A Dark Souls 3 patch intended to address rampant hacking in the PC version of the game has been removed after it was discovered it was also causing the game to freeze.
“This patch has been removed temporarily to fix the freeze issues,” reads an update on the game’s Steam page. “We hope to reinstate the patch ASAP.”
Dark Souls 3 hackers on PC have been able to exploit the game’s cheat detection measures during multiplayer to inflict temporary bans on other players.
Although the update alleviated these issues, freezing emerged as an unintended side effect. Developer From Software has said, in light of the patch being rolled back, victims of these tactics “won’t be penalised” with bans.
“We will keep you posted as soon as we have more info. Thank you for your understanding,” it added.
Dark Souls 3 has shipped 3 million units worldwide, pushing total worldwide shipments of the entire Souls franchise past 13 million. The third entry in the series was most popular in North America and Europe, where it shipped 1.5 million and 1 million copies respectively. In Japan and Asia, it shipped 500,000.
Dark Souls 3 received a score of 8 in GameSpot’s review, in which critic Mike Mahardy said, “This is the essence of Dark Souls 3: periods of doubt, followed by great reward. The journey may be rocky, but there’s a throne waiting at the end.”
Naughty Dog’s Uncharted 4: A Thief’s End debuts at No.1 on the UK sales chart for the week ending May 16 and, according to UK Sales monitor Chart-Track, has had “by far the most successful launch in the series.”
Uncharted 4’s debut week sales beat Uncharted 3: Drake’s Deception‘s by 66 percent. Bethesda’s Doom, the only other new title in the top, arrives at No.2, selling 67 percent more in its first week than Doom 3, the last mainline entry in the series.
2K’s Battleborn, developed by Borderlands studio Gearbox, dropped out of the top 10 in its second week on sale, going from No.1 to No.12.
You can see the full top ten in below. This table does not include digital sales data, and thus should not be considered representative of all UK game sales.
Oscar-winning Hunger Games actress Jennifer Lawrence is a fontrunner to play the right-hand woman to Sandra Bullock’s character in the upcoming female-led Ocean’s 11 reboot. This is according to a report from The Tracking Board, which claims Lawrence is “at the top of the producers’ shortlist.”
The Ocean’s 11 reboot is being directed by Gary Ross, who also directed 2012’s Hunger Games. It would be the first time that Lawrence and Ross have reunited for a movie since.
Sources told The Tracking Board that the female-oriented follow-up focuses on Bullock’s character, an ex-con and the sister of Danny Ocean. In the original trilogy, George Clooney played that part.
“With a team of thieves, she sets out of steal a necklace from the Met Ball and frame a crooked gallery owner. Lawrence is being considered for the role of Bullock’s right-hand woman,” the report says.
In October last year, Warner Bros. confirmed the all-female Ocean’s 11 movie. Clooney is said to be producing, alongside Steven Soderbergh, who directed the earlier trilogy, which itself was a remake of a 1960 movie starring Frank Sinatra and Dean Martin.
The picture has been in development for some time, and it was allegedly a big reason for the fast-tracking of the competing female-led reboot of Ghostbusters at Sony, which is now set for a July 2016 release.
The 2001 Ocean’s 11 earned $450 million worldwide, and while the two sequels were not quite as successful, they all proved to be considerable box office hits.
Gears of War designer Cliff Bleszinski has shared his early reactions to id Software’s long-awaited and just-released Doom. Writing on Twitter, Bleszinski said he’s enjoying the game a lot, but had one “minor” piece of criticism–and it’s the same one he has for Gears of War. Check out the tweets below (via DualShockers).
OK some rapid fire Doom thoughts. Weapons feel good so far. Good to see some satanic stuff in there. Awesome to be on the Martian surface…
Expanding on that last point, Bleszinski said execution animations can slow things down, maybe too much. “Players just want to win and kill in a shooter,” he said. “They don’t care about fancy animations that slow you down IMO.”
Doom’s Glory Kills, as they are called, are contextual attacks that show the player violently dismembering enemies. In his review in progress, GameSpot’s Peter Brown said these can definitely slow down the action, but they have an upside as well.
“While it’s fair to say Glory Kills bring combat to a temporary halt, they are also a godsend as they cause enemies to drop health packs, and occasionally some ammo,” he said.
Doom launched on Friday, May 13, but copies of the game were not sent to press early. GameSpot will be playing Doom all weekend, and our final review is expected to arrive early next week.
Included in the update are fixes for crashes and a particle sync issue for single-player, as well as a bevy of fixes for multiplayer. Scroll down to see the complete patch notes.
Looking ahead, Naughty Dog it is “actively working” on releasing more patches for problems and other issues players have discovered. You can report issues directly to Naughty Dog right here.
Uncharted 4 – PS4 Patch 1.03 Notes
1.03.012
General:
Various Localization updates
Single Player:
Fixed various crashes
Fixed particle sync issue
Multiplayer:
General
Gameplay crash fixes
Fix for Entitlement Limits being reached causing users to not see Uncharted Points they had purchased
Enabled a pop-up to appear while in the menus to inform users of new updates
Fix for Challenge completed pop-up appearing after already completing the challenge
Fix for Loadout Point unlocks not triggering properly
Fix for store item descriptions
Leaderboard text fixes
Fix for post-game medal description
Added Leaderboards menu item to matchmaking page so players can check out their leaderboard stats while in matchmaking
Fixed booster level issue for late-joiners
Sniper Sidekick – Path of Indra mod now plays sound properly when Sniper teleports
Timer display error fix for Matchmaking lobby
Fix for private match settings not being visible after viewing previous game results
Fixed crash that can occur during the end game scoreboard
Ranked TDM
Fix for team favor display for when teams are evenly matched in Ranked TDM
Fix for rank point bug where players were incorrectly getting penalized for both win/loss
Rank progress is now displayed when browsing the Ranked TDM playlist, before entering
Lowered the max rank that can be achieved after initial placement matches from Gold I to Gold III
Command
Fix for a crash that occurs during a game of Command
Fix for store prices sometimes being improper while being a Captain
Fix for contested status icon not updating properly
Fix for late-join player seeing improper status icon
Plunder
Fix for the idol respawn timer not appearing properly
Fix for weapon gameplay issues while hodling the idol
Treasure chest, player starting spawns, & idol spawn locations tweaked
Fix for idol pickup causing loss of functionality
Fix for scoring animation playing improperly
Fix for throwing animation playing improperly
Weapons
Fix for sniper rifle scope-in times
Fix for weapon progression being inappropriately earned
Fix for starting ammo mod on some weapons
Mysticals
Spirit of the Djinn
Fix for timer not working properly
Fix for FX not deactivating properly
Fix for improperly turning off during to network errors
Fix for icon not clearing properly when a player dies while it is active
Fix for not being able to purchase while wating to respawn
Staff of Ayar Manco received a decrease in the ammount of points it contributes towards your Support Score
1.03.013 (MP ONLY)
Decrease number of Warm-Up matches to unlock other playlists to 1 game
Decreased the maximum Warm-Up matches from 10 to 5
Tripled the Rank Points lost for a quit or disconnect in Ranked TDM
Each week we search and gather up the coolest comic book art you won’t see in actual comics. The reason you won’t is because professional artists often draw sketches for fun or commissions and post them on their websites, blogs, and Tumblrs. Some artists even arrange commissions through their sites so be sure to check them out. This is a way to see the artists working on one book draw characters from other comics or publishers.
Paolo Rivera posted his Captain America: Civil War poster that was only given to cast and crew on his blog. He also posted some recent commissions.
Sara Pichelli posted a couple sketches of Death (from Sandman) and Padme on her Tumblr this week.
Terry Dodson posted some recent commissions on his Deviant Art page.
Riot Games owner Tencent has announced a new console called the Tencent Games Platform (TGP) Box at CES Asia (via AllChinaTech).
The TGP Box is powered by a sixth-generation Intel core processor and runs Windows 10 and a “TGP Box mode.” While in the TGP Box mode, it can download and stream games to the console. It can run games like League of Legends, FIFA Online 3, NBA 2K Online, Monster Hunter Online, and Need for Speed: Hot Pursuit Tournament, all of which Tencent previously helped bring to Asia by partnering with the repsective developers. It’s expected to have more games from third-party developers this year.
Video game industry analyst ZhugeEX has said that “[i]t’s basically a Windows 10-powered gaming console but with smart features designed to transcend traditional gaming.”
It’s unclear if the TGP Box will come to the West, but Tencent is a major player in Asia, which is a huge, mostly untapped market when it comes to consoles. China lifted its ban on console gaming last year. The ban started in 2000.
Tencent is an investment holding company that doesn’t solely focus on games. It’s most well known for its Chinese instant messenger software, Tencent QQ, but it has subsidiaries in music, social media, television, and online shopping as well. It bought the majority stake in League of Legends developer Riot in 2011 and acquired a minority stake in Gears of War developer Epic Games in 2012. Tencent Games is China’s largest online game community.
Project Spark, Microsoft’s game creation video game, has been cancelled and is unavailable to download from here on out. However, if you already have it downloaded on your Xbox One or PC, you can continue to use the online services until August, at which point you’ll no longer be able to download or upload creations.
Though the game is shutting down its services, no layoffs have occurred at Microsoft. The game had transitioned to a completely free model last year and many of the game’s developers had moved on to other games
“While this means there have been no layoffs at Microsoft, it also means it’s simply no longer feasible to continue the behind-the-scenes work involved with keeping Project Spark up and running with meaningful updates and bug fixes, so we have come to this hard decision,” said community manager Thomas Gratz on Project Spark’s official site.
“Despite this news, we want to celebrate the accomplishments of our team and community of creators and players,” continued Gratz. “Our team released 46 content packs, thousands of assets, and 16 updates since launch (averaging more than one update every two months). We produced hundreds of livestreams and videos to educate and celebrate our community.
“In turn, our passionate fans have then gone above and beyond supporting Project Spark by uploading hundreds of thousands of creations and dreaming up millions of objects, behaviors, and experiences. Outside the game, they created fan sites, tutorials, forums, apps, and more! We thank everyone who has played or created anything within Project Spark, as it would have never existed without you.”
Users who purchased the retail version of Project Spark and have redeemed the code inside of it will receive credit that can be used in the Xbox or Windows store. If you’re eligible, the credit will be put into your account automatically.
Project Spark was the game that brought the foul-mouthed squirrel, Conker, back to Xbox consoles. However, before all of it could be released, the Conker DLC was cancelled when the game went completely free.
The logo for Hideo Kojima’s new Kojima Productions development studio contains a secret, the game designer and industry veteran has revealed. He told Famitsu that the skull and helmet we see in the logo is actually just one part of it; there is a full body to be revealed later.
“I can’t really say yet,” Kojima told the magazine, as translated by Kotaku. “But this logo has a secret. It has a full body, a really cool full body. We’re planning on putting out a figure version of it.”
In the interview, Kojima said a second time that the full body will look “very cool.” He even suggested someone take it further. “Couldn’t someone make like an anime or something with this character?” he joked.
“They were going, ‘You can’t have a black person on the cover, and you can’t have a woman. And you want a black woman.’ And I was like, ‘Yes, I do, because it’s about be whatever hero you want.’ [According to McCormack, Microsoft said] ‘No. It’s a white guy. That’s just the way it is. We know what sells and that’s f**king it. Stop the arguing.’ I was like, ‘F**k you!’ That was a huge fight.”
“They said, ‘What’s the most unsuccessful Disney film? I was like, ‘I don’t know.’ They went, ‘Princess and the Frog. Work it out.’ I was like, “F**k you, man.’ I hated it.”
McComack went on to say that Microsoft “missed the point” of Fable II overall by putting a traditional-looking, male hero on the cover.
“I was screaming at them in conference calls,” he said. “I lost it at that point, because they just weren’t getting the game. Especially because we were the first ever game that had gay marriage, we were about breaking down walls. It was meant to be funny and mature. They just took none of it and just did the usual white guy with a sword on the front. Damn it! You missed the point!”
The Fable II box art showed a young male character, brandishing a gun and a sword. Opposite him is a demonized version of the character, which was a reference to how your actions in the game–good and bad–can shape the look of your character. Some remarked that they particularly enjoyed the art.
According to Eurogamer’s report, McCormack’s story is something of an outlier.
“Most who worked on Fable II speak of the relationship with Microsoft in glowing terms,” the report said. “The company comes across as one keen to retain the magic that has spawned the first Fable, that quirky British humor that went down so well with Monty Python fans back home.”
GameSpot has contacted Microsoft to see if the company has a response to McCormack’s comments. We will update this post with anything we hear back.
In 2012, Naughty Dog revealed that it was asked to put one of The Last of Us‘ main characters, the young woman Ellie, on the back of the box.
“I believe there’s a misconception that if you put a girl or a woman on the cover, the game will sell less,” director Neil Druckmann said at the time. “I know I’ve been in discussions where we’ve been asked to push Ellie to the back and everyone at Naughty Dog just flat-out refused.”
Box art has the tricky job of capturing your attention and representing the game. BioShock Infinite‘s box art was criticized for not representing the tone of the game. Director Ken Levine responded to the criticisms, saying the cover was designed for the uninformed, not fans of the series.
UPDATE: Eurogamer’s story about the controversial box art mentions both Fable II and Fable III. It is not immediately clear which box art is the one in question. We’ll update this post with more details when they become available
