Month: June 2019

The new Avengers game from Crystal Dynamics has been likened to Bungie’s Destiny in that you’ll be able to team up, online to complete missions with other players. But that is only an option. Crystal Dynamics boss Scott Amos confirmed in an interview that the game is playable offline.

“We want somebody to be able to go buy a disc and never have to go online,” he explained to GI.biz. “You don’t have to. You can have a complete experience and have fun.”

For those who do want to play online, Square Enix is promising a robust, ongoing, and evolving experience with new characters and locations added over time–and for free.

“The idea, from the beginning, is that we want you to be able to customise your hero; how they look, how they play, the gear they have and how they use it,” Amos said. “Your Black Widow could be different to my Black Widow–just a little, maybe a lot depending on what you favour and how you unlock things.”

The Avengers game will make extra money beyond the upfront cost through various microtransactions for cosmetic items. There are no loot boxes or pay-to-win mechanics, and Amos promises, “No gameplay paywalls.”

“We want people to be able to play together and go on this journey, but we also want to say if you want to over-invest in your characters and customise them, you’ve got it,” Amos said. “We also have ways for you to earn a lot of those things. We want to give players as much flexibility as possible because it’s for them. We make this for the fans. At the end of the day, we will listen to them and get feedback from them and we’ll adjust everything to serve that need… We want to reward them for the hours they’re investing in our game.”

The new Avengers game launches in May 2020 for PlayStation 4, Xbox One, and PC, while it’s also coming to Google Stadia. The game features a number of iconic MCU heroes such as Iron Man, Captain America, Black Widow, and the Hulk, but the game doesn’t use the likenesses of MCU actors. Some people were not happy about the new character designs, but Crystal Dynamics won’t change them.

Harry Potter: Wizards Unite appears to be yet another success for developer Niantic Labs. According to data from research company SensorTower, the free-to-play mobile game pulled in a healthy $300,000 across iOS and Google Play over its first 24 hours of availability last week. And that number only counts revenue in the United States and United Kingdom.

According to the report, Wizards Unite also reached 400,000 installs after its first day.

Wizards Unite is nowhere near as popular or profitable as Niantic’s previous release, Pokemon Go. That title generated around $2 million in revenue after its first day, according to SensorTower.

Wizards Unite is currently featured in the iOS app store’s Games page front and center, which is surely helping its visibility and in turn profitability. Of course the game is also based on one of the world’s most popular media franchises, Harry Potter, and its free-to-play model gives a low barrier to entry. It’ll be interesting to see if Wizards Unite can succeed in delivering new content regularly to keep players interested and engaged (and spending money) on the game.

For lots more on Wizards Unite, be sure to check out GameSpot’s rundown of everything you need to know, including Wizarding challenges, wand choice, friend codes, microtransactions, and more.

The new Avengers game from Square Enix that was revealed at E3 this year has some big names behind it. It was already confirmed that Naughty Dog veteran Shaun Escayg is the game’s creative director and longtime EA/Visceral developer Stephen Barry is game director, and now we’ve learned a few of the other names working on the PS4, Xbox One, and PC title.

Crystal Dynamics studio head Scott Amos told GI.biz that the developer also hired Dave Fifield to work on multiplayer and Vince Napoli for combat design. Fifield worked on a number of Call of Duty games at Activision, while he also contributed to the Halo series at Microsoft. Napoli, meanwhile, recently worked on Sony where he was lead systems designer for God of War; specifically, he oversaw the development of Kratos’ axe, chain blade, and shield/bare hand combat design.

“We cherry-picked the best of the best and said: ‘Let’s put this together in a new way for something bigger than we’ve ever done,'” Amos said.

Square Enix appears to be putting a lot of muscle behind the new Avengers game. It’s assembled five studios to jointly develop the title including Crystal Dynamics in Redwood Shores, California, as well as sister studio Crystal Northwest in Bellevue, Washington. Nixxes Software in the Netherlands is also contributing to The Avengers, while Eidos Montreal is also working on it. In addition, Square Enix Japan has a “tech group” contributing to the new title.

“We’ve literally had to put these five studios together and say: ‘We’re going this far. Tomb Raider, awesome. Rise of the Tomb Raider, even better. Shadow of the Tomb Raider… and it’s like no, we’re going beyond the boundaries,'” Amos said.

The new Avengers game launches in May 2020, though an Avengers beta coming to PS4 first will kick things off before release. Square Enix’s announcement also included details like cooperative gameplay, free post-release DLC, and the all-star voice cast includes Troy Baker, Laura Bailey, Nolan North, Travis Willingham, and Jeff Schine.

In other news, Marvel is bringing Avengers: Endgame back to theatres with extra content. Maybe the re-release will help the film eclipse Avatar to become the highest-grossing movie ever.

Keep your gaming laptop cool while adding a bit of flair to the whole setup with one of these laptop cooling pads.

The 4K gaming is here and to make the most of it you’re going to want the best 4K TV for gaming.

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When it comes to setting up your gaming space, a goof quality chair is one of the things that often goes overlooked in favour of more techy additions but, along with your desk, it’s the one thing which should receive some time and consideration.

Choosing an unsupportive or poorly made chair can impact more than your in-game performance. In the long term it can lead to problems like neck and back disorders and numbness and tingling in the hands and feet, and in the short term it can leave you with a stiff neck or a pain in the backside, and let’s be honest, none of those things sound like a lot of fun.

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