Final DLC For Titanfall Due Out “Soon”

Over at Gamescom 2014, where a frenzy of news relating to games and Xbox are being thrown about, Respawn Entertainment got an announcement of their own into the mix with the reveal of their next DLC offering, titled “IMC Rising”.  The third and final DLC pack is said to be releasing “soon” and will include another three maps for players to do battle on.  The three maps being released will be named “Blackwater”, “Zone 18” and “Sandtrap”.  No word on whether Respawn intend to bring any more noticeable updates to Titanfall, though the graphics update could make it out into one of these patches sooner or later.  The game runs at 792p natively and is upscaled to properly display onto a 1080p screen because Respawn were more concerned with frame rate consistency than raw detail.

This final DLC is likely the last hurrah for Titanfall, which will face heavy competition for income and game time with the likes of Destiny, Far Cry 4, Assassin’s Creed and many other games making their way to Xbox One this fall. 

If you’re an Xbox Live Gold subscriber, this months Games With Gold deals include a $25 Titanfall purchase and a discounted “Frontier’s Edge” DLC purchase for $6.99 (usually $9.99).  If you haven’t picked up Titanfall yet, this is the best deal around.  The game is still excellent for those that enjoy frantic competitive shooters and could continue to improve itself through updates after the final DLC lands, which we expect will come out sometime in September.

EVOLVE, Battlefield: Hardline Delayed to 2015

In what was looking to be a jam-packed 2014 holiday seasons for games, the competing for consumer dollars will be at least a little less intense for game developers/publishers as two high profile releases have been confirmed to be delayed until early 2015.  The first is the well-established Battlefield entry, dubbed Hardline, which pits cops against robbers and is supposed to be a big step up for story quality in the series.  The second is what many billed as the most exciting cooperative game, titled EVOLVE.  EVOLVE runs a 4v1 cooperative/competitive play setup where four players will assume specific classed hunters and try to take down a beast that is controlled by a different human player.  Early demos at gaming conventions have lead EVOLVE to being talked about as much as other heavy hitters like Destiny and Call of Duty: Advanced Warfare.

With EVOLVE and Battlefield out of the 2014 picture the game-scape may be a little less crowded, but there’s still plenty to look forward to, such as:

• Call of Duty Advanced Warfare
• Halo: The Master Chief Collection
• Assassin’s Creed Unity
• Far Cry 4
• Sunset Overdrive
• Destiny
• Shadow of Mordor
• Forza Horizon 2
• Project Spark
• Madden 15
• The Witcher 3
• Dragon Age: Inquisition

Also included in the mix are current-gen console updates for games like Grand Theft Auto 5, Metro 2033/Last Light (named “Redux” together), A Wolf Among Us, Diablo 3 and more.

EA Launching Subscription Service For Games on Xbox One

Microsoft and EA announced a new partnership yesterday that Xbox One owners should seriously take notice of. Coming to the Xbox One is a new subscription service that will let gamers play most (maybe all) back catalogue games currently available on the Xbox One platform. The service gives you unlimited access to Battlefield 4, Peggle 2, FIFA 14 and Madden 25, all of which launched late last year. The console exclusive Titanfall isn’t on the list yet, but EA confirms that the available number of games will only expand with time, making for a better value. This new service will set you back either $5 per month or $30 a year. As long as you keep your subscription you can keep playing these games.

Titanfall’s Next DLC Named, Due Out Soon

With a flurry of games sitting on the horizon, it’s important for titles that have already come to get what value they can into their mixes before your money faces heavier contention.  Destiny, EVOLVE, Minecraft, Sunset Overdrive, Halo: The Master Chief Collection, Forza Horizon 2, Assassin’s Creed Unity, Project Spark, Call of Duty: Advanced Warfare, The Crew, The Evil Within, Far Cry 4… we didn’t have to list every one of those games but we wanted to really drive home the message that there’s a wealth of gamer product coming our way.  This leads us back to our original point: DLC.

Titanfall’s next expansion has been announced and is titled “Frontier’s Edge”.  The DLC will bring forth three additional maps and could bring some additional tweaks and improvements to the game with it.  There is no release date officially set for the maps, but Respawn Entertainment have pinned a “summer” launch.  This could mean that September would be the launch window, but we anticipate something sooner since the first set of DLC released over a month ago.  Also, waiting until the end of September would force Respawn into competing for dollars with gamers which will only hurt them since DLC is expansive and a new game is an entirely new experience (we think Destiny is going to be that big of a launch and will take much of your time if you choose to experience it).  Our money is on mid August, but don’t expect much lead time on the DLC release date.  The first maps out were announced several weeks in advance but the date wasn’t confirmed until just days before.

Titanfall Update 4 Live on All Platforms

At E3, Respawn Entertainment showed us a glimpse of their upcoming patch to Titanfall that would address a few bugs but also add in some cool extras and a new gametype.  “Marked For Death” has been added as a specialty game type that will likely rotate with other specialty game modes, like “Wingman Last Titan Standing” (2v2 LTS).  There’s now an expanded Burn Card storage, decals for your titan, new achievements and more.  Check out Respawn’s official patch notes below!

http://www.titanfall.com/game-update-four

EA Unveils Battlefield Hardline, Mass Effect 4, Mirrors Edge 2, Dragon Age Inquisition, Star Wars: Battlefront

Electronic Arts brought their heavy guns to E3 this afternoon in their main press briefing which followed Microsoft’s.  They had a slew of new high-profile titles to show.  Confirmed for release over the next year include a new Mass Effect game (called Mass Effect 4 at the moment), Star Wars: Battlefront (slated for some kind of release in spring 2015, whether that be official release or open beta), Battlefield: Hardline (closed beta from PS4 and PC available right now via battlefield.com), Mirror’s Edge 2 (supposedly some kind of origin story of sorts), and Dragon Age Inquisition (Skyrim with a tighter combat system).  There was no Titanfall information for the games next set of DLC but we can expect some news either later today or later this week as it was heavily hinted at last week as being a part of E3 somehow.

No matter how you cut it, EA is readying a stacked deck for games.  They also showed off their upcoming sports franchises with games like Madden 15 and Fifa 15 which will be available later this year.  A live stream of Battlefield: Hardline is set to kick off with 32 players soon, so if you’re sitting around with nothing to do and this new Hardline franchise entry interests you, pop on over to battlefield.com to check it out.

UPDATE: While we don’t know the look or execution of the multiplayer system it has been confirmed that you’ll access the multiplayer from a centralized system and apparently be able to jump between different games without having to relaunch menus or lobbies.  Jackpot.

Battlefield 4 Receives Patch After Community Testing

Battlefield 4 hasn’t been in the news for a while.  This is likely due to the fact that it’s over six months old now and only receives DLC every few months.  The game still has a pretty strong presence online on most of its platforms as it’s a game that holds more replayability in multiplayer environments than most games like it would.  The biggest reason to hate Battlefield 4 was attributed to bugs, bugs, and even more bugs when the game launched.  Over the course of the following months, though, DICE would begin to patch the mistakes in the code and server performance.  Today, the game is just about as smooth as it can be (though you can occasionally still experience a hiccup).

Now, DICE is rolling out their latest update to Battlefield 4 with a code performance tweak that is reducing noticeable chunks of code lag that is experienced when players move and interact with their environment.  Things like weapons fire and jumping experienced frame lag of roughly 14-15 FPS (or, 1/4 of a second in most cases).  This doesn’t sound like much, but when you’re required to use twitch reflexes to counter enemy fire or evade it then every moment you should have to react should be available.  The resulting improvements of this patch have cut as much as 60% of the frame lag that occurred in certain tests.  We’ll never see zero-lag when online play is the topic of discussion – you’d have to run your games on local area networks to see that kind of performance, but this code improvement will likely be noticeable in-game and can help those players that have the capacity to duck behind cover in a moments notice or swing around to shoot an enemy in a last ditch effort to survive.

Battlefield Hardline Is The Next Battlefield Game For 2014

Battlefield 4 was both a glorious step forward for the series and tragic step back for functional quality.  There’s no secrets about how buggy the game was, yet with all of its imperfections it still manages to be one of the best shooter experiences on any platform.  Battlefield 4 won’t see a direct successor for at least another year or two but EA isn’t sitting back and waiting for Battlefield 5 to find its way to release status.  Battlefield Hardline looks to be the next iteration of Battlefield and it looks pretty darn good.

A leaked game trailer video got loose this week and is hitting the internet hard as well as plenty of information via EA’s Battlelog.  Gamespot and IGN have already done their run-throughs but we’ll provide Polygon’s video trailer to give you a brief rundown of what is to come.  E3 is right around the corner so we won’t have to wait long for EA’s official announcement of the game and their account of what we can expect.  One thing we do know is that DICE is not involved with this game but rather Dead Space developer Visceral Games.  new game modes and a cops & robbers approach are all in store.  We’re excited for Battlefield to take a another big step forward without reproducing itself like Call of Duty has done in the past.  Keep this one on your radar for when E3 kicks off in June!

Polygon Battlefield Hardline Trailer: http://www.polygon.com/2014/5/28/5757356/battlefield-hardline-trailer#ooid=FqZ3AybjqRh74HQnhwnlJ1B0b1NCHfHs

Are You Ready For The Age of Open World?

2014 is set to see the release of several games that are considered “open world” types.  Open world is a term used to describe a game with an environment that allows for exploration and freedoms, much like the freedoms you’d experience with Skyrim, Fallout, or typical MMORPGs.  The element of open world allows for a lot of fun and gives you the option to follow a linear storyline and path or be outside of the box, seeing all the creative effort developers put into their title.  It’s quickly becoming a coveted approach to gaming and is one of the promises that the new Xbox One and PlayStation 4 consoles bring to the table.  PC gaming has had more experience with open world style games in the past, but the PC platform doesn’t always drive trends like consoles do these days.  After all, it was Halo on Xbox that set the tone for the modern FPS genre.  For gamers, there are several titles you should have on your radar if you consider yourself a moderate or core player that invests multiple hours per week into your games library.

Games like Watch Dogs, Elder Scrolls Online, Destiny, and The Division are all aimed to launch before the end of 2014.  All of these games are poised to be heavy hitters.  All of these games are rocking the open world concept in one way or another, and there’s some serious talent behind most of them that could easily take the mantle for game of the year.  If you ask us, Destiny is the favorite since it adopts a lot of MMORPG elements into a shooter, where cooperative play as well as competitive opportunities are littered throughout the game.  An MMOFPS is what we will call it, then, and it will likely have much greater impact than something like Planetside, which stayed in beta for a long time before finally coming to a gradual official launch.  Unlike Planetside, Destiny will be much more friendly for cooperative play and won’t be so aimless or eye-of-the-storm dependent to feel like you’re part of any action.  Just like World of Warcraft, this game will be enjoyed by yourself or with friends and, also like WoW, there will be incredible depth.

That’s really what open world boils down to – depth.  The more immersive and custom the experience, the greater the returns.  Fallout is a great example of single player story-driven shooters in an open world setting that could easily net you 50-150 hours of playthrough as long as you weren’t content on just going through the main story without any side questing.  These types of games are the ones that truly earn your $60 investment and will find ways to keep you around for longer periods of time than the likes of any Call of Duty title with DLC if for no other reason than the DLC being expansion pack caliber, offering entire new pockets of the world you’re playing in with what is called “end game content” – that is, content that you play the entire game to get to and then must master in order to overcome it and receive its benefits (typically weapon or gear rewards).  A properly balanced MMORPG easily steals away hours upon hours of your life and it’s these games that you should look to invest in, even if you only invest in one or two for the whole year.

Titanfall is excellent, but the game is strictly online and competitive based within smaller-type levels that keep you near enemy combatants to drive action at all times.  These new open world games won’t necessarily opt for that direct approach as much, but games like Elder Scrolls Online tend to keep the action within reach should you really want to get crazy, though no game will likely offer the kind of blitzkrieg pacing that Titanfall has offered us so far.  Enjoy all the games you can, but the best values in the biz are about to crash our next-gen platforms and make us realize that, even though the graphics aren’t going to always compare well with the PC offerings, the sheer scale and content availability of these new titles are the reasons why the developers putting these games together are excited to have new hardware like the Xbox One around to make games on.

Web Exploding Over “TitanFall 2” – Multiplatform?

The big news around the gaming world at the moment seems to be that TitanFall 2 may have already been locked up by EA and will be a multiplatform title.  While that isn’t the most outrageous thing to hit the interwebs, the fact is that this is all rumor with zero confirmation from anyone on the issue.  Both Respawn Entertainment and EA have yet to make any indication that a TitanFall 2 is being hashed out in any way/shape/form, meaning a lot of journalists owning PlayStation 3/4 consoles are running with hopes and dreams that this epic shooter will be available on their platform in the future.  The reports are so outrageous that even Respawn Entertainment have loosely commented on the reports and simply retained their commitment to their current product and that they have no plans for a TitanFall 2 at the moment.

Any sequel, whether it happens or not, wouldn’t be here for roughly 3 years if Respawn Entertainment haven’t truly begun work on a successor.  This would make a lot of sense for a studio that is still relatively new and doesn’t have the manpower to juggle multiple titles at once, especially when their first game launch ever is one that is still incomplete (according to the devs).  No matter what console(s) you own, look at TitanFall now and not the future as EA has likely not inked any deals with Respawn over a TitanFall successor at this time and Microsoft could easily make an offer to publish the next title should the money and opportunities be right.  Microsoft would be smart to put a bid down to lock this up in some form to keep incentives toward their Xbox One platform which has started to see surges in sales in February and March which could net them some makeup ground against rival Sony.

Then again, perhaps by the time Titanfall 2 could come around the Xbox One will have caught up and surpassed the PS4 like many analysts predicted prior to the consoles launching, leaving the need to have Titanfall exclusive as an afterthought.  Respawn Entertainment will have their hands full if this comes to pass, since Titanfall launched well but does suffer for a few hiccups simply because the game isn’t entirely finished.  We’ve reported about EA being way too gung-ho about pushing games out the door before they’re done, but imagine adding 2-3 new consoles (Nintendo, PlayStation) to the mix to work with and test.  It could be a challenge to get a 2nd Titanfall out the door in the next three years and we now know that EA isn’t afraid to birth a baby premature.