Tuesday news, part two:
OnlyCans is a thirst trap-soaked game about sexy sodas
https://www.pcgamer.com/onlycans-is-a-thirst-trap-soaked-game-about-sexy-sodas/
Well there's a headline I never thought I'd write. But thanks to the eccentric mind of Sean Oxspring, there's now OnlyCans: Thirst Date, where you lust after a variety of different sodas.
Riot changes Valorant's ranking system to be 'much easier to understand, more fair'
https://www.pcgamer.com/riot-is-rethinking-ranks-for-valorants-second-episode/
Sweeping changes to Valorant's ranked system should make it easier to see where you stack up when Episode 2 (aka season 2) kicks off tomorrow. This week's release introduces a new battle pass and hero Yoru—a tricksy Japanese duellist designed to dominate 1v1 face-offs. But Riot has also been doing some tinkering under Valorant's hood, making dozens of minor changes to Ranked play in an effort to make everything fairer and easier to understand.
Lucasfilm Games returns as the official home of Star Wars games and more
https://www.pcgamer.com/lucasfilm-games-returns-as-the-official-home-of-star-wars-games-and-more/
In October 2012, Disney dropped roughly $4 billion to acquire LucasFilm and the Star Wars multimedia empire. Six months later, in April 2013, it pulled the plug on LucasArts, the company’s game development and publishing division. An exclusive deal to make Star Wars games was made with Electronic Arts later that year, a relationship that by some estimates has not gone as smoothly as expected. And today, Disney announced a “new era of storytelling in Star Wars and beyond” that will take place under the revived Lucasfilm Games banner.
Hearthstone Battlegrounds players are using a Windows firewall exploit to get extra turn time
https://www.pcgamer.com/hearthstone-battlegrounds-players-are-using-a-windows-firewall-exploit-to-get-extra-turn-time/
(...) I won't explain exactly how the exploit works for obvious reasons, but you can find the method online easily enough. Unsurprisingly, it’s particularly prevalent in high MMR lobbies. I spoke to Slysssa and Kripparian, two of the best Battlegrounds streamers in the world, about the problem. "It feels like every game that tokens are available at least one person is exploiting in high level lobbies," said Slyssa. "It’s becoming more and more common as people learn how to perform Khadgar transitions and how to install the firewall exploit."
Hitman 3 locations revealed in this spoiler-free travelogue
https://www.pcgamer.com/hitman-3-locations/
The life of an international assassin is glamorous and exciting: Travel the world, meet new and interesting people, and then kill them with exploding toilets. But where will those travels take you? With Hitman 3 now just a little more than a week away, developer IO Interactive has shared a spoiler-free list of all six of the game’s locations.
Riot and Bungie team up to sue cheat maker
https://www.pcgamer.com/riot-and-bungie-team-up-to-sue-cheat-maker/
It’s not uncommon for makers of cheat software to be sued, sooner or later, by the companies whose games they’re messing with. Activision dropped a lawsuit on a Call of Duty: Warzone cheat maker in August 2020, for instance, and in 2019 Ubisoft sued a Rainbow Six Siege hacker who decided it would be a good idea to appear on the BBC.
It think is unusual, however—I certainly don’t recall it ever happening previously—for two major game studios to team up on a cheat maker in a single lawsuit. But it’s happened now: Valorant developer Riot Games and Destiny 2 studio Bungie have filed a joint lawsuit against a hack-maker called GatorCheats.
GhostWire: Tokyo will apparently release in October
https://www.pcgamer.com/ghostwire-tokyo-will-apparently-release-in-october/
GhostWire: Tokyo, the next game from Shinji Mikami and Tango Gameworks, will likely release in October. At least, that's the word from Sony's CES 2021 presentation, which CNET has archived on YouTube (you can also watch it on Sony's site). At about 10:39 in the video, the blue screen above lists release months for several upcoming PlayStation 5 games, including GhostWire: Tokyo, which we know will also release on PC.
Jane Austin's MMO for socialites shuts down
https://www.pcgamer.com/jane-austins-mmo-for-socialites-shuts-down/
Ladies and gentlemen, it is with great remorse that I must announce that high-society MMORPG Ever, Jane sadly shut its doors for good this year.
Kickstarted back in 2013 for $100k, 3 Turn Productions' digital facsimile of regency England was a curious twist on the genre—one that ditched swords and sorcery for an equally cut-throat world of gossip, mingling, and social ladder-climbing pulled from the works of Jane Austen. Following various closed and public betas, the developer hoped to see a full release in late 2020.
Stronghold: Warlords has been delayed until March because multiplayer is "simply not ready"
https://www.pcgamer.com/stronghold-warlords-has-been-delayed-until-march/
Firefly Studios has delayed feudal Far-Eastern RTS Stronghold: Warlords until March 9th, the studio announced this week.
The latest in Firefly's venerable castle-managing strategy series, Warlords moves setting from Europe to East Asia and makes a number of changes to the ways Stronghold handles walls and unit formations. But while previously scheduled for a January 26th release, the current state of the game's multiplayer means Firefly has postponed release until March 9.
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