April 6, 2017 – We’re excited to announce that The Fall of the Dark Brotherhood, the first major new content addition for The Elder Scrolls: Legends, is now available worldwide for PC and iPad. This new story content brings tons of additional missions and cards to the game and returns Elder Scrolls fans to one of their favorite guilds from the franchise – the lethal Dark Brotherhood.
About The Fall of the Dark Brotherhood
The Fall of The Dark Brotherhood is a new PvE Story that tosses players into the role of a double agent hired to infiltrate the ranks of the fabled Dark Brotherhood. Recruited by a sinister group to bring down the infamous Elder Scrolls guild of lethal assassins, players will need to make key choices that both impact which missions they will play and determine how the story unfolds.
This massive new adventure takes place prior to the events of The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim and is broken into three sections, or maps, introducing more than 25 missions and 40 new cards to the game. By completing missions within the new Story, players will unlock new cards available only via The Fall of the Dark Brotherhood, including three new Legendary cards. Players will face a variety of new challenges, lane conditions, and scenarios as they play through the new Story. There’s a pig you have to keep alive, a fight that takes place during a ball where things keep moving around, a prison fight, a skooma den battle, and much more.
The Fall of the Dark Brotherhood is purchasable in-game as three individual maps or as a bundle for a special price of $19.99 and can also be bought with in-game gold. Those who pick up The Fall of the Dark Brotherhood will also receive the ‘Doom Wolf’ mount for use in the award-winning online RPG, The Elder Scrolls Online (PC/Mac only). For more details about on The Fall of the Dark Brotherhood, including a look at the exclusive cards, please read more online.
The Elder Scrolls: Legends is currently available to download for free on PC via the Bethesda.net launcher, on iPad via the App Store.
London, April 5, 2017 – Relic Entertainment and SEGA Europe Ltd. today announced the official Open Beta weekend for Warhammer 40,000: Dawn of War III. The Open Beta will take place from 10AM PST Friday, April 21st until 10AM PST Monday, April 24th. Register now at www.dawnofwar.com/beta.
The Open Beta will pit players against each other in Dawn of War III’s tense, chaotic multiplayer. This game mode highlights the strengths and weaknesses of each faction as players put powerful heroes and devastating abilities to use, while countering those of their foes. Players will have access to all three of the game’s factions – Space Marines, Eldar, and Orks – and a selection of powerful elite heroes for each, allowing them to experiment with different playstyles and strategies.
The Open Beta weekend also gives players their first chance to see and experience the intimidating Masters of War skins in action. The Dark Queen skin for Lady Solaria (Imperial Knight), the Ghost Seer skin for Farseer Taldeer (Wraithknight) and the Big Kustom skin for Beauty (Morkanaut) will all be available for use. The Masters of War Skin Pack is included free with all pre-orders.
Dawn of War III immerses players in the escalating brutality of galactic warfare, where they will lead elite hero units and colossal armies to victory, or oblivion. Powerful super walkers will tower over the front lines as screen-shaking assaults blister the battlefield in an all-out, over-the-top spectacle worthy of the iconic Games Workshop® Warhammer 40,000 universe.
The long-awaited third instalment of the critically acclaimed real-time strategy franchise will be released on April 27th, 2017, and is available to pre-order now at www.dawnofwar.com.
Los Angeles, CA – April 5, 2017 – Rising Star Games today announced that Cooking Mama: Sweet Shop is confirmed for retail box release on May 16 in North America, with a digital release set for May 18 on the Nintendo 3DS family of systems. In partnership with Japanese development studio Office Create, gamers will create a myriad of sweet treats and dazzling desserts in the fun and adorable style of the beloved Cooking Mama series.
With over 60 different recipes to create, spread throughout 160 different mini-games, players use the stylus to slice, stir, bake and decorate their creations – you can even use the microphone to blow and cool your delicacies! Create a wide assortment of delicious looking sweets and puddings, and serve customers in the shop to keep them happy. The more sweets you create and complete, the more your shop expands. You may even trigger a special event! Cooking Mama: Sweet Shop also features a competitive multiplayer mode for two to four players – challenge your friends and see who can make the tastiest treats. And just like always, don’t worry if you make a mistake – Mama will fix it for you!
Developed by Office Create and published by Rising Star Games, Cooking Mama: Sweet Shop will release at physical retail and digitally in the Nintendo eShop on Nintendo 3DS in May 2017. The retail packaged version of Cooking Mama: Sweet Shop will be exclusively distributed in North America by Crescent Marketing Inc. For more information follow Rising Star Games on Twitter and visit the official Rising Star Games website.
April 5, 2017 – It’s a new month, which means a fresh update of new content for Gears of War 4! April is bringing the goods with a themed Easter Event plus a major tuning update, ranked play improvements, new maps, additional legacy characters to collect and more! Read on for all the info and check out our Gears 4 April Update ViDoc.
Easter Event
Easter is on the horizon, and as always, Gears of War 4 will be ready to celebrate another holiday with new events and unlocks for fans!
Festivities will kick off with ‘Bunny Hunt’, an Easter-themed game mode that brings back the oversized Bunny Heads from previous games into a new variation of Guardian. On top of that, fans will get to unwrap five Chocolate Easter Egg-themed weapon skins by registering on GearsofWar.com and completing challenges in this special playlist!
Look out for more information on the Easter Festivities next week as we build up to the big celebration on April 14.
New Maps
This month brings two maps from Gears of War 3 updated and refined to Gears of War 4: Hotel and The Slab!
Hotel was a classic part of the Gears 3 lineup, and we’re excited to bring it back for fans. Hotel is now set on a misty cliff-side, with a long-abandoned reclaimed beauty look that feels right at home in Gears 4. Combat still has a distinct feel between the inside and outside environments, with the longer-range street fight clearly separated from the frantic cover-to-cover battle on the interior. New weapon swaps like the EMBAR now appear on the map, freshening up the familiarity of Hotel and having you learn an old favorite all over again!
Cell Block 38 in The Slab was where Gears began. Last seen as a post-launch map for Gears of War 3, we return again to Marcus’ prison. For Gears 4, we’ve honored the originals look while cranking up the detail, including a windflare coming dangerously close to the prison. The Slab has a unique two-lane opening separated by an interior courtyard, encouraging plenty of Gnasher and ranged combat despite the smaller size of the map.
Both maps will be available for Season Pass holders to play from today in the Developer Playlist, with Double XP and 20% Bonus Credits to boot. Hotel and The Slab will be available for all to play in Public Matchmaking from April 11onwards.
Coming Up This Month
On top of our Easter Event, there’s even more to come for Gears of War 4 fans to sink their teeth into this April.
Continuing our returning roster of Legacy Characters, we have another addition to the COG lineup coming this month! As with Tai in March, you’ll have a chance at finding them early in this month’s Gear Packs before they become available for Crafting. Speaking of Gear Packs, if the Locust are more your thing, we’ve got you covered – Kantus is coming back this month!
On top of new things to earn, there’ll be new things to play too! Our monthly Horde and Versus events are all about playing Gears of War 4 in a different way – save the date and get involved on April 21 and 28 respectively.
Tuning and Ranking Improvements
Yesterday, we outlined major tuning changes coming to Gears of War 4 with the April Update on our Community Blog. Over the past six months, we’ve watched you play, heard your feedback and gathered data from millions of matches – and we feel like now is the right time to introduce new weapon tuning for Gears 4.
These tuning changes provide a major update to both Core and Competitive play. Our Core changes mostly focus on making the starting weapons fit their role better than before, with reduced range on the Gnasher, improvements to the Hammerburst and slight tweaks to the Lancer. For Competitive, it’s all about adjustments that highlight the teamwork and competitive nature of playing with these team-focused settings.
On top of these updates, we’re making a number of improvements for Ranked Play including Seasons, Season Rewards and more!
Learn about April’s new updates in detail and say up to date with everything Gears of War by bookmarking our Community Hub at gearsofwar.com/community!
Gears Pro Circuit Atlantic City Open Recap
All bets were off this past weekend as the Gears Pro Circuit Atlantic City Open welcomed over 60 teams to the Caesars Atlantic City Hotel & Casino, battling it out over a $200,000 prize pool and bragging rights as the best team in the Gears of War 4 esports scene. In the end, OpTic Gaming emerged victorious to claim the crown for the fourth time in the Gears Pro Circuit, wrapping up an intense weekend full of upsets, drama and excitement.
Croatia – Chaos incarnate Croteam and professional hype-people Devolver Digital have launched Serious Sam VR: The First Encounter and Serious Sam VR: The Second Encounter on HTC Vive and Oculus Rift via Steam. Keen on defying normal release timelines, Croteam told us to hold their beer as they paired The First Encounter’s Early Access departure with a surprise debut from its relentlessly exhilarating follow-up The Second Encounter. Both titles are available for 25 percent off during their launch window.
Each game immerses sharpshooters into blistering clashes with hordes of enemies, placing Sam’s ridiculous arsenal into the quivering and probably sweaty palms of VR fans. Using trackpads or state-of-the-art VR teleportation trickery, players tear through waves of enemies across ancient Egypt, South America, medieval Europe and Mesopotamia.
Cleave through beasts with an over-the-top collection of firepower, including the Chainsaw, Cannon, Minigun and trusty staples like the Shotgun, Colt and Sniper Rifle. Keeping targets in your sights is as simple as pointing and shooting … so long as you can hold a steady aim throughout Serious Sam’s blazing pace of action.
The monstrous forces in both Serious Sam VR: The First Encounter and Serious Sam VR: The Second Encounter are led by Mental, a god-like being stirred from hibernation by the human race’s incessant curiosity with an ancient alien technology. Hellbent on crushing all life, Mental’s army devastates all forces in their path with the exception of Sam ‘Serious’ Stone, a lone EDF general leading a resistance as the galaxy’s last hope of salvation.
VR socialites can enlist up to 15 friends to help them blast through cooperative modes, including full multi-level campaigns, or turn acquaintances into rivals across a wealth of competitive multiplayer game types. Earn bragging rights in the hunting-themed showdown, Beast Hunt, the fight to steal and hold a score-boosting item, My Burden, or classic match types including Capture the Flag and Instant Kill. Keyboard and VR-wielding sharpshooters can face off via cross-platform battles.
To get the jump on Croteam’s next outing, follow @Croteam. To discover the rest of your new favorite games, follow @DevolverDigital.
Burbank, Calif. – April 4, 2017 – Warner Bros. Interactive Entertainment, TT Games and The LEGO Group® today announced the launch of LEGO® CITY Undercover™, an action-packed adventure where players must assume the identity of undercover police officer, Chase McCain, and track down the fiendish Rex Fury to finally put an end to his city-wide crime wave. Developed by TT Games and published by Warner Bros. Interactive Entertainment, LEGO CITY Undercover is now available for the Nintendo Switch™, PlayStation®4, Xbox One® and PC.
LEGO CITY Undercover allows both longtime fans and newcomers alike to explore the sprawling, open-world metropolis that is LEGO® CITY with more than 20 unique districts to investigate, filled with car thieves to bust, vehicles to navigate, mischievous aliens to capture, lost pigs to rescue and of course, hundreds of collectibles. For the first time, LEGO CITY Undercover will feature a two-player cooperative mode for gamers to track down criminals as a team.
“Between solving crimes in the hilarious original storyline and exploring the vast open-world city, LEGO CITY Undercover is the perfect game for friends and families to play together,” said Tom Stone, Managing Director, TT Games.
As a man of many talents, Chase McCain has eight disguises to choose from, each with unique skills and abilities to infiltrate every corner of the city and access places only he can. Chase is joined by officer Frank Honey, Chief of Police Dunby and paramedic Natalia Kowalski, who are just a few of the more than 300 unlockable and playable characters that gamers will meet throughout their adventure. With 15 special assignments to complete, the game brings together witty, original storytelling with signature LEGO humor to create a fun-filled experience for players of all ages.
LEGO CITY Undercover is rated “E10+” for everyone 10 and older by the ESRB and is now available for Nintendo Switch, PlayStation 4 system, Xbox One and Windows PC at a suggested retail price of $59.99.
April 4, 2017 – Midsummer Scream Halloween Festival, the West Coast’s premier Halloween, haunt, and horror convention returns July 29-30 to the Long Beach Convention Center for a weekend of world-class thrills and chills. One of the stand-out components of Midsummer Scream’s impressive array of entertainment is the Hall of Shadows – a large portion of the convention’s show floor that is shrouded in darkness and filled with billowing fog, and roaming monsters on an unprecedented scale. For 2017, the Hall of Shadows will feature 14 highly-themed “mini haunts” representing professional and home-made attractions that fans can look forward to visiting this Halloween season here in Southern California.
“Hall of Shadows is a substantial component of Midsummer Scream,” says the convention’s Creative Director, Rick West. “Last year, we featured 9 mini haunts within the Hall; this year, we are upping the count to 14. We are thrilled with the diversity of participating groups this year, from extremely popular pro haunts, to some of the greatest home haunts in existence. Add the awesome spectacle of the Decayed Brigade slider team into the mix, and you’ll find that we have a Hall of Shadows experience this year that is truly epic. Hall of Shadows is a cornerstone of Midsummer Scream, as there is nothing that defines Halloween in America more than haunted houses and lurking monsters. It’s going to be a blast, and all of our participants are raring to go!”
A Unique Challenge
Creating the Hall of Shadows is a unique and exciting challenge. Nowhere has any convention featured such a large “dark zone” with so many haunted attractions for guests to experience. Taking up approximately 1/3 of Midsummer Scream’s 92,000 square-foot show floor, installation of the Hall takes careful planning and coordination well before the doors open to the public. For months, haunters plan their attractions and fabricate them off-site; once it’s “GO time”, each group drives onto the show floor of the Long Beach Convention Center and drops off their haunts in pieces before set-up begins. With 14 attractions being installed at the same time, it’s a virtual ballet of large trucks, haunt build crews, and Midsummer Scream staff members all communicating and working in unison for 48 hours leading up to the opening of the show. Each light above the Hall must be manually turned off once the haunts are installed. To make the area even darker, an extremely large black curtain measuring roughly 325 feet in length (almost the length of a football field) is raised more than 20 feet above the show floor, creating an ominous “wall” between the living and the dead!
Hall of Shadows Entry Façade/Portal
This year’s Hall of Shadows entry portal is being designed and built by CalHauntS (California Haunting Society), a group of talented Halloween enthusiasts responsible for creating some of the most elaborate home haunts anywhere. Sleepy Hollow is the inspiration for this year’s entrance to the Hall of Shadows. Guests will transition from the show floor into the Hall of Shadows as they pass underneath a gothic archway into an eerie cemetery, complete with weathered tombstones and macabre scenic elements.
14 Haunted Attraction Experiences in 2017
For 2017, Midsummer Scream offers guests 14 haunted attractions, each measuring roughly 20’ x 20’. All attractions within the Hall of Shadows is included with a Midsummer Scream day or weekend pass. Guests with Front of Line passes to Midsummer Scream will find express queues at each attraction within Hall of Shadows, expediting their wait times.
The Hall of Shadows 2017 lineup is: Dead Zone 805; Gorlesque presents: Peep Show; Gothic Hills; Higgins Manor; Hyde Street Massacre; Immersive Parties’ MAC: Mutation Analysis Center; Mable’s 6 Feet Under; Nightmare Productions presents The Gate; Opechee Haunt’s Apparition Adventure: Terror Twins; Phobia Productions presents: Grimm’s Hallow; Pumkin Jack’s Haunted House; The Fleshyard; The Haunted Rose presents: The Maritime Horror; and Unhallowed presents: The Last of Man.
For more information regarding the Hall of Shadows 2017 haunts, visit MidsummerScream.org.
World-Class Slider Exhibitions
Returning to the Hall of Shadows for their second year is the Decayed Brigade slider team of Southern California. Several times each day, the Brigade will take to their designated “runway” in the middle of the Hall and perform breathtaking feats of strength and agility as they run, slide, jump, and launch themselves through the air with absolute precision.
The Hall of Shadows will be open Saturday and Sunday, July 29 and 30, during show hours. It is not intended for small children; it is recommended that only guests age 13 years and older venture into the Hall itself. Each haunt will be closed periodically throughout the day for necessary crew breaks.
Fans may sign up on the site for email notifications and announcements, including discounts and other special offers. Be sure to follow Midsummer Scream on social media as well – Twitter/Periscope: @MidsummerScream, Instagram: @MidsummerScream, and Facebook: facebook.com/midsummerscream. Please use #MidsummerScream to tag all social media posts regarding Midsummer Scream 2017. Halloween – It’s not just a season… it’s a lifestyle!
About Midsummer Scream Halloween Festival
Midsummer Scream is a large-scale summer festival celebrating the spirit of Halloween, haunts and horror, drawing thousands of guests to Southern California for a weekend of thrills and chills. Featuring a massive show floor of vendors and exhibitors, haunted attractions and experiences, live entertainment and world-class panel presentations, Midsummer Scream is the West Coast’s premier Halloween/horror event, offering something for fans of all ages. More information can be found at MidsummerScream.org.
CHICAGO – April 3, 2017 – SteelSeries, the fastest growing major PC gaming headset brand in the US*, today proudly announced that its Arctis headsets received the prestigious “Red Dot” award. The jury reached its decision after assessing thousands of products from all over the world. SteelSeries created an outstanding design for the Arctis Headset line that the expert committee for the Red Dot Award: Product Design 2017 has recognized with the internationally sought-after seal of quality.
“Our Danish heritage has never been more apparent than in the creation of the Arctis headset line – where every choice made for building a superior headset directly affected the look and feel,” said Ehtisham Rabbani, SteelSeries CEO. “Simplicity is what makes this headset truly a force to be reckoned with – the questions asked and choices made were hard but simple – find materials that impact comfort, choose shapes that improve function and stop thinking about a gaming product as a visual stereotype.”
The significance of the international design competition, Red Dot Award: Product Design, is well established internationally. For more than 60 years, an expert team has been awarding the seal of quality for good design and innovation to the outstanding designs of the year.
“The Red Dot winners are pursuing the right design strategy,” said Professor Dr. Peter Zec, founder and CEO of the Red Dot Award. “They have recognized that good design and economic success go hand in hand. The award by the critical Red Dot jury documents their high design quality and is indicative of their successful design policy.”
The Arctis 3, Arctis 5, and Arctis 7 gaming headsets are now available at Best Buy or SteelSeries for $79.99, $99.99, and $149.99, respectively. Arctis headband accessories are available now exclusively at https://steelseries.com/arctis for $14.99.
For more details about the Arctis headset line and accessories, or SteelSeries’ entire selection of gaming peripherals, visit https://steelseries.com.
RōM Outdoors has made a backpack for true survivalists with their RōM Pack. The RōM Pack transforms from its initial backpack state into a poncho with a hoodie or a blanket that is soft on one side and water resistant on the other. Usually retailing for about $100 dollars, RōM Outdoors is currently have a sale on their website, making the sale price of the RōM Pack $69.97! The pack is made from 600D poly fabric which gives it a good amount of strength (most airsoft gear is 500D, while the expensive stuff is 1000D) while not being too rough to touch.
The RōM Pack starts out as a backpack, so that’s what we wanted to start by looking at. As far as internal space goes, the RōM Pack has plenty of it. The when calculated, the RōM Pack features 3040 cubic inches of cargo space and weighs only 4.6 lbs. Aside from its cavernous main compartment, the RōM Pack comes with two removable saddlebags that can be used to carry on-the-go gear that you might need to get to in a hurry. I made one of mine into a medical kit – its rip-away capability is a godsend for an IFAK (individual first aid kit).
Each side of the RōM Pack has a mesh pocket where you can store a water bottle or other small accessories. And, if that isn’t enough for you, there is MOLLE webbing along the back of the pack that can be used to hook on additional gear or pouches. If you are concerned that comfort might be an issue with such a back pack, I can assure you it is not. The straps that RōM Outdoors has put on their pack are soft enough to be comfortable and set wide enough apart that they don’t rub your neck raw while wearing it.
If you are done using the pack as a blanket or hoodie and want to fold it back into a back pack, the method for doing so is not very difficult. In the following video, you can see a child folding the pack back up as an example of just how simple it is.
The biggest challange in fielding the RōM Pack for any length of time is that the pouches and overall design of the pack allows for some wiggle and slouch. It is braced, for the most part, by straps that help keep everything together, but it definitely moves around a little more than most standard packs.
Overall, the RōM Pack from RōM Outdoors is a great survival pack. However, remember that when used as a hoodie or blanket, its storage space gets taken away, so you might want to pick up an inner pack to hold the items during the transformation. RōM Outdoors actually has an inner pack on sale for just about $4 dollars, so you might want to pick one up as well. You can find out more about the RōM Pack as well as purchase one of your own at RōM Outdoors official website.
LONDON – March 31, 2017 – SEGA® Europe Ltd. today announced the next game in the best-selling Total War: WARHAMMER trilogy. Total War: WARHAMMER II will be the second release in an ongoing partnership between globally-acclaimed developer Creative Assembly™ and Games Workshop®, creators of the world-renowned Warhammer® Fantasy Battles tabletop wargame and miniatures.
Total War: WARHAMMER II unveils the mystery-shrouded continents far to the west of The Old World. Featuring four iconic new races from the Warhammer Fantasy Battles world – the High Elves, Dark Elves, Lizardmen, and a fourth yet to be revealed – players will battle across enchanted isles, bleak hinterlands, treacherous swamps, and perilous jungles.
In a Total War campaign like no other, players will struggle for dominion over the ailing Great Vortex that has swirled for millennia above the elven homeland of Ulthuan. Performing a series of arcane rituals, each race must save or disrupt the Vortex according to their motivations – a struggle culminating in a cataclysmic endgame. Territorial conquest is no longer enough… this is a race for control that will define the fate of the world!
Total War: WARHAMMER II will offer hundreds of hours of immersive gameplay in this epic new campaign. Furthermore, a huge combined campaign map featuring the old and new world regions will be available for free shortly after release to players who own both Total War: WARHAMMER I & II.
“Total War: WARHAMMER II represents the next step in our trilogy, our vision for the most incredible fantasy strategy series ever made,” said Game Director, Ian Roxburgh. “The success of the first game has increased our ambition; we’re not only going to deliver a thrilling campaign in the sequel, but also an additional combined campaign, the biggest so far, for owners of both.”
“We’re thrilled to see the sequel to last year’s smash hit Total War: Warhammer coming later this year.” Said Jon Gillard, Head of Licensing at Games Workshop. “Sega and The Creative Assembly continue to astound us with their ability in crafting the Warhammer Fantasy Battles world in further glorious pageantry, with races never realised on this scale before in a video game. We are proud to be in partnership with them on this next great step in the franchise.”
Total War™: WARHAMMER® II for PC will be available in 2017, watch the announce trailer here.
For the latest news about this title and other Total War games in development, visit www.totalwar.com and follow us on Facebook and Twitter. Subscribe to Total War’s YouTube Channel for future news about gameplay videos.
