Month: September 2020

The 2020 NFL season has wrapped up its second week, and with that, EA has adjusted player ratings in Madden NFL 21 based on how the athletes performed on the field.

Some of the players who saw their player ratings rise included Buffalo Bills QB Josh Allen, who rose from a 77 OVR to a 78 OVR after throwing for 417 yards and four touchdown passes in his team’s win over the Miami Dolphins.

Seattle Seahawks wide receiver D.K. Metcalf also had a successful week on the field, thanks to his epic 54-yard touchdown reception against the reigning defensive player of the year, Stephon Gilmore. Thanks to his strong performance, Metcalf rose to an 80 OVR rating.

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It appears Rocket League‘s conversion to free-to-play has been a success. Following the change in business models on September 23, the soccer-with-cars game reached 1 million concurrent players for the first time in its history.

Corey Davis, the co-studio head at developer Psyonix revealed the news, posting a screenshot of the game’s gigantic player population. This number seemingly counts players across all platforms–PS4, Xbox One, Switch, and PC.

According to Dot Esports, Rocket League’s previous peak concurrent player record was 120,000 back in March. The jump to 1 million showcases just how significant the impact of going free-to-play has been for the title.

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Halo’s community director has spoken up to shut down rumors about Halo Infinite‘s release date. Retail listings recently suggested that the game was scheduled for release in Holiday 2021, which is later than some might have wanted, but Brian Jarrard told the Halo community in a tweet that such listings are not necessarily accurate.

“PSA: We haven’t locked on [a] release date for Halo Infinite yet,” he said. “Anything you see on a retail site is just placeholder / speculation.”

Halo Infinite was originally lined up as a launch title for the Xbox Series X/S in November, but Microsoft pushed the game out to 2021 due in part to COVID-19 and the impact of working from home. The company has provided no indication yet as to when in 2021 the game may be released.

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Destiny 2 is set to expand in a big way soon with the launch of the Beyond Light expansion in November. Bungie has now shared some additional details on what to expect in terms of changes, and this includes an update on how your Guardian’s face can look.

With Beyond Light, Bungie has rebuilt the character face system for Destiny 2 to provide more options for diversity and more. Bungie said in a blog post that it’s long-term goal is to allow all players to create a character that they want, whatever that looks like. The studio is working on more face shapes to come in the future, and the process was reviewed by Bungie’s own Diversity Committee and Employee Resource Groups. Bungie’s full statement follows.

“We know that how your Guardians look is important to you, and we’ve long wanted to add more player customization to Destiny. Our original system for player faces had some combinatoric content authoring problems–for example, every decal had to be authored completely custom for each player face permutation,” Bungie said. “This prevented us from extending this area of the game with more content and features. We’ve upgraded to a significantly more capable system (with e.g. runtime decal projection), which we hope to leverage for more player customization options in the future.”

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In Serious Sam 4, the long-running FPS series may have finally found a workable identity. Through each entry, developer Croteam has held onto the core gameplay loop that defined Sam’s initial jaunt across Egypt. You will always back-pedal, you will always circle-strafe, and you will always fight dozens of Sam’s memorable cadre of alien enemies at once. But, at times, that loop has been obscured by some of the strange decisions Croteam has made with the series. It was never broken, but each game finds the developer trying to fix it.

Enter Serious Sam 4, yet another reinvention that seems to draw from every period of the series’ long life. As in Serious Sam 3, the graphics are realistic (though a little stiff). As in Serious Sam 2, there’s vehicular combat and humor to spare (and a surprising portion of the jokes land). And, as in First and Second Encounter, the gameplay is razor-sharp and front-and-center. It’s been nine years since the last mainline entry, and in that time we’ve witnessed the revival of circle-strafing shooters thanks to games both big (Doom) and small (Dusk). But, in this newly crowded landscape, Serious Sam 4 has a secret weapon. Croteam is simply willing to throw a ridiculous number of enemies at you at all times and it has the tech to pull it off.

In this outing, which functions as a prequel to The First Encounter, Sam and a small group of resistance fighters are attempting to push back the villainous Mental’s assault on Earth. The alien horde has already won, but the resistance hopes to score a strategic advantage by tracking down the Holy Grail, which is actually an alien artifact hidden somewhere among the art and architecture of an impressively unspoiled Italy.

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Halo 4 is coming to PC soon, marking the sixth and final game in The Master Chief Collection that will complete the package. In developer 343’s latest weekly blog post, the studio announced that Halo 4’s first public beta tests will be held “before the end of October.”

That is the current plan, but 343 admitted that beta dates are “always subject to change.” If history is any indication, the beta tests will start with a small group before expanding to a larger audience as 343 ramps things up. You must be a Halo Insider member to have a shot at participating in the betas–sign up for the free Halo Insider program here.

When Halo 4 does arrive, it will complete The Master Chief Collection on PC. The games in the package have been released in chronological order, including Halo: Reach, Halo: Combat Evolved, Halo 2, Halo 3, and Halo 3: ODST.

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Extra storage for the Xbox Series X and Xbox Series S has been detailed, and a 1TB card is going to set you back over $200. Square Enix has announced a Nier Replicant remake, and another Yakuza movie is happening.