Fortnite Chapter 2’s Week 9 challenges are now live on all platforms. As usual, if you complete eight tasks from the set, you’ll unlock a special loading screen that features a subtle clue pointing you to a secret item that’s hidden somewhere around the game’s map.

Up to this point, that item was a different letter that ultimately spelled out “FORTNITE,” but now that all the letters are available, this week’s loading screen leads you to an XP drop, which is essentially like the secret Battle Stars from past seasons. If you need help tracking down the XP drop, we show you where it’s located below.

Where Is The Hidden XP Drop Location?

As previously mentioned, the clue that’ll guide you to the XP drop is hidden in the Chaos Rising loading screen, which you’ll unlock after completing eight challenges from that set. The loading screen features a character gazing at different monitors. Look closely at the monitor in the middle of the image and you’ll see the XP drop beneath the infamous purple cube that appeared way back in Season 5.

As it turns out, there’s a statue of the purple cube in the Kevolution Energy Plant, which is located in the northeastern portion of Steamy Stacks–that’s where you’ll need to go to find the hidden XP drop. We’ve marked the location of the area on the map below.

Fortnite hidden XP Drop location

How To Complete The Challenge

Now that we know where the XP drop is hidden, make your way to the aforementioned Kevolution Energy Plant and the drop will appear on the ground near the cube statue, just as the loading screen teased. Interact with it as you would any other item to collect it and complete the challenge. As was the case with this season’s hidden letters, however, the XP drop won’t appear on the map until you’ve unlocked the Chaos Rising loading screen and its corresponding challenge, so you’ll first need to complete this week’s other missions before you can go pick it up.

The first season of Fortnite Chapter 2 was originally slated to end this month, but Epic recently announced it would be extending the season into February 2020. It’s still unclear if that means we still have more weekly challenges to look forward to, but in the meantime, you can find maps and guides for this season’s previous missions in our Fortnite Chapter 2 challenges roundup.

from GameSpot – Game News https://www.gamespot.com/articles/fortnite-where-to-search-hidden-xp-drop-in-chaos-r/1100-6471952/

Halo: Reach has just released on PC for the first time as part of the Master Chief Collection, bringing the beloved game to the system nine years after it released for Xbox 360. The game, which was brought to Xbox One as well and is available on both systems through Xbox Game Pass, was the final Halo game made by original developer Bungie before they moved onto Destiny. Many of the folks who worked on the game are reminiscing about it on Twitter using the hashtag #reachmemory, and some interesting information has come out about the game’s name.

David Candland, who designed much of the game’s user interface, says that the original intention was to just call the game “Reach”, without a “Halo” attached to it. Microsoft objected, insisting that the game be called Halo: Reach, for “brand recognition.” As Halo was and remains a major flagship of the Xbox brand, this makes sense–but as Candland’s tweet points out, they retained their simpler name on the game’s title screen.

As Candland told USGamer, this was probably, ultimately, the right decision. “I’ll bet it did impact sales. It also made googling the game much easier.” He also reveals that the cumbersome “Combat Evolved” subtitle on the original Halo was added by Microsoft, which is why it’s not on the title screen of the original game.

Elsewhere on the hashtag, Bungie art director Jason Sussman revealed that the game’s iconic finale (which we won’t explain here to avoid spoilers) was nearly cut for time, but that “everyone knew it needed to be part of the game,” and they managed to fit it in.

The original Halo is returning to PC soon too as The Master Chief Collection continues to roll out.

from GameSpot – Game News https://www.gamespot.com/articles/halo-reach-was-nearly-just-called-reach-but-micros/1100-6471971/

Back in October, Humble announced that it was going to transition its Humble Monthly Bundle from being a mystery bundle of PC games to a selection that you get to choose from each month. However, with the introduction of Humble Choice–the bundle’s new name–prices are going up and the number of games you get is going down. That is unless you’re already a Humble Monthly subscriber, which you can still become until December 6 at 10 AM PST / 1 PM EST.

If you’re a Humble Monthly subscriber before the transition to Humble Choice occurs, you’ll be locked into the $12/month Classic plan, which gets you 10 games a month, a 20% store discount, and unlimited access to Humble originals and the Humble Trove–a DRM-free collection of games that you can download and keep forever.

For comparison, the Premium plan costs $20/month and grants you access to the same benefits, but you only get to claim nine games a month. The Basic plan costs $15/month and gets you three games, a 10% store discount, and access to Humble originals and the Trove. And lastly, the Lite plan costs $5 a month for access to the Humble Trove, a 10% store discount, and a limited selection of Humble originals. Lite plan subscribers, unfortunately, don’t get any games from the monthly, curated selection. You can see a more detailed breakdown below.

Humble Choice breakdown (click for full-size image)

Some of the games currently available in the Humble Trove include Getting Over It with Bennett Foddy, A Short Hike, and Kind Words (lo fi chill beats to write to), in addition to more popular games like Soma, Tacoma, and Torchlight. You can see the full list of games at the Humble Bundle website.

If you’re interested in subscribing before the transition, you’ll get SoulCalibur VI, Yakuza Kiwami, and My Time At Portia as part of December’s bundle. More games will be revealed on December 6 at 10 AM PST / 1 PM PST. Humble Monthly always held a portion of its game back as a mystery; one of the changes with Humble Choice is that the company will let you know exactly which games you can choose from the get-go.

from GameSpot – Game News https://www.gamespot.com/articles/last-chance-to-get-one-of-pc-gamings-best-deals/1100-6471966/

The Season of Dawn is almost here in Destiny 2, and as is usually the case with a new content season, Bungie is making a bunch of changes and additions to the game with an update that also adds its new activities. We already knew that Dawn would see tweaks to various character subclasses, but now we have a better sense of what else will change when the new season drops on Tuesday, as well.

The developer dropped the details in its This Week at Bungie blog post, giving a sense of everything we can expect from the update. First and foremost is the tweak that will affect players as they climb toward the endgame: the Power cap. That’s the overall rating of your character’s strength based on the gear you possess. In the current season, the Season of the Undying, the soft Power cap is 950, which is only accessible by getting weekly “Powerful” gear drops for completing certain activities. The hard Power cap, the highest you can get your gear in Undying, is 960, and it requires you to complete the toughest endgame content, like the Garden of Salvation raid, to receive “Pinnacle” drops. In the Season of Dawn, the soft cap rises to 960, while the hard cap will reach 970.

Bungie is also introducing a bunch of useful quality-of-life changes to Destiny 2 alongside the new season, and one major one is a change to how Exotic Engrams work. These are rare, random drops you get as you play the game that give out Exotic weapons and armor, the best and most unique stuff in Destiny 2. Right now, Exotic Engrams give a random Exotic item (not including the ones you need to earn by completing specific quests or activities). Meanwhile, you can buy Fated Engrams from Xur, Destiny 2’s weekend Exotics vendor, which gives you an Exotic you don’t already have for that particular character class.

In the Season of Dawn, Exotic Engrams and Fated Engrams become the same thing. When you receive an Exotic Engram while playing the game normally, it’ll no longer just dish out a random item–it’ll give you something you don’t already have for that character. Once you have everything available to that specific character class, the engrams will once again drop random Exotic armor. That should make it a lot easier to fill up your collection without a struggle, while still allowing you to try to find the best possible stats for your Exotic armor over time.

Bungie’s making some changes to bounties with the new season that will make leveling up and earning certain rewards a little easier, too. The Gunsmith will now offer repeatable bounties, and his weekly bounties for completing Crucible, Strike, and Gambit matches will be simplified so that you don’t have to do each activity every week. A bunch of Crucible bounties will have easier-to-fulfill requirements as well.

There are a lot more little tweaks coming with the Season of Dawn, according to Bungie–including some improvements to the Eververse store that will make the premium currency store more transparent. Check out the full list of changes below.

Destiny 2 Season of Dawn Update Changes

Rewards

• Increased the drop rate of the “Scourge of the Past” raid Exotic weapon Anarchy from 5% to 10%
• The Exotic Engram and the Fated Engram have been collapsed into a single new Exotic Engram item
• When opened, it awards a new Exotic if any remain to be collected; otherwise, it contains a random piece of Exotic armor
• Note: Contents are still class-specific

Powerful and Pinnacle Reward Caps

• Powerful Cap: 960, up from 950
• Pinnacle Cap: 970, up from 960

Escalation Protocol

• Escalation Protocol wave 7 chest no longer requires a key to open
  • Chest can be opened upon every successful completion of wave 7
  • Each time opening the chest awards one piece of EP armor for your character class until you have the full set
  • After full set is acquired, subsequent opening of the chest awards a random piece of armor
• Charged Decryption Keys and Key Fragments are being removed from the game; these items will be removed from player inventories
  • Armory keys to spawn Valkyrie Javelins are unchanged and will remain
• EP weapon drops were not touched and are still cumulative-stream boss drops

Weapon Mods

• The cost of slotting a weapon mod has been reduced from 5,000 Glimmer to 500 Glimmer
• Fixed an issue where Ada-1 could grant duplicate weapon mods

Bounties

• Repeatable bounties have been added to the Gunsmith
• Merged strike/Crucible/Gambit objectives on the Gunsmith weekly bounty “Field Calibration” into a single objective that shares progress from all sources
• Removed Valor/Infamy and Vanguard tokens from “Field Calibration” as there is no longer a requirement for any of these linked activities
• Added new mode-specific daily Crucible bounties (one per day, selected from full-time playlists and active rotators)
• Reduced the completion requirements of several daily and repeatable Crucible bounties
• Removed grenade and melee bounties from the Crucible bounty repeatable pool

Striker Code of the Missile (Middle Path)

• Thundercrash
  • Increased base damage from 2,700 to 3,200
  • Increased in-flight damage from 100 to 200
  • Slightly increased the amount of time you have in the air after activation

Nightstalker Way of the Pathfinder (Bottom Path)

• Vanish in Smoke
  • Added a short period (0.8 seconds) after the invisibility is applied where firing weapons or performing other actions will not break invisibility
    • This should help prevent allies from accidentally breaking invisibility the moment it’s granted to them if unexpected

Voidwalker Attunement of Fission (Middle Path)

• Handheld Supernova
  • Adjusted grenade charge time so it lines up with the animations and FX; this should make it feel more consistent to activate

Crucible Maps

• Added Rusted Lands to appropriate playlists
• Added The Dead Cliffs, Legion’s Gulch, Retribution, and Solitude to appropriate playlists
• Removed Emperor’s Respite, Equinox, Firebase Echo, and Vostok from all Crucible playlists
  • These maps are still available for play in private matches

from GameSpot – Game News https://www.gamespot.com/articles/destiny-2s-next-update-raises-power-cap-tons-of-ha/1100-6471969/

Respawn has announced that it plans on further tweaking Apex Legends‘ Peacekeeper shotgun, arguably the best firearm in the battle royale game. The Peacekeeper has been nerfed in the past–even as recently as November 2019–but the shotgun continues to remain a dominant force.

In the patch notes for Update 3.2, Respawn writes, “We’ve heard feedback loud and clear that the Peacekeeper is still feeling too powerful after latest changes. We are working to push out more tweaks to address it ASAP and will post details on timing and what those changes will be soon.”

These “latest changes” increased the rechamber time of the Peacekeeper by a tenth of a second and decreased its headshot multiplier from 1.5 to 1.25. The changes are so minor, however, that they’re almost indiscernible in the heat of combat. The Peacekeeper continues to deal out immense amounts of damage in a relatively short amount of time.

If anything, the most significant problem with the Peacekeeper is the size of the shotgun’s spread. The pellets are large enough that it’s relatively simple to land headshots even if your aim isn’t exactly lined up with a target’s head. In close quarters, consistently landing headshots can usually make a major difference in a firefight.

The Peacekeeper is also one of the guns in Apex Legends that supports the precision choke attachment, which allows you to focus its large shells into a more precise shot. This makes it easier to hit a target at mid- to long-range with the Peacekeeper–something no other shotgun can do. And since it is a shotgun, the Peacekeeper’s overall damage output from a single shot can match a few seconds of sustained fire from most submachine guns, assault rifles, and LMGs.

from GameSpot – Game News https://www.gamespot.com/articles/apex-legends-best-gun-is-still-op-but-respawn-plan/1100-6471962/