Since 2017, over 2.6 million people have revisited their childhood fears by playing Little Nightmares. The strange events those fans experienced during their escape from The Maw have spawned countless theories and an active community of sleuths, all trying their best to interpret the dark yet charming dollhouse of a dream that they explored with Six.
Now, you can sample a demo of the new nightmare from the creators of this much-beloved game. Play as Mono and explore the Wilderness outside of the Pale City, where you can just begin to see the effects of the Transmission warping the world around him. He’ll have a chance to save Six from captivity, and together, they’ll have to survive an encounter with the Hunter, who doesn’t appreciate it when prey escape from his traps.
Both this demo and Little Nightmares IIcan be played on Xbox One family of devices with enhancements for Xbox One X including higher resolution, improved loading times, and additional visual effects.
Later this year, an upgraded version of Little Nightmares II will be available for Xbox Series X|S to take full advantage of the improved SSD and increased power of these consoles. More details about this upgrade will be shared later. Those who purchase Little Nightmares II for the Xbox One will receive this Xbox Series X|S upgrade for free via Smart Delivery.
Try the demo and then pre-order the game to be the first to wake up in the haunting expanse of the Pale City when Little Nightmares IIreleases on February 11! And if you haven’t played the original Little Nightmares, it’s currently available with your Games with Gold or Xbox Game Pass Ultimate membership until January 31.
Pre-order Little Nightmares II and receive the Mokujin Hat as wearable headgear for Mono. Return to a world of charming horror in Little Nightmares II, a suspense adventure game in which you play as Mono, a young boy trapped in a world that has been distorted by the humming transmission of a distant tower. With Six, the girl in the yellow raincoat, as his guide, Mono sets out to discover the dark secrets of The Signal Tower. Their journey won't be easy; Mono and Six will face a host of new threats from the terrible residents of this world. Will you dare to face this collection of new, little nightmares?
Hi everyone! I hope you’re enjoying the recent videos we’ve shared about Returnal. With this latest update we wanted to share some more details about the gameplay, which we know you’ve all been looking forward to.
With Returnal we’ve aimed to blend a unique mix of game styles. It combines our trademark explosive arcade action, responsive controls and bullet hell gameplay, and this time it’s all presented in third-person. There will be fast and frenetic combat and intense gunplay, and also some rich exploration and traversal as you explore the procedurally generated environments of Atropos. We’ve created Returnal to be a challenging and rewarding experience, with enough variety and depth to keep you always coming back for “one more go”.
From lightning to tentacles
Selene will have many weapons and devices at her disposal to survive on the hostile alien planet Atropos. Some she’s brought with her – others she’s found and made her own. The above video shows some of the various abilities you’ll find while playing Returnal which we’ll dive into below.
The game features a number of base weapons that are augmented as you play. For example, the living Spitmaw Blaster weapon starts as a shotgun archetype you all know and love. As you progress, you’ll unlock and add on various Weapon Traits, each providing a unique gameplay modifier to the base weapon’s behavior. These Weapon Traits are custom tailored for each gun type – so your Spitmaw Blaster might gain exploding shells or generate acid pools upon impact; while the Electropylon Driver might extract extra loot from enemies, or generate shields for the player. These Weapon Traits will also stack, so the combined effects can lead to many surprising results that can have unique advantages and playstyles to explore.
Each weapon will also have an alt-fire mode randomly assigned to it from our diverse pool, ranging from the electrical impulses of the Shockstream to the tentacles of the Tendrilpod, and everything in between.
These can be used without ever taking your finger off the trigger using the default control scheme: with the adaptive trigger on the DualSense controller, just press L2 halfway to aim down the sights and use the main fire of your weapon, and squeeze it all the way down to enter your alt-fire mode.
With 10 base weapons, more than 90 Weapon Traits (each with three levels)and 10 alt-fires, there are numerous weapon combinations to test out on your journey.
While new weapon drops are frequent, Selene can only hold one weapon at a time, so your choice is important. Different challenges and enemies will also require different strategies to overcome, so you’ll need to be constantly adapting, experimenting with different weapons, and developing your skills to survive on the hostile planet of Atropos.
Making progress
For Selene, death is no escape. Each death sends Selene to the start of the time loop, just moments before crashing on the planet. Most abilities and items collected on the previous cycle will be lost…but not all of them. Some persist across sessions, so you’ll still make progress every cycle.
One of these persisting elements is the mysterious Cthonos, an alien device that generates a random item at the beginning of each cycle. This otherworldly device is tracking your performance, and when enough progress is accumulated you will be rewarded with a brand new item for immediate use, which will also be permanently added to the pool of available loot from that point on as well.
The items you earn or discover as you explore the planet Atropos will change the way you play and offer a wide array of effects and strategic options for Selene. They can be offensive Tools like the Dismantler, a smartbomb-style explosion which annihilates all enemies around you; defensive consumables like the Kinetic Siphon, which restores Health through melee kills; or more strategic Artifacts that give Selene some unique advantages under certain conditions.
Risk and reward
There’s plenty of loot to be found on Atropos, but be wary that not all that glitters is gold. Some items, called Parasites, have both positive and negative effects. You’ll need to think twice before picking up a Parasite that, for example, regenerates you while at low health but also causes enemies to leave behind a pool of acid on death.
Collecting Parasites will often feel like a risky decision, but there are multiple other scenarios that can help shift the odds in your favour, like for example carrying an Artifact that can increase your max health for every Parasite you’ve attached.
There are many other cases where risk and reward will come into play, which can all drastically alter how each cycle plays out. You might encounter a “cursed” container that can be holding valuable loot, but opening it might trigger a random Suit Malfunction which, for example, can damage Selene every time she uses door and chest opening Keys, and can only be repaired by collecting a large number of obolites. Obolites can be exchanged for valuable items to increase your chances of survival, but if you’re on a good run you might prefer to spend them on activating a checkpoint – die and you’ll resurrect there with your current items and abilities, rather than restarting the cycle.
These are just a few quick examples of the many interesting scenarios and tough decisions you will be facing. Returnal will be available starting March 19. Stay tuned as we bring you mode details in the upcoming weeks.
This article was written by Per Tillisch, Tooling Team SW Engineer at Arduino.
The Arduino team created a tool to check Arduino projects for common problems. Arduino Lint runs over 175 checks on your sketches, libraries, and boards platforms which cover specification compliance, Library Manager submission requirements, and best practices.
Arduino Lint is an easy to use, yet powerful, command line tool. Its focus is on the structure, metadata, and configuration of Arduino projects, rather than the code.
Now you only need to open a terminal at your project folder and run the command: arduino-lint
This will automatically detect the project type and check it against the relevant rules.
The default configuration of Arduino Lint provides for the most common use cases, while offering the option to change settings via command line flags.
Compliance setting
The --compliance flag allows you to configure the strictness of the applied rules. The three compliance level values accepted by this flag are:
permissive– failure will occur only when severe rule violations are found. Although a project that passes at the permissive setting will work with the current Arduino development software versions, it may not be fully specification-compliant, risking incompatibility or a poor experience for the users.
specification – the default setting, enforces compliance with the official Arduino project specifications (sketch, library, platform).
strict – enforces best practices, above and beyond the minimum requirements for specification compliance. Use this setting to ensure the best experience for the users of the project.
Library Manager setting
Arduino Library Manager is the best way to provide installation and updates of Arduino libraries. In order to be accepted for inclusion in Library Manager, a library is required to meet some requirements.
Arduino Lint provides checks for these requirements as well, controlled by the --library-manager flag.
The Library Manager submission-specific rules are enabled via --library-manager submit.
Even if your library isn’t yet ready to be added to Library Manager, it’s a good idea to use this setting to ensure no incompatibilities are introduced.
Once your library is in the Library Manager index, each release is automatically picked up and made available to the Arduino community. Releases are also subject to special rules. The command arduino-lint --library-manager update will tell you whether your library is compliant with these rules.
Integration
The --format flag configures the format of arduino-lint‘s output. The default --format text setting provides human readable output. For automation or integration with other tools, the machine readable output provided by --format json may be more convenient. This setting exposes every detail of the rules that were applied.
The --report-file flag causes arduino-lint to write the JSON output to the specified file.
Arduino Lint would be a great addition to your continuous integration system. Running the tool after each change to the project can allow you to identify any problems that were introduced.
Working with Oak National Academy, we’ve turned the materials from our Teach Computing Curriculum into more than 300 free, curriculum-mapped video lessons for remote learning.
A comprehensive set of free classroom materials
One of our biggest projects for teachers that we’ve worked on over the past two years is the Teach Computing Curriculum: a comprehensive set of free computing classroom materials for key stages 1 to 4 (learners aged 5 to 16). The materials comprise lesson plans, homework, progression mapping, and assessment materials. We’ve created these as part of the National Centre for Computing Education, but they are freely available for educators all over the world to download and use.
More than 300 free, curriculum-mapped video lessons
In the second half of 2020, in response to school closures, our team of experienced teachers produced over 100 hours of video to transform Teach Computing Curriculum materials into video lessons for learning at home. They are freely available for parents, educators, and learners to continue learning computing at home, wherever you are in the world.
You’ll find our videos for more than 300 hour-long lessons on the Oak National Academy website. The progression of the lessons is mapped out clearly, and the videos cover England’s computing national curriculum. There are video lessons for:
Years 5 and 6 at key stage 2 (ages 7 to 11)
Years 7, 8, and 9 at key stage 3 (ages 11 to 14)
Examined (GCSE) as well as non-examined (Digital Literacy) at key stage 4 (ages 14 to 16)
To access the full set of classroom materials for teaching, visit the National Centre for Computing Education website.
Hey! This is MekaSkull, the developer of Cyber Shadow: the retro-rooted, ninja-jumping, robot-slashing action platformer that is coming to PS4 and PS5 on January 26. I’m so excited to present some of the background evolution of the game, that I’ll be talking about myself in the third person for a bit.
The year is 2011. The then, 20-something pixel artist and retro game fan, Aarne “MekaSkull” Hunziker, drew a picture of a ninja suspended in a tank, fueling the insinuating ambitionsof a game, against his will. Inspired by a passing thought, maybe a dream, the pixels manifested on canvas, only to be forgotten for years.
The idea of making this image into a game didn’t even pass my mind until much later. “No one would want to play a new, 8-bit-inspired game,” I thought.
Inspirations
Time passed until it was the year of the shovel, 2014. Shovel Knight is released, and a certain blue plougher digs his way into the hearts and minds of people, showing that these types of games were not only welcome but desired. The question was, “Is this something that I can create?” A question that preceded a logo test and a mockup of a ninja in a level. It at least looked like a game.
Going solo
With the tools for indie devs becoming more accessible, it was time to take the plunge. I started to spend my spare time on a “training” project. It was a jumping game, so I first experimented with jump-arcs and came up with a grid-like mechanism that displayed the kinds of jumps possible to land. I also read somewhere that bumping your head on the ceiling can be frustrating, so I made sure the head-bumping distance was displayed on the grid as well. I used photos of myself as a reference for drawings and animations, but I couldn’t (allegedly) run like a real ninja, so the animation ended up looking pretty stiff. My training project wasn’t just for training anymore. It was shaping into a game with slashing in addition to jumping.
Guess I’m doing this now
I kept working on the game because I thought, why not? The game was taking on a life of its own — and jumping between the seats of a writer, artist, coder, and sound designer — it kept it fresh for me at all times. At this point, the game was redubbed as a “one-year project” that had maybe six levels and a story that only existed between lines, expanded by a manual. Shadow’s initial design was refreshed a couple of times before landing on the final one.
This scope didn’t last. Before long, the game was designed to have nine levels instead of six, a dialogue system, special items, mid-bosses, and cutscenes. The aspect ratio was changed from 4:3 to a much wider one.
Teaming up
Any game needs music, and luck was on my side as just the right music found the game. Enrique “Pentadrangle” Martin joined and the solo dev became a team effort. The gameplay and music discovered natural synergy together. Stages would inspire music, and music would inspire stages. For example, the docks and boat ride were born from a track that sounded like a boat chase, and the rest of the level grew from there.
The team wouldn’t stay small for long. I had decided early on that I would never have a publisher, as finding the correct one would be impossible… right? Wrong!
Now, with a lot more helping eyes on the project from Yacht Club Games, everything was refined from movement to level design. No pixel or line of code was left unturned. In 2018 the game was playable from start to finish, but with all the new dev skills learned along the way, there was still room to improve. Starting with redoing the location first drawn in 2011, a bunch of secrets were added, the number of special items was increased to eight, and a plethora of new enemy types spawned all around the game. While touch-up paint was applied here and there, each jump and enemy placement was meticulously evaluated a few dozen times over.
To top it all off, with the help of Yacht Club Games and MP2 Games, Cyber Shadow gained improved response time, which can now be improved even further with the PS5 version running at 120fps. When paired with a compatible television set, it makes the controls so responsive, that it feels like bending time itself.
I hope everyone has as much fun playing the game as I had creating it. Good luck to all of you ninjas in this year of hope and newfound optimism.
Cyber Shadow is available for pre-order at PlayStation Store. PS Plus members get 25% slashed off the pre-order price. The game launches on January 26.
The Year of Klingon is continuing in Star Trek Online, with the next chapter of our epic story that shakes the Klingon Empire to its very core, Star Trek Online: House Shattered. Starring J.G. Hertzler (Martok from “Deep Space Nine”) and Robert O’Reilly (Gowron from “The Next Generation” and “Deep Space Nine”), we find players falsely accused of an attack on Khitomer, the center of diplomacy for the modern galaxy. In order to clear your name, you must hire a dangerous crew and break into Klingon Chancellor J’Mpok’s most private files. Can you survive this clandestine mission?
This is the second time J.G. Hertzler has returned to the role of Martok within Star Trek Online, just one of over 40 different classic Star Trek actors that have reprised their roles within our game. After becoming Chancellor in “Deep Space Nine,” Martok ruled peacefully for many years. But he was cut down in his prime by the young upstart J’mpok, who has been Chancellor of the Klingon Empire ever since. Believed to be dead, Martok was discovered alive within a Son’a prison. Now he serves the Klingon Empire, including the man who “killed” him. For the most honorable of Klingons, how far can his loyalty to the Empire be stretched before it breaks?
Gowron, on the other hand, continues to be very dead after his death at Worf’s hands in “Deep Space Nine.” Robert O’Reilly is instead playing Akar, Gowron’s distant ancestor. When J’ula, a fierce Klingon warrior, was sent forward in time to 2411, Akar came with her. Once her loyal lieutenant, he has betrayed her and gone to serve J’mpok instead. But Akar has always been a snake in the grass, who knows where his loyalties truly lie?
Rounding out our celebrity cast is Rehka Sharma, from “Star Trek: Discovery.” Although she played Ellen Landry in “Discovery,” and in Star Trek Online, Sharma is taking on a new role for this story. She is playing Adet Pa, the Witch of Nimbus III, a Klingon spy who serves her own interests. For now, Adet Pa is your ally. But will that last through the events of House Shattered? Only time will tell.
The Year of Klingon also continues our updates to classic Klingon Content. Infiltrate the treacherous House Torg in the brilliantly reimagined “Bringing Down the House” and “The House Always Wins,” and execute a daring raid on the Federation’s own shipyards in “Mars, the Bringer of War.” Start a new Klingon character to experience these updates and more, including remastered ships and new character options.
House Shattered comes with more than this exciting new episode, however. Return to the events of “Star Trek: Picard,” and save as many as you can on that dark day when the Synths rose up against Utopia Planetia. Participate in the Widening Gyre event to unlock a powerful new space set for your ships, and upgrade them like never before with the Experimental Ship Upgrade token. And get your hands on a Mirror Universe version of the classic Constitution class, now available inside the Infinity Lock Box.
Star Trek Online is a free-to-play massively multiplayer online game that allows players to explore the Star Trek universe from within. Players can forge their own destiny as Captain of a Federation starship, champion the Empire through the far reaches of the galaxy as a Klingon Warrior, rebuild the Romulan legacy as the commander of a Romulan Republic Warbird or carry out daring missions on behalf of the Dominion as a Jem’Hadar soldier. Captains can also explore iconic locations from the Star Trek universe, make contact with new alien species and battle alongside other players in customizable starships.
Star Trek Online puts you in the captain’s chair of your own adventure in the Star Trek universe. You’ll be able to lead your ship and crew on adventures in space and on the ground in this ever expanding, completely Free-to-Play online universe. Key Features: 100% Free to Play: Free to download, free to play, no hidden pay walls, and all of our content updates are totally free. Intrigue in the Final Frontier: We have a rich story line that unfolds over 125 episodes that feature friends and foes from every part of the Star Trek universe. Celebrity Involvement: Star Trek Online features over 15 actors spanning every series of Star Trek. You’ll have the opportunity to party up with Worf, Seven of Nine, Tuvok, Harry Kim, and many many more. Choose your Faction: Explore with the Federation, Fight for Honor with the Klingon Empire, or rebuild your species with the Romulan Republic, the choice is up to you!
Arduino-powered puzzle boxes help pop the question
Arduino Team — January 12th, 2021
As a unique way to “pop the question” to their girlfriend, Redditor lmjd14 created a scavenger hunt for the proposal using a sequence of Arduino-based puzzle boxes.
The first box opens when one inputs a series of codes on a keypad, which relate to important relationship dates, while the second responds to holding down the correct buttons. The third involves a set of colored coins, and the fourth is activated with some RFID-enabled statues from the other boxes.
The final box was unlocked with lmjd14’s now-fiance’s thumbprint, using a GPS module that allows it to be opened only in the right location. As she said yes, it’s a hack that they will both certainly cherish, and something that will be a great story to tell others in the future!
Whether you are developing software for enterprise customers or games for consumers, securing investments for your VR project can be a daunting task. We’ve gathered insights from voices across the industry to learn how different studios and companies acquire funding to build VR content. In part four of this series, we talked with Jakub Matuszczak, COO of Gamedust about the specific challenges facing VR game developers.
Gamedust was founded in 2015 as the VR division at Setapp, a Polish software studio. Since striking on their own in 2017, Gamedust has published hit titles such as Neverout, Overflight, Spuds Unearthed, and most recently, Yupitergrad.
What was the top challenge you experienced related to funding your VR project and how did you overcome it?
Our main challenge for Gamedust with Yupitergrad was to balance the cost of developing a high-quality video game with achieving projected sales results. The budgets of virtual reality games are not much different from other independent video game projects yet demand even greater skills regarding optimization and technical knowledge. However, the market for these games is significantly smaller. While making the decision to start the Yupitergrad development funding from HTC Vive helped us a lot – they mitigated the risk of achieving break even with our own investment.
What did you wish you knew when you first started developing VR solutions?
That the market will be constantly changing and there won’t be any standard or “generation cycle” like in the traditional video games development. The market is very diversified, with multiple devices on the market, each with different standards. Also – the devices change rapidly – Gamedust started with Oculus Gear VR, only 5 years passed and now its successor – Oculus Go will no longer be supported. The market is constantly changing and new solutions emerge and go.
What one piece of advice would you give to developers looking for investors/funders for their projects?
For video games, the crucial point is to define and be aware of the USPs (unique selling points) of the project. Whether it’s core gameplay mechanics, stunning art style or replayability – each game needs to have defined business value which we could compare to other games on the market. For example, in Gamedust we knew that we have great movement mechanics and distinctive cell-shaded art style and retro-futuristic setting in Yupitergrad, but we also did the research of other VR puzzle platformers titles. Also – timeline, budget, and PnL including the risks for the project completion are very important for the investors. It shows that the developer learned his lesson while doing the research.
Many developers face investors/funders/other stakeholders that are often concerned that VR projects won’t pay off. How were you able to secure buy-in from your key stakeholders?
Gamedust is in a comfortable situation – our key stakeholders believe in the emerging market and love the thrills of the startup companies. They understand that being at the forefront of the revolution matters and also understand particularly the VR market very well. Apart from that, what helps a lot is that they are also avid fans and users of the technology. They understand that each of Gamedust games is an R&D project – there are no industry standards or good game design practices established for the VR video games – contrary to the products dedicated for the traditional PC and console video games market.
What needs to be done to drive more awareness for VR gaming?
In the case of video games, there are two ways. First – supply of more high-quality content designed with virtual reality technologies in mind – if there are games that are fun to play and available only on VR devices – users would be more eager to check the hardware – that’s our mission at Gamedust. Apart from that – education and accessibility – people must be aware that using VR is not “rocket science” technology. High – quality standalone headsets like Vive Focus Plus help a lot with such adoption.
Why did you choose to create for the market you did?
The market has extreme growth potential. As I’ve mentioned before, VR becomes more and more accessible and more mainstream. Other markets are well saturated and the virtual reality market will plummet soon, so being at the forefront of this revolution gives Gamedust a competitive advantage – with established pipelines, knowledge and good practices, and – most of all – high-quality games.
Aside from funding, what other areas of support did you receive from Vive that were critical for bringing your content to market?
Our developer relations team provided great support with initial idea verification. During the production of Yupitergrad we received a lot of feedback about the gameplay, visuals and overall project progress. Also, we discussed the scope and proper price point for the created content. Considering VR has almost no established practices – especially in terms of video games business models, receiving advice from platform holders on every step of development helped Gamedust to avoid some mistakes along the way. Having HTC Vive as a partner with insights about the market is an invaluable benefit – it could even help to correct initial assumptions made by the developer.
Additional insights on securing funding can be found in our previous post from voices at HTC VIVE, Nanome and 3Data.
The island of Tsushima is a beautiful place to explore, made of many tiny details lovingly crafted by our team. It’s also considerably different from our last game, Infamous: Second Son, which was full of superpowered visual effects. I’m Matt Vainio, lead visual effects artist at Sucker Punch. I like to describe my job as solving art and design problems with technology, something I’ve been doing at Sucker Punch since Infamous 2. Today I’ll be covering how we made the transition from flashy superpowers to a grounded but beautiful game filled with mud, blood and steel – as well as the methods we used to create the visual effects in Ghost of Tsushima.
When we started Ghost I identified a couple of major areas of improvement, based on what the project needed. The first was that I wanted to push the levels of interactivity in our particle systems. We had a huge investment in expression-driven particle systems from Second Son, where we created a wide array of magical superpowers. For Ghost of Tsushima, one of my main goals was to take that system and pivot it towards high levels of interactivity. We knew from the very beginning that wind was an important element we had to incorporate across particle systems and beyond. We also wanted to add animal life, provide epic vistas with environmental ambience and really nail the “mud, blood, & steel” direction by dynamically muddying and bloodying characters as they fight and move across the environment. There are a lot of ways we made particles more interactive, but it all required more data from the game world. These are just some of the examples of the kind of data I’m talking about: global wind, player-created wind from movement, character displacement, terrain, and water position info, weather info like wetness, time of day, and much more.
The second major goal was that we had to build at a large scale. The world of Ghost of Tsushima is significantly larger than Second Son but the Visual Effects team at Sucker Punch was only two people for most of the development. This meant we needed to update our content through automated processes as much as possible. We also had to support large vistas across a dynamic weather and 24 hour moving clock. Lastly, we hand-placed a small amount of elements to help guide the player during their exploration of the island of Tsushima.
Wind
One of the key art direction goals from the very beginning was that everything needed to move. This was an obvious area where particles could help by adding floating leaves and pollen in the air, but there are many systems that are all working in concert to provide the illusion of the wind actually blowing. Aside from the particles, there are trees, grass, cloth, and ropes that all move with the wind. All of these elements were tuned together so that they all moved appropriately under different wind conditions. We integrated this global wind direction into nearly every single effect in the game; when a bomb goes off or a campfire is lit, the smoke drifts in the correct wind direction. This is true for fires, sparks, smoke – pretty much everything. We also sample the speed of the wind to add additional turbulence as the wind speed increases.
We didn’t originally intend for our global wind system to become a navigation mode until the Art Director for Ghost, Jason Connell, came to one of our lead engineers, Adrian Bentley, and me to ask if we could make the particles be the direction indicator for quests. Thus, the “windicator” was born. Our approach was not to try and build a pathing system to constantly change directions to avoid obstacles, but to aim directly at the objective and leave the pathfinding to players. This was in large part because we wanted the player to be exploring, engaging their mind in the navigation process and not following some sort of game UI without thinking. This direct path approach was only possible because our particle system can access terrain information, which allowed us to have the particles aware of the landscape around the player.
In my first attempts I made particles hug the terrain, going up and down, flowing with the hills and valleys. This was problematic for a few reasons. The first is that our mountains have a lot of rock models for cliff faces; these cliff models are not part of the terrain information, only the underlying dynamically tessellated mesh was. This meant that the particles would clip right into all rock faces and disappear, making the windicator confusing to follow. It also looked a little unnatural hugging the terrain so perfectly, so my next attempt was to set the terrain as a floor so that particles would be pushed upward when moving uphill and let particles drift flat when the terrain sloped downhill away from them. I added upward velocity when hills are in the way by doing several tests ahead along the path of the particle’s motion. At each of these tests, the particle is looking to see how close it would be to the terrain at that point, or if it would even be buried. If the particle is too close or buried in these look-ahead points, the particle will be given upward velocity. Lastly, the windicator has different elements as the environment changes: pampas fluffs and grass in fields, leaves in forests, ash in burnt areas, and others. I’ll talk more about how that system works a little later in this post.
With foliage, the plants are all rigged with joints that respond to the local wind speed. We worked with the coding and environment teams to create separate controls for trunks from the branches, which allowed us the flexibility to create the wide variety of trees and shrubs needed for Tsushima. On top of the larger trunk and branch movement we layered noise that causes the smaller ripples across the leaf surfaces.
The grass and pampas fields were a particularly iconic element for the game and one that required a lot of back and forth work between the rendering, environment, and VFX teams. The fields are a mix of procedurally-generated triangles for the grass and modeled assets for the pampas stalks and tufts. Initially, we tried using particles to achieve the wave-like motion by displacing the grass in overlapping arcs. The visual quality on the grass was good, but it looked wrong for trees and bushes plus the performance cost was a bit higher than we could afford. For our second attempt, we added two layers of procedural gusts to the environment. The first is a large noise pattern that scrolls with the wind direction; layered on top is a texture that scrolls across the terrain for smaller details on the grass. The advantage of this approach (aside from cost improvements) was that we were able to use the coarser wind gust noise on the trees and bushes as well, which made the grass and other foliage match in a more seamless way.
We did actually end up using the particle grass displacement tech, but for pushing the grass around as the player and horse run through it. This has been done before in games, but one of the key improvements we made here was that by using the particle system to control the displacement, we were able to leverage our expressions for more advanced behavior. One of these behaviors was to make the grass bounce back in a realistic manner by applying a damped wave to the strength of the displacement, which prevents the grass from snapping back to its rest position in a linear and unnatural fashion. The video below is an example of the grass displacement and a debug view of the particle system controlling it. The green parts of the trail represent displacement and the red parts are where the displacement fades. If you look carefully you can see that the grass loses and then regains displacement values in smaller and smaller amounts as the trail gets further from the hero. This creates a natural reverberation of motion, making the grass feel more lifelike.
Last but not least, the character tech art team took the lead on adding dynamic cloth and ropes to the game due to their high use on the characters themselves. Each of the rope and cloth simulations uses the same wind inputs as the foliage and particles, adding to the illusion that there is actual wind moving through the scene.
Animals
We assumed early on that any animals the VFX team created would only be seen far away, but as the project evolved we realized they could play a bigger role. For this feature we teamed up with the same rendering coder who wrote the particle system during Second Son production, Bill Rockenbeck. His first step was to let particles spawn fully-rigged and animated mesh objects. Once that was up and running, using the same terrain position information we used on the windicator we could match the orientation of the models to the terrain and have them collide with it when necessary.
We added animals such as frogs, birds/cranes, fish, crabs, bugs – these creatures all have reactivity to Jin and other characters in the world. By using a very low value wind sphere around characters (including Jin) the animal particle effects are able to detect when people are nearby. We used a new conditional event system to change particle motion when this condition was met, causing the animals to scatter away from people. This was also used on projectiles and impacts, which meant that arrows and daggers would also scare animals away.
In the following video you can see some early iteration on the interactive crab effects scattered across the beaches. We started with some static meshes (probably my finest modeling efforts) and iterated on the behavior. I wanted the crabs to maintain some minimum range from Jin to prevent him standing directly on top of them and make them feel appropriately skittish. To help me debug behaviors, the crabs in the video are colored white when they are moving and orange when they are still.
Leaves and Duels
Because one of the hallmarks of Ghost of Tsushima is the wind, we knew that we would need to add a ton of leaves and make them feel really stylish, but also naturalistic. This is why there can be tens of thousands of leaves on screen at any moment in Ghost and they all interact with the wind, environment, and characters.
In order to make the leaves feel appropriately realistic, we spent a lot of effort on making them land correctly based on the terrain. Each leaf is modeled as a disc which uses 3D math to cause it to rotate appropriately in response to torques applied as it contacts the ground. Beyond just landing on terrain, we modeled some other advanced behavior: leaves in Ghost land on water surfaces and flow with the current, and will fall down a waterfall and sink over time as they drift.
Near the end of development on Ghost, a QA tester came to me with a strange bug: leaves would fall into campfires and sit unburnt on the terrain under or next to the fire. I agreed this was pretty weird and decided to resolve this by placing a wind emitter in campfires that the falling leaves would react to. This upward draft kept leaves out of the fire for the most part and was a nice detail.
Duels became a well-loved element in Ghost from their first tests and from the very beginning the VFX team was given the reins by the game directors to help create scenarios that best showed off the interactivity in our game and particle systems.
In many of these duels, we created persistent leaves that would react to player and AI movements. For this, we repurposed the grass displacement tech we built and allowed particles to sample this information. By doing this, we were able to make the leaves part in a stylish way when characters moved rapidly through them. The goal here for duels was not perfect realism, but stylish beauty in motion. We used the same event system described above to look for times when the player displacement values were above a threshold; we then created a falloff so that the leaves would settle from the initial motion after a short time and could then be pushed again. We also used a noise pattern that temporarily allowed leaves to be picked up from the ground by the passing wind, helping to simulate gusts and the unstable nature of leaves.
Other types of duels also make heavy use of other dynamic particle systems, such as floating lanterns, candles that blow out, heavy fog parting at your feet, lightning strikes, and more. We used techniques similar to the leaves on the lanterns, where each lantern is actually a set of particles that move and bob on the water based on player displacement. For the dynamic candles in the second Ryuzo duel we added wind emitters to the sword swings and sampled those on the candles. If the wind passed a threshold, we used our event system to snuff out the fire and light while spawning up a new smoke wisp and ceiling smoke effect. Additionally, players generate wind while rolling and dodging, so quick movements past these special duel candles will also put them out.
Mud and blood
When characters run, roll, slide, and fall on the ground they dynamically add mud to their meshes. Having our characters get dirty as they live in our world was an early goal from art direction to set the tone of the game. During animations, we add mud “sources” in varying amounts to places like knees, elbows, and shoulders so that Jin and others look appropriately battle-dirty. If you look at famous fight scenes from samurai movies, you can see the inspiration for Ghost here: the characters push mud with their feet and are muddy from all of their interactions with the ground.
Like mud, we create blood sources that dynamically add blood to the character meshes during combat, showing their wounded state. Each impact added blood near the sword strike location and a bit beyond. This was used in cutscenes and scripted moments in addition to systemic combat.
Besides adding blood to character models, every attack creates a particle effect with thousands of blood droplets and blood strings. Each of the droplets lands on nearby geometry, and in the water it even disperses into clouds that move with the current.
Build at a large scale
A key component of building at scale was to make our VFX match up with environments and not have to hand place them. We knew that with our small team size and a giant world to fill that we would have to create some form of procedural placement because the environment biomes were changing very frequently. We didn’t want to spend all of our time just maintaining content, so it had to be self-correcting.
Growth and biomes
Here’s a simple example: we wanted particle leaves to fall in only the forested areas and not in the grasslands. The first approach we tried was very brute force: we placed an effect in the trees that were grown procedurally around the island. This failed pretty quickly because the environment was instancing hundreds of trees in small spaces, which, while fine for geometry, was too expensive for particle systems. We had some small success by setting our particles to only appear when very close to the trees (~50 feet), but this felt like a failure when the view distances were so far. The other problem with this approach was that when we dropped a leaf from the canopy 40 feet above and the player is riding a horse, it might not even fall into view by the time they passed the tree – so the leaves were often not visible.
Our second approach was to use the growth system in the same way as the environment, where we procedurally placed the particle systems alongside the trees in the same space by using the same masks and expressions. For this approach we needed to place overlapping circles of leaves within an occasionally complex mask shape. The circles were pushed in the distance of their radius from the edge of the mask rules, which meant there would often be large gaps where there were no leaves present due to the growth rules and expressions. We could balance this by creating more, smaller emitters, but at the cost of performance. It was also difficult to fix specific areas because if we changed the growth rules to fix the density or holes in an area we were looking at, we would often break other clusters of forest that were previously working well. Despite all of this, the technique mostly worked and even though there were some flaws we nearly shipped it.
In image 1, this screenshot demonstrates using our growth tool to add particles based on the rules that determine where the trees are. There are major gaps, so this ended up being below our bar. For image 2, I’ve increased the amount of particle emitters grown substantially. This nearly works, but takes up valuable performance we could use elsewhere. Image 3 shows our third approach, the biome map. One of our rendering programmers was working on a feature for the lighting team that would use data from the environmental growth masks that could be accessed in real-time. I asked if we could piggy-back on this technology and luckily enough we were able to do so. What this got us was the ability for the particle system to know what biome any specific particle was created in. Image 4 has a debug particle system that shows how the particles read this data. The blue areas are grasslands and the green is the forest.
The first pass of this was a little blocky but once I used a noise pattern to modify the sampled information it became much more organic and usable. This became the core of our new environmental ambience system when combined with other features like sampling the terrain position, material, and wind direction. In any average location, we were able to remove hundreds of grown particle systems from the environment and replace it with a single system that followed the camera and was much more accurate to the environmental biomes.
Even though we moved a good deal of our effects from the growth system into a real-time biome system, we did utilize the growth system for some particle effects in Ghost. Some examples include birds placed at the edges of forests, crabs and seagulls in the beach areas, herons in the rice paddy areas and cranes in the marshes. Lastly, we used the growth system to add fog banks at the edges of the forest. In all of these cases, whenever the environment team changed where the forests, fields, and beaches were located, the VFX came along automatically.
Vistas and navigation hints
In Ghost, the vistas are important to both the gameplay by helping you find objects as well as being an important part of setting the tone and art direction. We felt that finding quests should be as natural as possible so we created a variety of effects that could be used to indicate quest locations and challenge content. Some examples include different types and scales of smoke at mission or challenge content, birds that circle a haiku opportunity, steam rising from an onsen steam bath, and more.
Putting it all together
The visual effects in Ghost of Tsushima are an integral part of the environment, with every frame containing many separate systems working together to enhance the dynamic look of the game. From the foreground biome and animal elements to the background weather and content markers – the visual effects helped bring the world to life and make it a joy to explore Tsushima.
Thanks for reading and I hope you’ve enjoyed your journey through the visual effects of Tsushima. If you’re still curious to learn more about some of our underlying technology, you can watch a talk I gave for the Game Developers Conference in 2014 that focuses on our expression-driven particle systems.
Sam Battle aka LOOK MUM NO COMPUTER couldn’t resist splashing out on a clear Macintosh case for a new project in his ‘Cosmo’ series of builds, which inject new life into retro hardware.
AAGGGGHHHHHHH!
This time around, a Raspberry Pi, running facial recognition software, and one of our Camera Modules enable Furby-style eyes to track movement, detect faces, and follow you around the room.
He loves a good Furby does Sam. Has a whole YouTube playlist dedicated to projects featuring them. Seriously.
Sam got all the Raspberry Pi kit needed from Pimoroni
Our favourite bit of the video is when Sam meets Raspberry Pi for the first time, boots it up, and says:
“Wait, I didn’t know it was a computer. It’s an actual computer computer. What?!”
Face recognition software up and running on Raspberry Pi
The eyes are ping pong balls cut in half so you can fit a Raspberry Pi Camera Module inside them. (Don’t forget to make a hole in the ‘pupil’ so the lens can peek through).
Raspberry Pi Camera Module tucked inside ping pong ball as it’s mounted to a 3D-printed part
The Raspberry Pi and display screen are neatly mounted on the side of the Macintosh so they’re easily accessible should you need to make any changes.
Easy access
All the hacked, repurposed junky bits sit inside or are mounted on swish 3D-printed parts.
Add some joke shop chatterbox teeth, and you’ve got what looks like the innards of a Furby staring at you. See below for a harrowing snapshot of Zach’s ‘Furlexa’ project, featured on our blog last year. We still see it when we sleep.
It gets worse the more you look around
It wasn’t enough for Furby-mad Sam to have created a Furby look-a-like face-tracking robot, he needed to go further. Inside the clear Macintosh case, you can see a de-furred Furby skeleton atop a 3D-printed plinth, with redundant ribbon cables flowing from its eyes into the back of the face-tracking robot face, thus making it appear as though the Furby is the brains behind this creepy creation that is following your every move.
Hey in there. We see you! You dark lord of robo-controlling
Eventually, Sam’s Raspberry Pi–powered creation will be on display at the Museum of Everything Else, so you can go visit it and play with all the “obsolete and experimental technology” housed there. The museum is funded by the Look Mum No Computer Patreon page.
You don’t need to pay big bucks or for a regular subscription to access high-quality office software. Available on all major platforms, LibreOffice is a fully fledged office suite that includes apps for word processing (Writer), spreadsheets (Calc), presentations (Impress), vector graphics editing (Draw), mathematical formulae (Math), and databases (Base). The whole suite is included in the full version of Raspberry Pi OS, so you can get straight to work on your new Raspberry Pi 400 (or any other model).
Although the main office programs will feel fairly familiar to many users, this official guidebook (also available as a free PDF download) from the makers explores the suite in detail to help you get the most out of it. A setup chapter goes through various general settings, before the book shows how to create and apply styles and templates (a key feature of LibreOffice) to help speed up document formatting. Subsequent chapters take you through each individual office app, followed by guides to printing, images, HTML files, macros, and customisation.
Clicking the Help option within LibreOffice takes you to this comprehensive online resource that should help you solve most issues. Every aspect of the suite is covered in detail and it’s easy enough to navigate. As well as a drop-down list of modules (apps) and a search facility, there’s an index list of keywords for all LibreOffice modules: click on a keyword to open the linked Help page.
In addition, there’s a handy section for Common Help Topics, such as configuration, version tracking, printing, charts/diagrams, working with PDFs, and automatic functions. A particularly useful topic in this section covers compatibility with documents in Microsoft Office formats – they can all be imported without issue, although some special features may not work in exactly the same way.
There’s no end of online courses available to learn LibreOffice, at a wide range of prices – you can pay hundreds for some. Udemy’s courses start at a reasonable £19.99 – at the time of writing, many were available at £9.99, so it’s worth looking out for special offers.
Most of the courses cover a single app and all comprise a series of short video lectures, so it’s bite-size learning that you can dip in and out of easily when you have time. There are also assignments or exercises to complete and example files on which to practise your new-found skills. Complete the course and you’ll receive a certificate, although it can’t be used for formal accreditation.
The Echoes of the Atlas expansion brings a lot to the table in terms of new brutal challenges to overcome alongside items that herald fresh ways to play. Whether you’re a new player who washed up on the shores of Wraeclast this morning, or a titan of the genre powering your way deep into the endgame to vanquish your enemies, this expansion has something for everyone at every level.
If you push your way into Path of Exile‘s endgame, you’ll be invited to take on a brutal showdown: you versus up to ten of Path of Exile‘s most difficult encounters at once. Succeeding in these fights will unlock passive points which can be spent on the new Atlas Passive Trees. These are one of the new features of Path of Exile‘s endgame which allow you to control and specialize in the kind of encounters you’ll experience in endgame maps.
If you prove yourself worthy, you’ll proceed to take on The Maven, one of the most difficult fights in Path of Exile‘s history. To the victor goes the spoils – Echoes of the Atlas introduces new endgame reward items to help unlock even more character build potential for the most aspirational players.
The Ritual Challenge League launches alongside the Echoes of the Atlas content. In each area, players will slay monsters within the Ritual Circle then use the Altar to initiate the Ritual. When the Ritual is active, the monsters you’ve slain will return in an onslaught alongside various punishing effects from the Ritual. While the Ritual is active, monsters you kill will earn points called ‘Tribute’ which can be redeemed for valuable rewards. Each Ritual within an area gets progressively more difficult and provides even more potential for reward.
The start of a new challenge league is the perfect time to jump into Path of Exile. The ladders and economy are reset for each league so that everyone gets a clean state and can compete to climb the ladder, beat the challenges and find the best items before their friends do. In addition, we’ve taken the opportunity to rebalance all 19 of our Ascendancy character classes, providing new playstyles to explore. Naturally, this expansion also includes new items, skills, rewards, and much more.
Be sure to check it out for free on January 20! For more information, head to pathofexile.com/echoes.
Earn devastating skills and valuable items as you fight your way through the dark continent of Wraeclast. With unrivaled character customization, Path of Exile is an award-winning online Action RPG created by hardcore gamers, for hardcore gamers.
For the first time in Call of Duty history, Treyarch’s Zombies mode will be available for free through the Zombies Free Access Week. This free access period will be available to all players through the PlayStation store and includes the following game modes:
Cranked Zombies
Need a Zombies experience with a bit more urgency? Then give Cranked Zombies a try.
Just like in regular Die Maschine, you’ll be airlifted in with a weapon of your choice within a loadout. However, once the first Zombie hits the floor, the clock starts ticking away. Your Operator will automatically go down if they fail to kill another Zombie within a short period of time.
Keep watch of the clock – and your six – to survive this fast-paced variation of the traditional Zombies game mode.
Onslaught (PlayStation exclusive*)
Those who have a PlayStation can access Onslaught, a fast-paced two-player Zombies experience on Black Ops Cold War’s Multiplayer maps.
In this mode, your duo will use your loadouts to fight against hyper-aggressive waves of undead forces. Unlike traditional Zombies, a Dark Aether Orb will confine you to a specific space on the map until it is charged by the souls of the undead.
As the safe area shifts, expect increasingly difficult surges of enemies, including incredibly powerful Elites, to test your duo’s survival skills. Slay enough of these Elites, and you’ll earn special medals and exclusive* weapon blueprints.
Die Maschine
An abandoned Polish laboratory containing a massive particle collider has opened a rift into a dimension that contains unexplainable monstrosities and undead forces. As part of the international faction known as Requiem, you will infiltrate and try to survive through waves of zombies through multiple rounds as you either uncover the secrets of Die Maschine or exfiltrate early with your life intact (and some great rewards to boot).
Based on the original Zombies map Nacht der Untoten, Die Maschine is the classic Zombies experience where up to four operators can drop in and attempt to survive the horrors that lie in wait. Work together by using dozens of weapons, lethal and tactical equipment pieces, shock-and-awe inducing Scorestreaks, and Field Upgrades, special loadout items such as an Energy Mine or an instant-heal through the Healing Aura that charge up from killing Zombies.
Have you unlocked some Black Ops Cold War weapons while playing Warzone? Bring them into the fight through your starting loadout and upgrade them along the way with Salvage dropped by Zombies. You can also outfit yourself with a variety of wall weapons, take a chance with a random weapon pulled from the mystery box, or give any weapon a serious boost through the Pack-a-Punch Machine.
And to those Zombies diehards that have been enjoying these modes since launch, know that the Dark Aether storyline is far from over…
As we all know, when aliens descend from outer space, they often beam bovine up for testing and observation. While you might not have the privilege of seeing this process in action, “OneldMONstr” has created the next best thing: a miniature model of a cow being beamed up, complete with smoke and lighting effects.
The device features an Arduino Nano for control along with WS2812B LEDs. The lucky and/or unfortunate cow is spun using a small DC motor via an L293D driver, and a coil produces smoke with haze fluid.” (Though OneldMONstr notes the next version will implement an ultrasonic hazer.) A DFPlayer Mini MP3 module is embedded in the base for sound, while a half dozen LEDs illuminate from the bottom. More details on the project can be found here.
New seasons await players of Rogue Company, Smite, and Paladins — and Hi-Rez Studios unveiled all the epic details at our annual keynote last week.
Want to learn more about the new rogue Kestrel, a new Babylonian Conquest map and gods, or the world-devouring worm champion Yagorath? Read on for all the details.
Next month, Rogue Company kicks off the first season of the Year One Pass with Kestrel, our newest rogue. Kestrel splits her time between running a multinational business empire and saving the world from imminent destruction with Rogue Company. Equipped for any situation with her advanced assault rifle, SMG, and a set of Halo Drones she can deploy to rain hellfire, Kestrel has a reputation for winning any battle she engages in, whether it’s in the boardroom or on the battlefield!
Kestrel will be followed by seven additional rogues throughout 2021, offering a diverse lineup that will cover a range of roles and playstyles. Don’t want to miss a single rogue? The Year One Pass is coming to Rogue Company, granting immediate access to each rogue as they’re released – plus bonus content like weapon wraps and an exclusive outfit.
Year One will also introduce seasonal Rogue Company Battle Pass events, giving our players a new way to earn amazing new content – including new weapon wraps, emotes, and outfits. Our first Battle Pass includes new outfits for Fixer, Dallas, and Trench, and features our first ever Legendary Scorch outfit – as a chrome-plated cyber-demon who is programmed to incinerate anyone who stands in her way!
This year will also see the Rogue Company tackling missions across the globe as we introduce new maps and new modes during each season. Season One starts with the introduction of The Hollows, a secret base built by the devious organization Jackal for the purpose of launching a rocket into space. Our next update will also see the introduction of the new Wingman mode, a fast-paced 2v2 game type which will allow players to face off in intense battles on all new skirmish maps.
Smite Season 8: Dawn of Babylon brings a new map for the core Conquest mode and an all-new pantheon of gods.
When the season premieres on January 26, the Conquest map will get an overhauled look inspired by Baylonian myth. The goddess TIamat has banished Cthulhu, and cleansed the battlegrounds of his dark influence. But in doing so, she’s remade the world in her own image — resplendent in gold and Babylonian architecture. The new Conquest map is also larger than the old map and features new Jungle challenges, offering additional opportunities for strategic gameplay.
Even better: This isn’t the only time Smite’s Conquest map will update in Season 8. This year’s Conquest map is a living map, evolving with quarterly updates that will feature new visuals and gameplay changes. There’s always something new to look forward to on the battleground of the gods in Season 8.
The monster queen Tiamat hasn’t just reshaped the world. She’s also Smite’s next playable god, introducing the Babylonian Pantheon to Smite’s roster of gods. Following soon thereafter, the much-requested epic hero Gilgamesh will arrive to challenge Tiamat. Both gods are slated to join the Smite roster in early 2021 with Tiamat arriving in February.
These two Babylonian gods are only the beginning of an incredible Season 8 line-up. Four more gods will follow throughout 2021, and eagle-eyed fans can check out our Season 8 god teaser trailer to start cooking up their best theories on who will join the battleground of the gods.
Other announcements in the Smite presentation included the Most Wanted Battle Pass, a Janus rework, item updates, balance changes, and more for the first update of the year. As a special bonus, players on Xbox One can get exclusive access to our console playtest server, allowing you to check out the new Season 8 content before it officially launches!
Smite’s new season announcement comes in the middle of the Smite World Championship – a $600,000 tournament to crown the best team across all platforms and inputs. All weekend long, you’ll be able to watch competitive Smite on twitch.tv/smitegame and can earn drops every day including a free skin, exclusive to this weekend’s event: SWC Champion Chang’e. Be sure to tune into the finals on Sunday, January 10 at 3:00 pm EST to see which team will be crowned as the World Champion!
Paladins will launch Season 4: Calamity on February 3 alongside the all-devouring worm Yagorath. A champion who can only be described as the ultimate cosmic horror, Yagorath enters the realm after being teased for years. Beginning with the shattering of the moon and the creation of Io, and culminating with her release by the vindictive former Seal Guardian, Vora, Yagorath threatens the world of Paladins like nothing before.
As a front line, Yagorath leads her team to victory by spewing acid, firing deadly spikes, and devouring any champions caught in her path. That’s right – Yagorath’s ultimate ability literally lets you chow down on an enemy champion.
In order to combat Yagorath and repel the darkness not only will the Resistance and Magistrate need to unite, but new champions will rise to defend the realm. Don’t miss a single champion from this incredible season with the new Season Pass, which gets you each champion on release day, an exclusive skin for each, and more bonuses.
But we aren’t just kicking this year off with one of the most unique champions ever – we’re also announcing a major overhaul to our Battle Pass system. Starting in Season 4, these revamped Event Passes will launch with each patch update, allowing players to earn new content more frequently – like exclusive skins and emotes – throughout the year. To top it all off, a slew of other updates are coming throughout 2021, such as map updates, custom game mode options, and the much-awaited return of limited time modes.
2021 is going to be an amazing year for all Hi-Rez titles, and we can’t wait to share everything that is on the horizon with you. Thank you to all our players that support our titles – if it wasn’t for you, we wouldn’t be able to make these games we all hold so dear. Whether you are a fan of the tactical shootouts in Rogue Company, the epic skirmishes of Smite, or the fast-paced action of Paladins, we will see you all in-game during our incredible new seasons!
Cheers to DC Universe Online and the incredible community that has made this remarkable journey possible as we celebrate 10 years this January! Even though DCUO released on Xbox One in 2016, we celebrate 10 years of world-spanning storylines, over 250 iconic DC characters featured, and 39 Episodes released and counting.
To show our appreciation, we have put together over $50+ in player gifts that all Xbox players can claim. This includes a free Character Advance to CR290, a Restored Shim’Tar Regalia gear style, and the Paradox Gazer combat pet. Players can also claim a new fireworks trinket and aura, plus two new anniversary emblems to get the party going and light up the skies of Gotham City and Metropolis!
To show our gratitude for members, we’ve put together an additional pack just for you! Any active DCUO members on Xbox One can also claim a Member Appreciation Gift Box from January 11 to January 31, 2021. It includes an Enhanced Shim’Tar Regalia gear style, Anti Matter Neon Chroma Pack, Nth Metal totaling 220,000 Artifact XP, 1 Artifact Cache, and 1 set of Artifact Catalysts. Not a member? Become one today to claim this member-only pack! Even better, we are marking down all DCUO memberships on Xbox One to 25% off from January 11 to January 17, 2021.
Once you’ve claimed your anniversary gifts, jump into the action with the return of the anniversary seasonal event, Attack of the Anti-Monitor. This year we’ve added a new raid for all players level 15+ (Xbox Live Gold required), as well as an elite raid for the best of the best! New rewards include Flash-inspired styles, 10th anniversary base items, and more.
New or Returning to DCUO?
Download DCUO for free from the Xbox Store (Xbox Live Gold subscription required).
Once you start the game, choose your morality, mentor, and powers to use in battle. Then create and customize your unique character and start your adventures in the iconic DC universe!
For additional content details and guides to get started in DCUO, please visit us at DCUniverseOnline.com. Happy 10th Anniversary, Heroes and Villains!
After uncovering secrets about the Dark Aether, Requiem is calling on all reinforcements to investigate anomalies related to this mysterious power source. Get ready to gear up for a full week of zombie-slaying action when Treyarch’s legendary Zombies mode will be free to access for Xbox Live Gold members to play during the Zombies Free Access Week.
This fearsome free access period will be available via an Xbox Store download and includes the following game modes:
Die Maschine
An abandoned WWII-era laboratory in Poland containing a massive particle collider has opened a rift to unexplainable monstrosities and animated undead forces. As part of the international response team known as Requiem, you’ll infiltrate the DZ and try to survive waves of zombies through multiple rounds as you either uncover the secrets of “Die Maschine,” or exfiltrate early with your life intact (and some great rewards to boot).
With its starting area paying homage to the original World at War Zombies map that started it all, “Die Maschine” is a round-based Zombies experience where up to four players can drop in and attempt to survive the horrors that lie in wait. Work together by using dozens of weapons, lethal and tactical equipment, powerful Scorestreaks, and special Field Upgrades – such as an Energy Mine or an instant-heal through the Healing Aura – that charge up by killing zombies.
If you’ve unlocked new Black Ops Cold War weapons via the Battle Pass system, bring them into the fight through your starting loadout and upgrade them along the way. You can also outfit yourself with a variety of Wall Buy weapons, take a chance with a random weapon pulled from the Mystery Box, or give any weapon a serious boost through the Pack-a-Punch Machine.
Cranked
If you’re looking for a bit more urgency to stay alive in “Die Maschine,” outside of being overwhelmed by waves of zombies, give Cranked a try.
You and your squad will be airlifted in with a loadout of your choice. However, once the first zombie hits the floor, the Cranked Timer starts ticking away. Your Operator will explode if they fail to kill another zombie before the timer hits zero, and the timer gets shorter and shorter as the game progresses! Keep an eye out for the Cranked Timer Power-up, which temporarily freezes the timer for all players.
Watch the clock – and your six – to survive this fast-paced new Zombies game mode… and be sure to put the locational Ping system to use when playing with your squad.
Free Access is Live Soon!
These modes are available for free to Xbox Live Gold members from January 14 until January 21, so download Zombies Free Access to join the ever-growing ranks of Requiem and learn from the veterans who can guide you toward unlocking the secrets of “Die Maschine.”
Purchase Black Ops Cold War Today
If you play during the Zombies Free Access Week, your progress will carry over to the full game upon purchase on the Xbox Store.
In Call of Duty Black Ops Cold War, join Alex Mason, Frank Woods, and Jason Hudson in a mind-bending campaign to hunt down a global threat codenamed “Perseus.” Or continue to test your mettle by fighting off legions of undead horrors as agents of Requiem in Zombies and engage in a variety of all-new competitive modes and maps in multiplayer!
Execute the mission.
Call of Duty®: Black Ops Cold War – Cross-Gen Bundle
Hi everyone! Happy new year and welcome to 2048… Erm, sorry, I mean 2021! I’m super excited to be here to give you a very special update on our upcoming cyberpunk stealth-action RPG Disjunction: a release date.
I’m thrilled to say that Disjunction will be releasing on PlayStation 4 on January 28, and will be fully playable on PlayStation 5 via backwards compatibility. We also have a brand new gameplay trailer to give you a closer look at what to expect:
If you didn’t already know, Disjunction is set in the dystopian underworld of 2048 New York City that tells the interconnected story of three playable characters. The game was developed by myself and my two brothers here at Ape Tribe Games. We’re all huge fans of games like Deus Ex and classic sci-fi movies, and wanted to create a game with deep RPG systems, cybernetic abilities, plenty of player choice, and adrenaline-pumping stealth-action gameplay.
There’s so much to tell you about, so I’m going to try to distill Disjunction’s essence into five key points. Let’s get started.
It’s set in a cyberpunk New York City
Disjunction takes place in the year 2048, in a New York City barrelling into the future, yet plagued by social unrest. Megastructures soar overhead, cybernetic implants are commonplace, and security robots patrol the perimeters of powerful corporations. On the other hand, crime has skyrocketed, climate change has forced the construction of an enormous flood wall surrounding the city, and Central Park has been converted into an autonomous shanty town. The technological advances of the future are enormous, but they haven’t been spread evenly across society.
There are three main characters
Disjunction follows the stories of three characters – Frank, Joe, and Spider – as they work together to unravel a city-wide conspiracy. Each character has a unique personality, story, and set of abilities with which to overcome the challenges they face. The narratives of these three characters are interwoven with one another, and you’ll learn more about their personal histories over the course of the game.
Your playstyle is up to you
Disjunction gives you the freedom and flexibility to choose your own playstyle. You can tackle encounters in lethal, high-octane combat, or use your wits to stick to the shadows, using distraction techniques and non-lethal attacks to reach your objective. It’s up to you how you decide how best to navigate New York City’s treacherous underworld.
Your choices matter
Disjunction features a reactive story that is shaped by your actions. Your approach to situations can have serious consequences for the future of New York City, with the repercussions of choosing to spare or kill even one person rippling throughout the underworld. Based on your playstyle and dialogue choices, the story you experience will react and change, culminating in a wide range of possible endings.
There’s deep character progression
In Disjunction, you’ll be able to unlock cybernetic upgrades to augment your abilities via upgrade trees, and build upon your playstyle to improve your stealth or increase the lethality of attacks through talent trees. Find every hidden upgrade kit and spend your hard-earned talent points wisely to maximize the effectiveness of each character.
Thanks so much for checking out Disjunction. We’re really looking forward to all of you trying it out for yourselves when the game launches later this month!
How many times a day do you grab your phone for trivial purposes, such as scrolling through social media? Nick O’Hara found that his number was around 100 times during the workday, which sounds like a lot, but is likely pretty typical. To combat these micro-distractions, he built an Arduino-based device that senses when a phone is placed on top of it using a microswitch.
When the phone is lifted, it connects to the network via a WiFi module, and donates money to charity. What O’Hara discovered was that his usage went down significantly when he automatically donated $1 per pickup, settling on about 10 checks, or $10 each day. As he increased donation/pickup level, his daily usage still came out to about $10, which would seem to be an interesting psychological experiment.
Wir bei Xbox haben eine Tradition: Jedes Jahr überraschen wir Fans mit neuen Controller-Designs passend zu ihren Lieblings-Franchises oder in aufregenden neuen Farben. Und so beginnen wir auch 2021 mit einem neuen Controller – dem Xbox Wireless Controller – Pulse Red! Seit dem Launch von Xbox Series X|S sind ist der Xbox Wireless Controller in den Varianten Carbon Black, Robot White und Shock Blue verfügbar – jetzt sorgt der neue Controller in leuchtendem Rot für noch mehr Farbakzente!
Mit seiner feurig leuchtenden Oberseite und der elegant weißen Rückseite bildet der Pulse Red Controller das perfekte Pendant zum Controller in kühlem Blau. Mattschwarze Trigger, Bumper und ein hybrides D-Pad verringern ungewolltes Abrutschen von verschwitzten Fingern und sorgen für verbesserte Kontrolle. Dank einem strukturierten Punktmuster auf den Triggern und Bumpern hast Du Deinen Controller immer fest im Griff. Der dynamische Latenz-Input sorgt für eine verzögerungsfreie Kommunikation zwischen Controller und Konsole und ermöglicht reaktionsschnelle Befehle.
Die Möglichkeiten Deines neuen Xbox Wireless Controllers
Belege die Buttons Deines neuen Controllers – einschließlich des neuen Share-Buttons – mithilfe der Xbox Zubehör-App ganz nach Deinen Wünschen und verschaff Dir einen Vorteil. Mit dem neuen Share-Button hältst Du Deine denkwürdigsten Momente direkt von Deinem Controller aus fest. Anschließend teilst Du die besten Momente schnell und einfach über Dein Konsolen-Menü oder direkt über die Xbox App (Beta) in den sozialen Medien. Koppel Deinen neuen Xbox Wireless Controller – Pulse Red einfach mit Xbox Series X, Xbox Series S oder Xbox One über das integrierte Xbox Wireless-Funksignal oder nutze Bluetooth Low Energy, um Dich kabellos mit Deinem Windows 10 PC oder anderen Android-Geräten zu verbinden – perfekt für Remote Play von Deiner Konsole und Cloud Gaming im Xbox Game Pass Ultimate! Wie alle neuen Xbox Wireless Controller verfügt auch der Pulse Red über eine 3,5-mm Stereo Headset-Buchse und einen USB-C-Anschluss zum Spielen und Aufladen mit dem separat erhältlichen Xbox-Akku.
Schnapp Dir den Pulse Red!
Der Xbox Wireless Controller – Pulse Red ist ab dem 9.Februar im Microsoft Store und bei allen teilnehmenden Händlern zu einem Preis ab 59,99 Euro (59,95 Schweizer Franken) verfügbar und kostet damit genauso viel wie sein Vorgängermodell. Wie wäre es also mit einem Upgrade? Zusätzlich erhältst Du beim Kauf des Controllers eine zweiwöchige Probemitgliedschaft für den Xbox Game Pass Ultimate gratis dazu! Schnapp Dir jetzt den Xbox Wireless Controller – Pulse Red für Deinen zweiten Mitspieler oder ergänze Deine Controller-Sammlung und zeige allen das Feuer, das in Dir lodert!
Für weitere Informationen zu neuen Controller-Designs und allen aktuellen News aus dem Xbox-Kosmos schau regelmäßig hier auf Xbox Wire DACH vorbei.
Each year, we look forward to bringing many new controller designs to our fans. With the launch of the Xbox Series X|S in November, we were eager to bring you our new Xbox Wireless Controller in three options: Carbon Black, Robot White, and Shock Blue. Today, we’re excited to introduce the latest design in the new generation of controllers, the Xbox Wireless Controller – Pulse Red. With a vivid, fiery-red topcase and crisp, white backcase, the new Pulse Red controller brings the same energy and equally striking color as the Shock Blue. Matte black triggers, bumpers, and hybrid D-pad reduce slip against sweaty fingers and thumbs for greater control, while a textured dot pattern on the triggers and bumpers to keep your grip locked in. Dynamic Latency Input delivers controller inputs more frequently to your Xbox Series X|S for a more responsive gaming experience and seemingly instantaneous action.
The controller’s buttons, including the new Share button, can be custom mapped just the way you like using the Xbox Accessories app. Set the Share button to capture screenshots, start/stop recording, or even to record what just happened, then share your best, worst or funniest moments with friends and followers right from the console dashboard or your Android phone with the Xbox app for mobile.
You can wirelessly connect the new Pulse Red controller to your favorite gaming devices including Xbox Series X|S and Xbox One with the built-in Xbox Wireless radio. You can also play wirelessly on Win10 PCs and Android devices with Bluetooth Low Energy for remote play from your console or cloud gaming with Xbox Game Pass Ultimate on the go. The controller remembers multiple devices, so you can quickly and seamlessly switch between previously connected devices, while connecting with USB to your console or PC is also an option.
You can pick up the Xbox Wireless Controller in Pulse Red for Player 2 or add this beauty to your own personal collection for $64.99 USD starting February 9 in most Xbox markets and starting tomorrow in China. Check your local retailer for availability.
As with all new Xbox Wireless Controllers, Pulse Red features a 3.5mm stereo headset jack to plug in for a fully immersive gaming experience and a USB-C port to play & charge with the Xbox Rechargeable Battery (sold separately). In select markets, the new Pulse Red controller includes a 14-day trial for Xbox Game Pass Ultimate.
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