EB Games Australia Settles Harassment Claim, Denies Wrongdoing


Kotaku Australia is reporting that EB Games has settled a harassment claim brought by at least one employee.

EB Games has settled the claim, according to Alex Walker, for a paltry $8,500, a sum which the employee (Randall) claims he was pressured into, along with the company refusing to admit any wrongdoing. The employee also notes that he will not be given a reference by EB Games.

This whole ordeal started in 2015 with several employees bringing claims against District Manager Mark DiStefano, alleging racist conduct and underpayment, among other offenses. EB Games has refused to comment on the lawsuit as has Mark DiStefano.

Secret World Legends Returns to Tokyo


Secret World Legends is going to Tokyo, again! Players familiar with the original The Secret World storyline will be well acquainted with Tokyo and its quirks, but the zone has just become available on reboot title Secret World Legends.

Tokyo marks the first of three major content additions that will add new areas, content, and story. True to its name, the Tokyo update brings players to (you guessed it) Tokyo to continue the fight against the filth and the evil that it brings.

“The Tokyo updates represent the final part of the storyline that was The Secret World,” says Executive Producer Scott Junior. “Secret World Legends has opened up the game to an entirely new audience who will experience the Tokyo storyline for the very first time. But there is much more to come, and we especially want our veteran players to know that as the storyline of The Secret World ends, the storyline of Secret World Legends is about to start. This winter, a brand new story will be revealed.  Players will get to go to new locations, meet new characters, and experience adventures they never have before.”

Secret World Legends is free to play on Steam.

Guild Wars 2 Expansion Weekend Is Live


Arenanet has officially launched the second preview weekend for Guild Wars 2’s next expansion, Path of Fire. You don’t need to have pre-ordered to get in on the action either, as any active account can join in on the festivities. Players will be able to take part in the demo until Sunday, August 20.

To participate, go to the Character Select screen and choose the option to create a demo character. If you don’t have a Guild Wars 2 account, register now to play for free.

Marvel Heroes: Mighty Women Loot Box Going Away


Gazillion Entertainment today announced that the Mighty Women loot box will be leaving Marvel Heroes Omega on consoles as of August 24th. In opposite of its PC counterpart, the console version of Marvel Heroes does not sell costumes directly. Instead, the only method to obtain them is to buy into loot boxes which rotate on a periodic basis what is available.

The costumes will presumably be available again at an unknown point in the future.

(Source: Marvel Heroes)

[PSA] Humble 2K Bundle Offers Playstation Games Cheap


The latest Humble Bundle is upon us, and this time around you won’t be excluded just for owning a console, unless your console is the Xbox in which case you’re out of luck. The bundle contains a ton of Playstation 3 games, a small handful of Vita games, and a couple of Playstation 4 games. If you’re looking to pick up the Vita titles, you’re in luck: Both are at the $1 tier. The ultimate prize, of course, is getting XCOM 2 plus all of the other games for a mere $20.

Check out the tiers below. (not an affiliate link). Code scalpers are out of luck, the sale generates bundle keys and does not provide a separate key for each game. Sorry!

$1 or more

  • XCOM: Enemy Unknown Plus (Vita)
  • Civilization: Revolution 2 (Vita)
  • The Bureau: XCOM Declassified (PS3)
  • Evolve (PS4)

Average or more

  • XCOM: Enemy Within (PS3)
  • Bioshock (PS3)
  • Battleborn Cash (PS4)
  • Borderlands (PS3)
  • Borderlands 2 (PS3)
  • Mafia 2 (PS3)
  • Spec Ops: The Line (PS3)

$20 or more

  • XCOM 2 (PS4)

H1Z1: Just Survive Rebrands Itself, Relaunches


Much like the cycle of the moon, one can pretty much anticipate that another H1Z1 rebranding or new direction is just over the horizon. Daybreak Game Company announced today that the survival half of H1Z1, subtitled Just Survive is being further split off from its brother King of the Kill and will completely lose the H1Z1 branding. From today going forward, the game will just be called Just Survive.

In perpetual early access since its initial release of January 2015, H1Z1 has undergone quite a history of changing directions, starting with Daybreak announcing and then reneging on plans for a free to play model, chopping the game into two halves (Just Survive and King of the Kill).

“Our new logo and key art highlight all the aspects of the game that players know and love—from base building and defending, to looting and exploring, and also reflects how Just Survive is developing into a more mature and polished game,” said Ben Jones, Just Survive Creative Director. “Just Survive is about more than just killing zombies, it’s about the player’s survival journey. Re-establishing society isn’t an easy task, and this update introduces a variety of features, like Strongholds, that encourage players to band together through the dangers and tension of post-apocalyptic life while striving to reclaim their world from the zombie hordes.”

The update comes alongside a massive rework of the game’s fundamentals. Players will now start in a guarded military zone which also introduces a currency that can be obtained by selling items to NPCs. The gold will be needed to buy stronghold locations as it is no longer possible to construct a base wherever you want. For more information, check out the trailer below and take a gander at the patch notes on the official website.

[NM] For Honor Exploit Costs Ubisoft $10,000 After Ignoring Major Game Balance Issues


It’s a tale that sounds tailor made for news headlines, but at a recent tournament held by Ubisoft for For Honor, the grand prize of $10 thousand ultimately went to contestants who played, dare we say it, dishonorably. The Hero Series is an effort by Ubisoft to bring players back to its fighting game For Honor, following reports of heavily dwindling population numbers on PC and console. This weekend, the Hero Series held its live finals from Burbank California, broadcast live on Twitch.

Unfortunately the tournament went off with numerous hitches, with players making use of and widely publicizing just how many bugs and balance issues still remain in For Honor six months after launch, including one player repeatedly, from repeatedly using an unblockable charge move to a player taking advantage of a bug to knock down his opponent on a small incline. Viewers criticized the fact that many of the exploits/bugs on display have been an issue ignored for months by Ubisoft, as well as the perceived flippant response from its Creative Director in presenting the champion award. The exploit used to win the tournament, which takes advantage of a bug when a player unlocks from his target on swing, causing his attacks to become unparryable. According to players, this has been in the game since virtually day one.

For a competitive fighting game, For Honor can only suffer from Ubisoft allowing exploits to win the day at its tournament. Since its launch in February, For Honor’s population on Steam has plummeted from an average of 28,000 to an average of just over two thousand over the past month. Ubisoft has referred to reports of a declining user base as “fake news,” despite the public availability of user data for players on Steam.

[NM] One Year Later, No Man’s Sky Explodes In Users, Positive Reviews


If No Man’s Sky can teach us anything about the industry, it’s that you’re never too late for a second chance. Launched August 12, 2016, No Man’s Sky launched in a rather horrible state: Players quickly realized that the game had effectively been launched in early access, just without the tag or many of the promised features. No Man’s Sky was slammed in reviews and more than 90% of the population who bought the game on Steam abandoned it in month #1. It also spawned a lot of memes including this video which succinctly sums up the difference between the hype and final product.

Since then, something miraculous has been happening with rather little fanfare: Hello Games has released quite a large number of updates, tweaking the game and adding in a metric ton of new content. The Foundation update added in new game modes, the Pathfinder update improved visuals, introduced permadeath, and gave more of a reason to build yourself a base. This is also alongside numerous patches adding quality of life improvements, and other new features to give players a reason to keep going. Most recently, Hello Games deployed the Atlas Rises update, bringing 30 hours of story content, new worlds, and more.

And the result? The population has exploded. As of this writing, recent reviews of No Man’s Sky show a 75% approval rating and there are over 10,000 people playing at 11 a.m. on a Monday morning. As more and more people return to, or try out No Man’s Sky for the first time, it looks like No Man’s Sky is finally turning into the game that Hello Games promised it would be more than a year ago.

Just goes to show what can be done when a developer focuses on improving a product rather than immediately abandoning it after a bad launch.

[Community] PC Gaming May Not Be Dead, But Lawbreakers Is Starting Out Weak


Cliff Bleszinski has a long history with PC games, although you may not know it if you just started gaming within the last ten years. For a while, Bleszinski had a great relationship with the PC platform, until Unreal Tournament allegedly sold quite poorly on the system (according to Gamespy online stats from the time), leading up to 2008 where Bleszinski announced that Gears of War 2 would not be coming to PC, blaming piracy. In reality, Gears of War 2 didn’t come to PC because it was an Xbox platform exclusive.

“The person who is savvy enough to want to have a good PC to upgrade their video card, is a person who is savvy enough to know [BitTorrent] to know all the elements so they can pirate software. Therefore, high-end videogames are suffering very much on the PC.”

Certain developers have been exaggerating the effects of piracy on PC for years, going further back than 2011 with Ubisoft claiming that 95% of PC consumers would pirate their product, a factor that runs in direct contradiction to their investor reports which consistently show great sales on PC. As a result of his snubbing of the community, Bleszinski’s name has been somewhat dragged through the mud over the years.

Now Bleszinski apologized for his comment at the 2015 Game Awards, alongside showcasing his upcoming (now released) game Lawbreakers. Well Lawbreakers has launched and while it is receiving very positive reviews, from critics and gamers (87% positive on Steam), the population on PC has been slow to adopt the title. Steam Charts shows a launch day peak of 3,000 which has been steadily dropping over the past week. By comparison, Battleborn launched to a day one peak of 12,000 and is presently sitting at a peak of 280 over the last 30 days, including free trial players.

Bleszinski, for his part, has already responded to news comparing Lawbreakers to Battleborn, noting that the game is “a marathon not a sprint,” and that he would “rather be the underhyped game that slowly ramps up into something that people adore than something that comes out with way too much hype that there’s a backlash for, which is why I think the Steam reviews are so positive.” You can check out the entire interview at Eurogamer.

As for Lawbreakers, we will need to wait and see if the game is able to attract more publicity, and thus a more active population, and what plans are in store should traffic continue to dwindle.

H1Z1: King of the Kill Releases Producer’s Letter


Daybreak Game Company has released its latest producer’s letter for H1Z1: King of the Kill, detailing upcoming updates to the arena shooter. The combat update, set to hit the test server soon, will improve how weapons handle with a reticle offering an accurate idea of where your bullets will go. In addition, each weapon will be tuned to provide a more specific use at different ranges.

In addition to the weapon changes, new points of interest are being added to the map along with an updated bleed mechanic, a deathmatch mode, as well as a battle royale mode that gives each player the same random weapon with infinite ammo, with no weapons spawning in the map.

Check out the full letter at the link below.

(Source: H1Z1)