Everyone has a fighting chance
Even though Diablo 2 has been available as a “classic game” on Battle.Net for years, Diablo 1 never has been…until now. The game has never appeared anywhere else except in physical editions. However, all that has changed with today’s release of Diablo 1 over at GoG.com for $9.99. This marks a turning point for Blizzard games that have never appeared in any other form than physical and / or on Battle.Net.
Pearl Abyss has announced that it is working on “an adorable family MMORPG that everyone can enjoy together” called Project V. The announcement was made on the company’s Facebook page (thanks, anonymous tipster!) and it features a piece of concept art showing a large stylized city and characters. According to MMO-Culture, the company is using a new game engine rather than the Black Desert engine due to its age. The new one allows development into the future with improved quality.
The first online qualifying events for the new Street Fighter League took place last weekend, and RobTV and UpToSnuff earned themselves the top spots in the Phase 1 East & West US-Pro 2019 Online Qualifiers. What that means exactly in the League’s structure has been clarified by Capcom’s Esports Director Michael Martin in a recent Capcom-Unity blog.
Winning the online events drops RobTV and UpToSnuff into the League’s draft pool, eligible to compete as part of the main SFL round-robin event. This pool is comprised of six winners from the Phase 1-3 Online Qualifiers, and six “crowd favorites” that will be added via community votes. Six Team Captains (to be selected from the 2018 Capcom Pro Tour season) will then draft players from this twelve-player pool to form the 3-player teams that will fight it out in the round-robin.
The infographic below shows the steps in the process, as well as a little bit about the 3vs3 structure and the somewhat controversial character ban element.
The Phase 2 Online Qualifier is still open for registration, and you can join even if you competed in the Phase 1 qualifier. Information on the community voting system can be found here. The community nominations will only be open for 2 days — March 15-17 — so be ready! Capcom’s initial SFL announcement can be seen here.
Source: Capcom-Unity
The nine main stage games have been revealed, and registration is officially open for Evolution Championship Series 2019! But whether you want to compete or not, there is a lot more to Evo: you can also help run the event brackets by volunteering to be judge, show off your talent with a booth at Artist Alley, or bring a game to Evo as a side tournament in this year’s new Community Evo Championships.
Application forms for all three can be found on the main Evo website. Sign up now!
If you head to https://t.co/k7jIuWrjgF, you can access application forms for judges/volunteers, artist alley & the Community Evolution Championships (formerly featured side tournaments). Media applications form will open soon. pic.twitter.com/ABVWh17Nik
— Mark Julio (マークマン) (@MarkMan23) March 5, 2019
Registration numbers for the main stage games are already on the rise, of course; Super Smash Bros. Ultimate is leading the way into March, but we’ve got a long way to go before we see what 2019’s biggest Evo title is!
Evo 2019 Registration Scoreboard March Edition!
1st – Super Smash Bros. Ultimate
2nd – Tekken 7
3rd – Street Fighter 5
4th – Mortal Kombat 11
5th – Soul Calibur 6
6th – Under Night In Birth
7th – Samurai Shodown
8th – Dragonball FighterZ
9th – Blazeblue Cross Tag Battle#Evo2019— Joey Cuellar (@MrWiz) March 1, 2019
Evo 2019 comes to Las Vegas on August 2-4, at the Mandalay Bay Resort & Casino.
Sources: Evo; MarkMan (Twitter); Joey Cuellar (Twitter)
Last Thursday was a monumental day for Tekken 7 fans, as Julia Chang and The Walking Dead’s Negan were finally released to close out both the month of February and the game’s Season 2 character roster. Though she appears to have become a live streamer in an effort to support her deforestation efforts, Julia Chang’s charm and classic moves appear to be fully and faithfully preserved, while the leader of the Saviors brings all of the brutality — and personality — he has come to be known for over the years on the AMC series.
In addition, Version 2.20 brings with it a set of new stages, including the “Last Day On Earth,” which faithfully reproduces the Saviors hideout where the infamous Season 6 cliffhanger took place, as well as alternate versions of existing stages complete with new soundtracks. There are also some quality-of-life adjustments to the game, such as being able to finally switch characters without going to stage select, the ability to turn Rage and Counter Hits on or off during Warm-Ups, additional gallery illustrations, and new character panels for Craig Marduk and Armor King.
There have also been some minor balance adjustments to King, Yoshimitsu, Alisa, Shaheen, Josie, Gigas, Nina, Master Raven, Lee, Geese, and previous Season 2 arrivals Anna, Lei, Marduk, and Armor King, on top of some adjustments to the hit reactions of certain airborne Rage Drives, which you can see in full at the following link.
We’ve also included their gameplay trailers — that were first revealed at last month’s Evo Japan — below.
Julia and Negan can be purchased individually for $5.99 and $7.99 respectively, or as part of the Season 2 Character Pass for $29.99, which also includes the previously-released Anna Williams, Lei Wulong, Craig Marduk, and Armor King.
Sources: Bandai Namco Entertainment America (YouTube); Bandai Namco Entertainment
In a surprising =/= not surprising move, Activision-Blizzard Media and NewZoo have teamed up for a new study of mobile gaming called “Betting on Billions: Unlocking the Power of Mobile Gamers”. It begins with a discussion of the $148.1 billion that mobile games will generate this year alone and the premise that “this is a massive opportunity for brands”. “In this report, we shed light on mobile gamers and their untapped potential for brands and advertisers” the report intro reads.
Warhammer: Chaosbane is an upcoming hack’n’slash ARPG set for release on June 4th. Developers have announced that the first round of closed beta testing will begin on March 7th and run through March 13th. PlayStation 4, XBox One and PC (Steam) players will be able to take part. There will be a number of activities to try out including the entire first act, two playable characters, the ability to level up to 20, participate in coop play and check out “many customization options”.
OpenAI is a California-based nonprofit group that released “Neural MMO”, a “massively multiagent” game with the goal that “the inclusion of many agents and species leads to better exploration, divergent niche formation, and greater overall competence”. Players enter a tile-based map where, according to VentureBeat, “they observe the square crops of tiles centered on their respective positions & make one movement & one attack per tick”. They are engaged with foraging or are in combat with others.
According to Chris Avellone’s LinkedIn profile, he’s been hard at work for nearly a year on Respawn’s Jedi: The Fallen Order. He’s worked on story, story and character reviews and cinematic scripts on Jedi: The Fallen Order and on another title that he teases will be revealed as “another big bomb in a month”. This is great news for RPG and story fans as Avellone is one of the premier storytellers in the industry.
Elder Scrolls Blades is the upcoming mobile game based on the well-known Bethesda IP. It’s been pretty quiet since it was announced last year, but it seems that the team is ramping up to an NDA-bound iOS closed beta event ahead of the start of early access. Currently, there is no date for the CBT, but interested players are invited to sign up on the official site for a chance to be selected.