Deals
1 CommentFinal Fantasy 15 is just $35 at Amazon today
Looking for a last-minute stocking stuffer? You can snag a copy of Final Fantasy 15 and spend the holidays with Noctis and the boys for just $34.99 today, thanks to an Amazon Deal of the Day.
The standard editions of Final Fantasy 15 for PlayStation 4 and Xbox One are both 42 percent off today, a big markdown from the game’s original $59.99 launch day price. Keep in mind the discount only applies to the physical versions of Final Fantasy 15. Digital copies are still going for $59.99 on PS4 and Xbox One.
Final Fantasy 15 will get an update later this week that adds a New Game Plus mode and some holiday-themed content. More updates are planned for next year, including some that address the game’s narrative shortcomings.
For more on Final Fantasy 15, read Polygon’s review, which praised...
Cover Story
Issue
24
November 4, 2016
Blizzard’s prodigal son returns
How one of Blizzard’s co-founders left the company, why he decided to come back and what it means for the future.
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0 CommentsKiller Instinct’s next fighter is a cyborg with miniguns for arms
Killer Instinct for Xbox One and Windows PC will get a new fighter in January, Microsoft Studios and developer Iron Galaxy confirmed today. Kilgore, a cyborg who brings some major firepower to the fighting game, will join the roster next year.
Kilgore will draw obvious comparisons to Killer Instinct series veteran Fulgore, though beyond the twin minigun arms, we don’t know too much about the new character’s capabilities. While Kilgore won’t drop until January, Killer Instinct players will get a sneak peek at the new addition soon, the developer says. Players will get to fight against Kilgore starting later this week.
Microsoft Studios community manager Rukari Austin said on Twitter that Kilgore is an UltraTech-developed amalgamation. Some of Kilgore’s animations are borrowed from other K...
News
2 CommentsGlimpse Battlefield 1’s first expansion in this fiery concept art
Battlefield 1’s first expansion, They Shall Not Pass, expands the scope of the Great War to include the French Army, as you can see in the concept art that developer EA DICE released today.
They Shall Not Pass isn’t scheduled to arrive until March, so it makes sense that EA DICE doesn’t want to — or isn’t ready to — show anything beyond concept art at this stage. So far, the company has said that the expansion will allow buyers to play as the French Army in the game’s multiplayer component, and that a future add-on will bring in Russia. Austro-Hungarian, British, German, Italian, Ottoman and U.S. forces are currently playable in Battlefield 1.
As you may expect, the battlefields on display in the artwork include scenes of fire-ravaged forests, muddy trenches and tight corridors. They...
News
13 CommentsFinal Fantasy 15’s coolest, hardest dungeon can be finished in six minutes
Final Fantasy 15’s endgame is full of extra challenges, and none more so than its intense secret dungeon.
(If you don’t want to know anything more than that, consider this your first and last Final Fantasy 15 spoiler warning.)
After using the flying Regalia vehicle to discover the Pitioss Ruins, a hidden cave filled with tough platforming puzzles and few checkpoints, players have learned the hard way that it can take upward of 10 hours to complete. Turns out there’s a shortcut, however, that cuts that time down — way, way down.
Flobberworm4 posted a video to his YouTube channel with a title that’s sure to grab anyone who’s frittered hours away in the Pitioss Ruins. Watch above as he shows how to beat Final Fantasy 15’s most notorious dungeons in a breezy six minutes.
Yep. Six minutes....
News
35 CommentsBlizzard admits its ‘cool meter’ was off with Overwatch’s most hated holiday look
Facing backlash over a disappointing exclusive skin released as part of Overwatch’s holiday event, director Jeff Kaplan took to Battle.net to admit to fans that Blizzard Entertainment’s “‘cool meter’ was off” when it came to designing Mei’s deeply unpopular seasonal look.
“We just sort of make a gut call based off of what we think is cool,” Kaplan wrote in a post responding to fan complaints about Mei’s new skin, which hit Overwatch this week as part of the Winter Wonderland update. “Coolness is very subjective, and based off of the community reaction it seems like our gauge was off on this one.”
The community reaction, as we reported just after Winter Wonderland’s release, was resoundingly negative. Mei’s holiday outfit — her first seasonal event look — was nothing more than a festive...
News
9 CommentsAssassin’s Creed 2 remaster patched to remove ‘weird NPC face’
Ubisoft has patched the remastered version of Assassin's Creed 2 in Assassin’s Creed The Ezio Collection, going back in time to Renaissance Italy to erase a strange-looking background character from an early cutscene.
The update, which was released yesterday on both PlayStation 4 and Xbox One, brings The Ezio Collection to version 1.02. The official patch notes on the Ubisoft forums say only that the update “fixed a visual issue that may appear” in a cutscene in Assassin’s Creed 2, and that it addressed a problem with background music and high synchronization points.
The notes that show up in the PS4 dashboard’s update history are a bit more specific about the change, however.
“FIXED - A weird NPC face appears in Assassin’s Creed 2 Sequence 1, Memory 1,” the PS4 patch notes say, along...
Final Fantasy 15’s holiday gift to players is New Game Plus
Final Fantasy 15 will receive a free update on Dec. 22, adding a variety of holiday-themed content to the game. More exciting than the seasonal gift, however, is a New Game Plus feature also included in the update.
All players will receive the option to carry over data from their completed games into a new save file with the update. The New Game Plus feature promised by director Hajime Tabata in a post published shortly after the game’s release, and it’s one of several gameplay improvements headed to the game over the next few months.
Also in the works are things like a “God mode,” more story content and tweaks to Final Fantasy 15’s dreaded thirteenth chapter. These will also be available for free upon release, while other new feature content — like multiplayer — will be available at a...
News
88 CommentsEvery Xbox 360 game that’s backward compatible with Xbox One
Xbox One, unlike its biggest competitor PlayStation 4, is backward compatible with a portion of its predecessor's games. The list of Xbox 360 titles playable on Xbox One expands on a regular basis, with hundreds already working on the current-gen system. While Microsoft announces old games that are newly playable on its latest hardware as soon as they’re available, it can be hard to keep track of which of your discs or downloads actually work with Xbox One.
We’ve got a big spreadsheet of every backward compatible game below to help you out. It’s sorted by the most recent Xbox 360 game to become playable on Xbox One, and we’ll continue to update it with every addition, from the big — such as classics like Dark Souls and Red Dead Redemption — to the smaller, more niche titles.
B...
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40 CommentsXbox One download speeds may have lapped the PlayStation Network again
The latest system update for the Xbox One includes “several optimizations to game and app downloads,” according to Microsoft, which could further widen the gap between download speeds on Xbox Live and the PlayStation Network.
Released yesterday, Dec. 14, the update should make downloads faster for all Xbox One owners. Users with broadband connections rated under 100 megabits per second — which is likely to be a majority of the console’s user base — should now see “more consistent performance that is up to 40% faster than before,” said Microsoft. People lucky enough to have internet speeds above 100 Mbps will see a speed boost of “up to 80%.”
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Report: Xbox Live...
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10 CommentsWalking Dead’s new season skips PS3 and 360 — and that could mean trouble for old save files
cThe third season of The Walking Dead: A Telltale Games Series, A New Frontier, won’t launch on PlayStation 3 or Xbox 360, Telltale Games announced on its website. That may not surprise newcomers to the series, but anyone who finished the earlier seasons on those older consoles may need to start digging them out.
That’s because importing saves from Season Two of The Walking Dead requires downloading a patch, which will then allow players to upload their files and bring them over to modern hardware. If they played the second season on PS3 or 360, they’ll have to plug those consoles back in to patch their games and get access to their old saves.
They’ll also need to have a Telltale account, which they’ll be able to upload their save files to and then download onto a new device. There’s a...
News
17 CommentsXbox One and Windows 10 getting Dolby Atmos surround sound in 2017
Support for Dolby Atmos, the new surround sound technology from Dolby Laboratories, will arrive on both Windows 10 and the Xbox One next year, Microsoft said today.
Going into detail on an announcement made in late October, Microsoft said that Dolby Atmos will be supported in games as well as in the Xbox One’s Blu-ray app. In fact, Xbox One Preview Program members can try Dolby Atmos in the Blu-ray app right now, and the feature will be available for everyone “soon,” according to Microsoft.
If you’re unfamiliar with Dolby Atmos, it’s a new format for mixing surround audio in movies, games and other media. Until now, surround sound has been delivered in channels, where the naming convention of “5.1” and “7.1” represents five or seven speakers arranged around a space plus one subwoofer...
News
22 CommentsXbox offers a free game to celebrate 300 backward-compatible titles
Xbox is celebrating the addition of the three BioShock games to the Xbox One's backward compatibility catalog by offering one for free to everyone: Lost Odyssey.
Larry Hryb, better known as Xbox Live's Major Nelson, tweeted out the offer this afternoon. Lost Odyssey will be available for free until Dec. 31. Additionally, the JRPG Blue Dragon also is available for purchase online. Previously the two titles had been backward-compatible only by putting the original Xbox 360 disc in the tray.
Yesterday, Phil Spencer, the head of Microsoft's Xbox division, noted that nearly half of all Xbox One owners use the console to play backward-compatible games. The feature launched in November 2015, and since then all of the games offered for Xbox 360 in the Games With Gold program have been...
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22 CommentsDoom wraps up premium DLC with Bloodfall
Doom added three multiplayer maps, a new weapon and other customization options in Bloodfall, the last of three premium DLC packs scheduled since its May launch.
The extension is $14.99 and is available now on the PlayStation Store, Xbox Marketplace, and for Windows PC.
Details may be seen in the video above. The three maps are Empyrian, Boneyard and Outbreak. The new weapon is the grenade launcher, which has a smoke bomb as a secondary fire option.
There also are lateral thrusters to give players short directional bursts, six new hack modules, a new player-controlled demon (the Spectre Pinky) and a slew of new customization options.
Doom and id Software earned four nominations at The Game Awards (including game of the year) and took home two, for best sound design and best action game.
News
6 CommentsModern Warfare Remastered update introduces women soldiers to multiplayer
Call of Duty: Modern Warfare Remastered got a beefy title update yesterday, bringing the usual new maps and game types (all of it is free). Notably, it also brings female avatars to the landmark shooter's multiplayer for the first time.
Women soldiers weren't an option in the original Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare, which launched in 2007. Women were first playable in Call of Duty: Ghosts, which launched in 2013, the same year the U.S. military lifted its ban on women serving in combat.
Activision noted the addition with little fanfare or additional detail. Raven Software is the studio in charge of Modern Warfare Remastered, and obliquely referenced the addition in this remark:
We’re excited to support this great game with new content, beginning today with a ton of new customization...
Quality Control
3 CommentsIs Steep's make-your-own-fun design the future of gaming?
In each episode of Quality Control, a Polygon editor talks to a critic after they review a new game, movie or piece of gear and allows them to add a little bit of extra context and insight. Why did they feel the way they did? What do they wish they had been able to discuss in more depth in their review? Also: Did they play it wrong?
In this episode, Polygon editor-at-large Justin McElroy talks with Chris Plante about his take on Steep, which you can find right here.
Read the review
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Email: qualitycontrol at polygon dot com
Music: Goodwill by The Custodian of Records
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7 CommentsDishonored 2’s New Game+ mode lets you combine Emily’s and Corvo’s powers
Dishonored 2’s New Game Plus mode won’t just let players replay the game with the powers they acquired the first time through — it’ll allow them to combine powers from both protagonists.
The feature will come to Dishonored 2 on all platforms next Monday, Dec. 19, in Game Update 1. Arkane released a beta version of the patch on Windows PC today.
Completing Dishonored 2 with either Corvo Attano or Emily Kaldwin will unlock the New Game Plus Mode. On a subsequent playthrough, you’ll still have the option of selecting either of the two protagonists to play as, and you’ll start the game with all of the runes and bone charms you collected previously. More importantly, though, you’ll also be able to pick and choose from both characters’ abilities by reassigning runes.
“Dishonored players have...
Culture
17 CommentsOverwatch winter event brings holiday jeers over Mei’s new skin
Part of the excitement around Overwatch’s holiday events is seeing all the new, seasonally appropriate costumes and flourishes. With yesterday’s big Winter Wonderland update, it was clear that the arctic adventurer Mei would receive special attention from both Blizzard Entertainment and fans — but, it turns out, maybe not for the best reason.
Blizzard gave Mei a “legendary”-class skin in time for the holidays, which can be found at random in special event loot boxes. Players who have to own all the skins, however — or just want to see Mei all dolled up for the season — also have the option of purchasing her new legendary skin, but it comes at a big price that many don’t think is worth it.
Like all legendary skins, which give characters full costume changes and new voice lines, Mei’s...
News
19 CommentsThe next Valkyria Chronicles is coming West — with a new title
Valkyria Revolution, the latest installment in the Valkyria Chronicles military role-playing game franchise, will launch stateside in spring 2017, Sega announced. Known as Valkyria Azure Revolution in its Japanese release, the game’s got a new name and another console lined up for its Western launch.
Instead of hitting just PlayStation 4 and PlayStation Vita as it did in Japan, Valkyria Revolution will hit Xbox One in the U.S. as well. The Vita version will only be available digitally, Sega announced in a press release.
The publisher also talked about the name change in its announcement notice. On a localization level, Valkyria Azure Revolution was “unwieldly and difficult from a graphic design standpoint” in English. More importantly, however, Sega wants to make the game distinct from...
News
6 CommentsGTA Online lets you wreak havoc with Knight Rider’s car
This is not a mod. It’s one of the new, exotic vee-hickles offered with the Import/Export update that launched with Grand Theft Auto Online’s Import/Export update yesterday.
It’s KITT! Well, it’s the “Imponte Ruiner 2000,” and it doesn’t talk to you in the voice of that guy from St. Elsewhere. The IR 2000 packs the firepower of a Buzzard copter, meaning it has machine guns, missiles and homing missiles, plus a turbo boost.
Plainly, the people at Rockstar want their gamers to recreate this in GTA Online.
The car isn’t cheap, though; it’ll set you back $5,745,600; $4,320,000 if you have the preferred SecuroServ status within the mode. That makes it the most expensive land vehicle within Grand Theft Auto Online. See more about it at the GTA Wiki.
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