Category: News

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

EA Stock Capsizes After Early Year Recovery


Electronic Arts closed on February 6, 2019 at the price of $80.21 USD following news that the publisher’s third quarter fiscal results did not perform to its expectations. The continued price drop threatens to wipe out the progress that EA had made in the first month of the year to begin recovery after its stock dropped to a low of $74.72 on December 24, 2018 following ten years of sustained growth that saw its stock peak at nearly $150 in July 2017 before steadily shedding much of that value over the following six months.

Since last December the stock price has been slowly inching its way back up, breaking $90 by January 10 and holding steadily for the past month. With the announcement that EA would miss its estimated revenue by approximately $140 million, at $1.61 billion for the quarter versus $1.75 billion, shares immediately dropped from $92.52 on February 5 to $79.26 on February 6.

EA CEO Andrew Wilson stated acknowledged that EA did not perform as he hoped, owing partially to the underperformance of Battlefield V.

“Q3 was a difficult quarter for Electronic Arts and we did not perform to our expectations. We are now applying the strengths of our company to sharpen our execution and focus on delivering great new games and long-term live services for our players. We’re very excited about Apex Legends, the upcoming launch of Anthem, and a deep line-up of new experiences that we’ll bring to our global communities next fiscal year.”

 

[Video] Mad World MMO Releases Latest Trailer


Developer Jandisoft has unveiled brand new footage of their upcoming title; Mad World. The trailer highlights a number of core features from PvE/PvP battles, resource gathering, skill progression, boss raiding, and more. Mad World is a 2D isometric MMORPG set in a post apocalyptic world with humans struggling to survive against the threat of extinction.

Built on HTML 5, Mad World will be playable on the majority of browsers which will allow for cross-play between PC, mobile, and compatible devices. The mobile nature of the MMO also aims to support easier accessibility among gamers of all stripes.

Mad World is expected to hit digital store shelves in 2019.

Source: Mad World