Box art for The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt‘s next expansion, titled Blood and Wine, has been released.
The image, which you can see above, shows protagonist Geralt seated on a throne, sword in one hand and a chalice of what looks to be wine in the other hand. It may very well be blood, however.
According to a similar image posted on NeoGAF, which is reportedly from a retailer in Jakarta, the content will be sold in stores as download code. It grants access to the DLC and two Gwent decks (a total of 154 cards). It’s also worth noting that the base game is required to play Blood and Wine, and is not included.
Blood and Wine’s is set in the colourful new region called Toussaint. The expansion will “take Geralt to a land untainted by war, where an atmosphere of carefree indulgence and knightly ritual masks an ancient, bloody secret.” It will also include new gear and enemies, as well as characters who are “both new and dearly missed.”
The silly cover has a dated look and features fake press quotes like “I laughed…I cried…No, I just cried” and “An all-you-can-east Souls buffet!” Others praise the game for being “A convincing portrayal of one man’s struggle…to struggle,” while the protagonist is described as “A hero with bigger balls than basketballs.”
“There are several possible endings to Dark Souls III, and although most are anticlimactic, they drive home the loneliness of the paths we took,” reviewer Mike Mahardy said.
“The old lords have abandoned their posts, and in the hunt to usurp them, we descend into those dark valleys, and climb those imposing peaks. This is the essence of Dark Souls III: periods of doubt, followed by great reward. The journey may be rocky, but there’s a throne waiting at the end.”
Blizzard Entertainment’s Battle.net service suffered a DDoS attack on April 13, impacting servers for all of the developer’s big games, including World of Warcraft, Diablo III, and StarCraft II. Writing in the Battle.net forums, a support representative confirmed the attack, but said things should be back to normal.
“It looks like we experienced a potential DDoS on one of our datacenters,” the statement said. “Initial impact appears to have ended and our engineers put up some buffers to resolve the issue, and realms should start recovering. We’re continuing to monitor and work on mitigating the impact.
“Apologies for the inconvenience, and we’ll be sure to provide updates as they continue to come in.”
As alluded to in the statement, it sounds like service is being restored not all at once, but slowly. If Battle.net remains down for you, keep checking back, as it should come back online soon.
The DDoS attack against Battle.net was severe, leaving all games unplayable in the United States and Europe for a period of time before service was restored.
Battle.net is not alone when it comes to being attacked in this way. Both Xbox Live and PlayStation Network were brought down on Christmas Day 2014 through a DDoS attack, which essentially floods servers with requests beyond what the networks can handle.
Capcom has announced it will release a new Street Fighter 5 update in April to address an ongoing issue with players rage-quitting. In a post on the official Street Fighter Twitter account, the company said it is “planning to roll out a system this month” and will have “more details coming soon.”
Rage-quitting in Street Fighter 5’s online multiplayer matches has been an issue since the game’s release. The game launched in February with no penalty system in place for people that quit early, and Capcom said it hoped to resolve the issue in the future.
On March 4, it announced short-term measures, which involved monitoring players abusing the system and encouraging others to report players that rage-quit. It said work on a permanent solution was ongoing.
“Though we were pretty confident that players in our system who had high disconnect rates were indeed those who were attempting to avoid a loss at all costs, we didn’t want to start dishing out any punishments without clear proof,” it said at the time.
“Moving forward, we will be making a sweep each week based on accounts in our system that have abnormally high disconnect rates (particularly at the end of the match) and will reset their League Points.”
Street Fighter 5’s March update included the introduction of Alex, a returning character from Street Fighter 3. Additionally, a Challenge Mode, Trials, and an online rematch option were added, along with improvements to the Battle Lounge, and various other bug fixes.
Since Street Fighter 5’s real-money currency, Zenny, wasn’t part of the update, Alex was made available at no cost for a trial period.
“This also will apply to any future DLC character that releases prior to the Zenny shop launching,” Capcom explained. “Once the Zenny shop launches, the free trial for any DLC characters that released prior to the Zenny shop opening will end, and players will need to either use Fight Money, Zenny, or the Season Pass to access those characters.”
Once the Zenny shop launches the character will no longer be playable unless he is purchased. When the Zenny shop launches, Alex will be cost 100,000 Fight Money (Street Fighter V’s in-game currency), while character costumes will be 40,000 each.
Other upcoming DLC characters have been confirmed as Guile, Balrog, Ibuki, Juri, and Urien. In addition to characters, Capcom will add a free story mode in Jun
The Han Solo movie is lined up to be the second standalone Star Wars spinoff, following this year’s Rogue One. The film has a script, directors, and release date, but lacks one thing–Han himself. It has now been reported that rising star Alden Ehrenreich is the frontrunner to play the young space smuggler.
According to Deadline, Ehrenreich’s impressive screen tests have put him ahead of the other actors under consideration. Last month, it was reported that the casting process had narrowed to Ehrenreich, Jack Reynor (Transformers: Age of Extinction), and Taron Egerton (Kingsmen: The Secret Service).
Ehrenreich was seen most recently in the Coen brothers’ comedy Hail Caesar!, and will star in Warren Beatty’s upcoming movie about legendary tycoon Howard Hughes. He has also appeared in Stoker and Woody Allen’s Blue Jasmine.
The Han Solo film is to be directed by Jump Street‘s Phil Lord and Christopher Miller, from a script by Star Wars veteran Lawrence Kasdan and his son Jon.
Although the movie is yet to be given a title, it has been confirmed that Chewbacca will also play a part in the story. It is currently set for a May 2018 release.
If you haven’t been following the game closely, it’s a new team-based shooter that has some elements of MOBAs, though it isn’t itself a MOBA. The newly released video above offers a brief rundown on Battleborn’s story, game modes, upgrade system, and characters–of which there are 25, with five more on the way for free following the full game’s launch.
The beta consists of two story missions, two competitive multiplayer modes, and all 25 launch characters, though some of these need to be unlocked before they can be played. You can also get a taste of three progressions systems in the game. However, none of your progress will carry over to the full game.
Everyone who plays the Battleborn open beta can also earn some character skins by completing the challenges laid out in the image above. The Battleborn open beta runs through April 18 on all three platforms.
If you haven’t already preloaded it, you can download the beta for PS4 here, Xbox One here, and PC here. The full version of Battleborn launches on May 3.
One of the more surprising bits of news to emerge from the Sony email hack of 2014 was a suggestion that the studio were developing a crossover between the Men in Black and Jump Street films. On the face of it, these properties don’t seem to have much to do with each other, but not only is the project happening, a title has been announced.
At Sony’s CinemaCon panel in Las Vegas this week, it was revealed that the movie would be titled MIB 23. As Variety reported last month, Jonah Hill and Channing Tatum are expected to reprise their roles from 21 Jump Street and 22 Jump Street, and will also serve as executive producers on the movie.
The Muppets director James Bobin is being eyed to helm the action-comedy. Previous Jump Street directors Phil Lord and Chris Miller will be involved on a production level–the pair are currently working on the Star Wars Han Solo movie.
Men in Black stars Will Smith and Tommy Lee Jones will not be back however, with Variety stating that “younger, fresher faces” are being sought to play the alien-investigating government agents.
The script has been written by Rodney Rothman, who worked on 22 Jump Street. Story details are being kept under wraps, and it has been rumoured that Sony is requiring that most people drive to its studio HQ to read the script.
No release date for MIB 23 has been announced yet.
Once you receive your code, it’s recommended that you check to ensure your computer meets the minimum system requirements. You can then redeem it through the Xbox app on Windows 10.
Remedy said the “first wave” of codes are going out now, so if you didn’t receive yours right away, keeping check back for it in the days ahead.
Quantum Break supports cross-saves between the Xbox One and PC versions, allowing you to go back and forth between the two platforms and have your saves follow you.
Another problem for The Division has emerged following the launch of the game’s major April update this week. Not only are some players’ characters vanishing after the update, but now, Ubisoft has confirmed that the game’s new Daily Challenge mode is missing. Unfortunately for fans, it will not be restored today (April 13) and is instead coming back to the third-person shooter tomorrow, April 14.
We are aware of the missing Daily Challenge mode. While we won’t be able to fix it today, we can confirm that it will be back tomorrow
“We are aware that some players are facing issues with the Windows 10 version of Quantum Break and some extent on Xbox One,” Remedy said in a forum post. “We want to let you know that we are working diligently with Microsoft Studios on addressing all the feedback.”
“We are paying close attention to forums and the discussion online about Quantum Break and are doing our best to solve the issues you are experiencing.”
One of the key problems with Quantum Break’s PC version relates to frame rate stuttering. Remedy said it made a “major rounding error” for the game’s release and is now working on a solution that should be available in a title update coming in the “near future.”
On the subject of general performance issues, Remedy said the game can experience slow rendering in some cases, particularly after a longer play session. Remedy said this problem is “very rare,” but all the same stressed that it’s committed to working with AMD and Nvidia to improve experience overall.
Another problem with Quantum Break’s PC edition was that the game lacked an exit button to quit from the main menu. “We hear you!” Remedy said, explaining the upcoming title update will add this option.
Additionally, some players have called for the ability to adjust the Quantum Break image settings to turn off features like the “film grain” look. Despite this being a design choice, Remedy said it wants to give players more options and as such, the ability to turn off film grain will come in a future update.
Below are all of the Quantum Break issues Remedy is working on now, as well as workarounds where available. For more on Quantum Break, check out GameSpot’s review and what other critics are saying.
Windows 10 Issues & Solutions
Stuttering Frame-Rate / Frame Pacing
There was a major rounding error introduced into our refresh rate predictions on shipping. A solution to this issue is already being worked on; we expect it to be resolved in a Quantum Break Title Update launching in the near future.
Windows 10 Performance Issues
Remedy is looking into how to improve the overall performance of the game. Part of that is working closely with AMD and Nvidia to address issues and improve the gameplay experience.
Sometimes, after a longer play session, the game can end up to a state where the video memory becomes fragmented, and an important asset gets moved to system memory, which slows the rendering performance significantly. This problem is very rare and Remedy will continue to investigate and improve the video memory behavior in future updates.
If you experience this issue, exiting and restarting Quantum Break will resolve this issue for now. This is one way to identify if you have encountered this issue or if it’s another potential problem.
Graphics Drivers:
We recommend, for AMD Radeon GPUs, AMD Radeon Software Crimson Edition 16.4.1
We recommend, for NVIDIA GPUs, 362.00 from NVIDIA.
Keep in mind, these drivers might have an impact on other software on your computer.
Windows 10 Frame Rate Locked?
In May, Microsoft will be enabling the ability for developers to disable v-sync and adding support for G-Sync and Freesync monitors. This means that UWP games running in full screen, borderless windowed mode will have all of the performance advantages of traditional full screen exclusive mode.
No Option to Quit from Main Menu
We hear you! By popular demand, we are adding an exit option to the main menu in an upcoming title update. For now, similar to all Windows 10 apps, you will need to use Alt-F4 or move the mouse cursor to top right corner of the window to the see the X icon, which you can click to exit the game.
Crashing on Launch
We have been able to repro at least one reason for a rare crash on launch–with some SIMD instructions that require SSE4.1. We are working on fixing that in a future title update, and will fix any other issues we find as they are reported.
Image Quality
We are working on giving users more control to turn on and off features like film grain. We love the artistic choice for our game, but we also want to give PC gamers more choice and this will come in a future update.
Does Quantum Break support SLI or other multi-GPU solutions?
Quantum Break on Windows 10 unfortunately doesn’t support DirectX12 multi-GPU rendering. Due to the engine architecture, the work needed to support multiple GPUs would have been significant and out of scope for Remedy for Quantum Break.
Render technique and resolution on Windows 10
The Windows 10 version of Quantum Break uses the same reconstruction method as on Xbox One. If your resolution is set to 1080p, the game temporally reconstructs the image (except UI) from four 720p buffers rendered with 4xMSAA, just like on Xbox One. Engine assigns input geometry samples from 4xMSAA rendering into shaded clusters in order to maximize covered geometry while keeping the performance on acceptable level by reducing expensive shaded samples. When you change the resolution, the buffers used to construct the image are always 2/3rds of the set resolution, i.e. in 2560×1440 they would be 1706×960.
Download Issues
We are aware some users are having issues downloading the game from the Windows Store. There are some known bugs with the way the progress bar is rendered. Microsoft is standing by to help anyone who has issues downloading and the Windows 10 Anniversary Update this summer will massively improve the overall experience for these kinds of big games.
General Issues & Solutions (Xbox One and Windows 10)
Light Flare / Blinking Lights
This is a known issue. A permanent fix is being introduced in the next Title Update in the near future. For now, the problem can be resolved by exiting and re-launching the game.
Film Grain
This is an artistic choice from Remedy Entertainment. We wanted a cinematic look for our game and “film grain” is part of that look. Depending on the brand of TV you use or if your Xbox One is connected to a monitor, the film grain can look very different. Always use “Game Mode” on your television if such a feature exists. Make sure you adjust your sharpness setting down on your monitor or TV as well as the brightness setting in Quantum Break.
Ambient Subtitles
While atmosphere is an important part of Quantum Break, we decided to not include subtitles for ambient sound (e.g.– in-game radio broadcasts) to ensure those subtitles did not conflict or overlap with the subtitles for actual character dialogue.
No Dialogue on Xbox One
If your game is missing dialogue, this is probably because you are listening in stereo, but the Xbox One is set to play back surround 5.1 or 7.1.
To solve this on Xbox One:
Scroll left from Home to open the guide
Select Settings
Select All Settings
Select Display & Sound
Select Audio output
Set the output to Stereo
Cloud Save Issue on Windows 10 and Xbox One
Cloud save issues with the Windows 10 version of Quantum Break have been resolved with the March update (Windows 10 Version 10586.164, 64-bit only). To avoid any issues, please switch Microsoft accounts before signing in to the Xbox app and/or check Windows Update to ensure that you are using the latest version of Windows 10.
We are aware of this issue on Xbox One and are working to address it in a future update. To avoid any issues, please quit the game before turning off your console
