Month: June 2020

Infinity Ward is increasing their efforts to ban racist names from Call of Duty: Modern Warfare and Warzone, the developer announced in a recent tweet. The post says that they already ban users with racist or hate-orientated names from the game but additional counter-measures are being put in place to make sure names don’t slip through the cracks.

“There is no place for racist content in our game. This is an effort we began with launch and we need to do a better job. We’re issuing thousands of daily bans of racist and hate-orientated names. But we know we have to do more – and we are,” Infinity Ward said in the statement.

The tweet goes on to say that they will be adding additional resources to monitor and ID racist content and additional in-game reporting systems to increase the number of bans per hour. They will also be adding filters and greater restrictions on name changes in addition to increasing permanent bans to root out repeat offenders.

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Battlefield V‘s last big content update–the Summer Update–is coming soon, and now developer DICE has shared more details about it. First and foremost, DICE said it will not publish promotional materials or trailers for the new update like it’s done in the past so as to not distract from the more important issues in the world today following the murder of George Floyd.

“We’re otherwise encouraging that we all take notice of what’s happening in the United States, as well as other places around the world, and ask how we can all do more, as we must do more,” DICE said in a blog post. “Racism should not exist in our society. We stand with all of our African-American / Black colleagues and partners, families and friends, and everyone around the world who is ready to see it end.”

DICE is owned by Electronic Arts, which has pledged more than $1 million to organizations including the Equal Justice Initiative and the NAACP Legal Defense & Educational Fund, along with others to be announced. EA will also double-match employee donations.

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Pokemon Sword & Shield: Isle of Armor gets a release date, Sega announces the Game Gear Micro, and a lot of stuff gets delayed.

Kingdoms of Amalur: Reckoning, the 2012 RPG from controversial former Boston Red Sox pitcher Curt Schilling’s ill-fated development studio 38 Studios and publisher EA, is making a comeback of sorts.

New rights-owner THQ Nordic is re-releasing the game in August with Kingdoms of Amalur: Re-Reckoning. German studio Kaiko is said to be handling the re-release.

The product description on Xbox.com states Re-Reckoning will release on August 11. All the DLC from the original game–including Teeth of Naros and Legend of Dead Kel–is included with the re-release. The game also promises “improved graphical fidelity.” You can check out a series of images in the gallery above.

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Kart racing fans rejoice! KartRider: Drift‘s second closed beta is now live, and players who have been accepted can download the game and jump right into Nexon’s latest free-to-play racing game.

If you’ve been wanting to get into the beta but haven’t been able to yet, our KartRider: Drift beta code giveaway is still active for a few more hours so enter now! Players can continue registering for the game even while the beta is active—the cut-off date is June 8.

Those who experienced the first wave of beta testing for KartRider: Drift will notice a number of in-game improvements, including a totally redone UI, a cleaner HUD, a rearview mirror, and other balance changes to make your racing experience more realistic. This second wave of the closed beta also introduces a new character, Diz, and new courses for players to try out along with a variety of cosmetic upgrades.

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Gwent, the card game spin-off of The Witcher 3, has a new expansion coming. On June 30, players will be able to play the Master Mirror expansion, which brings back the ominous Gaunter O’Dimm.

As the trailer below shows, O’Dimm has been pulling the strings behind the scenes for some time now, and this expansion will bring him to the forefront in the card battling game. The trailer suggests that this will have some major implications for Gwent’s storytelling.

The expansion will add 70 new cards, including several faction-specific cards and a new Legendary card type. There are 11 new neutral cards coming, too, as well as new statuses and abilities.

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Among the new cast members for James Cameron’s Avatar sequels is Harry Potter actor David Thewlis. He’s now confirmed more details about his role in the sequels, clarifying that he’s not in Avatar 2, but he will definitely be in Avatar 3 and possibly Avatar 4 and 5 if they are made.

Speaking to Collider, Thewlis said there has been some misconception that he’s in Avatar 2. “I’m not in Avatar 2. I’m going to be in Avatar 3, which was shot at the same time as Avatar 2, and the plan is that I will be in Avatar 4 and 5, as well,” he said. “I just wanted to clear that up because somebody got that wrong recently.”

As announced previously, Avatar 2 and 3 are filming back-to-back, but whether or not Avatar 4 and 5 are produced will depend on the success of the first of the sequels.

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Calling all those who are fans of both Star Wars Battlefront 2 and Tiger King. Yes, that’s not a typo. There’s a new Star Wars Battlefront 2 Mod that reskins Han Solo as the infamous Joe Exotic from Netflix’s hit show.

Tiger King made our list of the biggest Netflix exclusives in 2020 and Joe Exotic’s popularity has skyrocketed accordingly. While a controversial figure amongst viewers, there’s no doubt that he’s made it into this year’s pop culture lexicon, so this Star Wars Battlefront 2 mod doesn’t come completely out of left field.

This mod is currently available on Nexus Mods, and it reskins the in-game Han Solo model to look just like Joe Exotic. We’re talking hairstyle changes, fashion faux pas, and more. Users who have downloaded the mod have been leaving comments requesting a Carol Baskin skin for another Star Wars Battlefront 2 character, but it doesn’t look like the original creator has delivered on that particular front.

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Days of Thunder, the 1990 Tom Cruise film, received a spin-off game on NES back in 1990–but a different game based on the movie that was in development was scrapped, and never saw the light of day. Now, 30 years later, this alternate version of Days of Thunder has been reconstructed into a playable title by video game historians.

Chris Oberth was working as a programmer at Mindscape in 1990, and thanks to The Video Game History Foundation a never-before-seen game by him has been reborn. Oberth passed away in 2012, and the VGHF was later approached by a friend of Oberth’s family asking if its members could “make sense” of some of the materials Oberth left behind. In early 2020, the foundation was granted access to Oberth’s materials, in which they discovered a disc labelled “NINTENDO HOT ROD TAXI FINAL”.

Oberth was known to have worked on an unreleased Days of Thunder game, thanks to a three-part interview with The Retrogaming Times, and after some investigation and sorting through materials the team found close to 40 floppy disks, containing multiple encrypted and split files that would need to be reconstructed to get the game properly running.

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Borderlands developer Gearbox Software has joined the chorus in supporting Black Lives Matter and pushing back some of its scheduled plans for Borderlands 3 in solidarity with the movement. In a statement on Twitter, the developer said it’s delaying the release of the Takedown at the Guardian Breach update.

Additionally, the studio is muting its Twitter channel–with the exception of this announcement–out of respect for “what’s going on in the world right now.”

2K Games, which publishes the Borderlands series, said it’s adding another $1 million USD to the 2K Foundations Program and expanding its scope to include fighting racial injustice and inequalities in black communities around the world.

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