Author: dpugh007

Borderlands 3 added a limited-time special event, Takedown at the Maliwan Blacksite, towards the end of 2019, but part of the event was delayed. In late December, Gearbox announced that a new version of the event that would scale depending on how many players you had in your party would release, making it easier for players who preferred to play alone to tackle it. This ended up being delayed, but a date for the scaled version of the event has now been set.

In a new post on the Borderlands website, it’s been announced that the scaled version of Takedown at the Maliwan Blacksite will be available from January 16 to January 30. It’ll be slightly easier now for players who are taking it on alone, meaning that if you can’t quite crack it right now, it’s worth trying during this period.

After January 30, the event will revert to its standard difficulty level, and will once again be tuned for four experienced vault hunters working together–which means that you’ll need to be extremely skilled to beat it alone.

Borderlands 3 also received its first piece of major DLC in late December, Moxxi’s Heist of the Handsome Jackpot. The game received an 8/10 in our review, and Jordan Ramée wrote that the game “best excels at continuing what the series has always done: deliver a humorous tall tale of misfits looting and shooting their way to heroism.”

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A researcher in Australia want to know: What is the environmental impact of the video game industry, and what do game developers themselves think about their carbon footprint?

Researcher Dr. Ben Abraham from the University of Technology in Sydney (UTS) is calling on game developers to weigh in as part of a new research project that aims to “create a snapshot of the energy intensity of contemporary video game development in the workplace where games are actually made.”

To do this, Abraham is looking for first-hand information from game development studios regarding their carbon emissions policies and practices.

In addition to that kind of numerical data, the study is looking for respondents to speak about the “attitudes of game developers towards the potential environmental impacts of their work.” The survey is asking for developers to discuss their level of interest and concern about climate change and carbon emissions that are created by the game development industry.

“This research is being conducted to find out about the energy use and associated carbon emissions of digital game production both in individual workplaces and across the sector as a whole,” reads a line from the survey. “The research aims to find out what game developers are doing to reduce their carbon footprint in order to inform future research and policy decisions that aim to support sustainable game development practices.”

Abraham is looking to collect information about the energy usage of a game studio, what workplace policies might be in place regarding carbon emissions, and policies about other environmental issues such as recycling and powering off computers at night.

Abraham said developers can take part in the survey without identifying themselves or their employer if that is of concern, though he added it may not always be possible to protect the identity of participants.

In 2019, the United Nations announced an initiative called “Playing for the Planet,” which saw gaming giants like Microsoft, Sony, Ubisoft, and Niantic announce plans to work together to come up with best practices for reducing the environmental impact of the video game industry. Nintendo is missing from the alliance but the company already operate an Environment Committee at the company’s headquarters in Japan, while each of its overseas subsidiaries have their own committees that look into environmental impact in their regions.

Microsoft is producing 825,000 carbon-neutral Xbox game consoles as part of a pilot program that represents the first gaming consoles in history to bear that designation. As for Sony, the company has said the PlayStation 5 will be more environmentally friendly.

In total, the efforts undertaken by the 21 game companies is estimated to result in a “30 million ton reduction of CO2 emissions by 2030.” Additionally, “millions” of trees will be planted, while game companies will enact practices to do better in the areas of “energy management, packaging, and device recycling.”

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