Category: Video Games

Activision Blizzard Settles Justice Department Lawsuit, Agrees Not to Limit eSport Player Salaries

Activision Blizzard settled a lawsuit with the U.S. Department of Justice over allegations that the publisher imposed a limit on esports players’ salaries paid by the Overwatch and Call of Duty leagues.

The department filed the complaint in the U.S. District Court in Washington, D.C. on Monday, saying that Activision Blizzard, which owns the Overwatch League and the Call of Duty League, and the independently owned teams agreed to impose the Competitive Balance Tax. As its name suggests, the tax was designed to limit competition between the teams by suppressing the wages of esports players and fined teams for paying players above a certain threshold set by Activision Blizzard, which the department said violated the Sherman Act.

The DOJ added that Activision Blizzard dropped its salary limit rules in October 2021 following its investigation into the Competitive Balance Tax.

“The tax was never levied, and the leagues voluntarily dropped it from our rules in 2021,” Activision said in a statement (per Reuters). “We have always believed, and still believe, that the Competitive Balance Tax was lawful, and it did not have an adverse impact on players.”

The complaint said that the tax affected every esports player since the inception of each league — the Overwatch League started in 2018, while the Call of Duty League began in 2020 — especially players with larger salaries. This is because, unlike other professional esports players who agreed to salary restrictions through the collective bargaining process, players in the Overwatch and Call of Duty leagues were not part of a union nor did they negotiate wage rules.

Per the settlement, Activision Blizzard agreed not to impose any salary limits on the esports players in its leagues nor fine the teams for paying high salaries to certain players. However, the settlement still needs to be approved by a federal judge for it to take effect.

The settlement is the latest in a series of legal issues facing Activision Blizzard. The National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) filed a complaint against the publisher last Friday over allegations of illegal surveillance of employees and other labor law violations, including threatening to shut down communication channels.

Cristina Alexander is a freelance writer for IGN. She has contributed her work to various publications, including Digital Trends, TheGamer, Twinfinite, Mega Visions, and The Escapist. To paraphrase Calvin Harris, she wears her love for Sonic the Hedgehog on her sleeve like a big deal. Follow her on Twitter @SonicPrincess15.

Kick Elden Ring enemies around like Dark Messiah in the impressive first-person mod

A new mod for Elden Ring adds one of the most important things a game can have: a really hefty kick to boot people onto their bums and over edges. This has come with an update to First Person Souls, an impressive mod which gives FromSoftware’s game a good first-person camera view. And thanks to the mod’s recent update, you can now punt ragdolling baddies across The Lands Between, following in the bootprints of games like Deathloop and Dark Messiah Of Might & Magic.

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Pokémon Stadium on Nintendo Switch Online Is Missing Its Most Important Feature

Pokémon Stadium is coming to Nintendo Switch Online next week but without arguably its biggest feature: the ability to transfer Pokémon from Game Boy titles Red, Blue, and Yellow.

Snuck into its reveal trailer (in tiny font for no more than five seconds) was the statement: “Please note you cannot transfer Pokémon from Game Boy titles in this version.” This means players will have to rent Pokémon instead, leading to what’s generally considered a less enjoyable experience.

“The first video game I’ve ever played,” said Zodyrus on Twitter. “One huge issue though. The question is will this be compatible with… anything? Cause you really cant get full enjoyment out of this game without using the Game Boy games alongside it.”

Other Pokémon Stadium fans are still optimistic though. “The lack of transfers is a massive shame but I feel like there’s still a bunch of stuff to tinker around and have fun with regardless,” said another user FizzaClips.

While fans didn’t expect their Nintendo Switch consoles to connect directly with a Game Boy, the issue has once again sparked debates around the lack of classic Pokémon games on modern consoles.

Following the 3DS eShop being shut down last week, the most recent console where players can enjoy the original Pokémon Game Boy games is 2001’s Game Boy Advance, and this is despite Nintendo releasing a collection of Game Boy games on Nintendo Switch Online in February.

Ryan Dinsdale is an IGN freelancer and acting UK news editor. He’ll talk about The Witcher all day.

Don’t Expect To See Future Super Mario Games On Mobile, Suggests Miyamoto

“Mobile apps will not be the primary path”.

When it comes to Nintendo’s mobile offerings, it’s safe to say that the general consensus amongst fans is something along the lines of “yeah, good effort, but not what we’re looking for”. Despite this, Mario Kart Tour in particular has seen considerable success over the last few years with no signs of slowing down, but when you look at games like Super Mario Run and Dr. Mario World, it certainly feels like they’ve just sort of come and gone (quite literally with Dr. Mario’s case).

With this in mind, Variety recently sat down to speak with Shigeru Miyamoto on the upcoming launch of the new Super Mario Bros. Movie, and the legendary creator made it quite clear that future Mario titles will likely not appear on smartphones in any capacity, stating “Mobile apps will not be the primary path of future Mario games.”

Read the full article on nintendolife.com

Overwatch 2: Introducing the Origins of Lifeweaver, a New Support Hero

Summary

  • Lifeweaver is the newest Overwatch hero, a support class with abilities that help his team both with healing and movement.
  • We can exclusively reveal his Origin Trailer, and spoke to Lead Narrative Designer Gavin Jurgens-Fyhrie to find out more about this new character’s story.
  • You’ll be able to play as Lifeweaver from April 11, and he’ll be free to use for a limited time.

Xbox can exclusively reveal the Origin Trailer for Lifeweaver, the newest hero coming to Overwatch 2. This new support hero will arrive as part of Season 4 on April 11, and offers some very new options to players looking to assist their team – and a brand new thread to the Overwatch storyline.

Niran ‘Bua’ PruksaManee is a Thai scientist who combines nature and technology to offer new ways to heal, move and damage, both for himself and his team. As with all of Overwatch’s heroes, he also comes with a rich backstory, which you can check out in the new trailer below:

All of Lifeweaver’s abilities stem from his background as a naturalist. Brought up wealthy in the sheltered world of Chiang Mai, Lifeweaver grew to love the natural world but, upon leaving home, he saw the devastation being wreaked on the environment outside of his home. He developed a new technology, bio-light, which uses the hard light wielded by the likes of fellow heroes Symmetra but fuses it with living plants. Refusing to let his parents or the Vishkar corporation use his technology for nefarious purposes, he fled home, determined to use his creation only for good.

To learn more about the creation of this unique new hero, we spoke to Overwatch 2’s Lead Narrative Designer Gavin Jurgens-Fyhrie. He explains that, as with all of Overwatch’s heroes, Lifeweaver began life as a series of gameplay ideas that needed a story created around them:

“He was design first and, from there, the story developed. What really struck the Narrative team is we knew we were going to do a plant hero, then we had to figure out how this person has plant powers. Then we saw the early prototypes and realized it doesn’t look like plants, but more like hard light, which led to his story being developed. It really highlights how the Overwatch team develops heroes, it’s very collaborative.”

The solution was to create the idea of bio-light, a new iteration of Overwatch’s existing hard light technology – already wielded by the likes of Symmetra and Lúcio. Lifeweaver created it to heal wounds and damaged plants, and wanted it to become free to use across the world – but his invention was claimed by the Vishkar corporation, a company most closely linked to Symmetra among the existing heroes.

It means that Lifeweaver’s story offers more to learn about Symmetra by association. “She was pretty much the one person at school who he understood and who understood him,” says Jurgens-Fyhrie, “and there is a lot there to explore. We can’t share too much about what is to come, but Vishkar is an important of the story, particularly for Symmetra and Lifeweaver.”

At the time of his introduction, Lifeweaver isn’t part of the in-universe Overwatch team, but Jurgens-Fyhrie says he’s known them while living as a fugitive, and is “loosely tied” to them in the same way Torbjörn is. Jurgens-Fyhrie won’t say if his story will become a part of the upcoming PvE story for the game, but we know that, “at the time of this announcement, Lifeweaver is living in the Atlantic Arcology, trying to find a way to cure diseases and heal the world.”

You’ll be able to play as Lifeweaver for free for a limited time from April 11, and an in-game event celebrating his addition to the roster will run until April 24. The event, also celebrating Thai New Year, will add an arcade mode, B.O.B. and Weave (which will allow players to play only as Lifeweaver), and by participating you can earn Lifeweaver’s Cassia skin (based on the national flower of Thailand, the Ratchaphruek).

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Get Meet Your Maker with PlayStation Plus, available today

We are so excited for the release of Meet Your Maker, available today on PS5 and PS4, and included Day 1 with PlayStation Plus memberships as one of April’s Monthly Games.

We launch today with a full arsenal of traps, guards, weapons, Custodians, and more already included for Builders and Raiders to discover and master. This is a game driven by user-generated content, and so for us, the next step is making sure our players are taken care of with a steady stream of new content to keep the possibilities, personalization, and creativity firing on all cylinders.

There’s a lot to look forward to, so let’s celebrate today with some tips and tricks plus everything we’ll be adding to the world of Meet Your Maker in the first three months after launch.

Tips & tricks

We hope you’ll have a blast building incredible Outposts and raiding the insane creations of other Builders. To close things out, we wanted to share a couple of quick tips for both roles to help you get started whether you’re playing solo or with a friend.

Builders:

  • Build Step-by-Step: Use a 3-step approach – build the basic structure, add traps and guards, then cosmetics.
  • Second Wave: Raiders still have to escape once they’ve grabbed the Genmat. Make getting out just as hard as getting in.
  • Anticipate: Think like a Raider as you set traps. How can you lure, herd, and trick them while using their reactions to your advantage?
  • Test: Test your own Outposts as a Raider. It’s the best way to know what’s working and what’s not.

Raiders:

  • Hardware: Stock up on useful consumables like speed boosts, deployable shields, and even respawn beacons.
  • Grapple Hook: This is your best friend. Master it. It gives you incredible mobility for both attacking and escaping.
  • Danger Signs: When a trap is tripped you get both a visual and audio cue before it deploys. Train yourself to react quickly.
  • Second Wave: Some traps and guards only activate after you grab the Genmat. Trust nothing on your way out.

Three-month content roadmap

Keeping things fresh, ever-changing, and always unexpected is our mission when it comes to adding content to Meet Your Maker.

We also want to make all this content easily accessible to all players, and so a lot of what you’ll see below is either free, or unlockable just by playing the game and earning in-game currency.

Hellscape Deco Pack – free/instant access (April 18)

Arriving a few weeks after launch this Deco Pack will be free and instantly accessible to all players. Deco Packs in Meet Your Maker are essentially themed building materials that add a totally new aesthetic to the game. Hellscape combines organic matter and industrial materials to create eerie, pulsating, and all-around unsettling Outposts that feel alive in the worst possible ways.

New Mods and Augments – free/unlockable with playtime (regular drops)

Over the first several months, we’ll also be dropping multiple new Mod and Augment additions for existing traps and guards which players can unlock with in-game currency. If Deco Packs are all about style, Mods and Augments are all about being a more effective killer. Builders get new ways to affect traps and guards for even more control over their setups and combos. Raiders are suddenly faced with fresh challenges to overcome just when they thought they’d figured everything out.

Major Content Update – Sector 1: Dreadshore (end of June)

Meet Your Maker’s first major DLC will come at the end of June and add a completely new environment to the game, as well a new Deco Pack, Custodian, trap, guard, weapon, and even a cosmetic collection.

When it comes to Sectors, new environments and new deco packs will always be instantly available for free to all players upon release. The environment introduces a completely new region along with a Sector-themed set of building blocks to create a completely different style of Outpost. All the gameplay elements are unlockable via playtime.

“A Sector is our way of traveling to a new location and uncovering weapons, guards, and other supplies that can be useful to the Custodian,” says Joe Dermo, Meet Your Maker’s narrative designer. “Each Sector has lore that can give us a clearer idea of what was happening in the world before its downfall.

“There are many Sanctuaries out there, so we envision how their inhabitants might have lived, how they’d adapt to their environment, and how their morality, or lack thereof, could lead them down a different path. Dreadshore will bring us beyond the sandy wastes to a very different location. The backstory will shine a spotlight on one of the themes of our universe: what happens when science and experimentation is pushed beyond its ethical limits.”

Meet Your Maker is available now on PS4 and PS5.

Arc System Works CEO Doesn’t Want Guilty Gear and BlazBlue to Compete With Each Other

When it comes to fighting games, Arc System Works is at the top of the food chain. Between Guilty Gear Strive, BlazBlue, Dragon Ball FighterZ, DNF Duel, GranBlue Fantasy Versus, and others, ArcSys is the most active developer of quality fighting games in the business right now, and as such, there’s no shortage of dream games that fans would love to see the developer tackle. At the Arc World Tour grand finals, I got a chance to sit down with Arc System Works CEO Minoru Kidooka to talk about some of those potential dream games, the future of BlazBlue, and his commitment to pursue new IP collaboration opportunities.

IGN: I believe we spoke at EVO last year and you mentioned that you wanted to be more aggressive about pursuing opportunities to collaborate with new IP owners. Is this still a major priority for you and in the intervening months, do you feel like you’ve made some progress in that regard?

Kidooka-san: I wouldn’t necessarily say it’s a priority at this point, but what we did say at Evo about trying to create more IP collaboration games is… Before EVO, during EVO, and after EVO, we’re still making steps towards that goal. So as a goal for ourselves and for our company, we really want to make something that makes the fighting community happy. So whether that’s using other IP or using our own games, we are just going to keep pushing forward to continue to make the members of the FGC satisfied.

For example, our previous games were with Bandai Namco, CyGames, as of today Nexon and [we are] in talks with other people about possibilities. We’re continuing to push forward so that the community can enjoy. So, I can’t go into details obviously at this point, but essentially that is the answer to your question.

IGN: Reflecting back on two years of Guilty Gear Strive, how do you feel about the performance of Strive and the future of the Guilty Gear series as a whole?

Kidooka-san: So regarding just Guilty Gear Strive, it both hit and kind of exceeded all of our projected expectations. Along with that, of course, we’ve put out the two seasons that we have already and we want the game to continue on and continue strong. So we plan to continue making those seasons available. But in terms of planning for the next game, in the Guilty Gear series, for now, we’re sticking to the seasons.
So of course, there’s still a lot to be done for the game. But once that is finished then they can start thinking of other things. But that’s a long ways to go.

Regarding Guilty Gear Strive, it both hit and kind of exceeded all of our projected expectations.

IGN: Another thing that we talked about back at EVO was BlazBlue. Where you said that you have a plan, but that your first priority was to expand Strive. With Strive now being on every major non-Nintendo platform, cross play being implemented, and we’re now going through season two, are there any updates to your plan regarding BlazBlue?

Kidooka-san: We’re very proud of how the community has interacted with [BlazBlue]. One thing that we’re concerned with, one thing that we’re thinking about right now is that we don’t want to really have Guilty Gear and BlazBlue competing with each other. So we are focusing mainly on Guilty Gear. But of course BlazBlue is a title that the community loves. The community has put so much effort into making it what it is today, and keeping that in mind, we do want to touch back on the series at some point. So it is definitely not the case that BlazBlue is done. It is something that will be in the future. But for now, Guilty Gear is the main.

We don’t want to really have Guilty Gear and BlazBlue competing with each other.

So if you think about the Guilty Gear series, when we moved into 3D, Xrd and Strive, that had a really strong impact and really strong reaction from the fans and that’s something we’re always pushing forward to. So when we make the next BlazBlue, we want to take a look at the technology of the time and see how that can create as equally strong an impact for the players. So as always, Arc System Works motto is to keep pushing forward and to keep having something new, exciting, and impactful for the users. And that’s something we’re going to be considering eventually when we do put out BlazBlue, something that has an equally strong impact as when you move to 3D with Xrd.

IGN: Switching gears to DNF Duel. You collaborated with Eighting, who is a very beloved fighting game developer themselves. Can you talk a little bit about that collaboration? Is that something you’re interested in continuing, both within the world of DNF Duel and beyond DNF Duel?

Kidooka-san: So something to keep in mind is that Arc System Works is not actually a very big company. We have around 200 members under our house, and with that limited amount of people, it’s a limited amount of resources we can put towards games. So working together with companies, like Eighting and other companies as well, really allows us to put out the games that we put out. Even Guilty Gear Strive was not 100% in-house. We had a lot of collaboration with artists and programmers outside of the company to help put that forward. So yeah, of course moving forward into other titles, into other games, we plan on continuing working with other developers to help us out and create those great games that Arc System Works is known for.

IGN: Finally, I’m going to bring up a game that is, I think a dream game in the idea of fighting game fans and it’s something that often gets brought up as something that they want to see Arc System Works do. Do you have any thoughts about potentially ever doing a One Piece fighting game?

Kidooka-san: As I said before, I want to work with other people and use what resources we have to create a fun game for the FGC to really rally behind. However, One Piece is something to think about. I can’t say whether we’re thinking about One Piece specifically. I can’t say, “oh yeah, One Piece, yes or no.” I can’t say either way, but it doesn’t mean it’s decided or doesn’t mean it’s outside the realm of possibility.

You really have to understand that we’re a small company. We can’t take up any project that comes across, we have to consider resources.

Mitchell Saltzman is an editorial producer at IGN. You can find him on twitter @JurassicRabbit

Remastered puzzler Desktop Dungeons: Rewind is launching this month

Originally released in 2010, Desktop Dungeons is a top-down puzzler about whacking beasties in the correct order, exploring the map to heal, and retreating to enjoy your hard-earned taxidermy skills. Desktop Dungeons: Rewind is a recently announced remaster of the tile-based roguelike – freshly coated with 3D graphics and a rewind feature – and it’s now fully launching on April 18th.

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Redfall: Exclusive New Look at Layla’s Backstory and Abilities | IGN First

Layla was there when Redfall was pulled into darkness by the vampire scourge now consuming the island. And, when it all went down, she wasn’t alone. In the new character trailer above you can take a look at where Layla’s fight with the vampires began – and see how her ex-boyfriend got pulled into the mess too.

If you haven’t seen, Layla’s ultimate ability is summoning her vampire ex-boyfriend to help her destroy the enemies before her. As she says, their relationship is complicated. Here’s Layla’s kit:

  • Power 1: Umbrella – Summon a psychic umbrella to block enemy and friendly projectiles.
  • Power 2: Lift – Summon a psychic lift that launches you into the air.
  • Ultimate Ability: Vampire Ex-Boyfriend – Call in a favor from your ex-boyfriend, Jason, who happens to be a vampire.

Layla’s powers allows her to participate in just about any role on the team. When I played Redfall during the single-player event in March, I found that Layla’s mobilty power, the Lift, was especially useful to get up high and sneak across rooftops to dodge engangements I might have had trouble with alone. Even though there is fall damage, high drops from Layla’s Lift didn’t result in any damage.

The developers at Arkane confirmed that each Redfall character has their own form of movement benefit, though it may not be obvious at first for two of them. More on those later as our Redfall IGN First continues throughout April. Until then, be sure to check out IGN’s Redfall single-player preview for more on what to expect from Arkane’s take on an open-world co-op shooter.

Miranda Sanchez is the executive editor of guides at IGN and a member of Podcast Unlocked. She’s a big fan of stationery and fountain pens. You can sometimes find her on Twitter.