Gaming
Why You Shouldn’t Be Afraid of REQ Cards Microtransactions in Halo 5
REQ cards might sound like an evil plan to bring the microtransaction devil to Halo but there’s more to it
During the E3 whirlwind this week 343i introduced a brand new game mode to the Halo universe called Warzone, an insane 24 players all out-war game mode. Part of that reveal was the introduction of the Requisition (REQ) system where players unlock card packs to get weapons and vehicles for Warzone, plus weapon and armor skins for arena playlists. Players will be unlocking those REQ cards by playing in multiplayer or by buying packs from the Xbox Store.
It’s that last part that has sent the Halo faithful into a bit of tailspin, crying out that 343i is bringing in microtransactions to ruin the series. Its true that buying REQ cards is a microtransaction but its not time to light the torches and shine the pitchforks. 343i might be introducing microtransactions for the first time in Halo history but they’re doing it carefully and with balance in mind.
The first thing gamers need to keep in mind is that 343i will be offering over a dozen free multiplayer maps by 2016 for Halo 5. Wiping away the hated season pass and map packs that split the multiplayer community, usually leaving buyers with a map they never get to play.
Its a huge shift in how FPS DLC is done, but DLC is still how AAA developers make a lot of their money today. So by offering free maps to all 343i had to find a way to balance out the cost. Allowing players who don’t have time to earn REQ cards through multiplayer to buy them. What they get in those packs is still totally random, they can’t simply buy a Scorpion Tank.
Even if they could buy a shiny vehicle of mass destruction they couldn’t hop right into at the start of a game. All of the REQ card items are put into tiers that require higher and higher levels of energy. Energy teams earn by capturing bases, taking down, bosses, etc so no matter how many nice toys you have you and your team still have to work up to get them.
On top of all of that players who do have a lot of time for multiplayer can nab the same shiny REQ cards as players who buy packs. Every items is unlockable in game, which means 343i is not trying to introduce a pay-to-win system. They’re simply doing what any good developer does, innovating, by trying new systems.
So before we all go crying out that the microtransaction devil is upon us we need to remember that REQ cards are more than meets the eye. They’re a way for a game company to make money without dividing their community through season passes or map packs.
Source: Team Beyond
Gaming
Ubisoft says that future Assassin’s Creed games will need more time to be made
As Assassin’s Creed Shadows is about to sneak up on people in November, Ubisoft says that the time between developing games needs to be longer to find the “right balance.” Shadows has been in development for four years, longer than any other game in the series up to this point. That includes the huge open-world epics Assassin’s Creed Odyssey and Assassin’s Creed Valhalla.
Shadows lead producer Karl Onnée (thanks, GamesIndustry.biz) says that the latest AC game took 25% longer to make than Valhalla. He says this is necessary to keep the quality of the series that it is known for: “It’s always a balance between time and costs, but the more time you have, the more you can iterate.” You can speed up a project by adding more people to it, but that doesn’t give you more time to make changes.
Onnée says this has as much to do with immersion and aesthetics as it does with fixing bugs and smoothing out pixels. This is because the development team needs time to learn about each new historical setting: “We are trying to make a game that is as real as possible.” We’re proud of it, and the process took a long time. In feudal Japan, building a house is very different from building a house in France or England in the Middle Ages. As an artist, you need to learn where to put things in a feudal Japanese home. For example, food might not belong there. Get all the information you need and learn it. That process takes a long time.”
You’ll have to wait a little longer for Ubisoft to work on each game. Are you okay with that? In what part of Shadows are you now? Is it interesting to you? Leave a comment below and let us know.
Gaming
You can now pre-order Lollipop Chainsaw RePOP on PS5
You can now pre-order Lollipop Chainsaw RePOP, a remaster that Dragami Games and Capcom both created. You can now pre-order the PS5 game on the PS Store for $44.99 or £39.99. If you have PS Plus, you can get an extra 10% off the price.
The company put out a new trailer with about three minutes of gameplay to mark the start of the pre-order period. Lollipop Chainsaw RePOP is a remaster of Grasshopper Manufacture’s crazy action game from 2012. You play as Juliet, a high school student who fights off waves of zombies.
The remaster adds RePOP mode, an alternative mode that swaps out the blood and gore for fun visual effects. It also adds a bunch of other features and improvements that make the game better overall. You can expect the graphics and sound to be better as well.
The game will now come out on September 12, 2024, instead of September 12, 2024. Are you excited to get back to this? Please cheer us on in the section below.
Gaming
This Call of Duty: Black Ops 6 zombies trailer is way too expensive
Is there really anyone who is following the story of Call of Duty’s zombie mode? We’ve known about the story in a vague way for a while, but we couldn’t tell you anything about it. It looks like the “Dark Aether” story will continue in Black Ops 6, but we don’t really know what that means.
For those of you who care, here is the official blurb with some background: “Requiem, led by the CIA, finally closed the last-dimensional portal, sending its inhabitants back to the nightmare world known as the Dark Aether, after two years of fighting zombie outbreaks around the world during the Call of Duty: Black Ops Cold War timeline.”
Wait, there’s more! “Agent Samantha Maxis gave her life to seal this weird dimension from the inside out.” Even worse things were to come: senior staff members of Requiem were arrested without a reason by the Project Director, who turned out to be Edward Richtofen.
Black Ops 6 will take place about five years later, and it looks like it will show more about Richtofen’s goals and motivations. The most important thing is that you will probably be shooting an unimaginable number of zombies in the head. This week, on August 8, there will be a full reveal of the gameplay, so keep an eye out for that.
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