Animal Crossing: New Horizons December Changes Detailed in New Video

Animal Crossing

For those who may have missed it, we're already in December! That means Cyberpunk 2077 and The Game Awards are just around the corner, Persona 5 Royal gets its own range of blended tea sets and there's a raft of changes coming to Animal Crossing: New Horizons. Thankfully, as they always do, Nintendo has put out a video detailing all the additions players can expect on their island starting this month.

For those who have played New Horizons since day one, collecting every bug and fish possible, December is an exciting month. Up until this point, all but one bug and one fish have been available to catch within the game, leaving a solitary spot in both sections of the Critterpedia. December changes that however, as the last remaining fish, the Pond Smelt can be caught in rivers right now. Those looking for the last bug will still have to wait a short while as the Dung Beetle doesn't arrive until a little later when the snow starts to settle. Lobsters are also now available for keen divers.

The main attraction of December in Animal Crossing: New Horizons is the Toy Day festivities. Jingle, the black nosed reindeer, heads to town and encourages players to spread joy, and presents, around the island. A new selection of toys will also be available from Nook's Cranny and a wintery range of clothing from the Able Sisters.

Throughout the month, certain trees will become decked with Christmas lights. These trees can contain special crafting baubles. Once shaken a bauble can fall out of the tree and can be used to craft a range of festive DIY recipes, including Christmas Trees and decorative lights.

Toy Day is the second part of the recently announced update, that also included the Turkey Day celebrations. After this, little is known about Nintendo's next plans for the game, other than a brief tease of a new update at the end of January that will involve Pavé, the festival loving ostrich.

Animal Crossing: New Horizons is available now for the Nintendo Switch.

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'Blind Playthrough' Tag Removed From Twitch Following Feedback

Twitch Blind Playthrough

In an attempt to make Twitch more inclusive to its growing, diverse audience of gamers, the term 'blind playthrough' has been removed as a tag option. The term has been regarded as ableist, and will be replaced by the tags 'first playthrough' or 'no spoilers.'

Twitch's director of community and creator marketing Erin 'Aureylian' Wayne announced the change on Twitter. She also suggested that streamers use the two replacement tags in conjunction to get the same message across.

The move from Twitch has been praised by prominent disabled gamers. Steve Saylor, the media editor of Can I Play That? said on Twitter that the decision to change the term "is not SJW's being super sensitive." Saylor went on to say that, although he is not offended by the tag he does "think it's a term that can go away. Language changes over time, so let it."

Steven Spohn has also touched on this topic in the past. Spohn, the chief operating officer of the Able Gamers Charity, said in a thread this past June that the term "Can easily be replaced by saying 'No spoilers play through' or 'undiscovered' or 'first' (if it is your first). A blind playthrough would be to turn your monitor off, and that's not what most mean."

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Medal of Honor: Above and Beyond First Impressions On The Classic FPS' Return

Medal of Honor, Respawn

We are only a few short days away from the launch of Medal of Honor: Above and Beyond. It's a series that used to churn out quality shooters like clockwork but has been MIA since 2012's Medal of Honor: Warfighter. Now, the team at Respawn is bringing it back–and taking it to VR, while they're at it. Recently, I was able to sit down with an early build of the game and play through a bit of the single-player, as well as hop into some multiplayer and check out a few bits of the short documentaries they've put together for the Gallery. Before we get to it, make sure you check out some of the multiplayer in action.

The first thing to note about Medal of Honor: Above and Beyond is that the file size, at least in this early build, is absolutely massive. Expect to spend quite a bit of time downloading it if you're hoping to play on launch day.  Hopefully, you don't have a data cap or this is going to eat up quite a chunk of it. But what really matters is how it plays.

For the preview, I was able to play through the first two missions in the campaign. However, it's important to note that each mission is filled with several short vignettes to play through. This is helpful because it lets you easily hop out if you're feeling a little queasy. I didn't keep time or anything, but most missions probably clock in at somewhere around 30-45 minutes, which each vignette taking anywhere from 5-15 minutes. Some of these are simple dialog dumps, while others really ramp up the action.

Obviously, this is an FPS game. You're going to do a lot of shooting. If you've played any other shooters in VR, this is going to feel pretty familiar. Once you get used to physically reloading guns and actually using iron sights, it becomes second nature. The immersion really sings when you can use the environment in interesting ways.

For example, one early mission takes place on a moving train. You need to work your way to the back to save one of your allies. Each door is a sliding door. So, of course, I spent the entire level using them as cover as I moved through each car. It's not something new for VR shooters, but it still feels cool when you do it.

Speaking of feeling cool, this is another area where Medal of Honor: Above and Beyond excels. Several times in the early parts of the game, Respawn does a great job of using the medium to provide a spectacle. Whether it's a train flying over your head or catching a gun tossed at you in slow motion, the devs know how to use that immersion to really suck you in.

On the multiplayer front, you're talking to the wrong guy if you want it compared to other current games in the genre. I honestly can't remember the last time I played a Call of Duty or Battlefield game. That being said, I am here to tell you that I had a blast with the short time I was able to play.

Now, it's important to be clear with this. I'm not sold on Medal of Honor: Above and Beyond having long-term competitive chops. Is this going to become the next big e-sport? It seems unlikely. However, I really dig the map design and being able to physically move around cover adds an interesting twist.

That said, I do think a few things could be better. There's a mode called Mad Bomber where you're trying to set off your bombs while stopping the opponents. Since it's in VR, I was expecting to place my bomb in all kinds of creative places. Unfortunately, it seems a bit more structured than I'd like. Of course, maybe I was panicking too much to notice, but it did seem more constrained than I'd expected.

Another potential issue in the preview is that it's going to be tough to have a huge audience in a VR title like this. If the players aren't there, these multiplayer maps are going to die off pretty quickly. It doesn't matter how fun the maps are.

The final thing worth talking about is the Gallery. These are a series of short films that tell the story of different World War 2 vets. As always, it's a bit weird to go from playing at war to listening to vets talk about all the hardships they've gone through. And, given that massive file size, it would make a ton of sense to me to break these out.

From a quality standpoint, however, the docs are excellent. One really neat thing they've added in is the ability to put you in real-world locations through a 360° camera. It was moving to virtually visit an actual gravesite that you learn about in one of the shorts. It's just offputting to then have a laugh playacting at war right after.

As a package, Medal of Honor: Above and Beyond is full of promise. The single-player campaign is full of moments that take advantage of VR. Multiplayer probably won't take over the world, but it is a fun way to spend an afternoon. If the team cleans up some of the bugs I've noticed in the preview version, this could be another solid title for VR fans.

Medal of Honor: Above and Beyond comes to VR via PC on December 11, 2020.

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Genshin impact: miHoYo Officially Explains Zhongli Is A Support Character

On November 7, miHoYo published a statement regarding Zhongli and explained his role as a support character in Genshin Impact (PC, PS4, PS5, Mobile, Switch soon). The statement was first shared in Japanese via Twitter and a few minutes later in English through Facebook. Before being shared by the English Twitter as well.

Long story short, many Genshin players in the English speaking community have been saying Zhongli sucks despite being a five star character. miHoYo explained they've been closely following feedback and impressions ever since Zhongli was released. However, miHoYo admitted that while they kept an eye on all the debate, they were pretty slow and didn't respond until now, and apologized for that.

In the statement, miHoYo explained their views when it comes to developing characters in Genshin Impact, and how Zhongli was primarily developed as a Support Character.

First off, miHoYo wishes for Genshin Impact to have mechanics as diverse as possible. While the majority of characters in Genshin Impact are based on how to deal damage fast and the infamous Damage Per Second DPS, Zhongli's role is not to attack the enemies but to defend the other party members and control the enemies' movement. miHoYo also explained Zhongli's Elemental Skill and Burst have been developed in a way that they can be self-sufficient to efficiently protect the party, without relying on Elemental Reactions, his Weapon and Artifact equipment. The data showed Zhongli is fulfilling this role, as players who use Zhongli in their party now have a higher survival rate.

Moreover, miHoYo mentioned it's always analyzing, and assessing data so characters have their roles to play. Hinting there should be content coming later on that will make Support characters like Zhongli more useful. They will keep analyzing Zhongli data too, so it's possible he will get buffed or changed later on. It's extremely rare for a character in a game with gacha elements to get nerfed after their official release, but it's not unheard of for them to be buffed.

Personally, I believe the main problem is that all of the endgame content in Genshin Impact, the Spiral Abyss in particular, is based on optimizing your DPS, not your defenses. So from a purely objective standpoint, a character like Zhongli is indeed not worth rolling for right now. As I often say though, at the end of the day, it all comes down to whether you like the character or not. And nothing stops you for using Zhongli for something else than support, even if miHoYo says he is a support and that he's not as efficient in other roles. It's up to you, how you use your resources, how you build your characters, and what makes the game fun for you. In any case, I'm looking forward to future content which hopefully won't solely be DPS based, so a character like Zhongli will get to shine.

Lastly, miHoYo is also correcting a bug regarding Zhongli:

In addition, we have discovered from player feedback that there is indeed a bug affecting Zhongli at present: After Zhongli's Lv. 2 Constellation "Stone, the Cradle of Jade" is activated, casting an Elemental Burst may not trigger the DMG boost of the Elemental Resonance effect "Enduring Rock." The developers are currently working on a fix and we estimate that the issue will be fixed in an update on 12/10/2020. Travelers will also be compensated accordingly.

Zhongli has been incredibly popular with Japanese players. Genshin Impact is a game geared towards anime otaku, people who fall in love with 2D characters regardless of apparent age, gender and orientation, and who'd do anything for them. I personally believe many Genshin players are in this category, but it doesn't mean they ignore the game's possible flaws, like how it's highly reliant on DPS and artifacts substats in the long run rather than direct player skill.

Japanese players also found another interesting bug with Zhongli.

The next big update in Genshin Impact, version 1.2, is planned for December 23. It'll add the Dragonspine area, new quests, and currently unspecified content. Some players leaked work in progress content from Ver 1.2, which earned them a lawsuit from miHoYo. Ver 1.3 is scheduled for February 2021. Future updates will add the Inazuma region.

The post Genshin impact: miHoYo Officially Explains Zhongli Is A Support Character by Iyane Agossah appeared first on DualShockers.

Daemon X Machina, Fate/Extella Developer Marvelous 1st Studio Recruiting For PS5, Xbox Series X Games

Marvelous announced that one of its development studios, 1st Studio, is currently recruiting a wide range of developers, in order to strengthen its planning and development of next gen games, most notably on PS5 and Xbox series X.

1st Studio handled many games at Marvelous, such as Daemon x Machina, the Fate/Extella series, and the Soul Sacrifice series. It also participated in the development of God Eater 3 for Bandai Namco, the series' publisher and IP holder.

Moreover, the renewed page for 1st Studio mentions it's currently working on multiple projects, most being Action and RPG works. In order to tackle all these projects and bring them to fruition, Marvelous is looking for highly motivated new personnel. Keeping itself competitive in the always changing global gaming market.

Lastly, in order to appeal to new recruits, Marvelous published a plethora of interviews with its own existing staff. Character designers, planners, programmers, etc.

List of games developed by 1st Studio:

  • Daemon X Machina (2019)
  • Fate/Extella Link (2018)
  • God Eater 3 (2018) (contract development for Bandai Namco)
  • Fate/Extella (2016)
  • Soul Sacrifice Delta (2014) (contract development for Sony Interactive Entertainment Japan Studio)
  • Soul Sacrifice (2013) (contract development for Sony Interactive Entertainment Japan Studio)

This is a pretty interesting move from Marvelous seeing the studio's recent projects. And how it's striving to get back in the game as much as possible. Studios at Marvelous are most notably working on new titles for two of their most popular IPs. We have Rune Factory 5, launching May 20, 2021 in Japan on Switch. (Sometime later in USA). And Story of Seasons: Pioneers of Olive Town, coming to Switch in USA on March 23, 2021.

Marvelous also recently published Sakuna: of Rice and Ruin, a Japanese indie game which made it big worldwide. In particular thanks to its appearances on Nintendo Direct. As we explained back in May 2020, Tencent bought 20% of Marvelous' shares, in order to grow its influence not only on Japanese games but on anime as well. Marvelous is heavily participating in the production of anime and anime related stage plays.

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Fall Guys Reveals Four Costumes From Upcoming Season Three

Fall Guys Season 3 costume reveal

Fall Guys: Ultimate Knockout's third season is imminent. The wintery season, aptly titled "Fall Guys: Winter Knockout" was first revealed on Twitter and Discord via a giant puzzle and has since been confirmed to be appearing at The Game Awards in a few days time. Before the full reveal at Geoff Keighley's showcase, however, the official Fall Guys Twitter account has revealed another tease, showing off four costumes from the upcoming season.

The cosmetics were individually shared over Fall Guys' different social media channels, including Twitter, Tik Tok, Instagram and Discord, before collectively being shown off on Twitter.

The four costumes, as you'd expect, have a Christmassy theme. The cosmetic first revealed via Instagram was a reindeer with a red nose, reminiscent of everybody's favourite, Rudolph. The Twitter account revealed a giant candle, Discord shared a princess and the Tik Tok account revealed my pick of the bunch, a barefoot yeti with a giant beard.

This idea was something the game's developers picked up from the last season. A few days before Season Two's release, the Fall Guys community team revealed an Orc, Jouster, Jester and Princess outfit to build interest ahead of launch.

Alongside the Season Three outfits, it looks like the game will soon be getting a cameo from another very popular character. The official Twitter account recently shared a tweet that indicated that DOOM Guy would be making an appearance at some point in the future.

Whilst the mainstream hype around the title may have died down a little, the game continues to perform exceptionally well. Developers Mediatonic confirmed that the title, which released less than six months ago, has already clocked up a whopping 11 million sales on Steam. That's after the game became the most downloaded free PlayStation Plus title ever earlier this year.

Fall Guys: Ultimate Knockout is available now on PS4, PS5 and PC via Steam.

The post Fall Guys Reveals Four Costumes From Upcoming Season Three by Sam Woods appeared first on DualShockers.

Nintendo Issued Cease-and-Desist Over Etika Joy-Con Shells That Raised $10k for Charity

Custom Nintendo Joy-Con shells with Etika on a Switch behind

Nintendo has found itself under fire after it sent a cease-and-desist letter in September to a creator for selling custom Joy-Con shells that were created in honor of Desmond "Etika" Amofah. All proceeds from the shells had been donated to a mental health and suicide prevention charity.

Content creator CptnAlex (Thanks, VGC) had created custom 'Etikon' Joy-Con shells in August 2019. The controller shells were created in memory of Etika, a prominent member of the Nintendo community who took his own life last year. Alex shared that over $10,000 had been raised by the end of 2019, with proceeds being donated to the JED Foundation, a mental health and suicide prevention charity.

On December 7, 2020, YouTube channel JoyConBoyz uploaded a video titled "Nintendo hates us" in which CptnAlex reveals that Nintendo sent him a cease-and-desist in September due to the custom shells baring the Joy-Con logo and phrase. JoyConBoyz also uploaded an image on Twitter claiming that Nintendo had filed a copyright claim against the video.

In the below tweet, Alex shares an image of the cease-and-desist letter that orders him to halt production and sales of the shells, and the trademarked images and words owned by Nintendo.

Alex has been responding to comments on Twitter since the video caused "Nintendo" and "Etika" to trend on the social media platform. Responding to one user he details that "500 shells" were produced last year, with "Approximately 300" going to backers from IndieGoGo. "the other 200 were on Etsy". He has also explained that he holds a "resellers license and pay taxes"  and that he's now modifying most of his designs and removing the copyrighted image and phrase.

It does appear as if Alex plans to bring the Joy-Con's back, just with some design changes. And from the sounds of it, those designs may be available to purchase from the Etsy page he brings up.

The post Nintendo Issued Cease-and-Desist Over Etika Joy-Con Shells That Raised $10k for Charity by Ben Bayliss appeared first on DualShockers.

The Game Awards Adds Another Batch of Presenters, Includes Reggie Fils-Aime

The Game Awards Reggie Fils Amie

The Game Awards kicks off in three days, and the line-up of presenters is starting to get very stacked. Before Geoff Keighley's latest batch of announcements, the likes of Wonderwoman and Captain Marvel were confirmed to be on the roster, with both Gal Gadot and Brie Larson slated to present. Alongside those, it's been announced Swedish Chef from The Muppets, gaming's own Troy Baker and sportscaster Stephen A. Smith would all be presenting.

As with the other names, Keighley announced a new wave of presenters through his Twitter account over the weekend, and like the previous batch, there are some big stars to look out for.

Of the most recent group of presenters, arguably the most notable is the former president of Nintendo of America, Reggie Fils-Aime. Fils-Aime presented an award at last year's event and is returning this year, in some capacity, to present again. While he's no longer one of the top-dogs at Nintendo, Reggie is still very much in the video games space, taking a seat on the Board of Directors at Gamestop earlier this year.

Joining Reggie and co are the likes of John David Washington, who starred in Christopher Nolan's Tenet, which released earlier this year and Nolan North, one of the most notable voice actors in the video game space. He has a mountain of credits to his name that include Nathan Drake in the Uncharted series, Tony Stark in Marvel's Avengers and Ghost and Cayde-6 in Destiny 2.

The Game Awards are known for their ability to wow the audience with new information about existing games and exciting world premieres. This year's show is certainly shaping up to be the same. Keighley confirmed that during the pre-show alone, which will again be hosted by Sydnee Goodman, there will be a total of five world premieres. Alongside those, it's also been rumoured that Microsoft will be making an announcement and confirmed that games like Fall Guys: Ultimate Knockout and Among Us will be appearing.

The show kicks off this Thursday, December 10 at 7PM ET, with the pre-show taking place 30 minutes earlier.

The post The Game Awards Adds Another Batch of Presenters, Includes Reggie Fils-Aime by Sam Woods appeared first on DualShockers.

FIFA 21 Still Keeps the First Place Away from Black Ops Cold War in the UK Sales Chart

FIFA 21

Another week passed and the UK sales chart is live again with new data. The new chart hasn't experienced any significant change, despite some minor swaps at the end of the top ten table. FIFA 21 still secures the first place while Call of Duty Black Ops Cold War is following.

Despite a 37% drop in sales compared to the week before last, FIFA 21 is the best-selling game of the UK's physical market for another week. One of the reasons for keeping up the good sale is related to the game's official launch on new consoles last week. Previously, players could only get a digital copy of FIFA 21 on PS5, but last week, the physical versions hit the market as well.

The second place of the table belongs to Activision's Call of Duty Black Ops Cold War that has been stuck in this position since its launch except for only one week of leading the table. Cold War's biggest achievement for the last week is the fact that its sales dropped only by 3% compared to the week before last. The game also managed to keep its place secure from Animal Crossing New Horizons that added 20% to its sales on a week-on-week basis.

Assassin's Creed Valhalla sold 14% more compared to the last table to step up and take the position of Nintendo's Mario Kart 8 Deluxe at 4th place. On the other hand, Marvel's Spider-Man Miles Morales remained in the middle of the table by jumping to sixth place. The only first-party launch title of PS5 that hasn't left the top ten table since its release. Below you can check out the chart:

      Last Week       This Week Title
1 1 FIFA 21
2 2 Call of Duty: Black Ops Cold War
3 3 Animal Crossing: New Horizons
5 4 Assassin's Creed Valhalla
4 5 Mario Kart 8: Deluxe
7 6 Marvel's Spider-Man: Miles Morales
10 7 Just Dance 2021
8 8 Minecraft (Switch)
9 9 Super Mario 3D All-Stars
7 10 Marvel's Avengers

The post FIFA 21 Still Keeps the First Place Away from Black Ops Cold War in the UK Sales Chart by Mehrdad Khayyat appeared first on DualShockers.

Starbreeze Announces It Has Paid the Majority of Creditors

Starbreeze Studios

Starbreeze appears to be on the up after an official announcement has been published detailing that the developer and publisher has paid off most of its creditors. The company has been behind titles such as Payday 2, Dead by Daylight, and OVERKILL's The Walking Dead.

"Starbreeze has through these payments settled all debts categorized as Supplier creditors and Small supplier creditors who were included in the reorganization plan." the announcement reads, "After this debt settlement, only part of the debt to Nordea and debt related to Convertible bond and related refinancing costs remain."

With OVERKILL's The Walking Dead, the company had high expectations back in 2018 for the first-person shooter's launch that's based on the comic book of the same name. Unfortunately, the game didn't do well, underperforming at launch, and resulted in Starbreeze having to review its costs. This also saw the company, in 2018, file for reconstruction with CEO Bo Andersson stepping down.

2018 also saw the company raided by Swedish authorities after it was under suspicion of insider trading. Last year, Starbreeze announced that it didn't have the money to continue operating through the year unless drastic changes were made. It seems those changes have been paying off. As GamesIndustry.biz highlights, the company has made huge changes such as selling the publishing rights to System Shock 3, 10 Crowns, and saw Rockstar acquire Dhruva Interactive from Starbreeze. It was also reported that it had laid off a quarter of its staff in June last year.

In October of this year, CEO Mikael Nermark also stepped down from the company for personal reasons and has been replaced by acting CEO Tobias Sjögren. It was also announced in October that Payday 3 would be released sometime between 2022-2023.

It seems as if the company could very well have paid off its debts by the time the next Payday title launches, but it's no lie that the journey has been an incredibly rocky one that it seems to be slowly recovering from.

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