Many BioWare fans were bummed when the studio confirmed there are no romance options in Anthem, its upcoming shared-world looter shooter. As lead producer Mike Gamble told Game Informer, "we're moving away from that for Anthem." However, BioWare general manager Casey Hudson told VentureBeatthat romance isn't necessarily dead. "The question is, are there going to be romances in Anthem?" Hudson said. "We’ve been saying no, but—the nuance is, of course we do want relationships. It’s just more in an action genre of storytelling." Hudson likened the situation to the evolution of the character Garrus from the original Mass Effect. "It turned out that people loved Garrus so much that they wanted romances with him, so we built that into Mass Effect 2 and people loved it," he said. "That same opportunity exists here. If people really like a character and they want to spend more time with them, want a relationship with them, that’s definitely in the cards for the future." EA and BioWare have billed Anthem as an always-online "live service" which will receive regular updates after launch. Perhaps one of those updates will add back some BioWare-brand smoochin'?
Black Ops 4's DLC maps are locked in a season pass, and players aren't happy
Black Ops fans say locking multiplayer maps inside the 'Black Ops Pass' will split the community. The Call of Duty community is in an uproar over Activision's plans for Black Ops 4 DLC, which will see post-release multiplayer maps locked behind a "Black Ops Pass". The pass will include a "bonus Zombies experience" called Classified plus four more "all-new Zombies experiences," four exclusive Blackout characters, and 12 multiplayer maps. As numerous unhappy threads on the Black Ops 4 subreddit have pointed out, that's going to split the community between those who are willing to pony up for the pass, and those who are not. "Black Ops 4 has the potential to be one of the greatest games in the franchise. Unfortunately, despite the great game it looks to be, Activision is taking a step backwards by dividing the community with a MASSIVE paywall which many can't afford," as one user, Stroook, put it. "The community is made of of millions of people coming from different backgrounds, ages, and groups. There are youngins who can't afford to beg their parents for $15 DLC let alone a $40-50 'Black Ops Pass' [pricing of the pass hasn't been announced] on top of a $60 dollar game. There are those who can't budget enough for more than one AAA game. Many can't afford the $100 dollar paywall Activision is creating."
Making the situation even more egregious, individual DLC releases will not be available for purchase separately: The Black Ops Pass will be available for standalone purchase, but "the content included in the Black Ops Pass may only be purchased as a bundle," the Black Ops Pass FAQ states. The unhappiness is compounded even further by the fact that Black Ops 4 does not have a single-player campaign, meaning that people who buy it will be doing so entirely for the multiplayer action. "After announcing no single player (and im a big fan of the story from all three campaigns) I had my doubts about buying this game," another redditor, peachyfourlife, wrote. "But no FREE dlc?! You want me to pay an extra $50 (and yes we know it'll be $50) for 12 maps that should already be on the freaking game?" Treyarch responded to the furor with a message saying that it is "very much listening to your thoughts, comments, and ideas." It gave no indication that it might reconsider the situation, however. "We are absolutely committed to supporting the entire community with a slew of free, post-release content that will extend the Black Ops 4 experience with more new ways to play than we’ve ever done before," the studio wrote.
"With Black Ops 3, we’re three years after release, and we continue to support it with new content and continuous updates—and we’re not even done yet. Our commitment to the game has maintained engagement… and Black Ops 4 has far more post-release updates planned for the entire community. In fact, it’s a game that was built for expansion. Launch day is just the beginning of a long journey." The FAQ says something very similar: "We’re redefining the digital content season for Call of Duty: Black Ops 4 by delivering more content with more frequency. In addition to the release of Multiplayer maps, Zombies experiences, and Blackout content, Call of Duty: Black Ops 4 players can also expect in-game content and themed events, creating a robust content season." That fails to address the root problem, however: If you don't buy the pass, you can't play on those additional12 multiplayer maps. In a multiplayer-focused game like Black Ops 4, that's a big problem, and the responses to Treyarch's post reflect that.
"Paid DLC (season pass which was renamed to Black Ops Pass) in addition to the microtransactions which are extremely unlikely to be cosmetic-only throughout the game's lifespan [is the problem]," TheEternal792 wrote. "It wouldn't be so bad if 1) the game still had a full single player experience, and 2) if the rest of the gaming industry were still in this era. I'm not saying this would be acceptable if the game did have a single player, but without it, there's even more justification to be upset." There's still time for Activision to reverse course, as Black Ops 4 doesn't come out until October 12. I wouldn't hold my breath, but pressure to open the multiplayer maps to everyone will come not just from the Call of Duty player base, but from its chief competitor as well: Electronic Arts said in May that all maps and modes for Battlefield 5 will be free for everyone.
The Witcher 3's 'Bloody Baron' writers are working on Dying Light 2
The Dying Light 2 announcement at Microsoft's E3 press event was made significantly cooler by the surprising news that cold fusion-powered RPG writing machine Chris Avellone is working on it. As we said in our report, Avellone's participation "signals a significant evolution for the series" by giving it a much greater focus on narrative and outcomes. But Avellone isn't the only talent working on the game. "We also got some additional help in the form of the former The Witcher 3 writing team," Techland told VG247. "Those guys were responsible for some of the best quests from that game including the Bloody Baron quest line. All of those guys are working very hard to create a narrative—it’s like a puzzle to play with." "Those guys" may not have quite the big-name cachet of Avellone, but their talents are readily apparent. The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt is one of the best RPGs ever made, and the Bloody Baron is the best of it—a character so good that we actually wrote about him specifically, describing him as a "complex, conflicted character" at the center of Family Matters, "The Witcher 3's most emotional and disturbing quest." "We needed a character that personified Velen, with all of its beauty and troubles," quest designer Paweł Sasko said at the time. "The Baron is a soldier, much like we have today, who comes back from war with PTSD and alcohol issues. He’s unstable and unpleasant, but he also has positive traits. He loves his family and would do anything for them." Not much is known about Dying Light 2 at this point except that it's set during "the Modern Dark Ages," 15 years after the zombie outbreak first began. But the core gameplay seen in the E3 trailer will be familiar—parkour, zombies, and "don't go out at night"—and Avellone said during the E3 presentation that the decisions players make will have a major impact on the game world. A release target hasn't been set.
The Battlefield subreddit is such a mess that mods have banned posts about historical accuracy
EA and DICE are committed to putting women in prominent roles in upcoming World War 2 FPS Battlefield 5. Some Reddit posters aren't too pleased with that decision, or with a prosthetic arm featured in one of the game's trailers, and have taken to the subreddit to criticize Battlefield 5's historical accuracy, defend its historical accuracy, or argue that historical accuracy doesn't matter. It's now gotten so bad that the subreddit's moderators have banned posts arguing about historical accuracy altogether. "We're done, it's over," a post from moderator u/sloth_on_meth reads. "New rule: No more bitching about historical accuracy, it's a game, not a history book. [Violations] will have consequences." "Reddit admins have confirmed brigading and the modteams of the subs in question are fully cooperating to make sure it doesn't happen again," the post reads. "Hate us all you want but we're done with this bullshit. This issue has been discussed in a million threads but we've never been brigaded more than we have in the past months. Admins can only keep up with so much. We're done wasting our time on this, every point has been made, no you're not sexists or whatever, but this is just repetitive now." In an update, u/sloth_on_meth said, "we get that y'all have valid criticism about battlefield V and the customisation options within the game. Sadly, this subreddit has proven to be unable to have a civil discussion about these things without devolving into name calling and slapfights." Following accusations from disgruntled users, in another update u/sloth_on_meth said, "WE ARE NOT PAID BY, CONTROLLED BY OR AFFILIATED TO EA OR DICE." As a last-ditch effort to let the subreddit's community get all the pent-up anger out of its system, the mods have created a temporary "historical accuracy megathread." At the time of writing, it has over 400 comments. As one example of the type of post this rule is meant to prevent: earlier this week, one user claiming to be a historian posted a thread titled "calling me uneducated is the last straw" in response to EA COO Patrick Söderlund's statement that the backlash against women in Battlefield 5 "is not OK," and that the people criticizing the feasibility of women fighting on the frontlines of WWII "are uneducated." In a twist surely no one saw coming, the poster turned out not to be a historian, or to have gone to the school they claimed. The post was deleted shortly thereafter, but it's still archived on ResetEra.
The Division is only $10 on the Ubisoft Store right now
Ubisoft is celebrating E3 2018 with a sale, and there are some pretty good bargains to be had. The jewel in the crown is The Division, which can be had for a mere $10 (or $15, if you're in Australia). Meanwhile, if you want the Gold Edition bundling all of the game's paid DLC, that'll set you back $18. Other discounts include Watch Dogs 2 for $19.80 (usually $60), Steep for $9, and Rainbow Six Siege for $19.99 (though you're probably better off reading this first,if you want to know which edition of Siege is best for newcomers). Ubisoft demoed a hefty chunk of The Division 2 at E3 this week. Set in Washington DC, it'll be a more open and more dangerous open world. For everything you need to know about the sequel – which launches in March 2019 – look no further.
Metro Exodus' day-night cycle changes NPC behavior, dynamic weather can mask footsteps
We got a bit of hands-on time with Metro Exodus during E3 week. The survival FPS from 4A Games is bigger than both the earlier Metro games put together, and is structured differently, too: while there are linear portions of Exodus, there are also large open world areas where players can freely explore. There's also dynamic weather and a day-night cycle. Players can manipulate this day-night cycle: resting lets players fast-forward the clock, and that could prove useful at times because NPC behavior might change at different times of day. "It means that you can approach situations differently depending on what time of day it is," John Bloch, creative director for 4A Games told PC Gamer. "In the day, the humans might be patrolling an area around their camp, which thins out the amount of guys that are in the core of it. So, it might be a little easier to get in if you do get in a firefight. Or, at night, they're clustered around their campfires and sleeping and all of them are in there, but you have the cover of darkness to sneak around." "But also, there might be more mutants out roaming around [at night]," he added. "You can plan your approach and you can kind of determine, if you approach something during the day and you go in guns blazing, and you just keep getting killed, maybe go rest and check out how it might be different when you go at night." Dynamic weather can offer new approaches as well. "There might be a storm that rolls in and you have the added benefit of the noise from the storm also covering your footsteps, things like that. There's a lot of elements that the player can either just encounter dynamically or try to manipulate through these tools like resting." Metro Exodus' release date is set for February 22, 2019.
The Resident Evil 2 remake is looking like fantastic, gruesome survival horror
When Capcom sets its mind to remaking a Resident Evil game, it seems to do it right. Years ago it was the classic GameCube Remake of the original Resident Evil, which found its way to PC with an HD remaster and still held up remarkably well. That game stuck to static camera angles and clunky controls and silly puzzles, but those were the things that really made the game work. Now we've finally seen the Resident Evil 2 Remake, which has been in the works for about three years, and it's a much more dramatic departure, dropping the fixed perspective for a behind-the-back camera. That camera may make the RE2 Remake seem like it's going down the action game path, but watch a few minutes of the gameplay footage above and you'll get pure survival horror vibes. The Resident Evil 2 Remake is running on the same engine as Resident Evil 7 (and Devil May Cry 5), and it has atmosphere to spare. Lighting looks like it's going to play a huge role, here, with Leon walking through some dark areas and aiming his flashlight around the environment more than his gun. Capcom streamed the same gameplay demo with the PlayStation crew and talked through some of the design, and it's illuminating—there are a lot of good details in there for Resident Evil fans. "Not everything is exactly where you remember it. That's intentional," says RE brand manager Mike Lunn. "This isn't just a remake. It's a whole new game we're building off the foundation of the original game. So there's going to be a lot of familiar stuff, but a lot of new stuff as well." Along those "new game" lines, Capcom producer Tsuyoshi Kanda explained why the new camera doesn't mean this is suddenly an action game. "The big difference is, less shooter elements compared to Resident Evil 4," he said. "This is more like a Metroidvania-style, survival horror, classic gameplay, so we actually tried to keep the original gameplay feel. That's what we're trying to do in this new Resident Evil 2." Lunn emphasized how tough the zombies are, and that you'll need to conserve ammo. Even one can be a threat, which seemed accurate when Capcom's other producer playing the game got pretty torn up from just a couple bites.
Some more interesting details:
Claire and Leon have separate campaigns this time around, instead of the simpler A and B scenarios of the original. At one point the camera zooms in on the gruesome missing jaw of a dead police officer, and man, that is some gore. If you like gross levels of detail, you're in luck with this engine. Some other cool touches: you'll be able to pull a knife out of a zombie's body after you killed them, if it's durable enough. You'll find some supplies like boards you can use to block off windows. You can shoot zombies in the legs to bring them down. Some areas in downtown Raccoon City from the original game that you could only look at—guessing that means some buildings that were previously just facades—will now be explorable, and some characters will have more fleshed-out stories than they did before.
Resident Evil 2 is out January 25, 2019
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