Aside from free monthly games, another perk to being an Xbox Live Gold member is having access to Free Play Days, which make certain games free to play throughout a given weekend. Starting today, three games are available to play for free: Borderlands: The Handsome Collection, WWE 2K19, and Dead by Daylight: Special Edition.

It’s perfect timing to play Borderlands: The Handsome Collection–the two games included, Borderlands 2 and Borderlands: The Pre-Sequel, just received free Ultra HD texture packs that greatly enhance the graphics on Xbox One X, PS4 Pro, and PC. Plus, Borderlands 3 finally has a confirmed release date and is now available to pre-order.

If you have a Steam account, you can also play Borderlands: The Handsome Collection for free on PC this weekend. You’ll have to go to each game’s individual store page, where you can then play them at no cost.

Then there’s WWE 2K19, which marks the 20th game in the WWE game series. WWE 2K19 introduces minor quality-of-life improvements for in-ring action and, outside the ring, a plethora of new content and game modes, including a story-driven MyCareer mode.

Finally, you can try out the special edition for Dead By Daylight, a multiplayer horror game that pits four players (the “Survivors”) against one other player (the “Killer”) in an eerie environment. The survivors are tasked with repairing five generators in order to escape before the killer can find and take them out.

All three games are free to play until Monday, April 8 at 12 AM PT / 3 AM ET. To download the games on your console, navigate to the Gold member area on your Xbox One dashboard. If you enjoy the games, you can buy them at a discount this weekend and continue playing with all of your progress.

Xbox One free weekend games for Gold members:

• Borderlands: The Handsome Collection — $15
• WWE 2K19 — $19.80
• Dead By Daylight: Special Edition — $15

Not an Xbox Live Gold member? Sign up now for free games, discounts, and more »

from GameSpot – Game News https://www.gamespot.com/articles/xbox-ones-free-weekend-games-for-gold-members-are-/1100-6466046/

Fortnite‘s Week 6’s challenges are now live on PS4, Xbox One, PC, Switch, and mobile, giving players across all platforms another opportunity to earn Battle Stars and level up their Season 8 Battle Pass. While most of this week’s tasks are fairly straightforward, a couple of them will require a bit more legwork, including the one that asks you to visit a wooden rabbit, stone pick, and metal llama. If you’re not sure where to go, this handy guide will point you in the right direction.

As you can probably gather from the challenge’s name, you’ll need to find the giant, animal-shaped structures somewhere around the island to claim your Battle Stars. This can seem a bit daunting, particularly if you aren’t too familiar with Fortnite’s map. Fortunately, however, you don’t need to visit all three within a single round, so you can simply glide from the Battle Bus to a different animal structure across three matches and complete the challenge.

The wooden rabbit an be found in quadrant A4, on a hill located between Haunted Hills and Snobby Shores. The stone pig, meanwhile, is directly east of Lucky Landing, and the metal llama is just northwest of Junk Junction. We’ve marked their exact locations on the map below. You can also watch the video at the top of this guide to give you a better look at where you need to go.

Once you’ve visited all three of the structures, you’ll earn five Battle Stars, bringing you another step closer to unlock Season 8’s Battle Pass rewards. Most of Week 6’s other challenges are more straightforward, so you should be able to complete them just by playing the game normally. However, you may have trouble knowing where to find the highest elevations on the island, so we’ve put together another guide laying out where they are located.

Week 6’s challenges arrive on the heels of Fortnite’s 8.20 content update, which introduced another new weapon to the game: the Boom Bow. What makes this bow unique is that it has shotgun shells on its arrow tips, making them explode upon impact. The update also brought back the Sniper Showdown limited-time mode and buffed peppers, one of the several scavenged items recently added to the game.

from GameSpot – Game News https://www.gamespot.com/articles/fortnite-wooden-rabbit-stone-pig-and-metal-llama-l/1100-6466045/

The April update for Battlefield 5 has gone live, making dozens of smaller changes alongside some much bigger ones. This update also introduces microtransactions, after the game launched without in-game purchases.

According to the studio, most of the focus for this update has been on improving the new Firestorm battle royale mode. To that end, this update changes the loot behavior and adjusts the way safes work, along with patching up some visual issues and making the Flare Gun usable underwater. In the full patch notes (below), Firestorm clearly gets the lion’s share of the attention.

Other adjustments include bug fixes and quality-of-life tweaks, plus the addition of the the soldier stance icon from single-player in response to fan requests. It also adds an in-game shop that sells cosmetics and time-savers. The shop also offers “value bundles” that offer combinations of cosmetics, currency, and time-savers.

Check out the full patch notes below, and make sure to check out the details of the new Firestorm mode. If you’re looking to get into Battlefield 5 now is a pretty good time, as it’s on sale for cheap.

Battlefield 5 April Update Patch Notes

Firestorm – Gameplay fixes and changes

• Fixed an issue which was causing a weapon to be misaligned when a player was in a man down state while being spectated.
• V-1 and Artillery Strikes now count as “gadget kills”.
• Pistols that have been picked up by the player now properly drop on the ground if the player dies.
• Players are now able to use the Flare Gun while in water.
• Increased the draw distance for grenades and melee weapons.
• Grenades now collide with the cover of the pickup truck instead of going through it.
• Fixed an issue where the active VOIP icon would not always show if the entire squad would be talking at the same time.
• Players will no longer deploy a grenade automatically when dropping an item as a passenger.
• When in a tank, the player will no longer switch to the selected tank gun while zooming on the map.
• Added a red outline for the Artillery Strike on the map to make it more visible.
• The health cooldown UI no longer freezes if a player drops their healing items when it is in progress.
• Getting an invite from a player while looking for players enables you to join the squad.
• If the user cancels and resumes the interaction with a safe, it will always reset.
• When the player is watching another player being revived, the camera will remain in the same position.
• The Napalm Helmet will no longer obstruct the player when aiming down sights.
• Players can now jump as soon as they reach the start of the jump location.
• When waiting for the other players, the squad list shows the correct Armor Plates number that the player had before death.
• Players will no longer reload when opening doors.
• The loot rarity icon is no longer visible through soldier bodies and vehicles.
• When getting killed by another player, the text for the weapon used will show properly.
• Switching weapon while dropping a weapon will no longer make the weapon being held invisible.
• The Swap and Drop button callouts are updated if the player changes the keybind in-game.
• Interaction detection has been improved to avoid issues with loot near Objectives and vehicles.
• The interaction prompt for safes will no longer be offset when the player interacts with it repeatedly.
• The interaction prompt for safes will no longer double when the player interacts with it repeatedly.
• Interacting with a safe repeatedly will no longer make the progress bar disappear.
• When the player is killed by an Artillery Strike, an icon is displayed in the kill feed.
• The first wave of capture points now start earlier, before the zone starts to shrink for the first time.

Firestorm – Map improvements and fixes

• Improved the rock wall textures near Pluto (Dig Site A).
• Removed a piece of terrain that was clipping through the bridge towards the farm from the lake, causing vehicles to flip if they drive over it with speed.
• Fixed a floating telegraph pole that was placed east from Nannahavn.
• The crates located west of Hansen Farms are no longer floating in the air.
• Fixed a floating tree west of the Halvoy Dam.
• Players can no longer get stuck between the gap of the barrels inside Hansen Farms.
• The shed door is no longer clipping through the barrels at Minerva Docks.
• Players can no longer interact with the backside of the ladder near Guderos.
• Players can no longer get stuck while prone under the wooden platform next to the fishing cabin near Halvoy Dam.
• Players can no longer get stuck between the wall and the railway sleeper stacks East of Minerva Docks.
• Players can no longer get stuck when jumping between the metal bars at Pluto (Dig site A).
• Improved rock textures near the Odenberg area.
• Player can no longer get stuck between the tree and the wall north of Minerva Docks.
• Players can no longer hide behind the waterfall South of Minerva Docks.
• The wooden crates are no longer floating above the floor inside the shed southeast of Hansen Farms.
• The wooden crate no longer blocks the player from vaulting through the window in arctic house west of Hansen Farms.
• Snow effect is no longer present inside the house southeast of Hotstad as well as the house north of Minerva Docks.
• Fixed an issue that was causing mild flickering around the windshields inside vehicles.The PAK-40 AT towable located southeast of Halvdeler has been moved ten meters to make it more useful.

Vehicles

• Fixed a bug that enabled players to use airplanes during the match start timer period. The animation when entering and exiting vehicles is now smoother and should have less unintended sudden camera movements.
• Fixed an issue that could cause a temporary black screen when reloading a stationary turret while using its zoom functionality at the same time.
• Made audio improvements to audibility of other players’ tanks.

Weapons, Gadgets, and Specializations

• Fixed the Ribeyrolles aperture sights being misaligned and using the wrong magnification.
• Tweaked the Gewehr 43 reflex sight to look better.
• Tweaked the Bren max recoil which was too low.
• Reduced the M1897 damage drop-off start distance by 1 m for all ammo types. Our data indicated that the 1897 had a bit too much range compared to other shotguns.
• Changed the way camera recoil works. When firing, weapons are allowed to go a bit
more off center now. The true point of aim will follow the weapon and is not fixed to the screen center.
• Changed the way SMG and assault rifle dispersion increases while firing in ADS. The second, third, and sometimes fourth shots (for low rate-of-fire weapons) are now more predictable while later shots are less predictable. Also shortened the time it takes for dispersion to decrease when no longer firing. This means short bursts are a bit more effective, while long bursts or mag dumps are a bit less effective.
• Fixed an issue that would prevent shotgun damage decals to appear on vehicles.
• The knife animation no longer triggers after firing the last round of a Panzerfaust.
• Bullet impact sounds have been further localized and the amount by which they can
attenuate non-player weapons has been reduced.
• Improved audibility of single-shot weapons.
• Improved audibility of late reflections for automatic weapons based on distance from listener.
• Adjusted headphone mix for low frequencies to smooth out positioning.

Soldier

• Fixed a bug with the Medic class that would result in the weapon floating in the air while the player was running briefly after reviving another player.
• The first-person animation when picking up health packs and ammo packs have been moved to take less screen space for improved visibility.

Maps and Modes

• Fixed an issue in the Practice Range where vehicles would not spawn when the user restarts the range.
• Fixed a visual bug in the Practice Range which would cause the player’s body to be invisible while driving the Kubelwagen in third person.

UI/HUD/Options/Assignments

• Fixed an issue where the ticket counter was not visible when playing Breakthrough, Frontlines, and Airborne.
• Disabled the saturation effect when regenerating health.
• Fixed a hang that could occur if players looked at server info from within the social hub while being in the Your Company screen.
• Fixed a bug which could prevent players from deploying, prompting the error message “The Class you have selected is violating the server rules” if they had equipped a newly unlocked sight.
• Fixed a bug which prevented players from speeding up the bleed out timer when being in a down state.
• Improved responsiveness and accuracy of the Commo Rose and the Squad Reinforcements Rose when using a controller.
• Fixed an issue that would cause equipped vanity items to get unequipped when players purchased and equipped something else.
• Fixed the placement of the buy button in the Replace Weapon screen to no longer clip into the divider line.
• Fixed an issue where players would purchase something with Company Coin and get a “Not enough Company Coin” error message even if they had enough currency.
• Fixed a bug that would cause the idle kick functionality to not always work.
• Improved how class characters are loaded when scrolling through them while in the
hangar between matches.
• Added the soldier stance icon from single-player into multiplayer.
• In the grenade selection menu, the smoke grenade selection will no longer show the Frag Grenade demonstration video.

Stability

• Made multiple crash fixes and stability improvements.

PC-Specific Improvements

• Increased maximum ray count in DXR Ultra to improve reflection quality.
• DLSS is now also supported in borderless mode.
• Made improvements to DLSS sharpness.
• Fixed an issue that caused the Customization screen to be darker than intended when
having DX12 enabled.
• Fixed a rendering issue that could cause graphical corruption when spamming various player actions.

• Fixed a bug that would cause the game to hang if the player mashed all the keyboard and mouse buttons while in the key binding menu. The player that found this must have
eaten too much pineapple pizza.
• In Firestorm, opening the map and using the “scroll” button while inside a tank in the
gunner position will no longer switch the selected tank gun as well.

from GameSpot – Game News https://www.gamespot.com/articles/battlefield-5-april-update-patch-notes-detail-fixe/1100-6466044/

For the past two weeks, Epic Games Store account holders have enjoyed access to a free download of Oxenfree, and today, a new game replaces that title in the Epic Store: The Witness, a gorgeous puzzle game set on a remote and mysterious island. From now until April 18, you can download and keep the The Witness at no cost–all you have to do is sign up for a free Epic account.

The Witness is a single-player adventure with a beautiful open-world setting and more than 500 interesting puzzles to solve. Very little is explained to you as the player, and the subtleties of its puzzles increase over the course of the game. To put it bluntly, The Witness is challenging, but if you like exploration and puzzle-solving, it’s a gratifying experience you won’t soon forget.

GameSpot’s Mike Mahardy gave the game a 9/10 in GameSpot’s The Witness review. “The Witness makes few attempts at handholding, opting instead to convey its mechanics in subtle, cryptic ways as you struggle to make sense of it all,” he wrote. “This is what makes The Witness special. Unlike many puzzle games, it doesn’t just make you feel intelligent–it begins on the assumption that you are intelligent. It trusts that you are a perceptive human being, capable of patience and critical thinking, and it rewards you for using both.”

On April 18, The Witness will be replaced by Epic’s next free game, Transistor, a sci-fi-themed action RPG set in a futuristic city. The Epic Store is giving away free PC game downloads every two weeks to celebrate its first year in business and already has a record of giving out high-quality games, so it’s worth your time to make an account and keep an eye on its current and upcoming deals.

Get The Witness for free at The Epic Games Store »

from GameSpot – Game News https://www.gamespot.com/articles/a-new-pc-game-is-free-to-download-in-the-epic-game/1100-6466038/