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PES 2020 Snaps Up Another Exclusive Team Licence

Konami continues to add more teams to its growing roster of exclusive licences in the upcoming eFootball PES 2020.

Argentine powerhouse Club Atlético River Plate is the latest team to appear exclusively in PES 2020, following in the footsteps of their arch-rivals Atlético Boca Juniors. River Plate’s name, logo, kits, and stadium will only grace the pitch of PES 2020 in this year’s annual release. As a result, the Buenos Aires club will now be called Núñez in FIFA 20, named after the neighbourhood the team plays in. This is similar to last year when Boca Juniors were renamed Buenos Aires in FIFA 19.

If you want to play out the intense rivalry of the Superclásico in FIFA 20, you’re going to be stuck with Núñez vs Buenos Aires. Of course, FIFA will still retain player likenesses for both teams, in much the same way as it has done with Juventus. The Cristiano Ronaldo-led Italian giants signed an exclusive deal with PES 2020 last month, resulting in the club’s name change to Piemonte Calcio in FIFA 20.

Unlike PES, FIFA players are unable to edit the names, logos, and kits of these unlicensed teams. This has lead to some frustration on behalf of FIFA’s most ardent fans, who have grown accustomed to each and every team being fully licenced. PES 2020 brand manager, Adam Bhatti, opened up about team exclusivity in a series of tweets last month, to explain Konami’s stance on the situation.

“I do understand those claiming exclusive licenses is bad for consumers,” Bhatti began. “I’d love a world where everything is shared, and the game does the talking. We have always had to deal with this continuous blockout–having the [Premier League] in PES would be great for example. However, the big teams want to feel they are in an actual partnership, not just bought to block out competitors. Everyone knows we cannot outspend EA, it’s the quality of recreation and commitment to being a true partner sharing the clubs values–that’s why we’re back.”

It’s a signal of intent for Konami after years of losing out to the EA juggernaut. The company previously signed a four-year deal with German club Borussia Dortmund, and the famous black and yellow kits were even included in promotional material for PES 19. Then, rather unceremoniously, the club prematurely tore up its contract a year early to exclusively appear in FIFA. This followed EA snatching up the Champions League licence from PES’ grasp after a decade of exclusivity for the Japanese publisher, and there are plenty of other examples of the one-sided contest between the two games, at least when it comes to licencing.

If you want to play as Boca Juniors, River Plate, or Juventus right now, a demo for PES 2020 is currently available, or you can read our feature on how PES 2020’s changes impact this year’s game.

eFootball PES 2020 releases on September 10 for PlayStation 4, Xbox One, and PC.

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THQ Nordic Announces Updates for Saint’s Row, Dead Island 2 and TimeSplitters

THQ Nordic has announced that a new Saint’s Row game is “deep in development”, Homefront: The Revolution studio Dambuster is now working on Dead Island 2 and that it has hired TimeSplitters co-creator Steve Ellis to “plot the future course” of the TimeSplitters franchise.

In the ‘Looking Ahead’ section of THQ Nordic’s latest financial report, CEO Lars Wingefors covered the company’s ongoing projects from some of its many, many studios.

The first full Saint’s Row game since 2013 is being made by creator Volition, and is “deep in development”. It’s a welcome return to the series after the slightly less well-received Agents of Mayhem.

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Overwatch: Sigma Is Now Live, As Is The New Role Queue Feature

Today’s Overwatch update brings with it two major changes – a new playable character, and a fundamental shift in how heroes are chosen before a match.

The extensive patch notes for this update introduce Sigma, who has already been available on the PTR for some time now. Now he’s being rolled out for all players on PC, Xbox One and PS4. Sigma is a new tank, A 62-year-old astrophysicist with gravity manipulation abilities. He’s able to launch two “gravitic charges”, which can bounce from walls and have a large area of effect, or use a kinectic grasp ability to freeze projectiles, turning them into shields. He’s also able to fling barriers around for his team’s protection, and attack enemies by hurling debris at them. His ultimate, Gravitic Flux, lifts enemies within range right up before slamming them back down.

The other major change is the new role queue feature. Role queue means that in Competitive Play, you’ll have to nominate your ‘role’ before finding a game, whether that means being a tank, support, or damage character. This means that in every Competitive match, each team will have two heroes of each type, and thus have a balance between support, damage and tank. Opinion has been mixed on whether or not this system is a good idea; it’ll be interesting to see how things play out now that the update is live.

Elsewhere, this patch introduces a lot of changes, additions and tweaks. Mystery Heroes mode is back, wherein players are randomly reset to a different hero in-between each round, and characters have been tweaked across the board. Interestingly, there’s been a global 12% increase to the cost of ultimates, as they’re currently “coming up too often”.

Here’s a full list of changes being made to the other heroes of Overwatch in this patch:

Ashe

  • Reload time per round decreased from 0.3 to 0.25 seconds.

Brigitte

Inspire (Passive)

  • Healing amount increased from 100 to 130
  • Self-healing from Inspire is now halved

Repair Pack

  • Now has 3 charges
  • Healing amount changed from 150 to 120
  • Now heals over 2 seconds instead of instantly
  • If you throw multiple packs at the same person, the current duration will be extended by 2 seconds

Whip Shot

  • Out-going velocity increased from 60 to 80
  • Retracting time reduced from 0.6 seconds to 0.3

Barrier Shield

  • Barrier health reduced from 500 to 200

Shield Bash

  • Stun duration reduced from 0.9 seconds to 0.75

Rally

  • Ultimate cost increased 10%

D.Va

Call Mech

  • Pilot ultimate cost reduced by 12%

Doomfist

Melee

  • Quick melee no longer pauses ammo reload.

Hanzo

Storm Arrows

  • Storm Arrows ammo reduced from 6 to 5

Orisa

Protective Barrier

  • Cooldown increased from 8 seconds to 9

Reinhardt

New Passive: “Steadfast”

  • Reduces knock back effects by 30%

Sombra

Hack

  • Duration on enemy players reduced from 6 to 5 seconds

EMP

  • Activation time increased from 0.2 to 0.35 seconds

Symmetra

Teleporter

  • Now lasts an infinite duration until destroyed
  • Players can destroy their Teleporter with the ability 2 input
  • Cooldown now starts when Teleporter is destroyed
  • Maximum range increased from 25 to 30 meters
  • Teleporter is destroyed if the entrance is more than 40 meters from the exit

Tracer

Pulse Bomb

  • Damage increased from 300 to 350

Wrecking Ball

Minefield

  • Increased projectile speed from 10 to 12, causing the mines to spread out more
  • Reduced the activation time from 0.25 to 0.1 seconds
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THQ Nordic: A New Saints Row Is Being Worked On, Plus Updates On Dead Island 2 And TimeSplitters

THQ Nordic’s new interim report has casually dropped a few big announcements on us about some major game series we have not seen in a while.

The first quarter report, focused on April-June 2019, explains that THQ Nordic – along with Deep Silver and Coffee Stain – achieved a 33% year-on-year sales growth, with a total net sales figure of SEK 641 million (about $67 million). It’s a strong figure, and the company followed it up with several announcements.

The first is that Volition is working on the first new Saints Row game since 2013’s Saints Row IV (not counting spin-off Agents of Mayhem). The team is “deep in development” on the next title, which they have called a “full entry”. Basically, it’ll be Saints Row V, whether in name or not. No further details were given, but it’s the most concrete confirmation we’ve had that a new game is coming.

THQ Nordic also announced that Dead Island 2 is, as promised, still happening. The game is now being worked on by Dambuster Studios, the studio behind 2016’s Homefront: The Revolution. Dead Island 2 has had a troubled development: it was originally in development at Yager Development, before Sumo Digital took over work on it in 2016. It’s not clear if they are still involved.

The report also speaks to Deep Silver’s acquisition of the TimeSplitters license last year, saying that Steve Ellis, one of the series’ original creators, has joined to “help plot the future course for this franchise”. The last TimeSplitters game was 2005’s TimeSplitters: Future Perfect. The report also states that Fishlabs, known for their Galaxy on Fire game series, is working on several unannounced projects and new IP.

Furthermore, THQ Nordic announced their acquisition of Gunfire Games, the developers of Darksiders III. In a press release, group CEO Lars Wingefors stated that they are “strengthening THQ Nordic’s footprint in the US and are adding an experienced and talented development team that we know very well from having collaborated on Darksiders.”

Hopefully we’ll hear more details for all of these games before the year is out.