The co-creators of Fallout are teaming up to make a new first person role-player that aims to put the fun, and the funniness, back into the genre. Bleeding Edge hands-on and interview – Xbox’s ambitious new fighter The Outer Worlds is so dripping in irony they should probably get Alanis Morissette to do the theme tune. It’s a video game about the evils of capitalism by a developer that’s just been bought out by one of the biggest companies on the planet. It’s also a game which celebrates what can be done on a very modest budget, even though, suddenly, that’s not a problem at all. And then, finally, there’s the fact that it’s full of comic irony, an action role-player by the original creators of Fallout that remembers that one of the main appeals of the series used to be that it was purposefully funny. Although there’s no post-apocalyptic setting (thank goodness, we think we’ve had enough of those for now) The Outer Worlds is not ashamed of the debt it owes to Fallout. But then it’s being made by two of the original creators, Tim Cain and Leonard Boyarsky, who, unlike Bethesda, were with the franchise from the beginning and partly responsible for creating the original setting and concept. Cain was the producer on the first Fallout and co-director on the second, while Boyarsky, who we got to interview, started as an artist on the first two games before going on to become co-director of Vampire: The Masquerade – Bloodlines and senior world designer on Diablo III. So between the two of them they’ve been involved in some of the most acclaimed Western role-playing games of all time. The idea in The Outer Worlds is that you’re on an alien world that was originally meant to be terraformed into a paradise but things went wrong and the process ended up turning the wildlife into aggressive monsters, leaving behind only the less principled corporations and a colony ship that’s only there by accident – and with most of its passengers still in hibernation. As one of those that has been woken up your goal is to make a life for yourself and, if possible, find a better planet. The basic set-up seems closer to Borderlands than Fallout but the gameplay clearly has a lot in common with Bethesda’s first person titles, as well as the original isometric entries. The graphics though are unlikely to be winning any awards, at E3 or elsewhere, and it’s a testament to The Outer Worlds’ other qualities that the low budget visuals don’t get in the way at all. ‘We never really had much choice!’ says Boyarsky, when we ask him whether he got frustrated having to working with a relatively small budget.
‘Even when we were pitching this three years ago, when we first started working on it, Private Division [2K’s new indie label] were interested but we didn’t have a lot of other people that were. So we had to pitch this as a smaller game. It’s less risk, but it also means we get more freedom in what we do.’ The hands-off demo starts with you picking up a mission in a Wild West style town, where one of the local gang/business leaders wants you to take out a rival who’s making a killing selling a bacon-esque product that is actually a disgusting-looking tumour that has to be harvested from creatures called cystypigs. That’s not the sort of mission you’d ever get in Fallout and while Boyarsky is reticent to comment on why Bethesda took the black comedy out of the series he does know why it was added back in for The Outer Worlds. ‘That’s really a result of the people who are making it’, he says. ‘You get a snapshot of our personalities in that game [the original Fallout] and that was when we were sitting around talking about the game we wanted to make. So my darkness and Tim’s silliness, and a couple of other people’s personalities, all wedged together and that’s what we came up with. There was no one around telling us we couldn’t do it and it’s kind of the same this time as well.’ The Outer Worlds – we forget what these are called but we were told they were dangerous Despite the irony provided by Obsidian’s new owners the game does have a serious side to it, in that it pokes fun at corporate logic that, while exaggerated for The Outer World’s sci-fi world, is not as far removed from reality as it first seems. We suggest to Boyarsky that that works because the more you poke fun at seemingly serious institutions the more absurd you realise they really are. ‘That’s a fantastic way to put it’, he says. ‘And I think one of rules, when we’re talking to our writers and level designers, when they were trying to make something that would fit with the humour of the game, is that if you’re going to do something that’s very dark it has to have a silly, humorous edge to it and vice versa. ‘Because, even beyond just making a point, if you want to do something that has an impact on the player… if you just have it so dark and miserable it’s not fun to play it turns people off because it’s too heavy. We knew we wanted to do this world that was kind of on the verge of collapse and it could have been very depressing if we played it straight, so we wanted to be a fun game.’ ‘And to me, the way I like to make points, is through humour. I feel like it’s more effective, I feel like people don’t think you’re lecturing at them so much. And even then I’m way more about raising questions than trying to tell you what the answer is’, adds Boyarsky. ‘Because even with the corporate side of this game we try to make it that when you go and talk to them they have logical reasons for doing what they’re doing. They think they’re in the right.’ ‘‘They’re not sitting there thinking, ‘How are we going to make people’s lives horrible?’ They think they’re creating this perfect society that works for the best of everybody. So I always try to approach things that way, where it feels like they’re characters with believable motivations even if it’s coming from an absurd situation.’ The demo mission involves a quick trip into the wastelands, where the more dangerous creatures are avoided and the smaller ones dealt with for a quick bit of loot. That’s almost the only action we see in the demo though as the guy playing opts to instead talk things out with the various guards he meets. Although rather than the po-faced dialogue of Fallout that involves bullying, charming, and even romancing other characters – from bluffing your way past lazy, dim-witted guards to whispering binary poetry into robots’ metal ears. Even with a non-player character in tow you have a special disguise which is convincing enough that you can talk to most people and have a chance of convincing them you should be there, rather than them just shooting you on sight. That even works with the robots, which you’re able to reprogram to shoot the guards, allowing you to sneak into the main office and confront the big boss. ‘Charlie and Tim looked at a lot of different shooter action games to see what kind of things they wanted but our main game was always about an in-depth story with a lot of reactivity’, says Boyarsky of the core mechanics. ‘I’m really happy that we were able to get the disguise system in there, because I think it’s a wonderful way for talking characters to be able to get through restricted areas. It’s like your sneak path for a talking person, because I can talk my way past guards.’ Once you reach your target you’re given the option to simply shoot him, as per your contract, to take more money from him to do the opposite, or convince him that he should team up with the other gang leader and find a peaceful solution. The Outer Worlds has all the role-playing depth you’d expect of a Fallout style game but it’s the ability to talk your way out of trouble that really sets it aside from the crowd. That and the fact that the dialogue is interesting, and funny, enough that you actually want to sit through it all.
The obvious parting question for Boyarsky is whether he knows what he’ll work on after The Outer Worlds and whether it will take advantage of the larger budgets offered by the Microsoft acquisition. ‘I think I know’, he says. ‘But hopefully the budget will be within reason. I don’t wanna fall into that trap.’ ‘Obviously a bigger budget is better, but only within reason. Because I feel like some of the best ideas that me and Tim have come up with, in our careers, were forced onto us by having to have creative solutions to things like not enough time or not enough money. ‘I feel like if you are not given any restrictions or things you have to overcome, I feel like people can end up spinning their wheels or trying to put too much into it. It’s a great way to focus your thinking when you have to figure out, ‘How are we going to do this with this amount of money and this amount of time? ‘I think it just gives you a lot more freedom in a lot of ways. It doesn’t give you as much freedom on the technological flashiness end, but it gives you more freedom on content.’ Formats: Xbox One, PlayStation 4, and PC Publisher: Private Division Developer: Obsidian Entertainment Release Date: 25th October 2019 The Outer Worlds – the graphics are okay, but nothing more
Fortnite may no longer be able to claim it’s the biggest video game in the world, as interest begins to fall and Minecraft sees a resurgence. EA claim UK Parliament loot boxes are ‘surprise mechanics’ and ‘quite fair’ If there’s two video games every parent, even those that have zero interest in gaming, have heard of it’s Minecraft and Fortnite (with Grand Theft Auto probably in third, even though kids aren’t supposed to play it). Fortnite’s unparalleled success has been due to just a few obvious factors: it’s free, it’s constantly updated, and it’s actually quite good. Everyone plays it but particularly cash-strapped kids, at whom most of the marketing and gaudy costumes are aimed at. But what goes up must go down and at some point Fortnite is inevitably going to see a decline in interest, and that time looks like being round about now. The latest Google search data, as noticed by Forbes, shows that interest in Fortnite has been on a steady decline and Minecraft has seen an unexpected spike – with Minecraft creators Mojang reporting that YouTube views of Minecraft related videos were up 8% last month. Fortnite’s decline is by no means sudden or unexpected but what is surprising is the rise in interest for Minecraft.
It’s probably related to the game’s 10th anniversary celebrations, which have raised its profile, and the annoucement of mobile AR app Minecraft Earth and console-based dungeon crawler Minecraft Dungeons. Although plenty of adults play Fortnite the audience for Minecraft is more predominately children, with most tending to grow out of it in their early teens. The uptick though could show that some are no longer embarrassed by their earlier obsession and are now coming back to the game. Something which Minecraft Earth is likely to encourage even more.
The Fortnite 8.50 Patch Notes are available right now for all players around the world. This long-awaited update comes with the release of the Avengers Endgame crossover event and much more. Without further ado, let’s jump right into the Fortnite 8.50 Patch Notes and see what’s new. For Creative and Save the World, check out the official site.
Fortnite 8.50 Patch Notes
Endgame – Limited Time Mode Join the battle for the Infinity Stones! Fight as Chitauri and Thanos or wield Avengers items in the Endgame LTM.
Limited Time Mode: Endgame
Summary Thanos and his Chitauri invade the Battle Royale island, in search of the six Infinity Stones.
Mode Details
Endgame features a team of heroes fighting to stop Thanos and his Chitauri from claiming all six Infinity Stones.
Both teams respawn when eliminated until the other side completes their objective.
On one side is the Hero team. Heroes respawn when eliminated until the enemy team has found all six Infinity Stones.
Heroes start with a treasure map that leads directly to a Mythic Avengers item.
Other Avengers items can be found in Chests throughout the map.
The goal for the Hero team is to destroy the Chitauri army and defeat Thanos.
Team Thanos is comprised of Chitauri Invaders and Thanos himself.
Chitauri Invaders start with a powerful laser rifle, an anti-structure grenade attack, and a jetpack that lets them briefly leap high into the air.
The first Chitauri to recover an Infinity stone will be transformed into Thanos.
Thanos has a powerful punch, a destructive beam attack, and the ability to jump high into the air and then smash anything in his way when he comes back down.
Each time an Infinity Stone is claimed, Thanos’ abilities grow more powerful and the Chitauri gain health.
Reality Stone (Red) = Heath & Shields doubled (1000->2000)
Soul Stone (Orange) = Siphon activated (grants Thanos shields only)
Mind Stone (Yellow) = Jump height doubled
Space Stone (Blue) = Ground Pound AOE size tripled, damage x6
Time Stone (Green) = Big knockback added to each hit, damage x3
Power Stone (Purple) = Laser damage x6
If Thanos is eliminated from the match, another Chitauri will become him after a short wait (unless Thanos is the last one standing).
If Thanos & the Chitauri find all six Infinity Stones, Heroes will no longer be able to respawn.
The goal for Thanos and his army is to find the stones and then eliminate the remaining heroes.
Weapons + Items
Bug Fixes & Improvements
The Hold to Swap functionality is now confirmed upon releasing the Use button rather than when initially pressing it.
This should help with the issue of accidentally swapping.
If a player is eliminated by fall damage while inside a vehicle, the player that last damaged that vehicle will receive the credit for that elimination.
Re-enabled hit markers to be server-side authoritative instead of client-side.
This will help prevent instances where players see hit markers but no damage.
Players that were Rebooted into Rifts were teleporting into the sky but would not enter skydiving mode.
Vehicles weren’t getting impulsed away from the Reboot Van.
Collision for the Reboot Van was not affecting some vehicles, allowing them to hide inside of the Reboot Van.
The yellow “invulnerability” effect wasn’t appearing on players who were revived by the Reboot Van.
The Reboot Card was still playing its spawn sound even if the player disconnected.
Dropping inventory items while in vehicles with weapons is now blocked to prevent various camera issues.
Traps were occasionally being placed in the middle of a tile rather than against a wall when using Builder Pro.
When exiting vehicles, the equip animation will now always play before weapons can be fired.
This will prevent the issue where players would occasionally see themselves fire right after exiting a vehicle before the server had time to register the shot.
The elimination feed text will no longer display the “eliminated by ally” message if an ally interrupts a player reboot animation.
Fall damage was being taken when using a Jetpack (in supported Limited Time Modes) after being launched from the Pirate Cannon.
Players were not able to negate fall damage using a Flintlock Pistol while crouching.
Players couldn’t see the nameplates of party member’s Reboot Cards in the UI.
Players would not drop a Reboot Card if they were eliminated after confirming a Reboot but before their teammate actually spawned.
Gameplay
Bug Fixes & Improvements
We’ve resolved an issue that was preventing the correct amount of Survival XP from being granted after games and have gifted XP to players as compensation.
You’ll receive this compensation via the Gifting system.
Competitive
New Tournament – April 27 & 28: Fortnite World Cup Online Open Week 3 ($1,000,000 total prize pool!)
Participation in this event requires players to reach Champion League in Arena.
Region Lock is in effect – players may only participate in the qualifier for a single server region each week of the Online Opens. The server region of the first match entered for that weekend’s tournament will be the one the player will be locked into for that entire weekend.
Format:
April 27 – Round One: All Eligible Players.
April 28 – Round Two: Top 3000 Players from Round One.
Streaming Replays – Currently only available on PC & Mac
Added tournament Match History, which can be viewed by selecting a player on the leaderboards.
Replays can be viewed from each match that player has played.
Added the ability to spectate live matches during tournaments by selecting a player on the leaderboards.
Note: Match must have been running for 10 minutes for live replay to be available.
Added the ability to view a specific match by game session ID using the “View Streaming Replay” button in the Replay Browser.
Arena & Tournaments will now record profile stats to Solo/Duo/Squad categories rather than as an LTM.
Bug Fixes & Improvements
Players in Arena were incorrectly seeing themselves demoted to a lower division after losing Hype.
This was strictly a visual issue and all Hype values and division unlocks are once again being displayed correctly.
Tournament posters in-game were incorrectly showing certain events as starting in ‘2 Days’.
Tournament posters and the Arena Panel were not loading properly on mobile devices.
Performance
Bug Fixes & Improvements
Resolved a cause of significant hitching during skydiving. and during late game combat.
Art + Animation
We’ve added a unique animation for petting the dog and other Pets.
Audio
Added Sound Visualizer without Spatialization (panning) of sounds in-game.
By introducing this mode, if you are a hearing-impaired player, then you will now be able to play the game with audio and the visualizer turned on simultaneously!
Drop in and give us your feedback about these changes either in-game or on our social channels to help us continue to make improvements for the future!
Bug Fixes & Improvements
Various gameplay sounds (gunshots, walking, reloading) will no longer retrigger at incorrect/random times.
This was causing “ghost” sounds to be heard when nothing was causing the actual sound effect.
Fixed an issue that would cause certain things to not have looping audio when they should.
Replay
Bug Fixes & Improvements
When healing with foraged Banana or Apples, the full visual effects weren’t playing when viewed in replays.
Mobile
The reactive effects were not working properly for the Marshmello Outfit.
MSAA anti-aliasing enabled on P30 Pro, Mate 20, Mate 20X.
The interact button now has context-sensitive icons.
You can now move while the map is open by providing input on the left side of the screen.
Bug Fixes & Improvements
Made improvements to stability and to resolve some crashes.
Made performance improvements on the iPad Mini 4 and Air 2.
The movement joystick wasn’t appearing on the HUD for certain devices.
Push notifications were not being sent after updates finished downloading.
Blocked players on player’s friend lists were not appearing as ‘Blocked’.
The fire button and right fire-stick would not function after anchoring the Baller grapple with tap to fire.
The right fire-stick was not allowing camera movement while in the Baller.
The Baller grapple was not releasing on the first tap.
Players could get stuck in an infinite fire loop after exiting the Baller while it was anchored with the grapple.
Double tapping was required to detach the Baller’s grapple when using tap to fire.
There were visual issues on the Back Button in the menus.
Voice Chat icons from players set to “sit out” were not appearing.
Ammo boxes weren’t opening.
The Confirm and Cancel buttons in Squad Management were difficult to touch/interact with.
The Option menus were closing the unapplied changes was closing the entire menu instead of just the popup prompt.
Menu icons could be removed from the HUD Layout Tool.
Vehicle boost icons were appearing different between viewing them in a match vs in the HUD Layout Tool screen.
The Score Tracking widget can now be removed from the Mobile HUD
Score Tracking widget can now be removed from Mobile HUD
It was difficult to see character and weapon animations while using the Boom Bow.
The Map widget was setting its anchors inappropriately when moved in the HUD layout tool, making some attached game mode UI push the Map widget off the screen.
You may need to reset the Map widget in the HUD Layout Tool to resolve this issue.
The Fortnite Week 9 Challenges are finally here after last week’s decent challenges and a super awesome patch today. As always, there are a ton of challenges to complete including dancing between three ice sculptures. In this guide for Fortnite Battle Royale, we are going to let you know how to complete this fun and quick challenge.
For starters, as always, the Fortnite Week 9 Challenges are now available. There are seven challenges in total per usual. Three of those challenges for all players but four of them are only for those who own the season eight battle pass, but you might already have that if you did the overtime challenges last season.
But for the purposes of this article, we are going to focus on the dance between three ice sculptures challenge. This is a multi-part challenge but we’re going to focus on the first part. It’s not super hard to do as all you need to do is find the location, dance there, and that’s it. Well, if you do it three times at least.
The location of the three ice sculptures are, thankfully, right by each other so you won’t have to go far to find the right spot to dance. But where are they? Well, as you’d probably expect, they are found in the snowy biome from the start of season seven. They are directly east of Frosty Flights and southwest of Polar Peak.
You can find the three ice statues in a small forest just at the base of the mountain where Polar Peak is. They’re really close to one another so all you need to do is head to the middle of them and do any dance emote and you’re good to go. That concludes the first part of but one of the Fortnite Week 9 Challenges.
It is pretty hard to imagine a world without Fortnite, isn’t it? But it turns out that if former Epic Games director Rod Fergusson had stuck around, the world might have been very different indeed. According to Fergusson, had he still been in charge later than he was, it is possible that Fortnite never would have been completed.
The Former Epic Games Director Would’ve Killed Fortnite
While chatting with Game Informer, Rod Fergusson was none too impressed with Fortnite when it was under development and he was still the Epic Games director. In fact, he actually tried to stop it from moving forward.
Fergusson said the game “would not have passed bar” by his standards. He explained, “Before I left, I tried to cancel Fortnite. When it was Save the World… that was a project that had some challenges. And as the director of production at the time, that game would not have passed my bar for something we should continue to keep going… So when people look at me and say ‘don’t you feel bad [that you left before the game succeeded]?’ I say no, you should feel really good, because that game you love – that worldwide sensation – would not exist had I stayed at Epic.”
It is rare to get such a frank assessment of a short-sighted decision by someone in the industry. It just goes to show that sometimes it can be really hard to tell what the next big thing could be, and what is worth pursuing. It makes you wonder what Epic would have worked on instead had Fergusson successfully cancelled Fortnite.
So given that he was dead wrong about Fortnite, how does Fergusson feel about what the game has achieved since? He does say that he “doesn’t lose sleep” regarding his decision. But he is “supper happy” for the success of the team with the game.
There are signs that Fortnite’s popularity has been waning. Nonetheless, the game holds pretty strong. And some decline is expected, given that Fortnite is no longer the hot new sensation. Want to make sure you don’t miss out on any Fortnite news? Be sure and check our Fortnite news section regularly. While the game has been around for a while now, the creative team over at Epic continues to innovate fresh experiences for the Fortnite player base!
A few months ago I wrote a story about ray tracing-style effects through the use of path tracing in Minecraft with incredible results, but I feel like the game has taken another gigantic leap in the graphics department with a new video below combining the Stratum 2048×2048 textures, ‘ray tracing’ at 4K, realistic graphics mods and oh-so-much more. Check it out: Modder ‘Hodi’ has a Patreon page where he concentrates on making textures only, and to goo effect – I mean, that video above sells the entire thing easily, right?! Powered with an Intel Core i7-6700K, 16GB of RAM and an NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1080 Ti we have the results above, a glorious-looking Minecraft that seems out-of-this-world good. Hodi used the following mods, textures, and tweaks: Minecraft 2019 – Stratum 2048x POM/PBR | Continuum Shader – Ultra Realistic Graphics – Ray Tracing – 4K tratum 2048x POM/PBR minecraft realistic graphics minecraft photorealistic textures minecraft raytracing minecraft ray tracing minecraft Continuum Shader minecraft 2019 minecraft ultra textures minecraft ultra graphics minecraft texture download minecraft resource pack Another video I found on my hunt for the Stratum 2K Photorealism + Continuum 2.0.2 mods for Minecraft led me to the above video by ‘Ultimate Immersion’ and it looks f***ing wild. I mean, seriously – this is just Minecraft with mods and it looks absolutely mind blowing — especially when you consider how barebones basic Minecraft actually is in the graphics department.
