Author: dpugh007

If you head to your local comic book store, or fire up your favorite reading app, I recommend taking a look at the first issue of The Witcher: Of Flesh and Flame, a new limited series by Dark Horse that launched today. The story is set in CD Projekt’s video game adaptation of The Witcher, and once again focuses on the exploits of Geralt, who is tasked to solve a mystery for an old acquaintance.

This four-part story kicks off with a 32-page first issue written by Aleksandra Motyka with art by Marianna Strychowska. Don’t worry, Geralt looks nothing like Henry Cavill in this series. This isn’t Dark Horse’s first time creating new stories for this license. Writer Paul Tobin penned a handful of stories, including House of Glass, Fox Children, and Killing Monsters. You can read Tobin’s work in a collection that released in October.

Geralt has had a busy year, guesting in Bandai Namco’s Soulcalibur VI a few months ago and making an appearance in Capcom’s Monster Hunter: World early in 2019. 

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For Honor’s war planet seems to bring in the most powerful warriors from around time and the world to avoid sticky questions about why a samurai, a viking, and a knight are in a European-style castle at once. It also affords the game the chance to fudge the details a bit and crossover with other properties, like Assassin’s Creed, which it seems Ubisoft is keen on doing.

The For Honor Twitter account teased a collaboration with other Ubisoft property Assassin’s Creed with a vague but direct tweet. The little video shows the For Honor emblems morphing into the Abstergo logo, and then a short message stating a full reveal on December 20.

The most obvious collaboration point would be to throw an Assassin into the mix, presumably Ezio-era, but that might be a bit ambitious for a short teaser. It could also be something as simple as cosmetic items, but that might be too small to make a teaser for, so it’s anyone’s guess. Ubisoft has not shied away from offering new and major content in For Honor quickly and quietly, so we’ll find out tomorrow.

For Honor recently released their Marching Fire expansion, which added a host of new content, characters, and levels. The game is available on PlayStation 4, Xbox One, and PC.

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A Norwegian issue with the way Nintendo handles eShop cancellations, as in they completely refuse to do so, has now been escalated to the German courts. The German Consumer Protection Authority is taking legal action against Nintendo of Europe over their “all sales are final” policy in a case that may have rippling effects across Europe and beyond.

Nintendo’s eShop lets you preorder games as much as you want as long as the listing is there. Unfortunately, if you decide you don’t want the game for whatever reason, you can’t cancel the preorder under any circumstances. This runs afoul of a number of European consumer protection laws, which Norway had a problem with earlier this year. Since Nintendo of Europe is based in Germany, the case has been moved there.

Nintendo’s defense here is that preloading means that the transaction has already begun, whether the preloading itself has started or not. The company is citing article 16 of European Consumer Law Directive 2011/83, which states that cancellations can be ignored if “the performance has begun with the consumer’s prior express consent, and with the acknowledgement that he will lose his right of withdrawal once the contract has been fully performed by the trader”.

Basically, Nintendo is saying that preloading the game means that you already own it, whether you can launch it or not. That makes it void for a cancellation.

It remains to be seen whether Nintendo’s defense will hold water, as it is seemingly an inventive use of that article. Should Nintendo fail to defend against this, however, it will be interesting to see whether they change the eShop rules at all and whether they make worldwide changes or make them specific to Europe. The entire process could be drawn out for months to a year, so it might be too early to speculate how everything shakes out.

[Source: Eurogamer]

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Travis Strikes Again: No More Heroes is still a bit of an enigma for No More Heroes fans, but it is hard to argue the game doesn’t have that old Suda style and that will probably be enough for a large number of fans. To further reinforce that idea, Suda is actually signing a special edition of the game with goodies in it for fans for release in the UK, but shipping everywhere.

For the UK version, everything is in English. Obviously the French version has everything in French, which could pose a problem if you don’t speak French, but this would be a good time to learn if you’re leaning that direction. 

The collector’s edition box, which comes with the game, a certificate of authenticity signed by director Goichi Suda, four lithographs, and a hardcover “Make Of” book about the game. The most hardcore No More Heroes fans were probably sold at the game part, but the rest of that is also pretty cool.

Travis Strikes Again: No More Heroes releases on January 18 on Nintendo Switch. You can read our latest preview here and catch a New Gameplay Today right here.

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The NPD, or National Purchase Diary, tracks retail sales across the U.S. on a monthly basis including for gaming, occasionally receiving and reporting data from digital sales as well depending on the publisher. While Call of Duty: Black Ops 4 beat out Red Dead Redemption II last month in part due to how much earlier within October Call of Duty was released, the roles were reversed in November with Red Dead Redemption II winning the battle but not quite the war.

Red Dead Redemption rocketed to first place this month, which pretty much every industry analyst in the world expected. That said, Call of Duty: Black Ops 4 is still the overall best selling game of the year, despite the PC release not being tracked by the NPD. Red Dead Redemption could pull ahead given December, but 2018 might belong to Call of Duty much like 2017 did, as well as the previous three years.

Though, anyone who has ever bet against Rockstar games having extremely long sales legs has ended up with monthly egg on their face. The sales of Red Dead Redemption II already exceed the entire lifetime sales of Red Dead Redemption by 40 percent.

Battlefield V made its delayed debut at third, which should quiet murmurs about Battlefield V’s poor preorders. People were still eager to pick the game up, even after the releases of Red Dead and Call of Duty.

Fallout 76 follows behind at fourth place, which might surprise some after the poor critical response and essentially weekly controversies. The game was either what the market was actually looking for or speaks to the intense power of the brand, both of which are solid reasons for Bethesda to consider Fallout 76 as a successful experiment.

Pokémon Let’s Go Pikachu and Eevee hit the fifth and sixth spots respectively and likely would have charted above Fallout 76 had they been combined and had Nintendo reported digital sales of the two games. The launch sales for the game are the second highest of any Pokémon game in history, behind Pokémon Stadium on the Nintendo 64. This bodes extremely well for Pokémon’s next mainline game supposedly releasing in 2019.

You can check out the full software list below.

Some notable omissions are the Switch version of Diablo III, Hitman 2, and Darksiders III, though the THQ Nordic game released late in the month. It was a fairly packed month, however, so games that didn’t appear on the list may still have ended up successful.

In terms of hardware, this was one of the biggest months of not just the year but of the last several years. All three major consoles – the PlayStation 4, Xbox One, and Switch – sold more than 1.3 million units each in November. The last and until now only time three consoles of any stripe sold more than a million units was 2010 when the Wii, DS, and Xbox 360 came together to achieve that feat.

This time, the Nintendo Switch lead the charge in terms of dollar sales, but the PlayStation 4 still remains the best selling console in 2018, partially due to the incredible sales of the PS4 Spider-Man bundle ahead of Black Friday.

Next month, the major contender is Super Smash Bros. Ultimate, which Nintendo has said sold three million already. 

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A few years back, when IO Interactive was still working with Square Enix to publish the recent reboot of Hitman, the developer was big on surprise seasonal content. One of the most memorable missions put Agent 47 in a Christmas-themed mission in the first season’s Paris level and involving both Santa Claus and some rascally but well-known thieves.

Starting today until January 8, owners of the Hitman Legacy Pack can revisit the Paris level from the first season to have another shot at the Holiday Hoarders mission. Harry “Smoky” Bagnato and Marv “Slick” Gonif are skulking through the Paris fashion show stealing presents, which is more than enough to end up on Agent 47’s naughty list. The pair of thieves from Home Alone can now stop trying to murder a small child and pick on someone their own size.

Completing the mission nabs players the Secret Santa pack, which lets players use the Agent 47 Santa outfit anywhere within Hitman 2. Challenge yourself to assassinate some targets as Santa Claus for that extra boost of Christmas spirit.

The Hitman Legacy Pack comes free to owners of the first season of Hitman when launching Hitman 2, but can also be purchased separately.

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