Category: Gamespot

In honor of GOG.com’s St. Patrick’s Day Sale, we teamed up with them to give away 600 PC game codes free from their catalog. The PC game codes will be a mystery code, redeemable on GOG’s platform, and are DRM-free.

This is not an instant win; scroll down to enter below. Competition ends Friday, March 16th at 5:00 PM PT. Six-hundred (600) winners will be emailed a code. Open worldwide, void where prohibited. No purchase necessary.

The St. Patrick’s Day Sale on GOG.com runs until Sunday, March 19th at 3:59 PM PT. You can read more about it here: New PC Games Sale Features $3 Mystery Games For A Limited Time.

Enter below (the additional entries are OPTIONAL to increase your chances of winning):

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Fortnite has well and truly become a phenomenon. The latest example? Hugely popular singer Drake is playing the game right now with popular streamer Ninja.

They’re playing Duos right now, and you can check out the stream through the Twitch embed below. Most importantly, Ninja asked Drake what he thinks about pineapple on pizza. “I enjoy pineapple on pizza. I don’t mind it,” Drake said, noting that he enjoyed this the most back in high school in Canada.

Drake told Ninja during one part of the stream that he plays Fortnite a lot while in the studio. There is a lot of downtime, and he spends it playing the multiplayer shooter with his friends and industry collaborators.

The Canadian rapper also discussed why he thinks Fortnite is so popular; part of the appeal is developer Epic’s commitment to releasing new content, Drake said. He also said Fortnite has done a good job “handling the demand” relative to PUBG.

Ninja’s Fortnite stream with Drake has been hugely popular, reaching more than 600,000 concurrent viewers at one point. This smashes the previous record of 400,000 for an individual stream.

In response to this stream, another rapper, Post Malone, tweeted to say he thinks PUBG is better than Fortnite. Drama!

Their stream is taking place just before Fortnite’s 3.3 update, which comes out in the early hours of March 15. The servers are going down at 2 AM PT on March 15 as the patch is rolled out.

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[UPDATE] The Xbox Live Service Status page now shows that only Purchase and Content Usage is affected. Specifically, Xbox Game Pass is running into problems.

“Our engineers and developers are actively continuing to work to resolve the issue causing some members to have problems finding previously purchased content or purchasing new content. Stay tuned, and thanks for your patience,” Microsoft wrote.

The original story is below.

After last week’s widespread Xbox Live outage, the network is experiencing issues again today. The Xbox Live Service Status page shows that a number of services are running into problems right now, including Purchase and Content Usage, TV, Music, and Video, and Social and Gaming. Both Xbox One and Xbox 360 are affected.

Things like viewing achievements; browsing, purchasing, and viewing video content; and buying games, redeeming codes, and downloading purchases are all affected.

Core services like signing into Xbox Live and matchmaking are still up and running normally, so that’s good news. Last week’s outage prevented many players from signing in at all, which is obviously a big deal.

The dinosaur survival game Ark: Survival Evolved is one of the affected titles. The developer said players are reporting that some are having problems launching the game or, if they can, seeing any available servers.

As always, your mileage may vary with all service interruption. The good news is Microsoft is aware of the problems and is actively working on a fix. So keep checking back with GameSpot for the latest.

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You won’t have to wait much longer for Fortnite’s delayed v3.3 update. It was originally due out on March 14, but developer Epic discovered an issue and had to delay it. Thankfully, the wait won’t be long, as the patch is now scheduled to launch in the morning on March 15.

Server downtime related to the rollout will begin tomorrow at 5 AM ET / 2 AM PT, presumably on all platforms: Xbox One, PS4, and PC.

There is still no official word on what’s in the 3.3 update, but Epic did tease that players will be able to come across a Supply Llama in Battle Royale. The update may also include remote explosives, a newly revealed item that players will be able to detonate from a distance.

What we do know is that the limited-time Teams of 20 mode in Fortnite: Battle Royale is getting removed with the 3.3 update, so now is your last chance to play it.

Epic recently announced it is bringing Fortnite: Battle Royale to mobile. Those with iOS devices can now sign up for a chance to take part in an exclusive invite event. If you’re curious to see how the game runs on mobile, you can check out the first gameplay footage of Fortnite on iOS here.

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Grand Theft Auto V has topped the UK physical sales charts once again this week, according to sales monitor Chart-Track. For the week ending March 10, the open-world game was the best-selling game in the UK, and it’s the 15th time the game has reached No.1 since its original launch in September 2013.

Below GTA V, two new releases enter the chart. Racing title TT Isle of Man: Ride on the Edge debuts at No.2, while Sony’s new PSVR shooter Bravo Team finishes at No.3 in its first week on sale. The only other new games this week are the physical edition of Life is Strange: Before the Storm, which debuts at No.18, and Final Fantasy XV: Royal Edition, which begins at No.31.

Elsewhere, usual big-hitters FIFA 18 and Call of Duty: WWII are down to No.4 and No.5, respectively, and it’s a good week for Nintendo, with three Switch titles in the top 10. Mario Kart 8 Deluxe is at No.6, Super Mario Odyssey is No.7, and The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild is No.10.

You can read the full top 10 sales chart below, courtesy of UKIE and Chart-Track. Note this table does not include digital sales data, and so should not be considered representative of all UK game sales.

1. Grand Theft Auto V
2. TT Isle of Man: Ride on the Edge
3. Bravo Team
4. FIFA 18
5. Call of Duty: WWII
6. Mario Kart 8: Deluxe
7. Super Mario Odyssey
8. Playerunknown’s Battlegrounds
9. Monster Hunter World
10. The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild

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A Way Out, the new co-op game from the creator of Brothers: A Tale of Two Sons, is launching next week on Xbox One, PlayStation 4, and PC. We caught up with game director Josef Fares recently, who gave us a demo and revealed some new details about the action game. Fares made headlines at the end of 2017 when he said “F**k the Oscars” and gave the middle finger directly to the camera during The Game Awards.

You can check out our complete, 35-minute demo in the video above, but we’ve pulled out some interesting takeaways into the bullet points at the bottom of this post.

A Way Out can only be played in co-op with another human, locally or online. Thankfully, there is a way to pretty much ensure you have someone to play with. At The Game Awards back in December, publisher EA announced a “friends pass free trial” for the game that lets you play the full title if your friend owns it.

Set in the ’70s, A Way Out focuses on the story of two convicts who are on the run after a prison escape. The game launches on March 23, though because it is an EA-published title, EA/Origin Access subscribers will presumably get to play a trial early.

A Way Out Details From Fares

• It will take you 6-8 hours to finish A Way Out
• Developer Hazelight started with just 10 people on the project, before ramping up to around 40 later in development. Only 12 people worked on Brothers.
• Fares wrote the script himself, though he worked with a “script doctor” as well.
• Fares says EA has been very supportive and hands-off. “If EA wants to make an apple greener, I can say no,” Fares said.
• 100 percent of the income from A Way Out will go to developer Hazelight. EA makes nothing, Fares said. EA helps with marketing and support, but apparently gets nothing from sales.
• He acknowledges that EA has its fair share of issues, as all publishers do. “They sh*t and take a pee like everybody else,” Fares said.
• Fares is incredibly passionate about A Way Out and particularly its co-op multiplayer, saying he would turn down $10 million to make a strictly single-player game.
• Fares would never make a game with mictrotransactions.
• There are no plans for a Nintendo Switch edition, at least not yet.

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PAX Australia and EB Expo are combining to form one mega-gaming convention. The two events, which are the largest gaming shows in the Southern hemisphere, are joining forces in 2018 for a show that stands to be bigger than any PAX Australia in the show’s five years.

PAX Aus, a community event, has been running for five years now in Melbourne, offering attendees things like hands-on time with upcoming games, developer panels, concerts, eSports tournaments, and more. EB Expo, meanwhile, has a history of being more focused on the commercial side, which makes sense given the event is run by a retailer.

For 2018, however, PAX Aus will include the EB Expo. What this means is that more publishers than ever will attend and the number of panels is increasing. There will be an EB Expo Live Theatre this year, as well as the biggest pop-up EB Games store in Australia.

PAX Aus takes place October 26-28 in Melbourne. More than 180 companies are already confirmed to attend, with “thousands” of games playable on the show flow.

“PAX Aus grows every year, and in 2018, EB Expo is the red mushroom to our Italian plumber,” PAX Aus event manager Jono Whyman said. “We’re incredibly excited to partner with EB Games to level up PAX Aus and continue to put on the biggest, best gaming show for our die-hard fans and new members of the PAX family.”

PAX Aus and EB Expo have always been held in October, just a few weeks apart, which puts some amount of stress on people hoping to attend both events. Not only that, but the events were held in different cities.

There is no word yet about if there will be a price increase for PAX Aus tickets as a result of these changes.

ReedPop, the US-based events company that organises PAX, recently made a big play in the area of video game coverage. It acquired Gamer Network, which owns video game websites such as Eurogamer, GamesIndustry.biz, VG247, and RockPaperShotgun, among others.

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The immense popularity of games like PUBG and Fortnite: Battle Royale is not lost on publishing giant Activision Blizzard, it seems. Investment first Oppenheimer recently met with executives from the video game giant and came away feeling positive, due in part to the company reportedly having its eye on the battle royale genre.

Activision management explained to the research firm that it is “keenly aware” of the popularity of the battle royale trend and how other publishers have benefitted from jumping on board, according to Wall Street Journal writer Sarah Needleman (via IGN).

“The investment firm says Activision is keenly aware of how other game publishers have recently benefited from releasing titles [in the] popular ‘battle royale’ genre,” the report said. According to Needleman, Oppenheimer’s report also noted, “Management reminded investors that the company is a faster follower.”

The suggestion here is that Activision might get involved in the battle royale phenomenon somehow, though there is no word on if Call of Duty: Black Ops 4 will have a battle royale mode. Whatever the case, it’s exciting to think about.

It’s no surprise to hear that Activision is keeping an eye on popular video game trends. It would be weird if they weren’t. And for that matter, we would expect all other video game publishers to be keeping tabs on the genre to potentially inform their own future decisions.

Activision isn’t the first major video game publisher to respond to the battle royale phenomenon. Take-Two, which owns Rockstar Games, said it is “really interesting” to see PUBG and Fortnite rise in popularity. But at the same time, Take-Two explained that it wants its studios at Rockstar and 2K to work on original ideas instead of being “derivative” and following a trend.

The success of PUBG and its impact on video games is undeniable. The game has been one of gaming’s biggest success stories of the past year (PUBG launched one year ago this month), and it inspired other popular battle royale games like Fornite and others. It will be interesting to see if other publishers follow along with battle royale modes in their own games, or create new experiences altogether in the battle royale genre.

As for Black Ops 4, the military shooter arrives on October 12 for PS4, Xbox One, and PC. That’s about a month earlier than past entries in the series. Activision hasn’t said why it moved the game’s release up, but doing so gets the game a two-week headstart on Red Dead Redemption 2 (October 26).

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The Capital Wasteland Project, a fan project that was attempting to recreate Fallout 3 inside the framework of Fallout 4, has been canceled. The creator says that discussions with Bethesda made them realize that their plan was treading on treacherous legal ground, forcing them to call it off.

The project leader “NafNaf 95” shared a statement on Twitter (via Eurogamer) explaining the decision. “Recently we communicated with Bethesda regarding our planned method to implement the voice acting and other audio from Fallout 3 into the Capital Wasteland. During this conversation it became clear our planned approach would raise serious red flags that we had unfortunately not foreseen.”

The letter goes on to state that the team attempted shifting its methods in various ways, including re-recording dialogue, or requiring Fallout 3 to be owned in conjunction with an audio extractor. Ultimately, though, the team came to the conclusion that there was no legal way they could continue the project as envisioned. The dialogue that was performed by the likes of Liam Neeson and Ron Perlman was seen as too crucial to the experience, so re-recording it with fan-actors was dubbed a non-starter.

In a more personal matter, the project head says that if the team were to continue the project, he would personally be held liable for any copyright infringement or piracy claims.

“Projects like this have always existed in a grey area of the law…” the letter read. “If at any point in the future it becomes fully legal for us to continue working with the blessing of Bethesda and Zenimax, we will.”

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