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Activision has announced the release date of Call of Duty: Advanced Warfare’s next DLC. Ascendance will be available for Xbox & Xbox 360 on March 31 and one month later for PC, PS3 & PS4. The new add-on will contain four new multiplayer maps, the episode two of “Exo Zombies Infection”, a new weapon and also a new ability. Need more details? Read on!   Exo Zombies Infection: The Exo Zombies story continues with Exo Zombies Infection. John Malkovich, Bill Paxton, Rose McGowan, and Jon Bernthal return as four Atlas employees fighting to survive a deadly zombie outbreak. After being overrun at the Atlas research facility, the four heroes must hold their ground at a nearby Burgertown franchise. Exo Zombies Infection introduces an expanded map for players to discover. New weapons and traps are at your disposal, and you’ll certainly need them against dangerous new enemies like the Goliath and Acid Dripper. Also included is the Civilian Extraction Mode, where you will need to help fellow survivors escape the growing horde.   Maps: Perplex- Get vertical in Sydney as you fight to dominate this five-story modular apartment complex. Take the high ground or blast through the close quarters interior in this small to medium sized map. Adapt your strategy mid-match when construction drones shift apartment modules, creating new routes and cover positions.  Site 244- An alien spacecraft has crash landed, spilling its mysterious cargo under the shadow of Mount Rushmore. This medium to large three-lane map allows for any style of gameplay, focusing combat through the space ship’s fuselage and around the debris-littered landscape. Use the map-based scorestreak to crack open an alien spore and instantly enhance your perks and exoskeleton abilities. Climate- Fight your way though a futuristic man-made utopia in this lush, climate-controlled biodome. In this small to medium sized circular map, land and water routes channel frenetic combat around the central island structure. Watch your step when the river water changes from an asset to a deadly bubbling obstacle.  Chop Shop- Think fast as you make your way through a black market exoskeleton industrial complex. Engage in fast-paced shootouts in this medium sized, symmetrical map. Activate the map-based scorestreak to take control of an Advanced Repulsion Turret, a deadly microwave EMP that can help you lock down key areas.   Weapon: OHM and OHM Werewolf Weapons- The OHM is a versatile directed energy hybrid weapon. Engage enemies at distance in LMG mode or concentrate your blasts at close range in Shotgun mode. In addition to the base weapon, you’ll also get the OHM Werewolf custom variant, which features increased mobility at the cost of accuracy.    Ability: Exo Grapple Playlist- The unique grappling ability found in the Campaign mode is now available for use in all of the Ascendance Multiplayer maps through the Exo Grapple Playlist. Activate your Exo Grapple ability for a faster way to reach strategic vantage points or as a brutal secondary weapon to take down the competition.The post Call of Duty: Advanced Warfare’s next DLC content is out! appeared first on .

It’s been 2 weeks since the very successful launch of Overwatch. Over 7 million players across 3 platforms bought the game in its first week alone. And now, people are curious as to what’s next for Overwatch. Here’s a short rundown of Eurogamer‘s interview with Overwatch’s game director Jeff Kaplan.   Competitive play is still coming late June (projected date keeps shifting internally) will be more skill-based rather than the “progression-based” one implemented during the beta. There will be no safety nets – you’ll go down/lose points when you lose. There will be a dynamic queue just like quick match. The game will try to match you against a group of similar size. If the queue time takes too long, server will be less strict and try to match you against a different sized group. They will be keeping an eye on the matchmaking and are open to discussion.   Server tick rates There’s a general misunderstanding in the community regarding tick rates 17 minute video explanation here (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vTH2ZPgYujQ) In most cases, the usual problems are with the latency not the tick/update rates The servers operate at 60Hz but the client update rate is lower(20Hz) They already have a high bandwidth option that allows for 60Hz update rate Currently limited to custom games If they switch quickmatch to 60Hz update rate, 20% of the population might not be able to play They’re looking for more feedback Hero balance McCree change is straightforward Nerf to fan the hammer damage They want McCree to be a counter for heroes like Tracer, Genji and Reaper He should not be able to shred tanks easily. Will be coming sooner than D.Va changes D.Va They’re still exploring options Will take longer to pinpoint. D.Va’s not in a horrible position, but could be better Platform implementation They expect the changes to hit all 3 platforms at the same time   Play of the game They’re working on it but it’s not on the immediate horizon Would like to show more PotGs that are fun to watch They feel that they can refine how they are PotGs are shown. Possibly work on the camera angles about 70% of the current PotGs are actually really cool moments that people feel pretty happy about.   New content parts of the team are already working on patches for the end of the year and early next year they don’t know what the right cadence should be. They want to get a feel from the community as to how much content is released. Hero releases. The team felt that releasing Mei, D.Va and Genji at the same time was too disruptive They will release heroes one at a time until they feel the game stabilizes They want to be careful about overdoing it with a patch. They have placed more hints about Sombra out there that the community hasn’t found yet   Console crossplay No progress but they are very open-minded about it. They’re going to wait and gather feedback from developers and fans   The post Overwatch: Post Launch Plans appeared first on News, updates from the DLCompare.com Blog.

The World of Warcraft Movie trailer will soon hit the big screens. To celebrate the film’s release, Blizzard will be giving away a set of transmogrification pieces to players who log in to World of Warcraft starting May 25 until August 1. Alliance players will receive a sword and shield while Horde players will receive a staff and an axe.           And, as part of the promotions event, Blizzard will also be giving out a limited amount of digital copies of World of Warcraft to ticket buyers from select theaters around the world. The digital copy will include all the content up until Warlords of Draenor and 30 days of game time usually sold at $19.99 on the Blizzard store. Do note that the promotion period for the free digital copies vary depending on location. Check the tables below for more information. Lastly, the digital copies will not include the upcoming expansion – World of Warcraft: Legion.   The post Warcraft Movie Promotions appeared first on News, updates from the DLCompare.com Blog.

Last week, Blizzard revealed quite a handful of news for Heroes of the Storm fans. Coming soon to Heroes of the Storm are 2 characters from the Warcraft universe – Chromie and Medivh. Chromie who is expected to enter the storm on May 17 takes the role of an assassin while Medivh is going to be a specialist. Also on the way are reworks to Arthas, Anub’Arak and Falstad.   Blizzard also revealed the long anticipated revamp for Heroes of the Storm’s ranked play. Heroes of the Storm will finally start its first season a year after its initial release on June 14. The new ranked system will be broken up into 7 League Tiers and having the first 5 tiers (bronze to diamond) further broken down into 5 divisions. A player will be assigned an initial rank after 10 placement matches. A player will then gain/lose rank points after winning/losing ranked games. Once a player has earned enough points, he/she has a chance to move up to the next tier or division after winning a Promotion Match. If a player loses enough points, then he/she is given a chance to remain in the current tier or division by winning a Demotion Match. The Master and Grand Master Leagues will not have divisions, instead, players are given badges that show the total number of points they have earned in Master League for the season. The top 500 players are assigned Grand Master badges ranging from 500 to 1. The Grand Master rankings are to be updated on a daily basis. A few things to note regarding the seasons: seasons are expected to last somewhere around 8 to 12 weeks with the first season being slightly longer than the regular silenced players are restricted from participating in Hero League season rewards will include gold, portrait, and mounts the player’s highest ranking during the season is taken into account for the season rewards For more info, check out the official post from Blizzard Ranked Play Revamp.   Check out Doom Requirements here. The post Heroes of the Storm finally gets seasons appeared first on News, updates from the DLCompare.com Blog.

GOG.com has recently announced GOG Galaxy, a new gaming platform which aims to take on Steam. What’s the main argument? a DRM-free library. If you are interested in participating in the beta, here’s the link. Here’s what you can find on the official website: Library features: One-click install Prefer convenience? Install any GOG.com game with a single click, and it will forever stay up to date. As soon as the game is installed, it’s ready to play. Backup copy download Want to backup your purchases? We get it. For all games, you can download a DRM-free backup installer that you can save to an external disk, drive or cloud. Offline support It’s up to you when and how to play your games. GOG Galaxy will always work without an internet connection, and so will your games. Rollback (soon) Sometimes game updates break things. Thanks to the built-in Rollback feature, you can restore your game to prior states with just a single click. Optional auto-updates Don’t like being forced to update? In GOG Galaxy you can turn off auto-updating for any game and receive notifications when new updates are available.   In-game features: Multiplayer & matchmaking GOG Galaxy-powered multiplayer games offer matchmaking and online play. In new and classic games alike, meet other players and make friends… or enemies. Achievements Complete challenges laid out by the developers, experience more of the game, win bragging rights or just do it for the sake of your inner completionist. Game-time tracking & stats For nearly every GOG game you can now track your play time. Additionally, select GOG Galaxy-powered games will offer extra stats or in-game leaderboards. Crossplay Crossplay-enabled games offer online play between GOG and Steam. Because where you buy your games shouldn’t prevent you from playing with friends. Game overlay (soon) See notifications for new messages, requests or achievements, check on your progress and chat with friends… All that without leaving the game.   There are also Community & Privacy features too,  but nothing different to what you can find on other platforms. The post GOG.com announces a new DRM-free online gaming platform appeared first on .

Despite the momentum VR has gained over the years, one has to wonder if it will truly see wide scale adoption in the gaming industry. While I am very excited for the future of gaming and VR, it might take quite a bit of time for it to see wide scale adoption. VR has picked up a lot of hype along the way, especially in the recent years, but the question still remains: how many game developers will fully embrace VR? One has to remember that VR is still quite costly with respect to how much each unit costs as well as the system required to run games with it smoothly. Based on the required specs alone, it appears that current generation consoles lack the necessary ‘horsepower’ to run games on VR. Unless the consoles can get more processing power from additional peripherals or from the ‘cloud’, they might only be able to run the simplest of VR games. For game developers to require VR in their games would mean that they would be alienating a huge portion of the console gamers outright. That’s not even mentioning the portion of the PC gaming community that cant afford the units or the necessary upgrade if their current systems cant support VR. Another thing to consider is that not all games would benefit a lot from VR. Certain game genres would gain little to no benefit with VR. Unless a huge shift in the gaming industry happens, VR would only make a little impact to the current games. VR for certain genres from MOBAs (or DOTA clones) to third person shooters to the current MMOs and many others would only provide a nice plus but wouldn’t be a game changer. On the other hand; first person shooters, potentially some creative games, horror games, and role-playing games could certainly benefit a lot from VR integration but would only likely be optional. Lastly, the VR headsets or units have their own advantages and disadvantages. Each also trying to establish their own marketplaces. Perhaps we will see something similar to what is still happening with the consoles and console exclusive games. One might try to argue that a certain headset and its peripherals are better but there may not be many games that support it; perhaps the other competitor will have the best exclusive deals despite not having the best specs in the market. To sum it up – although VR has been picking up more steam over the past few years, it doesn’t look like it will see an immediate wide scale adoption. It may be best to wait and see how things pan out before buying into one of these units. Wide scale adoption will likely happen slowly over time as more and more people buy newer systems that are capable of supporting VR as well as the cost of the VR headsets becoming more affordable in the future. The post Virtual Reality – Gaming Niche? appeared first on .

In a few hours from now, Overwatch will be going live. Over the span of a week Blizzard has released 2 cinematic shorts giving us a glimpse of the background stories of Hanzo and Genji in “Dragons” and Soldier 76 in “Hero“. Blizzard has also had several launch events in several places where they also displayed colossal collectibles of Genji, Pharah, and Tracer. And the latest being the Live Q&A session streamed over Facebook. Here are some tidbits from the session: The Overwatch graphic novel titled “First Strike” is on the way Animated shorts – There will be more animated shorts in the future. Jeff Kaplan called the first set as “season 1” Game modes – they prototype a lot of game modes, some of which might not stand on their own and are better suited as brawls. And that game brawls are the perfect testing grounds for new modes, and might make their way into quick play if successful. Another possible outcome would be that they could be part of the map elements like the moving platforms on Volskaya and Route 66. Game balance – “triangular” balance approach – they would consider the player feedback and compare it with their own feelings towards game balance as well as compare them with the game statistics(hero performance across different skill levels). There might also be slight differences between console and pc versions, an example sited was how aim assist on the console versions interacted with Symmetra’s turrets. Clan/Guild systems – They consider social features as very important and that they are looking into those systems. Lastly, Jeff Kaplan ended the Q&A session with a call to the community to be nice to one another. The post Overwatch Dev Q&A appeared first on News, updates from the DLCompare.com Blog.

Despite Overwatch’s open beta phase having finally drawn to a close, and as the Overwatch launch date draws closer, Blizzard still has several things in store for you (depending on where you’re located). If you’re from Canada or the United States, you might want to check out the Overwatch event on the evening of May 22. Blizzard has partnered with Coca-Cola® and Cinemark® Theaters to bring Overwatch to the big screen. For one night only, select theaters in Canada and the United States will be showing a collection of cinematics, trailers, and animated shorts. These will include two new shorts featuring the Shimada brothers, Hanzo and Genji, and the masked vigilante, Soldier: 76. Attendees will also be treated to a special developer panel hosted by Michele Morrow, which will include a behind-the-scenes look at the game’s lore and storytelling efforts as well as some swag. Below are the locations that are sure to participate in the event. Cinemark Mesa 16 (Mesa, AZ) Century 16 (Salt Lake City, UT) Lincoln Square Cinemas (Bellevue, WA) Century San Francisco Centre 9 (San Francisco, CA) Cinemark 18 & XD (Los Angeles, CA) Century Stadium 25 & XD (Orange, CA) Cinemark Tinseltown 20 & XD (Pflugerville, TX) Cinemark Legacy & XD (Plano, TX) Century 12 Evanston/Cinearts 6 & XD (Evanston, IL) Scotiabank Theatre Toronto (Toronto, ON) SilverCity Gloucester Cinemas (Ottawa, ON) However, if you’d like to participate and you’re not close to the areas listed above, you’ll want to act fast. In order to unlock a theater in your area, each location will need at least 100 reserved tickets today(May 12). Reserve Tickets to reserve tickets.   If you’re from Australia, you could check out Overwatch’s launch celebration at the brand new ESL Studios in Sydney on May 28. Tickets are FREE and will be available starting 2pm AEST Friday, May 13. Each person will be limited to a maximum of 2 tickets as the space is limited. There will be cosplayers, developer Q&A and autograph signings. There will also be live shoutcasted Overwatch competitive matches! Plus, there will be food and drinks for all attendees. For further details on the event, visit their Eventbrite Page.     Check out our previous post on the updated Heroes of the Storm ranked system here!   The post Overwatch launch draws nearer appeared first on News, updates from the DLCompare.com Blog.