Everyone has a fighting chance
ESPN is reporting that Overwatch League expansion franchises for Season 2 will cost anywhere from $30M to $60M based on the number of interested bidders, Overwatch player density and the population of the host city. Season 1 franchises sold for $20M.
Capcom has released its financial statement for the first fiscal quarter of 2018. The company’s earnings are up 46% from last year and profits are up 649% year-on-year. The success of Monster Hunter World is largely responsible for the huge earnings, with 8.3M units sold by quarter’s end.
While many of today’s game’s tend to shy away from overt commentary on the current state of the world, CD Projekt Red has no intention of doing the same with Cyberpunk 2077. In a recent interview with XBox Magazine, Quest Designer Patrick Mills said, “The original Cyberpunk 2020 setting, like the setting of The Witcher stories, was a complex critique of the author’s world, and we don’t shy away from that in our games.”
The Heroes of the Storm Twitter has been updated with a new video that shows of “Viper Paramilitary Organization” and new skins for Genji, Stukov and Ana. In and of itself, that’s not a bug surprise. After all, we’ve just had the mecha-skins arrive, but totally without any type of lore. This time, however, Blizzard provides at least a sneak peek at…something? Will we learn more about Viper and their place in the Nexus? The team has been touting its own HotS-original stories for months now.
Elsword players can check in on two brand new Varnimyr dungeons. Varnimyr is the home of the Dark Elves and players can face off against some of the game’s most formidable foes in Dark Elves’ Outpost and Forsaken Spirit Asylum. To show off each, KOG Games has released a brand new trailer.
The City of Titans site has been updated with a look at the Apkallu race, “a race of superhuman fishman”. In addition to revealing much of their lore and origin, the site also takes a look at the modular characters models that allow for interesting additions to the Apkallu in the form of Monster Heads, Tattoos, “Pit Wings” and Asymmetric Costume Pieces.
The Ship of Heroes forum has a pair of extensive posts that lay out in great detail the things that the team has been working on over the past several months. The list includes a long list of technical and coding improvements that have led to a number of big things being added to the current build including the day/night cycle and much more.
SMITE 5.14 has been deployed along with a brand new goddess joining the pantheon: Pele, Goddess of Volcanoes. The Polynesian Pantheon begins with Pele who, as expected, brings a fiery form of combat with abilities such as Everlasting Flame, Pyroclast and Eruption. The video also provides her origin story and a look at her in combat.
The Dauntless site has been updated with a new blog post that details a “mysterious new behemoth” that will be arriving with The Coming Storm content update when it launches on August 8th. Called Koshai, this behemoth is known as the Sovereign of Thorns and is a “vicious beast that can tear apart the strongest armor with its powerful thorns and vines”.
The Ship of Heroes site has been updated with a new blog post that introduces one of the games heroes, this time the half-human Meltdown. Born of a human mother and a Vais father, Meltdown has built a commercial empire and “he frequently offered philanthropic assistance to the Justice in the form of rare resources, connections & loans”. Let’s not forget that he, too, has good fighting abilities and, as a result of all of the above, he’s quite a popular fellow.