How 343 is Changing Halo 5 After the Beta
343 Industries has shared several statistics following its recent Halo 5: Guardians multiplayer beta, as well as several changes it plans to make to its shooter based on user feedback.
About 1 million people played 20 million matches throughout the beta's three-week duration. Spartans killed each other over 180 million times, and the most popular power weapon was the sniper rifle. For more stats, check out the infographic below.
Inside the Mind of Bloodborne and Dark Souls’ Creator
Hidetaka Miyazaki is one of the most influential game directors of the last generation, but he’ll never tell you that. Director on Demon’s Souls, Dark Souls, and Bloodborne, he helped put From Software on the AAA developer map by creating beautiful, punishing, and incredibly rewarding games that remind us what it was like to sit in front of our NES’ and chip away at the classics.
During our IGN First trip to Tokyo for Bloodborne, we spent a day at From Software and sat down with Miyazaki himself. Our discussion traveled from Bloodborne’s inception, to the rise of speed runs and streaming, and even to which games he’s looking forward to in 2015. Sit back and relax, this one’s a doozy.
PS4, Xbox One Get 6-Player Dark Souls 2
There's an ogre standing in the stream. It really shouldn't be. This stream – which leads into the Forest of Fallen Giants – is one of Dark Souls II's starting areas, and it's where a lot of players get their first real taste of action. I've died here often enough to know exactly who shows up here and when, and this huge, waddling blob is not on the list. Its presence is throwing me off, and that's the point.
Dark Souls II: Scholar of the First Sin is more than just a "Game of the Year" edition or a new-gen remake, and while it features better graphics and all three DLC installments, it's not content to simply rehash last year's game. Instead, the new-gen version of Scholar of the First Sin reshuffles Dark Souls II from top to bottom, meaning that familiar monsters and items won't appear where you remember them (although they will on the PS3/360 versions, which include the DLC and patches, but otherwise are unchanged).
House of Cards: Season 3 Poster
*Spoiler warning for those who haven't watched Season 2*
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Feast your eyes on the new poster - and motion poster - for House of Cards: Season 3, which premieres February 27th on Netflix.
Hopefully you've seen all of Season 2 or else you're in for a bit of a spoiler here as the poster reveals the new POTUS and FLOTUS, Frank and Claire Underwood (Kevin Spacey and Robin Wright), exiting Air Force One. Let the butchery begin. Again.
The Original Plot For Game of Thrones Has Been Revealed
A three-page letter sent from George R.R. Martin to his publisher in 1993 has revealed the original plot for Game of Thrones, and possibly hinted at what's to come.
Book retailer Waterstones originally took the snaps of the letter and, though they've since been deleted, the evidence is still floating about for those keen to find it.
There's heaps of information in the outline and, though some of it has already been diverged from, there are a number of hints at what the future may hold including a list of five characters Martin originally intended to survive the books.
Atlus Releases New Persona 5 Gameplay Trailer
Atlus has released an all-new gameplay trailer for Persona 5.
It's less than three minutes long, but the trailer gives a sneaky peek at the leading characters and in-game action. It also confirms that the game will be directed by Katsura Hashino with characters designed by Persona stalwart Shigenori Soejima.
Persona 5 - the follow-up to smash-hit Persona 4 that we loved on PlayStation 2 and even more so as Persona 4: Golden on PS Vita - was originally confirmed in November 2013 and is expected to release on the PlayStation 3 and 4.
Nintendo Struggles With Demand For Beta Creators Program
A week after rolling out the new beta Creators Program, Nintendo is struggling with the demand for the affiliate program.
"Due to your enthusiasm for the program, we’re receiving a higher volume of applications to register channels & videos than expected," says Nintendo in a statement. "It is taking longer than we anticipated to confirm the applications. We appreciate your patience as we work through them as quickly as possible."
To expedite matters, Nintendo has shared a selection of tips for would-be affiliates. Nintendo is "not able" to register channels and videos that are not in line with its Terms of Service, and can only register videos and channels that contain game titles "specified on the list of supported games".
Twitter CEO Admits ‘We Suck at Dealing With Abuse’
The CEO of Twitter has accepted personal responsibility for the platform's continuing poor performance when it comes to dealing with abuse.
The Verge obtained comments made by Dick Costolo on an internal forum for employees of the micro-blogging platform, where he acknowledges ongoing issues with trolls are causing a huge number of people to stop using it.
"We suck at dealing with abuse and trolls on the platform and we've sucked at it for years," he wrote in response to a colleague asking if anything could be done to improve the situation. "It's no secret and the rest of the world talks about it every day. We lose core user after core user by not addressing simple trolling issues that they face every day.
Comic Book Reviews for February 4, 2015
Superman stole all the headlines this week with his fancy new super power and costume redesign. And to further cement that this is Superman's week, we also got the third volume of Superman: Earth One. He's already got all the best superhero powers -- isn't that enough?!
Marvel kicked off the first chapter of Guardians of the Galaxy & X-Men: The Black Vortex, another precious issue of Hawkeye, and the second chapter of Star Wars.
On the inside scene, we got the debuts of Rat God, Imperium, Cluster, and Stray Bullets: Sunshine and Roses. But the biggest book on that front is, hands down, Spawn #250. Congrats to Todd McFarlane and company for reaching that milestone, a feat seen far too rarely these days.
Saved by the Bell Cast Reunites on Jimmy Fallon
Back when he was hosting Late Night, Jimmy Fallon tried to reunite the cast of Saved by the Bell. It never quite worked out, though Mark-Paul Gosselaar did show up as Zack Morris one night, but on The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon Wednesday night, Fallon's dream came true.
As part of a special week of The Tonight Show episodes filming in Los Angeles -- as opposed to Fallon's usual New York home -- Fallon did a sketch where he was a student at Bayside High and he was joined by Gosselaar as Zack, Mario Lopez as Slater, Elizabeth Berkley as Jesse, Dennis Haskins as Mr. Belding and Tiffani Thiessen as Kelly. Okay, it wasn't a full cast reunion, as Dustin Diamond and Lark Voorhies weren't present, but it was still a pretty notable gathering of the original SBTB crew (and considering Diamond's strained relations with his former castmates in recent years, his absence isn't a shock).