Ubisoft and Massive today have unveiled the next expansion for The Division 2: Warlords of New York. Players will go back to lower Manhattan and take on old adversaries from The Division. Warlords of New York is set to launch on March 3.
Warlords of New York introduces a new level cap of 40 (from 30) as well as an infinite leveling system for players to continue buffing their characters. In addition, players will also enjoy changes to the user interface, the item system, loot, dark zone, and more. For more details on upcoming systems, check out the video below. Oh and it looks like there’s a battle pass coming, because of course there is.
Ghost Recon: Breakpoint is in the middle of an invasion by Skynet, and that means killing plenty of Terminators.
Right now we’re in day three of the Terminator event and mission #2 should be releasing on February 1. With that in mind I’ve decided to delve a little deeper and talk about more tips for killing those metal rust buckets making life on Auroa just a little rougher.
#1: You Can Kite Terminators Across The Island
Have a lot of time and patience? You can kite Terminators pretty much anywhere. Kiting refers to pulling enemies away from where they would normally be hanging out.
In tip #3 for the last article I mentioned that Terminators can and will mow down an enemy base in order to get to you, and that Skell soldiers will in turn open fire on a Terminator once it is activated in their vicinity. You will know this is happening because the “faction warfare” indicator will pop up on your radar.
What you might not know is that with enough time and effort you can pull that Terminator along like a pull-string duck taking them from base to base and using it as your own personal walking turret, granted one that will prioritize your death over everything else. Awesome. Just remember that the Terminator is not in any way subtle so bringing it as your +1 to a base party is almost guaranteed to get reinforcements called in. You probably also lose out on some exp gain in the process.
If you are looking to cheese the game some people have reported success in pulling the Terminator into being submerged in water which apparently is an instant kill. This isn’t a guarantee.
#2: “I Can’t Start The Mission!”
There have been bug reports from people who are unable to start the event period. Ghost Recon doesn’t allow them to obtain the mission kicking off the whole Terminator event as it just isn’t available from Maria Schulz. The most reliable fix for this seems to be joining co-op with someone who has the mission available. You want to look for “The Coming Storm,” a green faction mission in Erewhon. Taking the mission in co-op will keep it available in single player so you are free to go back into solo mode and the rest of the missions should come up fine.
An alternate answer appears to be creating a second character. Unfortunately neither of these two options is a 100% guaranteed fix. Ubisoft is evidently aware of the problem and hopefully can provide a suitable fix before the event is done and people lose out completely.
#3: Terminator Damage Is In Two Stages
This one should be self evident given the big glowing red light that pops up once you bring a Terminator’s health down, but it’s worth noting given the confusion I’ve seen on the forums and Reddit.
Each Terminator has two stages of damage that operate differently and may be confusing. The first stage you’ll find a Terminator in is the blue bar of health that gets whittled down by many of the weapons in your armament (see below). Once you knock down the blue health bar, the Terminator will go into mode #2 where you see the big glowing red light on its chest. This is the part where you’ll absolutely need to use the Mk14 sniper to overload its circuits.
Despite what conventional wisdom will tell you, this red bar is a count up, not a countdown. So you’ll fill the bar instead of depleting it in order to overload the Terminator. A small distinction but one that might result in your fights making a little more sense and give a better idea of how close your are to killing the Terminator. You’ll know you are damaging the core because of the distinct sound that each hit makes.
#4: Mk14 Needed To Kill, Not To Damage
Conventional weapons cannot kill a Terminator, however this does not mean you are stuck using the Mk14 for the whole fight. In fact you’re likely to find just about any other weapon in your loadout is more effective at whittling down a Terminator than a slow shooting sniper rifle. Youtuber Mannocrity found that the best way to take down a Terminator is with the Stoner light machine gun kitted to effectively make it a laser.
Your mileage may vary and you might find a weapon better suited for your play style in taking down Terminators. Where the Mk14 comes in however is the stage of overloading the Terminator’s circuits. You absolutely need the Mk14 for this stage. Otherwise Terminators are classified as drones in Breakpoint’s system so if you have a weapon that is better built for taking down drones, use it. It will most likely serve you better for that first stage.
#5: Maria Schulz Has More Cosmetics
There are 21 levels of rewards for the Terminator event battle pass, however if you have some Skell credits to spend you can head over to Maria Schulz’s shop in Erewhon and buy some extra goodies for your character. Personally I like the torn arm sleeves and damaged face (see photo above). The items aren’t too expensive and it’s pretty obvious which ones are from the Terminator franchise.
Ubisoft today announced the next title in the Might & Magic franchise will take on not one but two gaming trends. Might & Magic: Chess Royale is an auto chess title with battle royale leanings. The core gameplay is tied into the auto chess genre, a round-based strategy game where players select from a pool of characters that automatically battle it out in waves against mobs or other players, with the ultimate goal being to level up your units and outlast the other players.
Might & Magic’s spin on the genre is to merge the auto chess with battle royale and run matches with up to 100 players as opposed to the standard 8 person matches in other similar titles. Might & Magic: Chess Royale will be available on PC and mobile devices on January 30. Pre-registration is now available. We are assuming that the game will be free to play with microtransactions.
Ghost Recon Breakpoint was such a disappointment that its release sales and subsequent response from the community resulted in Ubisoft taking a big financial hit and also fundamentally overhauling the way that they approve and release games. Since the game’s launch and commercial disappointment, Ubisoft has been taking strides in figuring out just what the community wants out of the game. Since they missed the mark so clearly the first time around.
Cue in a big community survey, and the results are in. In terms of content changes, more than half of players requested the AI partners that were present in Ghost Recon Wildlands be added into the game. More than a third of players requested the removal of gear score and tiered loot, as well as enemy AI improvements, and the ability to sell all equipment at once. Finally, nearly one third of players asked for the online-only nature of the game to be removed.
But you already knew that if you read the header image.
If you head over to the Breakpoint Reddit post, Ubisoft has laid out a massive list of changes coming to Breakpoint over the next year as well as when players can expect them to be implemented.
Oh Ubisoft! What can I say about Ubisoft that hasn’t already been said about Flint’s water supply?
Ubisoft confuses me as a gamer and as a guy who writes about games. On one hand, they are constantly pulling maneuvers that make you wonder what chucklehead is driving the vehicle. On the other hand, they’re competent enough to put out some actually good games and fix what they screw up. Let’s look at Ubisoft’s 2019 releases.
Trials Rising: It came out, it sold copies. Honestly don’t have much to say about this one.
Far Cry: New Dawn – If you enjoyed Far Cry 5, New Dawn was basically an expansion pack’s worth of content at an expansion pack’s price of $40. If you enjoyed Far Cry 5 and wanted to see what happened following the rather crazy ending, well you pretty much got what you wanted. As far as Far Cry plots go, the story was fine. Just fine. It allegedly sold worse than Far Cry’s prior spinoffs including Primal so perhaps it would have been better off as a cheaper DLC release for Far Cry 5 instead of a standalone title.
Anno 1800: Anno 1800 marks the first of Ubisoft’s titles this year to go to the Epic Store for exclusivity on PC. It sparked quite a controversy since the title had already been available for pre-order on Steam before Ubisoft summarily yanked it. Not willing to let that controversy hold it back, Anno 1800 evidently went on to become the fastest selling Anno game. It also seems to be very well received by those who bought it, looking at Steam reviews.
The Division 2: And here is where Ubisoft first pooped the bed. By all means The Division 2 was exactly what a game sequel should be. It implemented a lot of lessons from its predecessor and actually fixed them instead of ignoring/exacerbating them. It wasn’t perfect, The Division 2 launched with some issues surrounding loot and the first raid was kinda crap because console players literally couldn’t handle it. And Ubisoft fixed most of those problems and has been supporting the game with some good content. Unfortunately for them the appetite of the general consumer base just wasn’t looking for another open world sequel and The Division 2 hasn’t quite lived up to expectations in terms of sales.
Ghost Recon: Breakpoint – If there is one positive thing that can be said about Breakpoint, it’s that it beat the sense back into Ubisoft (hopefully). Breakpoint is a dumpster fire that should have never been acceptable within Ubisoft and its failure not only snapped their stock price over its knee, it led to a restructuring of how Ubisoft approves games. Riddled with major game-breaking bugs, obviously half-assed systems, and drowning in microtransactions, Breakpoint shouldn’t have been this broken given how close it is to Wildlands. It serves as a reminder that Ubisoft’s titles are quickly hitting the singularity, becoming so blandly similar that they are hard to tell apart.
Just Dance 2020: I’m sure it will do just fine.
2019 also brought us changes in Ubisoft’s business plan, primarily the announcement and launch of Uplay+. This may come as a surprise, but I honestly don’t have much of a problem with Uplay+ from a consumer standpoint. As with any service, it’s a value proposition. If you want to keep buying your games and “own” them, whatever that means in a world where games as a service ties your playability to servers remaining online, you can still buy the game. If you want to spend $15 to binge some Ubisoft games for a month and then cancel, you can do that too. If you think that long term subscriptions in exchange for having the best versions of Ubisoft’s titles is worth it, go ahead. It’s as valuable as you think it is, and obviously Ubisoft knows this because it’s not mandatory in any sense.
I’d like to give Ubisoft a higher score for having their come to Jesus moment during the last gasp of 2019. Unfortunately their moment of lucidity was not due to personal reflection but due to the potential for financial ruin brought upon by the insane failure of Ghost Recon and the potential that their upcoming titles could perform worse, a game that they were all too happy to release in its state and with all of its microtransactions. At the same time, the company is not completely incompetent and has shown that it is somewhat capable of learning from mistakes. Ghost Recon has received a couple of patches since launch and they have promised more coming.
At the same time, this is a company that supports its products. Ultimately I have to give Ubisoft a B- for 2019. Let’s hope the failure of Ghost Recon: Breakpoint teaches them a lesson. Let’s also hope that I get around to making more of these report cards.
This week Ubisoft announced that it would be dramatically scaling back income expectations following the “very disappointing” reception and sales of Ghost Recon: Breakpoint. The latest game in the Tom Clancy franchise left both gamers and critics angry over the abundance of game-breaking bugs as well as what was perceived to be an egregious reliance on over-monetization of various aspects of the game.
In the time since that announcement, Ubisoft’s stock prices have plummeted both in the United States as well as in France. Ubisoft’s NASDAQ listing dropped from $12.60 on Monday to a low of $10.06 before rebounding slightly to $10.35. Bloomberg meanwhile reports that stocks in France fell as much as 29% which brings the year decline to 38%.
In addition to the disappointing reception of Ghost Recon: Breakpoint, Ubisoft announced that all of its major releases for the rest of the fiscal year have been delayed until next fiscal year. Investors were not entirely satisfied by the announcement.
Ghost Recon: Breakpoint’s critical and financial performance have been “very disappointing” according to an Ubisoft report released today. Ubisoft released a statement revising financial targets to offer the bad news that the 2019-2020 fiscal year isn’t going to be so hot for the French developer/publisher. Worst of all is that net bookings are expected to end up at €1.45 billion, an admittedly large amount but a long way away from the anticipated €2.185 billion. Operating income has plummeted from an anticipated €480 million to just €20-50 million.
The drop off in sales is primarily due to the “very disappointing” reception of Ghost Recon: Breakpoint which launched in early September on PC and consoles. In addition, Ubisoft notes that development for Watch Dogs: Legion, Gods & Monsters, and Rainbow Six Quarantine will all be extended and will not be released until the 2020-2021 fiscal year.
“However, we have not capitalized on the potential of our latest two AAA releases. For Ghost Recon Breakpoint, while the game’s quality appeared on track – based on E3, Gamescom, previews and our latest internal playtests –, critical reception and sales during the game’s first weeks were very disappointing. As we have done with past titles, we will continue to support the game and listen to the community in order to deliver the necessary improvements.”
Breakpoint has been getting slammed by critics and the public since its launch last month. The game has seen a lot of backlash due to an extensive cash shop that appeared to get priority billing over the game itself which launched with severe bugs and performance issues. Ubisoft’s Yves Guillemot does not address any of the criticisms in the press release, instead blaming the game’s subpar performance on difficulty generating interest for a sequel to a live service game, imperfect implementation of gameplay innovations (whatever that means), and not enough differentiation factors to stick out among the crowd.
“In this overall context, we have decided to postpone the releases of Gods & Monsters, Rainbow Six Quarantine and Watch_Dogs Legion until 2020-21. While each of these games already has a strong identity and high potential, we want our teams to have more development time to ensure that their respective innovations are perfectly implemented so as to deliver optimal experiences for players. This decision will have a very significant impact on our financial results for this fiscal year and goes against our recent successes in building a more stable development model. However, it is in line with our strategy to maximize the future value of our brands for the long term benefit of our employees, players and shareholders. We expect it to have a positive impact on our financial performance as from 2020-21.”
The Division 2 is a very Division-esque title, which is going to be a good thing or a bad thing depending on how you approach the franchise. If you like your sequels to take the prior title and expand upon it, you’re golden. If you hated everything about The Division down to its core mechanics, you’re not going to find much to love here.
I want to talk about some immediately obvious positives in The Division 2, and particularly that the game is a whole lot less jank than its predecessor. The Division was pretty great when it came to movement and it’s kind of amazing to think back to the trailers when we were mostly all in awe at the simple idea that your character would close a car door automatically while taking cover behind it. That said, movement in the original game was kind of rough in spots and your character felt like he was walking on a treadmill leading to more confined areas being a real pain to get through. Additionally, while enemy AI wasn’t terrible it wasn’t exactly intelligent, and Ubisoft balanced this by making the game into a bullet sponge festival.
Thankfully The Division 2 has mostly fixed all of this.
Enemy AI is going to surprise you quite a bit as you experience what this game has to offer. Evidently the Washington DC wasteland still has plenty of brain food, as raiders will intelligently flank you, use grenades to push you out of hiding, send in suicide melee squads to force you from your cover, and just generally utilize more coordinated tactics than you might anticipate from such a game. It’s almost unfair at times when you get pitted against a dozen or so baddies in an open space and suddenly find yourself knocked out of cover while the sniper forcing your attention made way for the two guys who just appeared behind you. Unlike its predecessor, I have rarely come out of a death concluding that the game was cheating me.
On the other side of this coin the bullet sponge enemies are mostly gone and good riddance to them. I would say that The Division lands mostly on the realistic side of the Tom Clancy media spectrum so the idea of having gang leaders walking around with no noticeable body armor but somehow still needing two full reloads of shotgun shells from close range in order to kill is just ridiculous. The Division 2 still has named enemies, and they are more powerful than their low-tier mook buddies, but they aren’t sponges. They might have armored vests or helmets, and take a couple more shots to put down. There are a few enemies scattered about during missions that are covered in full body SWAT-tier bomb squad armor that take a lot of bullets to kill. They are far less present and can be dealt with easier than their predecessors.
It’s also nice to be able to walk around the various locations without your character bumping into everything like a drunken bumper car operator.
The game itself is freaking gorgeous. Obviously I’m saying this from the stance of someone with a computer good enough to run the game on its highest settings but boy did Ubisoft put a lot into making the DC wasteland look beautiful and create a living world in the process. The city itself tells a story and everywhere you look you can see the remains of failed quarantines, rescue efforts, and people just trying to survive. You come across a regular bounty of random events including public executions, propaganda broadcasts, and more, that can be easy targets for some quick loot. My personal favorite are the supply drops, where you’ll come across three supply crates that you can salvage for gear and resources. The caveat to this is that the various other factions are also out for these and can actually steal them from you. As far as random encounters go, the supply crates offered the most varied fun for me.
Gear, at least in the first ten levels, has been pretty great. The Division has been throwing enough stuff at me via the main missions, side missions, and generally tracking down and looting stuff in the wilderness that I haven’t felt bereft of new toys to play with.
The first ten levels of Division 2 have taken up around five and a half hours of gameplay, and so far I have to say I am enjoying this far more than I did with The Division. I am looking forward to discussing the game more as I continue playing.
What more could we ask for from E3 2019? If your answer is Ubisoft launching its own version of EA Access, your oddly-specific wish has been granted.
Ubisoft today announced Uplay+, a subscription service coming to PC in September and for the absolutely monetary cost of $14.99 per month, you can get access to over 100 PC games including all of Ubisoft’s new launches. Yes, that means getting access to the upcoming Ghost Recon: Breakpoint and Watch Dogs: Legion the day they hit store shelves. Where Uplay+ sets itself apart from EA Access for instance is that the service promises to offer the most premium version of each game, meaning you won’t need to pay for DLC or expansions.
If you are still on the bench, people who register now will be able to get a free month once the service goes live on September 3. No purchase necessary.
Ubisoft has joined the list of companies donating to rebuild the Notre-Dame Cathedral in Paris following a fire that destroyed much of the church. The French developer has pledged $564 thousand USD to help with its restoration, joining the hundreds of millions of dollars donated by the combined efforts of numerous other French and international businesses.
In addition, Ubisoft is offering a free copy of Assassin’s Creed Unity for PC to honor the landmark. Assassin’s Creed Unity recreated the Notre Dame cathedral to such a level of accuracy and detail that Engadget is reporting that the game may be of use in its reconstruction.
The free copy of Unity runs until April 25. All you have to do is add the game to your account and it will be there forever.
MMO Fallout 