Rockstar has announced Red Dead Redemption 2 and revealed that it will release Autumn 2017 for PS4 and Xbox One.

“Developed by the creators of Grand Theft Auto V and Red Dead Redemption, Red Dead Redemption 2 is an epic tale of life in America’s unforgiving heartland. The game’s vast and atmospheric world will also provide the foundation for a brand new online multiplayer experience.”

“With Red Dead Redemption 2, the team is working hard to push forward our vision for interactive entertainment in a truly living world,” said Sam Houser, Founder of Rockstar Games. “We hope to deliver players an epic experience that builds upon everything we’ve learned making games.”

Yes, as seen above, the game will include a brand new online multiplayer experience. It may be a while to wait, but we will be getting a new trailer this Thursday at 4pm, and we’ll bring you more info, as soon as we have it!

So far the Halloween event that Blizzard brought into Overwatch a few days ago has been pretty well received overall, with a number of new lines, victory poses, skins and more being added into game for players to receive and play. The main part has to be the new brawl, Dr. Junkenstein’s revenge.

With four heroes on each side, the brawl has drawn some slight complaints over the restriction of which heroes can be used in game, but it’s not the first time the special event’s been limited to only certain heroes (remember Lucioball?). Otherwise it’s been pretty popular. One of the involved heroes on the attacking side is Mercy as ‘The Witch’, with a special ult war cry for the brawl: “my servants never die” which replaces the well-known “heroes never die” cry. It’s proven so popular that now a number of fans are asking for that to be Mercy’s ult war cry when the character is dressed in her Halloween skin which is The Witch.

Blizzard for their part finally weighed in on a long topic of players asking with Jeff Kaplan answering “Ok, ETA mid-Nov.”

So, if you were one of the players asking or just loved that line make sure you have Mercy’s Halloween skin before the event is over and you can hear it whenever you want. Who says big game companies don’t listen to their fans’ feedback?

One of the things that bugged people about Mafia III upon release is one of the most talked about topics in recent years concerning gaming – its framerate. Upon release it was discovered that Mafia III had been locked to just 30 frames per second, which caused more than a couple of people to ask why.

Well, the developers seem to have listened, as a new incoming patch (1.0.1) will give players the ability to uncap those framerates if they feel like they wish to. However, they’ve already warned that you might need some fairly hefty hardware to pull of 60 frames. Mafia III is an open-world game by its nature and already the game has been known to have the odd performance issue pre-patch. Hopefully some optimisation will also come with this patch, as well as future ones. The official line for the moment is “make sure to tailor the framerate settings to the power of your machine”. The patch also includes some changes to keyboard remapping, and will unfortunately reset any mapped keys you changed back to default so just be aware of that before you next turn the game on.

Future patches will begin to address fixing some of the bugs that people have been reporting around New Bordeaux, as well as adding in new features such as clothing and racing.

Following on from leaked reveals of both Overwatch’s next set of limited edition lootboxes and an upcoming comic, it seems that someone has managed to leak the current holy grail of Overwatch – they’ve posted what seems to be part of an internal Blizzard communication containing a picture of new character Sombra.

For those not in the know, Sombra has been the subject of an ongoing ARG Blizzard’s been running over the last few months, teasing clues about her. The trail which involved a lot of skull motifs and code-breaking eventually led to the site at URL amomentincrime.com which featured a countdown timer in the form of a ‘download’ that seems set to end on October 18th. What she looks like and will do has been the subject of much speculation and if this leak is genuine some of those answers might very well now be revealed – although equally it’s going to cause more speculation but isn’t that half the fun of these things?

As well, seen along the top there is a little information about a new brawl, which will involve players having to “protect the castle doors from Zomnics and Dr. Junkenstein’s evil allies”. This probably means that the brawl will see a type of horde mode with robotic attackers and whatever Dr. Junkenstein (Junkrat as a mad scientist as we saw from the comic leak) can summon. There will also be three modes of difficulty with more points earned for harder levels.

Either way, this has been a good time to be an Overwatch fan with all this exciting news emerging from the Internet. Halloween should be good fun with all this new content coming this month!

I was one lucky fox, when I read that Sony have arranged a Playstation VR UK tour, that was coming to my neck of the woods. I quickly booked my slot at Meadow Hall Sheffield for Saturday 8th October at 9:30am. It meant I wouldn’t have to wait as long as the walk-ins, and guaranteed a thirty minute trial. I was early and the lovely chap at the desk asked me what I wanted to play.
When I stated Batman, I saw him inwardly cringe. “Oh yes Batman. EVERYONE wants to just play Batman. At the moment it is a forty minute wait for Batman.”
“Who doesn’t want to be Batman?” I smirked. I explained I didn’t mind waiting, as I was doing coverage for a gaming site.

The young chap (I am sorry, I forgot your name) was really helpful and offered for me to play Farpoint, whilst I waited on Batman.  I was given a little card with the Farpoint artwork on, and once it was called, I was lead to the booth.

There was another lovely chap (again so sorry, forgot your name too), who asked if I had tried VR before. I explained I hadn’t, and that I was intrigued by it. He explained how the headset would feel. I asked if it would be uncomfortable with glasses, and he confirmed it wouldn’t be. Which was good, as I am short sighted and need my glasses for gaming. He then picked up the Playstation VR gun, with its glowing ball end (Heheheh). He explained that the gun was an exclusive to the tour, and no one from the public had tried it yet.

There was an analogue stick to control movement, the trigger to shoot, and another button under the glowing end for grenades. He showed me how to move the gun to change weapons, and how to collect new items etc. So the headset came on, and with a button on the back it moved the eyepiece in a comfortable position for me. Oh my fox ! It was comfortable! Even with my glasses on, I couldn’t even tell I was wearing it. It was very light weight and it didn’t move when I moved my head. He then put on the surround sound headphones on. Then the game began.

I was teleported to a desert looking world, devoid of life, but beautiful. I had to keep telling my legs not to move, as it was controlled by the analogue stick. Honestly this was a struggle. I felt I was really there, my brain kept trying to make my legs move. Then I heard the noises, the scuttling of many legs on rocks. I look around not seeing anything, then a screech sound in front of me. I gasped as I saw a huge spider and shot its face off. Foxy the spider slayer! Good job I am not scared of spiders. I carried on exploring this world, shooting more spiders. There were some annoying ones, who spat green acid from their arses. I had to shoot the balls before they hit me. Moving my head around and seeing the game, as I do the real world was an experience. The technology has come so far, since I tried it as a kid. I unlocked a shotgun, which was great fun. Heard the chap laughing at my comment about foxing kneecapping time, I must have come across as crazy. I got quite far before I was swarmed and died. The gun will become over heated and cool down, before you can use it again. I got trigger happy, my own fault. I then respawned and saw two NPC’s walking through a cave, talking about the discovery. Then the screen went to black and I walked up to a large cave opening. A HUGE spider came out, screeching its head off. At this point I must have actually stepped back, because I felt the chap’s hand on my back. That was the end of the session though, and those thirty minutes flew by. He took the headset off (my hair was a mess), and I saw that I nearly walked into the wall behind me. “Yeah you stepped back a lot there, I had to stop you.” *Insert blushing* “You did really well though, best I have seen so far.” Then I noticed the camera filming me….oh great.

At this point I was quite impressed, and couldn’t wait to try Batman. I went back to the chap at the desk and he gave me a card for Batman, and said it was only a ten minute wait. At this point it was getting really busy. I sat and watched the PS4 Pro gameplay of Horizon: Zero Dawn on a huge 4K TV, which looked very impressive. I was disappointed they didn’t have the PS4 Pro set up, so people could play on them whilst they waited for their VR turn. I feel this was a missed opportunity for Sony, personally.

Batman was called out, and off I skipped to try it out. Now I remember this chap’s name, as he was really lovely and enthusiastic. Matt explained that Batman VR was an introduction into VR itself. He was delighted by the fact that my headphones had bat ears on. (Yes, like Batman’s cowl, they had bat ears.)
He told me to look down, and handed me the move controllers (I still think they are from Ann Summers), and I was transported into the body of Bruce Wayne. Standing in front of a beautiful piano, Alfred walks up to me, tells me off for not sleeping in my bed, and hands me a key to the piano. I looked around and could see the gorgeous Wayne manor and even looked out into the gardens. Using the move controller I unlocked the piano, as though I was using a real key. Then the floor opens up and I am being lowered via lift into the bat cave. It stops and I am prompted to kit out my batsuit…

Now this feature was really impressive to me. I grabbed the cowl, and moving the move controller up to my face, slid the cowl onto my head. Then I was given a grappling hook, which I tested against a target. To unequip this I looked down at my waist, and could see the utility belt. Using the controller I slid the grappling hook into my belt. Looking down again, I could see my batarangs. Grabbing one and throwing it at the targets. I was starting to feel like Batfox! Then this is where the session ended. Unfortunately due to the high demand of the game, it was cut to fifteen minutes. It was out of the two, the most impressive one.

I would have liked to try some more games, as they were happy to let me. But alas mamma fox (who only wanted to go shopping) was getting impatient. I am convinced by VR now, and really happy I was lucky enough to experience it. Perhaps one day, when the price tag lowers I might buy one.

~FoxyFoxlyn