics contain systems that display probability figures. EA removing loot boxes from FIFA might seem like the company is taking a stance against loot boxes, but that doesn’t seem to be the case. EA said previously that loot boxes are not gambling, and the company doubled down on this in its new statement.

“While we are taking this action, we do not agree with Belgian authorities’ interpretation of the law, and we will continue to seek more clarity on the matter as we go forward,” EA said.

On the investor side, EA said it doesn’t expect the removal of loot boxes to having a “material” impact on the company’s financial performance. That may be true because Belgium is a small country relative to other places; the potential worry for investors is that this announcement might lead to more widespread changes in other countries that EA operates in.

Loot boxes and Ultimate Team are very big business for EA. Across all of its sports games, EA’s Ultimate Team revenue came in at close to $1 billion in 2017, according to GI.biz.

In 2018, Belgium’s Gambling Commission announced that loot boxes constitute a game of chance, and were therefore subject to the country’s gambling laws. Blizzard swiftly removed loot boxes from Overwatch in Belgium, but EA had taken longer to make the change.

The conversation about loot boxes in video games is not ending anytime soon, so be sure to keep checking back with GameSpot for more.

This interview contains spoilers for The Good Place Season 3, which is streaming on Netflix internationally and streaming on NBC.com in the US.

The entire fate of humanity is in jeopardy on The Good Place, and the writers are really starting to feel the pressure going into Season 4.

The Season 3 finale twist essentially rebooted the fake Good Place neighborhood back to the very beginning of the series – with Eleanor taking over from Michael as the architect – to prove that humans can become better people after death. But with the Bad Place picking the four new human subjects specifically to torture Eleanor, Chidi, Tahani and Jason, Chidi ended up being faced with his ex-girlfriend Simone, and chose to have his memory wiped so he wouldn’t blow the whole experiment and doom all of humanity to the Bad Place.

Continue reading…

On Sunday, February 3, the NFL’s NFC and AFC champions will face each other in the Super Bowl. Millions of people across the United States will be tuning in to see which American football team will reign supreme on CBS. Additionally, the halftime show for the evening will be a performance from Maroon 5. But what if you don’t want to watch that halftime show? What if you don’t want to watch the Super Bowl at all? Luckily, there is some counter-programming which may be up your alley.

There was a time that networks planned counter-programming for the Super Bowl Halftime show, like when MTV hosted its Celebrity Deathmatch halftime specials. However, that’s not so much the case anymore. Regardless, there are a few options to avoid having to see Maroon 5 play. Additionally, if football isn’t your thing, there are a few networks hosting TV and movie marathons that might be up your alley.

Below, you’ll find some halftime show options and some non-football options to watch on Superbowl Sunday. Or you can figure out what is new to Netflix, Hulu, and Amazon Prime Video and avoid live TV altogether. We’re kicking this off with three halftime show counter-programs.

WWE’s Halftime Heat

Available on: WWE Network, Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube

Instead of watching Maroon 5 play during halftime, you could tune into WWE’s programming and watch Halftime Heat, where Velveteen Dream, Ricochet, and Aleister Black will take on the team of Tommaso Ciampa, Johnny Gargano, and Adam Cole. Before that happens, WWE will be hosting a marathon of the best NXT matches, which will start airing at 2 PM ET / 11 AM PT at the aforementioned places.

Puppy Bowl

Available on: Animal Planet

Can you believe this is the 15th year of the Puppy Bowl? For those who are unfamiliar, the Puppy Bowl is a whole slew of adorable dogs rolling around in a tiny stadium, playing with toys, and chasing each other around. And all of the pups in the event are available for adoption. This year’s show kicks off at 3 PM ET / 12 PM PT.

Kitten Bowl

Available on: Hallmark Channel

If the concept of Puppy Bowl excites you, but you’re more of a cat person, then you’ll probably want to tune into the Hallmark Channel for the Kitten Bowl. It’s the same concept as the Puppy Bowl but with kittens. And much like The Puppy Bowl, all the cats in the event will be available for adoption. The Kitten Bowl kicks off at 2 PM

Dr. Pimple Popper Marathon

Available on: TLC

Spend your afternoon and evening watching dermatologist Dr. Sandra Lee pop people’s pimples. Is it gross? I think so, but to each their own, right? This marathon kicks off at 5 PM ET / 2 PM PT and runs through the big game.

The Mummy Movie Marathon

Available on: A&E

There is one movie marathon of note, and it’s on A&E. Beginning at 6 PM ET / 3 PM PT are all the Mummy movies from the original trilogy, starting with The Mummy, followed by The Mummy Returns, and closing out with The Scorpion King.

Botched Marathon

Available on: E!

Over on E!, you can watch people with failed plastic surgery jobs get all fixed up on Botched. And this will be one long marathon. Apparently, E!’s programming gave up and decided to run this marathon for more than 24 hours, starting at 5 AM ET / 2 AM PT on February 3, running all the way to 12 PM ET / 10 AM PT on February 4.

Ridiculousness Marathon

Available on: MTV

Basically, the America’s Funniest Home Videos for teenagers, Ridiculousness is a clip show which showcases videos of people falling, failing, and flipping. MTV is running a marathon of the series for the entirety of February 3.

Ancient Aliens Marathon

Available on: History Channel

We’re all well aware that everything we can’t explain with Earth’s history was obviously created by aliens. If you don’t believe this, then you should probably watch the Ancient Aliens marathon to learn the real truth. This all starts at 1 PM ET / 11 AM PT on History Channel.

Cops Marathon

Available on: Paramount Network

Finally, you can watch shirtless drunks from all over the United States get arrested by real police officers on Paramount Network, which starts at 9 AM ET / 6 AM PT and runs the entirety of the day.

Bethesda has released another update for Fallout 76 on PS4, Xbox One, and PC. As the developer previously detailed, this patch focuses primarily on implementing various balance adjustments and resolving a “large wave” of bugs and other issues still lingering in the online RPG.

This time around, the patch weighs in at approximately 3.5 GB for PS4 and Xbox One, and 500 MB for PC. Among other changes, Bethesda has capped the carry weight limit to “1,500 pounds over the character’s current maximum carry weight”–meaning if your carry weight limit is 210 pounds, your maximum will be 1,710.

“These limits exist primarily to keep servers from performing poorly, which can happen when we have too many items in the game world,” Bethesda explained in its patch notes. “They also play [a] role in helping to regulate the in-game economy. We do recognize the desire to be able to own more of the cool items that we have in the game, and we are looking into a variety of solutions, including increasing the stash size.”

Additionally, “(Known)” and “(Owned)” tags have been added next to recipes, plans, and turrets your character has already learned or built. Vendors’ recipe and plan inventories are also now no longer randomized, and some Vendors now stock additional plans for wall sets, power connectors, doors, generators, and water purifiers.

Rounding out the update is a handful of balance changes for certain Perks and weapons, as well as a long list of bug fixes. You can read more about these changes in detail in the full patch notes below.

Bethesda still has a lot more updates and new features planned for Fallout 76 this year, one of which is a Survival PvP mode. The mode is expected to launch in beta sometime in March and will remove the restrictions that currently govern PvP encounters in the game, making it a much tenser and more competitive experience.

Fallout 76 Patch Notes

General

• Performance: Several additional improvements have been made to in-game performance.
• Stability: The Fallout 76 game client and servers have received additional stability improvements.

Balance Changes

• Perks: The damage bonuses provided by each rank of the Demolition Expert perk have been reduced from +20%/40%/60%/80%/100% to +20%/30%/40%/50%/60% to match other weapon perk damage bonuses.
• Perks: The condition loss bonuses provided by each rank of the White Knight and Licensed Plumber perks have been reduced from 30%/60%/90% to 20%/40%/60%, and their repair bonuses have also been reduced, to match the Power Patcher perk.
  • Dev Note: In looking at the Demolition Expert, White Knight, and Licensed Plumber perks, we felt they have so far been overperforming in their current roles, and we wanted to bring them more in line with similar perks to help prevent them from feeling like mandatory picks.
• Weapons: The Explosive legendary mod’s damage bonus has been reduced from +100% to +20% of base weapon damage, with explosive radius damage.
• Weapons: The Two Shot legendary effect’s damage bonus has been reduced from +100% to +25% of base weapon damage.
  • Dev Note: As mentioned in a previous Inside the Vault article, both the explosive mod and two shot weapons could result in dealing very high amounts of damage, and this was compounded if two shot and explosive were combined. We’ve decided to tone both of these damage bonuses back.
• Weapons: Flamers, Cryolators, plasma weapons, and laser weapons can no longer spawn with the Explosive legendary mod.
  • Dev Note: The explosive mod causes weapons to fire bullets that are . . . explosive. The weapons listed above don’t fire bullets, so we’ve temporarily removed the ability for them to spawn with that mod applied so we can make adjustments.

C.A.M.P., Crafting, And Workshops

• Scrapping: Loose weapon and armor mods are now protected from autoscrapping when crafting. However, they can still be scrapped manually if a player wants to break them down into scrap components.
• Turrets: An “(Owned)” tag will now appear next to the names of Turrets a player has built in their C.A.M.P. or a workshop.

Design And Gameplay

• Carry Weight: Is now capped to an absolute limit of 1,500 pounds over the character’s current maximum carry weight.
  • For example: If your carry weight limit is 210 pounds, then your maximum limit is 1,710 pounds.
  • Characters will be unable to exceed this new weight limit moving forward.
  • Characters who already exceed this limit will be unable to add any additional items or caps to their inventories until they have reduced their carry weight below the cap.
  • Dev Note: These limits exist primarily to keep servers from performing poorly, which can happen when we have too many items in the game world. They also play role in helping to regulate the in-game economy. We do recognize the desire to be able to own more of the cool items that we have in the game, and we are looking into a variety of solutions, including increasing the stash size. We will be sure to talk more about this when they are ready.
• Cap Stashes: To help address cap exploits, caps stashes have been turned into containers, which allows them to properly reset and provide players with instanced loot.
• Plans and Recipes: When viewing a plan or recipe in a menu, a “(Known)” tag will now appear next to the names of recipes and plans the player has already learned.
• Vendors: Recipes and Plans in Vendor inventories are no longer randomized and can now be reliably sourced from those Vendors, with the exception of some minor Workshop and C.A.M.P. Plans.
  • The appearance of many Plans and Recipes in Vendor inventories is based on player level and they will show up once the proper level has been reached.
  • Additional structural Plans for wall sets, power connectors, doors, generators, and water purifiers have also been added to some Vendors.

PVP

• Hunter/Hunted: A server-wide message will now appear when a player joins the Hunter/Hunted queue.
  • This message will only be displayed once per player to avoid spam.
  • An additional server-wide message will be displayed when Hunter/Hunted is ready to begin in order to give other players a final chance to join.

Quests And Events

• Belly of the Beast: A new “Ultracite Power Armor” entry has been added to Taggerdy’s Terminal on the top floor of Fort Defiance, offering Ultracite Power Armor plans to those who read it.
• First Contact: A new miscellaneous objective will now appear upon reaching the Overseer’s C.A.M.P. for the first time, prompting the player to place a C.A.M.P. of their own.
• Gauley Mine: A new miscellaneous objective will now appear at Gauley Mine to introduce players to Ore Deposits.
• Monster Mash: The amount of XP awarded per round during this event has been reduced from 350 to 100.

Bug Fixes

ART AND GRAPHICS

• Lighting: Lighting no longer flickers throughout Arktos Pharma.
• Apparel: Fixed an issue that could cause a character’s legs to show through the Rose Dress while it is equipped.

C.A.M.P., CRAFTING, AND WORKSHOPS

• Artillery: Fixed an issue that could prevent Artillery from being placed in valid locations.
• Blueprints: Addressed an issue preventing players from placing a stored blueprint containing posts that were placed partially underground when the blueprint was originally saved.
• Budget: Scrapping a stored blueprint that contained wires will now correctly remove those wires from the C.A.M.P. budget.
• Exploit: Addressed an exploit that could allow players to duplicate their stored blueprints.
• Exploit: Addressed an exploit that could allow players to reduce their carry weight to a negative value.
• Foundations: Fixed an issue that could cause a “Cannot place item: Needs support” message to display when editing a partially floating foundation.
• Power Armor Station: Players can no longer view power armor they do not own when attempting to access a power armor station that’s occupied by another player.
• Scrapping: Ignition Cores crafted for the Earth Mover event are no longer automatically scrapped when using the Scrap All Junk option at a Workbench.
• Scrapping: Junk items that need to be manually scrapped are no longer automatically scrapped for components when attempting to craft.
• Stored Objects: Repeatedly attempting to place an Atomic Shop variant of an object the player had stored but does not own no longer prevents them from placing other variants.
• Structures: Fixed an issue that could prevent a C.A.M.P. or workshop structure from being edited when building levels had been merged or split several times. This fix is not retroactive and will not apply to structures built prior to today’s patch.
• Terminals: Powered terminals contained within a stored blueprint now work correctly when the blueprint is placed in a new location

CHALLENGES

• Collect Holotape Games: Nuka Tapper sub-challenge can now be completed by playing the Nuka-Tapper holotape game.
• Formal Wear Challenges: Pantsuits and Shortsuits now correctly count as formal wear when completing challenges.
• Gather Building Supplies: The “Scrap items to produce fertilizer” condition has been updated to “Collect Fertilizer” and can be completed by salvaging or crafting it using spoiled fruits, vegetables, and meat.
• Learn Cooking Recipes: This challenge will now recognize many additional cooking recipes when they are learned for the first time. Retroactive credit will not be awarded for recipes learned prior to today’s patch, but that is planned for a future update.

ENEMIES

• A.I.: Fixed an issue in which some enemies could chase the player farther than intended and become frozen in place.
• Exploit: Addressed several XP exploits by adding a limit to the maximum amount of XP granted by a single kill.
• Looting: Fixed an issue that could prevent players from looting goo and ash piles after killing an enemy with a laser or plasma weapon.

GENERAL

• Loading: Fixed several issues that could cause characters’ body parts, equipped apparel, or armor to become temporarily invisible to other nearby players or teammates after loading into a world.
• Monorail Elevator: Fixed an issue that prevented the Monorail Elevator near the edge of Cranberry Bog from taking players to the top floor.
• Performance: The Scorched Earth event has received optimization improvements.
• Performance: On laptops with more than one graphics card, Fallout 76 will now default to using the dedicated graphics card rather than an integrated card.
• Performance: Launching the Traditional or Simplified Chinese game clients on Xbox One no longer causes a 6 second hitch when the launch video begins to play.

ITEMS

• Bobbleheads: Using multiple Explosive Bobbleheads no longer causes their effects to stack.
• Exploit: Addressed an exploit that could allow players to duplicate items using MODUS Vendors.
• Exploit: Addressed an exploit in which the Vampire legendary effect could restore health through unintended means.
• Magazines: Removed magazines from several locations where they were unintentionally guaranteed to spawn.
• Tomahawks: No longer become stuck in mid-air after striking a hostile creature or player.
• Magazines: Guns and Bullets #5 now correctly provides bonus components when scrapping weapons, but no longer specifies a 50% increase.
• Magazines: Tesla Science #6 now correctly grants bonus Rad Resistance.
• Rad-X: Consuming multiple Rad-X or Diluted Rad-X no longer causes their effects to stack.
• Health Bonuses: A player with very low health who unequips an item that provides bonus health will no longer be instantly killed if removing that item that would cause their health to drop to or below 0.
• Paper Bags: Fixed multiple issues in which transferring items into an empty paper bag as the bag was despawning caused those items to become lost.
• Pip-Boy: Fixed a rare issue that could cause a character’s Pip-Boy to go missing.
• Power Armor: Entering a suit of power armor no longer occasionally causes it to become invisible to nearby players.

PERKS

• Butcher’s Bounty: Searching a dead Tick with the Butcher’s Bounty perk equipped can now correctly produce additional Tick Blood.
• Cap Collector: Now requires players to search caps stashes, much like other perks that grant a search option for containers.
• Exploit: Addressed an exploit affecting the Curator perk.
• Fireproof: Flame attack damage reduction provided by the Fireproof perk now correctly applies to Molotov fire damage.
• Serendipity: A notification will now appear on-screen and sound effects will play whenever the Serendipity perk’s effects are triggered.
• Super Duper: Can no longer trigger when crafting quest items.
• Traveling Pharmacy: Now correctly applies its weight reduction effect to Radaway, Diluted Radaway, Stimpaks, Diluted Stimpaks, Bloodpacks, Glowing Bloodpacks, Disease Cures, and Antibiotics.

PVP

• Respawn: Fixed an issue that could prevent a player who was killed in water from correctly ending PVP upon respawning.
• Stealth: Addressed an issue in which stealth damage bonuses could still be applied by a sneaking player’s attacks during PVP even that player was within their target’s direct line of sight.
• Wanted: Fixed an issue that could cause the bounty amount for a Wanted player to appear halved on the map when approaching that player in the game world.

QUESTS AND EVENTS

• Breach and Clear: The Meteoric Sword now correctly has a slim chance to spawn in containers during the Breach and Clear event.
• Early Warnings: Quest progress will no longer become stuck when crafting Upgraded Motors and logging out after crafting Upgraded Motors will no longer reset the quest tracker to 0/5.
• Events: Fixed an issue that could allow a player to simultaneously join two different events.
• Events: Fast traveling after joining an event will now correctly remove the player from that event and will no longer prevent them from joining proximity event at their fast travel destination.
• Flavors of Mayhem: Rose will no longer occasionally play unrelated voiceover lines when attempting to turn in Flavors of Mayhem, and the player is no longer prevented from correctly completing the quest.
• Signal Strength: Fixed an issue that could prevent Rose’s introductory voiceover lines from playing when the player approaches Top of the World.
• Second Helpings: An area marker will now appear for the “Find Delbert Winters in Flatwoods” objective to better inform players about their options for proceeding through the quest.

SURVIVAL

• Diseases: The Rad Worms disease now correctly increases rad damage taken by 50%.

SOUND

• Weapons: Breath sound effects will now play correctly when activating the Hold Breath option while zoomed.

USER INTERFACE

• Display: Fallout 76 will now better autodetect AMD 7900/8900 series and AMD Radeon R9 200 Series graphics cards.
• Field of View: Addressed an issue causing camera clipping near walls when using a very high Field of View setting.
• Hotkeys: Fallout 76 now better supports French AZERTY keyboard layouts and the game’s controls will adjust accordingly.
• Hotkeys: While using a French AZERTY keyboard, the “/” key can now be properly rebound in the controls menu.
• Loading Screens: Fixed an issue that could cause loading screens to appear cut off or black at different resolutions when entering a building’s interior.
• Map: Character levels no longer appear truncated on the map for players over level 100.
• Nameplates: Fixed an issue that prevented player nameplates from appearing while inside the nuke zone during the Scorched Earth event.
• Nameplates: Fixed an issue that prevented the crown icon from displaying next to legendary enemy nameplates.
• Social: On Xbox, after sending a friend request to another player a notification will now display to confirm that a friend request has been sent.
• Social: The “Invite to Team” option no longer appears for players who have already joined the team.
• Social: If an attempt to fast travel to a friend or teammate using the Social Menu fails due to nearby enemies the player will now be notified by an error message that states “You cannot fast travel when enemies are nearby”.
• Trading: Decreased the wait time required between trades when making multiple trades with another player. If players attempt to make multiple trades too quickly, a new “Trade failed due to frequency, wait a moment and try again.” error message will now display rather than the previous “Trade Failed on Server” message.
• Trading: Fixed an issue on PC that could cause the player’s cursor to appear on both sides of a trade menu at the same time.
• Tutorials: New players will now receive a tutorial message informing them of the Change Appearance option in the Main Menu.
• VATS: Now selects targets more consistently across different field of view (FOV) values. For example, VATS will no longer target enemies that are visible in peripheral vision at high FOV values, but would be off-screen at default FOV values. This fix will help prevent VATS from providing an advantage to players who use high FOV settings.
• VATS: Fixed an issue that could cause the VATS interface to rapidly flicker on and off.
• Voice Chat: Fixed an issue preventing the speaker icon from appearing to others while a player is speaking over voice chat.
• Workshop Previews: The player’s current Atom balance no longer appears truncated when viewing an Atomic Shop item in the workshop preview at 16:10 and 21:9 resolutions.

Treyarch has revealed the full patch notes for the final January console update–titled 1.12–for Black Ops 4, which is now live. The update implements many changes in the console versions of the Call of Duty game, with Multiplayer, Blackout, and Zombies mode all being affected. Treyarch also wrote that additional content is “planned for later this week.”

Update 1.12 adds Blackjack’s Gun Game, Hardcore Moshpit, Endurance Chaos Moshpit, Mercenary Capture Moshpit, and Safeguard to the featured playlist in Multiplayer. In Zombies, classic and loot weapons have been added–which include the MP 40, Grav, Daemon 3XB, SWAT RFT, and KAP 45–and several bugs have been addressed.

For Blackout, all three levels of armor are being nerfed, with level three armor no longer fully protecting you from explosives or melee attacks. The radius and effectiveness of concussion grenades has also been reduced, while the fuse time and damage of the cluster grenade has increased. The new Blackout gametype Ambush has also debuted on PS4 with the new update, and is scheduled to come to Xbox One and PC next week.

Update 1.12 also adds the Barbarians special event–which was already live on PS4–to Xbox One and PC, allowing you to earn an additional 25 tiers of loot. Below, we’ve outlined the rest of the more minor changes coming in update 1.12. Again, these changes are only live on Xbox One and PS4, but come to PC next week.

Black Ops 4 Update 1.12 Patch Notes

Multiplayer

• Featured Playlists
  • Blackjack’s Gun Game added as Featured Playlist.
  • Limited-time free-for-all with new rotating weapon selection, including the KAP 45 full-auto pistol.
• Hardcore Moshpit added to Featured category (first-time addition).
• Endurance Chaos Moshpit, Mercenary Capture Moshpit, and Safeguard added to Featured category.
• Game Modes
  • Heist
    • Ghost Perk now properly works against the mode’s auto-UAV sweep.
    • Players can no longer spend cash on purchasing max ammo when they currently have max ammo.
    • Resolved an issue that could lead to multiple purchases of an item if the player had the Specialist selection menu open during round transition.
• Specialists
  • Prophet
    • Resolved an issue where the Tempest could gain an extra charge if an enemy was killed by a player-owned Seeker or Scorestreak.
  • Ajax
    • Resolved an issue where grenade fuses could expire faster while the Ballistic Shield was in use.
  • Ruin
    • Resolved an issue where the Gravity Slam would not properly trigger if the player landed directly on another player.
• Perks
  • Tracker
    • Tracker’s detection icon will no longer display after the player switches to a class without Tracker equipped.
• Gear
  • Acoustic Sensor
    • Resolved an issue where Acoustic Sensor could stop working if the player switched their class after spawning.
• Challenges
  • Crash Landing
    • Players should now properly gain progress toward this Challenge each time after earning a Gravity Slam Shutdown medal.
• Weapon Customization
  • Mastercrafts applied to secondary weapons will now update in real time.
  • Resolved an issue where a Gold Camo weapon could display a higher visual state when switched to after a new visual state was reached on a weapon with a Mastercraft applied.
  • Resolved an issue where a dropped Diamond Camo weapon could display a higher visual state when picked up by another player.
  • Resolved an issue where a teammate’s Gold Camo weapon would have a purple visual state in third-person when killed by an enemy with a Gold Camo weapon.
• Custom Games
  • Sweeping and Constant Mini Map custom rules settings now function as intended.
  • Team Deathmatch Round Score Limits greater than 500 are now available.
• Miscellaneous
  • Grenade Equipment charge will no longer be lost if the player dies during the throwing animation.
  • Players can no longer gain XP for killing teammates in Hardcore Search & Destroy and Hardcore Control.
  • Closed an exploit that could briefly speed up a player’s movement when rapidly ADSing in and out.
  • Removed custom reticles on ABR 223 and Paladin HB50 Mastercraft default optics, due to feedback on the reticles adversely affecting aiming during gameplay.

Blackout

• Gameplay Tuning
  • Armor
    • Level 1 Armor damage protection reduced from 30% to 15%.
    • Level 2 Armor damage protection reduced from 40% to 25%.
    • Level 3 Armor damage protection reduced from 50% to 35%.
    • Removed explosive damage resistance from Level 3 Armor.
    • Removed melee weapon damage reduction from Level 3 Armor.
    • Increased Armor Plates required to repair a single durability pip of Level 3 Armor from 1 to 2.
  • Concussion Grenade
    • Reduced status effect duration.
    • Reduced area of effect radius.
    • Reduced throw distance.
    • Reduced opacity of the white flash when initially concussed.
    • When concussed, players can now use Equipment, continue holding Equipment, perform melee attacks, and switch weapons.
    • Reduced hip-fire spread while concussed.
  • Cluster Grenade
    • Increased time to detonate after impact.
    • Reduced damage of mini-Cluster Grenade explosions.
  • General
    • Players can now aim down sights immediately after interacting with a door.
• Miscellaneous
  • “Longest Shot” on the Scoreboard now properly matches the After Action Report.
  • Zombies Ultimis character voiceovers now play as intended.

Zombies

• Classic and Loot Weapons
  • MP 40, Grav, Daemon 3XB, SWAT RFT, and KAP 45 weapons added to the Mystery Box on all maps.
  • MP 40 and Grav camo progression now available in the Armory for all players.
  • Daemon 3XB, SWAT RFT, and KAP 45 camo progression and customization now available in the Armory once unlocked in the Black Market.
• Stability
  • Global
    • Resolved a rare crash that could occur when players idled too long in a lobby.
    • Resolved a crash that could occur during a 4-player splitscreen session as players were bleeding out.
  • Dead of the Night
    • Fixed a crash that could occur when the player disconnected while loading into the boss fight.
    • Fixed a crash that could occur during the opening cinematic if the user quickly restarted a custom match just after leaving one.
• Miscellaneous
  • Global
    • Resolved an issue where Pack-a-Punch would be unusable for the rest of the match for all other players if a player disconnected while their weapon was still in the Pack-a-Punch machine.
    • Resolved multiple pathing issues caused when throwing a Homunculus.
    • Resolved inconsistencies in the armor gained between the Hellfire and the Hammer of Valhalla.
    • Resolved an issue where, if the player struck an electric Catalyst zombie while disoriented by its electric wave, UI may disappear when being damaged by other zombies.
    • Resolved an issue where the player could still have armor after being revived if the player triggered the Special Weapon, then immediately went down.
    • Resolved an issue where players received an error when loading into an online Zombies match, which was followed by the match continuing without UI.
    • Resolved a rare issue in high rounds where the Hammer of Valhalla’s Lightning Bolt would stop damaging zombies.
    • Resolved a rare issue where players were unable to use Perk Up after bleeding out.
    • Resolved a rare issue where the Chakram’s Whirlwind attack FX could persist after it was used.
  • Blood of the Dead
    • Resolved an issue where the Spectral Shield Key attack could persist while using an Elixir.
    • Closed an exploit where players could access exploitable areas using the Ragnarok DG-5.
  • Dead of the Night
    • Limited the maximum damage that can be dealt to the boss by any attack to prevent several exploits.
    • Resolved an issue where enemies could fall out of the map on spawn during the Wonder Weapon Crimson Nosferatu event.
    • Resolved an issue where the Crimson Nosferatu bite could deal lower than intended damage or no damage to the player.
    • Resolved an issue where Nosferatu affected by the Wonder Weapon’s charged shot could still target the player without attacking them.
    • Resolved an issue where Alistair’s Folly was not present in the Library and could not be obtained in the Mystery Box before the power was turned on.
    • Resolved an issue where, if the player quit a Custom Mutations game that had the setting for all doors to be open, the player could hitch for an extended period of time and encounter an error message.
    • Resolved an issue in Custom Mutations where the player could encounter a kill trigger in the Master Bedroom or Trophy Room if they had doors set to open and used Anywhere But Here!
    • Resolved an issue where the player could encounter an error message in Custom Mutations with doors set to open and barricades set to off.
    • Resolved an issue where Alistair’s Annihilator was slightly misaligned to the left.
  • Classified
    • Resolved a visual corruption that could occur when players were damaged by electric traps (Xbox One only).
    • Resolved an issue where the camera was not aligned to the player during the teleporter transition if the player was coming from Groom Lake.
  • Gauntlets
    • Resolved an issue where Gauntlet mode was not available in Local play, even if connected to the Internet.
    • Resolved an issue where the After Action Report in Local play would not show completed rounds.
  • Rush
    • Resolved an issue where collectible icons could spawn without glow FX.
  • Tutorial
    • Fixed a progression break that could occur if the player attempted to interact with the Fast Travel before interacting with the Pack-a-Punch pedestal.

Find out what shows, originals, and films are coming to the streaming platform in February as we list our top recommendations, including The Umbrella Academy, The Dragon Prince Season 2, and Velvet Buzzsaw!