Month: December 2020

As is always the case with Christmas approaching, Valve has kicked off the latest winter sale on Steam. 2020’s edition features the usual array of discounts on thousands of games and DLC packs, making for an overwhelming selection to choose from. The Steam winter sale is live right now and runs until January 5 at 10 AM PT.

Make it through the standard server errors that are accompanying the sale’s launch and you’ll see it doesn’t have a corresponding minigame or anything terribly in-depth to it, as some past Steam sales have. That said, you’ll notice birds adorning the various hubs on the Steam store, and you can get “festive bird” stickers for use on Steam that celebrate various games. You can grab these from the Steam points shop.

But the real highlight of a Steam sale are the deals, and there is no shortage of them, including great new games released in 2020. Our Game of the Year, Half-Life: Alyx, is discounted to $45, although bear in mind you’ll need a VR headset in order to play it. Other GameSpot Game of the Year nominees are on sale, including Hades for $20, Yakuza: Like a Dragon for $45, and Spiritfarer for $22.49.

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The holiday season has hit the wild west in Red Dead Online, the multiplayer mode for Red Dead Redemption 2, bringing some seasonal goodies and bonuses alongside a special new bounty event.

To start, the holiday festivities will bring special decor like wreaths, lights, and decorations around the towns, and the streets will be filled with carolers. You can pick up some free gifts in the Benefits page, including a coupons for a free coat and repeater. You can also visit gunsmiths for a new Winter Evans Repeater variant, and a purchasable Krampus Shotgun variant.

You can also pick up some new Turkoman breeds of horses in four color variants, and gather triple RDO$ and XP payouts in holiday-themed competitive modes. The Wilderness Outfitters are offering 30% off everything, along with deep discounts on butcher tables, moonshine shacks and their respective upgrades.

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Developer Treyarch has rolled out an update for Call of Duty: Black Ops Cold War on PC, PlayStation 4, PlayStation 5, Xbox One, and Xbox Series X|S that shuffles the game’s multiplayer playlist and pushes out yet another double XP event for all players.

The update is now live and it makes a number of changes to the game. As previously promised, Treyarch is issuing a double battle pass XP event for all players until December 28. In addition to the double XP event, daily challenges have been added to Black Ops Cold War’s multiplayer and Zombies modes. Other changes include playlist updates, such as bringing Face Off, which consists of 3v3 Team Deathmatch, Domination, and Kill Confirmed matches on Gunfight maps. Raid 24/7 is also live, as well as Nuketown Holiday 24/7, Prop Hunt, and Gunfight.

This update comes not long after Treyarch and co-developer Raven Software released one patch after another that not only kicked off Season 1 for both Call of Duty: Black Ops Cold War and Warzone. The patches also made a number of changes to both games, including removing helicopters due to a bug from Warzone and adjusting the spawn logic for Nuketown ’84.

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Pokemon developer Game Freak has rolled out a new update for Pokemon Sword and Shield. This patch appears to be very minor, however, primarily resolving a handful of bugs.

According to the patch notes on Nintendo’s support website, Sword and Shield‘s 1.3.1 update “fixed some issues for a better gameplay experience.” The notes don’t delve into any more detail beyond that, so it’s not quite clear what has been fixed. If the update is not automatically installed, you’ll need to highlight your game’s icon on the Switch home screen, press the Plus button, and select Software Update to manually download the patch.

This marks Sword and Shield’s first update since October’s 1.3.0 patch, which added the games’ Crown Tundra expansion. That is included alongside the titles’ first DLC, The Isle of Armor, in the Sword and Shield Expansion Pass.

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The PlayStation Store has kicked off its annual Holiday Sale, and it features many of 2020’s most popular games, including PlayStation exclusives like The Last of Us Part II and Final Fantasy VII Remake. While most of the deals are on PS4 games, all of them are backwards-compatible with PS5, meaning you can potentially get benefits like faster loading times and higher frame rates or resolutions. Some of the recently released games, such as Ghost of Tsushima, even come with free performance upgrades for PS5. The Holiday Sale runs until January 9.

For new PlayStation owners, the sale is particularly great when it comes to exclusives. The three biggest PlayStation exclusives of the year are discounted to excellent prices. The Last of Us Part II is $30, Ghost of Tsushima is $40.19, and Final Fantasy VII Remake is $30. All three of those games were nominated for GameSpot’s game of the year. Another nominee, Persona 5 Royal, is down to $30, while our 2019 Game of the Year, Sekiro: Shadows Die Twice, is down to $39.

There are plenty of worthwhile discounts on third-party 2020 hits, too. A trio of recently released Ubisoft open-world games are on sale for great prices. Watch Dogs Legion is $30, Immortals Fenyx Rising (released just earlier this month) is $40.19, and Assassin’s Creed Valhalla is $45. Each of those games comes with a free PS5 upgrade. Yakuza: Like a Dragon will be getting a free PS5 upgrade, and you can get the PS4 version right now for $45, or the Yakuza Remastered Collection for $30.

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Warner Bros. has released a trailer for The Little Things, a tense murder mystery that probably only needs the cast stated to sell people on it: Denzel Washington, Rami Malek, and Jared Leto. The film will be coming to theaters and streaming exclusively on HBO Max on January 29. Check out the new trailer below.

In The Little Things, Los Angeles Sheriff Department Jim Baxter (Malek) unofficially engages Kern County Deputy Sheriff Joe Deacon’s (Washington) help on tracking down a serial killer–who, based on the casting and trailer, is strongly implied to be Leto’s unnamed character.

However, the trailer also is shrewd enough to raise suspicion in other directions, like highlighting the fact that Deacon just so happens to be in Los Angeles on a quick evidence-gathering assignment at the time of the murders. The film’s synopsis hints at further tension, stating “as they track the killer, Baxter is unaware that the investigation is dredging up echoes of Deacon’s past, uncovering disturbing secrets that could threaten more than his case.”

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Helping close out 2020 with a rare bit of closure, Hugh Jackman has been named the winner in an ongoing and over-the-top war against Ryan Reynolds in who could raise the most for charity. Since the competition began in November, Sam’s Club clocked purchases of Laughing Man coffee (which supports coffee farming communities) for Jackman and Aviation American Gin (which supports the SickKids Foundation) for Reynolds. According to a video tweeted by Reynolds–which he says he “quite literally” has “a legal obligation to post”–it has been announced that Jackman is the winner.

While, yes, the “war” was for a good cause, basically the video above is a long-burning fuse for a quick and pretty funny joke. Sam’s Club CEO Kath McLay gives the Australian actor a Skype call to congratulate him on emerging victorious, and then mentions she’s dreading calling Reynolds next to deliver the bad news.

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