As previously detailed, Gears 5 won’t feature random loot boxes or a season pass, and now developer The Coalition has revealed that the upcoming third-person shooter will use “a very player-centric, player-friendly way of doing customisation and monetisation.”

Multiplayer design director Ryan Cleven spoke to GamesIndustry.Biz during Gamescom 2019, where the outlet asked if Gears 5 will include microtransactions. Though confirming the latest Gears entry will have various forms of in-game currencies, Cleven reiterated Gears 5 will have no randomized loot boxes and players will always know what they’re getting whether earning or purchasing content.

Cleven assured that Gears 5 is a player-first game, saying The Coalition can service people looking to expedite their experience while keeping the spirit intact. “We really think we’re ahead of the industry here in getting rid of loot boxes and making sure that we can both service people that are looking to accelerate their progression or earn cosmetics using money but also keeping the integrity of the game experience,” Cleven told GI.Biz.

With governments investigating the psychological nature of loot boxes, Cleven was asked whether the backlash towards games like Apex Legends and Star Wars Battlefront II has forced The Coalition to reconsider how monetization works in Gears 5. Cleven said none of that was a concern. “We had made [the decision to cut loot boxes] before all that happened,” he explained. “We were sort of reading the tea leaves, I guess, and we were one of the earliest to adopt card packs inside our games… We put the challenge to ourselves: can we still provide purchasable things to players that want to purchase and still have the rest of the players really enjoy the system? That was a challenge we set right from the beginning of Gears 5.”

Instead, The Coalition seems more concerned with providing the best experience possible to its players when Gears 5 launches on PC and Xbox One on September 10. “We just felt that [loot boxes] weren’t a good fit for Gears and we wanted to be ahead of the curve looking for possible solutions, even before all the controversy.”

More from Gamescom

• Gears 5 will have Halo: Reach cameos
• Cyberpunk 2077 may include multiplayer
• The Witcher 3 launches on Switch this October
• Sony acquires Marvel’s Spider-Man developers Insomniac

from GameSpot – Game News https://www.gamespot.com/articles/gears-5-monetization-is-player-friendly-dev-says/1100-6469316/

Hades will finally make its way to Steam a year after launching exclusively on the Epic Games Store. In fact, Supergiant Games’ roguelike dungeon-crawler arrives on Steam on December 10.

Supergiant announced on Twitter that Hades will see an Early Access Steam launch this winter. The news was bottled in a Twitter thread by the company, which also announced this year marks the studio’s 10 year anniversary.

On Hades’ Steam store page, Supergiant says it expects to pull the game out of Early Access and release it as a full title in the “second half of 2020.” The full version of Hades is said to feature “the complete ending to the story,” as well as additional story content and added polish across its entirety. Those who purchased Hades on or before October 15 will receive a free digital copy of the game’s original soundtrack as a thank you for supporting Supergiant, though it won’t be available until the game’s v1.0 launch next year.

Elsewhere in the Twitter thread, Supergiant revealed a variety of games from its catalog–including Bastion and Transistor–are up to 80 percent off for the company’s 10 year celebration. Both games are incredibly cheap on the Nintendo Eshop right now as well, with Bastion selling for $3 USD and Transistor going for $4 USD.

Some links to supporting retailers are automatically made into affiliate links, and GameSpot may receive a small share of those sales.

from GameSpot – Game News https://www.gamespot.com/articles/epic-game-stores-first-exclusive-hades-launches-on/1100-6469315/

A pair of critically acclaimed games from indie studio Supergiant are on sale for Nintendo Switch now. Both its freshman effort Bastion and its followup Transistor are less than five bucks apiece, letting you own both on the go for just $7 combined.

Bastion is $3 on the Eshop, while Transistor is $4. The studio’s third game, Pyre, is not on the Eshop, and its latest, Hades, is currently in early access on the Epic Games Store.

Bastion was Supergiant’s debut in 2011 and featured a stylish world and art design with action-RPG mechanics. It received an 8.5 in GameSpot’s original Bastion review.

“The world of Bastion is brought to life with some truly exceptional hand-painted environments,” Maxwell McGee wrote. “Every stylish bit of scenery is filled with tiny touches that add to the game’s fairytale vibe. While the world may be filled with color, its muted tones help underscore a somber tale that grows darker and darker as you progress. It’s a wonderfully crafted adventure that presents a fun and focused challenge you can customize in all sorts of ways. Once you finish, a new game-plus feature opens up that lets you carry over all your weapons and experience from the previous game. Even though it may be the end of the world in Bastion, it’s still an amazingly good time.”

Transistor followed in 2014, with a more strategy-focused combat system that had you pausing the action to plan your attacks and combining abilities to control the battlefield. One element that remained consistent, though, was Supergiant’s art style, which has remained throughout all of its games.

“There are a few astounding moments in Transistor… in these instances, it demonstrates a rare knack for combining its visuals and music to powerfully convey both narrative information and tone, driving the story forward with Red’s own unwavering resolve,” wrote Carolyn Petit in GameSpot’s Transistor review. “So in the end, yes, Transistor is a fun action role-playing game with a neat combat system, but beautiful moments like these make it more than that. They make it a game with a soul.”

from GameSpot – Game News https://www.gamespot.com/articles/nintendo-switch-deal-two-incredible-games-are-dirt/1100-6469313/

Week 4 of Fortnite Season X has arrived, and it brings Battle Pass holders another set of challenges to complete in the popular battle royale game. This week’s set of tasks is called Smash and Grab, and the loose theme running through each of the challenges is dishing out damage and grabbing loot quickly.

As usual, only three of the challenges are available from the outset, with additional ones unlocking as you complete them. Fortunately, all of this week’s missions seem rather straightforward; there are no tasks that set you off on a search for obscure landmarks, so you should be able to complete the entire batch with enough persistence.

This week’s challenges include searching a chest within 60 seconds after landing from the Battle Bus, landing at a Hot Spot in three different matches, and dealing damage within 30 seconds after using a Launch Pad. You can see the full list of Smash and Grab challenges below. If you need help with any of this season’s previous missions, be sure to check out our tips and guides in our full Fortnite Season X challenges roundup.

Week 4’s challenges arrive on the heels of Fortnite’s 10.10 content update, which introduced another new item to the game: the Junk Rift. When thrown, it creates a Rift in the sky that rains debris down on an opponent. The content update also added Glitched Consumables, which can change into different foraged consumables and even some previously vaulted items like Hop Rocks and Shadow Stones. You can read the full patch notes for the content update on Epic’s website.

Fortnite Season X Smash And Grab Challenges

Standard Challenges

• Search a chest within 60 seconds after landing from the Battle Bus (3)
• Land at a Hot Spot in different matches (3)
• Deal damage within 30 seconds after using a Launch Pad (100)
• Search two chests within 30 seconds of each other (3)
• Pick up a Legendary item in different matches (3)
• Search a Supply Drop within 10 of it landing (3)
• Deal damage to opponents at Hot Spots (200)

Prestige Challenges

• Search a chest and an Ammo Box within 30 seconds after landing from the Battle Bus (3)
• Destroy Loot Carriers within 60 seconds after landing from the Battle Bus (3)
• Eliminate an opponent within 30 seconds after using a Launch Pad (1)
• Search three chests within 30 seconds of each other (3)
• Pick up three Legendary items in a single match (3)
• Collect 100 of each material within 60 seconds after landing from the Battle Bus (100)
• Eliminate an opponent at a Hot Spot (3)

from GameSpot – Game News https://www.gamespot.com/articles/fortnite-week-4-smash-and-grab-challenges-list-sea/1100-6469310/

Earlier this month, Kotaku Australia reported that DayZ was refused classification in Australia due to “illicit or proscribed drug use related to incentives or rewards.” This prohibited the game’s physical release in the Oceanian country and resulted in its removal from Steam, the PlayStation Store, and Xbox Live.

The five-year-old zombie survival game was going to feature a cannabis joint that restored health, though implementation of the medicinal restorative had yet to be completed. In response to the ban, developer Bohemia Interactive chose to edit the game on a global scale to avoid splitting the player base, and it appears to have worked.

Kotaku Australia reports that the Australian Classification Board has recently updated its website, noting that DayZ is now rated MA15+. The application confirms that this version of the game has been modified, meaning a cannabis-less version was reviewed and approved by the board. The new rating should clear the way for DayZ to be restored on all digital platforms, and Bohemia will have the go-ahead to release a physical version in Australia now that the ban has been lifted.

This isn’t the first time a game has been refused sale in Australia. The government’s antiquated guidelines have previously resulted in games like Fallout 3 and Mortal Kombat 9 being completely banned from sale until the offending content was edited out–or in the case of We Happy Few, taken to a review panel. Even in the past few days, Hotline Miami 2 was made available in Australia for the first time ever following its Switch release. But even that might not last.

from GameSpot – Game News https://www.gamespot.com/articles/dayz-removes-cannabis-items-gets-unbanned-in-austr/1100-6469309/