Toby Fox Shares Another Development Update On Deltarune Chapter 3, 4 & 5

“Progress has still been steady”.

Undertale creator Toby Fox has rolled out his “holiday newsletter” for 2024 and it’s got some “progress updates” in it about Deltarune Chapter 3, 4, and 5.

Chapter 3 has recently been tested by a “professional team on PC” and it’s “pretty solid now”. According to Fox, “only console-related aspects remain”. He’s even got some impressions from the team who playtested it:

Read the full article on nintendolife.com

The Hidden Ones (Hitori No Shita: The Outcasts) Preview: Not Just a Pretty Face

The comeback wasn’t going to happen. I was blowing it. I lost my first character in my first match of The Hidden Ones because I didn’t cash out with my Ultimate Skill, but I made a comeback with my mid before losing her to my opponent’s anchor. I didn’t have a great answer for what he was doing, and I was convinced I was going to waste what had started off as a great comeback. Then my anchor came out. It was my first game; I’d never used her before. And at first, it was going about the same, and then I realized what I was doing. I canceled my default combo into another combo then another, and cashed out with my Ultimate. And on the last hit, I got the kill. God, I love fighting games, and if my time with it is any indication, The Hidden Ones is living up to what makes the genre so great.

If you’re not up on The Lore ™, The Hidden Ones is based on the anime Hitori No Shita: The Outcasts, which in turn is based on Under One Person, a Chinese webcomic. Whew. Okay, so the history is a little complicated, but you don’t really need to know what’s going on with the other parts of the series to vibe with The Hidden Ones. I have no experience with the anime, but I was able to follow what I saw pretty easily. I started with the story mode, which dropped me into the shoes of Wang Ye. Ye is one of the Outcasts, blessed with one of the Eight Secret Arts, which were generally believed to have been lost to time. Once people figure out what Wang Ye has, though, they go after him to get it.

Wang Ye tries to nip this in the bud by speaking with Li Gaofeng, the head of the Li Troupe, and trying to convince him to leave Wang and his family alone. Impressed by Wang’s gumption and fighting prowess, Li agrees to let him go and leave his family alone. Of course, things don’t go as planned and Wang finds himself framed for Li’s murder and battling the Li Troupe as he tries to escape.

The Devil’s in the Details

Whew, okay, set up. What’s cool, though, is the game Morefun games has made out of this. The Hidden Ones would probably be best described as an arena fighter, but you don’t just go from fight to fight. Between the fights themselves, you’ve got the ability to run around and check out The Hidden Ones’s world, whether that means enjoying the environmental detail on display or checking out a ledger or diary you find in the world. This attention to detail is important: during an interview that happened between my two play sessions, Lead Game Designer Fox Lin and Senior Game Designer Stan Fan told me that the team at Morefun spent a long time capturing the detail of these environments, many of which are based on actual, individual Chinese streets. They wanted the world of The Hidden Ones to feel real, and that comes across even in the relatively small area I was playing in.

The same is true of The Hidden Ones’s visual style. This game is stunning, and that attention to detail is clear in everything from the characters to the way they fight. This is intentional, too. The story and world of The Hidden Ones are based heavily (though not exclusively) in Chinese martial arts and myth, and that meant getting the little details right, right down to the motion capture done by real martial artists.

These are regular people, and that’s a major part of the story here, even if they are throwing punches and casting magic.

Morefun is also quick to note that while the Outcasts are incredibly powerful, they’re also folks going about their day. Maybe they’re going out to buy groceries or just using their abilities to accomplish their goals in subtle ways. The point is these are regular people, and that’s a major part of the story here, even if they are throwing punches and casting magic.

Like a Flowing Stream

Speaking of the fighting, The Hidden Ones feels great when you’re throwing punches. This is an arena fighter, so movement is crucial, but the rock-paper-scissors interactions of what makes a fighting game a game fighting work are here, too. You’ve got your basic attacks, which lose to special attacks; those losey to your defensive stance; and your defensive stance loses to attacks, which become throws if they’re in that stance. There’s also a dodge, which costs a limited amount of stamina, and you can time perfectly for a Witch Time-style slowdown that will allow you to retaliate when you otherwise wouldn’t, and a parry that you can perform out of your defensive stance during special attacks, so you can swap from defense to offense with a well-timed button press.

Stamina also comes into play on offense. You can spend it to cancel actions — whether they’re physical or special attacks — allowing you to build custom combos and combos into your Ultimate Skills, which is how I won that match I told you about at the start. If you’re the one getting your face rearranged, you can also spend stamina to break out of combos and reset to neutral. Put together, all of this means that, despite The Hidden Ones’s fairly simple control scheme and combo structure, you’re constantly making interesting choices where you’re alternating between playing neutral, reacting, and pre-empting your opponent, all while managing your character’s unique skills (Wang Ye, for instance, has a special attack that can go into three different variations). The right play at the right time, like say, throwing out a special attack when you think they’re going to swing at you, can swing a match.

Nah, He Just Looks Big

The real meat and potatoes, and my favorite part of my time with The Hidden Ones, is going to be the mano a mano fights between your three-person teams against other players, but I also really enjoyed the three boss fights I got to play. The first, which I ran into during the story mode, started off as a one-on-one brawl before the boss in question brought out her skyscraper-sized snake, forcing me to play around its massive fangs before its master would come down and I could get back to the fine art of knocking her out.

Arena fighters are a tricky business, but so far Morefun has nailed the balance of simplicity, depth, and game feel that any good fighter needs.

If that’s not enough for you, though, there’s also Trial mode, where you can face off against a boss with any of the characters you’ve got. There were two available in the demo I played, and both were challenging, especially on the highest of the available difficulties. Both eventually went down, but they forced me to use characters I knew, pick my spots, and learn their patterns. It’s a fun change of pace for a game like this, and I’m eager to see what other fights look like in the future.

When my time with The Hidden Ones ended, I left excited, and wishing I could have played more, especially more multiplayer. But I left with a good idea of what Morefun is trying to accomplish, and I liked how much cool stuff there was and how unique and interesting the characters they’ve created here are. Arena fighters are a tricky business, but so far Morefun has nailed the balance of simplicity, depth, and game feel that any good fighter needs while providing more to do if you’re not looking to throw down online. I’m excited to see where The Hidden Ones goes, and in the meantime, I’ll be thinking about landing that Ultimate Skill at the right moment, and how cool it was that The Hidden Ones gave me the options to play how I wanted in that moment. Like its characters, The Hidden Ones knows even when the chips are down and the outcome is uncertain, there’s always a play to be made, hidden in plain sight.

Thieves Steal Thousands Of Pounds Of Rare Pokémon Cards From YouTuber’s Company

Around £250k’s work have been taken in a “targeted attack”.

Thousands of pounds of Pokémon Trading Cards have been stolen from Ace Grading, a Banbury-based Card Grading company run by TCG YouTuber Randolph.

As reported by the BBC, the break in took place on Friday 13th December in what Randolph and his company has called a “targeted attack”. Thames Valley Police believes that an estimated GBP £250,000 worth of cards have been stolen from the company’s headquarters.

Read the full article on nintendolife.com

Vote for Your Favorite Games of 2024 in the IGN People’s Choice Tournament

From iconic names like Indiana Jones and Final Fantasy to indie sensations like Balatro and Animal Well, 2024 has provided gamers with a variety of incredible experiences. IGN is in the process of picking our game of the year, but now you have the chance to have your voice heard too in the IGN People’s Choice Tournament.

With our partners at Truth, we’ve selected 64 of the best titles of the year to be placed in a bracket and randomly sorted into groups. They’ll go head-to-head, with the winner moving on to the next round and the loser being eliminated. As the rounds progress, the competition will get tougher, until there’s only one title left standing as the fan-voted Game of the Year. If you’re familiar with how March Madness brackets work, it’s the same concept.

Tournament Schedule and How to Vote

Voting will take place on IGN’s Instagram starting today, December 18. We’ll post the matchups to our Instagram stories around 3 p.m. ET / 2 p.m. CT / 12 p.m. PT, and you’ll have 24 hours to vote. The 32 winners will move on to the next round, where the process will repeat. Here are the dates when each round will be posted (around the same times listed above), so make sure to check back on our Instagram stories to continue voting for your favorite games:

  • Round 1: December 18
  • Round 2: December 20
  • Round 3: December 23
  • Quarterfinals: December 27
  • Semifinals: December 30
  • Finals: December 31

Which Games Are Grouped Together?

As we mentioned earlier, the bracket placements of the 64 games we selected were randomized. They were split up into four groups, like the regions of March Madness. Group 1 is led by some heavy hitters: Helldivers 2, Call of Duty: Black Ops 6, and Indiana Jones and the Great Circle. But they’ll have to go up against breakout indie Animal Well. Plus, three popular sports games: Madden NFL 25, College Football 25, and MLB The Show 24. And you can’t look past the beautiful visuals of Unicorn Overlord and Infinity Nikki.

Group 2 is led by the excellent Silent Hill 2 remake, but it’ll face stiff competition from a trio of RPGs — Like a Dragon: Infinite Wealth, Dragon Age: The Veilguard, and Shin Megami Tensei V: Vengeance. There’s also heralded remasters and remakes from Nintendo with Luigi’s Mansion 2 HD and Paper Mario: The Thousand-Year Door. And we can’t leave out the technical marvel Senua’a Sage: Hellblade II, or another standout indie in Lorelai and the Laser Eyes.

Group 3 ended up stacked with three games that have been cleaning up during awards season: Astro Bot, Metaphor: ReFantazio, and Black Myth: Wukong. They’re joined by an eclectic group of competitors. There’s entries from massive franchises in Star Wars Outlaws and Warhammer 40,000: Space Marine 2 (which will face off against each other in Round 1). There’s games from other long-running series in Tekken 8 and Super Monkey Ball Banana Rumble. There’s the latest version of sports franchises in EA Sports FC 25 and NBA 2K25. But also some notable new IPs with Stellar Blade and Slitterhead.

Rounding things out, Group 4 is also full of some big names. First, there’s indie darling Balatro, which has also done very well for itself this awards season. But it’ll have to get through two huge RPG sequels in Final Fantasy VII: Rebirth and Dragon’s Dogma 2, as well as a popular RPG remake in Persona 3 Reload. And they’ll be up against several family-friendly opponents in The Legend of Zelda: Echoes of Wisdom, LEGO Horizon Adventures, Super Mario Party Jamboree, and The Plucky Squire. Not to mention the often overlooked Prince of Persia: The Lost Crown and surprise hit Enshrouded.

As you can see, this year is going to be a hotly contested race. So make sure you head over to Instagram to vote for each matchup and help determine which games will move on and which will be sent packing. It’ll all build to a big reveal of the fan voted Game of the Year. Happy voting!

Fortnite Leakers Say Mariah Carey Will Soon Emerge From a Giant Block of Ice in the Game

According to tradition, the holiday season actually began over a month ago when Mariah Carey once again emerged from a giant block of ice to sing Christmas anthem “All I Want for Christmas Is You.” Fortnite’s is arriving a bit late to the holiday party, but leakers say an upcoming update to the game will replicate this timeless holiday tradition and have Mariah Carey burst forth from a large block of ice in the game, bringing with her holiday character skins and the Winterfest event.

This news comes from prominent Fortnite leaker iFireMonkey, who has previously been a source of credible Fortnite leaks. Per their information, Mariah Carey will be getting a Fortnite skin as part of its upcoming Winterfest 2024 event, alongside Snoop Dogg and Shaquille O’Neal. All of them will, of course, be dressed in holiday finery.

Another leaker, Egyptian_Leaker, suggests that there will be an additional event involving a large block of ice that’s already appeared on the Fortnite map. Per them, the ice block will defrost after three days, and Mariah Carey will appear in-game as an NPC handing out gifts to players.

For the time being, she remains tragically frozen:

Alongside Mariah Carey, iFireMonkey has posted a number of other holiday-themed leaks we’re likely to see in the coming days. These include loads of holiday-themed skins and accessories (one of them is a backpack full of bread dogs!), new emotes and dances, and the return of Sgt. Winter as an NPC. We’ve also heard that Skibidi Toilet is coming to Fortnite…tonight. Just in time for the holidays.

Winterfest 2024 launches on December 20 and runs through January 7. In addition to the rumored holiday skins and Mariah Carey’s ice block extravaganza, Epic Games has confirmed we’ll see the return of Jonesy’s Cabin.

Rebekah Valentine is a senior reporter for IGN. You can find her posting on BlueSky @duckvalentine.bsky.social. Got a story tip? Send it to rvalentine@ign.com.

Opinion: At Last, Vanillaware Hit The Big Time With Unicorn Overlord

“A unicorn is worth more than riches”.

In 2009, in the run-up to Christmas, I remember poring over a recent issue of Official Nintendo Magazine looking for games I might want for the holiday season. Flicking through the pages and taking in every single word, one review in particular jumped out at me. The art style was something I’d never seen in a video game before. I was obsessed with Japanese folklore at the time. And, even though the gameplay sounded like nothing new, it scratched my 2D action-platformer itch.

That review was for Muramasa: The Demon Blade, and this was my first brush with Vanillaware. My love of the Osaka-based developer, and this game in particular, is documented, but it was established at the very moment I saw Muramasa on the TV screen, with Edo Japan rendered in beautiful watercolour visuals. Vanillaware has always been known as the studio that makes pretty games with pretty food – and, sometimes, the studio that gives us, um, very exaggerated art – but over the past four years, I’ve seen a real shift in appreciation that I’ve been hoping for.

Read the full article on nintendolife.com

Creating Atomfall’s Haunting Casterfell Woods – Check Out Exclusive New Screenshots

Creating Atomfall’s Haunting Casterfell Woods – Check Out Exclusive New Screenshots

Atomfall Hero Image

A few weeks ago, we released the latest trailer for Atomfall, our upcoming game where you will have to uncover the mystery behind what happened at the UK’s Windscale nuclear power station in the 1950s. This is a fictionalised telling of what happened following this real-life nuclear disaster in Northern England.

The trailer showcases the game’s folk horror influences and give you the first glimpse of Casterfell Woods, an eerie location within Atomfall where you will encounter an unsettling wicker man and a ringing telephone box that needs to be answered.

But what were our influences behind Casterfell Woods? We thought it would be interesting to let you know how we came up with this unique aesthetic.

From the outset, we knew that we wanted some spookier areas of the game, where we could emphasise folk horror and provide some contrast with our more idyllic areas. Most of our outdoor environments are very green, vibrant, pretty, and very much British. But for Casterfell, we wanted the player to question what things might happen in the deep dark woods. Hidden things can happen there, secret and ancient things… We knew that this would be a ton of fun – so started doing our homework.

Atomfall Screenshot

Our initial goal was to establish the visual baseline for our sandbox spaces, with a focus on the content that we needed to build out our various natural biomes. Then, we could start adding our thematic twists.

Early in the project, the team took quite a few trips up to the English Lake District for reference gathering and to capture photogrammetry content. For several of the non-Brits on the team (myself included, as an American) this was incredibly exotic. For anyone who hasn’t been there, it is an extremely diverse area of outstanding natural beauty and diversity. It is just so wet and green, with lakes and streams everywhere, and tremendous stone formations topping the high fells and hilltops. The entire area is just dripping with greenery, ferns, and moss.

Atomfall Screenshot

As I was new to driving in the UK, I found those tiny Cumbrian roads terrifying! There are slate stone walls on one edge, and steep drops into a lake on the other. But the trips were very educational, and the views were sensational. By the end of the trip, we had a ton of fantastic reference, fabulous photogrammetry content, and were confident that we could ground the game visually in the north of Britain.

Next up, were the twists. How could we make our world different from a typical holiday trip to a beautiful natural destination? How could we layer in an older era, and warp things a bit more?

We started looking at storytelling focused on folk horror, sci-fi, and old-school British imaginative fiction for inspiration. Films like The Wicker Man, The Blair Witch Project, Annihilation, and Midsommar were great to look at. Then of course we have BBC programming like Doctor Who, The Prisoner, and The Quatermass Xperiment, as well as books by John Wyndham, who has so many wonderfully weird stories.

Atomfall Screenshot

We wanted the player to feel that they are stepping into an older era. The real Windscale nuclear accident was in 1957, which is when the quarantine began in our game. As we were intending to be a period piece, how could we impress that into a natural area? This was a tough one, and we had a lot of conversations about it. I mean, especially in the woods, where trees pretty much would have looked the same in 1957, 2024, or 1066.

We began asking ourselves who was living out there, beyond the comforts of village life? How would they survive with no manufactured resources?

The answer was pretty simple in that these outcasts would survive just as they had in archaic times. We would regress them even further back and have them use what was at hand. Wattle (and daub) construction became our go-to architectural style. Thatched roofs, woven branches and vines, and dry-stone structures also seemed to fit. Even though many of these traditional methods of construction can still be seen in the modern day, they are really ancient and foreign to many of us who grew up elsewhere.

Atomfall Screenshot

Then, taking into account our inspirational media reference, and our desire for more Britishness, we began layering even more symbolic imagery. Ancient markings, effigies, and wickermen, all intermingled with more traditional maypoles and bunting to give strong pagan religious overtones.

We think you are going to love exploring Casterfell Woods and discovering the secrets that it holds when Atomfall is released on March 27 for Xbox Series X|S and Windows PC, and day one with Game Pass. We can’t wait for you guys to get your hands on the game.

Atomfall

Rebellion

A survival-action game inspired by real-life events, Atomfall is set five years after the Windscale nuclear disaster in Northern England.
Explore the fictional quarantine zone, scavenge, craft, barter, fight and talk your way through a British countryside setting filled with bizarre characters, mysticism, cults, and rogue government agencies.
From Rebellion, the studio behind Sniper Elite and Zombie Army, Atomfall will challenge you to solve the dark mystery of what really happened.
Player Driven Mystery: Unravel a tapestry of interwoven narratives through exploration, conversation, investigation, and combat, where every choice you make has consequences.
Explore this Green and Unpleasant Land: The picturesque British countryside, with rolling green hills, lush valleys, and rural villages belie the dangers that await you.
Search, Scavage, Survive: You’ll need to scavenge for supplies, craft weapons and items, and fight desperately to make it out alive!

Desperate Combat: With weapons and ammunition scarce, each frenetic engagement will see you blend marksmanship with vicious hand-to-hand combat. Manage your heart rate to hold a steady aim and ensure you have the energy you need to reach for your cricket bat and land the killer blow.

Green and Unpleasant Land: The picturesque British countryside, with rolling green hills, lush valleys, and rural villages belie the dangers that await you. Navigate cult-controlled ruins, natural caves, nuclear bunkers and more as you explore this dense, foreboding world.

Reimagining Windscale: A fictional reimagining of a real-world event, Atomfall draws from science fiction, folk horror, and Cold War influences to create a world that is eerily familiar yet completely alien.

The post Creating Atomfall’s Haunting Casterfell Woods – Check Out Exclusive New Screenshots appeared first on Xbox Wire.

PS5 Pro Technical Seminar reveals new in-depth details on console

It was wonderful to see the launch of the PlayStation 5 Pro console a few weeks ago. For those interested in the in-depth technical aspects of PS5 Pro, we’ve put together a video describing the bits and bytes behind the console: how it came together, how it works, and why it’s the first step in an exciting new journey for gamers. You can watch below!

Note: the below video is focused on the technology behind PS5 Pro and doesn’t feature new game announcements or new gameplay footage.


PS5 Pro Technical Seminar reveals new in-depth details on console

In the presentation, you’ll learn what the “advanced” in “Advanced Ray Tracing” really means, the difference between FLOPS and TOPS, and some of the challenges involved in developing the efficient machine learning hardware needed for PSSR – the AI-driven upscaling featured in PS5 Pro.

At the end of the presentation, I also do something that we typically don’t do at SIE – I touch on how our learnings with PS5 Pro will fuel our future ambitions in our never-ending quest to push the boundaries of play. AMD has been a fantastic partner for SIE for many years now, and I’m honored to announce that we have begun a deeper collaboration with a focus on Machine Learning-based technology for graphics and gameplay. Both AMD and SIE share many of the same goals related to advancing the medium of video games. Watch the presentation to learn more about this exciting plan!

We also did an encore presentation of this lecture before an audience including journalists from Digital Foundry, IGN, and Wccftech. Keep an eye out for their coverage, and more discussion of RDNA, ray tracing, and machine learning.

Ubisoft Call of Duty Rival XDefiant Gets Hefty Final Update Ahead of Shutdown Next Year

Ubisoft’s failed Call of Duty rival XDefiant has received a hefty final update today, December 18, ahead of its shutdown in 2025.

The XDefiant X/Twitter account shared the patch notes, below, while executive producer Mark Rubin thanked fans and the development team in his own post for their dedication to the game since before and after its May 2024 launch.

“I wish everyone who worked on this game directly or indirectly the best for their future endeavors,” Rubin said. “And the same goes for all of the fans who played our game, who streamed it, or who worked to build the XDefiant community.”

XDefiant’s final S3.0+ update includes the previously announced Assassins class, which are modelled after Assassin’s Creed’s titular heroes, alongside myriad additional features that were planned for now cancelled future seasons.

This includes a total of three new factions, 13 new maps, a new experience called Tactical, a means of gaining experience versus bots, new weapons, new progression mechanics for Faction Mastery and Badges, and more.

xDefiant is a free-to-play, fast-paced arena shooter that combines intense gunplay with personalized loadouts and specialized factions. But that market can be incredibly brutal, and perhaps after PlayStation arena shooter Concord was shut down after just two weeks on the market, some fans of xDefiant grew concerned for its longevity.

While Rubin said in September that XDefiant “is absolutely not dying,” Ubisoft announced earlier this month it would be shut down on June 3, 2025.

XDefiant Update S3.0+ Patch Notes

Factions

New Faction: Assassins

  • Hiding in plain sight through the centuries, the Assassins have waged a clandestine war against their ancient enemies, the Templars, to safeguard human freedom. Assassins combine rigorous combat training, unconventional weaponry, and a sixth sense to track and take out their targets. Their signature Hidden Blade is a one-hit melee elimination.
  • The Assassins receive combat guidance from Rebecca Crane, the technical genius who developed the Animus 2.0, an advanced model of the machine that lets Assassins relive genetic memories. She guided some of the Order’s most well-known Assassins, including Desmond Miles. With Crane’s assistance, the Assassins work in the dark to serve the light, combating oppression with lethal force.

New Faction: Wolves

  • Ex-special forces gone rogue, Wolves employ an arsenal of Skell Tech drones for both offense and defense. The Wolves trait allows the pack to be a sight unseen, undetected by AI abilities and devices. Their Legion drone acts like a homing proximity mine, while the Stolas is effectively a mobile turret. And their ultra, Drone Swarm, is the last word on area denial.

New Faction: Blood Dragon

  • Super-deadly cyber commandos from a dark future where cyborgs and mutants collide. Use your cyberstrength, throw deadly shuriken, strike with your shock punch, or use the Killstar laser to deal massive damage.

Fixes and Changes:

Cleaners

Fixed a couple of glitches with the Cleaners’ Incinerator Drone when Hijacked by a DedSec player:

  • The Drone no longer explodes next to the player who Hijacked it.
  • The Drone now leaves a complete fire trail back to its point of origin.

Echelon

  • No longer have a 50% reduction in flash grenade duration debuff

Phantoms

  • AEGIS – Addressed issue with shots not registering at point blank range.
  • Blitz – Increased movement speed to truly “Blitz” your opponent.

DedSec

  • Spiderbots 2.0 – We got the message. Spiderbots, DedSec’s infuriatingly face-adjacent electro-minions, are now less in your face and more of an area-of-effect threat. When activated, Spiderbots will now dutifully follow their deploying player for 30 seconds, emitting an electromagnetic pulse that disrupts all enemy equipment within a 10-meter radius. And with that, the era of Spiderbot facehugging comes to a close.

Highwaymen

  • M79
  1. Fixed an issue that would lock the skill when activating right after a weapon swap
  2. This should now have damage dealt while on different elevations
  3. Improved handling and reload speed
  4. Cooldown reduced to 40s
  • Buzzsaw Launcher
  1. Increased ammo count
  2. Addressed issue with damage inconsistency

Maps

New S3 Maps

  • Mykonos (Arena): Experience the island of Mykonos like the ancient Greeks did, except with more rooftop firefights, in this new map for Season 3. Your itinerary includes sprinting by market stalls, seeking roof access for the high ground, and jumping across boat decks in high-risk flanking maneuvers.
  • El Barrio (Arena)
  • Jorvik (Linear)
  • Animus Anomaly (Tactical): Ancient worlds collide in Animus Anomaly, a new corridor-style map for Season 3. Hunker down among Viking castles, flank around the waterways of ancient Greece, or go out with a boom in the new Defuse tactical variant of BOMB!.

New Future Maps – These maps were scheduled for later seasons but were too much fun not to release!

Arena

  • Carlyle’s Lab
  • Enchanted Forest
  • Killstar Temple
  • Razia’s Realm
  • Skell City
  • West End

Linear

  • Skell Complex
  • Esperanza
  • Himalaya

Fixes and Changes:

  • Adjustments were done to invisible collision and areas where players were able to jump to places that are out of bounds for the map.
  • Adjustments to some maps where scrap turrets were also being placed where they’re not supposed to be.
  • DUMBO has decked the halls to be more festive for the holidays
  • Players can no longer climb and leap their way into what was supposed to be an inaccessible area of some maps, where they were using El Remedio to heal allies and doing other sneaky exploits.
  • Many maps have undergone improvements to mantling which should now be fixed in several map locations that previously were not.
  • Map voting improvements

Game Modes

New Modes:

Defuse

  • This season sees the debut of Defuse, a tactical and slower-paced version of BOMB!. Teams take turns planting and defending bomb sites, yet all players only have one life. Defuse is designed for play on a new “corridor” type map, in this case the Animus Anomaly created exclusively for this category.

Vs Bots

  • There’s now a Vs Bots option where you can face off against varying levels of computers. You’ll even earn XP by battling bots. Although at a slower pace with human enemies.

Lum Hunt

  • Catch them if you can, Lums (beings of pure energy possessing of a mindbogglingly sunny disposition) have been placed around the Enchanted Forest map in this variant of Hot Shot. Also available in Private Matches.

Tilt

  • Now available in our Linear playlists, this mode is a simultaneous battle over who can push around Carlos the most, poor robot.

Turbo XD

  • Super jump your way to victory in this gravity defying mode.

New Party Modes Playlist

  • From one shot kill, to headshots only, and even no skills allowed, there’s a little something for everyone in this playlist. With no one here to make names for them, we wish you the very best of luck to figure them out.

Fixes and Changes:

  • Team balancing overhaul to ensure the fairest matches.

BOMB!

  • Several quality-of-life improvements to BOMB! spectator cam.
  • Planting and Defusing behavior improved not to conflict with other game features like looking at the scoreboard.

Private Match

  • Fixed an issue where the lobby menu would become blank after another player accepts a private match party invite.
  • Now allows you to select the server you wish to play on.

Ranked

Ranked BOMB!

  • With Ability Restrictions still in place, we took it 1 step further and you will only be allowed to use your ability once per life.
  • Round timer changed in Ranked BOMB! from 2 mins to 1min 30s, plant and defuse times adjusted, and Round 11 will go to highest scoring team.

Top 500 Leaderboard

  • Season 3 sees the debut of the Top 500 leaderboard, which showcases the top 500 players globally each season as they progress through the ranks until the season’s end. These top players are displayed in descending order of total Rank Points earned in the current season. Highlighting a player on the Leaderboard displays the following stats:
  1. Current rank insignia and RP total.
  2. Win/Loss: Player’s ratio of wins to losses.
  3. Kill/Death: Player’s ratio of kills to deaths.
  4. Average Score/Minute: Player’s average score per minute.
  5. MVPs: Number of times the player earned MVP.

Ranked Emblem in HUD

  • Proudly display your ranked tier right on your heads-up display for all to see.

New Ranked Rewards

  • New S3 specific Ranked Rewards are available (to everyone).

Fixes and Changes:

  • Matchmaking ranges have been disabled and join in progress has been enabled so that matches are easier to find.
  • Reduced the forfeit timer duration from 20s to 5s.
  • Players are no longer pulled out of active Ranked game sessions after accepting the Party invite for a Private Match.
  • Added a new menu experience, now players will be able to search for games and jump back to the Ranked menu tab to view rewards, info, and the top 500 leaderboard.
  • Removed Domination and CTF from Ranked playlists.

Weapons

Assault Rifle

  • FAMAS – The FAMAS is a burst-fire rifle like the M16A4 but with faster ADS time, movement, and rate of fire. It is slower to reload, however, and inflicts less hurt per shot.
  • G36K

Sub-Machine Gun

  • M1928

Light Machine Gun

  • MG5 – Despite its shorter range and lower ammo capacity than other belt-fed LMGs, the MG5 with its higher rate of fire makes it a powerful and versatile option for those who can master its challenging recoil.

Marksman

  • M1A – An agile warhorse built for medium-range battles, the M1A offers a speedy rate of fire but deals less per-shot damage compared to other marksman rifles.

Sniper Rifle

  • SRS

Pistol

  • Diceros

Fixes and Changes:Sawed-off Shotgun Balance Adjustment

  • The range and damage potential of the Sawed-Off Shotgun have been adjusted to better focus it on its intended role as a short-range kill-finisher and prevent it from killing full-health opponents with a single shot.
  1. Short Range reduced from 8m -> 6m
  2. Medium Range reduced from 12m -> 10m
  3. Short Range Damage reduced from 12 -> 11
  4. Bullets Per Round reduced from 12 -> 9
  • Tweaked smoke grenade effects so that some components of cosmetic skins will no longer be visible through the smoke, while also improving the size, shape, and transparency of the smoke particles and radius of effect.
  • Adjusted the camera shake so that now it is based on distance to explosion. Removed friendly explosion camera shake.

Attachments

Tapered Barrel

Introduced the Tapered Barrel, an attachment for most weapons that increases handling speed but reduces damage. Here are the pluses and minuses:

  • Pros:
  1. 25 percent boost to sprint-out time
  2. 15 percent ADS speed increase
  3. 5 percent movement speed increase
  • Cons:
  1. 20 percent short-range damage decrease
  2. 20 percent medium-range damage decrease
  3. 10 percent ADS walking speed decrease
  • In other words, this barrel will help you scoot around the map at a zippier pace, but you’ll likely need to land more shots than normal to get kills.

New Reticle Customization

  • New for Season 3: Customized reticules. Players can unlock new reticule shapes and adjust their colors (a helpful feature for players with colorblindness). Custom reticules will be tied to individual loadouts.

Fixes and Changes:

  • Fixed a graphical glitch that let players see parts of their weapon barrel through the Reflex and Holographic sights.
  • Fixed a lagging magazine when player reloads weapons.
  • Fixed floating when using left-handed skills and reloads.
  • Fixed a scope crosshair missing when player ADS in spectating mode.
  • Several skins have had their sights adjusted to match the base weapon being used.
  • Various visual improvements

Progression

Prestige System!

  • Introducing Prestige, an optional new progression system that rewards long-haul dedication with flashy cosmetics and extravagant emblems that showcase your experience to other players. Available to anyone who has completed their Base Challenges, Prestige resets player progress in exchange for an eye-catching Prestige Emblem. All starter and owned weaponry are locked – except the M4, M9, and frag grenade – but can be earned as players earn XP and Prestige Tokens to access their original gear plus new weapons until they complete the current Prestige Tier and acquire the next eye-catching emblem. Players can opt out of Prestige at any time and recover their weapons, or they can commit to unlocking the final Prestige Emblem, the ultimate display of dedication.

Badges!

  • Badges are part of a mysterious new challenge-based progression system where players earn Badges for performing impressive feats and engaging with the game in creative ways. All Badge challenges have hidden requirements, encouraging players to go online and engage with the XDefiant community. Badges can also evolve, requiring players to complete the challenge a second or third time but with more challenging requirements for success.

Faction Mastery!

  • Allows players to level up characters, earn prestigious rewards, and track their progression within the game

Pristine Weapon Mastery Skin

  • A new Pristine Weapon Mastery skin is unlocked at weapon level 50 as an early reward to encourage players to pursue Weapon Mastery. These new Pristine skins are like unmarred, fresh-from-the-factory versions of these weapons. Pristine skins are retroactively applied to any weapons that have already reached level 50.

Daily Rewards and Credits

  • Players can now earn various rewards just for logging into the game. Bigger rewards are granted every 5th and 10th login. The days do not have to be consecutive.
  • Credits are a brand new in-game currency. Use Credits to buy cosmetics from previous seasons, giving you the opportunity to get any skins you may have missed back then, but you have everything now, so that’s nice

Fixes and Changes:

  • Some Challenges, particularly those related to faction characters, weren’t progressing on the main menu, but now they are.

Audio

  • Battle announcer lines have been tweaked for their frequency of play:
  1. Lines announcing death streaks (or dying multiple times without killing an enemy) will trigger less often (now players need to die five times rather than three, and the death streaks will only trigger during the second half of a match).
  2. Lines related to suffering from fire damage (from the Purifier, (Firebomb, Incendiary Drone–really anything involving the Cleaners) will trigger less frequently.
  • Phantoms – Blitz – Now has sounds for blocking a melee attack and for attacking others with a Blitz Shield.
  • GSK – Hardhat – Audio improved for impact confirm headshot
  • Highwaymen – M79 – Now has sounds for hit confirm and impact confirm with the M79.
  • Other various audio improvements.

Miscellaneous

  • New Assassin’s video on the main menu
  • New Career Stats page
  • New Store Layout
  • New Weapon Inspect
  • Input-based matchmaking is now disabled by default for faster matchmaking times.
  • Fixed various crashes and errors

Ryan Dinsdale is an IGN freelance reporter. He’ll talk about The Witcher all day.