An In-Depth Look At Diablo 4 With Activision Blizzard’s Joe Piepiora & Ash Sweetring

Last week, we had the incredible opportunity to sit down and chat with two key minds behind one of the most highly anticipated games of the decade: Diablo IV. associate director Joe Piepiora and dungeon producer Ash Sweetring.
We delved into the depths of Sanctuary, discussing everything from the game’s dark and gritty atmosphere to the spine-chilling dungeons that await us. So grab your gear, sharpen your blades, and get ready to hear some exciting insights straight from the masters of the Diablo universe!

It’s clear that Diablo 4 is meant to be making callbacks to Diablo 2 with its tone, references, and even story-boss additions. What was the thought process in going back to the well without fear of retreading?
Joe: For creating Diablo 4, we really wanted to stick with the return to darkness and the remaining two with the grunge tones that we were holding throughout Diablo 2 and forward, it was really important for us to create experiences for players to be immersed in whatever feelings and the storytelling that we were really telling.
As we’re throughout Diablo 4, there are going to be times that we are provoking you to feel sadness or happiness all throughout the storyline. And those reasons are intentional, and there’s a reason that we want you to be feeling that throughout playing Diablo 4, we think. The overall tones of immersion that you get from Diablo 3, with it being dark and compelling, are definitely conveyed inside Diablo 4.

Is Diablo 4 a good entry point for those with zero exposure to the franchise, both from a story and gameplay perspective?
Joe: Yes, absolutely.
That’s something that we took as a major pillar in crafting Diablo 4 as we move forward. Just using myself as an example; I entered into the Diablo series at Diablo III, and we wanted to take my personal experience and along with everybody else’s some who have been playing since the first Diablo game. We really wanted to ensure that the game was overall pleasurable and you’re finding enjoyment at any stage of your progress in the Diablo series. There’s going to be a little piece of something that if you love lower heavy stuff, you’ll be able to enjoy our campaign and story as we go along. And if you’re somebody like me who enjoys exploring and really understanding your mechanics before you go fight those nasty monsters and stuff, then you’ll have the opportunity to do that as well.

Is the new evade mechanic implemented in Diablo 4 to help ease players coming from different genres or players who might not be accustomed to more old-school action RPG titles?
Joe: So the reason that we added the Evade Mechanic in Diablo 4 was an emphasis on action combat. So when we start thinking about Diablo 4, we want to take the best parts of the previous entries into the Diablo series. So for Diablo 1, we felt that the claustrophobia and the atmosphere of the tunnels beneath the church were great. With Diablo 2, we would love the build-making and item-chase gameplay.
And in Diablo 3, we love the action combat. Now, when we thought about what made combat feel impactful, part of it was making sure that monsters had personalities and things they would do as part of a fight. We wanted to make sure the players had some baseline tools available to them to help them dodge out of the way of enemy attacks and move into and out of conflict as needed. This is part of us trying to include more mastery in the sense of growth for the player as they’re progressing to these combat situations.
So that’s where the evade mechanic really came into play, felt that it was an awesome tool to give to all players to help them navigate these fights.
The addition of the Dodge mechanic also allowed us more on the design side, something we like to call design space. And these are just more things that players can do those designers can interact with. So, for example, in Diablo IV, so we have our simple evade mechanic. So this is every player they’re playing on mouse and keyboard, for example, press the spacebar and kind of dodge the direction, right? They can do it every few seconds. They’re allowed to do this. But now we get the option to have, like, boots that players can get. And boots have an innate power on them. Once you get to a certain level, that will change the way that your evade mechanic works.
So now it’s like instead of having one charge of evade where then you use it once and then you have a cooldown where you’re waiting before you’re allowed to evade again. This pair of boots gives you two charges before you have to wait. We have another pair of boots that like every time you make an attack. Reduces the cooldown remaining on your evade for your boots. So it kind of changes the way that you sort of dance in and out of combat based upon these boots. So these are the sorts of things we got to play with as part of the mechanics once we added evade as a permanent option for all classes.

Players won’t receive their mount quest until they’re fairly deep into the story. What led to the decision of putting that feature so late into the game?
Joe: We think that the player’s goal is to make sure that players feel that they have an opportunity to sort of explore the world of Sanctuary as they play. And in situations where we’ve tried bringing the mount on a little bit earlier, a little bit later, we found players getting very, very focused on reaching a specific point in the world the moment we give them the mount such that they would get onto their horse and they would sort of travel directly to a destination without spending time exploring.
 So we wanted to give a portion of the game experience while going through the campaign where they are on foot, they have more of an opportunity to engage with more parts of the world. Now, we do have lots of fast travel opportunities as players reach waypoints. They now have the ability to teleport from place to place. They can easily teleport back to major cities when they have things they need to do.
This is really about when they’re kind of progressing deeper into the world and unlocking more of these waypoints as they explore. Now, that said, the moment the player unlocks a mount for the first time, which they’ll do during the campaign, once they unlock the mount for the first time, every other character on their account and every future character they make will have immediate access to that mount in perpetuity.
So this moment in time is only during really like the first few days, maybe, or even hours, potentially, based on how you choose to go about some things, your experience with Diablo 4, and at that point forward, with every new level one character you make, you’ll have access to the mount right away.

Can you discuss the decision to implement MMORPG elements like World Events and a Battle Pass system in Diablo 4?

Joe: On the gameplay side, we discussed the decision to implement MMORPG elements and a bow pass in the game the first time. So when we thought about Diablo 4 earlier on, we wanted to make an online role-playing game. We did not set out to make a massively multiplayer online role-playing game. And while that may seem like a subtle distinction between those two categorizations of games, MMORPG typically place the player in a position where they are in support of a larger set of goals, working with alongside other players, right? Where your performance and your belonging are really tied to the presence of other people. So you are playing a character that is more powerful when you are paired with other characters because they have something they do that’s specific. Right.
So that’s like the Holy Trinity, the DPS class and the Tank class and the Healer class. In Diablo 4, every class is a DPS class. Every class is an attacker. Right. For us, it’s really more about, like, are you a character that does a lot of single-target damage? Is your damage more about area of effect (AoE)? Is it like, how much survivability do you have? We think of our classes a little bit more in some of those ideas and a little less in terms of what we don’t really quantify or categorize them based on what they do for other characters. Right. There’s some interaction, like barbarians have shouts they can use to benefit nearby allies.
And there are other mechanics, like vulnerable, like when you hid an enemy and you make them vulnerable. That enemy is vulnerable. For all their players in the area. There are things you can do to help other players, but that’s not how we define the characters. The fantasies come first.
So, we liked the online role-playing game aspects of the experience in Diablo 4, in that we like the idea as you’re wandering through the world, you’d come across other online players. You might see other online players in some of the major cities, but generally speaking, talking about again what I but at Diablo I, we had this touchstone of like but like this sense of like dread and atmosphere, this sense of isolation when you’re like, beneath the church and you’re kind of walking through the catacombs. We thought we wanted to maintain that where possible, so players are encouraged to kind of come together to form a piece of content, like a world event, like when you had to go to fight to defeat Ashava in the Server Slam.
We like the idea of a whole bunch of players arriving to do a thing together, like alongside other players, but not really working together in a coordinated fashion. And then at the end of that, kind of splitting off to go in their own directions and perform, pursue their own goals and aims. We think that that’s the right level of interaction between players. There’s nothing preventing players from joining groups at parties and going and doing things together. We encourage that, but it’s not required. As part of the gameplay experience, we want to hold true to our ARPG roots as a Diablo game, even as an online RPG version of that game.
As it relates to the Battle Pass, we feel that this is a good addition to our live service. We have really, really exciting cosmetics for players to earn over the course of their playtime in each of the seasons. We then get some kind of seasonally themed items associated with the things we’re putting in that season for the mechanics and storyline that might be taking place during that period of time and want to make sure that players can finish it. So it’s a very reasonable amount of time to complete the Battle Pass over the course of, again, a three-month season on which they’ll be active. So that’s some of the things that led to these decisions. We think there are some really exciting and cool rewards at a very reasonable price for players as they progress to the Battle Pass next. So, yeah, you also added Dodge Mechanic. I mentioned I spoke on this a little bit earlier. We think there are some really exciting and cool rewards at a very reasonable price for players as they progress through the Battle Pass.

For the story and the presentation, what made you push for darker and more realistic visuals ala Diablo 2 back in the 2000s?
Joe: So our director, John Mueller, when he was sitting down to begin thinking about the style for Diablo IV, set some pretty early pillars. And one of the things that he wanted to approach this from the direction of was the idea of the that he called we called the Old Masters pillar. And in this way, John was trying to evoke the imagery of, like, Gothic medieval paintings and, like, Renaissance portraits and landscapes when thinking about the stylings of the world of Sanctuary. And in this way, John was trying to evoke the imagery of, like, Gothic medieval paintings and, like, Renaissance Renaissance portraits and landscapes when thinking about the stylings of the world of Sanctuary.
So rather than thinking deeply about the way, like, Lut Gholein looked in previous versions of the game or the way that Diablo I looked when the player arrives, we kind of start from a position of like we know. That we have this history in the series, but we have a new vision for this dark, hauntingly, beautiful world of sanctuary that we’re looking to create together. And this is the framework that we’re trying to build it around. So that was really the driving ideas for the visuals, for the storytelling. The focus was really on trying to make sure that we were telling a story that was emotionally resonant with players today.
We wanted to tell a dark, grounded story, and part of that is embracing what Sanctuary is. Sanctuary is the world of Diablo, the world in which Diablo 4 takes place. And Sanctuary is this place that’s caught literally not figuratively, but literally, between the high heavens and the angels that dwell there. And then the burning hells and the demons that all writhe within. And humanity is sort of like, again, caught in the middle and is formed by the actions of two characters Lilith, the daughter of hatred and mother of Sanctuary, and Inarius, the father of Sanctuary and an angel of the high heavens. And these two people broke away from the eternal conflicts between angels and demons, and they sort of escape to Sanctuary.
And now in Diablo 4, what we really wanted to do was tell this story that allows us to explore the motivations of characters like Lilith, who is a demon but is also the mother of Sanctuary and the daughter of Hatred. Right? And she says she’s here to protect Sanctuary. And do we trust her? We see what she’s capable of, and we see what she does. We have Anarius, the father of Sanctuary. He has a vision for the world of Sanctuary. He is an angel. Do we trust him? But where does Inarius fall in this conversation? Because we also trusted Malthael who is an angel from Diablo 3 who ended up becoming the angel of Death.
So it allows us to kind of tell the story between these characters. And this is really great because we get to for players who are newer to the franchise and who maybe have not played a Diablo game in the past, we have this beat between the events of Diablo III, Reaper of Souls, and the beginning of Diablo 4.
This is a 50-year gap where we get to sort of start a little bit fresh. Everything that happened in the previous Diablo games is very important, and players who’ve played those games are going to get a lot of information that they’re going to be able to carry forward. But in Diablo 4, players you might not have ever played before. We’re now really introducing Lilith and Inarius for the first time to bring them to the forefront of a Diablo title and make them major characters. And we’re also taking your character and putting them front and centre on the story, which kind of links to the next question.

Could you also talk more about the new in-engine cutscenes – another first for the franchise?
Joe: So we knew that Diablo 4 at the baseline, we really wanted to make sure was a game fundamentally about choice, where player choices are reflected in the way they build their characters. Diablo 4 was also our chance to really bring up character customization and really say, if you want to have a character who has this kind of eye makeup, like, dripping down the cheeks and you want to have a certain kind of beard or if you want to have certain kind of braids in your hair. We want to make sure that all of those choices can be reflected in your character. And they really feel like that’s your projection into the experience, the way that player is expressing themselves as part of the game.
And then we want to take that character and put them in the centre of the story. I think many of you have hopefully had an opportunity to play the review build that people have a chance to play. But that moment early on in Act 1 where your player meets Inarius and has that kind of awkward kneeling moment where you approach the father of Sanctuary. Being able to see your character in that scene, I think makes that much more impactful, much more personal to the player. So it was a big lift for us. We love Blizzard pre-rendered cutscenes, Blizzard major cutscenes, and we still have a few of them, obviously, in the game, but having the player’s character really be in the centre of all of these moments and cinematics during the story, we think is extremely exciting, so we think it’s great

One thing Diablo 3 showed us was how hard it was to balance loot drops. How does the team find a balance between making sure your main character gets enough gear and encouraging people to make alt characters in Diablo 4?
Joe: So when we’re thinking about balancing loot drops for players between playing single characters and playing alts, this is where Seasons really helps us quite a bit. So we know with every new quarterly season in Diablo 4 players are asked to start fresh. Now players will still have access to characters they’ve played before, they’ll be in the Eternal Realm. We want to make sure that as we are progressing through the experience of Diablo 4, we are balancing the gameplay and the loot hunt gameplay around the idea that the players are playing during a seasonal period, which is of course a three-month period. We want to make sure that’s a really fun experience for them during that period of time. Loot your offsets accordingly to make sure that feels good. As opposed to saying that you’re going to play this character, it’s designed to play every character in perpetuity forever. There are thousands of hours of gameplay in loot hunt potentially for players to engage with in Diablo 4.
We want to make sure that each of those seasons feels really, really strong on their own. And as you’re progressing through and you’re playing in any given season, that is also going to be providing you with some unlocks. They’re going to benefit all the characters as you go. So, you know, skill points that you unlock from having completed Zone Renown for stat points you’ve acquired on character playthroughs in the past; there are all kinds of things you’d be unlocking for all of your characters at the same time.
This is going to make it a little bit easier for you to go start up that alternate character and people start rolling through. Plus you’ll have all the gold and the resources your main character has already acquired. So we still don’t mind the idea of you playing Alts and then we want to benefit you that way. But there is, you know, a primary focus on ensuring that like the one character that you play each season, at least one character you play each season, feels like a really good, strong experience on its own for the loot chase.

While having a Jeweler is a nice idea and a great way to get gems upgraded, it’s not fun to run back to your stash & run back to him/her. Has there been any talk of putting a stash in the Jeweler shop, or letting that NPC have access to your stash to minimize the tedium the system offers?

Ash: Quality of life improvements have been a large part of what we’re trying to remember. Makes the game fun and enjoyable to a wide range of people. We keep mentioning how we want to elaborate on player choice and we want people to be able to play the game as they will and how they would like. And we’re trying to take those different types of perspective in with that kind of honing of returning to our roots and stuff, understanding that we ourselves are players first before game developers. And so really taking that perspective and approach has guided us through dungeon-making in any environment in general.
Joe: We’re going to be looking at this feedback as we kind of go through the experience. There is a balance between what is too much running back and forth to manage certain inventories like what is okay and what is acceptable. But right now, when you use the jeweler at the moment, it will actually pull in all of your gems from the bank already. So if you’ve got things that are sitting in your stash, you get like, you know, a whole tab full of gems and stash, you can use all of those from your from the jeweler crafter. We’re trying to upgrade gems, but then you would still need to go back to interact with things you already have in your stash already. But new things you make would end up in your inventory.
So long story short, we are a live game. We’ll be looking to make adjustments as we go. And we will be looking for opportunities to improve that experience overall as time goes on.

Designing dungeons and cellars are two different propositions, why was there a need for the latter to exist in Diablo 4?
Ash: We felt having these quick burst encounters with cellars was an awesome way to expand Sanctuary even further and provide more activities for players to engage with as they explore the world. Sanctuary is a massive place and we wanted to have cool things for players to discover when they go off the beaten path. We are always considering if areas out in the wild are currently serving a fun purpose for players or not, and cellars are a great way for us to add more to the environment that will help enhance the player experience in that area. Like standard dungeons, cellars also help support the story of Diablo IV in several ways that you’ll see as you progress through your campaign journey!

From threads and discussions online, there are a number of players who find the public access events too difficult. Is the same true for the main game?
Ash: I think that balance is something that’s always going to be a topic of conversation with the developers. And it’s something that until we see how the players react to it, we’re ready for whatever comes our way. We’re ready to receive that feedback and we’re ready to act based off of what that feedback is trying to tell us.
Joe: Ash is right. We’re not just looking at feedback from players. We also have the data on how things are actually performing as well. So if we’re thinking about the reactions to the Server Slam against Ashava, that was a very particular point in time. Players were five levels below Ashava’s level. We expect that to be a very challenging encounter, and it certainly was. So as players are able to level up to the base game, we expect that they’re going to have an easier time in these sorts of events as they progress through. But we will make adjustments as we see they are needed.

There are also others who praise and enjoy the difficulty. Would the experience be different depending on perhaps a player’s exposure to the franchise or skill level?
Joe: The answer is yes and no. I think that there are some new mechanics and things in Diablo IV that are fresh for the series that players have not played in the past. But if this is your first action RPG or your first action game, potentially, for example, then I think they might be pretty difficult to jump into the veteran difficulty mode. But that’s also why the Adventurer Mode exists. While the player is leveling up, they’re going to have access to a lot of items and ways to build their characters.
They’re going to make it a lot easier for them over time to kind of understand the context of how to build their character and to dive into these kinds of challenges is at a time that is appropriate for them. It’s not always advised to go fight a world boss five levels below the lowest level they normally are attacked. So that can definitely be a fun challenge.

As a live-service title, how is the team balancing players’ journey in the endgame while also involving a commitment to rolling new characters for Seasonal content as well as future expansion content?

Joe: Well, it sort of goes back to my prior comment in that we’re trying to balance the progression of the character over the course of the idea of this three-month period versus another game that might be expecting you to play a character forever. There’s they have different considerations to take into account when they’re giving you a legendary drop or whenever you should get certain other progression systems or how often you should fight certain kinds of bosses. A Diablo game like Diablo IV allows us to really focus on making sure that the ARPG portions of it really sing at all times when you’re playing, as opposed to having things feel watered down over a longer prolonged period, because we’re expecting you to play for a longer period of time.
So that’s kind of like our expectation of how the end game should feel at launch, especially, since there are hundreds of hours of gameplay available for players to engage with as part of their character-building. But we do want to, with every new season, provide new mechanics and features new story content for players to consume. New seasonal quest lines. Not really an extension of the Diablo 4 main quest storyline, but new seasonal quest lines about the season mechanic and themes for players to dive into and really explore and have fun leveling up a new character within.

With Diablo 3 putting the Nephalem in the spotlight, was the decision to have Inarius and Lilith be the central figures in Diablo 4 related to that, given their ties to them?
Joe: Really, the focus was more on telling an interesting story about the world of Sanctuary through the lens of these titular major characters. Inarius and Lilith are the literal mother and father of Sanctuary with their own strange history and sort of history together. And the players, the humans of Sanctuary really are just kind of caught in the middle. Their conflict that we get to kind of explore as part of Diablo 4.
That’s really more of the focus there. Obviously, the Nephilim are a very real component, particularly relevant in Diablo 3. But that’s not really why Inarius is alone through here, necessarily.

How is Loot Rate drop determined in Tier 3 and Tier 4?
Joe: So Loot Rate drop rises slowly as the player gains in level and fights higher level monsters. High-level monsters (elites, bosses) have more loot that they’ll drop.
Rate drop is one aspect of loot in general. The other is the sorts of things that can drop. So once players have gained access to World Tier Three, once they get to Nightmare World Tier, they’ll begin to see sacred items which have a very vast range of power they can appear at. So it could be that when you get into World Tier Three and you kill your first pack of Elites, you might get a ring that drops, but that ring that you got at level 50 might be good until you’re Level 70 because you have that much power associated with it.
Or it could be good for Level 52, so that every time a secret item appears for you, it has a very wide range of power they can have associated with it. You’ll also begin to find unique items to begin to drop which are much more powerful than legendary items but can only appear in a particular item slot. So things like Shako/Harlequin’s Crest could appear for you as a helmet. It’s like really powerful, powerful items that are extremely rare to find.
And you’ll find even more of these sorts of things as you get into World Tier Four, where now ancestral items begin to drop and our full allotment of unique items begins to appear by fighting various kinds of creatures. So there’s lots to look forward to in the Loot game, once players are starting to get higher and higher level.

Diablo 3 had virtually limitless progression upward, but some have said that became boring or frustrating. Did that feedback lead to Diablo 4 having a more defined ending?

Joe: Yeah, different games have different ends. For Diablo 4, we did want to focus on having capped progression, so there is no sense of infinite power for the player to obtain through prolonged play. Now, that’s because we want all the decisions that players make while their level pulling their character up to have a lot of weight, such that the build that you have crafted for yourself by the time you’ve reached Level 100 is one that you have really optimized every item that you get. You’re looking for just the right affixes on the item, all the other bonuses on the item. Those have the right affixes rolled really, really well.
You want to upgrade all of your items. You’re really looking to be the sum of the choices that you make versus saying that because you invested 300 more hours in your character and did more work in the Paragon board, in the Paragon system, you’re much more powerful as a result of that. We really want to say, like, look, you did the work. You got to level 100. You’ve got to this point. Some of the highest pinnacle challenges that we have in the game require not just being level 100. You need to have an extremely good build. You need to understand your character very, very well. You need to have great items with great roles in order to be successful in those situations. And you need to know the encounter as well. So really, it’s about making sure that all of those things matter a great deal. That’s really more of the focus for Diablo, for that sense of cap progression.
I’m speaking specifically about power progression from the player side. Like items don’t you don’t get higher and higher and more powerful items by virtue of going and doing higher and higher level content after a while. But if you’re looking for more and more challenges, the Nightmare Dungeon System creatures will go will continue to scale up all the way up to much, much higher beyond 100. They go all the way up to 150 at launch. So you could try to push yourself.
That’s extraordinarily insanely challenging, try to do that kind of work, but you can continue to try to claw your way forward, getting through that kind of content that goes beyond even the extremely difficult level 100 pinnacle challenge we have in place. You still have the Nightmare Dungeon climbing and try to make it beyond that.

What were the key learnings (beyond sheer numbers) that the team took back from player feedback via the beta and Server Slam period? And how fast can that be incorporated into the release?
Ash: We received a lot of feedback after our open betas for Dungeons and Diablo IV, and a lot of that we were able to take and kind of internally digest and deliver back as far as what expectations can be. There are several systems that we affected and changed to make it a more enjoyable experience for the player, and less repetitive. A lot of those types of mechanics we fully addressed. There are also higher-level items that we’re able to address with the open beta feedback and moving into the server slam type stuff. The players really received the opportunity to see a lot of that feedback.
The fonts, for example. That’s another accessibility one that we were able to achieve is we received some feedback based on the font being a little less immersive than players would have enjoyed, and we were able to incorporate new font in that’s a little more immersive in the entire world. That’s a really rare and special time for us, really listening to the player base and understanding fully what they’re looking for in hopes to help them achieve the greatest game that we’re able to deliver.
Joe: I think the important thing here is that these were not marketing betas. This is not like an advertisement in the form of a download where people could just demo the game and see what it plays like. The point here is to ensure that we got a lot of really good information on how players are going to play the game. And by way of example, I’d say that for over a year before we actually ran our first preorder beta, we had over a million bots running on our internal hardware, putting on hats, taking off hats, joining parties, leaving parties, going into a dungeon, dying, resurrecting themselves. Like doing everything you could imagine that players might do in an effort to get a really good sense of what kind of stress our servers were going to be under and what sort of things we had to account for.
And we found lots and lots of stuff from those internal tests. And when we went into our first beta weekend for anyone who got a chance to play, we had a fairly long queue on the first day. We made a number of hotfixes over the course. We got that queue time down, we made a number of changes to make sure that things were bit smoother for players playing that first weekend and we made even more changes leading into the second beta weekend that happened the following week and those were really, really critical. We learned a lot during that period. The second weekend was much cleaner than the first in terms of how easy it was to get to the experience.

Diablo 4’s skill tree is much more expansive than previous Diablo games. How does the team find a balance between catering to new players who have this game as their first, and also veteran fans of the franchise?
Joe: This is actually a really interesting question and that is typically as a game designer, when you’re saying we’re trying to find a way for more players to play your game right. What can we do to make it easier for new players to play?
One of the first things you typically look at is like, well, what can we do to reduce the complexity and the depth of the experience so that players have an easier time playing? But the trick here is that a Diablo game is kind of about the depth and complexity of the experience. ARPGs are in general, more are deeper games, I think, than some others. And I’m generalizing, I’m not picking a fight with other genres of game. It doesn’t matter if the ARPGs are de facto the best games there are. So it’s a very simple experience initially, where players, when they start playing the game at level one, they’re going to log into the game and they’ll have one attack. They’re allowed to do one thing.
When they start playing the game, there’s one button they can press: their left mouse button or I think it’s on the controller. They will roll to the experience and that’s all they can do.
When they reach level two, they get to make one choice and that choice is very simple. Like if you’re playing a sorceress, it’s like, do you want to be a fire sorceress or a cold sorceress or a lightning sorceress? And players make that one very simple choice. And then for the rest of their leveling-up experience, from one to 50, it’s about trying to slowly unveil that depth of choice as they’re progressing through the skill tree. The skill tree itself is relatively straightforward in many ways. Many of the choices we provide to players are kind of themed after certain options, they have a lot of context baked into them. But the goal is that by the time the players get to the end, they have a pretty good understanding of how the mechanics of their class work, how to make a build, the sorts of things they’re looking for. If I’m a lightning spec, sorceress I know I’m looking for critical strike because I have lots of things that happen when I perform a critical strike on enemies. So we try to keep things relatively straightforward, make sure the players have the context to understand and kind of engage with these kinds of features. Then we reach level 50 and the players get to access the paragon board for the first time. And here’s where we say, all right, look, we taught you how to play your class.
That was your level 1 to level 50 experience. That’s what the skill tree was for, is teaching you how to play your class and giving you some idea of how to make a build. Here in the Paragon Board there are a wealth of options available to you. There are many, many ways for you to build that character from this point, right? And even inside the Paragon Board we start you in a very small section and then have you kind of progress through it before you get to make your first really big choice of which paragon board you want to select for your first one. And then we show you that you can rotate them so you can decide how you actually want to start to engage with your paragon board in addition to just which paragon board do you want? So that’s the way that we sort of thought about things. Blizzard is generally in the past for many of our games, has been very good about this in that we try to take a genre and bring new players to it that might not have ever played it before.
Real-time strategy games are a great example, right? Real-time strategy games where we bring you into the experience, say, hey, check out this campaign where we kind of teach you how to play this game like StarCraft II or something. And then as you get deeper into the experience now, you get a sense of mastery. You understand how your units work, you understand how to play. You feel more confident about taking that next step, maybe playing it against another human player, right? It’s about trying to let players grow on their own mastery curve over time and become hardcore players on their own because they understand things enough that they can do so.
Because we taught them as they played. That’s really the focus here, is to make sure that players have enough confidence, they have enough context for why they make decisions about how they play Diablo 4. They don’t get so scared the moment they open the skill tree for the first time, and they say “oh, I can’t figure any of this out. It’s way too much”. And we want them to be able to engage with it and kind of roll through it more on their own accord.

In a setting with so many free skill points characters can start with (Altars of Lilith, Map Progression), was it particularly challenging to separate Hardcore characters away from that?

Joe: We talked about this quite a bit and ultimately landed on allowing a lot of these effects to carry over, between normal mode characters and hardcore mode characters, because of the extra cost of asking, we kind of went back to where does it end when the players gain the ability to mount up, for example, from completing the campaign? And that’s an account bound unlock from that point forward for all of their characters. Does that mean they need to finish the campaign on a hardcore character in order to unlock the mount on the hardcore server?
We didn’t feel like that was a really significant benefit for the hardcore player overall. And the same was true for many of these other collectable items and things that you could go and gather for your account. So we didn’t want to say like, because you chose to play hardcore one season, everything that you did there is not going to affect your normal character. And the same thing is true of the normal mode.
The idea of you going off and collecting all the Altars of Lilith and a normal character, and then the next time you want to play hardcore, you actually have to go collect all of those altars again on every single hardcore character felt like more of a time sink and not necessarily a fun experience for those players. So in the end, we opt to make sure that there were a lot of things that were account level that would be applied to both the normal mode characters and the hardcore mode characters at once.

There’s a wide assortment of dungeons throughout Diablo 4, how did you decide what Codex of Power and what dungeon bosses that would appear there?
Ash: Yeah, that’s a great question. I think there are a lot of different things that go into the decision of that. We’re evaluating long-term goals and short-term goals from the player and what can most be beneficial in those specific scenarios and even thinking of like edge cases as far as dungeon sides go where we’re trying to consider what’s going to provide a particular experience that we’re aiming for the player to be having during that time. And we’re also trying to make it more rewarding when you have the opportunity to go back and do nightmare dungeons and stuff. We really want your first experience inside of a dungeon to feel rewarding and your very last experience inside of the dungeon. Those are a few different factors, at least on the dungeon side.
Joe: We have over 110 dungeons in Diablo IV for players to go and engage with. And our dungeons design team that Ash works with is basically kind of designing the content for each of those dungeons. And when they sit down to set about working on any individual dungeon space, they are going to call out the sorts of needs they have inside there. So we don’t want every dungeon to feel like it’s exactly the same as any other dungeon. Obviously, we want things to have character and personality and that’s where you’ll find that sometimes you’re going to have bosses and some don’t. They have different kinds of objectives from place to place. This is really the dungeon design team’s responsibility, sort of like figuring these sorts of things out. Now, in terms of where or why certain Critics of Power entries appear in various dungeons, we sort of, from the system side, looked at things across the entirety of the game, and we said, we want to ensure that every Class and every build within every Class has some codex entries that can be found through the Codex of Power system.
However, the Codex of Power system does not account for all the legendary powers in the game. There are many, many more legendary powers that can’t be found as part of the Codex of Power system. But these are deterministic ways for players to acquire some of the baseline powers they might need for their bill to become available to them. Even if these powers are at a lower level of power level, they generally are at the Codex of Power. So we went and picked a variety of these and had them show up in various regions of the game.
So that while particularly while the players playing through the campaign for the first time and they’re levelling up the character. They kind of have touch points where they can see in every zone that there are certain powers they might want to be going to try to find and go maybe to go track down inside dungeons explicitly to get a particular power for their build. But even after they’ve got all of those, there are still many more powers they will need to collect, really, to unlock the fullness of their build. Begin to see hints of that as you’re levelling up. And you have access to these things.

Which class was the toughest to design? Conversely, which class was the easiest to design during Diablo 4’s design process?
Joe: So this is an interesting one. I think that every class has had things about them that were really particular that require a little bit of work. So neither tough nor easy.
The Barbarian, for example; the way that the Arsenal system works. So with the Arsenal system, players are allowed to assign certain weapons to certain skills. So you could look at your hammer of the Ancient attack and obviously, it’s always going to use a blunt weapon, right? But you could choose to use your one-hand maces if you happen to have one-hand maces or you could use your big two-handed mace, and it’s up to the player to choose which one they want to use. The game will default to one selection or the other, but they can choose and make sure that that feels good in concert with other parts of the Barbarian class. Those players want to occasionally engage with this mechanic without feeling they need to do this all the time, and it’s okay for the game to just pick sometimes. That was a bit interesting to figure out how to make that work and to balance the idea that the Barbarian has four weapons they carry around all the time, whereas the Sorceress might only have one. There are just differences between the classes.
I think that’s another part of this we embraced asymmetry a lack of symmetry between some of the classes. We want them to feel differently.
Overpowered was the way that we talked about it internally, right? So that when you want to play a Barbarian in one season or during your first playthrough, and you want to play a sorcerer in your second playthrough, feel like, well, I mean, I don’t have my weapon mastery anymore and my technique slot, but now I have Enchantments. And Enchantments feel like really, really strong in their own right, have their own other gameplays.
They open up for you. Feels different, right? So I think that was one of the most challenging parts, is actually trying to make sure that all these differently powerful mechanics kind of worked together and that they were really fun in their own right. I guess the only other thing I call out in terms of what was a tough class to design is making sure that for the Druid, like the shape-shifting mechanics and the Spellcast mechanics of the Druid, because the Druid is an extremely hybridized class, it can do all kinds of stuff right. Making sure these things felt like they felt unified in terms of the fantasy and the theme, but also that they were all equally interesting to experiment with and play with, because honestly, changing into a bear and smashing things is really, really cool. Shooting tornadoes is also awesome. And making sure that all these things kind of hold up was really, really important in terms of what is like an easy class to design in. I think that the Sorceress was really resonant. We figured it out right away.
The Sorcerer class is a Diablo 2 callback, obviously, and we know that she is extremely elemental-focused. So once we said, look, it’s about fire, it’s about ice, it’s about lightning. A lot of things folded together pretty quickly from that point. We’re able to really get the class online pretty quickly. The kit worked, so we understood it fairly easily.

The class selection for Diablo 4 is a solid one. Were there any new classes that were brainstormed that didn’t make the cut? Or will there be new classes post-launch?

Joe: The question I think I hear is, what is the cool stuff we didn’t get in Diablo 4? That’s kind of like the core of it, right? Like, what’s the cool stuff that sounded really, really neat that we didn’t we’re not going to get in Diablo 4? And the reality is, you got all the coolest stuff in Diablo 4. The stuff that you didn’t get is stuff that we didn’t think was good enough, that we didn’t think was good.
Another way to think about this: there’s a lot of room around that campfire, right? We have five classes at launch: Barbarian, Sorceress, Druid. Rogue and Necromancer. Great fantasies, great characters. I think everyone would agree, right?
But there’s room for more. As a live service game, the launch is just the beginning. We have our seasons coming on a quarterly basis. With big content infusions and then we have our paid expansions, which we’re not talking about too much today we’re about to launch the base game, right?

Since Diablo 4 is receiving story update DLC, is there a chance we could visit past areas from Diablo 2 and Diablo 3?
Ash: I think there’s always that possibility, right? We’re really approaching the live service portion of this game with not closing off anything in general. Anything is always possible and we’re looking at whatever’s going to deliver the most enjoyable experience moving forward. There are definitely going to be scenarios where the players in an experience, they think, wow, this is really like, Hawezar and I can really feel like I’m in Hawezar here and there are going to be chances where the player feels like they’re in a totally new environment or a totally new biome. We want to be sure that we’re including both of those experiences.

Diablo 4 will be out for PC and consoles on 6th June, but you can get early access on 2nd June if you buy the game early.


Third Sonic The Hedgehog Movie And Knuckles TV Series Confirmed

Sonic The Hedgehog fans are in for a lovely few years movies and TV-wise.
Sega and Paramount announced that it is working on a third Sonic theatrical film as well as the first live-action Sonic series for the Paramount+ streaming service; the Knuckles TV series to be specific. The latter will star Idris Elba as the titular echidna(?).

A special message about the future of the Sonic franchise from the CEO of SEGA CORPORATION, Haruki Satomi: pic.twitter.com/i3XX5YwsY3
— Sonic the Hedgehog (@sonic_hedgehog) February 15, 2022

And you thought I was joking about the Sonic Cinematic Universe.
Knuckles will get his own series in 2023 on Paramount+, voiced by @idriselba pic.twitter.com/Ax5FLjhG9g
— Geoff Keighley (@geoffkeighley) February 15, 2022

Sonic The Hedgehog 2 is slated for an April 2022 release in Malaysia and Southeast Asia. The film stars Ben Schwartz (Sonic), Idris Elba (Knuckles) Collee O’Shaughnessy (Tails), and a bunch of animators who are on Paramount’s beck and call to change up whatever’s needed.


These Are The Missing Scenes In The Malaysian Version Of Rocketman

We saw Rocketman, and it was an awesome musical biopic about the life and fabulous times of Sir Elton John, played masterfully by Taron Egerton. And while the film is named after a song (in)famously covered by Will Shatner, it was also a story filled with gay people kissing each other passionately, gyrating bodies, drugs, and alcohol consumption, which explains the film’s R rating in America. Naturally, the fine folks at Lembaga Penapis Filem (Film Censorship Board of Malaysia) are editing it for “public viewing”.
So which parts are censored? We’re here to fill in the blanks. Spoilers abound.

The following musical numbers, “Take Me To The Pilot”, “Honky Cat” and “Bennie And The Jets” had key scenes establishing Elton John’s love for businessman John Reid (Richard Madden) and his further downward spiral into sex and drugs in the late 70s/early 80s.
In the first censored scene, here’s John Reid seducing Elton John into his loins, playing to the tune of “Take Me To The Pilot”.

Here’s the second censored bit, though 3/4ths of it is uncut (via SekesadaShorts).

The “Bennie And The Jets” number was mostly omitted from the Malaysian run of the film; after the 1:01 mark respectively. It features a lot of writhing sweaty bodies and cocaine, just so you know.

Malaysia’s censorship board even censored bits for the credit sequence, specifically the bit where they talk about Elton’s husband and kids (thanks Iain Mcnally!).

That’s pretty much it for now. Hope this feature has been helpful in filling in the blanks for your Rocketman experience this week!


Distant Worlds: Music From Final Fantasy Returns To Malaysia In April 2019

If you’re a fan of Final Fantasy music, chances are you’ve attended a Distant Worlds live orchestra concert either in Malaysia back in 2012/2014/last year or in Singapore a couple of times. Well, it’s coming back to good ol’ KL; audio fans be praised!
According to the Malaysian Philharmonic Orchestra listings (thanks Victor), the Distant Worlds: Music from Final Fantasy live orchestra show will be taking place next April. Here are the details:
Date: 12 and 13 April
Venue: Dewan Philharmonik Petronas, Petronas Twin Towers, KLCC
Performers/Orchestra: Malaysian Philharmonic Orchestra, Dithyrambic Singers, Arnie Roth (conductor)
Ticket Prices: RM358, RM254, RM198,RM141
Purchase Link: http://mpo.com.my/20-distant-worlds-music-from-final-fantasy/#
Expect fan favourite tunes like “Suteki Da Ne”, “Love Grows”, “FFVII’s Opening~Bombing Mission”, “One-Winged Angel”, and “Vamo’ alla Flamenco” to be played. Personally, I just want more FFVI and FFXII tunes, but it’s really up to the majority, eh?
Here’s a sneak peek at how these awesome concerts sound like. While you’re here, how about checking out our ranking for each mothership Final Fantasy title?


EA Is Developing Three Marvel Games, Including Previously-Announced Iron Man

EA has revealed (via Bloomberg) that they will develop three Marvel games, including the previously-announced Iron Man game back in September 2022. However, EA didn’t provide details about any other characters that they plan to feature in upcoming games, or when they’re even coming out.
Speaking with Bloomberg, EA COO Laura Miele said:
“We have an intentional, deliberate strategy to have a balanced portfolio. There will be Marvel fans who don’t play other EA games. That’s been true with Star Wars.”
According to the source, Miele first contacted Marvel Studios president Kevin Feige four years ago for advice and later contacted Marvel head of gaming, Jay Ong, during the pandemic, which is when EA and Marvel agreed on a deal.
All we know about the Iron Man game so far is that it is now in early development at Montreal-based Motive Studio. The team is being led by Olivier Proulx, who brings experience working on past Marvel titles like Marvel’s Guardians of the Galaxy, and is joined by a dedicated team of passionate industry veterans including Ian Frazier, Maëlenn Lumineau, and JF Poirier at the studio.
Developed in collaboration with Marvel Games, the game will feature an original narrative that taps into the rich history of Iron Man, channelling the complexity, charisma, and creative genius of Tony Stark, and enabling players to feel what it’s like to truly play as Iron Man. However, there is no release date or confirmed platforms as of now.
It will be interesting to see what the two other games will be, though it will likely be years before EA even gives us updates on those projects considering that Iron Man is still in pre-production. Still, it means that we’re getting more Marvel games, which is a good thing. Hopefully none of them ends up like 2020’s Marvel’s Avengers, and hopefully they focus on lesser-known Marvel characters who deserve the spotlight, not mainstream ones like Captain America or Thor.


PUBG Mobile Summer Rich Event Is Now Live

The most anticipated Summer Rich event “Explore The Future” has officially started and will run until 30 August 2021.
PUBG Mobile will be collaborating with a famous Asian snack, Tao Kae Noi, to add more excitement and hype to the event. During the Explore The Future period, fans and the community can win various exclusive rewards for free, ranging from permanent skin sets, 30 pieces of real gold bar (10 gram) and a Yamaha MT-25 motorcycle as a special giveaway.

Similar to the previous Summer Rich events, it is simple and quick to participate in the â€œExplore The Futureâ€ event. Players will be asked to enter the PUBG Mobile game with friends or squad and complete various missions given to collect as many ‘Dice’ as possible, the more Dice each player collects, the greater the chance to win a prize.
For instance, get 1 dice by sharing this event and another 1 dice each time you complete 1 match with friends, eliminate 5 enemies and if players spend 60 minutes in the game. Complete 3 matches with friends and players will get 2 dice. Players will also get to collect 3 dice after inviting friends to join the event.

The prizes are not just a myth, PUBG Mobile has announced one player who has won a gold bar. The winner is the owner of the YOYOKxPLAFON account. PUBG Mobile is still looking for another lucky player.
Jenny Zhuang, PUBG MOBILE Marketing Manager SEA said:
â€œWeâ€™re excited to be able to come up with another new and exciting collaboration for PUBG MOBILE fans.
We kicked off the Summer Rich event with a collaboration with Chen Jun Hao for the theme song titled â€˜No One Else but Youâ€™ followed by an exclusive Rich Brian set for the â€˜Catch Me If You Canâ€™ to hype out the event.
Now, weâ€™re on another collaboration with the famous Thailand Snack, Tao Kae Noi.
The event also represents our appreciation and gratitude to our loyal users and fans.
We hope to attract more users and expand our PUBG MOBILE community further as one.”


Genshin Impact Keqing Figure Lightning Strikes Next December

Figure-maker Apex-Toys is making yet another Genshin Impact figure, this time on Liyue’s Electro swordmaster Keqing.
The figure is in a 1/7th scale (about 1 foot tall), comes with a sword and her standard attack pose, and will cost you about US$179 if you check listings on AmiAmi and Aitai Kuji. Check out how she looks below:

If you pre-order early, you’ll get an Electro-themed acrylic stand of Keqing. This is the second Genshin Impact figure Apex-Toys is making; the first is one of Geo user Ningguang which is going for US$247.98 on AmiAmi and will be shipped in June 2022.


Top Gun Maverick Gets New Character Posters Ahead Of Premiere

Top Gun Maverick gets new character posters featuring Tom Cruise’s Pete ‘Maverick’ Mitchell and others ahead of its upcoming release. Directed by Joseph Kosinski, the movie will also star Miles Teller, Jennifer Connelly, Jon Hamm, Glen Powell, Lewis Pullman, and Ed Harris.

The synopsis reads:
After more than thirty years of service as one of the Navy’s top aviators, Pete “Maverick” Mitchell (Tom Cruise) is where he belongs, pushing the envelope as a courageous test pilot and dodging the advancement in rank that would ground him. When he finds himself training a detachment of TOPGUN graduates for a specialized mission the likes of which no living pilot has ever seen, Maverick encounters Lt. Bradley Bradshaw (Miles Teller), call sign: “Rooster,” the son of Maverick’s late friend and Radar Intercept Officer Lt. Nick Bradshaw, aka “Goose.”
Facing an uncertain future and confronting the ghosts of his past, Maverick is drawn into a confrontation with his own deepest fears, culminating in a mission that demands the ultimate sacrifice from those who will be chosen to fly it.
Top Gun Maverick is slated to release on 26 May 2022. In the meantime, check out the trailer below.


Asus ROG Teams Up With IKEA To Create New Gaming Furniture

Folks like Secretlab will have their work cut out for them, as legacy gaming brands will be encroaching the gaming furniture and overpriced gaming chair landscape further with legitimate furniture company team-ups. Like Asus and a particular Swedish brand.
Renowned PC hardware manufacturer Asus will be teaming up with notable furniture-making company IKEA to create gaming furniture for the future. There aren’t any details about this apart from the upcoming products being part of the “new home gaming ecosystem” that both are trying to aim for.
We’re guessing chairs and desks, though they won’t cost you an arm and a leg according to the presser we got. Here’s a quote:

“By teaming up with ROG, IKEA wants to combine home furnishing knowledge with ROGâ€™s expertise in creating exceptional gaming experiences. Together, we set out to help the many gamers, and their families, welcome gaming home through developing a new range of affordable and ergonomic gaming furniture and accessories, designed to increase performance while also blending in beautifully to homes.â€

Given IKEA’s good track record with practical yet efficiently-costed office chairs, this sounds promising. The furniture line will be out in China first in February 2021, and will be available in other regions and countries later on by October 2021. This isn’t Asus’ first rodeo in the gaming chair-making department, though it won’t be the last.
Asus isn’t the first to team up with a prominent furniture company. Logitech previously announced its partnership with Herman Miller for a luxury gaming chair line. But that isn’t coming out to Asia anytime soon, so you’ll have to make do with Asus’ and IKEA’s efforts next year. And it probably will be less taxing for your wallet (or your back).


Civilization 6 Is Now Free On Epic Games Store

Look out, Steam and GOG, the Epic Games Store is on a roll. After giving out Rockstar Games’ GTA V last week for free, they’re now offering Sid Meierâ€™s Civilization VI from now until 11pm on 28 May 2020.
You can grab the game over on its official store page here. The deal comes only a week after the Epic Games Store crashed for several hours due to the overwhelming number of users trying to claim GTA V.
Civilization 6 is the latest entry in Firaxis Games’ long-running turn-based grand strategy game franchise that dates all the way back to 1991 with the first Sid Meier’s Civilization. The sixth instalment was initially released in 2016, but itâ€™s still receiving new DLC expansions and had just launched on consoles in November 2019.
I personally prefer the real-time battles and sheer epicness of Creative Assembly’s Total War franchise, but the Civilization series is great in its own right, especially in the eyes of many strategy game fans.
My only advice is to take out Gandhi in the game as soon as you can, for your own good.
Trust me on this.
[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pwWowQvgT34&w=560&h=315]


Cross-Dressing Cloud Confirmed For Final Fantasy VII Remake

There were a couple of things from the original 1999 Final Fantasy VII that fans wanted to see returning in the upcoming Final Fantasy VII Remake. Square Enix gave them one of those, with the appearance of Tifa during Square Enix’s E3 2019 press conference.
In an interview with Famitsu (as translated by Gematsu), Final Fantasy VII Remake director Tetsuya Nomura has confirmed another one of those fan-wishes.
Yes, the infamous Honey Bee Inn cross-dressing event will indeed be in the game, albeit remade to be “more modern” to lessen “physical unease” due to current politically-correct sensibilities. That translates to avoiding backlash by easily-offended snowflakes.
Imagine this scene in glorious full HD or 4K.
Other details confirmed by Nomura include:

New elements like the Watchmen of Fate (the black mists seen in the trailer), mysterious beings that appear before the party wherever they go.
More dialogue options: Dialogues change based on the player’s response.
Several additional scenarios, including a number of new events (which is why they needed two Blu-Ray discs worth of content).
Aerith and Tifa are “double heroines”. One has a western-style look while the other an eastern-style look.
Tifa has abs and an athletic body. Square Enix ethics team told developers to “tighten her chest” to avoid getting jiggly during intense action.
Time slows when players open the command menu, allowing them to fight without stressing about enemies.
Each playable character has different enemy affinities.
Items are required for MP recovery.
There will be brand new enemies.

Final Fantasy VII Remake is set to release for the PS4 on 3 March 2020. In the meantime, rewatch the E3 2019 trailer below.
[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z3xSGv3Hfio&w=560&h=315]


Bravely Default 2 Guide: The Best JP Farming Spots

Bravely Default 2 is a really tough and challenging JRPG throwback. But with a lot of time and diligence, you can eventually conquer the story and get all the endings. The only way to do that with grace & style is by using all the Jobs you get in the story mode.
With 24 Jobs at your disposal, that equals to a lot of Job Points you need to get the skills you want, the passives you need to equip, and quite a long way to master the Jobs you want to main.Â You can either plough through the main story and grind to get the JPs, but you can take the JP farming route and max out a Job or two in less than an hour.
Weâ€™ve found three spots where you can do that. Watch the video below to see what they are.Â

Spot #1 (Chapter 1)
The first area is a dungeon north of the first town Halcyonia.
Head inside the dungeon, take the teleporter to this section,Â and herd the enemies all the way to this corner, then attack them. Chaining encounters like this will boost up the JP you earn in that single battle.
You can start spooking enemies if youâ€™re stronger than them. Once youâ€™re done with the Prologue and if you can access the second town Savalon, the one with all the sand, you should be able to spook them in this dungeon.
Spot #2 (Chapter 2)
The tower dungeon in the third town, Wiswald, the one with the Scottish accents, has a similar spot where you can herd enemies into a corner, ripe for chaining and fighting.
You should be able to do this if your party is level 28 and above.
Spot #3 (Chapter 3)
You can only access this in the 3rd Chapter when you can enter the fourth town Rimedhal, the one with the snow and dragon. The farm spot is at a dungeon called Jaws of Judgment; youâ€™ll be visiting this in the course of the story.
Before approaching the area, just make sure to have two thieves in your party all maxed out. Give them the Magpie, Spearhold, and Rob Blind support skills. Equip them with spears, and with Thiefâ€™s Gloves; you can get the latter from Rimedhalâ€™s store. And if you can, give them Solar and Moon passives from the White and Black Mage jobs for a boost in Luck regardless of the day cycle.
Go to the second dungeon Jaws of Judgment, go to this spot with the three chests. You have to open the top one. The encounter from this nasty surprise chest will pit you against 3 angry spirits and 2 big wiki wikis.
DO NOT KILL THE ENEMIES IN THIS GUARANTEED ENCOUNTER. Instead, steal from the big wiki wikis to get four Medium JP orbs. Then use Flee to run away.
The Spearhold passive along with your equipped spears will guarantee the Thieves to take the first turn. If you run away from this fight, the chest will remain closed. This means you can start farming JP orbs if you keep this chest unopened and its enemies unharmed. If you do it right, that means you get 900 JP per minute. So just repeat until you get 99 JP orbs or something.


Ghost Of Tsushima Legends Drops Next Week

Back in August 2020, Sucker Punched announced Ghost Of Tsushima Legends; a new online co-op multiplayer mode which would arrive in a free update. Now, they have confirmed (via PlayStation Blog) that it will be coming for all players of the game on 16 October 2020.
Ghost Of Tsushima Legends will feature two-player story missions and four-player survival missions, as well as a Raid that will arrive later in the weeks post-launch.
After players have downloaded the version 1.1 of Ghost Of Tsushima on 16 October 2020, they will have to head to the PlayStation Store to download Ghost Of Tsushima Legends. It’s important to note that PlayStation Plus is required to actually play it.
In version 1.1. of the game, a new character named Gyozen the Storyteller will appear at various towns and locations in Tsushima. He is the author and gatekeeper of the stories contained in Ghost of Tsushima: Legends.
Speaking to Gyozen will give players access to the Ghost Of Tsushima Legends lobby, but they can also get there directly from the title menu or the pause menu, or even by accepting a PSN invitation from a friend.

Ghost Of Tsushima Legends Classes
In Ghost Of Tsushima Legends, players will be able to pick between one of four classes. Each one has its own unique advantages. After a short tutorial at the beginning of the game, players can choose which class they want to unlock first. As they rank up, they will unlock each of the remaining three classes.
In addition to each starting with their own unique ability, each class can also unlock an alternate ability as you progress, as well as earning class-specific Charms and ranged weapons.Â
While playing with friends, players can mix and match classes, whether it’s a party of four all playing the same class or everyone playing as a different class.
Samurai

Samurai players can run straight toward combat and stay there, sustaining their health while chopping enemies down left and right. When youâ€™re overwhelmed, use the Hachimanâ€™s Fury ultimate attack to slash through enemies in a flurry of strikes.
Hunter

As a Hunter, you can stand on the edge of combat and snipe enemies before they even see you. You can also use explosive arrows to slow down groups, and when the combat gets really fierce, the Eye of Uchitsune ultimate attack will unleash multiple arrows straight at your enemiesâ€™ heads.
Ronin

Ronin players can revive their entire team with the Breath of Izanami ultimate ability. You might play Ronin because you want to help your human friendsâ€¦ or you might do it because the Ronin class is also able to summon a Spirit Dog. (And yes, you can ABSOLUTELY pet your Spirit Dog!)
Assassin

If you prefer doing massive damage with a single attack, youâ€™ll love the Assassin. The Shadow Strike ultimate attack will allow you to teleport across the battlefield and directly strike your enemies. If thatâ€™s not intimidating enough, wait until you see the terrifying masks the Assassin gets to wear!
Story Missions
Ghost Of Tsushima Legends Story Missions are designed for two players, and take you through Gyozenâ€™s stories about whatâ€™s really happening in Tsushima. When you unlock higher difficulties, youâ€™ll face new encounters, tougher enemies, bonus objectives, and greater rewards.
Survival Missions
In Survival, you can team up with three other players to fight off waves of enemies while defending different locations in Tsushima. You and your team can activate blessings to help yourselves, like â€œignite enemiesâ€ or â€œsummon a Spirit Bear.â€ The longer you survive and the more bonus objectives you complete, the more rewards youâ€™ll earn.
Raid
Youâ€™ll need all your skill, top-tier gear, and a great 4-player team to be able to survive in Iyoâ€™s realm. The Raid is an epic three-part adventure that will require excellent teamwork and communication to overcome. It will be released in the weeks following the launch of Ghost Of Tsushima Legends.
New Game Plus
If youâ€™ve already beaten Ghost Of Tsushima, youâ€™ll find the option to re-embark on Jinâ€™s Journey in New Game+. Youâ€™ll start New Game+ from the release to the open world, shortly after Jinâ€™s initial confrontation with the Khan.
Youâ€™ll keep all of the Techniques, Gear, and Vanity items obtained in a previous playthrough, and difficulty will be increased to provide a new challenge (but you can still adjust it down in the menu).
Youâ€™ll also find yourself with a brand new New Game+ horse, which features a vibrant red mane and unique saddle. There are also new and extremely powerful Charms available that can help Jin unleash devastating attacks and may change the way you play.
Youâ€™ll also be able to unlock an additional upgrade for your sword, bow, and armor.
Trophy hunters will appreciate the new Trophies for playing Ghost Of Tsushima on New Game+, which will appear in a separate section of your Trophy list and do not count toward Ghost Of Tsushimaâ€™s Platinum Trophy.
Exclusively in New Game+, players will also be able to earn a new type of flower: the Ghost Flower. This new type of flower can only be earned in New Game+ and is accepted by a mysterious new merchant that youâ€™ll find in Ariake.

If you complete a Tale or activity and already have the reward, youâ€™ll earn Ghost Flowers in its place, so even if youâ€™ve completed JInâ€™s journey before, itâ€™s still exciting to explore Tsushima once again to collect as many Ghost Flowers as you can.
You can exchange these flowers for new armour dyes and other vanity gear only found in New Game+, featuring much more elaborate designs than those found in your first playthrough.
The merchant will also offer an array of powerful new Charms intended to create new combat experiences, empower existing playstyles, and allow you to customize your experience for even greater challenges.
Other Features
Once youâ€™ve installed version 1.1, youâ€™ll now find the option to enable Armor Loadouts, which allow you to assign all Charms and vanity items to each armour set to quickly swap between load-outs to match your playstyle and roleplaying preferences.
Last but not least, your total play time will be displayed when you select a saved game file to load, and new options have been added to Photo Mode.Â
In the meantime, check out the trailer below:


Westworld Season 4 Premieres On HBO GO Malaysia Later This Month

The Emmy-winning HBO Original drama series Westworld will debut its eight-episode fourth season same time as the U.S. on Monday, 27 June 2022 at 9am only on HBO (Astro Channel 411) and HBO GO, with a same day encore at 10pm on HBO. Subsequent episodes will follow every Monday.
Westworld Season 4 is set to continue the dark odyssey about the fate of sentient life on earth.
Returning cast members include Evan Rachel Wood (Mildred Pierce, Thirteen), Emmy® winner Thandiwe Newton (Crash, Line of Duty), Ed Harris (Game Change, Empire Falls), Jeffrey Wright (Angels in America, The Batman), Tessa Thompson (Men In Black: International, Sylvie’s Love), Luke Hemsworth (Neighbours), Aaron Paul (Breaking Bad) and Angela Sarafyan (Reminiscence, The Good Guys).
Oscar winner Ariana DeBose (West Side Story) joins the Westworld cast as a recurring guest star this season.

Westworld was created for television by Jonathan Nolan and Lisa Joy, who are executive producers with Alison Schapker, Denise Thé, J.J. Abrams, Athena Wickham, Richard J. Lewis, and Ben Stephenson. Production companies include Kilter Films and Bad Robot Productions in association with Warner Bros. Television, and is based on the film written by Michael Crichton.
You can stream or download Westworld Season 4 from 27 June 2022 on HBO GO. The previous three seasons of Westworld are also available on HBO GO. Subscribe to HBO GO online at https://www.hbogoasia.my/ or the mobile app via the App Store or Play Store for as low as RM23.30/month. You can also access HBO GO via Astro. HBO GO is also available on Android TV, Apple TV, LG TV and Samsung Smart TV – and comes with AirPlay and Google Cast functionality.


Former Witcher 3 Devs Fool’s Theory Are Making A New RPG, Project Vitriol

Publisher 11 bit studios and developer Fool’s Theory have announced Project Vitriol, a narrative-driven RPG and the publisher’s largest enterprise to date. However, platforms and a release date were not announced. A full reveal is slated for sometime in summer 2022.
Project Vitriol has a budget of over 17 million zloty (roughly US$3.8 million), which allows for full voice acting and motion capture sessions.
In a press release (via PCGamesN), Fool’s Theory CEO and project lead Jakub Rokosz said:
“Our game is a deep, morally ambiguous narrative-driven RPG. But let me unveil a bit of the real essence: the game is about the esoteric side of reality, that dark part of the world that most of us don’t see and are not aware of. But the darkness—it is there, lurking behind every corner. It watches us closely from the shadows, and whether we know it or not, takes its toll, making sure we’re going to have a debt to pay.
[Vitriol‘s] story begins in a place and time where reality, folklore, energy and mysticism met together in a melting pot: early XX century Warsaw, under imperial Russian tsardom. Global reveal of Project Vitriol coming this summer!”
Those at Fool’s Theory were former developers who worked on The Witcher 3. They previously released Seven The Days Long Gone in 2017, an open-world action RPG game.


Spider-Man Across The Spider-Verse Ending Explained & Post-Credits Breakdown

Miles Morales returns for the next chapter of the Oscar-winning Spider-Verse saga, Spider-Man Across The Spider-Verse. After reuniting with Gwen Stacy, Brooklynâ€™s full-time, friendly neighbourhood Spider-Man is catapulted across the Multiverse, where he encounters a team of Spider-People charged with protecting its very existence. But when the heroes clash on how to handle a new threat, Miles finds himself pitted against the other Spiders and must redefine what it means to be a hero so he can save the people he loves most.
Spider-Man Across The Spider-Verse premieres in Malaysian cinemas on 1 June 2023. Check out my review by heading over here.
Spoiler warning, beware of spoilers ahead:

Spider-Man Across The Spider-Verse Ending Explained

There’s a lot that happens in Spider-Man Across The Spider-Verse, but here’s the gist of it all. It turns out that the collider explosion at the end of Spider-Man Into The Spider-Verse caused Jonathan Ohnn, a scientist from Alchemax, into The Spot, a villain whose body is now covered by interdimensional portals that allow him to travel through space and different universes. He blames Miles Morales for the accident and now wants revenge. To do that, he recreates the collider explosion (albeit a smaller and more controlled one) to increase his powers and allow him to explore the Multiverse. His plan is then to explore the Multiverse and visit the colliders at all the alternate versions of Alchemax to absorb their power, thus increasing his own powers even more to make him powerful enough to exact revenge on Miles Morales.
In the movie, Miles also reunites with Gwen after she visits him. It turns out that she could now visit him because she was now part of the Spider Society, a group of Spider-People led by Miguel O’ Hara AKA Spider-Man 2099 to safeguard the Multiverse. However, this is when several revelations are, well, revealed.
How the Spider Society protects the Multiverse is by making sure that anomalies are cleared when they appear and “canon events” take place when they’re supposed to. According to Spider-Man 2099, canon events are what makes the Spider-People who they are and connected via the web of life and destiny. Canon events include the deaths of Uncle Bens and the deaths of police captains close to that particular Spider-Person. For instance, the canon events for Peter B. Parker were the deaths of Uncle Ben and George Stacy (the father of Gwen Stacy), just like in the comics. When canon events are disrupted or don’t happen like they’re supposed to, it can result in dimensional rifts that will destroy that world, or potentially cause a chain reaction that destroys all worlds. Meanwhile, anomalies are events that aren’t supposed to happen, or when different dimensions collide (when a person from another dimension enters a dimension that’s not their own).
It turns out that Miles Morales (Earth-1610) himself is an anomaly. He was never supposed to have powers because the radioactive spider that bit him came from another dimension (Earth-42). Jonathan Ohnn AKA The Spot was the one that brought the spider from Earth-42 to Earth-1610.
It is also revealed that The Spot plans to exact revenge on Miles by killing his father after he becomes a captain. According to the rules of the Spider Society, Miles can’t stop this from happening because it’s a canon event. Miles refuses to accept this, which brings him into conflict with Spider-Man 2099 and the Spider Society. He goes on the run and uses a machine to bring him home but the machine brings him back to Earth-42 instead of Earth-1610. On Earth-1610, Miles’ father is already dead but his uncle Aaron is still alive. He eventually gets knocked out and finds himself face-to-face with the Prowler of Earth-42, which turns out to be another variant of Miles Morales.

Meanwhile, Gwen is able to traverse the Multiverse again thanks to Spider-Punk, and she recruits several Spider-People, including Spider-Ham, Spider-Man Noir, Peni Parker, Pavitr Prabhakar, and more to help rescue Miles. Spider-Man 2099, along with Jessica Drew and Ben Reilly Scarlet Spider, are still searching for Miles while Spot has finally gathered enough power. That’s where the movie ends, on a cliffhanger.
Spider-Man Across The Spider-Verse Post Credits

There are no post-credits scenes in Spider-Man Across The Spider-Verse. After the movie ends, it only states that “Miles Morales will return in Spider-Man Beyond The Spider-Verse”.
Spider-Man Beyond The Spider-Verse is slated to premiere sometime in March 2024, which is less than a year from now. Perhaps Sony Pictures Animation wanted to just release a trailer for the movie sometime in the near future, instead of teasing something via post-credits scenes.
Spider-Man Across The Spider-Verse Deaths

Despite how dark the movie is, there are no major deaths in Spider-Man Across The Spider-Verse, unlike the deaths of Earth-1610 Peter Parker AKA Spider-Man and Aaron Davis AKA Prowler in Spider-Man Into The Spider-Verse.
What To Expect From Spider-Man Beyond The Spider-Verse

Since there were no post-credits scenes in Spider-Man Across The Spider-Verse, what can we expect from Spider-Man Beyond The Spider-Verse when it premieres in March 2024?
Miles Will Be Rescued By Gwen And The Spider-Gang
This is highly likely a given, as Spider-Man Across The Spider-Verse ended with Gwen recruiting both new and familiar faces to save Miles, who is trapped on Earth-42 by his variant, who is the Prowler on that world.
But First, Gwen And The Spider-Gang Will Probably Have To Get Through Spider-Man 2099 And His Goons First
However, it probably won’t be that easy, with Spider-Man 2099 and his Spider goons still tracking Miles. They’ll get into another Spider-fight for sure.
Spot Is The Main Antagonist
Spot ended Spider-Man Across The Spider-Verse as arguably one of the most beings in the Multiverse. The final showdown will likely be between him and the Spider-People.
But Is He, Really?
Our Theory: Miguel O’ Hara Might Be An Inheritor, Why Is Spider-Man 2099 A Vampire
That being said, it would be somewhat anti-climactic if Spot ends up being the trilogy’s ultimate villain. Sure, Spider-Man Across The Spider-Verse did a great job building him up to be a much worthier villain than he ever was in the comics, but still, I’m sure Spider-Man fans will be looking forward to another major villain or two stepping in.
However, with one movie left to tie up current loose ends, it might feel a bit rushed to introduce new villains in Spider-Man Beyond The Spider-Verse. If they do end up introducing new villains, I still go by my predictions from way back in 2018; Morlun and the Inheritors, who were the main villains of the original 2014 Spider-Verse comic crossover.
Also, in Spider-Man Across The Spider-Verse, Spider-Man 2099 is a vampire for some reason, but this was never explained. A potential twist in Spider-Man Beyond The Spider-Verse is that he might be an Inheritor, or a vampire working for the Inheritors.
The Inheritors The Inheritors are basically a family of powerful vampires who feed on the life force of Spider Totems AKA Spider-People from across the Multiverse. A Spider-Man villain named Morlun is one of them. He is also one of the few villains who Spider-Man is genuinely afraid of and have almost died fighting against multiple times.

Of course, all of this remains speculation until we at least get a proper official trailer for Spider-Man Beyond The Spider-Verse. Until next time, excelsior.


Avengers: Endgame Is Officially The Highest-Grossing Film Of All Time

We did it, folks. Through sheer nerd-power and fan energy, we’ve managed to defeat the evil that is blue CGI aliens AKA Avatar. James Cameron’s science fiction tale of humans colonizing a moon (it’s a moon, not a planet, I checked) has finally been dethroned and is now the second highest-grossing film of all time.
After a second run, Avengers: Endgame has finally beaten Avatar and is now officially the highest-grossing film of all time. According to Bloomberg, the most ambitious superhero crossover film (so far) has raked in an estimated US$2,790 billion worldwide as of 21 July 2019. Avatar, on the other hand, accumulated US$2,789 billion and thanks to that amount, it sat at the top spot for pretty much a decade.
A shot from Avatar. The film was indeed gorgeous.
This isn’t Marvel’s (and Disney’s) first big achievement in the last ten 10 years. While Avatar was still top dog, the MCU was dominating the box office charts for at least 4 separate years. This year’s top-grossing film is obviously Endgame while last year’s was its prequel Avengers: Infinity War. In 2016, Captain America: Civil War was the top-grossing film and in 2012, it was the first Avengers movie.
With an average grossing of US974 million for each film, the Marvel Cinematic Universe has been the highest-grossing film franchise of all time for a while now. The only franchise with more films than the MCU is the James Bond franchise which has 26 films while the MCU has 23 (up to Spider-Man: Far From Home).
With the announcements of a lot more projects coming out in the next two to three years, the MCU-train isn’t stopping anytime soon. It is indeed a great time to be alive for fans of superhero comic books and movies.


All The Games From Ubisoft Forward July 2020

The Ubisoft Forward 2020 live stream took place earlier today, featuring release date announcements and new game reveals.
Check out the games below:
Far Cry 6

Ubisoft has officially announced Far Cry 6 for PS5, Xbox Series X, PS4, and Xbox One, as well as PC via the Epic Games Store, Uplay, and Stadia on 18 February 2021.
Users who purchase Far Cry 6 on PS4 or Xbox One will be able to upgrade to the PS5 or Xbox Series X version at no additional cost.
Far Cry 6 will be available in the following editions:

The Gold Edition:

Base game.
Season Pass.

The Ultimate Edition:

Base game.
Season Pass.
Ultimate Pack, which includes Jungle Expedition pack, the Croc Hunter pack, and the Vice pack.

The Collectorâ€™s Edition:

Base game.
Season Pass.
Ultimate pack.
High-end replica of ‘Tostador’.
In-game flamethrower weapon (seven parts to be assembled, length: 72cm).
A â€œHow to Assembleâ€ one-pager artwork illustrated by artist Tobatron.
A unique Collectorâ€™s Case based on Tobatronâ€™s iconic art style.
An exclusive Steelbook.
A 64-page artbook.
A set of 10 stickers.
A Chorizo keyring.
A map.
A selected soundtrack.

Pre-orders for any edition above includes the â€œLibertad Pack,â€ which includes the â€œLibertadâ€ outfit for Chorizo and the â€œDiscos Locosâ€ weaponized disc launcher.
In Far Cry 6, players are immersed in the adrenaline-filled, chaotic world of a modern-day guerrilla revolution. Welcome to Yara, a tropical paradise frozen in time. As dictator of Yara, Anton Castillo is intent on restoring his nation back to its former glory by any means, with his son, Diego, following in his bloody footsteps.
As Dani Rojas (playable as a female or male character), players will help stoke the fires of revolution through guerrilla warfare across the island of Yara, from verdant jungles to the urban streets of the capital city, Esperanza. They will use a powerful array of weapons and vehicles, as well as build a network of allies, including Fangs for Hire like Chorizo, the dangerously distracting wiener dog.
As President Castillo prepares his son Diego, played by Anthony Gonzalez (Pixar’s Coco), to succeed him, players will do all they can to ensure his plans donâ€™t come to fruition.
For the first time in a Far Cry game, experience a sprawling capital city: Esperanza, the most expansive Far Cry playground to date. Players can take down Anton in the seat of his power by staying hidden or engaging Antonâ€™s army in an all-out firefight in the streets. This includes taking the reins of a horse to commandeering a tank.
[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mbGbLWevpC4&w=560&h=315]
Assassin’s Creed Valhalla

Assassinâ€™s Creed Valhalla is slated to release for the PS4 and Xbox One, as well as PC via the Epic Games Store, Uplay, and Stadia on 17 November 2020. It’s also coming to PS5 and Xbox Series X, but a release date was not announced.
Users who purchase Assassinâ€™s Creed Valhalla on PS4 or Xbox One will be able to upgrade to the PS5 or Xbox Series X version at no additional cost.
[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sGyM5Xh7Jf0&w=560&h=315]
In Assassinâ€™s Creed Valhalla, you are Eivor, a fierce Viking warrior raised on tales of battle and glory. Explore a dynamic and beautiful open world set against the brutal backdrop of Englandâ€™s Dark Ages. Raid your enemies, grow your settlement, and build your political power in your quest to earn your place among the gods in Valhalla.
Players can dual-wield powerful weapons such as axes, swords, and even shields in any combination, even two shields at once. This game also features actual brutal beheadings and decapitations. They can also launch massive assaults against Saxon troops and fortresses throughout England or raid enemy territories to bring riches and resources to further developer their settlement.
[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YdzcijLhQV8&w=560&h=315]
Watch Dogs Legion

Watch Dogs Legion is slated to release for PS4, Xbox One and PC on 29 October 2020, as well as coming soon to next-gen consoles like the PS5 and Xbox Series X on an unspecified date.
In Watch Dogs Legion, players can build a team with a huge range of characters to choose from, all bringing their own unique abilities. From a brilliant hacker to a getaway driver, from a football hooligan to an inconspicuous old lady, everyone has a unique backstory, personality, and skill set that should be used in unique situations. Customize your Legion with enhanced gadgets, unique outfits and iconic masks.
The story is this: After a mysterious assailant initiates devastating terror attacks on London, DedSec, a secret underground resistance who is being blamed for the attacks and is on the brink of annihilation, needs your help. Your mission is to rebuild DedSec to fight back against those who wish to keep London oppressed. You will continue to meet colourful characters along the way, both villains and allies, in your fight for London.
[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E_V-YQW3Gos&w=560&h=315]
Players can also weaponize Londonâ€™s tech infrastructure, and unleash DedSecâ€™s mastery of technology: hijack armed combat drones, reconstruct past events using augmented reality to discover who is behind the terror attacks, and hack their way through the most advanced security systems.
Players can explore a massive urban open world and fight to liberate Londonâ€™s many famous landmarks, including Trafalgar Square, Big Ben, Tower Bridge, Camden, Piccadilly Circus, or the London Eye, as well as engage in side activities like bare-knuckle boxing, darts, freestyle football, illegal courier contracts or street art.
Players can also join forces with up to three friends in online multiplayer as they freely explore London together or take on special co-op missions, and unique game modes.
[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nGBrGqXILgM&w=560&h=315]
Brawlhalla

Publisher Ubisoft and developer Blue Mammoth Games will release Brawlhalla for iOS via the App Store and Android via Google Play on 6 August 2020.
Pre-registration is available now on the gameâ€™s official website. Brawlhalla is currently available for PS4, Xbox One, Switch, and PC via Steam.
[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JLgow3nFhxA&w=560&h=315]
Hyper Scape

The battle royale multiplayer shooter game Hyper Scape is now available for PC in open beta. It’s also coming to PS4 and Xbox One at a later date.
Hyper Scape is an urban futuristic free-to-play battle royale where 100 contenders engage in first-person shooter close-quarters and fast-paced matches to become the next global superstar.
It alsoÂ introduces Hacks, abilities that players can loot in the world the same way they do weapons. Hacks grant offensive and defensive capabilities to suit all play styles. Laying down a mine, seeking an enemy, protecting the squad with a big wall or turning invisible to sneak up on opponents are just a few examples of the Hacks players can combine and swap effortlessly. All Hacks and weapons can be upgraded through the Fusion mechanic to produce more powerful iterations of the pre-existing item.
Hyper Scape innovates and twists the battle royale formula in many ways, such as the unpredictable Decay which dissolves the map of Neo-Arcadia into different patterns, or the unique Echo mechanic that keeps players active in the battle even when theyâ€™re down. At the end of a Hyper Scape match, the climactic showdown phase starts when the Hyper Scape crown spawns on the map. Players have two different ways to claim victory, either by picking up and carrying the crown for 45 seconds or by being the last player or squad standing.
Developed in partnership with Twitch, the Hyper Scape Crowncast Twitch extension will entertain viewers by letting them impact the game in real-time, creating unprecedented interaction between streamers and their fans. Viewers will also have a real-time impact on the battle by voting on events that affect all contenders within a match, such as low gravity or infinite ammo.
[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=85joJs1cWac&w=560&h=315]
Tom Clancy’s Elite Squad

Tom Clancy’s Elite Squad is now open for pre-registration on Google Play Store and Apple App Store (via the official website). Players can collect and upgrade your favourite characters from Rainbox Six, Ghost Recon, The Division, Splinter Cell and more, as well as command their best squads in stunning and dynamic 5v5 battles.
[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R0pg58gzxYY&w=560&h=315]
The Crew 2

Ubisoft previewed what’s coming in future updates from August 2020 onwards, including the Flashy 80’s update as part of the Summer in Hollywood, which will include legendary 80’s cars like the DeLorean.
Players can also receive the 1967 Volkswagen Beetle for 1 Crew Credit from now until 14 July 2020 and catch a sneak peek of what’s to come for Year 3 in Motornation.
The Crew 2 is available on Xbox One, PS4, and PC.
[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SSVHwcrSvQc&w=560&h=315]
Trials Rising

Trials: Rising will be getting the Gigatrack on 16 July 2020, the longest track in Trials franchise history. It will be free for all players.
[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=72I_uNHINKk&w=560&h=315]
Ghost Recon Breakpoint

Ghost Recon Breakpoint will receive a free Title Update (2.1.0) on 15 July 2020. It will add AI teammates to the game for the first time, letting solo players choose whether they want a squad of operators to play with, who will have the same abilities as player-controlled characters. Solo players will also be able to give orders to and customize the gear of AI teammates.
[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0LwQ0xBzEAk&w=560&h=315]
In addition, the update will also add a new limited-time event, Resistance!, beginning on July 2020. The event will see players attempting to save prisoners, attack outposts and stop convoys. Playing the event will unlock 14 new rewards, which will be available until 29 July 2020.
[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3KwjuHtO-z8&w=560&h=315]
Just Dance 2020

Just Dance 2020 Season 3 will add three new songs, three returning songs, and a new playlist. The Season 3 trailer introduced “Hype” by Dizzee Rascal & Calvin Harris, “La Respuesta” by Becky G Ft. Maluma, and “Crayon” by G-Dragon.
The three returning songs will be:

“Barbra Streisand (2019 Edit)” by Duck Sauce
“Giddy on Up (Giddy On Out)” by Laura Bell Bundy
“Mas Que Nada” by Sergio Mendes ft. The Black Eyed Peas.

This update will be released on 23 July 2020.
[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xwFKlMm82AU&w=560&h=315]
Curious Expedition 2

Curious Expedition 2 is the follow-up to the award-winning 19th-century expedition simulation. Join the legendary Explorer Clubs and venture on unprecedented expeditions to regions never explored before for fame, science and treasures.
It is now on Steam Early Access.
[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wC43-xmjl9w&w=560&h=315]
Surgeon Simulator 2

The physics-based pandemonium returns with Surgeon Simulator 2, the gut-busting sequel to the original operation sim. From 4-player co-op to the all-new Bossa Labs Creation Mode, players can explore an entire medical facility of wonder in this fully fleshed-out sequel.
[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h3zFJTAxsbw&w=560&h=315]
Spiritfarer

Developed by Thunder Lotus Games, Spiritfarer is a cosy management game about dying. As ferry master to the deceased, build a boat to explore the world, care for your spirit friends, and guide them across mystical seas to finally release them into the afterlife.
It will be available sometime in 2020 on Xbox One, PC, PS4, and Nintendo Switch.
[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0AtPu52_plI&w=560&h=315]

What Happened To The Other Ubisoft Games?
[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m5tztyiT99s&w=560&h=315]
At the end of the Ubisoft Forward 2020 live stream, the publisher confirmed that another Ubisoft Forward presentation will be held later this year at an unspecified date, presumably closer to the launch of next-gen consoles like the PS5 and Xbox Series X.
The very first Ubisoft Forward was relatively decent, but it lacked any genuine surprises and several missing games. Sure, we finally saw more of Assassin’s Creed Valhalla and Far Cry 6, but what about other games?
For instance, Beyond Good And Evil 2 was initially announced at E3 2017, but not much has been revealed about the game since then (with the exception of its delay announcement earlier this year). It’s disappointing then, that it wasn’t even mentioned in the Ubisoft Forward live stream, alongside other long-announced games like Skull & Bones.
Other games, which were announced at E3 2019, were also absent from Ubisoft Forward, including Gods And Monsters and Rainbow Six Quarantine. That rumoured new Prince Of Persia game was a no-show as well.
Perhaps we’ll see some of these, or none of them, in the second Ubisoft Forward planned for later this year.


Ben Stiller Dresses Up As Kratos In New God Of War Ragnarok Ad

Want to see a bunch of comedians ham it up in a new PlayStation game ad? Look no further than this new God of War Ragnarok video ad, because lord knows the very serious video ads for the game were too intense.
Spanning at 2 minutes and 49 seconds, the ad features Ben Stiller who dresses up as Kratos, John Travolta, and Lebron James with their children in a parent-child counselling session in a fancy room. Said room is decorated with pictures of the game’s main heroes Kratos and Atreus, along with taxidermy bears and wolves, as well as drinking horns.
The ad itself is the brainchild of Sony Interactive Entertainment’s global marketing team, which touts the ad as a “Super Bowl-level spot” (via Entertainment Weekly). I think there’s some comedy and wordplay in here beyond the novelty of seeing the Zoolander guy in white-and-red Kratos cosplay, I guess. Humour is subjective, after all.
Check out the commercial below and judge it for yourselves:

God of War Ragnarok will be out on 9th November for PlayStation 5 and PlayStation 4.