This week in gaming: DICE unveils Battlefield V’s battle royale mode, Sony farewells the PS2, Riot responds to PAX criticism, and more!
In the spirit of keeping our readers up to date with what’s happening in the video game industry, the Doublejump Digest is a brief collection of the major news stories from the past week. Keep an eye out for the Digest every Sunday night, and head on into the archive for news from weeks gone by!
From Doublejump:
- Our latest Multiplayer feature saw members of our staff discussing the biggest challenges we’ve faced in gaming.
Major news:
We have more information on Battlefield V’s Battle Royale mode:
Developer DICE has formally unveiled “Firestorm”, the game’s 64-player take on the popular player-versus-player game mode, in a new gameplay trailer below. The mode will support 16 squads of 4 players as they fight towards a central objective on the series’s largest “sandbox” map to date using vehicles as well as the game’s fortification system (not unlike in Fortnite Battle Royale).
Sony farewells the PlayStation 2:
18 years on from its launch and six years after it was discontinued, Sony Japan officially ceased the console’s aftercare service this past week. The company announced the termination of service back in June, stopped accepting online service orders and services without prior application on August 31, and will not be servicing any unit that arrives at the PlayStation Clinic after September 7.
It’s been a long and fruitful ride for the PS2, which remains the best-selling home console ever to this day, but all great things must come to an end.
Riot Games responds to criticism over PAX workshops targeted at women and non-binary people, removes two staff members:
The League of Legends developer called for fans “to act with respect” in response to criticism surrounding its recent PAX East employment workshops that were catered for “women and non-binary people”.
“To help recruit women into gaming, we held PAX workshops for women and non-binary people. We’re proud of that and stand with Rioters at PAX,” the company wrote on Twitter. “Regarding conversations about this, we need to emphasize that no matter how heated a discussion, we expect Rioters to act with respect.”
Following the event, Systems Designer Daniel Z. Klein and Communications Designer Mattias Lehman – both proponents of gender inclusivity at the company – took to social media to defend the company’s move and criticise opponents. Since then, both individuals have left the company, with Klein telling The Verge that he was “was fired for violating our social media policy” and Lehman recently writing on Medium that he had previously been approached by management regarding his public critique of the company’s corporate culture.
When Polygon asked Riot Games for comment on the two departures, the developer denied claims that Klein and Lehman’s departures were related to the company “efforts” in changing its corporate culture.
“These departures are independent from our efforts to evolve our culture. Our culture remains our top priority, and we remain committed to taking the steps that we need to become a leader in Diversity & Inclusion,” the company wrote. “We will always encourage Rioters to share their perspectives, and we fully support efforts by Rioters to further our Diversity & Inclusion initiatives.”
Some Nintendo Switch games won’t support cloud saves:
Not long after the outlet found warnings on official pages for Pokémon Let’s Go Eevee & Pikachu and Splatoon 2 among other, Nintendo of America has confirmed to Game Informer that not all Switch games will support cloud saves in an effort to curb cheating.
“The vast majority of Nintendo Switch games will support Save Data Cloud backup,” a spokesperson wrote in a statement. “However, in certain games this feature would make it possible to, for example, regain items that had been traded to other players, or revert to a higher online multiplayer ranking that had been lost. To ensure fair play, Save Data Cloud backup may not be enabled for such games.”
The person also confirmed that, unfortunately, cloud backups “will not be enabled in Splatoon 2”.
EA and DICE reveal Star Wars Battlefront II’s end-of-year content roadmap:
The companies revealed that they will implement an “improved squad system” later this month, General Grievous will arrive sometime next month, while Obi-Wan Kenobi and a new Geonosis map will launch in November. Players can also expect to see Anakin Skywalker, Count Dooku, and a new game mode over the Summer period.
Old School RuneScape is coming to Android and iOS on October 30!
Developer Jagex has announced that it is bringing its reimagined version of the original RuneScape to mobile devices with cross-play support for the existing PC release. Players will need devices running iOS 10 or Android Lollipop or newer to play come its October 30 release.
Notable game releases:
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- PLAYERUNKNOWN’S BATTLEGROUNDS (Xbox One; full release)
- Destiny 2: Forsaken (PC, PS4, Xbox One)
- Marvel’s Spider-Man (PS4)
- NBA Live 19 (PS4, Xbox One)
Videos and trailer releases:
Shadow of the Tomb Raider – Vibrant Locations:
Check out some of the locales that we’ll be visiting next week!
Shadow of the Tomb Raider – Xbox One X Enhancement Highlights
Xbox One X owners are in for a beautiful 4K treat!
Marvel’s Spider-Man – Be Greater Trailer:
Peter Parker’s having quite a bad day…
Call of Duty: Black Ops 4 – Blackout Battle Royale Trailer:
Zombies in a battle royale mode could be a great combo!
HITMAN 2: World of Assassination – How to Hitman:
It looks like IO has taken steps to make stealthy play more fun.
Indie spotlight:
SCUM sold 700,000 copies in its first week… and then wiped its servers clean:
Not long after announcing that it has sold more than 700,000 copies during its launch week, developer Gamepires took to Steam to reveal that its latest patch wiped single-player mode game saves as part of the move to a new file format.
Interesting reads from other outlets:
- Polygon is the latest games outlet to oust review scores: Polygon
Other news:
- WildStar’s developer is shutting down: Kotaku
- The latest collectible Xbox One controller is grease-proof, for all your chicken dinners: Press Start
- Civilisation VI is coming to Switch: Polygon
- Pearl Abyss acquires Eve Online developer CCP Games for US$425 million: VentureBeat
- AFL Evolution 2 is slated for the first half of 2019: Fox Sports
- Final Fantasy XV Pocket Edition is coming to PS4, Switch and Xbox One: Kotaku
- Overwatch is included in this month’s Humble Bundle: Official
- Overwatch League gets eight new teams for its second season; still no Aussie team: Kotaku
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