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'Doom Eternal' doubles the (destructible) demons
Bethesda and id Software teased Doom Eternal at E3, but now we've got a much better look at it. id promises twice as many demons as last time, including reimagined classic enemies from Doom 2 like the Arachnotron. There are destructible demons now too, with chunks falling off as you rip and tear through them.
Capcom made a ridiculous typewriter keyboard for 'Resident Evil 2'
Over the years, Capcom has had some wild ideas for physical Resident Evil tie-ins. A Bluetooth keyboard modeled after Resident Evil 2's iconic Lexington typewriter might take the cake for the coolest one, though. Unlike the dollhouse that was part of the Resident Evil 7 special edition or the chainsaw controller from Resident Evil 4, folks who are really into keyboards (or typewriters) might actually get some use out of this.
The rarest 'Rocket League' items only drop 1 percent of the time
Rocket League developer Psyonix wants you to know the chances of scoring a black market item for your ride, up front. Drop rates are as follows: rare (55 percent), very rare (28 percent), import (12 percent), black market (1 percent), painted attribute (25 percent), certified attribute (25 percent). "These drop rates have been the same since our Crates and Keys system launched in September 2016," the Psyonix blog post says.
'GTA: Online' goes clubbin' next week with 'After Hours'
A little bit of Liberty City is coming to GTA: Online very, very soon. "Gay" Tony Prince, first seen in Grand Theft Auto IV's "The Ballad of Gay Tony" expansion from 2009, is opening up a nightclub in Los Santos and needs your help. "A perfect cover for all illicit activities, Nightclubs can be customized, staffed and promoted, offering players a brand new business opportunity," Rockstar teased last month. Judging by the trailer, the main mission in "After Hours" is securing a DJ for Prince's latest venture. "Run your nightclub business from setup, design, staffing and promotion; the more popular the nightclub, the faster your secure safe will fill up," Rockstar promised.
'Monster Hunter: World' makes its PC debut August 9th
Last E3 Capcom announced that Monster Hunter: World would be out for PlayStation 4, Xbox one and PC. There hasn't been much, if any, news about the game's PC port since, but that's all changed: Come August 9th, the co-op boss fight game will be available on Steam. It's up for pre-order already if you're feeling impatient, with a few in-game bonuses for doing so to boot.
'Bloodstained' will scratch your 'Castlevania' itch
Castlevania: Symphony of the Night (SotN) is one of the most influential games ever made. First released for the original PlayStation in 1997, the game has since been ported to nearly every platform under the sun. It perfected the series' core design concept where players could explore gigantic 2D environments at will, collecting new abilities that unlocked hidden-in-plain-sight secrets in previously traversed areas. It also iterated on the superb Super Metroid released for the SNES three years prior. That framework was so well-done that it spawned its own genre ("Metroidvania") and countless games have used it since. Koji Igarashi, SotN's co-creator, has finally brought his crowdfunded (and SotN spiritual successor) Bloodstained: Ritual of the Night to E3. How does it play? Pretty close to the original.
PlayerUnknown believes ‘PUBG’ doesn’t need to beat ‘Fortnite’
Brendan "PlayerUnknown" Greene is in an unenviable position at the moment. His namesake game, PlayerUnknown's BattleGrounds was the surprise hit of 2017, going from being an obscure work-in-progress game in Steam's Early Access section to racking up over $60 million in sales in mere months, averaging 2 million daily players on PC and getting a console port via the Xbox One -- all before it hit version 1.0. By all accounts, it looked like the game's continued success was guaranteed. Then Fortnite: Battle Royale happened. This week, Fortnite developer Epic Games announced that in just nine months time, its free-to-play spin on battle royale had accrued 125 million players. (Weeks earlier, PUBG's parent company sued Epic for alleged copyright violations.) But Fortnite isn't the only competition for PUBG. Giants of the FPS world like Call of Duty and Battlefield have announced they're joining the fray, and others will surely follow. Greene couldn't talk about the pending lawsuit, for obvious legal reasons, but when I spoke to him at E3 this week he was candid about the competition and his team's plans to differentiate PUBG from everyone else. Oh and to get this out of the way up front, don't expect PUBG to go free-to-play any time soon. Greene said that the team hadn't discussed it "at all." This interview has been condensed and edited for clarity.
‘Control’ is a leap of faith for the team behind ‘Alan Wake'
Control isn't what you expect. Rather than the stylized, linear shooters developer Remedy Entertainment is known for, it's a free-form experience that has more in common with Castlevania: Symphony of the Night than it does with Alan Wake. Except, instead of exploring a moody castle, you're scouring the shape-shifting headquarters of a secretive government agency, the Federal Bureau of Control (FBC), which has been infested by an otherworldly presence known as The Hiss. There's still shooting, of course, and it all looks incredibly cinematic, with pillars breaking apart and protagonist Jesse Faden using both telekinetic powers and a shape-shifting firearm to dispatch the presence haunting her former coworkers. The entire game takes place within the FBC's headquarters, The Oldest House. From the outside, it looks like a nondescript building in Manhattan. But once you cross the threshold, things start getting surreal.
'Project 1v1' is a F2P arena shooter from the 'Borderlands' team
Gearbox Software brought a new game to E3 this year, but it definitely wasn't Borderlands 3 or a new Brothers in Arms. Instead, it's Project 1v1, which, as its working title suggests, is an online first-person shooter that pits you against one other player in combat. Each round lasts just five minutes, and arenas are deliberately small. Through a handful of matches, the map size meant that I was constantly playing cat and mouse with my opponent. But, since I'm not very good with a mouse and keyboard, more often than not I was the one being hunted.
Steam Store will accept anything that's not 'illegal' or 'trolling'
In efforts to police content on Steam, Valve suddenly changed its policy in mid-May and cracked down on on certain visual novels, giving them a week or two to change their content or be removed from the store. The resulting backlash from confused developers and angry fans pushed Valve to walk back that policy. Weeks later, they've formally announced a new one: Allow everything that's not illegal or "straight-up trolling" and give players tools not to see games they don't like.
Valve removes 'Active Shooter' from Steam amid outcry
Valve has removed Active Shooter from its Steam platform. The game allowed players to play through school shooting scenarios either as a civilian, the shooter or the police. As The Guardian reports, the game apparently started as a SWAT team simulator, but a recent update added the ability to play as the shooter, with an on-screen counter tallying how many police and civilians you'd killed. "We have removed the developer Revived Games and publisher ACID from Steam," Valve said in a statement to The Guardian.
'PES 2019' hits PC, PS4 and Xbox One on August 28th
If you'd rather not support EA's definitions of "gambling" and "loot boxes" but still want to play virtual soccer football, maybe this year's Pro Evolution Soccer from Konami will tickle your fancy. PES 2019 will be in stores August 28th (US) and August 30th (Europe) for Steam, PlayStation 4 and Xbox One. It'll feature 4K HDR video across "all capable platforms," too. Hopefully that means support for the PlayStation 4 Pro and Xbox One X in addition to PC. Earlier last month it was revealed that the franchise would lose its license for the Champions League teams and players, and Konami hasn't provided any information yet on what will replace them. However, its announcement trailer for the new game features and awful lot of David Beckham, and there will even be an edition of the game named after Posh Spice's husband. The game is up for pre-order right now, and we'll probably get answers to our burning questions about which leagues and stadiums will be featured next month at E3.
'Fortnite' is bringing Thanos to its cartoony battle royale
If you thought Avengers: Infinity War was the ultimate pop-culture mashup, the Marvel Cinematic Universe has another cameo up its sleeve. Franchise villain Thanos will make a limited appearance in Fortnite: Battle Royale starting May 8th, according to Entertainment Weekly.
‘Beyond Good & Evil 2’ ditches Jade in favor of a character creator
Ubisoft pulled the curtain back a little further on the massively ambitious Beyond Good & Evil 2. During a Twitch stream, a trio of developers led by creative director Michel Ancel explained the game's narrative timeline and showed off work-in-progress footage of combat, player movement and divulged some details about how character creation/customization works.
Blizzard and Epic take 'Overwatch' and 'Fortnite' cheating very seriously
Game-makers have had a field day making examples out of cheaters the past few weeks. Most recently, a pair of Overwatch hackers were charged in South Korea as a result of a year-long investigation by the region's police. Working with Blizzard (translated), the Seoul National Police Agency Cyber Security Department arrested a baker's dozen hackers total, according to Kotaku,
'PUBG' hackers arrested and fined in China for selling game cheats
Combatting hacking and cheating in online games has taken a serious turn for PlayerUknown's Battlegrounds developer Bluehole/PubgCorp. Over the weekend it was revealed that Chinese authorities arrested some 15 people for their roles in making and selling cheats for the online shooter, and the offending parties have been fined over $4.5 million (30m yuan). What's more, this doesn't sound like it'll be an isolated incident: the BBC writes that more arrests are expected as the investigation goes on.
'Radical Heights' is Cliff Bleszinski's free-to-play battle royale game
That didn't take long. After announcing that LawBreakers wasn't living up to expectations (and making enough money), and teasing a new project on Friday, developer Boss Key has revealed the "passion project" it teased. Try to feign surprise when you find out that it's a free-to-play battle royale game. On the surface, Radical Heights stands out from the crowd with a vibrant, quasi cel-shaded, retro-futuristic game-show vibe that hearkens back to the '80s. Meaning, there are a lot of extreme pastels and hot pink triangles complementing its over-the-top Saturday morning cartoon tone.
Cliff Bleszinski's 'LawBreakers' is in a death spiral
LawBreakers, the gravity-defying shooter from Gears of War creator Cliff Bleszinski, is on borrowed time. The game has never had a huge player-base, even after doling out new game modes and offering up free-play weekends. Developer Boss Key took to its blog to say as much. "The fact is LawBreakers failed to find enough of an audience to generate the funds necessary to keep it sustained in the manner we had originally planned," the post reads.
$1,099 Vive Pro Starter Kit has everything you need for VR but the PC
One of the bigger complaints about the HTC Vive Pro from our review was that the $799 headset felt like an upgrade path for existing Vive owners -- not an entry point for new users. HTC and Valve must've heard those complaints and the pair will start packing its existing $300 accessory pack in with the Vive Pro. The Vive Pro Starter Kit will set you back $1,099, and it comes with the Vive Pro headset, two Vive 1.0 controllers and a pair of Vive 1.0 base stations. More than that, if you already have your Pro, HTC is giving away $100 store credits for the Viveport marketplace. The bundle will go on sale April 5th.
'Apocalypse Cow' is a platform game inspired by 'Wreck-It Ralph'
One of the best things about attending GDC is that, more often than not, you come across some of the best-looking independent titles. Today, that honor goes to Apocalypse Cow, a cinematic adventure game that draws inspiration from animated films like Wreck-It Ralph and genre-classics such as Super Mario. This 2D platformer, developed by an indie studio called Monsters, features the story of a character named Penny who tries to figure out what caused a glitch in a digital universe made up of video game worlds -- hence the homage to Wreck-It Ralph.
