EA has detailed some of the gameplay improvements it will make to FIFA 20–before it’s even announced the game. In a post on the FIFA blog, the series’ gameplay team set out its priorities for the “next product iteration.”

Top of the list is AI defending, EA said, with a larger emphasis and incentive placed on manual defending, as opposed to letting the computer defend for you. One of the ways EA plans to do this is by increasing the likelihood a manual tackle will propel the ball to a teammate. Automatic defending will see its overall efficacy reduced and reaction times slowed.

Shooting is also being revamped, with attackers given greater accuracy during easy shooting scenarios, such as being clean through against the ‘keeper. Goalkeepers’ reaction times will be reduced in these situations to resolve the sometimes “superhuman” reactions players complained of. Additionally, the timing window for green timed shots is being reduced to two frames for all shots, and they’ll also be “slightly less precise.” EA did, however, reassure players that green timed shots will “still be more accurate than non-timed shots.”

Lots of work is being done on making passing and shooting more realistic, EA says, especially when it comes to difficult strikes. Volleys will be more variable and less accurate, for example, while 180° and first-time passes will result in “slower/weaker balls.” To compensate, easy situation passes will now be more accurate. Two new passing options will also be introduced: the driven pass-and-go (which will replace the current manual pass button combo) and the dinked pass, which will cease to be an automatic, contextual pass variant and instead be user-controlled only.

FIFA 20 has not yet been announced, but EA plans to talk about the future of the franchise at EA play, right before E3, on June 8. For more, check out everything we know about EA’s E3 2019 plans.

from GameSpot – Game News https://www.gamespot.com/articles/fifa-20-gameplay-changes-detailed-before-the-game-/1100-6467309/

This year’s Call of Duty: Modern Warfare will not feature a Zombies mode. Campaign gameplay director Jacob Minkoff said in a new interview that the “out-there” nature of Zombies modes in previous games doesn’t exactly fit with Infinity Ward’s ambition of making a gritty, realistic game.

“Because they focus on more of the stylized, graphic novel, super-hero experience, they can have the much more ‘out there’ different types of gameplay in their games,” Minkoff told PlayStation Lifestyle about the games that Zombies creator Treyarch makes. “But for us, we’re trying to create an authentic, realistic feeling world. We don’t have the flexibility to do something like put zombies in the game.”

Minkoff said having a Zombies mode in Modern Warfare would “compromise” the developer’s vision for the game. “That would compromise the feeling of playing in a world that feels realistic and authentic and relative to today’s conflicts and things we face,” he said.

Apart from being tons of fun, the Zombies modes in previous Call of Duty games have provided players a chance to play together in co-op. Thankfully, the new Modern Warfare will offer co-op gameplay opportunities, but Infinity Ward isn’t ready to talk about them. “What I will tell you is that the single-player storyline goes directly into the co-op storyline. No stop. The events just continue. So those elements–gameplay, progression, story–they just continue throughout everything that we have on the disc or digital download,” Minkoff said.

That is a theme of Modern Warfare. Unlike previous games that have siloed off campaign and multiplayer into their own distinct buckets, Modern Warfare will unite all of its modes. As we reported, Infinity Ward said it’s going for “continuity and consistency” across all modes in Modern Warfare. Weapons will feel and handle the same whether you’re in single or multiplayer. Progressing your character, unlocking killstreaks, and increasing your levels with different guns will track across all modes, so you won’t feel penalized for preferring single player over multiplayer or vice versa.

It is not surprising that the new Modern Warfare doesn’t have a Zombies mode, as the previous Modern Warfare titles also did not offer this (though Infinity Ward’s Infinite Warfare did). Treyarch created the Zombies mode, and it is a mainstay of the Black Ops series.

While it is now confirmed that Modern Warfare doesn’t have a Zombies mode, it’s unknown if the game will have its own battle royale mode. Black Ops 4 had Blackout as its battle royale mode. Unlike that game, the new Modern Warfare has a dedicated campaign mode.

In other news, it’s been confirmed that the new Modern Warfare supports cross-play and that it will not have a season pass. For lots more, check out the story linked below.

• Everything We Know About Call Of Duty: Modern Warfare

from GameSpot – Game News https://www.gamespot.com/articles/call-of-duty-modern-warfare-doesnt-have-zombies-mo/1100-6467307/

Beyond Good & Evil 2, the long-awaited Ubisoft sequel, will not be at E3 2019 this month. In a blog post, the developer said it’s focusing on “core development milestones.” As such, Beyond Good & Evil 2 won’t have a presence at E3 2019.

“This year, as we are focusing on core development milestones, we will not be attending E3 2019,” reads a line from the blog post.

More gameplay footage and other news about the game will be announced “when the time is right.” On the more immediate horizon, the next Space Monkey Report livestream event for the game will take place on June 5 at 6 PM PT. You can watch on Twitch, YouTube and Facebook.

“You continue to inspire us by sharing your ideas and creativity with the Beyond Good and Evil 2 dev team and community, and we really appreciate our Space Monkeys’ passion and dedication!”

This development follows the news from April when Ubisoft CEO Yves Guillemot suggested that changes might be afoot for Beyond Good & Evil 2. At the time, Guillemot said he recently spoke with creative director Michel Ancel about “another direction” for the game.

“I spoke with Michel last week about it to see where it was going; how we should move in one or another direction,” Guillemot said in a video that was apparently recorded in March. “We see the potential of this universe is fantastic, and Michel is really passionate [about it]. It’s going to be fantastic, I think.

In an intriguing bit of news, actor Joseph Gordon Levitt’s creative company, HitRecord, is partnering with Ubisoft for the tools so anyone can create content for Beyond Good and Evil 2.

Beyond Good & Evil 2 is a prequel to the 2003 original. It’s been in the works for a long time, but there is still no release date or announced platforms.

As for what Ubisoft will show off at E3 this year, the company has already confirmed Ghost Recon Breakpoint will be there. Ubisoft also announced it has three more triple-A games releasing by March 31, 2020. It hasn’t detailed what those are, but they’re very likely to be announced at E3, and one of them could be the rumored Watch Dogs 3. In addition to games, Ubisoft might announce a game-streaming service called Ubisoft Pass.

Ubisoft’s press conference will take place on Monday, June 10 at 1 PM PT / 4 PM ET / 9 PM BST (6 AM AET on June 11), sandwiched between Limited Run Games and Square Enix. You can check out the full press conference schedule for full details.

from GameSpot – Game News https://www.gamespot.com/articles/beyond-good-and-evil-2-skipping-e3-2019/1100-6467304/

Fallout 76‘s poor release did damage to Bethesda’s reputation and the Fallout brand overall, according to Todd Howard. He said in a new interview that the game, which launched in November 2018 to poor reviews and plenty of technical issues, created “some” damage to Bethesda’s reputation and the perception of the Fallout brand.

“It would be naive to say it’s had zero,” Howard said in a candid interview with IGN.

He went on to acknowledge that, due in part to the always-online, multiplayer focus of Fallout 76 being new ground for Bethesda, the team anticipated a rocky launch.

“We knew we were going to have a lot of bumps. That’s a difficult development; a lot of new systems and things like that. ‘Hey, we’re going to try this new thing.’ Anytime you’re going to do something new like that, you know you’re going to have your bumps; you know a lot of people might say, ‘That’s not the game we want from you.’ But we still want to be somebody that’s trying new things,” Howard said. “That was a very difficult, difficult development on that game to get it where it was …a lot of those difficulties ended up on the screen. We knew, hey look, this is not the type of game that people are used to from us and we’re going to get some criticism on it. A lot of that–very well-deserved criticism.”

Howard went on to say that Bethesda never expected Fallout 76 to get the highest review scores. “Even from the beginning, [we thought], ‘This is not going to be a high Metacritic game; that’s not what this is, given what it is,'” Howard said.

Fallout 76’s score on GameSpot sister site Metacritic was 53 on PS4, 52 on PC, and 49 on Xbox One. The previous Fallout release, 2015’s Fallout 4, had a Metacritic score in the high-80s across console and PC.

Despite predicting technical issues and lower review scores, Howard said the team at Bethesda felt strongly about making an online, multiplayer Fallout game. He also said he expects Fallout 76 to improve over time, similar to the way in which Bethesda’s MMO The Elder Scrolls Online sputtered at launch and has since grown to be one of the most popular MMOs on earth with more than 8.5 million players.

“It’s not how you launch, it’s what it becomes,” Howard said about Fallout 76, going to tease that Bethesda has “some awesome stuff” to reveal at E3 in June.

Though Fallout 76 was criticized, Howard pointed out that it was still a “huge release” and a chart-topper for sales. No sales numbers have been announced, however.

Howard said Bethesda’s main takeaway or lesson learned from Fallout 76 was that the developer should have kept the game in a testing phase for a longer period of time. The game might have benefitted from being in beta for “a number of months” before launching, he said.

“If there is one thing I would have done differently, [it would have been to] find a way to, at scale, let people be playing the game 24/7 before you say, ‘Everybody in. Here you go. Pay us.'”

Howard also clarified that Fallout 76 was developed not principally by the main team at Bethesda Game Studios in Maryland. Instead, the entire Bethesda team in Austin, Texas worked on Fallout 76, with support from teams in Dallas, Montreal, and home base in Rockville, Maryland where “a lot” of people contributed.

from GameSpot – Game News https://www.gamespot.com/articles/todd-howard-responds-to-fallout-76s-poor-launch-an/1100-6467300/