Though Overwatch is available on Xbox One and Playstation 4 in addition to PC, PC players have always had a couple of distinct advantages over their console brethren. In addition to an easier time in general with aiming, one of the coolest options featured in the PC version of Overwatch is the ability to test content before release on the PTR. Blizzard has stated multiple times in the past that it would be very difficult to port the PTR over to the Xbox One and Playstation 4, but for the first time they admitted that it’s a possibility and something that they’re thinking about.
In an interview with Express, Overwatch Director Jeff Kaplan stated that there’s some difficulties in porting the PTR over to consoles, stating that “It is possible for us to do PTR on console, but it is a little bit of a catch-22 for us”.
His reasoning for that remark was that adding content to the PTR on Xbox One and Playstation 4 would add a couple of weeks to the development cycle, a negative the team was doing their best to avoid. Basically, while players are testing content on the PC version of the PTR, the Overwatch team is working to ready the console versions for the same changes. With the way the game is currently set up, it’s pretty much identical across both consoles and PC. Kaplan feels that the team gets enough information from the PC PTR to adequately update all three versions of the game.
“Now, if we had to cert PTR, which we’d have to do, it would basically add a few more weeks to the development cycle, and then I don’t know how much we’d be able to react to the console PTR feedback at that point. It would be more of a gesture than a genuine ability to test things.”
The question remains whether or not it’s actually worth it to bring the Overwatch test server to consoles. On one hand, giving console players the ability to experience and test new content before release would be exciting, but the main purpose of a PTR is to test out content before it’s rolled out. If Blizzard can’t get any useful information or feedback from a console PTR and it will delay the development cycle, it may not be realistic to port the test server over to the console versions. Still, it’s possible we’ll see implementation as a “gesture”, and this is the most fleshed out answer we’ve gotten from Kaplan thus far.
Keep an eye on GeekReply for the latest in Overwatch news!
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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