May 31, 2017 — Wargaming today announced a new mode for high-level World of Tanks players. Created for those seeking more of a challenge, this new scenario, called Ranked Battles, brings individual performance to the forefront and uses a new ranking system to determine who you play with and go up against. The mode arrives with update 9.19 and will be available June 5.
“A mode built around personal results has been one of the community’s most requested features for a while now,” said Thaine Lyman, World of Tanks Product Director. “We’re excited to get Ranked Battles out into the world, and hope players will join us for the Beta Season to have fun and help us see it through to completion. We’ll continue to fine-tune the mode as feedback comes in to ensure we deliver a truly engaging experience upon release.”
Ranked Battles is a 15v15 PvP mode that unlocks once you get your hands on top-tier vehicles. It offers a new progression path beyond Tier X, introducing a system of ranks, in-game leaderboards, and season leaders’ lists. Exclusive to Tier X tanks, a season lasts 28 days, and tankers will be ranked based on their individual results in matches, facing others of a similar rank to compete for the top position on the season’s leaderboard.
Another twist in Ranked Battles is rewards for top-performers. When the season concludes, the top 50% of season leaders will be granted exclusive badges celebrating their results and an all-new game currency, Bonds. The latter will prove useful in virtually any other mode as they can buy new in-game items—Improved Equipment and Directives—that crank your vehicle parameters up a notch.
For more information on Ranked Battles, visit the official game portal:
FRANKFURT, Germany –May 31, 2017– This year’s E3 marks an exciting new debut from Crytek: for the very first time, the creator of Crysis will be showing gameplay from Hunt: Showdown to select partners and media. The CRYENGINE business development team will also be in attendance, meeting with partners about the engine’s roadmap and showcasing new features for the next update.
Based on the previously announced title Hunt: Horrors of the Gilded Age, Crytek’s Hunt: Showdown has taken the original concept in a different direction under a new development team. A teaser for the upcoming PvP monster hunter went live on the game’s website recently, and more details about the game will be revealed during E3.
May 31, 2017 – All Bring Your Own Computer (BYOC) participants – you’re invited! Join DreamHack and Bluehole Inc. in the DreamHack Summer 2017 Battle Royale, where winners will compete daily for prizes and glory in an event to determine the best PLAYERUNKNOWN’S BATTLEGROUNDS player and team.
At DreamHack Summer 2017, Bluehole Inc. will host dedicated LAN servers with hourly matches starting every day between 12:00 pm and 6:00 pm (CEST), where up to 10 simultaneous 100 player matches can be played (depending on number of participants). Each day, the top 100 players on the leader boards will be invited to a Daily Final, where the best teams will be awarded prizes. The first day (June 17) will feature two-player squads, and the second and third day (June 18-19) will feature four-player squads.
The Daily Finals will be hosted inside Hammarsköldssalen, now called “The BATTLEGROUNDS Arena.” This auditorium, formerly known as DreamArena Extreme, has a capacity of 1100 fans. Daily Finals will be broadcasted every day at 7:00 pm (CEST) on the official PLAYERUNKNOWN’S BATTLEGROUNDS Twitch, Facebook and YouTube channels.
What’s more, all BYOC participants can download, test and play PLAYERUNKNOWN’S BATTLEGROUNDS for free during the duration of the event.
More information will be announced on the official DreamHack and PLAYERUNKNOWN’S BATTLEGROUNDS channels in the coming weeks. Join the conversation at:
May 30, 2017 – Today, Ubisoft announced that Fallen Ghosts, the second expansion for Tom Clancy’s Ghost Recon Wildlands, is now available for season pass owners across all platforms. Season pass owners will have access to Fallen Ghosts one week before it releases for individual purchase on June 6 on consoles and PC for the suggested retail price of $14.99.
Fallen Ghosts takes place after the fall of the Santa Blanca Cartel. With Unidad’s military force unable to maintain control over Bolivia, the country is in a state of civil war. To help restore order, the Unidad enlists cartel members, veterans, mercenaries and criminals from various nearby countries as volunteers. Together, they form a new brutal special unit: Los Extranjeros, which is ordered to track and eliminate all American agents.
The Fallen Ghosts campaign will feature 15 new missions in which players will have to take down four new bosses located in three different regions. In the expansion, players will start with a new character at level 30 and equipped with all of the main game skills. The level cap will increase from 30 to 35, and players will be able to unlock nine new skills including physical, weapon and drones skills.
In Tom Clancy’s Ghost Recon Wildlands, players discover a fictionalized future Bolivia, a few years from now, in which players must take down the Santa Blanca drug cartel by any means necessary. Behind enemy lines, they hunt down targets and discover intel, using any of the more than 60 vehicles available, including cars, motorcycles and even helicopters that they can commandeer. To topple the cartel, players have to fight their way to El Sueño, Santa Blanca’s ruthless leader, by breaking down the Santa Blanca drug cartel’s operation piece by piece as they sever alliances between the drug lords and the corrupted government. A second expansion for Tom Clancy’s Ghost Recon Wildlands, Fallen Ghosts, will be available soon, as well as an all-new PvP mode in the coming months.
For more information about Tom Clancy’s Ghost Recon Wildlands, please visit ghostrecon.com.
To learn more about other Ubisoft games, please visit ubiblog.com.
May 30, 2017 — The Wargaming.net League crowned TORNADO ENERGY the new World Champion in World of Tanks. The CIS squad lifted the trophy for the 2nd time, smashing DiNG 7:2 and reinstating their spot at the top of World of Tanks’ competitive scene. Their victory was meticulously predicted by the Grand Finals 2017 mascot Tomato the Lobster.
The road to the final was anything but pedestrian. The group stage crossed four teams out of the running: Team Efficiency, eClipse, Brain Storm and YaTo Gaming. The quarter-finals started with an incredible and memorable head-to-head showdown between Elevate and El Gaming. Elevate triumphed 7:6, qualifying for the semi-finals and changing the perception of North American teams. Old rivalries collided in front of thousands of fans as TORNADO ENERGY (formerly HellRaisers) and Na’Vi.G2A locked horned with TORNADO destroying the 2016 champs 7:3. Kazna Kru took an early lead in a match against Not So Serious (NSS), who quickly brought it to a tie and then turned play around, winning 7:2.
DiNG showed that EU teams are a force to be reckoned with no matter who they play, as they bowled their way through the group stage, took down OOPS 7:2 in the quarter-finals and crushed Americans Elevate in the semi-finals 7:2, again. However, they were stopped by CIS powerhouse, TORNADO ENERGY, who were definitely riding a wave of success this year. They started their road to the title by winning a brilliant game against Na’Vi.G2A in the quarter-finals (7:3) and then unleashed a 7:2 hammering of NSS in the semi-finals, which led to the first ever EU vs. CIS final match in the history of Grand Finals.
After a rocky start, TORNADO ENERGY punctuated a 7:2 victory in a highly dramatic series, ending with applewOw’s epic performance on Cliff where he was left one-on-one with the only surviving enemy tank. Unlike last year’s fiasco, applewOw this time masterfully destroyed the opposition, showing everyone it’s about time the infamous sign was removed from the map for good.
“The competitive action on display was incredible all weekend long,” said Vladislav “NESKWI” Kanaev, captain of TORNADO ENERGY. “Wargaming has come far in terms of the sheer size and organization of their events. It felt like a real life sports tournament, with thousands supporters cheering us all through to the final! It’s was a tough tournament for us, and the team showed their best performance.”
“Grand Finals is getting bigger and better each year,” said Mo Fadl, Head of Competitive Gaming at Wargaming. “The Wargaming.net League should be both a goal to reach and entertainment to enjoy for our community. We are aiming to provide the best quality content with it, and it’s truly amazing to see so many people share our passion for tank combat and enjoyed the event. Thanks to everyone who watched us online and offline and to Moscow, which hosted such a massive World of Tanks eSports event for the first time.”
Two days of high-voltage eSports matches, organized in partnership with Facebook, attracted thousands fans to Moscow’s VTB arena and scored 206,000 peak concurrent viewers, beating last year’s record.
To ratchet the entertainment up a notch, Wargaming placed a massive augmented reality screen on the streets of Moscow. It transformed passing cars into tanks, opening up a totally new world to people as they watched huge vehicles from the hit game World of Tanks bust into the real world.
Here’s a full prize pool breakdown for Grand Finals 2017:
1st Place. TORNADO ENERGY—$150,000
2nd Place. DiNG—$75,000
3rd, 4th Place. Not So Serious and Elevate—$27,500 each
5th–8th Place. El Gaming, Kazna Kru, OOPS – TTG and Na’Vi.G2A—$5,000 each
May 30th, 2017 — Targem Games and Gaijin Entertainment announce the launch of the post-apocalyptic Action MMOG Crossout, available beginning today as a free download on Windows PC, PlayStation®4 and Xbox One.
Craft your own vehicle
Crossout allows players to craft never seen vehicles using anything Earth’s vast post-apocalyptic wastelands offer. There are a countless number of parts available for vehicle customization, from trusty objects of the past, like rusty doors, chainsaws, and cabins from old cars, to the ingenious inventions of a new generation of engineers that grew up in the post-apocalyptic world, such as combat drones, stealth generators, automatic cannons, and much more. Complete creative freedom without class restriction allows for the creation of vehicles that are as individual as their creators, perfectly suited to their preferred style of play.
Join a faction that fits your style
The world of Crossout is home to distinct factions players can join, each with a different way of life and combat style. Examples are the raging ‘Lunatics’, a loose group of individuals that prefer fast cars and close-quarters combat, or the ‘Nomads’, enigmatic characters that wander the wastes in the search of new technology. Today’s launch marks the release of a fifth faction, the ‘Steppenwolves’ – former military armed with a tactical approach, well-armored vehicles, and long-range cannons. They add even more parts to the game, including mechanical legs that allow the creation of massive artillery platforms. In the future, fans can look forward to the release of addition factions with unique mechanics, armaments, and items.
Experience different game modes and maps
The battles in Crossout will take players to many different corners of the wastelands, starting from abandoned factories to dried-up riverbeds and destroyed cities. For launch, fans can enjoy new environments such as desert landscapes, deep canyons, and fortified settlements, where players will face exciting PvP action and PvE missions. In their quest for resources and dominance, players will attack settlements, defend merchant convoys from raiders, destroy oil rigs or try to defeat Leviathans, gigantic monsters of steel created by other players. In between battles, players can take a break in the new ‘Race’ mode. It is a downhill race for first place without the use of weapons.
Take part in a player controlled economy
There are several ways to earn the parts you need to create your perfect vehicle in Crossout. Earn loot in PvP battles or PvE missions, craft new equipment with the help of your faction, or purchase the desired weapons and car parts on the open in-game market, where the players entirely control supply and demand themselves. Earn coins to use in the market by selling surplus loot and resources, or restock your balance through the game’s store. Every player will be able to craft the perfect armored vehicle as there are no items exclusively available for real money that influence a player’s performance in game.
Join the never-ending battle today, and fight for your famed spot in the post-apocalyptic world of Crossout. Learn more about the game on the official website at http://crossout.net/
Lausanne, Switzerland, May 29th, 2017 – DCS: F/A-18C Hornet to be unveiled at E3 2017!
Eagle Dynamics SA and Belsimtek are excited to announce that DCS: F/A-18C Hornet will have its debut showing at E3 2017 at the Thrustmaster® booth. DCS: F/A-18C will be by far the most authentic PC simulation of a modern fighter to date, and it will use unique CFD engine and aerodynamics developed by Belsimtek. Based on exhaustive research in association with Boeing, current fighter pilots and the development of our new simulation engine, the DCS: F/A-18C Hornet will set a new benchmark.
Eagle Dynamics SA senior producer, Matt Wagner, states, “We are happy to announce the cooperation between Eagle Dynamics SA and Thrustmaster® to create the ultimate F/A-18C Hornet simulation experience”. “After the success of our first collaboration with Eagle Dynamic SA on DCS: A-10C Warthog, that lead to the HOTAS Warthog, we are proud to start a new collaboration on the DCS: F/A-18C Hornet”, says Gilles Raulet, Thrustmaster Development Director.
Please stop by the Thrustmaster® booth South Hall #2813 and experience the next level of combat aviation simulation!
CALABASAS, Calif. – May 30, 2017 – Visionary Italian independent studio Ovosonico and indie publisher 505 Games today announced their first project together, Last Day of June, a profound interactive adventure. From an all-star collaboration of creators including critically acclaimed director Massimo Guarini (Murasaki Baby, Shadow of the Damned, Naruto: Rise of a Ninja), award-winning musician and record producer Steven Wilson, and Jess Cope (animator on Tim Burton’s “Frankenweenie” and director for Metallica’s “Here Comes Revenge” music video), Last Day of June aims to be a true artistic innovation. Visualizing a bittersweet story told through a welcoming, painterly world, the role-playing exploration game showcases the beauty of life and love, but also the contradictions of loss, as seen in the first teaser trailer:
“With Last Day of June, my vision is to create a riveting emotional experience that connects with the broader audience of human beings,” said Massimo Guarini, founder and CEO, Ovosonico. “People feel comfortable broadly saying they don’t like videogames without ever really trying them, but never say that about movies or music or art – there’s always something they can identify with. I believe games can be just as universal and relatable, and that’s what we’re attempting to show with this project.”
Last Day of June is a poignant single-player journey that progresses participants from a viewer joining Carl and June on what begins as a magical outing to their favorite spot, to a character deeply intertwined in the narrative, as they try to unlock the sequence of events that could save the day – and June’s life. In this cinematic experience, players will solve emotionally challenging puzzles in an attempt to turn back time, compelling them to ask themselves “What would you do to save the one you love?”
Last Day of June is being developed for PlayStation 4 and PC and will release later in 2017.
May 26, 2017 – We have some exciting news for you. The next episode of Marvel’s Guardians of the Galaxy: The Telltale Series, “Under Pressure,” is set to debut on June 6 on PS4, Xbox One, PC, Mac, iOS devices and Android devices.
In “Under Pressure,” the Guardians just can’t seem to outrun the past (or their tab), but if they figure out how to control the untold power of their mysterious new relic, they might not have to. With help from dubious old friends and unwilling new allies, Star-Lord and company scour the galaxy for answers. But how long can they elude the genocidal maniac hunting them? And will simmering tensions finally tear the team apart?
And get ready to delve into a certain Rocket Raccoon’s past…
May 26, 2017 – Today we can share the official trailer for the season finale of the critically-acclaimed The Walking Dead: The Telltale Series – A New Frontier. Please click the YouTube thumbnail below to view the trailer, or download the trailer directly from the links above.
Beginning Tuesday, May 30th, players can download Episode 5: ‘From the Gallows’ on PlayStation 4, Xbox One, PC/Steam, iOS, and Android-based devices. The episode will also download for all users of the special Season Pass disc for consoles, which includes the critically acclaimed two-part premiere and grants access to all subsequent episodes in the five-episode season for download as they become available.
Episode description: Richmond teeters on the brink of collapse as chaos reigns from all directions. The lives of its citizens and all those closest to Javier hang in the balance. The decisions you’ve made and bonds you’ve nurtured across the season will determine which characters now trust Javi to safeguard all they hold dear as the crisis pushes every relationship past its breaking point…
The two-part premiere of The Walking Dead: The Telltale Series – A New Frontier launched to widespread critical acclaim. In their review of the premiere, IGN.com said that, “Smart characterization and writing for Javi and his family, plus the return of Clementine, add weight to a largely unfamiliar but already engaging new frontier that I can’t wait to continue to explore,” adding that its “uncharted territory feels familiar and, excitingly, fresh.”
GamesRadar said that A New Frontier, “demonstrates the resonant power of interactive storytelling,” and that it, “finds the right balance between rewarding longtime players who’ve shaped their own version of the story and welcoming those who might be hopping aboard this grim adventure for the first time.”
Game Informer said the two-part premiere has, “shocking deaths, intense betrayals, and split-second decisions to second-guess,” claiming that “Everything leads up to a hell of a cliffhanger, making me intrigued to see what happens next.”
The Walking Dead: A New Frontier acts as both a new beginning for players fresh to the series and unfamiliar with Clementine, as well as a continuation for players who have experienced Seasons One and Two. Players new to the series are able to start a story that is tailored to this new beginning. Players continuing onward from prior seasons have multiple options for quickly configuring their tailored backstory, or importing past save files from various platforms.
The Walking Dead: The Telltale Series – A New Frontier Episode Three: ‘Above The Law” is rated ‘M’ (Mature) for Blood and Gore, Intense Violence, Strong Language, and Use of Drugs by the ESRB. Future content in the season is yet to be rated.
To date, The Walking Dead: A Telltale Games Series has sold more than 50 million episodes worldwide, earning more than 100 Game of the Year awards from outlets including Metacritic, USA Today, Wired, Spike TV VGAs, Yahoo!, The Telegraph, Mashable, Polygon, Destructoid and GamesRadar,and was also the recipient of two BAFTA Video Games Awards for Best Story and Best Mobile Game.
The Walking Dead is set in the world of Robert Kirkman’s award-winning comic book series and offers an emotionally-charged, tailored game experience where a player’s actions and choices affect how their story plays out across the entire series.
For more information on the game, visit the official website, Facebook, and follow Telltale Games on Twitter. For more information on The Walking Dead, Robert Kirkman, and all of his titles, visit www.Skybound.com and www.TheWalkingDead.com.
