battleroyale
Latest
'Black Ops 4' battle royale is free for a week starting January 17th
Were you too busy playing Red Dead or Spider-Man over the holidays to give other games a look? Activision would like to talk. It's running a free, week-long trial of Call of Duty: Black Ops 4's tentpole Blackout mode between January 17th and January 24th on PC, PS4 and Xbox One. If you've wondered whether or not BO4's battle royale was good enough to tear you away from Fortnite or PUBG, you'll have plenty of time to get a feel for it.
'Red Dead Online' gets a 32-player battle royale mode
Rockstar continues to expand the Red Dead Online beta, and its latest update will seem particularly familiar. The studio has added a Gun Rush mode that's effectively a one-for-one parallel to the battle royale modes you see in Fortnite, PUBG and numerous other titles from the past two to three years. You or your team have to scrounge for weapons while fighting to remain the last one standing in an ever shrinking play area. If there's a major difference, it's the scale -- with a maximum of 32 players, you'll probably finish rounds sooner than you would in the 100-player brawls that define other battle royale titles.
Holiday 'Fortnite' outage leaves players in limbo (updated)
We hope you didn't plan on spending your holiday week indulging in a Fortnite marathon. Epic Games has confirmed an outage preventing players from joining games, or even signing in. The developer hasn't been specific about the nature of the issue, but TechCrunch noted that it took multiple tries to log in, and that the queue was timing out. The company's status page pointed to a "partial outage" for game services as well as "degraded performance" for both signing in and matchmaking.
Valve makes 'Counter-Strike: GO' free and adds battle royale
The current environment for shooting games is centered around the two tentpole features embodied by the genre's current leader Fortnite: free-to-play and battle royale mode. In an adjustment acknowledging the situation, Valve's latest rework of Counter-Strike: Global Offensive adds both elements to the game that originally launched in 2012 and a series that has been running since CS launched as a Half-Life mod 19 years ago. Mimicking Call of Duty's addition of 'Blackout' mode to the mix in this year's game, CS:GO now includes Danger Zone, with players dropping in solo, as a duo or in three-player squads to fight for survival. PlayerUnknown's: Battlegrounds popularized the style last year and now any game without it risks being seen as stale. According to Valve, Danger Zone games should last around ten minutes, keeping the pace and action up. Whether that's your preferred style or not, the entire game is now F2P with in-game purchases supporting its economy, while existing players will immediately see their accounts updated to Prime Status. That's otherwise available as a $15 upgrade, and according to its listing: "Players with Prime Status are matched with other Prime Status players and are eligible to receive Prime-exclusive souvenir items, item drops, and weapon cases."
'PUBG Mobile' is getting a 'Resident Evil 2' crossover
PUBG Mobile is gearing up for another high-profile crossover just months after its Mission Impossible: Fallout event. This time it's trading in the secret agent thrills for bucketloads of gore courtesy of a Resident Evil 2 mash-up. The news was teased by the Japanese Resident Evil Twitter account with a found footage-style CCTV feed that flits between a zombie attack and images of abandoned streets -- all par for the course for the iconic series.
'Fortnite' now has over 200 million players
It was a big deal when Fortnite racked up 40 million players by mid-January, but that figure now seems downright quaint. As of November, Epic Games' battle royale shooter has obtained 200 million registered players -- that's five times as many players in less than a year, and a 60 percent jump from the 125 million it had in June. Not all of those players are active, but Epic also recently hit a record of 8.3 million concurrent players. Even if some of those 200 million users only touched the game once, many others are playing on a frequent basis.
$1 million 'Fortnite' winter tournament is open to all
Now that Epic has had some time to refine Fortnite's online tournament system, it's committing to higher stakes for its competitions. The studio is launching an open Winter Royale tournament with a total of $1 million in prizes. Anyone in the North America and Europe regions can qualify by excelling in event sessions during the qualifying days on November 24th and November 25th. If you make the cut, you'll play in your respective region's finals (starting November 30th for Europe, December 11th for North America).
The Joker and Harley Quinn are going to wreak havoc in 'PUBG'
The world of PlayerUnknown's Battlegrounds is colliding with the DC Universe. The Joker and Harley Quinn -- the Jared Leto and Margot Robbie versions from Suicide Squad -- will be making an appearance in PUBG as playable character skins that will be available sometime soon.
'Fortnite' will reward creators when you buy in-game items
Epic has a clever way to encourage more Fortnite videos: pay them whenever some buys in-game gear. It's launching a Support-A-Creator Event that sends real money to producers on services like Twitch and YouTube when gamers make purchases with V-Bucks. Between the week of October 8th and the end of 2018, you only have to enter the name of a creator in Fortnite's shop to reward them the next time you buy a costume or glider. Each commitment lasts two weeks, but you can change your preferences whenever you'd like.
'Fortnite' season six arrives with invisibility and pets
It feels like we had to wait forever, but it's finally here: Fortnite season six has begun. As is customary with any new competitive window, tonnes of new content has landed, but it's also time to say goodbye to items and locations you may have come to love (or really really hate). The theme for season six is "Darkness Rises," turning the island shadowy thanks to the otherworldly powers exhibited by "The Cube."
'Fortnite' will add more audio cues to help you hunt rivals
Play enough Fortnite and you'll know that audio cues can make all the difference -- footsteps are your cue to get ready for a fight (or, let's be honest, run for the hills). To that end, Epic has offered a sneak peek at the development and testing of Season 6 spatial audio updates that could save your hide. It wants higher-frequency, higher-contrast footsteps that help you pinpoint someone's location, and better spatial audio cues for gliders. It also wants to provide more sounds for in-air movement that doesn't involve a glider, such as falling or launching off a Bouncer pad.
'Fortnite' on Switch won't require an online subscription
When Nintendo set a launch date for its Switch Online service, there was an overriding question for many gamers: would you have to pay to play every game online, especially free-to-play hits like Fortnite? The answer is a resounding "yes." The company has posted a Switch Online FAQ that mentions "some games," including Fortnite, won't require the subscription plan when it goes live on September 18th. There's no mention of the criteria that will decide exceptions to the rule, although it wouldn't be surprising if other free-to-play games, like Warframe, make the cut.
One of the most powerful 'Fortnite' guns is no more
It's the end of an era in Fortnite... not that some players will necessarily mind. As part of a relatively minor update, Epic Games has quietly "vaulted" (that is, retired) the Drum Gun. While the weapon has only been available since July, it caused no small amount of havoc when it premiered. Its 50-round capacity and high rate of fire meant that you could not only take out multiple opponents (certainly unshielded ones) with a single magazine, for starters. It could also create misery for anyone building a structure, since you could easily unload on someone's wall and still have ammo to finish off your opponent. And did we mention it was relatively easy to find?
'PUBG’ launch on Xbox brings Sanhok map, but no War Mode
Bluehole celebrated the full launch of PUBG 1.0 out of its preview phase on Xbox One by adding the small map Sanhok, which debuted on PC back in June, and a special Event Pass. Unfortunately, players will have to wait for War Mode, which will only be available on certain weekends and for special events, starting in mid-September.
The latest limited-time 'Fortnite' game mode is a daring jewel heist
Epic has another high-profile Fortnite mode on the way, but this one won't involve a gauntlet-wielding supervillain. It's launching a themed "High Stakes" event on September 5th, and the star of the show is a limited-time The Getaway mode that has squads swiping a jewel from one of four safes around the island and bringing it to an escape van. The event also brings loads of purchasable cosmetics, including male and female skins with card-themed masks, a money-laden glider and a trail of bills when you drop.
'Fortnite' will introduce a 'robust competition system' in the fall
There have certainly been Fortnite competitions, but you can't really say that it's designed for competition -- and that's a problem when Epic is spending big money on tournaments. You won't have to wait too long to see a mode, however. Epic Games is developing a "robust competition system" that will have players square off against each other within the same match, and "be recognized for their accomplishments." It didn't say how this system would work (a ladder, perhaps?), but it would arrive sometime later in the fall.
Housemarque knows people are skeptical about 'Stormdivers'
Two days ago, Resogun developer Housemarque released its first proper trailer for Stormdivers. The reaction was mixed. At the time of writing, the official upload on YouTube has 290 thumbs-up and 321 thumbs-down ratings. "I'm going to miss absolutely amazing arcade titles from you guys," one user wrote. "Might as well wait for the inevitable closure announcement," another user remarked underneath.
‘Fortnite’ update adds Rifts-To-Go item
After some short downtime for server maintenance, Fortnite is back online and its v5.30 patch is live, bringing with it some cool new features and a bunch of bug fixes that'll make gameplay smoother and (possibly) less rage inducing. First up is Rifts-To-Go. Rifts were introduced last month as quick sky-bound escape routes from enemy squads -- now you can use them yourself as and when you need them, without having to find one.
EA teases battle royale in new ‘Battlefield V’ trailer
Developer EA DICE is returning to WWII with its upcoming Battlefield V, an interesting choice to revisit a war well-trod by gaming. But the company told us back in May that they're repeating the successful Battlefield 1 by spotlighting lesser-known stories and battles, even in multiplayer. Today, the developer released a trailer ahead of Gamescom showing off one of these lesser-known settings -- Rotterdam in the Netherlands -- and even teasing the game's previously-announced battle royale mode.
'Fortnite' Android beta invitations open to non-Samsung devices
Samsung's Fortnite mini exclusive didn't last quite as long as expected. The 9to5Google team has noticed that, as promised, you can both sign up for an invitation and pre-install the beta directly through Epic's website. You'll still have to wait for Epic to let you in, but you'll be ready to play the battle royale shooter as soon as that golden message reaches your inbox.
