Month: July 2020

When Skater XL launches on PC, PS4, and Xbox One on July 28, it will contain three maps created by the game’s modding community during the game’s Early Access period on Steam. The maps will be a part of the game for all players.

The three maps are Streets (by Jean-Olive), Hűdland Training Facility (by Pactole), and Grant Skate Park (by Theo). A trailer and screenshots for these maps have been released, showcasing the work of the game’s community. Theo joined the development team after creating Grant Skate Park, which will debut in the game’s 1.0 release.

In a statement released to press, developer Easy Days Studio co-founder Dain Hedgpeth praised the game’s modding community, which consists of 84,000 people who “have created thousands of amazing maps, fake skate brands and gear” in the game. states Dain Hedgpeth, Co-founder of Easy Day Studios. “Their creativity and passion have not only inspired us, but has become an integral part of the Skater XL experience,” he says, “and we want to pay homage to this by including some of their work at launch.”

Hedgpeth notes that this is “just the beginning” of the studio’s plans to highlight community-created content.

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Originally released in 2007, The Lord of the Rings Online continues to receive new update some 13 years later. The latest one invites players to attend the wedding of Middle-earth heroes Aragorn and Arwen. Just like in the book, Aragorn and Arwen will celebrate their marriage in Minas Tirith, and you can attend this joyous event and earn special bonuses for doing so.

The new event is called Epic Volume V, Book 1: A Time of Celebration, and it runs through July 20. Players will automatically receive a quest that provides a map to Minas Tirith. Once you get there, you’ll receive another quest that kicks off the Midsummer Festival. This is mean to celebrate Midsummer’s Day, which is when Aragon and Arwen got married in the year TA 3019.

There are a variety of Midsummer-themed quests, and you can visit Thorin’s Hall, Duillond, Bree-town, and the Party Tree to find them. Going forward, the Midsummer Event will be an annual event.

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Amazon’s free to play team shooter Crucible has been pulled back into closed beta just a month after its official release.

Crucible’s developer Relentless Studios revealed the news on the Crucible blog yesterday, announcing that as of today, the game will shift back into a closed beta state once more, in order to “focus on providing the best possible experience for our players.”

Despite the drastic change, Relentless is still following the roadmap it announced in early June when it decided to pull two of Crucible’s three game modes from circulation after its player base dwindled just weeks after launch. The team are focusing on “map, combat, and system changes,” and made it clear that the Crucible experience will remain much the same for those who have been playing since launch.

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“You’ll keep all the progress and customization items you’ve already earned, and the battle pass, reward tracks, and in-game store will continue to be supported,” the statement reads. Relentless is also setting up a “community council” of players who they’ll be consulting for feedback, and the team will be scheduling dedicated time each week to play the game with the current community.

Crucible’s most popular game mode, Heart of the Hives, has remained and Relentless is working on a number of new features, trying to improve the game using feedback from fans. You can check out the public Trello board here, which shows what the developers are working on at the moment, and which issues have priority.

We reviewed Crucible upon its official release in late May, giving it a 4/10 and calling the team-based shooter “a slog.”

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Jordan Oloman is a freelance writer for IGN. Follow him on Twitter.

While one team inside 343 Industries plugs away on Halo Infinite, another continues to work on Halo: The Master Chief Collection. The studio has continually introduced impressive updates for the game over the years, and this continues with a major update coming to Halo: CE in particular.

The game is getting a brand-new customization system for multiplayer. These include visors, weapon skins, and vehicle skins. You can see some work-in-progress images of the new system below.

In a blog post, design director Max Szlagor explained why 343 is adding these new visor, weapon, and vehicle skins to Halo: CE and not the other titles in the collection.

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Halo: The Master Chief Collection is changing its progression system for the upcoming Season 2 update. Developer 343 Industries announced that it will soon begin to allow people to purchase “seasonal items.” [Update: following the publication of this story, Microsoft removed the word “purchase” from its blog post, so it seems microtransactions may not be coming to MCC]

MCC currently has a battle pass-style progression system that players grind through gameplay to unlock new stuff.

“We also heard feedback that players want more choice in the order they unlock items, so we are adding the ability to purchase seasonal items in a given tier in any order that players want,” design director Max Szlagor said on the Halo website.

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Emily Grace Buck joins us to share what RPG fans can expect from The Waylanders early access story, and multiple character classes.

On today’s Save State, Persia talks about when the Xbox Series X was meant to be released, petting cats in Cyberpunk 2077, and a mission that was cut from Red Dead Redemption 2, told by the voice actors themselves.

July is just around the corner, and Pokemon Go developer Niantic has outlined a number of events it has lined up for the popular mobile game over the next few weeks. In addition to the weekly challenges being held in the lead up to Pokemon Go Fest 2020, July will bring a new Legendary Pokemon, Kyurem, to the game, as well as a new Research Breakthrough reward encounter and more.

July Research Breakthrough Reward

On top of a new batch of Field Research tasks to complete, there will be a new Research Breakthrough reward in July. Each time players collect enough stamps to achieve a Research Breakthrough next month, they’ll earn an encounter with the Rock Pokemon Larvitar, and there’s a chance it may even be Shiny.

Kyurem

Once Zekrom leaves Raids on July 7, the Legendary Ice/Dragon Pokemon Kyurem will make its debut in Pokemon Go. Kyurem will be available as a five-star Raid boss for several weeks, and there will be a Kyurem Raid Hour every Wednesday evening from 6-7 PM local time, giving you plenty of chances to catch it.

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Paper Mario: The Origami King won’t be divided into chapters like previous entries in the series and will instead feature a seamless open-world. In an interview with Game Informer, the development team talked about the open-world setup for the game.

Players are able to see the five streamers holding Princess Peach’s castle hostage and use them as hints to where Mario’s adventure will take him next. Each location features a large map that Mario can traverse across.

“One major feature that makes the world where this adventure takes place special is that there are huge maps to explore at every turn,” says Masahiko Magaya, director at Intelligent Systems. “Because the game is laid out this way, we were careful during the design phase to make sure there is always something in the player’s field of vision to catch their attention.”

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