Star Wars Battlefront's Upcoming DLC will add a New Map, New Costumes and More

  Star Wars Battlefront’s upcoming DLC will be offering a new map set on Tatooine and new outfits for Luke and Leia, according to a video by Brasil which as been taken down.  According to the translation, which can be viewed here, states that the content will not be part of the season pass, and will be available to everyone who currently owns the game. However, EA’s other regions have not announced the map nor the costumes as of now. Previously, the publisher has previously confirmed at least four expansions that will be coming to Battlefront.  Here’s the following content that will be available. Over 20 new items, including weapons, vehicles, and Star Cards for both Rebels and Imperials. 4 additional Heroes and Villains. 16 new multiplayer maps featuring “new locations.” 4 new game modes. These expansions will be included in the Star Wars: Battlefront season pass, which costs $50 and grants two-week early access to the content.  Sadly, there is no content based on Star Wars: The Force Awakens to be included in the pass at some point in the future. Although, as mentioned by Patrick Soderlund, there will be more of what players loved about this game such as new maps and Star Cards, for free in the following months, including all the content that will be available in the Season Pass. We will keep you up to date as we learn more on what will be coming in the Season Pass in future, so stay tuned. Source: http://www.gamespot.com/articles/star-wars-battlefronts-upcoming-dlc-includes-tatoo/1100-6434012/?ftag=GSS-05-10aaa0a

Microsoft Trademarks Name of Rare’s Nintendo 64 Classic Jet Force Gemini

From one of the greatest games by Rare from the Nintendo 64 era, there was Jet Force Gemini, which was re-released by Microsoft on Rare Replay, but it wasn’t owned by Xbox during the time. The attempt to register the trademark began on June 12th, 2015, but ran into some technical difficulties during the process.  Initially, the United States Patent and Trademark Office demanded and disclaimed mentioning that Microsoft made no claim to the word “Jet”, but in defense, Microsoft stated that the Federal offices registered other trademarks with the word “Jet without a disclaimer. In November, the UPTSO agreed with Microsoft’s viewpoint, and accepted the registration of the trademark, which was published on January 19th. Looking back at this right now, not all the classic games available in Rare Replay have been re-trademarked by Microsoft, or are currently trademarked at all.  While this unnecessarily means that Microsoft have something JetForce Gemini-related at this point in time, they seem to be interested enough to keep hold of the IP name. When we learn more about what Microsoft has planned, we will keep you up to date as news start to role out. Source:  http://www.dualshockers.com/2016/01/21/microsoft-trademarks-name-of-rares-nintendo-64-classic-jet-force-gemini/

Ironcast makes the jump to consoles

Dreadbit and Ripstone Publishing announced today that their steampunk mech combat game;  Ironcast will be launching on PS4 & Xbox One during the first week of March. The game will hit digital shelves on 1st & 2nd March for PS4, dependent on region, and worldwide for Xbox One players on March 4th. Ironcast is set in an alternative Victorian history; where refined men and women commanded gigantic mechanised war machines, laying waste to enemies of the British Empire. As Commanders of the Consortium of Merit, players take control of their own 7 metre tall walking Ironcast. Gamers must face off against an invading force of enemy Ironcast in order to defend 1880’s Victorian England. Battles are fought by generating resource nodes which in turn drive the Ironcast’s various weapons and systems. Players must choose how to spend these nodes wisely, either offensively in order to cripple and destroy their opponents, or defensively, if they suspect a barrage of incoming weapon fire is due. No price is available yet but we will let you know as soon as we hear.

Unravel loses trademark bid, will have to change its name

It seems as if the upcoming game Unravel will have to change its name before release. According to a post by Neogaf, EA was denied a trademark for the name because a game with that name already exists. Apparently this notification was made to EA last June. Since they did not respond within the listed six month time frame, the trademark was denied. The reason for its denial is because a game with the name Unravel already exists. In fact, it’s full name is Beary’s Unravel Game and is trademarked by SimplyFun games. It’s a board game still, but the name itself is still trademarked. So, let’s get a poll going on the best names that Unravel could be called, huh? Unwound? Adventures of Yarny? Yarny Unleashed? What do you think? Let us know below

DirectX12 will power the new Hitman

When Hitman launches in March, it will do so utilizing Microsoft’s DirectX12 technology. According to a panel being held at GDC, which was spotted by Gamingbolt, it is tited “Rendering Hitman with DirectX12” After last week’s news that the game will be released episodically with five add on packs, players were both surprised and upset while others liked the move. The official description of the panels reads as follows “This talk will give a brief overview of how the Hitman Renderer works, followed by a deep dive into how we manage everything with DirectX 12, including Pipeline State Objects, Root Signatures, Resources, Command Queues and Multithreading. How to write a fast and efficient DirectX 12 / Vulkan engine, and how to use the new HW features to implement new graphics techniques. Learn from real shipping game developers experiences It will be curious to see just how they use the new technology in Hitman’s development, especially with the boost it has been providing PC games at 20% and even more on Xbox One. After the panel we’ll follow up with any new details presented within. Stay tuned.  

Bungie Weekly Update – What to Expect from the February Update

From the latest Bungie weekly update, we are provided with an insight on what to expect from the next update that will launch on February 9th.  Along with other fixes and improvements available from the February Update, there will be a new 2v2 mode Crucible Doubles.  It delivers a special twist, born of new gameplay and mechanics that only so called “star-crossed” lovers will appreciate. Of course, before the “Big date night” starts a couple weeks from now, we’ll also be seeing Lord Saladin once again making a return with the Iron Banner starting January 6th, 10AM PST and ending February 2nd, 12AM PST.  Of course, instead of this coming Iron Banner being the tradtional Control gametype, it will be Rift instead, and if you’re not familiar with Rift, a video by Alan aka @MoreConsole has a video on it below. What you will also see below are the weapons and gear that will be available during the Iron Banner event. Fusion Rifles Scout Rifles Titan Armor Hunter Armor Warlock Armor PlayStation Armor (timed exclusive) Available from Lord Saladin Rank 3: Class Item, PlayStation Class item Rank 4: Chest Piece, Scout Rifle Rank 5: Fusion Rifles Available as post game drops Rank 2: Boots Rank 3: Chest Piece, PlayStation helmet, Scout Rifle Rank 4: Fusion Rifle that pretty much wraps up everything in this weekly update, and as Deej mentioned in the as he closes up the update, it is expected that there will be “a second, larger game update” that will come sometime after February.  After all, whatever Bungie is cooking up to show this, please stay tune for more news here. Source: https://www.bungie.net/en/News/News?aid=14271        

Here are the teams competing in the Halo World Championship Tour

ESPN X Games and Xbox announce eight of the top esport teams from around the world who will go head-to-head in Halo 5: Guardians at X Games Aspen 2016 from January 28 – 31. Here are the 8 teams that will be competing: Epsilon eSports (UK) PENTA Sports (Germany) Team Allegiance CLG Evil Geniuses Leftovers Dream Team Team Liquid The six teams from North America and two international teams (UK and Germany) – will compete in group play that will culminate in a single-elimination bracket-style tournament onsite at X Games Aspen for medals and $30,000 in prize money. This tournament is invitation only so it will not contribute to the points. The event will also be streamed live on WatchESPN, Twitch.tv/Halo and mlg.tv/halo.

Pirate Sim Pixel Piracy coming to PlayStation 4 and Xbox One

Quadro Delta have announced on the PlayStation Blog that Pixel Piracy, a pirate sim that was first released on PC a few years ago, will be coming to PlayStation 4 (the game will also be on Xbox One as well), even though the game may look similar to older 8 bit games, there is a lot to this game, you can build your own pirate ship and more, I played it about a year ago on PC and I’m happy to see that it will be coming  to PlayStation 4 and Xbox One. The game will be released on February 16th Source:PlayStation

Here's how to get your PVZ: GW2 rewards by playing the original Plants Vs. Zombies

Today, PopCap Vancouver announced Plants vs. Zombies Garden Warfare players will receive in-game Garden Warfare 2 Player Loyalty rewards based on their achieved rank in the original game. Players can claim their Loyalty Rewards* inPlants vs. Zombies Garden Warfare 2 by heading to the Mailbox upon starting the game and following instructions to import their characters and progression. Once imported, players will receive the following in-game rewards: ·         Rank 10 or higher – Receive a free Helpful Fun Pack. ·         Rank 25 or higher – Receive a free Wondrous Pack of Greatness. ·         Rank 50 or higher – Receive a free character unlock. ·         Rank 100 or higher – Receive five Super Rare Customization Items – with a ‘glowing’ effect added to them for good measure. ·         Max Rank of 313 – Last but not least, players who reach will receive a 313 Max Pack that includes a legendary character – the Unicorn Chomper and Unicorn Warp Ability. You can still play the original game if you haven’t already for completely free. Simply download the EA Access Hub on Xbox One and you can play as much as you want. If you’re dedicated enough, you may be able to earn that Unicorn! Do you have what it takes Plants vs. Zombies Garden Warfare 2 releases in February on both Xbox One and PS4

Sunset Overdrive items coming to Rocket League

So remember that game Sunset Overdrive? Well we have some awesome news for fans of the game and for fans of Rocket League. The guys over at Insomniac Games have revealed that Fizzie will be invading Rocket League once it releases on Xbox One. This is joining Halo and Gears of War for exclusive content in Rocket League. Here what was said on their blog: In short, Rocket League would naturally fit with the world of Sunset Overdrive. It would be a sport the denizens of Sunset City would eventually create for themselves (if they could only get those damn cars started!). Therefore, it seemed perfectly fitting when we were approach by the fine people of Psyonix, asking if they could do some Sunset related Garage Items. One of the awesome features is an Overcharge Rocket Boost. Not only that, you have Fizzie as your antenna. The possibilities are endless when it comes to Rocket League and Xbox One. I bet we will see even more of this stuff soon. Rocket League is due to come out sometime in February 2016 on Xbox One.