When Overwatch launched it’s competitive mode earlier this summer, Blizzard set it up to be a season based mode with rewards for each season. Now, they have revealed the rewards for the first season, as well as details on when that season will end. As posted on the official Overwatch forum,

“Season 1 will officially end on Wednesday, August 17 at 5:00 p.m. PT (August 18 at 12:00 a.m. UTC). For time zone assistance, and to see when Season 1 will end in your region, visit thetimezoneconverter.com.

Season 2 is currently scheduled to launch on September 6, but this could shift as we continue to work on system improvements. We will be sure to share the exact date and time as we get closer to its release.”

While we do know when the season will end, it seems that the start of Season 2 is still up in the air as Blizzard works to make the mode better. Many players (myself included) are anxious to see what they do to replace the “coin flip” sudden death system. Widely panned by players, Blizzard has confirmed it will be removed but have made no comment on what they will replace it with.

Season 1Rewards

The forum post also detailed rewards for Season 1.

“If you completed your placement matches during Season 1, you will eligible to receive a special spray and player icon. These will be unlocked automatically when you log into your account the first time after the season ends. If at any point during the season you managed to break into the Top 500 players on your platform (and in your region), you’ll receive an extra player icon and animated spray on top of the other seasonal rewards.”

It remains to be seen how many players will receive the animated spray and other Top 500 rewards, as you only needed to break into the Top 500 during the season. This means that the pool of players would have been fluid and constantly in flux. It is nice, however, to have some exclusive rewards if you performed in the top percentile of players. In addition to sprays and icons, players will also receive a number of Competitive Points (CP) based on their skill rating (SR) from the season. Skill rating can rise and fall depending on wins and losses, so Blizzard have based the number of CP to be award based on the maximum SR  achieved during the season. The breakdown is as follows:

• SR 0-30: 10 CPs
• SR 40-45: 20 CPs
• SR 46-49: 40 CPs
• SR 50-52: 60 CPs
• SR 53-55: 80 CPs
• SR 56-59: 120 CPs
• SR 60-64: 200 CPs
• SR 65+: 300 CPs

Competitive points are the  currency used to buy golden weapon skins, with each skin costing 300 CPs. Higher tier players will obviously be getting more CPs, with those rank 65 and up basically being able to buy a skin with their season rewards CPs. Lower ranked players can supplement their CP reward with the normal points earned from winning a match: 1 CP per win.  It seems Blizzard is serious about keeping golden weapon skins as exclusive as they can, with only top tier players or those willing to grind able to afford them. That being said, you still have a few days to rank up, so if you’r on the cusp of SR 60, those 80 extra CPs might well be worth the grind.

The Anniversary update for Windows 10 was much talked up by Microsoft, citing that it would improve all aspects of the OS – including bringing many benefits for gamers, from v-sync to multi GPU support. So basically what gamers wanted from them. The only problem is that somehow in improving the experience in many more complicated ways, they’ve somehow broken one of the more basic gamer experiences. A good number of users have reported that upon installing the Anniversary update their Xbox controllers no longer work properly with their computers. Whoops.

Before the update installing and using the Xbox pads was simple, as you’d expect. Windows and Xbox are both part of Microsoft after all. Now however, some games don’t recognise the controllers at all through bluetooth connection or through the official Xbox One wireless adapter. Others are somehow registering a single controller as two controllers, as well as Steam’s Big Picture mode for some reason.

Theories from Ars Technica are suggesting that the XInput API has been altered in some way in the update, and this is why the controllers are no longer working. The XInput API allowed for developers to be able to easily add controller support to their games just by adding it to their game, and the theory is given more weight when you take into account that some programs that allowed for a Dualshock 4 to act as an Xbox controller for the computer are also showing the same odd bugs and they too use this API.

Hopefully Microsoft get it sorted out soon, being able to use controllers is a fundamental part of PC gaming right now. Until they do, it might be an idea to hold off updating quite yet.

Currently as part of the ongoing ‘Summer Games’ happening in Overwatch in celebration of the Rio Olympics, Blizzard have added their take on Rocket League – Lucioball – as a mini-game mode.

Of course, part of the point of Lucioball is that everyone on both the 3-a-side teams play as some form of Lucio, depending on which skin they’ve got equipped. However, some players have discovered that if you hit the right button enough while respawning, you’ll sometimes spawn as another random Overwatch hero. This has meant for the last few days various games have been completely thrown into disarray as other heroes invaded the field and killed enemy players to stop them from scoring or winning the match. Talk about your hostile pitch invasions…

Never fear though, Blizzard are aware of the bug:

@SkyakinGamer Sorry about that. It’s a known bug and abusers will be punished.

— Overwatch (@PlayOverwatch) August 8, 2016

Blizzard has promised that they’ll get the fix for the bug in place soon, but as of yet it’s unknown quite what the punishment will be for those who have deliberately been exploiting the bug. Blizzard can probably see who has managed to stumble into it by accident and not done it again, and those who are actively trying to use it to win matches. Given that Blizzard have been very harsh with those found to be using hacks or cheats, exploiters of the bug might be in for a rough ride.

Yesterday during the finals of Rainbow Six: Siege Season 2, in which French side Yunktis came out on top and were crowned champions of the PC tournament; some balance changes were announced for the game that mainly has an effect on one of the characters: Pulse.

One of Pulse’s tools is a scanner that allows for the detection of heartbeats through walls, helping to pin point where enemies might be waiting out of sight. Currently the range is 13 metres but with the new balancing coming in the range is down to 9 metres. The speed at which Pulse can switch from scanner to weapon has also been increased, allowing for the full animation of putting one away to draw the other instead of skipping through and being able to quickly detect and mow down a target moving towards you from behind the drywall.

The other major change isn’t directly affecting Pulse, but given that most players of the character like to use the weapon being changed it still does concern Pulse. Semi-automatic shotguns are being changed, with their damage being cut by a huge 25-30% and the pellet spread of the weapons being increased to seriously hammer down the long-range accuracy and damage of the weapon.

The patch won’t be coming for another few weeks though, so enjoy your semi-autos while you can.

Copies of No Man’s Sky have already made their way out into the wild, most because some retailers broke street date and released early. However, it seems like many newly released games nowadays Hello Games are going to be applying a day one patch to the game that will update the game to fix a few more bugs as well as adding a little more additional content to the big open sandbox survival game.

An update from studio found Sean Murray revealed the list of fixes and additions that will be coming in Update 1.03, ready in time for the launches of the game on Playstation 4 on the 9th and PC for the 12th. Listed among these changes are that galaxies will be up to 10 times bigger than they currently are, new ‘paths’ to follow through the game, the new ability to “to scan star systems other players have discovered on the Galactic Map, increasing the chance of collision” and interestingly if you feed a creature with the correct type of food they can now choose to help you out. Bug-wise, a few that were revealed in pre-launch streaming are gone, including the infinite warp cell exploit and the rare goods trading exploit.

As well Murray covered what is next, and among those things? “We’re adding the ability to build bases and own giant space freighters”.

Nice.