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Capcom’s Battle for the Stones: Evo champions and new challengers will face off in Marvel vs. Capcom: Infinite
No doubt the result of that leaked esports video from earlier this year, Capcom have revealed their plans for the first Marvel vs. Capcom: Infinite tournament series. Named “Battle for the Stones,” it sees seven Evo champions facing off against nine new challengers to become the master of the Infinity Stones.
Six of these competitors will be champions from select offline tournaments, with the other three coming from special online qualifiers. The winner of each offline event will gain an Infinity Stone and a place in the final 16-man bracket, where they will be paired against either a former Evo champion or the victor of an online qualifier. The seven Evo champions are:
- Jay “Viscant” Snyder – Evo 2011 champion
- Ryan “Filipino Champ” Ramirez – Evo 2012 champion
- Job “Flocker” Figueroa – Evo 2013 champion
- Justin Wong – Evo 2014 champion
- Nick “KaneBlueRiver” Gonzalez – Evo 2015 champion
- Chris “ChrisG” Gonzalez – Evo 2016 champion
- Ryan “RyanLV” Romero – Evo 2017 champion
There is a twist though — each Infinity Stone has a power that actually changes the rules of the tournament. An Infinity Stone holder is allowed to activate their Stone once, altering the rules to give them an advantage. At this point in time, we don’t know what each stone does, but their use will be revealed at their corresponding event. Here are the six Infinity Stone tournaments:
- SoCal Regionals – Space Stone
- Canada Cup – Mind Stone
- South East Asia Major – Time Stone
- Milan Games Week – Soul Stone
- Latin America Finals – Reality Stone
- Red Bull Proving Grounds – Power Stone
Should you lose a match in the final Battle for the Stones bracket, you give your Stone to your opponent to use. This means that Grand Finals will see the last two combatants counter-picking Stones both in and outside of the game. It’s certainly a novel idea, and I hope Capcom have fun with the power of each Stone. I’d love for the Reality Stone to see players fight it out in an old Marvel game, for example.
The final Battle for the Stones bracket will take place at the Hilton Anaheim from December 8th-10th — the same time as the PlayStation Experience and Capcom Cup 2017. For all the information regarding rules, associated tournaments and the Stones themselves, check out the official Battle for the Stones website.
Source: Capcom
– Automaton Games Announces New MMO Tactical Shooter for 2018
Automaton Games, an indie British studio, has announced that it has scored $10M in funding to bring a “cutting-edge MMO tactical shooter” to the world. The new game is using Improbable’s SpatialOS technology and the CryEngine to bring the as-yet untitled game to life. According to the dev team, the multiplayer survival combat MMO will feature a “last man standing” PvP mode that will see up to 400 players taking part.
UDON publishing a hardcover Street Fighter novel, “Where Strength Lies”; features art by Yusuke Murata
Soon you’ll be able to read about some new battles between your favorite World Warriors.
UDON Entertainment has published a vast library of Street Fighter-themed graphic novels and comics, as well as bringing over manga for English-speaking audiences, including the Daigo Umehara manga Daigo the Beast: Umehara Fighting Gamers! Next to be added to the catalog — as revealed in the last pages of Street Fighter vs. Darkstalkers issue 5 — is a hardcover novel: Street Fighter: Where Strength Lies.
Written by Takashi Yano, the book will feature cover and interior illustrations by manga artist Yusuke Murata. The synopsis:
The World Warriors take center stage in the first ever Street Fighter novel! Featuring Ryu vs. Akuma, Chun-Li vs. Elena, Guile vs. E.Honda, Sagat vs. M.Bison, and many more classic fighters colliding in their most epic encounters yet. It’s all described in Shoryuken-smashing, Sonic Boom-throwing, Psycho Power-pulsing detail! The action is only enhanced with bonus manga pages and artwork in every chapter by manga legend Yusuke Murata!
It is available to pre-order now for $19.99 USD on Amazon. It is expected to ship for November 7, 2017.
Sources: UDON Entertainment, Amazon
Method add Cole “Flux” Tocci to their growing fighting game roster
Ahead of Marvel vs. Capcom: Infinite‘s release tomorrow, esports organization Method have brought a Marvel heavy-hitter into the fold. Joining other players like Luffy, Packz and REO, Cole “Flux” Tocci has become the latest addition to Method’s fighting game roster.
Famous for his Zero May Cry team, Flux has been a constant threat in top 8s for Ultimate Marvel vs. Capcom 3, with him recently coming first at East Coast Throwdown 2017. While Marvel is the game he is most famous for, Flux is a big threat in the US BlazBlue scene too, and is currently ranked eighth in smash.gg’s Burst League.
Flux has a history with Method too, as he often competed against their raiding guild back when he was an avid World of Warcraft player. Now part of Method’s cohort, expect a whole new era of lightning loops and Dante combos in Marvel vs. Capcom: Infinite.
Source: Method
Katsuhiro Harada talks Tekken, changing frame data to suit online, esports, guest characters, and much more
One of, if not the most outspoken people in fighting game development today is none other than Bandai Namco’s Katsuhiro Harada. The Tekken producer is no stranger to giving out his opinion on social media, especially when it comes to his own game.
Gaming industry site Gamasutra has gotten a chance to sit down and conduct a massive interview with Harada. The interview covers a large number of topics — almost too many to list, really. However, some of Harada’s answers do stand out. The one that may interest competitive players the most is what he says about how they changed frame data for online play. According to Harada, around a decade or so ago, not just the addition of online play — but the change to LCD based hardware itself — meant that it became harder to react to fast pokes due to the additional delay. With this in mind, they made a conscious effort to change the frame data and slow down the pokes, increasing their frames from around 8 for the fastest attack, to 10 or more in their later games.
Of course, he acknowledges that this doesn’t fix everything, and that online play is affected by the network infrastructure of a region. That said, he does state that he would like to continue to tailor the game to “absorb lag.” Though he does admit that there is a limit to how much he can do so, as it also affects the game’s tempo.
Another interesting topic he comments on is the growth of fighting games in esports. Harada states that “esports” for him is simply another term that the fighting game community is using to help communicate what they’re doing to other people. The community itself has been doing competitions and tournaments for fighting games for a long time now, long before “esports” entered into the scene.
Harada also talks about crossovers, including adding guest characters into Tekken 7. Surprisingly enough, he doesn’t really expect a large amount of players from the characters home franchises to cross over to Tekken (though admits that that does happen). It’s more about promotion and granting awareness of Tekken itself. These crossovers, he states, can create a lot of buzz around the game online. He also talks about the process of actually adding these characters into Tekken, stating that the goal is to make said characters play like they did in their home series, while still fitting into a 3D system.
Of course, this is just a small taste of what Harada talks about in the interview. Head on over to Gamasutra to read the rest of what Harada has to say.
Source: Gamasutra
– Portal, Half-Life 2 Writer Chet Faliszek Heads to Bossa
Chet Faliszek is one of the most well-known of all Valve employees, if not by name, then by product. He is the author of the stories behind both Portal games, both Half-Life 2 expansions and the Left-4-Dead games. After leaving Valve earlier this year, he has now announced that he’s headed to Bossa Studios to work on an “unannounced PC action co-op game trying to do something new in the narrative space using AI”.
Tokyo Games Show will feature a special Dragon Ball FighterZ presentation
While many of us are recovering from its closed beta, the Dragon Ball FighterZ hype train rolls on with Tokyo Games Show later this week. Along with it being playable at the show, producer Tomoko Hiroki and the team from Arc System Works will be hosting a panel on the Saturday — complete with special guest Hikaru Midorikawa, the Japanese voice actor for Android 16.
You’ll be able to watch the panel live via Bandai Namco’s 876TV channel, with it being streamed at 4:00 PM JST/12:00 AM PT. With the recent announcement of Yamcha and Tien as playable characters, it’s fair to expect a trailer showing these two fighters in action. With Android 16’s voice actor also present, we may learn more about Dragon Ball FighterZ‘s story mode, seeing as A16 and new character Android 21 feature prominently within this “what-if” scenario.
Source: Bandai Namco Japan
Monster Hunter, Winter Soldier, Black Widow, and Venom are confirmed for Marvel vs. Capcom: Infinite
For some time now, we’ve been wondering at who the final four unrevealed characters for Marvel vs. Capcom: Infinite‘s first wave of DLC characters will be; we now know that Monster Hunter, Winter Soldier, Black Widow and Venom (but not Gill, it seems) will be coming to the game this year, in the wake of Sigma and Black Panther. Capcom has released the information via MvC:I’s pre-release Capcom-Unity blog post.
Most of these characters have previously been hinted at in the many leaks surrounding the game’s development. Some of these, such as the Monster Hunter, have already been spotted in the game’s story mode. However, this is the first mention of Black Widow. Her inclusion seemingly imbalances the roster by giving it 4 Marvel characters and just 2 Capcom characters as DLC. That said, we’d like to note that there is also a Capcom character called Black Widow that comes from Ring of Destruction: Slam Masters II. Though this instance referring to her is unlikely.
While no release date for the characters has been set, all six will eventually be released later this year.
Source: Capcom-Unity
Raiden teleports into Injustice 2 this October; will have Black Lightning Premier Skin
After the conclusion of the 2017 Injustice 2 Pro Series finals, NetherRealm Studios had a special treat for those in attendance — or watching live around the world on Twitch. Raiden, the game’s 5th DLC character, and 2nd member of Fighter Pack 2, has received his official reveal trailer.
After promising to send Brainiac to the NetherRealm, the God of Thunder unleashed a flurry of his signature offense, including his Vicinity Blast, Shocker, Superman torpedo attack, the Teleport from his Displacer Variation in Mortal Kombat XL, as well as his Lightning Traps from the Master of Storms Variation.
Then, Black Lightning — Raiden’s Premier Skin – entered The Batcave to challenge Robin. His Trait appears to be striking himself with lighting to power up his attacks, with his effects even becoming yellow when Black Lightning is in play. Lightning even encases Black Manta is some sort of electrical prison, that will damage a foe if they throw projectiles, setting Raiden/Lighting up for a full punish. This could potentially be one of their Gear Abilities, along with a ground pound that serves as a wake-up attack.
Finally, in perhaps the flashiest super in the game, Raiden teleports his enemy to Mortal Kombat‘s Sky Temple, where he then combos them before taking them up into the sky, electrocuting them, and then transforms into the classic logo of the franchise, before unraveling into a lighting dragon and chomping them down to size. It is unknown if Black Lightning will share this same super animation, like every other Premier Skin before him.
Raiden will be available in October as part of Fighter Pack 2, while his Black Lightning Premier Skin will be an exclusive perk to Ultimate Edition owners. You can see the full trailer below.
Source: Injustice