Destiny 2 Undergoes Maintenance on November 9th

Destiny 2 Beyond Light - Revenant

Bungie is prepping for the launch of Destiny 2: Beyond Light, the Destiny Content Vault and Season of the Hunt. It's announced that servers for the game will be brought offline for maintenance on November 9th at 7 PM PST. Players will be removed from activities at this time.

The kicker is that maintenance will go on until November 10th. That day at 9 AM PST, update 3.0.0.1 will be available to download  but players may be placed in a queue. Sign-in issues may also happen as maintenance happens in the background. It will finally conclude at 12 PM PST.

While this sounds excessive, Bungie has seen increased player counts and server loads with the release of its major expansions, dating all the way back to Destiny 1's Rise of Iron. Whether the response for Beyond Light will be as strong remains to be seen. Regardless, plan your time off accordingly.

Destiny 2: Beyond Light is out on November 10th for Xbox One, PS4, PC and Google Stadia. PS5 and Xbox Series X/S upgrades arrive in December but the title will playable on next-gen consoles until then.

Call of Duty: Black Ops Cold War – Preload Times and PS5, Xbox Series X/S Install Sizes Revealed

call of duty black ops cold war

Activision has revealed when players can pre-load Call of Duty: Black Ops Cold War on all platforms. Pre-loading for PS4 and Xbox One players starts on November 5th at 9 PM PT while PC players will see it open up on November 10th, 10 AM PT. Xbox Series X/S and PS5 players will have to wait until their respective consoles launch for pre-load.

File sizes have also been revealed for consoles. PS4 players will need 95 GB while PS5 players require 133 GB. Xbox One and Xbox Series X/S players need 93 GB and 136 GB respectively. PC players were previously told to have  175 GB installation space for all modes (250 GB when running in at Ultra with RTX enabled).

But Activision has provided updated numbers for the same – 35 GB is needed for multiplayer, 82 GB for the full game and 125 GB to run all of it at Ultra settings. Across all versions, players will have the option to remove specific modes like the Campaign and Zombies to reduce overall file size. But remember that more storage space will be needed for future updates.

Call of Duty: Black Ops Cold War releases on November 13th for Xbox Series X/S, PS4, PS5 and PC.

NBA 2K21 on Xbox Series X/S, PS5 Introduces The City, First Trailer Released

NBA 2K21 - The City

2K Games and Visual Concepts promised some big features in the next-gen version of NBA 2K21. Cut to the announcement of The City, a huge map that takes Neighborhoods to the next level. Along with four boroughs that have four Affiliations (making their return in the series), there are skyscrapers, a city center and plazas. Check out the trailer below.

In an official post, the development team outlined the various areas of The City. There's Rookieville where one faces off against other rookies to access the larger city; the boroughs with their Affiliations who each have a unique Warehouse court; the Event Center for partaking in events and competitions between the different Affiliations; and much more. There are even Garage Hoops, which allow for seamlessly playing 1v1, 2v2, 3v3 and HORSE against wandering players.

Throughout The City are various NPCs that will give you different objectives and quests. They'll offer new content every four to six weeks with quests ranging from a series of 3v3 single-player games to playing games out in The City. There's a lot more to go through, including the bizarre Fire Ball, so hit up the official post for more details.

NBA 2K21 is out on November 10th for Xbox Series X/S and November 12th for PS5.

Sea of Thieves Runs at 4K/60 FPS on Xbox Series X, 1080p/60 FPS on Xbox Series S

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Following other Xbox One titles which will receive enhancements for Xbox Series X/S, Rare has revealed improvements that can be expected for Sea of Thieves. Along with improved loading times, the sea-faring multiplayer title will run at 4K/60 FPS on Xbox Series X. Xbox Series S players can expect 1080p/60 FPS support and the same quick loading.

Sea of Thieves is available for Xbox One and PC along with Xbox Game Pass for both platforms. It's seen a number of updates since launch and crossed over 15 million players since July. Overall, it's become quite a stable title for Microsoft and testament to Rare's ability to branch out from its usual single-player repertoire.

The Xbox Series X and Xbox Series S both launch worldwide on November 10th. Other titles that will receive next-gen enhancements include Gears 5 – which is also getting new content in the form of New Game Plus and Dave Bautista as a campaign character – and Halo: The Master Chief Collection with 120 FPS support in multiplayer. Stay tuned for more details on other titles in the coming days.

Ghostrunner Launches for the Switch on November 10

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Ghostrunner launched late in October for PC and consoles, and though it was also supposed to launch simultaneously on the Nintendo Switch, it got hit with a last-minute delay, with its publisher confirming that it would come to Nintendo's hybrid some time in November.

Now, All in! Games and 505 Games have confirmed when exactly when that'll happen. Ghostrunner will launch for the Nintendo Switch on November 10, a week from now. Meanwhile, if you purchase the game before December 10, you will also get two exclusive in-game katanas, one of which is called the  'Exclusive Nintendo Katana Sword'.

Currently, Ghostrunner is available on PS4, Xbox One, and PC. It will also be releasing for the PS5 and Xbox Series X/S some time in 2021, with support for free next-gen upgrades.

In our review of Ghostrunner, we called it "an excellent game that combines fast-paced action combat with a compelling game world that any fan of action games or cyberpunk should enjoy." You can read our full review through here.

Silent Hill Reboot Will be Announced at The Game Awards – Rumour

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It seems we're going to end this year the way we started it- with rumours of an alleged Silent Hill reboot being developed by Sony in partnership with Konami. Supposedly a PS5 exclusive title, this ghost of a game has been the subject of countless leaks and rumours throughout 2020, and if this newest report is to be believed, the game's announcement is not far away.

Recently, business analyst Roberto Serrano took to Twitter to share the rumour that the Silent Hill reboot that we've been hearing so much about is going to (finally) be officially unveiled at The Game Awards next month, on December 10. Serrano's track record with leaks has been a bit spotty at best, but the folks at Rely on Horror, whose history with horror-related leaks is much more solid, say that their own sources have suggested the same.

Of course, we've heard multiple times throughout this year that the game is going to get announced on a certain date, only for that to not happen when that date comes to pass. It's possible that plans have changed internally due to COVID – which would be in keeping with how this year has gone – but given how many times we've been burned in the past, it's best to take any and all Silent Hill-related leaks with a grain of salt for now.

Either way, we'll keep you posted should we come across any new information, so stay tuned for any and all updates.

8 Things We Want To See In God of War: Ragnarok

2018's God of War is not only one of the best games we've played this generation, it's also one of the best games Sony has ever produced, and the future that it has set up for an already excellent series is an exciting one. Sony have now officially announced its sequel, with God of War: Ragnarok (or whatever they end up calling it) due out in 2021, and millions are understandably incredibly pumped about it.

Of course, that includes us as well, and like so many others, there's a few things we're hoping the sequel will do that will elevate it to even greater heights than the ones its predecessor touched. In this feature, we'll be talking about a few such things.

MORE BOSSES

God of War has always had a history of excellent boss fights, from the Minotaur in the first game to the Colossus of Rhodes in God of War 2 to Cronos in God of War 3. God of War (2018) had some memorable set piece encounters as well, especially the boss fights against Baldur that bookended the game- but though the game wasn't lacking in quality, it was lacking in quality. Other than maybe three or four actual set piece boss encounters, there wasn't really much to speak of in the game as far as bosses were concerned, with many encounters being copy-paste jobs of older fights.

God of War director Cory Barlog has openly talked about the issue, admitting that several bosses had to be cut out of the game in order to shorten its development time (which, at roughly four years, had already stretched on pretty long). Hopefully, that won't be the case in the next game. Epic boss fights and God of War go hand in hand, so we're hoping to see a lot more of that in Ragnarok.

MORE WEAPONS

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God of War (2018) did the impossible. It replaced Kratos' iconic chained blades with the Leviathan Axe, a weapon that was so excellently executed in gameplay that players instantly fell in love with it. And just when we started believing that the Blades of Chaos were gone for good, and that this incredible new axe would be the face of the franchise going forward, they came back. Switching between weapons has been a thing in God of War since the beginning, but never was it so much fun, so meaningful.

So what do we want in the sequel? Well, more of that. The Blades of Chaos and the Leviathan Axe are going to return, of course, but we're hoping that there will be at least one or two new weapons to play around with as well. And one of them has to be Mjolnir.

MORE REALMS

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God of War (2018) took Kratos and Atreus to multiple realms of Norse mythology, with their adventure in Midgard also branching out into other realms like Alfheim, Helheim, and more. Three realms, however, remained unexplored. Though Asgard, Vanaheim, and Svartalfheim appear in the central hub room that connects all realms, Kratos and Atreus never really venture into those locations.

It goes without saying that they were being saved for the sequel, which makes sense from a narrative perspective as well. Asgard and Vanaheim are probably going to factor into the next game's story heavily, what with Ragnarok being the centerpiece of the narrative. How (or if) the game incorporates Svartalfheim – the realm of dwarves – into the story remains to be seen. Brok and Sindri are probably still going to be important characters in the sequel though, and those two might somehow end up leading Kratos and Atreus to the realm of their race.

BETTER SIDE QUESTS

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Though it wasn't an open world game by any means, God of War (2018) was a lot more open-ended in terms of its structure and world design, with a hub and spoke design that offered players the opportunity to put the main quest on hold and explore Midgard to tackle optional activities and side quests. Many of these led to memorable moments – for instance, the three dragons and the Valkyries are all part of quests that you never have to touch – but by that same token, there were quite a few side quests that felt a bit too generic, or unrewarding, or both.

What we're hoping to see in Ragnarok, then, is consistency. God of War (2018) made it clear that SIE Santa Monica have the chops to craft some great side quests. Now, they need to take things to the next level and ensure that they hit that level of quality with greater consistency. Not only will that make the optional content in the sequel more compelling, it will inherently make exploration more rewarding as well.

BETTER PROGRESSION AND GEAR

Too many developers these days throw loot and RPG mechanics into their games, but don't really implement them all that well. For all its strengths, God of War did have some flaws, and being another such game was definitely one of them. The gear system and progression weren't necessarily bad– they just didn't end up counting for much.

With the sequel, we're hoping to see significant improvements in this area. The gear system needs to be more engaging and rewarding, the progression needs to be more meaningful, and all of it needs to come together and actually make a difference to how you're playing, or how powerful your own Kratos is becoming. Of course, we don't exactly want to see God of War become a loot-driven RPG either, so hopefully, SIE Santa Monica will manage to strike the right balance.

BETTER PACING 

God of War (2018) is easily the longest game in the series, which is great, because you can't have too much of a good thing. But that length also comes at the cost of occasional pacing issues- none that break the game, of course, but there's enough MacGuffins in there to make it feel like the story is taking a bit longer to get to the point than it needs to.

With the sequel, we're assuming (and hoping) that the pacing will be much better. Now that the foundation for the story, the characters, the central conflict, and the new setting has been laid down, God of War: Ragnarok will be able to move things along at a much faster pace, and more major story developments will be coming in thick and fast- or so we hope, at any rate.

MORE CONNECTIONS TO THE OLDER GAMES

God of War (2018) could have easily discarded everything that had happened in the six games that preceded it in an attempt to reboot the continuity and move ahead with a fresh start, but it chose to respect the narrative events of the Greek mythology era of the series- which turned out to be one of the best things it could have done. The way the game built on the events in Kratos' past and kept connecting those strands to the new direction the series is headed in was easily one of the highlights of the game.

Obviously, we're desperate for more of that. Kratos' redemption is far from complete (we doubt it ever will be complete, in fact), and there's still plenty of skeletons in his closet that he needs to tell Atreus about, and come to terms with himself. The moments in God of War (2018) when Kratos was faced with his past were some of the best, and hopefully, there will be many more of those in the sequel.

MUSIC FROM THE OLDER GAMES

One of the reasons that 2018's God of War is loved so much is because of how much it remained true and paid tribute to the original games, as we discussed earlier, firmly maintaining a strong connection to the series' roots. And it's true, God of War is full of those kinds of moments that evoke the original games. That's the kind of thing we would like to see in the sequel, but more of. for example, not a single track from the original games Fshows up in God of War (2018): and given just how fantastic and iconic so many of the tunes in the Greek saga were, that feels like an incredible missed opportunity – doubly so when you consider how much more weight they would add to callbacks, if deployed at just the right moment. Hopefully, we get to see a SIE Santa Monica turn to music in their ever growing quest to weaponize nostalgia in the next game.

11 New Things You Need To Know Before You Buy PS5 and Xbox Series X/S

At this point, the Xbox Series X, the Xbox Series S, and the PS5 are all less than two weeks away from launch. Next-gen really is right around the corner, and it's an exciting time in the industry as always. Based on everything Microsoft and Sony have been revealing about their respective machines over the last few months, there's more than just a few reasons to be excited about the years ahead. Over the last few weeks, we've been going over some of these talking points across multiple features, and here, with next-gen within touching distance, we'll be doing that once more, and cover some more important details you should know about the upcoming consoles.

UI (PS5)

The user interface of the PS5 was the last crucial detail about the console that Sony had been holding back, but not that long ago, they revealed that at long last, giving us a glimpse of several new features. Of course, that includes something as basic as your main home screen, which looks like a cleaner, more polished version of what we have on the PS4 already. Of course, the larger UX on the PS5 has been overhauled, but the design of tiles and each tile having its own subpage has become familiar to PlayStation users.

Meanwhile, Sony have also confirmed that the PS5's UI will be rendered constantly in 4K, which is a nice bonus to have.

BACKWARD COMPATIBILITY (XBOX)

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We've already spoken plenty about how the consoles will natively enhance older games in various ways, either with enhanced resolutions, booster frame rates, automatically added HDR, are a combination of multiple of those. On top of that, "nearly all" games running on Xbox Series X/S via backward compatibility will benefit from 16x anisotropic filtering, which will significantly improve image quality. Of course, this is something that Microsoft were already doing to some extent with the Xbox One X, but the next-gen consoles seem to be taking it a step further with wider application.

ACTIVITIES (PS5)

ps5 ui

Activities is one of the biggest new features that Sony have added in the PS5's new user experience. Displayed as cards on the screen, these Activities show players various small- and large-scale challenges and objectives from the game, from specific tasks to collection completions to particular levels or quests, and more, from across whatever game it is that you're playing at the time. Interestingly enough, you can also use the Activities cards to jump directly into the part of the game that has whatever Activity you selected.

LOADING SPEEDS (XBOX SERIES S)

xbox series s

Faster load times is one of the things that next-gen consoles are highlighting the most, thanks to their solid state drives, and though the Xbox Series S is significantly weaker than the Series X or the PS5, it seems that's one area where the console isn't lagging behind. It has a PCie Gen 4 NVMe SSD, same as the Xbox Series X, and according to Xbox boss Phil Spencer, it actually loads some games faster than its more powerful next-gen counterpart. Speaking with Kotaku, Spencer said that Sthe Xbox Series S has "surprised" him in terms of how it performs, before adding that it actually loads some games faster than the Xbox Series X does, since it's loading in lower-res assets.

GAME HELP (PS5)

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Another new feature that Sony recently spoke of while revealing the PS5's UX was Game Help. Exclusive to PlayStation Plus subscribers, Game Help will entail official in-game tips and guides, coming in the form of photos or videos included by the developers of the game themselves. And yes, you can watch these clips and play the game simultaneously. With a feature such as this one, which will obviously require developers to put in additional work into a game for the sake of including tips and guides, it remains to be seen how widely (and well) it'll be used, while it being exclusive to PS Plus subscribers is also a bit of a bummer. That said, it does put accessibility and ease of use on the forefront, which is great to see.

AVERAGE TEMPERATURE (XBOX SERIES X)

Xbox Series X

We've spoken in previous features about the fan noises and cooling systems of all next-gen consoles, and while we know that both Xbox and PlayStation have effective solutions in place, when it comes to the Xbox Series X, we also have some hard numbers to back that up. As per GamesBeat's Jeff Grubb, the Xbox Series X has an average temperature of 47.7C, lower than the average temperatures of the Xbox One X and the PS4 Pro at 52.1C and 62.5C respectively. At minimum, the Series X's temperature measures at 38.9C, compared to the Xbox One X's 50C and the PS4 Pro's 60.1C. Finally, when it's at its hottest, the Xbox Series X's temperature measures at 50.4C, compared to the Xbox One X's 54.5C and the PS4 Pro's 65C/

DUALSENSE (PS5)

ps5 dualsense

The DualSense's haptic feedback and adaptive triggers have ben two of the PS5's biggest talking points, and Sony seem intent on making them a core part of their next-gen experience. If, however, any of these features don't appeal to you, or you find yourself just unable to engage with them properly, you will have the option to turn them off. The DualSense's controller manual makes it clear that you can do so by heading into the console's settings menu.

RDNA 2 (XBOX)

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Recently, AMD revealed the next generation of their new Radeon RX 6000 Series, running on RDNA 2 architecture, and impressed quite a few people. Not long afterward, Microsoft confirmed that the Xbox Series X and Xbox Series S will also be running on RDNA 2 architecture- in fact, Microsoft has stated that the two new Xbox consoles are going to be the only next-gen consoles to have full hardware support for all the new RDNA 2 capabilities AMD recently shared.

Speaking of which…

HARDWARE ACCELERATION CAPABILITIES (XBOX)

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What exactly are the RDNA 2 hardware acceleration capabilities that the Xbox Series X/S boast of? Well, there's ray-tracing, of course, which we've spoken about quite a bit over the last few months. On top of that there's Mesh Shaders to afford developers greater flexibility while designing their games' geometry, Variable Rate Shading to deliver even more granular grain control, and Sampler Feedback to improve memory efficiency and bandwidth.

SHARING (PS5)

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Many months ago, when Sony revealed the DualSense, they briefly talked about the new Create button, which is replacing the DualShock 4's Share button. After months of not mentioning it again, recently, Sony detailed the improvements they're making to sharing on the PS5. For instance, you can now share your screen with members of your Party. Meanwhile, you can also view other Party members' screens with picture-in-picture while playing your own game. The interface of selecting browsing captured screenshots and videos has also been cleaned up, and made much faster and more easily accessible, as has sharing your captured clips and screens on social media.

ACCESSIBILITY FEATURES (PS5)

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Sony are also taking various steps to ensure that the PS5 is more accessible to all players, including players with disabilities or impairments. Many features are in place for this purpose, including voice-to-text dictation, closed captions, button remapping, inverting colours, and more. There's also Screen Reader, which lets blind or low-vision users to hear on-screen text, while deaf or users with impaired hearing can type messages, which is then spoken out loud to other Party members. This feature is also confirmed to support nearly a dozen languages.

Apex Legends Pre-Load is Live on Steam

Apex Legends Season 7

Keen on trying on Respawn Entertainment's Apex Legends when it goes live on Steam today but can't wait? There's some good news – the free to play battle royale shooter can now be pre-loaded on Valve's platform. By the time it goes live, one can hop in and starting playing rather than waiting.

Apex Legends' Steam release coincides with the launch of Season 7: Ascension. It introduces a new map, Olympus, along with a new battle pass with over 100 new cosmetics. New mechanics like the Trident, a squad vehicle, have also been added (and even allows for utilizing some Ultimates).

But perhaps the biggest new addition this season is Horizon, the newest Legend. She's a gravity specialist that can deploy a harness to either propel herself and teammates up to higher ground or trap enemies within for easy pickings. Horizon's Ultimate opens up a black hole that sucks enemies into a fixed spot and is also good for defending against certain attacks.

Apex Legends' Season 7 goes live today for Xbox One, PS4 and PC. Stay tuned for more details in the meantime.

Call of Duty: Black Ops Cold War Requires 100 GB of Storage Space on Xbox

call of duty black ops cold war

Call of Duty games have become notorious for having ridiculously large storage requirements on all platforms, which is something that they keep doubling down on with similarly massive post-launch updates and patches. Call of Duty: Black Ops Cold War, which is out in a little over a week, won't be bucking that trend.

Recently, it was revealed that on PC, the shooter would require at least 175 GB of storage space (or 250 GB on max settings), and though requirements on consoles won't be quite so ridiculous, they're still nothing to scoff at. As revealed by the game's Microsoft Store page, on the Xbox One and Xbox Series X/S, Call of Duty: Black Ops Cold War will require roughly 100 GB of free storage space.

The Xbox Series X's internal SSD has 802 GB of usable storage space, while the Xbox Series S will reportedly offer just 364 GB. The latter especially might present a problem for those looking to get Black Ops Cold War on the console, especially seeing as Series S is a digital only console (and the external SSD is not particularly cheap).

Call of Duty: Black Ops Cold War launches for PS5, Xbox Series X/S, PS4, Xbox One, and PC on November 13. Recently, details were revealed on three missions from the game's single player campaign- read more on that through here.