Game Athen: The Rainbow Six Siege open beta, which was delayed at the last minute because of problems with matchmaking and connectivity, is now underway. In an update posted earlier today, Ubisoft announced that those problems have been solved and the beta, as of 12 pm EST, is open.
Ubisoft said in a prior update that the server issues were introduced while fixing a different aspect of the game. It added that the scheduled launch of Rainbow Six Siege will not be affected, and that it is "confident the game will work as intended" once it goes live.
"This Open Beta will ensure the cleanest launch possible," Ubisoft wrote. "Keep in mind that this beta is intended for this exact reason: find problems and troubleshoot them to ensure the most stable launch possible."
This is true, but I'd be lying if I said I wouldn't have more confidence in the process myself if it wasn't just five days away. The Rainbow Six Siege open beta runs until November 29 and, barring further breakdowns, the game will go into full launch on December 1.
Game Athen: As promised, Microsoft has added a few heavy hitters to the digital Black Friday sale on Xbox Live.
An initial list of digital discounts on the Xbox Games Store was published last week, with the promise of more to come.
Today, the list is now complete with new deals on Batman: Arkham Knight, Far Cry 4, The Witcher 3, Destiny The Taken King, and many more. All deals are available through November 30, including the week-old ones, for Gold and Silver members. Gold members get more discounts though.
Find the list of Xbox One deals below.
These are Gold prices.
Batman: Arkham Knight – $32.49 Batman: Arkham Knight Premium Edition – $53.99 Batman: Arkham Knight Season Pass – $25.99 Call of Duty: Advanced Warfare – Advanced Supply Drop Bundle 10 Pack – $13.39 Call of Duty: Advanced Warfare Drop Bundle 20 Pack – $26.79 Call of Duty: Advanced Warfare Edition – $30.00 Call of Duty: Advanced Warfare Digital Pro Edition – $59.99 Call of Duty: Ghosts – $15.00 Destiny: The Taken King – $29.99 Destiny: The Taken King Digital Collector’s Edition – $51.99 Destiny: The Taken King Legendary Edition – $40.19 Dishonored Definitive Edition – $16.00 Far Cry 4 – $30.00 Far Cry 4 Edition – $36.00 Game of Thrones – Season Pass (Episodes 2-6) – $12.50 Game of Thrones – The Complete First Season (Episodes 1-6) – $12.00 Just Dance 2016 Edition – $40.19 Mad Max – $40.19 Rory Mcilroy Pga Tour – $30.00 Rare Replay – $19.49 T-15 New Recruit Kit – $5.00 The Elder Scrolls Online: 1500 Crowns – $8.99 The Elder Scrolls Online: 3000 Crowns – $14.99 The Elder Scrolls Online: 5500 Crowns – $23.99 The Elder Scrolls Online: Tamriel Unlimited – $24.00 The Elder Scrolls Online: Tamriel Unlimited Imperial Edition – $32.00 The Elder Scrolls Online: Tamriel Unlimited Premium Edition – $48.00 The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt – $25.00 Watch_Dogs – $15.00 Watch_Dogs Complete Edition – $20.00 Wolfenstein Bundle – $16.00
If you’re looking for retailer deals on games and console bundles for Xbox One, our massive hub page will get you sorted.
Game Athen: Got an hour to kill? Want to see Just Cause 3 in action? Then this, my friend, is your lucky day, because as you may have already soothsayed, the first hour of Just Cause 3 gameplay is now on the tubes.
The video includes the opening credits, a brief introduction of the game's central characters, and a tourist's-eye view of Medici, the Mediterranean-inspired island that's under the control of the despotic General Sebastiano Di Ravello. The actual gameplay begins when Rico climbs onto the roof of a small airplane—while it's in flight—and proceeds to bomb the city it's flying over with an RPG, which of course has unlimited ammunition. Subtle, like I said.
As Square Enix notes, your mileage will vary in a game like this. "Your first hour of play might be different to ours," it wrote on YouTube. "But we thought we'd focus on some of the early missions and content to whet your appetite ahead of next week's launch."
That, to be a bit more specific about it, will happen on December 1. The system requirements were revealed yesterday.
Game Athen: Batman v Superman takes front of stage in this month’s Batman: Arkham Knight DLC drop for season pass holders
Several new pieces of Batman: Arkham Knight DLC are available today.
Catwoman and Robin star in two new Arkham Episodes. Catwoman’s Revenge is set after the main story and has Catwoman taking, uh, revenge on the Joker. Flip of a Coin has Robin going up against Two-Face.
The episodes are available separately or as part of the Season Pass. Season Pass holders also receive the 2016 Batman v Superman Batmobile Pack, which bundles the Batsuit and Batmobile from next year’s movie. If you don’t have a season pass, you’ll have to wait till December 1 to buy it.
That’s the meat of it, but there’s loads of new stuff available today:
Crime Fighter Challenge Pack #4: Various challenge and invisible predator maps featuring Batman, Nightwing, Robin, Catwoman and Azrael. Arkham Episodes AR Challenges: six new AR challenges including Freeflow Combat and Invisible Predator, set in environments from the Arkham Episodes GCPD Lockdown, Catwoman’s Revenge, and Flip of a Coin. WayneTech Track Pack: two WayneTech themed racetracks. Robin and Batmobile Skins Packs: Original Tim Drake Robin costume and Robin Themed Batmobile Skin. Riddler Themed Batmobile Skin Free Update: Character Selection in AR Invisible Predator Challenges.
Game Athen: The upcoming Star Wars Battlefront DLC Battle of Jakku will add a new 40-player mode to the game called Turning Point, EA announced today. The game mode will have Rebel forces pushing hard to capture a series of increasingly difficult checkpoints en route to taking an Imperial base on the surface of the planet, while the Empire's goons must hold the line against them.
Turning Point begins with Rebel forces needing to locate and capture one of three control points on the map within a specific time limit. Doing so will open new control points, and add more time to the clock. Eventually, the Rebels must advance to the Imperial base, then assault and capture it. Airspeeders and AT-STs will be the prominent vehicles in this mode, speeders on offense and walkers on defense.
EA also said that, unlike a certain other map that some Rebels found frustrating during the open beta, the outcome of a Turning Point is "never sure." It also offers a greater variety of tactical considerations to take into account than some other maps because control points captured by Rebels cannot be retaken by the Empire, even if Imperial forces are able to push the Rebels back.
The quickie teaser we saw earlier this month portrayed the Battle of Jakku as a sprawling, chaotic mess, and that's exactly what EA is going for. "We wanted to portray a battle completely surrounding you, in every direction," DICE Concept Artist Anton Grandert explained. "Debris is falling from the sky, telling the story of battles above. On the surface of the planet you can see ground troops as well as X-wings, all taking part of the fight."
The Battle of Jakku DLC will be available to anyone who preordered Star Wars Battlefront on December 1, while everyone else can get their hands on it a week later. In both cases, it will be free.
Game Athen: The Overwatch stress test was pretty popular.
The Overwatch beta opened to a much larger number of players for a stress test over the weekend.
Blizzard hasn’t really reported back on how the test went, but in a post on the Battle.net forums Overwatch game director Jeff Kaplan said testers racked up 129 years of gameplay.
That’s about 1,130,040 hours in total, although unfortunately without knowing the number of active testers we can’t draw many conclusions about how much time the average tester spent with the hero shooter.
Now that the stress test is over most players have been booted right back out, but you can always opt-in via Battle.net in the hopes of grabbing a coveted spot in ongoing beta testing.
Overwatch is coming to PC, PS4 and Xbox One in northern spring 2016.
Game Athen: If you’re using console commands with the PC version of Fallout 4 you do so at your own risk.
Bethesda has said that it does not support the use of console commands on the PC version of Fallout 4.
Speaking via Twitter, VP of marketing Pete Hines said using console commands could screw up your game save. And there’s no chance such commands will come to the PS4 and Xbox One versions of the game.
@fortech_mike nope. use of the console is not supported or recommended on PC. that kind of thing isn't permitted on consoles anyway
Game Athen: Venerable football series Pro Evolution Soccer may be making the leap to free-to-play.
PES fans take note: the Australian Classification Board appears to have outed something pretty interesting.
A new title called Pro Evolution Soccer 2016 Free to Play has popped up on the board’s database, having been awarded a G rating.
The listing doesn’t give any platform information, unfortunately – not even the “multi platform” descriptor which is usually applied. We can pretty safely assume this will be a digital-only release, obviously.
We’ve contacted Konami’s Australian distributor, which makes its Classification applications, and will report back with any information received.
Pro Evolution Soccer 2016 launched on PC, PlayStation 4, PS3, Xbox One and Xbox 360 in September. The series has a staunch fanbase but is regularly outsold by rival FIFA.
Game Athen: One of the most fun things about a new Bethesda RPG is waiting for the community to rifle through its files for concepts abandoned during development. Modder xxdeathknight72xx has been on the task and uncovered a bonanza: an underwater harpoon gun in Fallout 4.
As the video by YouTuber Tyrannicon demonstrates below, the gun works fine out of water, though if you look closely you'll see bubble trails. That seems to prove that at some point, Bethesda intended for underwater combat to feature in the Commonwealth. I'm kinda glad they left it out, to be honest. Water scares me.
Still, I wouldn't be surprised if forthcoming DLC packs feature some element of underwater exploration. The gun replaces the railway rifle, and can be grabbed over here.
Game Athen: The first episode of Resident Evil: Revelations 2 is free on Xbox One at the moment. You can download Resident Evil: Revelations 2 Episode One via the Xbox One dash, or queue it up online at Xbox.com.
Grab it via the Xbox Store on your console or direct from Xbox.com. You will see the price is listed as zero dollars and zero cents. Delightful!
The first Resident Evil: Revelations was hailed as a return to form for the horror franchise, as opposed to the action departures of the main series. The episodic sequel was not quite as well received, but certainly didn’t go down badly, and hell – it’s free, right? What have you got to lose?
If you enjoy yourself, the rest of the episodes are on sale as a season pass through Xbox Deals with Gold – but only on Xbox 360. Nuts.
Resident Evil: Revelations 2 is available for PC, PlayStation 3 and PS4 as well as both current Xbox consoles, and can be had digitally or on-disc via retail.
Game Athen: Overwatch beta taking “a lot more players” this weekend. Wanna try Overwatch? You’re in luck.
You’ll still need an invite to get in, but Blizzard is opening the doors to “a lot more players from our Americas and Europe gameplay regions” in order to stress test its server hardware and technology.
All 21 heroes will be available, but only a few maps – Hanamura, King’s Row, and Watchpoint: Gibraltar.
The test will run from 9:00am PST Friday November 20 to 9:00am PST Monday November 23, kicking off just after a maintenance downtime.
You can sign up for a chance to be a part of the test via Battle.net. If you are chosen, you’ll be notified by email and also see the client install appear in your Battle.net desktop client ahead of time, so you can download and install the beta client.
For more information, including system requirements, an FAQ and a guide to getting set up, visit Battle.net.
Game Athen: A StarCraft 2 modder has delivered a whole new game.
Psionic Warfare: Total Destruction is third-person arena survival shooter for the Starcraft 2 Arcade.
Players face off against an invading zerg force, and there are five playable classes, four game modes and four arenas.
The trailer below makes it look super rad. If you’re on PC and have the Battle.net desktop client, you can use these links to go directly to the mod, via the North American European servers.
Game Athen: Fallout 4 base builders are making the most of Bethesda’s crafting and customisation systems.
My Fallout 4 settlements are extremely – functional, to put it politely, but other players are really going to town with it. Steph has been poking over community posts and has turned up some really tasty stuff any aspiring builder ought to know, so here are three top tips from the player base.
1. There’s a blank canvas island if you want a totally free hand
Want to build a settlement without having to account for existing features? Redditor Heartlessn0body points the way to Spectacle Island.
It’s down in the south-east corner of the map, so be very careful venturing down here at lower levels. If you survive the trip, let your imagination run wild; the building area is comfortably large, and there are very few obstacles to get in the way. You’ll need to haul a bunch of crafting materials in, though.
2. You can repair the walls of The Castle
The Castle is unlocked during Minutemen quests, and it’s a great base of operations, with loads of room and a real feeling of defensibility. Unfortunately, it’s 600 years old, and some of the walls are a bit worse for wear.
Not to worry; Redditor Dradar has figured out a way to patch those holes. It’s a bit fiddly to pull off, but it looks great. This Imgur album has all the details.
3. Match Bethesda’s style for best results
Sick of pieced together and inorganic your Settlements look? Redditor NinjaXStation agrees. They’ve put together an excellent base at the Red Rocket Station – accessible moments after you exit Vault 111. It looks so good you’d think Bethesda built it, but it’s fully functional and featured.
The secret? Working within the game’s fiction and thinking beyond the resource tallies on the Workshop screen. This might not seem as immediately impressive as some of the themed and automated builds out there, but there’s so much craft and artistry in it. See the whole gallery on Imgur.
We’d really love to see your settlements builds, if you care to share them in the comments.
Game Athen: Star Wars mania is in full effect this year, making 2015 the perfect time for a rebirth of the beloved Battlefront series. This time the Battlefield veterans at DICE are taking point, hoping to deliver an experience that avoids the plethora of issues that plagued the release of BF4 two years ago. Based on what we've experienced thus far, the firm seems to be on the right track - Battlefront's showing during its beta phase was impressive, but the evidence suggests that the final game features an even smoother level of performance.
We have direct feed capture of both console versions of the game, and can confirm that while frame-rates are improved on both systems, the resolution differential remains unchanged. As with Battlefield 4 and Hardline, Battlefront operates at 1600x900 on PS4 while Xbox One is limited to 1280x720. In both cases, improved anti-aliasing does a better job of masking upscaling artefacts resulting in a soft, yet cleaner overall look. On PS4, the 900p resolution combined with the excellent anti-aliasing solution results in something that manages to look surprisingly clean for a sub-native game. Even in the foliage-rich world of Endor, the game remains temporally stable in a way that Battlefield 4 does not. However, similar to its showing during the beta, Xbox One does not fare as well on this front.
While the improved anti-aliasing technique clearly helps, the resolution is just too low to fully appreciate the detail in the game. That said, it still manages to look cleaner than both Battlefield titles as a result of improved image treatment - but there's still the sense that DICE is packing too much detail into some scenes for the limited framebuffer to fully resolve it: foliage and specular highlights in particular shimmer heavily, leading to some scenes looking a little unattractive. There are gameplay implications too - for example, when fighting on Endor in particular, with its lush forest environments, it can be difficult to pick out enemies at a distance as a result of the lower resolution.
Onto performance then, where we have some impressive metrics for both console versions - albeit captured in different circumstances. On PlayStation 4, our video was acquired at DICE's review event in Stockholm, where we were limited to 30 players rather than the full 40. It's not quite the full stress test we were hoping for, but performance hiccups in the beta seemed to be GPU-related, whereas the full complement of online players is much more likely to affect the CPU.
Regardless, the results in this situation are promising: looking through all of our captured footage, we have just a small number of dropped frames in total - Star Wars: Battlefront manages to deliver a very steady 60 frames per second for the vast majority of the duration. Even when particle effects are filling the viewport, the game just doesn't slow down. It's a level of performance on par with the likes of Halo 5 and Metal Gear Solid 5 - no mean feat.
On Xbox One, we were able capture footage with gameplay at the 40-player limit, thanks to full access to final code via EA Access. In this case, performance is somewhat less stable than PlayStation 4 but ultimately still very smooth - and a substantial improvement over both Battlefield titles. Areas that gave both consoles issues in the beta, such as the hangar bay on Hoth, continue to challenge Xbox One with dips into the mid-50s. However, there's still a positive to take from this - looking back at our footage from the beta, the minimum recorded frame-rate was in the 40s - something that we never ran into in the final game, no matter how much we tried to stress it.
Aside from resolution, one of the clear sacrifices made to achieve this level of performance comes from its level of detail system. Battlefront aggressively culls objects and crumbs from view while level geometry is dynamically adjusted based on proximity - a situation that applies to both console versions of the game. It can appear distracting at times, particularly with a higher vantage point, but it's the kind of trade-off necessary in order to hit the target frame-rate. We saw many of these same limitations in the aforementioned Halo 5 and Metal Gear Solid 5 as well, it's just the reality of targeting such a stable level of performance.
BF4 was well known for its connectivity issues, but our experience with Battlefront on Xbox One in a live environment has been positive thus far. Outside of a brief empty period early on Sunday, we've been able to quickly find full games to play with no problem, and no signs of network instability in-game. Of course, only Xbox One owners subscribing to EA Access are able to play the game right now, which means a much lower overall player base - not exactly a full stress test then. We won't really know more about this aspect of the game until it officially launches in all territories, but netcode stability during the beta stress test was good - so fingers crossed that this will extend into the crucial release period.
Game Athen: The first gameplay footage of Friday The 13th The Game has been released by developer Gun Media.
The team said this is very early prototype footage, with hardly any final assets in use.
“This is a RARE glimpse into a game development prototype build that we’re using to test and prove out gameplay design concept,” said Gun Media.
“All of the assets, character models, animations, etc… are temporary assets, put in place so we can test in a reasonable context. The art, sound effects, music and gameplay are not final by any means and are not indicative of what the game will look and sound like at release. We are focusing on fun first and foremost during the pre-alpha stage, and using this time to nail an authentic Friday the 13th experience featuring Jason Voorhees. Models, animation, UI/HUD, etc… will improve as the project moves forward.”
Game Athen: First, Telltale announced the launch date for "The Ice Dragon," the final episode in the first season of its Game of Thrones adventure series. Then, it tossed out some screens. And now, right on schedule (because the game is out tomorrow) we've got a launch trailer. This one is actually kind of interesting though, because of the way it recaps a number of the big decisions which the players have had to make over the course of the earlier episodes. Because of that, there are obviously some very big spoilers ahead, so don't watch if you don't want to blow the surprise.
Because I care, I won't actually tell you about any of them (although I honestly did not expect HBO to confirm that whole Jon Snow thing in a videogame). But collectively, they paint a grim picture for House Forrester, which really can't seem to catch a break. And I know, happy endings are pretty much the antithesis of Game of Thrones, but after a while it all starts to feel a bit sadistic, doesn't it?
If you want to avoid the spoilers but still catch the bit of the trailer that's actually relevant to the final episode, start watching at the 3:15 mark and you'll be fine. Telltale's Game of Thrones season finale comes out on November 17.
Game Athen: What is apparently the first "game-breaking bug" in Fallout 4 has been reported on the Bethesda forums. According to user JoeBBBB and several other posters, traveling to Monsignor Plaza can cause a crash to desktop, with no error message reported.
The initial complaint, which actually goes into quite a bit of depth about how it all works, says the problem appears to come up once players have passed a certain point in the game (the post goes to lengths to avoid spoilers, as do I), or after they've unlocked/passed a certain location. The problem is compounded by the fact that Monsignor Plaza is a location in a settlement quest, and once that quest is accepted, you're stuck with it.
Starting a new game doesn't seem to help, nor does reinstalling and then loading up old saves, and it doesn't matter which direction you enter the area from or how you get there. Going back to a pre-crash save won't make the bug go away either, although it sounds like it will at least delay the problem: "If you go back to an earlier save with the crash, you'll probably find you don't crash there so it happens at some point later," the message says.
It's not unusual for a Bethesda game to be buggy at launch—it would be unusual if it wasn't, I think we'd all agree—but so far the problems have been limited to relatively minor glitches: Irritating (and sometimes amusing), but not fatal. This bug, however, is clearly more serious. I've asked Bethesda if it's aware of the problem and, if so, if there's any kind of time frame for a fix, and I'll let you know what I hear back.
Game Athen: The Paladins beta kicks off on November 17, which is now, writing from my timezone in the future, and a few hours away for everyone else.
Paladins is the latest from Tribes: Ascend and Smite developer Hi-Rez. It’s a competitive, team-based shooter with a card-collecting meta game coming to PC, PS4 and Xbox One.
Sound interesting? Sign up for the beta on the Paladins website. Assuming you don’t have anything else to do today, of course.
Game Athen: Here’s another Star Wars: Battlefront post for you today. This one provides information on how beta feedback was incorporated into the final game.
DICE said there was “a lot of community feedback” pertaining to balancing the party systems, spawns, and vehicles – not to mention bug reports. The developer said it has “made a point” to address as many of these issues as possible.
Here’s some of what has been tweaked or changed to ready the game for release:
Partner and Party System: Several tweaks have been done in this area such as the ability to join a friend via the Xbox Friends app, and see party friends in-game via green dots on the map. Players will not be able to spawn on them, though.
Spawns: Added combat areas that are different for Rebels and Imperials to mitigate spawn camping. Spawn distances for the two teams have been adjusted on the first uplink.
Vehicles and Weapons: Several tweaks to vehicles and weapons have been made, particularly to the Cycler Rifle. It has been balanced with a bullet drop and slower projectile speed for “more deserving kills.” Weak spots on Walkers have been added, and tweaks to balance have been applied to how vehicles, troopers, Star Cards, and ion weapons stand up against each other.
Heroes and Villains: Automatic damage done to heroes over time, and the ability of getting health back when killing enemies have been removed. This will “perfect the power fantasy of playing as these characters.”
Far more has been done to the game, according to the blog post, but the above should give players an examples of what’s changing.
