Category: News

Reminder: The Final Free Open Beta For Black Desert Is Live


Black Desert the open world MMORPG is coming to Xbox One on March 4. For now, however, players can take part in the final open beta at no financial cost to themselves. Just head over to the Microsoft store or through the Xbox Store via your in-console app. Players are also invited to experience large-scale PvP guild-based combat with Node Wars on test. Exclusive rewards will be available for those who participate in events.

Black Desert is also still available for pre-order. Packages range from $29.99 to $99.99 for the Ultimate Edition and contain a number of exclusive goodies.

The beta technically went live yesterday. Despite record profits, MMO Fallout has sacked the writer responsible for this delayed coverage.

Sony Still Lying About Commitment To Cross-Play, Says Dev


This week Andy Mcnamara from Game Informer sat down for a softball interview with Sony Interactive Entertainment Worldwide Studios chairman Shawn Layden. The two discuss a few topics regarding the Playstation and games, but at the end of the interview Mcnamara brings up the topic of cross-play. Layden’s response? All publishers have to do is ask.

“People keep saying, “Why doesn’t Sony allow more people to have it?” We’re open for business on this one. All it takes is for publishers and developers who wish to permission it. As ever, just work with your PlayStation account manager, and they will walk you through the steps that we’ve learned through our partnership with Epic on how this works. I don’t believe right now there is any gating factor on that. I think they’re open to make proposals, because the Fortnite thing worked pretty well.”

A great response, except it’s still a complete falsehood. Chucklefish’s CEO chimed in on the issue in a ResetEra thread noting that the developer did exactly what Layden suggested; they asked their account manager. The manager’s response? In no uncertain terms, absolutely not.

Hi all,

CEO Of Chucklefish here, we just launched Wargroove with crossplay between PC, Switch and Xbox so I wanted to chime in.

We made many requests for crossplay (both through our account manager and directly with higher ups) all the way up until release month. We were told in no uncertain terms that it was not going to happen.

From our side, we can *literally* toggle a switch and have it working. Of course policy work might be more complicated for Sony.

Just wanted to provide some balance on the issue and say that it certainly isn’t a question of developers having not contacted their account managers or having dropped the ball. We were told no.

Meanwhile Nintendo and Microsoft have just recently struck a deal that will see Xbox Live come to the Nintendo Switch.

Source: ResetEra

Star Vault Announces Mortal Online 2 As Mortal Royale Dies On Steam


Star Vault this week announced Mortal Online 2, the sequel/reboot of the sandbox PvP MMORPG. According to CEO Henrik Nystrom,

“We are proud of what we have achieved with Mortal, a game with little in the way of close competition. But technology has moved on and the time has come to upgrade to UE4.with much improved graphics, inclusive vr compatibility and many other advanced features. Doing this will create what is in part a new game. And this makes this a good time to restate our vision for what we want Mortal to be.”

Star Vault’s plans for Mortal Online 2 include absolutely no free to play, naming and shaming cheaters, and no more multiple characters per account which the company views as a form of pay to win. According to the announcement, player achievement in Mortal Online will transfer over to Mortal Online 2, however the details were not specified.

This announcement comes off of the recent outright failure of Mortal Royale, Star Vault’s entry into the Battle Royale game mode. Mortal Royale hit Steam in December of last year and managed a peak of 93 players, most of whom have left in the intervening two months. Despite the game boasting 1,000 player servers it couldn’t achieve a tenth of that via Steam traffic. Mortal Online as of this writing has 74 players online on Steam, however unlike its sequel Mortal Online is free to play.

RuneScape Launches Another Twitch Prime Partnership


It’s Prime Time and that can only mean one thing: RuneScape and Twitch are back together for another giveaway.

Running through March 17, Twitch Prime members can get their hands on a RuneScape bundle including Runecoins, membership, and some goodies.

  • 14 days free membership
  • 200 Runecoins
  • 15 Treasure Hunter Keys
  • 2x Umbral Chests
  • 1x Chinchompa plushie
  • 1x purple trimmed Amare outfit

Just head over to twitch.tv/prime and connect your Twitch and RuneScape accounts and the items will be transferred over immediately.

Activision Blizzard Celebrates Record Results With Mass Layoffs


Activision CEO Bobby Kotick announced in an investor earnings call today that the company will lay off nearly 800 employees, mostly in non-game-development areas. The layoffs are expected to impact Activision, Blizzard, and King studios. The decision comes after the company achieved “record results” in 2018, however not as high as investors had hoped for.

Last year Activision parted ways with Bungie following the less than stellar launch of Destiny 2’s latest expansion. Last year’s announcement of Diablo Immortal, a mobile spinoff in development in conjunction with Netease, was very poorly received. Black Ops IIII meanwhile has proven to be very popular with its Blackout battle royale mode.

Bobby Kotick stated:

 “While our financial results for 2018 were the best in our history, we didn’t realize our full potential. To help us reach our full potential, we have made a number of important leadership changes. These changes should enable us to achieve the many opportunities our industry affords us, especially with our powerful owned franchises, our strong commercial capabilities, our direct digital connections to hundreds of millions of players, and our extraordinarily talented employees.”

MMO Fallout sends our regards to those affected by the layoffs. In response to the layoff announcement, support has been pouring in from around the internet with various developers posting their job openings and offering assistance to those affected. According to Activision, laid of employees will receive a severance package, health benefits, and career placement assistance. Activision stocks jumped by about $2 in after-hours trading.

The recently unemployed (or even others) are encouraged to check out this Google doc in which dozens of developers have been listed with openings.

[Video] Skybound Releases Summoners War Animated Short


Today’s video comes to us from Com2Us, creators of mobile RPG Summoners War. To celebrate 100 million downloads and with the game’s continued success, Com2Us has partnered with Skybound Entertainment to produce several adaptations including an upcoming TV series.

The animated short features a band of heroes seeking out a jewel of great power. Will they work together or will petty rivalry get the best of them? Find out in this short six minute film. The characters from the animated short will be featured in the full show when it airs.

Daybreak Announces H1Z1 Season 3: Beyond Royale


Daybreak Game Company today announced the third season of H1Z1 on Playstation 4. Dubbed Beyond Royale, the free expansion introduces a number of new features as well as a new 100-tier battle pass and various improvements to the quality of life for players.

Among the highlights, a new free for all deathmatch mode will pit 50 players against one another in a tight combat zone with respawning and a rotating arsenal of weaponry. The first player to 25 kills before the timer runs out wins. Joining the FFA deathmatch mode is a new leaderboard system that introduces ranks for singles, duos, groups, and tracks kills, matches played, and other statistics.

Season 3 battle pass features 100 levels and over 200 rewards, offering three tiers for free, paid, and PS+ members. Battle pass players will enjoy attendance rewards, additional challenges, and more this coming season.

Source: Daybreak Game Company press release.

Blacklight: Retribution Is Dead, Servers To Shutter March 11 On PC


In regards to Blacklight: Retribution, the writing for the game’s closure has been on the wall for several years now, particularly dating back to 2015 when its developer Zombie Studios shut its doors as well as last year when publisher Hardsuit Labs announced the merger of the US and EU servers into one. Average user numbers dropped to below 100 in August 2018, according to Steam Charts, and the end was inevitable.

As posted on Reddit, PC servers will permanently shut down on March 11. Playstation 4 players, however many there are, have been spared from the shutdown simply due to the fact that there are no in-game servers hosted for it. To thank the remaining players, all items have been unlocked and made free on the PC store.

February 8th
* PC Store unlocked and free
* PC Account migration shut down
March 11th
* PC game servers shut down permanently
* Support shut down

Blacklight: Retribution launched in 2012 from Zombie Studios; creators of the Spec Ops game series. A free to play first person shooter, Blacklight was one of the first free to play games to launch on Playstation 4 alongside Warframe and DC Universe Online.

Webzen Launching KnightWeGo, MU Character Art Toy


Webzen this week announced a collaboration with Sentinel Co., Ltd. for KnightWeGo, an MU charcter art toy.

Sentinel is located in Japan and specializes in toys, figures, and various other goods. Webzen and Sentinel have collaborated to design a new toy called KnightWeGo, combining MU character Dark Knight with Sentinel’s action figure 35MechatroWeGo.

It’s odd in a strangely adorable sort of way. Those looking to pick up one of the figures will find it available for pre-order on Amazon and Toys To Art starting February 12 and running for two months. The toy itself is expected to ship in July.

MMO Fallout will post a new article once the item is available for pre-order. We do not currently know how much this will sell for.

Final Fantasy XIV Begins Pre-Orders For Shadowbringers


Final Fantasy XIV: Shadowbringers is now available for pre-order as Square Enix gears up for release on July 2, 2019.

Shadowbringers marks the third major expansion for Final Fantasy XIV and will be available physically and digitally with a collector’s edition for those looking for some added goodies. The collector’s edition includes an art box, the Warrior of Darkness as a dark knight, an art book, logo sticker, playing card deck, as well as in-game Grani mount, wind-up Fran minion, and revolver gunbreaker weapon. Those who pre-order will receive a baby gremlin minion as well as aetheryte earrings which grant 30% increase in experience up to level 70, as well as attributes based on your class/job and current level.

The expansion introduces new jobs including the gunbreaker, playable Viera characters, an alliance raid created by the minds of NeiR, a higher level cap (80), new areas, a new trust system, a new game+ mode, new beast tribes, and more.

The Shadowbringer collector’s edition will be available for $199.99 USD or as a digital version for $59.99 if you don’t want any of the physical goodies. The standard edition will cost $39.99 regardless.

Source: Final Fantasy XIV