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Guilty Gear's Baiken Announced For Samurai Shodown, Releasing August 19

Guilty Gear Strive released recently and has managed to take the anime-infused fighting series to new heights. It's definitely the current hot property in the fighting scene, and if you have any doubts, it seems as if the series is now bridging over into other classic fighting franchises, namely the recent reboot of Samurai Shodown.

The fighter has gotten a host of post-launch fighters, and are currently on Season 3. A guest character was teased within this season, and it's now been revealed to be Baiken. The character originally appeared in the first game in the Guilty Gear franchise as a secret character, and has made appearances in multiple entries afterward. As you can see from the trailer below, she fits in well, using swift sword attacks, and fancy specials inspired from her own series.

Samurai Shodown is available now on most major platforms. Baiken will be available as part of season 3 or downloadable separately on August 19th. The latest entry in the Guilty Gear series, Strive, is available now on PlayStation 5, PlayStation 4 and PC.


Dead By Daylight Will Remove Stranger Things Crossover Material This November

Dead by Daylight emerged over the last few years as an unexpected crossover for various horror or horror-adjacent properties. The likes of Ash from Evil Dead, Ghostface from Scream, Freddy from Elm Street and even content from beloved horror game franchises Silent Hill and Resident Evil. However, there is always a potential drawback to licensed content, as licenses can expired and/or change hands. Now, one popular brand has announced it will be leaving the game.

As you can see below, on the official Twitter, it's been announced that content from the popular Netflix series, Stranger Things, will be discontinued in November. The map based on the show, Underground Complex, will be permanently gone. The Demogorgon, Nancy Wheeler, and Steve Harrington will no longer be purchasable. However, if you bought the three before the delisting, you will still be able to use them even if the map will be gone.

Dead by Daylight is available now on all major platforms. The Stranger Things content will be delisted on November 17th. All three Stranger Things characters are on sale for various periods, and you can see more information at the link below.


Crysis Remastered Trilogy Trailer Compares Xbox 360 and Xbox Series X Visuals

Crytek announced a couple of months ago that, as many fans had been hoping, Crysis Remastered Trilogy would indeed be releasing later this year, bringing major visual and performance improvements to the trilogy of first person shooters. Now, they've released a new comparison trailer to give you a taste of what sort of improvements you can expect.

The trailer pits footage of trilogy from the Xbox 360 against it running on the Xbox Series X, and the results are impressive. Better lighting, improved textures, major visual upgrades, and more are abundantly apparent. Meanwhile, the promise of dynamic resolution between 1080p and 4K at up to 60 frames per second is also exciting. Check it out in action below.

Crysis Remastered Trilogy is out for PS4, Xbox One, Nintendo Switch, and PC this Fall, with optimizations promised for PS5 and Xbox Series X/S as well. Each of the three remasters included in the package will also be available as standalone purchases. Crysis Remastered is, of course, already available.


Marvel's Avengers: Black Panther – War for Wakanda Receives New Story Trailer

Marvel's Avengers has been on the road to recovery since its launch last year, but Crystal Dynamics and Square Enix will be hoping that the upcoming expansion, Black Panther – War for Wakanda, will be a big step forward on that path. Ahead of its looming launch, a new story trailer has been released to give you an idea of what the expansion is going to have in store.

Black Panther – War for Wakanda will take you to, well, Wakanda, where King T'Challa will be facing a new threat, as the Klaue Company invades the nation. In addition to a new map and a new playable character, the expansion is going to introduce new activities, new gear, new enemy types, and more. Check out its trailer below.

Marvel's Avengers is available on PS5, Xbox Series X/S, PS4, Xbox One, PC, and Stadia. Black Panther – War for Wakanda releases tomorrow, August 17, for all platforms, and will be free for all Avengers players.

Recently, Crystal Dynamics confirmed that the game's PlayStation-exclusive Spider-Man DLC is still scheduled for a 2021 launch. Read more on that through here.


Twelve Minutes Gets Launch Trailer Ahead of Imminent Release

Luis Antonio's Twelve Minutes has looked fascinating as hell since the moment it was first unveiled, and after having generated quite a bit of hype since then, the game is almost upon us. Ahead of its imminent release, publisher Annapurna Interactive has released a launch trailer to drive up that excitement even further. Check it out below.

Twelve Minutes is an interactive thriller in which you take on the role of a man caught in a time loop, where a police officer keeps breaking into his home and arresting or killing his wife for an alleged murder. The entire game is set within a single apartment, and it's up to you to make the right choices, break the loop, and uncover the mystery. The game's got quite the star-studded voice cast, with James McAvoy, Daisy Ridley, and Willem Defoe portraying the main characters.

Twelve Minutes launches for Xbox Series X/S, Xbox One, and PC on August 19.


Call of Duty: Vanguard Officially Announced

After months of leaks and rumours, many of which have come over the last few days, Activision has officially announced Call of Duty: Vanguard. Details are thin right now, but the game's teaser trailer makes it abundantly clear that true to the leaks, it is indeed going to be set during the Second World War.

Meanwhile, also true to the leaks, Activision has confirmed that the game's full worldwide reveal is coming on August 19 and will be happening in Call of Duty: Warzone, similar to the Black Ops Cold War reveal last year. The exact timing of the reveal is August 19, 10:30 AM PT.

Call of Duty: Vanguard is being developed by Sledgehammer Games, whose last entry in the series came in 2017, with Call of Duty: WW2. According to leaks, however, the game will also have a Zombies mode, which is being developed by Treyarch. It's also been claimed that Vanguard will have 24 multiplayer maps at launch, 16 of which will be 6v6 maps.

Leaked information has suggested that Call of Duty: Vanguard will launch on November 5 for PS5, Xbox Series X/S, PS4, Xbox One, and PC. We'll know more later this week, so stay tuned.

Activision Blizzard is currently caught amidst a lawsuit, having been alleged following a two year investigation by the California Department of Employment and Fair Housing of widespread and persistent harassment of and discrimination against employees, particularly women. Activision Blizzard employees have been critical of the company's policies as well as its responses to the lawsuit, while CEO Bobby Kotick has said the company is going to hold people guilty of the alleged behaviour accountable for their actions. Several high-level Blizzard employees have been let go from the company in the wake of the lawsuit, including president J. Allen Brack.


Valheim – Hearth and Home Will Scale Blocking Power Based on Health

Change is afoot for Iron Gate Studios' Valheim especially with the Hearth and Home update making some big changes to food. As noted previously, food is being separated into health, stamina and mixed categories, forcing you to choose based on the benefits you want. In a recent trailer, the developer discusses how this affects combat.

If you're a damage-focused build, then stamina food will once again be ideal since you can attack more. However, tank-focused builds can opt for health food instead since your blocking power will scale based on total health. The new Stagger bar is also affected by health, and adds a new dimension to combat since players will be staggered when it's full.

More details on shields and blocking will be provided in the coming days. Valheim's Hearth and Home update is listed as "coming soon" but a release date has not yet been announced. Stay tuned for more details and updates in the meantime.


Cyberpunk 2077 – Patch 1.3 Will Zoom Out GPS Mini-map, Add Perk Respec Option

CD Projekt RED has begun teasing its next big patch for Cyberpunk 2077 with a few highly sought-after features detailed. Those annoyed by the mini-map and how zoomed in it is will finally get some relief – patch 1.3 will adjust the distance, giving you a much wider view of the surrounding area while driving. A change is also being made to the Clouds mission to make it clearer who the player chooses.

"Personal coaching" is also coming, which is basically a fancy term for perk speccing. If you didn't like a certain perk choice or simply want to experiment with a new build, then it will be possible (for a price, of course). Though this feature set seems small, the developer assures that a full list of changes will be coming soon.

It also announced a stream at 6 PM CEST tomorrow on CD Projekt RED's official Twitch channel which will discuss all of the new details. Stay tuned for more patch notes on the same in the coming days. Cyberpunk 2077 is currently available for Xbox One, PS4, PC and Google Stadia with Xbox Series X/S and PS5 versions slated for later this year.


Xbox's New Preview Feature Is "Going To Be Very Cool," Dev Says

A recent tweet from Xbox Design Researcher Jessie claims that a new preview feature is in the making, and it would be very cool. In a follow up tweet to the original, Microsoft cloud solution architect Shane Osborne shared this sentiment by stating that this new preview feature is "going to be very cool."

There isn't much to go off from here, and from the looks of Osborne's job description – it could very well leverage Xbox's cloud infrastructure in some way or other. Given the enthusiasm shared by both developers, it could very well be an integral feature such as FPS Boost.

Xbox is arguably a more feature-rich platform this time around than PlayStation, with features like Smart Delivery and FPS Boost offering so much to gamers at no additional cost. PlayStation fans on the other hand, have to contend with Sony's increasingly cynical policies pertaining to next-gen upgrades and backwards compatibility for PS3 and beyond.


Some Overwatch Casters Have Stopped Referring To McCree By His Name Following The Activision-Blizzard Lawsuit

Recently, Activision Blizzard came under scrunity by California's Department of Fair Employement and Housing on the grounds of sexual harrasment and discrimination, and a number of horrific scenes within the Irvine-based studio were unearthed. One such incident is the now-infamous Bill Cosby suite, where Jesse McCree was spotted alongside a number of high-ranking developers in the studio.

Jesse is the namesake for the Overwatch character McCree, and fans have been extremely vocal about asking to rename the character following this debacle. As noticed and originally reported by PCGamer, many Overwatch casters are now instead referring to the character as "the cowboy".

Jesse McCree is no longer at Blizzard, much like the former creative director of World of Warcraft whose references within the game have been removed recently. Activision Blizzard is under a lot of fire right now and rightfully so, and it seems quite likely that fans will get their demands sorted out in the not-too-distant future.