Weekend Headlines Feb 17-19th Part 3: Updates, Screenshots and More

By Rebecca Smith,

We've read all about the announcements and we've watched a plethora of trailers. To finish off the weekend headlines, we have the multitude of updates, release dates, screenshots and other details that completed the news over the last few days.

Updates

First, Sony had an important announcement about their Playstation Now service. From August 15th, 2017, players will no longer be able to use the service on PlayStation 3, PlayStation Vita and PlayStation TV, all Sony Bravia TV models (some will be ending on May 15th), all Sony Blu-ray player models and all Samsung TV models. This is so that they can "shift [their] focus and resources to PS4 and Windows PC to further develop and improve the user experience on these two devices. This move puts [them] in the best position to grow the service even further". Playstation Now will continue to run on PC and Playstation 4 where players will be able to pick up from where they left off with their cloud saves. If you don't wish to use PS Now on either of these two devices, remember to cancel your subscription before or on July 15th so that you will no longer be charged.

Destiny released a hotfix that brought the game up to version 2.5.0.2. Dubbed "the one about Sandbox tuning", here are all of the fixes and improvements that it made:

*** Spoiler - click to reveal ***

Crucible

Special Ammo

Adjusted Special ammo economy in all gametypes

Players start Crucible matches with Special ammo
Special ammo is now lost upon death - Sidearms are not affected by this change
Special ammo crates now appear every 60 seconds (initial spawn and respawn)
Special ammo crates are shared with allies within 75m (down from 100m)
Special ammo timing in Mayhem is unchanged

Elimination Gametypes

Round time limit has been reduced to 90 seconds (down from 2 minutes)
Players only start with Special ammo for Round 1 in Elimination gametypes

Special ammo timing is 30s initial, then 45s respawns
Special ammo is wiped at the beginning of subsequent rounds

Weapons

Hand Cannons

Significantly increased initial accuracy (returns to Launch / Year 1)
Reduced base range to 35m from 40m
Reduced Aim Assist and Magnetism at longer ranges
Reduced minimum damage after falloff from 50% to 33%

Auto Rifles

Increased Precision Damage modifier to 1.3x (up from 1.25x)
Increased base damage of low rate of fire Auto Rifles by 2.5%
Increased in air accuracy

Pulse Rifles

Reduced rate of fire for very high rate of fire Pulse Rifles by 7.7%
Increased rate of fire for low rate of fire Pulse Rifles by 5.3%
Reduced Magazine Size of Clever Dragon and Grasp of Malok by 6
Reduced the effect of High Caliber Rounds for Pulse Rifles
Increased in air accuracy

Scout Rifles

Increased in air accuracy

Shotguns

Shotguns no longer deal precision damage

The Chaperone and Universal Remote are unaffected by this change
Note: Universal Remote only deals precision damage when ADS

Shotguns now have significantly less magnetism when fired from the hip
Shotguns now have significantly less in air accuracy
Shotguns no longer have a movement penalty
Shotguns now deal 20% more damage to combatants
Rangefinder on Shotguns now increases ADS time by 25%
Reduced Universal Remote’s Magazine Size to 3 from 5
Universal Remote now takes longer to reload

Exotics

Young Wolf’s Howl

Reduced "Howling Flames" ammo cost from 10 to 5

Truth

Reduced Magazine size from 3 to 1

Classes

General

Reduced Health of Guardians with Armor values above 10
Increased damage of Flux Grenade, Magnetic Grenade and Shoulder Charge to ensure effectiveness across all Armor values
Blink now disables your Radar and HUD for a short time after activation

Hunter

Throwing Knife now deals Solar Damage on impact
Bladedancer’s Quick Draw Perk no longer readies your weapons instantly, but now grants a large increase to weapon handling speed
Hungering Blade*

Immediately starts Health regen
Restores more Health per kill
Gives a flat amount of Health/Shield per activation
Does not immediately start regenerating Shields

Warlock

Viper Totemic on Ophidian Aspect no longer readies your weapon instantly, but now grants a large increase to weapon handling speed
Stormcaller's Thunderstrike melee range reduced to be consistent with other Warlock Subclasses - Amplitude will continue to grant small range boost to new base range
Landfall now reduces the total time in Stormtrance

Titan

Juggernaut is now disabled after being in the air for a short time and cannot be activated while in mid air

General

Outbreak Prime no longer triggers The Corruption Spreads by shooting at Ward of Dawn
Shinobu’s Vow no longer adds an additional seeker to Skip Grenades
Removed intrinsic Perks Kneepads and Icarus on some Talent grids
Fixed an issue where High Caliber Rounds were not functioning properly on Hand Cannons, Scout Rifles, Machine Guns and Sniper Rifles
*Hungering Blade changes were also inadvertently applied to the following Perks, for more information check this post

Transfusion (Striker Titan)
Cauterize (Sunbreaker Titan)
Lifesteal (Voidwalker Warlock)
Red Death Perk
Suros Legacy Perk (Suros Regime)
No Backup Plans
Ward of Dawn cast
The Ram
Apotheosis Veil
Embrace the Void (Voidwalker Warlock)

The Playstation VR update for DiRT Rally has arrived. Players can try out the entire game in VR, as well as the brand new Co-Driver mode where a second player gives calls using a controller and the social screen. Check out the trailer showing the mode in action:

Next week, or more specifically February 28th, marks the release of the Trials: The Endgame Update for Dungeon Defenders II. The update will bring a new Chaos difficulty, the ability to level a hero indefinitely, Shards, new enemies, new strategies, balance changes and more. For more information on the new shards, character levelling and changes to relics, weapons, armour and loot, check out this blog. For more information on the Chaos difficulty, new enemies and challenges, check out this blog instead.

Developer CCP Games launched the Wormholes update for EVE: Valkyrie - Warzone. Key to the update was the new Wormholes game mode where a new wormhole opens up every weekend. In it, players will find different gameplay objectives, from "mined control points to Supermissiles and beyond". You'll find more details here. Then there's the new Leagues alpha feature where players can improve their league status by playing competitive matches. Support has been added for the Thrustmaster T.Flight HOTAS 4 joystick and there has been a whole host of feature improvements and other enhancements. For a full breakdown of improvements, check out this post.

Full Kiss Steep delayed its Alaska update until February 24th, but that didn't stop the development team from providing an hour long stream that showcases what players can expect from the upcoming content. The stream begins at 16:17 for those who don't want to admire the starting soon screen.

Next week on February 28th, a new character will be joining Full Kiss Street Fighter V as part of the Season 2 Character Pass. Kolin is the "phantasm of snow and ice". She excels in the Russian martial art of Systema and uses her opponents' momentum to execute her slash-like attacks and knife hand strikes. Of course, her ability to blast opponents with frigid gusts of air and summon icicles also comes in handy.

Five months after the release of The Tomorrow Children, developer Q-Games has added a new building to the game. The Administrator Tower is a culmination of the Comrade Stars and Party Privilege Stamps systems and rewards players with a variety of useful administrative commands. There were also quite a few bug fixes and other improvements. Here's a list of those:

*** Spoiler - click to reveal ***Administrative Commands:

Fire Brigade – all fires in town will be extinguished.
Phase Healing – all comrades will be healed to full immediately.
Non-Resident Barrier – Non-residents are banned from entry to the town for a certain period of time (players already logged in are fine until they next log out). Used wisely this can give you something close to private servers!
Airship Raid – The nearest Bankrotz will be destroyed by aerial attack. This is fun for everyone to watch!
Comrade Summons – All players will be asked if they want to be teleported back to town, useful for calling people back to fend off an attack!
Terrain Clearer – Terrain surrounding structures in town will be cleared.
Power Saver – The town will draw electricity from the state for a short period of time, and not deplete the town’s energy supply.
Food Saver – The town will use food from the state for a short period of time, and not deplete the town’s food supply.
Turret Tuning – Soviet scientists will temporarily tune the turrets to fire an extra shot in quick succession. Particularly great when combined with a certain mayor!
Retashi Smasher – All retashi in the town will be instantly quashed, great for when a swarm has just arrived.
Clone Luminescence – By order of the Administrator, all comrades will glow for a short period of time.
Island Disperser – All islands will be dispersed in the order in which they were created. Great for cycling in new islands to play on when you have fully mined the existing ones!

Now, on top of the above we have made some major retuning to make the game more fun for the player:

Shotgun and missile launcher recoils and reloads are much snappier now.
Shaking trees to drop their apples is much more snappy too.
The stretch gun will stretch more.
Fighting off a bunch of izverg will now give you a bit of a breather and izvergs will be scarcer for a while.
We reduced the health of the green Bankrotz by 50%. We also sped him up a touch to balance that out but not too much. Bankrotz have occasionally been seen to attack in pairs, watch out!
There are more izverg in each wave now, but more “down time” between waves to give everyone a breather. This really allows people to prepare and have fun with their towns.
Walls and cube blocks are much stronger now and not so easily destroyed, try placing a wall all around your town!
You can now praise a comrade even after she has disappeared and a little smokey splodge is all that is left.
The Bankrotz fireball attack is now not so accurate and will fire randomly near where it thinks it is being shot from. However, it’s charge time is shorter so watch out!
The tougher Yellow and toughest red Bankrotz, Bondi and Zapptors will appear a little less often now.
Better tuning of Izverg attacks when there are fewer players defending a town.
Praising gives more points now towards Comrade Stars.
The radius of dynamite has been greatly increased, try blowing up some terrain!
Lowered construction costs for walls and cube blocks.
Viewing the daily rankings when they pop up will earn you Comrade Star points if you are in the top ten.
Some void powers are now discoverable in treasure boxes!
Opening treasure boxes now gives you more experience points.
Comrades above level 30 will now receive two character points (agility, dex, etc) per level.
Comrades above level 50 will now receive three character points per level! (existing high level comrades will suddenly find they have quite a few points to assign when they login)
Comrades will now receive a badge when they purchase licenses.

We have been busy making new islands too, and have included an incredible looking one in this update, take a look:

Also, the black market is proving popular so we have included great value bundles of items themed to particular types of players. The selection will rotate every 24 hours so check them out. One of them might be perfect for your style of play so give it a chance!

A series of hotfixes have been released for Uncharted 4: A Thief's End now that the game has reached version 1.20. The current version is 1.20.062 but here is the short list of fixes that we've combined from the last few hotfixes.

*** Spoiler - click to reveal ***

Finally, War Thunder (PS4)'s next major update will introduce additional Japanese tanks, such as the Type 87 SPAAG that will be the new top anti aircraft vehicle at rank V of the Japanese Ground Forces tree. Other new Japanese ground vehicles will include a multi-turreted tank and an ATGM vehicle. Japan will not be the only nation to benefit as there will be new vehicles for USA, UK, USSR and Germany too. There is no propsed release date for this update yet.

Release Dates

The long-awaited Crash Bandicoot N. Sane Trilogy will be arriving on June 30th. Developer Vicarious Visions also answered some community questions. You can check those out here.

Kona (PS4) was announced three weeks ago over the weekend period, so it should come as no surprise that the developer chose the same time of the week to confirm a release date. The game will be arriving on Playstation 4 on March 17th. Check out the new announcement trailer for a taste of what to expect.

As well as announcing a few titles, NIS America confirmed release dates for some of those that had been previously revealed. Danganronpa V3: Killing Harmony will be released on September 26th, 2017 in North America and on September 29th in Europe for Playstation 4 and Vita. Meanwhile, Operation Babel: New Tokyo Legacy (Vita) will be released on May 16th, 2017 in North America and on May 19th in Europe. The latter also revealed a few new screenshots:

SEGA's Puyo Puyo Tetris is arriving in North America on April 25th and Europe on April 28th.

The Sexy Brutale will be released on April 11th. Not only will it be released digitally, publisher BadLand Indie will be publishing the physical The Sexy Brutale: Full House Edition. This will include a soundtrack CD and full-colour manual that provides background on the game's development. If you pre-order this version, you'll aslo get a choice of "an exclusive six-page comic book penned by renowned comic artist Enrique Fernandez or an exclusive artbook featuring unseen images and concepts from the game’s development".

Full Kiss StarBlood Arena will be coming to Playstation VR on April 11th in North America and April 12th in Europe. Those who pre-order the title will receive the "StarBlood Arena Legends Pack" that includes The Steel Hercules skin for The Baron, The El Diablo Azul skin for Buck and The Granny Granny Boom Boom skin for Alice. You'll also get 10gs Bloodbux, the in-game currency, to buy "stuff that we haven’t even revealed yet".

In more negative news, you may have heard that Full Kiss Star Trek Bridge Crew has been delayed again. The game will now be released on May 30th, 2017. At least it will include the bridge of the U.S.S. Enterprise from Star Trek: The Original Series, which will be playable in the Ongoing Voyages mode. This mode generates randomised missions that can be conquered in solo and co-op play.

Screenshots

In Blackwood Crossing, players control Scarlett, a 14 year old girl. AFter her parents died suddenly when she was seven, she grew up on her grandparents' farm. After being wrenched out of her old familiar life, Scarlett has always felt out of place. The development team went through many personality types and appearances before th team settled on her current persona. They've even created a backstory for her. You can read about all of this in more detail here.

Dreamfall Chapters announced that Simon Poole, the composer known for soundtracks like The Secret World, will be contributing 48 songs towards the soundtrack for this title. Players who purchase the game will be given a download code to obtain the soundtrack when the game is released on May 5th. For now, check out the two new screenshots that publisher Deep Silver released at the same time as the soundtrack announcement.

Over the weekend at Monaco Anime Game International Conferences, Final Fantasy VII Remake Japanese PS4 director Tetsuya Nomura revealed two screenshots for the game:

Looks like Cloud has been spotted

The Guard Scorpion looks like an even more formidable foe

The Inner World - The Last Wind Monk will be released this summer after Playstation 4 players have had a chance to play the game's prequel, The Inner World. To tide you over until that time, we have two more screenshots for you to scrutinise:

Also at Monaco Anime Game International Conferences, KINGDOM HEARTS III director Tetsuya Nomura spoke about his work and his career. He also showcased a new screenshot.

Full Kiss Super Blackjack Battle II Turbo Edition will include 12 locations as players fight to become blackjack champion. Take a look:

Yonder: The Cloud Catcher Chronicles (PS4) revealed a host of new screenshots for the upcoming open-world adventure title.

Miscellaneous

Finally for this week, KINGDOM HEARTS HD 1.5 + 2.5 ReMIX Limited Edition for Playstation 4 is available to pre-order exclusively through the SQUARE ENIX online store. As well as all six remixed titles, the Limited Edition also includes an exclusive collectible pin badge that features the games' main protagonist Sora. Click here to pre-order the title for $49.99.

That's all for this week. Join us next week for more weekend headlines.

Written by Rebecca Smith

Rebecca is the Newshound Manager at TrueGaming Network. She has been contributing articles since 2010, especially those that involve intimidatingly long lists. When not writing news, she works in an independent game shop so that she can spend all day talking about games too. She'll occasionally go outside.