TGO Daily | Monday June 28, 2021 | Halo Infinite Battle Pass Changes
Halo Infinite mixes up the battle pass status quo, a review roundup for Scarlet Nexus, TF2 breaks all-time Steam record, and the Steam Summer Sale comes after your wallet.
TGO Daily | Monday June 28, 2021
✏️From the Author
I am back from my vacation! My family had traveled into Northern Florida for vacation, so I flew up to visit them for a few days. The visit was nice, but I am very glad to be back home and back into my normal schedule. Normal sleep, normal work, and normal food.
I ate so terribly while I was there. In practice I doubt much, if anything, has changed. Yet I feel like I’ve undone months of my weight loss work in only a few short days. Logically that makes no sense whatsoever, yet after all the pieces of cake I shoveled into my face, I can’t help but feel like being illogical.
Until next time,
Brandon
📰 In the News
Halo Infinite Battle Pass Will Remove Limited Time Grind
The Live Team design director, Ryan Paradis, announced that Halo Infinite’s battle pass will be different than the types of battle pass we normally see. A normal battle pass will usually last a ‘season’ for a game. Rewards are limited at tiers along the season and, once that season finishes, the rewards disappear along with it. This design decision is a simple way to put a timer on rewards for gamers, meaning if you want the higher-tier rewards before they go away, you’ve got to put in the hours to get them.
Paradis says with Halo Infinite they’re removing that limited time window of availability for rewards.
“First and foremost, we’re working hard to ensure that the Battle Pass isn’t a ‘grind’ for players...All Battle Passes will be permanent. This means that the Season 1 Battle Pass will be around forever; you can always go back, select that as your active Battle Pass and continue to earn progress in it. If you decided to take a Season off, or you simply didn’t have time to play, that’s fine. You can always go back and purchase any prior Battle Pass as well.”
It’s a welcome change to see a more friendly approach to gamers who don’t have the time to invest so many hours of grind into a single game. Halo Infinite doing free multiplayer, along with player-centric ideas regarding battle passes, have the potential to change-up some of the things we’ve come to expect as status quo in multiplayer games. Time will tell if they stick with these practices, improve upon them, or fall into the same pattern as their competition.
Review Roundup: Scarlet Nexus
Bandai Namco released their latest original action-RPG title, Scarlet Nexus, on June 25th. The game puts you in the shoes of a psychokinetic member of the Other Suppression Force - a task force that servers to protect the fictional city of New Himuka from creatures known as “Others”.
The game received mostly positive reviews on OpenCritic, with 81% of critics recommending the game. Let’s discuss the general consensus among critics:
Pros:
There has been a lot of praise for the ‘away from combat’ moments - similar to the off-time sequences in Persona 5. There are moments of bonding with the multitude of characters that can vary depending on where you’re at in the campaign and can sometimes be hostile experiences.
The large supporting cast of characters received praise for the amount of thought and care put into their creation.
The combat system received mostly positive inputs as well, especially as the game progressed further and more systems unlocked within the RPG-style tree.
Cons:
Most critics problems lie with the narrative itself being similar to an average anime in trope.
This game seems right up the alley of someone who is an anime fan, a fan of the Tales of series, a fan of games similar to Devil May Cry in combat or Persona 5 in character development. You can check out the game trailer for a look at it. It is currently out on Windows, PlayStation 4, PlayStation 5, Xbox One and Xbox Series X/S.
Team Fortress 2 Breaks All-Time Concurrent Player Count on Steam
In a rather surprising move, Team Fortress 2 has taken the Steam record for highest concurrent player count last Friday. The game took the record that Friday night with 151,253 players, the previous record being 147,360.
The craziest part of this story is that the game is nearly 14 years old, having released in October of 2007. The surge in players is likely attributed to the latest update for the game - adding multiple community-created cosmetic content, adjustments to the map ‘Snakewater’, and some changes to combat the bot problem.
It’s great to see old games like this, that are also free-to-play, continue to get playtime and love from the player base. It shows the staying power of a game isn’t associated solely with cost and can serve as a beacon of how to do things right for other developers and publishers.
Steam Summer Sale is Here
The Steam Summer Sale has officially started and will be running until July 8 at 10am PT / 1pm ET / 5pm UTC.
With thousands of games on sale, I highly recommend you check out the sale and see what games you may be interested in. Below is a list, courtesy of Tom’s Guide, of some popular titles that are currently on sale (in USD):
Battlefield V Definitive Edition - $12 (75% off)
Doom Eternal – $20 (67% off)
Forza Horizon 4 - $30 (50% off)
Hades - $18 (30% off)
Half-Life: Alyx - $36 (40% off)
Halo: The Master Chief Collection - $20 (50% off)
Horizon Zero Dawn: Complete Edition - $30 (40% off)
Mass Effect Legendary Edition - $49 (17% off)
No Man’s Sky - $30 (50% off)
Resident Evil 2 - $16 (60% off)
The Outer Worlds - $24 (60% off)
💡 Miscellanea
CD Projekt Red management claim Cyberpunk 2077's stability has reached a “satisfactory level”
Assassin’s Creed Valhalla’s game director leaves Ubisoft and joins EA Motive studio on an unannounced project
Bioware says a Mass Effect movie or TV show is, “not a matter of if, but when”
Konami announces Crimesight, a Sherlock Holmes PVP mystery akin to Clue
👋 Say Hello!
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Thanks for the read <3