Black Friday has come and gone, but deals haven’t dried up yet. Best Buy today announced its Cyber Monday deals–and there some solid offers to be had on video game hardware and games.
Starting with hardware, Best Buy will give you a free copy of Call of Duty: Infinite Warfare‘s Legacy edition when you buy a PS4 Pro and PS4 Slim. That’s the version of the game that comes with the remastered version of Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare. The game normally goes for $80 by itself.
Modern Warfare Remastered
Additionally, all Xbox One and Xbox One S hardware is still going for $50 off, so you can get any 500 GB Xbox One S bundle for $250 (instead of $300), while 1 TB versions go for $300 (instead of $350). Xbox One controllers are down to $40, while DualShock 4 controllers are going for the same price.
In terms of game sales, Best Buy is offering a Buy 1, Get 1 50% Off deal on some EA games, with options that include Battlefield 1, Titanfall 2, and Madden NFL 17, among others. The store also has a Buy 2, Get 1 Free deal going for pre-owned games. Additionally, Gears of War 4 is going for only $35, while Skyrim‘s Special Edition, Overwatch, and Dishonored 2 are down to $35.
It’s a big day for Star Wars: Rogue One, as Lucasfilm has published a new TV spot for the sci-fi spinoff, while tickets are finally on sale. The latest video is titled ” Breath,” and contains a mixture of previously seen footage, as well as some new sequences. We also get a closer look at Darth Vader–take a look:
Advance tickets for Rogue One are now on sale through ticketing sites such as Fandango. The movie officially opens on Friday, December 16, with a midnight premiere kicking things off.
In other news about Rogue One, box office estimates peg the film at making $130 million or more for its December 16-18 opening weekend in the United States. That would be the second-biggest December US opening in history, behind only 2015’s Star Wars: The Force Awakens.
Rogue One was directed by Godzilla‘s Gareth Edwards and stars Felicity Jones, Diego Luna, Ben Mendelsohn, Forest Whitaker, and Mads Mikkelsen. The story focuses on a band of rebels, led by Jones’ Jyn Erso, who are attempting to steal the plans to the Death Star.
Retailer GameStop has announced its Cyber Monday deals, with discounts on hardware, games, and accessories available all day today.
Some of the deals for today, November 28, include $250 Uncharted 4PlayStation 4 Slim and Battlefield 1 Xbox One S bundles, which are the same prices as Black Friday. For the PS4, GameStop will also throw in free copies of Ratchet & Clank and The Last of Us, though this deal is only available online. Additionally, GameStop will give you those games free when you buy a PS4 Pro online. What’s more, DualShock 4 controllers are going for $40, while Xbox One pads can be had for $50.
The Division’s 1.5 update will launch on PlayStation 4 on November 29, Ubisoft announced on Twitter. It will introduce a new World Tier bracket that increases the level, and difficulty, of enemies as well as introducing new gear to acquire.
Agents, Update 1.5 will be available on PS4 tomorrow!
Other noteworthy changes include NPCs dropping crafting material, vendors selling items that scale to the player’s level, adjusted Credits and Phoenix Credit rewards from mission completions, and a variety of tweaks to weaponry. Take a look at the full patch notes below, courtesy of the game’s official website.
Game changes
Added World Tier 5 bracket (224+ GS)
Enemy NPCs are level 34.
Maximum Gear Score raised to 256.
Heroic Incursions are now available in Tier 5 only.
Named Gear items have been implemented in the game. One piece is available for each Gear Slot and each one comes with a unique Talent. Named Gear items can only be acquired in World Tier 5 or in Survival game mode.
[Mask] Ferro’s oxygen mask: Players can move and shoot while under burn status effect.
[Knee Pads] Shortbow championship pads: Grenades have shortened fuse timer.
[Holster] Colonel Bliss’ holster: Powerful improvements for sidearms.
[Gloves] Skulls MC gloves: Increased damage when no gear set bonuses are active.
[Chestpiece] Barrett’s bulletproof: Powerful bonuses when skills are on cooldown.
[Backpack] NinjaBike messenger bag: Less DZ loot and DZ XP lost when dying in the Dark Zone.
Enemy Armor Damage now functions in PVP: damage calculation in PvP ignores a percentage of the target’s armor equal to one third of the shooter’s Enemy Armor Damage.
Stagger now functions in PvP: high-stagger weapons (Shotguns and Marksman rifles primarily) will now cause the target’s aim to flinch.
Tactical Advance: This talent will now provide a maximum of 30% damage increase.
Stash size has been increased from 70 to 150 total items.
Loot, rewards & vendors
NPCs now have chances to drop crafting materials. Chances to drop higher quality increases with World Tiers.
Season Pass Open World Supply Drops will now scale with World Tier. Opening a supply drop in World Tier 1 will reward with Gear Score 163, 182 in World Tier 2, etc.
Items in the Scavenger crate in the Base of Operations will now scale with World Tier.
Vendors will now scale to player’s Gear Score, independently from the World Tier they’re in. This means that the Gear Score and currency value of goods they sell will adapt to the player’s Gear Score.
We have adjusted the Credits and Phoenix Credits rewards for Main Missions, High Value Targets and Incursions to better scale with World Tier. This results in an overall increase starting from World Tier 4 and above.
Modified rewards from completing weekly assignments:
Moved 30 Phoenix Credits from the weekly assignment reward to put them inside the weekly assignment cache (the total amount is still the same)
Added one extra High-End Mod inside the weekly assignment cache
Weapons
Talents
Swift: Reload Speed bonus has been increased from 15% to 25%.
Provident: This talent has been removed from World Tier 5 and will not roll or be available in recalibration for Gear Score 256 weapons.
Hurried, Focused and Disciplined are no longer exclusive to PP19, G36 and SVDs.
All Weapon types
Hip fire now has stronger recoil than aiming down sights. The strength of this effect varies between weapon types. From most impacted to least impacted: Marksman Rifles, LMGs, Assault Rifles, SMGs, Shotguns, Pistols.
SMG
Vector 45 ACP & First Wave Vector 45 ACP: base magazine size increased to 25.
MP7: base damage increased by 9%.
LMG
Damage to targets out of cover bonus has been slightly reduced for all LMGs of Gear Score 256.
M60: base damage reduced by 3%.
M60 & M249 now take longer to reach full accuracy when fired.
Hungry Hog: base damage reduced by 13%, to prevent a scaling overlap with the implementation of World Tier 5.
Shotguns
Lowered the strength of aim assist for Shotguns.
Lowered the effect of accuracy on Shotguns.
Headshot base bonus reduced from 80% to 60%.
Showstopper: Accuracy while in cover has been reduced.
M870: base damage reduced by 12%.
Added 12 new weapon types. These weapon types can only be dropped in World Tier 5:
MG5 Light Machinegun
Infantry MG5 Light Machinegun
Famas Assault Rifle
Model 700 Marksman Rifle
M700 Tactical Marksman Rifle
M700 Carbon Marksman Rifle
Converted USC Submachinegun
Police UMP-45 Submachinegun
Tactical UMP-45 Submachinegun
Snub nosed Rhino Pistol
Rhino Pistol
Rhino Special Pistol
Added 4 new High-End named weapons (available at various gear scores depending on source):
Golden Rhino
Urban MDR Assault Rifle
Tommy Gun
Thompson M1928
Gear Sets
Final Measure
4 pieces: Grenades can now be picked up every 8 seconds instead of 15 seconds.
Hunter’s Faith
3 pieces: Headshot bonus reduced from 20% to 10%.
FrontLine has been added
2 pieces: +15% Protection from Elites
3 pieces: +30% Ballistic Shield Health
4 pieces: Allows using anSMG if one is equipped when Ballistic Shield is deployed. SMG Crit Chance is reduced to 0%
Skill changes
Pulse
All Mods (except Recon Pack): Decreased lifetime by 20% from 25 seconds to 20 seconds.
Recon Pack:
Increased lifetime by 14.3% from 17.5 seconds to 20 seconds.
Decreased cooldown by 25% from 60 seconds to 45 seconds.
Tactical Scanner:
Increased cooldown by 10% from 60 seconds to 66 seconds.
First Aid
Defibrillator:
Increased Ally Heal by 10% from 1500 to 1650.
Overdose:
Decreased Self Heal by 10% from 1500 to 1350.
Increased cooldown by 10% from 60 seconds to 66 seconds.
Support Station
All Mods (except Immunizer): Increased Lifetime by 10% from 20 seconds to 22 seconds.
Sticky Bomb
Base Skill and Proximity Fuse: Decreased cooldown by 10% from 90 seconds to 81 seconds.
BFB:
Decreased cooldown by 4.8% from 105 seconds to 100 seconds.
Seeker Mine
Cluster:
Decreased Bleed effect duration by 25% from 8 seconds to 6 seconds (total bleed damage is unchanged).
Ballistic Shield
Base Skill and all mods: NPCs will deal 10% more damage to the shield.
Smart Cover
All Mods (except Trapper): Decreased Skill Power impact on Damage Resistance, Weapon Stability and Weapon Accuracy buffs by 20% from 150% to 120%.
Tactical Link
Increased duration by 8.3% from 12 seconds to 13 seconds.
Survivor Link
Increased duration by 8.3% from 12 seconds to 13 seconds.
Bug Fixes
Fixed a bug where players could trap elite NPCs inside a spawn closet during Dragon’s Nest – Eliminate the Collective checkpoint.
Fixed a bug where players would not be able to carry the Fuse box object if they were facing a certain angle.
Fixed instances where players could obtain High-End items at too low levels.
Fixed a bug where the interaction radius around the Crafting Table was too small.
Fixed a bug where weapon talents that would buff the player would be purged after switching weapons.
Fixed a bug where the Medved and Warlord High-End weapons would drop at 163 Gear Score in Incursions at any World Tier.
Fixed a bug where swapping out the 4th piece of a gear set with one of the same type would disable the 4-piece set bonus. This affected Tactician’s Authority, Sentry’s Call and Striker gear sets.
Fixed a bug where Wildfire, Shrapnel and Fear Tactics would not apply their effects to nearby enemy targets.
Fixed a bug where players would not be able to use Recovery Link signature skill while aiming another skill.
Fixed a bug where the Recovery Link would not automatically trigger if the player took fatal damage while aiming down sights.
Fixed a bug where weapon talents would not activate if the player had fulfilled exactly the required stat value.
Fixed a bug where equipping a weapon directly from dropped loot would replace the players current weapon instead of an empty slot.
Fixed a bug where sometimes looted containers and props would still be highlighted as loot-able in the game world.
Fixed a bug where recalibrating Enemy Armor Damage stat would not use the correct values at 163 Gear Score.
Fixed a replication issue that occurred when the player was performing a two-hand vault over an obstacle in the game world.
Fixed instances where the Fuse box objects would not replicate correctly when players would leave the mission instance.
Fixed game framerate while inside any inventory that has a large number of items.
Fixed a bug where the Signature Skill icon would not disappear when “auto-hide HUD” option was enabled.
Fixed a bug where players could not scroll an item description during item compare, in certain conditions.
Fixed a bug where the UI would not show the new item notification when a skill mod was unlocked due to a Base of Operation upgrade.
Fixed a bug where the Automatch megamap screen inside Underground mode would display activities that were not available for matchmaking.
Fixed a bug where the player’s health bar would overlap the Gear Score value while the Stash is open.
Fixed a bug where some vendors in the Base of Operations were not displayed on the megamap or the minimap.
Fixed a weird door.
Fixed a bug where Nimble talent would not work until reequipped if a cover to cover move is interrupted.
Fixed a bug where players could become invincible for a few seconds after using Survivor Link.
Fixed several instances of client crash.
Fixed a bug where Skill Haste would not correctly affect Support Station cooldown.
Fixed a bug where Judy Walters part 2 to 5 echos couldn’t be picked up correctly.
The update is already available on Xbox One and PC and launched alongside the Survival expansion. New content for The Division has an exclusivity period to Microsoft platforms, but the Survival expansion is scheduled to launch on December 20 for PS4.
The Survival game mode tasks up to 24 players with fighting to survive against the elements and each other. It takes place in a modified version of The Division’s Manhattan, and matches can last up to two hours.
Sony’s PlayStation 4 had its best-selling week since launch in the UK last week, according to sales monitor Chart-Track.
Chart-Track and Sony have not provided any official sales figures, but GamesIndustry reports that PS4 hardware sales were up to over 140,000 units for the week ending November 26, citing sources. That’s over 50,000 higher than Xbox One‘s figures for the same week. Sales of both platforms were likely helped by a raft of retailer discounts on hardware bundles, bringing prices for a current-gen console down to under £200. Hardware sales may have been helped by the relatively recent release of the PS4 Pro, as well as the cheaper PS4 Slim and Xbox One S.
Black Friday discounts also had an effect on software. Games such as Uncharted 4: A Thief’s End and DriveClub were included in the aforementioned bundles and experienced a surge in sales.
As promised, Hello Games has launched a major new update for No Man’s Sky. Called the “Foundation Update,” the patch (1.1) introduces the first parts of the game’s base-building and also serves as a “foundation for things to come.” In a post on the developer’s website, Hello Games explained that this is the first of “many” free patches for No Man’s Sky. A new video for the patch was also released.
The patch also adds three new game modes, each featuring different rulesets:
Normal mode is the original chilled exploration experience
Creative mode allows players to explore the universe without limits, and build a huge base
Survival mode really changes the game, creating a much more challenging endurance experience
As for the base-building feature, you can create an outpost using “modular structures and decorations,” made using resources you find while exploring the game world. You can also do the following with the base-building feature:
Recruit alien lifeforms to help research new technology. Farming, engineer, weapons and science specialists are hirable from Space Stations
Use Terminus Teleporters in Space Stations to teleport to and from your base at will
Expand your base with storage containers to stockpile precious resources and rare products
Find an even more beautiful location and you can simply dismantle your previous homestead to refund all of the spent resources
The No Man’s Sky Foundation update also adds a farming system and the ability to purchase and customize interstellar freighters to transfer resources, while new biome and star-specific resource types can be discovered; they can then be used to craft new items.
There are also visual changes in this update, as motion blur has been added to “accentuate the feeling of speed, particularly when in-flight.” You can turn this on or off from the Options menu. Temporal Anti-Aliasing has also been implemented. This should remove “jagged edges” and is also optional. Use the slider tool below to compare the motion blur and TAA effects.
The Foundation Update also changes and adds some UI elements, one part of which are new arrow indicators being added to better emphasize shield and life support changes. Additionally, scanned primary resources now have specific symbols to allow you to differentiate between them more easily.
If you could have lived our lives over the last months, you’d know how meaningful this is.
Fixed technology becoming instantly fully charged when repaired
Fixed ship appearing on incorrect pad in space station after loading
Added interactable objects that required certain tech to collect
Added shootable objects that require certain tech to mine
Rebalanced resource availability and technology charge requirements
Fixed initial game flow – where travelling to space too quickly after visiting the monolith could prevent the first atlas station notification appearing
Prevented player being prompted to scan for buildings before leaving the system after visiting the monolith
Prevented laser and melee attacks while in space from attempting to edit terrain
Improved calculation of resources received when mining terrain
Renamed Signal Scanners to Signal Boosters
Signal booster objects updated to search for playable bases, suit upgrade pods, and mineable resources
Removed signal booster from being distributed on terrain, as player can now build them
Improved accuracy of environment detection, fixing cases where it rained inside caves
Fixed galactic waypoints not loading correctly across saves
Removed atlas pass v1 requirement from doors in stations
Suit upgrade pods are no longer spawned in stations
Suit upgrade pods can now only be used once
Fixed collision in anomaly that was causing issues when exiting larger ships
Increased the number of different NPC character models generated per system
Fixed the game always remaining in day time for players who began their save prior to patch 1.03
Fixed a potential crash in foliage instance renderer
Localisation
Fixed stats page in asian languages
Fixed multiple issues with asian language formatting
Multiple improvements and fixes to localisation text in all languages
UI
Added new icons for specific types of primary resources
Fixed health bars not appearing on some targets
Added hazard and life support drain indicators
Fixed mission messages not appearing in a timely fashion
Beacons now notify the player that they will save the game
Fixed crash when creature IK animations were updated under certain conditions on the discovery screen
Improved navigation in discovery UI
Massive speed improvements to browsing huge discovery lists
Increased size of discovery storage
Added option to load “Earliest” previous save in Options menu
Fixed weapon naming
Added icon to remind players of the reload button when weapon is empty
Multiple fixes for viewing discoveries
PS4
Added photo mode
Large optimisations to the engine to accommodate base building
PC
Added support for up to 8 mouse buttons
Fixed better order position history for mouse smoothing
Fixed bug where setting gamma to zero gave a fully bright rather than fully dark image
Fixed hard-limiting on save sizes, with appropriate warning about free space on boot
Player is now notified when shaders are being loaded
Fixed occasional crash on exit
Fixed performance of trail renderer for some AMD cards
Large optimisations to the engine to accommodate base building
Generation
Added biome specific plants
Adopted new method of distributing resource plants on terrain, for more lifelike clumps of plants
Improved distribution of plant life across all terrain types
Introduced visual differentiation of red, green and blue star systems
Introduced new mineable terrain resources found only in red, green and blue star systems
Reduced average building frequency
Introduced planets with elevated building density
Introduced planets with no buildings or sentient life
Increased the proportion of lush and tropical planets
Decreased the proportion of lifeless planets
Fixed bug where multiple ships could appear, overlapping, at the player’s start scene
Prevented certain building types being incorrectly placed underwater
Prevented multiple buildings occasionally being placed in overlapping positions
Prevented buildings occasionally being placed intersecting with the terrain
Improved and altered per-planet terrain resource generation, improving gameplay and visuals
Creatures
Fixed elevation cache mismatches, causing errors in creature knowledge and pathing
Fixed slow memory leak in creature role allocation
Improved creature animation speeds
Fixed issues where some creatures turns had the incorrect frame count
Fixed occasional crash when interacting with creatures
Atmospherics
Increased proportion of vibrant blue skies
Corrected cloud levels for clear skies
Improved average cloud level settings
Fixed cloud rendering while flying in your ship
Improved atmosphere depth when transitioning to space
Increased fidelity of atmosphere rendering on nearest planet
Improved atmospheric fog as you fly to a planet
Improved fog method for planets seen on the horizon
Terrain
Improved terrain generation algorithms
Improved and extended blend areas between different terrain noise types
Terrains now generate more open spaces
Smaller features now appear at nearer lods to improve visuals in the distance
Fixed objects being placed on incorrect terrain material types
Improved resolution of distant planet terrain
Decreased differences between planet as seen from space and actual planet terrain
Fixed seams on planets when seen from space
Improvements to terrain material selection and terrain material blending
Terrain generation priority and cost calculation improvements
Fixed terrain generation angle calculations, which would previously prevent nearest region being generated first
We now generate caves on lower terrain lods to decrease visual differences in lower detail terrain
Introduced more varied and vibrant colouring to terrain for each biome
Decreased frequency of brown terrain colour selections
Changed texture scales to improve transition between terrain lods
Improved terrain colour combinations to add variety and better match terrain contouring
Improved terrain texture blending method to better retain vibrant colours
Improved settings for hue, saturation and value noise variation on terrain
Fixed a number of issues causing holes to be seen in the planet terrain
Fixed occasional crash when mining terrain
Visuals
Fixed colour of muzzle flashes on player weapons
Added muzzle flashes to ship weapons
Added cockpit lighting for damage and weapon firing
Added debris to freighter explosion effect
Improved freighter cargo explosions
Improved photon cannon hit and space explosion effects
Improved turret explosion effect
Improved grass colour selection
Improved grass colouring method to match underlying terrain colour
Improved grass placement to match gradient of terrain, and rocky terrain slope patches
Improved lighting on grass
Improved alpha cutoffs and blending for grass in the distance
Improved colouring method for on-planet buildings
Fixed “pop” in lighting when flying between planets
Fixed incorrect lighting seen in shadow areas
Improved lighting method when rendering tree leaves
Fixed procedural texturing on objects with multiple overlapping textures
Fixed size of certain texture atlas normal maps
Fixed texture scaling on asteroids
Zinc plant is now more obvious when it has been gathered
Fixed occasional rendering errors due to precision on cockpit during warp
Fixed pulse lines not appearing when pulse driving out from planet atmosphere
Fixed shadowing artefacts on imposters
Space
Improved asteroids to allow much denser fields
Improved explosion effects
Fixed scale of moons on the space map
Added freighter groups to the space map
Changed distribution of resources in asteroids
AI ships will now clear asteroids in their path
Planets are now scannable from space to see their resources
Space Combat
Fixed bounty targets warping out too soon
Improved HUD indicators in space combat
Added damaged ship effect on AI starships
Added formation flying
Improved locking on passive starships
Improved AI combat flight patterns
Added new ship weapon technology
Holding brake whilst turning now activates drift for fast turns
Improved AI ship freighter attacking
Improved freighter targeting code when under attack by enemy ships
Freighters
Fixed pulse drive to prevent travel through freighters
Improved docking code
Added hangar to the lead freighter
Added docking in freighters
Added icon to accessible freighter hangars
Added colouring to cargo drops to identify what is in them
You can now only pick up cargo drops that will fit in your inventory
Added auxiliary freight ships to freighter groups
Added alert lights and alarm audio for when freighters are in combat
Improved turret lights and explosions
Improved muzzle flashes on freighter turrets
Added indicator of cargo contents
Freighter Commanders now give rewards for rescuing them from pirate attack
Fixed collision on freighter cargo containers
Audio
Updated the lush ambience to make the wind sounds less noisy
Ambient background fauna now checks for the presence of creatures
Added rain on foliage
Added rain on ship
Added freighter specific footsteps
When on a dead planet, no music will play
Round table prop now plays an appropriate sound
Added more music to the loading sequence and game start
Added audio to new base building props
Created sounds for new base building props
Added audio to freighter doors and internal freighter ambiences
Added freighter explosions
Added freighter alarm
Added ambient radio comms when approaching a freighter
Fixed missing sounds when in a space station due to the mix settings
Multi-tool upgrades now affect audio
Lots of minor mix changes
Changed some compression settings for PS4 audio to make the sub-channel audio play more reliably
DualShockers reports that the file size is 50.698 on PS4, with 6.593 GB required to install before you can play the first part of the game. The Xbox One’s file size, as revealed earlier this month, is apparently 50.94 GB, according to DualShockers.
The PlayStation Store page mentions a 40.5 GB install size for Final Fantasy XV, while the Xbox Store shows a 51.82 GB install size. Those may not be entirely accurate, as it sometimes the case with pre-release listings.
Final Fantasy XV will have a significant day one patch, called the “Crown” update, that includes a “variety of updates, minor bug fixes, and new features to greatly enhance the overall story and gameplay experience.” Read GameSpot’s previous coverage to see the patch notes.
After years of development and multiple delays, Final Fantasy XV finally comes out on November 29.
Following the release of its latest patches, Ubisoft’s online shooter The Division is riding high again, it seems. The publisher said in a statement to PCGamesN (via DualShockers) that the number of daily active players has returned to what the game had at launch, suggesting the recent patches were successful in drawing people back.
“Since the release of patch 1.4, we went back to the daily active users we had at launch, because people were [so impressed],” Ubisoft VP of live operations Anne Blondel said. People came back, she said, in part because of Ubisoft’s commitment to improving the game, even though that meant delaying its expansions (and the revenue associated with them).
“Some players left the game earlier than what we thought, then we had to make that tough call: do we keep providing them with extra content or do we stop everything for a while, settle down, fix everything, and then once the game is where it should be, then we start providing more content,” Blondel added. “And this is what we did [and] the community was super happy about it, even though they were disappointed at first that we were to push back the next DLC releases.”
Part of Ubisoft’s effort to improve The Division and its dialogue with fans was the launch of the game’s public test server, where players can test new features before they are rolled out publicly.
Halo developer 343 Industries is giving away a “Thanks Given” turkey emblem to celebrate Thanksgiving. All you have to do is play Halo 5: Guardians this weekend to get it. Here’s what it looks like:
Play Halo 5 this weekend to get the elusive Thanks Given turkey emblem. Happy Thanksgiving to you & yours, from us at 343! pic.twitter.com/2PtCSXjUUR
In other Halo news, 343 continues to support Halo 5. The game’s next free expansion will include new Warzone maps and other items. Watch the first teaser for the DLC here.
