Fortnite’s Spotlight Concert Series Kicks Off Later This Week
Fortnite continues to be one of the biggest games in the world, to the point where it’s broadened our ideas of what a game can even be. As part of that, Fortnite’s Party Royale mode will soon begin its Spotlight concert series, with different musical artists performing on the newly-constructed Spotlight sound stage.
Dominic Fike is the first artist to perform in the series, and his concert will air Saturday, September 12 at 2 PM PT / 5 PM ET, with encores later in the weekend. The event will also mark the debut of a new outfit, titled Shimmer. Fan-favorite costume Tender Defender will return to the item shop for a short period, as a nod to Fike’s song Chicken Tenders.
The concert series will continue into the fall, with unannounced artists performing on September 19 and 26. Noted rapper Travis Scott was the first artist to perform a concert within Fortnite, and the massive success of that event led fellow major performers like Diplo and Young Thug to follow in his wake.
Hyrule Warriors: Age of Calamity Is Up for Preorder
Zelda fans who are eager to get back into Link’s colorful world won’t have to wait long. Hyrule Warriors: Age of Calamity is coming exclusively to Nintendo Switch on November 20. Preorders are beginning to go live now.
Set 100 years before The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild, Hyrule Warriors: Age of Calamity has you participate in the events of the Great Calamity, which brought the world to the devastated state it’s in in BotW. Nintendo promises “dramatic cutscenes” will show Zelda, the four Champions, and the King of Hyrule trying to stop Calamity Gannon and his forces from unleashing the apocalypse.
As for gameplay, you can play as Zelda, Link, and more characters from the original game. Like previous Warriors games, this one is primarily action-based, with your hero often single-handedly taking on entire armies of enemy forces. In fact, the developers at KOEI Tecmo Games call it “1 vs. 1,000” gameplay.
Preorder Hyrule Warriors: Age of Calamity
- Get it at Nintendo eShop (digital) – $59.99
Currently, the game is only available for preorder in digital format from the Nintendo eShop. I expect the listing to go up on Amazon, Best Buy, and the rest of the usual retailers soon. I’ll add those links as they go live.
As usual for Nintendo games, Hyrule Warriors will only be available in a standard edition. No special editions have been announced, but we’ll add them here if that changes in the future.
Preorder Bonus
If you preorder the digital version of the game, you’ll get the Lucky Ladle weapon. Nintendo says this item will not be immediately available to owners of the physical version of the game.
Other Preorder Guides
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Zelda: Breath Of The Wild 2 Updates Will Have To “Wait A Bit Longer”
Back at E3 2019, Nintendo ended its Direct live stream with the surprise announcement that The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild would receive a sequel. Since then, any information on the sequel has been kept tightly under wraps, as Nintendo isn’t ready yet to divulge any new details on the game. In a brief update regarding progress on Breath of the Wild 2, Legend of Zelda series producer Eiji Aonuma asked fans to wait “a bit longer.”
“Regarding the sequel, in order to make the vast world you enjoyed exploring in the original game even more impressive, the team is working hard on its development so you’ll have to wait a bit longer before we can provide more updates,” Aonuma said at the beginning of the Hyrule Warriors reveal video.
Breath of the Wild had received downloadable content after it launched, and shortly after the reveal of the sequel, Aonuma explained that the development team simply had “too many ideas” for original content that would be better utilized in a standalone sequel.
WWE NXT’s Adam Cole Plans To Show Finn Balor Why He’s The Greatest Champion Ever
One week after a fatal four-way 60-minute Iron Man match ended in a tie between former NXT Champions Adam Cole and Finn Balor, the two are set to square off one more time. This time, though, it’ll be a one-on-one match, with one fall to a finish deciding the new NXT Champion.
While this is not the first time Cole and Balor have faced each other in singles competition in NXT, their first bout against each other was six years ago, before either were WWE superstars. “I wrestled Finn Balor on his farewell tour of the independents to go to NXT,” Cole told GameSpot. “That was the first time I had met Finn. It was the first time we had ever wrestled each other and there was this instant chemistry.”
That match took place in 2014 for the British company Revolution Pro Wrestling, and ultimately Balor–who wrestled as Prince Devitt at the time–got the victory. Now, though, Cole sees a different outcome on the horizon–and he’s got good reason to.
Hyrule Warriors: Age Of Calamity Preorders Are Live
While Nintendo continues to work on The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild sequel, Zelda fans itching to get back to Hyrule can pick up a new game this November. Hyrule Warriors: Age of Calamity releases November 20 on Nintendo Switch. It’s the second game in the Hyrule Warriors spin-off series, but it will actually tell a story that will be of great interest to Breath of the Wild fans. If that sounds up your alley, Hyrule Warriors: Age of Calamity is available to preorder now for $60.
Hyrule Warriors: Age of Calamity, as the title suggests, deals with the lead-up to the Great Calamity. As those who played Breath of the Wild know, Ganon changed the foundation of Hyrule 100 years before Link awakens in Breath of the Wild. Age of Calamity will dive into the events that led to that fateful turn for Hyrule.
As a Hyrule Warriors game, you can expect it to be far more action-oriented than mainline Zelda games. If you played the original Hyrule Warriors or Fire Emblem Warriors, you’ll know what to expect here. These crossover games use Dynasty Warriors’ hack-and-slash combat as a foundation with flashy combos and droves of enemies to defeat. While there will be tons of action, there will also be some environmental puzzles to solve across Hyrule.
Hyrule Warriors Breath Of The Wild Prequel Announced, Launches November
A new Zelda spin-off is coming to Nintendo Switch this November, Nintendo has announced. Titled Hyrule Warriors: Age of Calamity, the game is another Dynasty Warriors-style Zelda adventure developed by Koei Tecmo, and it serves as a prequel to The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild.
Set 100 years before the events of the Switch launch title, Age of Calamity chronicles the Great Calamity that devastated Hyrule as it unfolded. As in the previous Hyrule Warriors, the game will feature multiple playable characters, each with a unique play style. Players will be able to take control of Link, Zelda, and the four champions of Hyrule–Mipha, Revali, Daruk, and Urbosa–and cut through waves of Ganon’s minions. Along with the aforementioned characters, a small Guardian can be seen among the heroes in the game’s official key art, suggesting it could be playable as well.
In addition to over-the-top battles, Age of Calamity incorporates traditional Zelda elements like puzzles. Players will need to use the Sheikah Slate and other skills to overcome these and other environmental obstacles. Nintendo also says the game features “a robust story that depicts the events, relationships and dramatic moments of the Great Calamity in captivating detail.”
Hyrule Warriors: Age of Calamity Announced, Set 100 Years Before BOTW
Nintendo has announced Hyrule Warriors: Age of Calamity, a new game set 100 years before The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild, and it will be released on Switch on November 20, 2020.
Hyrule Warriors: Age of Calamity will allow players to learn more about Zelda, the four Champions – Mipha, Revali, Urbosa, and Daruk – the King of Hyrule, and more through “dramatic cutscenes as they try to save the kingdom from Calamity.”
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This new game, which is being developed by Koei Tecmo and will let players experience the Great Calamity referenced in Breath of the Wild for themselves, will have “Link, Zelda, and more use their distinct abilities” to take down everything from “barbaric Bokoblins to towering Lynels.”
In addition to Hyrule Warriors: Age of Calamity supporting local, 2-player co-op, it will also challenge players to solve environmental puzzles, unlock weapons and skills, craft with gathered materials, visit shops to obtain items, and use the power of the Sheikah Slate.
If you choose to pre-order Hyrule Warriors: Age of Calamity, you will receive the Lucky Ladle as an in-game bonus weapon for Link.
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in 2014, Nintendo released the original Hyrule Warriors, a Musou-style game similar to the Dynasty Warriors franchise, and it featured many characters and enemies from the long history of The Legend of Zelda series. It was released on Switch in 2018 and, in our review of Hyrule Warriors, we said it “Surprisingly, Hyrule Warriors does a good job of tying together the combat of Dynasty Warriors and the revered characters and lore of the Legend of Zelda series in a way that makes me feel powerful in a world I love. Character customization adds unique flavor to the simple combat, and the satisfying weapons, rewards, and story make it a fun alternative to the typically serious Zelda games.”
Eiji Aonuma, producer on the Legend of Zelda series, did mention that fans looking for new updates on Breath of the Wild 2 will have to “wait a bit longer,” so hopefully this new experience will make that wait a little easier.
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Have a tip for us? Want to discuss a possible story? Please send an email to newstips@ign.com.
Adam Bankhurst is a news writer for IGN. You can follow him on Twitter @AdamBankhurst and on Twitch.
Xbox Series S Reaction Roundup And Best Memes
Microsoft’s announcement of Xbox Series S blew up Twitter this morning, and everybody has an opinion. The console’s official confirmation came after somebody leaked the Series S trailer and images. In reaction to the leaks, Xbox’s Twitter account felt much the same way as we did.
— Xbox (@Xbox) September 8, 2020
The Xbox Series S will cost $299 in the US and £250 in the UK. No release date has been confirmed, but a report from Windows Central claims that both the Xbox Series S and Xbox Series X will release on November 10. For more information on what we know about Xbox’s newest console, head over to our article on Series S.
Marty Hess, from Xbox’s Global Product Marketing team, also teased that Xbox has more announcements on the way.
Second Extinction Is Like Planet of the Apes but with Ticked Off Dinosaurs
Second Extinction is Robert Muldoon’s dream game. Jurassic Park’s resident dino wrangler would probably love nothing more than to shoulder a heavy automatic weapon and go HAM on all of the dinosaurs who ate him. But I digress… Second Extinction, in fact, plays somewhat like a PvE Evolve with some Dino Crisis thrown in there to boot – it’s three of you on a giant map trying to accomplish a mission and extract safely from an Earth that’s been overrun by prehistoric beasts. But instead of another player controlling a giant, evolving monster, you and your two friends will battle literally hundreds of super dinosaurs who have zero intention of relinquishing control over the planet. It’s an arcade-y shooter akin to a popcorn film, meaning it’s a good time with friends that’s fun, but whose long-term viability remains to be seen.
I know that Evolve is a tainted word for a lot of people in the gaming community, but its gameplay itself was never the problem, and so I hope you’ll forgive the comparison. Like Evolve, you choose a character class, a loadout, and finally an insertion point into a particular region. You won’t know exactly where the mission objective is; you’ll only have a few points on the map that are suspected leads. And different areas have different threat levels, too, so choosing where to drop into this dino crisis is crucial; if you end up choosing poorly, you’ll have to traverse a whole lot of map – and shoot a whole bunch more angry dinosaurs – to get where you need to go.
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And once you land on the surface, it won’t be long before the action starts. The large, evil lizards will come from all directions. Each class has a primary weapon and a secondary, and ammo is scarce. Or at least, it was when I played as Rosy, the heavy who packs a giant minigun that chews through bullets. Thankfully, anyone in your party can call down equipment and/or ammo reinforcements at any time to restock not just your guns but your grenades and health kits too. You’ve each also got a special ability that’s on a cooldown. With Rosy, I chose an air strike, thinking it would be useful. And boy would I be proven right. But we’ll get to that.
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But the real fun comes from the random encounters. You might come to a cave. Clear it out and there might be some extra rewards – rewards, by the way, which you’ll use towards weapon upgrades later for your next match. You might also run into a big angry T-rex along the way, who is only vulnerable in a glowing white sac under its neck. It takes a lot of time to kill, and that’s assuming all three players have (wisely) decided to stick together. The other, smaller dinosaurs don’t politely stop attacking while the T-rex runs rampant, of course, so you’ll have your hands full. But bringing that beast down – with the help of Rosy’s air strike ability – felt incredibly satisfying.
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Second Extinction is heading into Early Access in October, and while it’s fun, it definitely still needs work. My biggest complaint so far is that bullets don’t really feel very impactful. You just point at the dinosaurs and hold the trigger down until the targeting reticle turns red (or, in the case of my minigun, the gun overheats). The enemies don’t convey much of a sense of damage being taken. I’m also a bit concerned about the long tail on this thing. Yes, you collect resources during matches that lead to upgrade tokens (which themselves can be rearranged to change your play style), but it remains to be seen if Second Extinction will be able to offer enough outside of its enjoyable core gameplay loop. Here’s hoping the development team at Systemic Reaction brings out its game’s fullest potential over time.
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Ryan McCaffrey is IGN’s Executive Editor of Previews. Follow him on Twitter at @DMC_Ryan, catch him on Unlocked, and drop-ship him Taylor Ham sandwiches from New Jersey whenever possible.