Month: February 2021

BioWare’s classic sci-fi adventure is due for a new lease on life when Mass Effect Legendary Edition launches in May, but what effect will this version have on existing and upcoming mods for the original trilogy? That’s the question that Mass Effect Legendary Edition project director Mac Walters answered on Twitter, promising that something was going on behind the scenes and that BioWare had reached out to the modding community.

“We’ve have been in touch with a few in the modding community to learn how best to a) update everyone on changes that will impact existing mods, and b) set the modding community up for success going forward. It’s ongoing, and we’ll discuss in more detail by launch,” Walters tweeted.

The question came in response to a conversation involving Orikon, a modder whose Priority Earth Overhaul mod attempted to improve on Mass Effect 3’s final level by including a vast array of restored cut content, new gameplay elements, and various improvements, ranging from bug fixes all the way to entirely new cutscenes.

Continue Reading at GameSpot

The game that makes the process of moving house actually fun–Moving Out–will continue to grow with a new expansion coming this month.

The “Movers In Paradise” DLC launches on February 25 and it includes 14 new story levels, four new move characters, and 10 new arcade levels. As its name suggests, Movers In Paradise takes players to some lovely tropical locations where they’ll need to move more stuff. Take a look at the announcement trailer below:

The DLC will be available on all platforms: PC, PS4, Xbox One, and Nintendo Switch. It’s not immediately clear if this is a free or a paid expansion pack.

Continue Reading at GameSpot

Elon Musk’s car company Tesla has purchased $1.5 billion worth of the cryptocurrency bitcoin and announced that it will accept the currency as a form of payment in the future. This investment has led to a huge rally in bitcoin’s value, racing past $43,000 at the time of writing to set a new record.

Tesla made the announcement in a filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) on Monday, February 8. Tesla said it earned board approval in January 2021 to “further diversify” its investment strategies to include new forms of currency, including bitcoin.

“As part of the policy, which was duly approved by the Audit Committee of our Board of Directors, we may invest a portion of such cash in certain alternative reserve assets including digital assets, gold bullion, gold exchange-traded funds and other assets as specified in the future,” Tesla said in the filing. “Thereafter, we invested an aggregate $1.50 billion in bitcoin under this policy and may acquire and hold digital assets from time to time or long-term. Moreover, we expect to begin accepting bitcoin as a form of payment for our products in the near future, subject to applicable laws and initially on a limited basis, which we may or may not liquidate upon receipt.”

Continue Reading at GameSpot

Microsoft is hiring for a “new project in the Halo universe.” GamesRadar discovered a job ad for a producer that will work on this unannounced project.

“This is your chance to work on one of the most exciting and creative intellectual properties in the industry with one of the industry’s most talented teams,” the job description says.

The job ad doesn’t mention any specifics about the game, but a desirable candidate should have experience shipping “AAA current generation games,” the page said.

Continue Reading at GameSpot

The PlayStation 5 will release in China during Q2 2021, Sony has announced. According to analyst Daniel Ahmad, Sony China has confirmed the next-gen console will release in China during Q2, which is the April-June period of 2021.

Executives from Sony Interactive Entertainment appeared in a Chinese New Year greetings video to make the announcement; check it out below.

The PS5 launched in North America, Europe, Australia, and other major markets back in November. In just two months, the console sold 4.5 million units around the world, which is a remarkable achievement and even more impressive given the stock shortages.

Continue Reading at GameSpot

The co-creator of Terraria has canceled the upcoming Google Stadia version of the game after his Google accounts were locked.

Andrew Spinks, or Demilogic on Twitter, explained that he has lost access to all of his Google accounts, including Google Play, Google Drive, YouTube and Gmail. Spinks has been trying to recover them for over three weeks, but his attempts have been unsuccessful, as he claims he has been “given the runaround” by Google.

“I absolutely have not done anything to violate your terms of service, so I can take this no other way than you deciding to burn this bridge,” Spinks adds. “Consider it burned. Terraria for Google Stadia is cancelled. My company will no longer support any of your platforms moving forward.”

I absolutely have not done anything to violate your terms of service, so I can take this no other way than you deciding to burn this bridge. Consider it burned. #Terraria for @GoogleStadia is canceled. My company will no longer support any of your platforms moving forward.

— Andrew Spinks (@Demilogic) February 8, 2021

“I will not be involved with a corporation that values their customers and partners so little,” Spinks continues. “Doing business with you is a liability.” Just a few days ago, fans had spotted that Terraria had been rated for Google Stadia on the Pan European Game Information website. It now looks like that version of the game won’t see the light of day.

Spinks’ Google difficulties appear to have started in late January when Terraria’s official YouTube account was disabled. The Terraria Official Twitter account posted about it last week in a (unfortunately fruitless) effort to grab Google’s attention.

Explaining the scale of the issue, Spinks wrote: “My phone has lost access to thousands of dollars of apps on @GooglePlay. I had just bought LOTR 4K and can’t finish it. My @googledrive data is completely gone. I can’t access my @YouTube channel. The worst of all is losing access to my @gmail address of over 15 years.”

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Back in 2011, we awarded Terraria on PC a 9/10 review, saying, “This devious little indie sandbox title borrows so many ideas from Notch’s game that it essentially is Minecraft in 2D, but it also beefs up the familiar gameplay in exciting ways.” The game has since come to a dozen more platforms, but it seems Stadia won’t join that list.

In other Google Stadia news, Google recently shut down all of its internal games studios, affecting approximately 150 employees.

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

Marshall, a 15-week old Boston Terrier playing in his rookie year in the prestigious Puppy Bowl, has been officially named the Puppy Bowl XVII MVP. Hailing from Salem, VA, Marshall dug deep and pulled hard for his team as part of the 2021 Starting Line-Up at this year’s Puppy Bowl.

Snoop Dogg and Jailbird Martha Stewart were there to kick off the 17th annual Puppy Bowl, which once again pitted champion against chomp’ion in a battle for the Lombarky Trophy. While the world outside of Geico Stadium has been forced to take a time-out all year long, no quarantine could keep these canine competitors from doing their doody on the field. Team Ruff in their “Fido-range” bandannas were looking for something missing after the “Blue Bones” of the Fluff team neutered their chances of a threepeat in 2020’s startling upset, but the Ruffs aren’t the type to turn tail and flee from a challenge. The two greatest to ever play the game were unleashed in a battle to see who would come out as top dog, making this one Bowl game not to miss!

Puppy Bowl XVII MVP (Most Valuable Puppy) award winner Marshall may be hearing-impaired, but there’s no mistaking the woof of this warrior — on the field and off. Playing for Team Fluff, Marshall scored a rare spinning-double-touchdown in the first quarter to give his team an early lead. When not scoring touchdowns at the Puppy Bowl, Marshall trains with Puppy Bowl XVI veteran Killian at Green Dogs Unleashed to become a therapy dog for those in need.

This was the sweet 17th annual Puppy Bowl, but for the fans of the underdog Ruff team, they saw their their team spending much of the game with the same view as a musher in the Iditarod: nothing but the lead dog hinder. With big touchdown scores from the MVP “Mad Dog” Marshall, Milky Way the “Terrible Bruiser” Terrier/Boxer, and Beliveau the Beautiful, the Fluffs were top dogs going into the half, and they continued to rub Ruff’s nose into their mess by taking a two touchdown lead in the third. Still, these young dogs on the Ruffs were ready to learn some new tricks to keep the tug-of-war going. “Multiple” Muffin heated things up with twin touchdowns, and Tank the “Rotten” Rottweiler also took it to the doghouse twice. In the final few seconds of the game, it was “Wiseguy” Paulie up against a mob of Terriers and Coonhounds as he battled Milky Way and Aaron Pawgers for the big score that would end it all.

Final score: 69 to 73 for the Ruffs, and the big dogs are back on top.

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Each and every one of these canine competitors left it all on the field in this year’s big game. And in the end, no pup was left out in the cold, as Animal Planet found adoptive parents for the stars of the event. Puppy Bowl XVII was one for the Hound Hall of Fame. Stay tuned to IGN for more information on Fluff as it becomes apparent.