The Outer Worlds: Watch A Speedrunner Finish The Game In Under 25 Minutes

The Outer Worlds, Obsidian’s new expansive space-faring RPG, has been out less than a week, but it’s already attracting speedruns. While most players will take over a dozen hours to finish the game for the first time, one enterprising speedrunner has gotten their completion time down to well under half an hour.

It’s Jabo managed a run that clocked in at 30:54 earlier this week, before refining his run down to a 24:21 completion time today. In the video below, It’s Jabo speeds through the game as fast as possible, skipping whole chunks of the game and intentionally getting a terrible ending in his quest to complete The Outer Worlds as fast as possible.

The run involves setting his character’s skill levels very deliberately–it’s important to play as a character with zero intelligence to trigger the ending he gets.

“All in all, a pretty good run, sub 25 has been crushed, now on to sub 24/23 :),” the description under the video reads.

In GameSpot’s review of The Outer Worlds, Edmond Tran praised the game for its depth and quality. “It’s not a short game, but it’s one packed with such a steady stream of wonderful characters to meet, interesting places to explore, and meaningful, multi-layered quests to solve, that it didn’t feel like there was any room to get tired of it.”

If you haven’t jumped in yet, expect The Outer Worlds to last you longer than half an hour. Here are our tips for getting started, and a guide to the different difficulty levels.

from GameSpot – Game News https://www.gamespot.com/articles/the-outer-worlds-watch-a-speedrunner-finish-the-ga/1100-6470980/

EA “Won’t Forget” About Titanfall 3, But Wants To Focus On Apex Legends For Now

In its latest quarterly earnings call, EA said it hasn’t forgotten about the Titanfall franchise. Though nothing is currently in the pipeline, the dream of one day seeing Titanfall 3 is not yet dead.

“We really want to keep the team hyper-focused on [Apex Legends] because we see there’s so much opportunity there, so I can’t give you a sense of if and when [Titanfall 3] will come, but it’s still a great brand and we certainly won’t forget about it down the road,” EA COO and CFO Blake Jorgensen said on the earnings call.

In the meantime, EA seems more than content to rely on the Titanfall spin-off, Apex Legends, to fulfill the publisher’s annual shooter quota–at least for the immediate future. “We view [Apex Legends] as an annual shooter franchise effectively and we’re trying to build that as a 10-year business,” Jorgensen said. “We’re very excited about the roadmap that the Respawn team has put in place.” EA expressed interest in providing further support to Apex Legends in 2020, citing the game reached a playerbase of 70 million in the last quarter.

A new Titanfall game isn’t the only sequel to an EA shooter franchise that’s not currently scheduled for 2020. DICE is getting pulled off the annual track it has been on since 2013’s Battlefield 4, so the studio will not be focusing on Battlefield 6 or a new Star Wars Battlefront in 2020. Instead, over the next year, DICE will develop additional content and provide further support for Battlefield V and Star Wars Battlefront II.

“The strong results this quarter illustrate the power of our live services and our core franchises,” Jorgensen said in a press release. “Strength in Ultimate Team, The Sims 4, and FIFA Online drove live services performance above our expectations. Looking ahead, we are doubling down on live services combined with our core franchises. We’re investing in games that people play for longer and engage with much more deeply. This focus will continue to drive growth and profitability for the company through the remainder of this year and beyond.”

from GameSpot – Game News https://www.gamespot.com/articles/ea-wont-forget-about-titanfall-3-but-wants-to-focu/1100-6470982/

EA Is Treating Apex Legends As An “Annual Shooter”

During its latest quarterly earnings call, EA revealed its intentions to treat Apex Legends as an “annual shooter.” Respawn’s battle royale game has been on a roll lately, with Season 3: Meltdown seeing Apex Legends reach a playerbase of 70 million, and its publisher has indicated it wants to build on that growth for years to come.

“We have heavily invested in live services the past 10 years,” EA COO and CFO Blake Jorgensen said on the call. “Obviously [Apex Legends] is a new live service which we will invest heavily in to try to continue to grow that business. We view that as an annual shooter franchise effectively and we’re trying to build that as a 10-year business … We’re very excited about the roadmap that the Respawn team has put in place.”

No one at EA clarified what this new designation for Apex Legends means. As a live service game, it’s unlikely–though not impossible–that EA plans to make Apex Legends into its own franchise with new sequels every year as Activision does with Call of Duty and Ubisoft used to do with Assassin’s Creed. It could be that EA plans to have large-scale, meaningful content additions each year. Although this makes the most sense and is in line with trends for live service games, this is speculation on our part.

That said, Jorgensen did reveal what players can expect to see in Apex Legends in the near future. “The key with [Apex Legends]–as is the case with any live service–is test and learn, test and learn,” Jorgensen said. “We’re continuing to add new events in each season to try and understand spending patterns and what people like to spend money on and how much they’ll spend. And we’ll then tune those events over time, so there’s going to be holiday-themed events, like [Fight or Fright], competitive-style events, gameplay-style events, and events associated with new characters or–as you saw in this new season–a new map.”

With Apex Legends being treated as EA’s new annual shooter, the publisher is pushing DICE off of the annual Battlefield and Battlefront track that the studio has been on since 2013’s Battlefield 4. Instead of immediately transitioning to Battlefield 6 or Star Wars Battlefront III, DICE will instead spend the next year focusing on developing new content and providing additional support for Battlefield V and Star Wars Battlefront II.

Ahead of the call, EA released a press release detailing the studio’s success with live service games this past quarter. “Strength in Ultimate Team, The Sims 4, and FIFA Online drove live services performance above our expectations,” Jorgensen said. “Looking ahead, we are doubling down on live services combined with our core franchises. We’re investing in games that people play for longer and engage with much more deeply. This focus will continue to drive growth and profitability for the company through the remainder of this year and beyond.”

Though EA is pushing for more games that will keep players invested for longer periods of time, the publisher isn’t completely done with traditional, single-player games. Star Wars Jedi: Fallen Order–a single-player game with no loot box microtransactions–is EA’s next major release, scheduled to launch on Xbox One, PS4, and PC on November 15. Fallen Order’s release will also mark EA’s return to putting its PC games on Steam, not just Origin.

from GameSpot – Game News https://www.gamespot.com/articles/ea-is-treating-apex-legends-as-an-annual-shooter/1100-6470978/

Apex Legends Will Release On New Platforms

During EA’s recent financial earnings call, publisher CFO Blake Jorgensen revealed that Apex Legends, Respawn Entertainment’s free-to-play battle royale game, will launch on new platforms followings its impressive growth since its launch. Released back in early 2019, Apex Legends is a spin-off of Respawn’s Titanfall series. Instead of giant mecha combat, Apex Legends is a squad-based battle royale game that focuses on squad-based tactics on a large-scale map.

Currently, Apex Legends is available on PC, PS4, and Xbox One. Last May, it was announced that Apex Legends would make its way to Mobile (iOS and Android). However, it has yet to release on other platforms as of this time. The timing for this is especially convenient, as Sony’s PS5 and Microsoft’s Scarlett, the successors to the PS4 and Xbox One, respectively, are expected to release in Fall 2020. In addition to Apex Legends, EA will also publish a new Battlefield game during the fiscal year of 2022, which was also revealed during the earnings call.

Since its debut, Apex Legends has become one of EA’s more popular games, reaching up to 70 million registered players. During the financial earnings call, EA CFO Blake Jorgensen stated that Apex Legends would become one of the publisher’s vital online games going forward. In addition to new content for the game, which has already seen new characters, weapons, and maps in its first year alone, Apex Legends will also launch on new platforms during the 2021 fiscal year.

Recently, Apex Legends launched new content in the form of its Season 3 update, which introduced a brand new character and map to fight on. During the call, Jorgensen praised Apex Legends’ growth since its launch. The CFO also expressed that the free-to-play model, which focuses on regular content drops, will become a key part of their strategy moving forward.

from GameSpot – Game News https://www.gamespot.com/articles/apex-legends-will-release-on-new-platforms/1100-6470975/

New Battlefield Game Coming To Next-Gen Consoles

A new entry in the Battlefield series is in the works. During its latest fiscal earnings call, EA confirmed that a new Battlefield game is in development for next-gen consoles, and it’s launching sometime before March 2022.

EA hasn’t shared any concrete details about the new Battlefield game, but it did tease that the title will be “targeting new innovation that will be enabled by next-gen platforms.” The company also confirmed the title will ship sometime in fiscal year 2022, which runs from April 2021 to March 2022.

Speaking further about the game during the Q&A portion of the call, EA said “The goal of Battlefield for [fiscal year 2022] is to really take advantage of a larger install base of the new consoles. Bringing out Battlefield next year, where the new console base is fairly small, doesn’t really give justice to the potential of the title, and so that’s part of our driver in moving the title into fiscal 22.”

In the meantime, EA still has plans to support Battlefield V. The game’s 5.0 update arrives on October 31 and takes players to the Pacific Theater of World War II, which includes two new maps–Pacific Storm and Iwo Jima–along with new weapons, vehicles, and other gameplay changes.

Developing…

from GameSpot – Game News https://www.gamespot.com/articles/new-battlefield-game-coming-to-next-gen-consoles/1100-6470974/

Apex Legends Has Reached 70 Million Players

Ahead of its quarterly earnings call, EA released the financial results for its latest quarter in a press release. Though there are notable highlights for several of EA’s sports games, Apex Legends also made a big splash in the quarter by reaching 70 million players.

“The strong results this quarter illustrate the power of our live services and our core franchises,” EA COO and CFO Blake Jorgensen said. “Strength in Ultimate Team, The Sims 4, and FIFA Online drove live services performance above our expectations. Looking ahead, we are doubling down on live services combined with our core franchises. We’re investing in games that people play for longer and engage with much more deeply. This focus will continue to drive growth and profitability for the company through the remainder of this year and beyond.”

No Caption Provided

Existing in the same universe as Titanfall and Titanfall 2, Respawn’s battle royale, Apex Legends, has had a busy nine months. The game hit 1 million players within the first eight hours of being released, which increased to 2.5 million after a day and 25 million in a week. Apex Legends Season 2: Battle Charge saw the battle royale game’s map undergo significant changes and the addition of limited-time events. Season 3: Meltdown upped that with a whole new map and the first of Apex Legends’ holiday-themed celebrations: Fight or Fright.

EA is primed to go into the next quarter with several new games already announced. The most significant is another game by Respawn, Star Wars Jedi: Fallen Order, which is scheduled to release for Xbox One, PS4, and PC on November 15. Need for Speed: Heat–which implements some welcome changes to its predecessor’s formula–is also on its way, as is a new Plants Vs. Zombies: Garden Warfare.

from GameSpot – Game News https://www.gamespot.com/articles/apex-legends-has-reached-70-million-players/1100-6470972/

EA’s Live Service Games Are Performing “Above” Expectations

Electronic Arts seem to be enjoying the financial benefits of the live service model. In a press release, EA confirmed that live service games are performing “above” expectations.

EA exec Blake Jorgensen gave the announcement, stating that a few key live service titles spearheaded financial performance for the company. “The strong results this quarter illustrate the power of our live services and our core franchises,” Jorgensen said. “Strength in Ultimate Team, The Sims 4, and FIFA Online drove live services performance above our expectations.”

With live services doing so well for EA, Jorgensen confirmed plans to “double down” on the model going forward. “Looking ahead, we are doubling down on live services combined with our core franchises,” Jorgensen said. “We’re investing in games that people play for longer and engage with much more deeply. This focus will continue to drive growth and profitability for the company through the remainder of this year and beyond.”

It’s an interesting proposition, considering the myriad of troubles BioWare’s Anthem has faced. Most recently, the looter-shooter ditched the “Acts” structure to usher in seasonal updates. Still, the company’s other live service titles–like Battlefield V and the various Ultimate Team modes–continue to rake in billions of dollars. And EA’s popular battle royale Apex Legends has just reached 70 million players.

One of EA’s upcoming, hotly-anticipated titles isn’t of the live service type. Respawn Entertainment’s Star Wars: Jedi Fallen Order is a third-person action-adventure game launching on November 15 for PC, PlayStation 4, and Xbox One

from GameSpot – Game News https://www.gamespot.com/articles/eas-live-service-games-are-performing-above-expect/1100-6470973/

The Surge 2 Season Pass Adds Additional Story DLC And More

Two months after its release on PC, PlayStation 4, and Xbox One, developer Deck13 Interactive has unveiled The Surge 2‘s season pass. The season pass, available to purchase for $20 USD, features content drops through January 2020, including additional weapons, a new story expansion, and more.

Arriving first are 13 additional weapons, available in November. December gifts three gear sets for your exo-rig, giving you the option of a completely new look. The season pass culminates with a new story expansion in January. The story content, titled “The Kraken,” takes place in an aircraft-carrier and introducing new enemies and bosses. Deck13 shared a roadmap with glimpses of everything headed to The Surge 2 in the coming months.

No Caption Provided

The Surge 2 features a prominent From Software design element: online communication. In The Surge 2, you can leave messages for online players to discover. And when compared to 2017’s The Surge, the sequel does combat better in almost every way.

In our Surge 2 review, we said, “Story and sidequests aside, however, The Surge 2 is absolutely worth the effort when the combat is taken in isolation. Not only does it pack a punch, but it also channels plenty of depth in its limb targeting and deflection systems, and is ably supported by a genuinely varied collection of weapons and potential character builds.”

from GameSpot – Game News https://www.gamespot.com/articles/the-surge-2-season-pass-adds-additional-story-dlc-/1100-6470969/