Yacht Club Games is on the cusp of releasing the final two expansions as part of its Shovel Knight: Treasure Trove collection. Originally released back in 2014, the 8-bit side-scrolling action-adventure has expanded year after year, adding new campaigns like Plague of Shadows and Spectre of Torment to its budding compilation. On December 10 this all comes to a close as the third campaign, King of Cards, is released alongside a Super Smash Bros. inspired multiplayer brawler called Shovel Knight Showdown.

In an interview with Destructoid, Yacht Club Games’ Sean Velasco and David D’Angelo spoke about the process of developing five games in five years. “It was way too long, ha! No, but seriously, we feel so honored that we were afforded the time to develop each of the games in Shovel Knight: Treasure Trove to its full potential.

“And all in all, we actually made them pretty quickly. Five games released in five years is unusual for any company. While it has been a long journey, we’re so proud of all five games in Treasure Trove, and we hope fans will enjoy playing them as much as we loved making them.”

The titular shovel-wielding knight has certainly maintained his popularity throughout the past five years, making over 25 cameos in everything from Yooka-Laylee and Crypt of the Necrodancer, to Road Redemption, Runner3, and even Super Smash Bros. Ultimate.

The latter cameo is fitting as Velasco and D’Angelo reveal that the Nintendo Switch accounts for “25% of [Shovel Knight: Treasure Trove’s] total sales on all platforms,” a figure they call “wild.” And it is when you consider the game is available on a whopping 11 platforms and wasn’t released on Switch until 2017, two years later than any other version.

“We do wish we made it clearer what we were developing with Shovel Knight: Treasure Trove as its scope grew,” Velasco and D’Angelo said. “It’s been difficult to explain that if you bought Shovel Knight five years ago, you will still receive all four additional games added for free as updates. We worry that this unusual update concept will keep players from discovering the additional games, but we’re doing our best to get the word out.”

This isn’t the end of Shovel Knight’s shenanigans, however. Yacht Club Games announced a completely new game earlier this year called Shovel Knight Dig–a vertical scrolling action game. And Shovel Knight’s music is also getting the smooth and jazzy treatment as part of the “Prescription for Sleep” lullaby series of albums on December 6.

from GameSpot – Game News https://www.gamespot.com/articles/shovel-knight-treasure-trove-has-sold-very-well-on/1100-6471889/

Call of Duty: Modern Warfare expanded in a big way with the new Season One update that added a lot of new things, including a new map, Crash, as well as the new mode called Reinforce. Also new for Modern Warfare today is a suite of microtransaction offerings.

The in-game Store has now opened, and it offers up a number of microtransactions. In the Store tab of the multiplayer menu you’ll find a variety of things to buy, including Operator skins, charms, calling cards, stickers, and finishing moves. There are also new Blueprints available to purchase. Similar to Fortnite, these items are only available for a limited time.

All of the extra content, which is cosmetic only, can be purchased with Call of Duty Points. These are available in allotments from 200 Points ($2 USD) to 13,000 Points ($100 USD). Check out the images below to get a closer look at Modern Warfare’s microtransaction offerings.

Another form of microtransaction now available in Modern Warfare is the first Battle Pass, which costs 1,000 Call of Duty Points ($10 USD). All 100 tiers in the Battle Pass can be earned through gameplay (it’s estimated to take about 1 hour for each tier) or you can buy the Pass outright to unlock all the content right away. The tiers include all manner of different cosmetics and extras, along with two weapons. There is also a brand-new Operator, Mara, who is unlocked at Tier 100.

Modern Warfare launched on October 25, and up until this point there was no in-game store or Battle Pass.

from GameSpot – Game News https://www.gamespot.com/articles/call-of-duty-modern-warfares-microtransaction-stor/1100-6471881/

Diablo IV is still a long way away, but Blizzard has been teasing details about the upcoming RPG, including specific information about how its systems will work together. Now, a new post on the Diablo blog from David Kim, lead systems designer at Blizzard, has dived deep into elements of system design we can expect from the sequel.

The post discusses the “easy to learn, difficult to master” approach that Blizzard is taking this time, noting that they believe that in Diablo IV, “itemization should be deep and rewarding.” They want the game to take the best elements of Diablo II and III, but also to add its own new systems, and to feel distinct from both games. To that end, some major changes are being planned for several Diablo systems. All of these changes are just in consideration for now.

When looking at affixes, Blizzard decided that they wanted item affixes to be “a meaningful part of character power,” and that they should make the decision of what items to equip interesting. While previously they’ve focused on gearing affixes towards builds, they want to give players more freedom to choice what they affix, regardless of build. Here are the changes Kim writes are currently being considered:

• We’re increasing the total number of affixes on items, including Magic (Blue), Rare (Yellow), and Legendary (Orange). This should raise the overall importance of non-Legendary affixes on your character’s overall level of power.
• We are also introducing three new stats:
  • Angelic Power, which increases the duration of all beneficial effects (like self-buffs or healing)
  • Demonic Power, which increases the duration of all negative effects (like debuffs or damage over time)
  • Ancestral Power, which increases the chance of on-hit effects (aka increased proc chance)

Changes are also being made to how you bulk up your attack and defense. In Diablo IV, weapons will only boost attack, armor will only boost defense, and jewelry will no longer boost either. “The goal here is to better embrace the fantasy of each type of item,” Kim says. It simplifies things somewhat, but there will be many other systems dictating your stats, and it’s good to have a clear idea if a weapon is an upgrade or not right away. At the same time, picking weapons and armor based purely on strength or defense will not be optimum, as items will contain other powers.

The third major point is that Ancient Legendaries are being replaced. A new consumable item will be introduced, although Blizzard isn’t ready to talk about it, and ultimately Blizzard is hoping that rare items with good affixes will retain their use and value because of this.

Diablo IV will also bring back talent trees and rune words, which were absent from Diablo III, and is aiming to be more replayable than its predecessor. From February 2020, we will receive quarterly updates on changes being made for the fourth game in the series.

from GameSpot – Game News https://www.gamespot.com/articles/diablo-4-designer-discusses-how-itemization-will-w/1100-6471876/

Apex Legends was due to receive a big update today, December 3, and it’s now arrived on PC. This means that once you’ve downloaded the update, you’ll experience a level cap increase from 100 to 500, giving you many more levels to climb through. Console owners will have to wait a little bit longer, though, with a delay pushing the update back to an unknown date. Moments before the update was due, the official Apex Legends Twitter account let everyone know that it would now arrive later.

About an hour later, the account announced that the patch was actually now available, but only for the PC version. The console version is still delayed, and hopefully we’ll know soon when it will be made available.

The patch notes list a lot of changes, but the big one is the level cap increase. It now takes 5% less XP to hit level 100, and if you manage to hit level 500 you’ll hit a total of 199 Apex Packs along the way. From levels 2-20 you get one pack per level, one every two level from 22-300, then one pack every five levels from 305-500. You’ll still get 600 Legend Tokens for every time you level up, and Apex Pack rewards will be handed out retroactively. You’ll also unlock Level Gun Charms every 100 levels.

36 new Gun Charms are being added into Apex Packs, and will also now appear in the Rotating Shop so that you can buy them directly. It will also add friendly fire to the new firing range, which is a fun addition. PC players will be able to experience this right now, but console Apex Legends fans will need to wait just a bit longer.

Apex Legends is currently in its third season. Developer Respawn Entertainment also recently launched Star Wars Jedi: Fallen Order, the first Star Wars action game of this console generation.

from GameSpot – Game News https://www.gamespot.com/articles/apex-legends-new-patch-with-level-cap-increase-liv/1100-6471873/

Half-Life: Alyx, the recently announced Half-Life VR game, is being worked on by several former members of Firewatch developer Campo Santo. The developer became a part of Valve last year, bringing their newly announced project, In the Valley of Gods, with them. While the game was initially announced for a 2019 release, it’s been over two years since anything was shown off, and shortly before the next Half-Life was shown off, people started to notice that several developers were removing references to In the Valley of Gods from their Twitter profiles. Fans feared that the game has been cancelled outright.

Now, in a statement to Polygon, Campo Santo co-founder Jake Rodkin has confirmed that the game is “on hold” while the team works on other projects. While this means that the game could be returned to, it’s not currently in active development, and still might be cancelled in the future.

“Developers from the former Campo Santo team have joined other projects at Valve, including Half-Life: Alyx,” Rodkin’s statement reads. “You hear a lot about how at Valve you can work on what you want. It turns out that’s true, and there’s a lot of work available. As we integrated ourselves into Valve it became clear there was a lot of valuable work to be done on Half-Life: Alyx. Some of us starting lending a hand, and have since become full-time on the project as it approaches launch.”

It’s not just Half-Life that the team are working on: several have moved over to Dota Underlords, while others are working on Steam itself. “So to answer your question as of today,” Rodkin continues, “In the Valley of Gods development is on hold—but it certainly feels like a project people can and may return to.”

In the Valley of the Gods sounded ambitious. If it ever happens, it will cast players as Rashida, an explorer and filmmaker in 1920s Egypt, seeking to document the first unveiling of the tomb of Queen Nefertiti alongside their partner Zora. Half-Life: Alyx, meanwhile, will release in March 2020.

from GameSpot – Game News https://www.gamespot.com/articles/half-life-alyx-and-dota-underlords-work-mean-firew/1100-6471871/