The first in a series of Elite Dangerous: Odyssey dev diaries One Giant Leap explores how commanders can experience light atmospheres and break new ground with exploration on foot for the first time.

Stay tuned for more dev diaries on combat, missions, environments and co-operative play over the coming months.

Elite Dangerous: Odyssey arrives early 2021.

Immerse yourself in the vast beautiful world that is our planet in Microsoft Flight Simulator, out now for Windows 10 PC and instantly available with Xbox Game Pass for PC. To celebrate the launch, a new ‘Around the World’ Series has also launced:

Around the World is a 6 episode series that takes you across Oceania, Asia, Africa, Europe, North America, South America, Central America, and the Caribbean through the lens of Microsoft Flight Simulator. In episode 1, explore the diverse region of Oceania – spanning the eastern and western hemispheres, including Australasia, Melanesia, Micronesia and Polynesia. Our Earth is vibrant, ever-changing, and so is the world of Microsoft Flight Simulator – which includes real-time weather, aerial views of terrain from land, sea, including plant and animal life.

From light planes to wide-body jets, fly highly detailed and accurate aircraft in the next generation of Microsoft Flight Simulator. Test your piloting skills against the challenges of night flying, real-time atmospheric simulation and live weather in a dynamic and living world. Create your flight plan to anywhere on the planet.

The Sky is Calling.

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When it was first announced that Square Enix was publishing a MARVEL Avenger’s Video Game from Crystal Dynamics and Edios Montreal in 2019 it got my attention especially with the MCU coming to an end for the foreseeable following Avengers End Game. The Announcement was full hype and huge plans for what was more than just a video game but in a similar model to the “Destiny Ten Year Plan” it originally had, MARVEL’s Avengers was set to be the start of a gaming experience that would stretch over years with new content expanding the base game. But then they actually revealed it by showcasing the prologue to the game and it worried me, a lot! I also missed every opportunity to get early hands on with the game with the last chance being EGX 2019 and perhaps the worst run demo stand I have ever seen. But jump to 2020 and now just a few weeks before release we have the second of a trio of Beta weekends for the game and thanks to being a Virgin Media Customer, I was able to get a code to try the beta out on my Xbox One X. To say it was a mixed bag of both good and bad elements was more than I had expected.

So why don’t I start with what I do like about what I was able to experience during this beta weekend and what actually surprised me the most was that I did not hate it but I also did not love it. That said there is certainly a lot of room for this to grow into something MARVEL fans could sink their teeth into. The Beta is pretty much a demo that again includes the full prologue now with tweaks to the character player models so they actually look far better than when it was originally revealed especially with Thor and Black Widow. The prologue itself sets up the events that the game’s main campaign story is built on but it was good to actually play through it finally and get a feel for this on the rails taste of what the game might offer. The prologue has you controlling the different members of the Avengers starting with Thor and switch to another character as the events which will be known in game as ‘A-Day’ unfold.

The gameplay feels very much like a blend of the MARVEL Alliance games and Destiny, in fact so much of this beta build reminded me of how Destiny is structured in a game that I almost expected Ikora to show up along with Nick Fury to give me a mission. Gameplay is a mix of using light attacks (On X Button) and Heavy Attacks (On Y Button) to do basic combos to begin with but as you level the character up you can use skill points to unlock elements to both buttons such as charged moves or aerial jump attacks. Each character has three special moves, one is assigned to LB, the other to RB and using both LB+RB activates a super move. All of which are tailored to the character and their powers so with Thor his melee is tied to his hammer Mjölnir which he can throw and call back but is sadly not as satisfying as throwing the axe in God of War ironically,  but when the hammer has been thrown, Thor will revert to just punching which is a nice little detail. Switching to Iron Man and his repulsor blasts make up a lot of his attacks but being able to call in the Hulkbuster armour as his super power is thrilling with a really fun animation with a couple of moves like the machine gun punch and missile first launcher straight out of the MCU.

The Beta has the prologue and two campaign missions set further into the game following the prologue which teams Miss Marvel, Kamala Khan, now herself with powers as a result of A-Day with Bruce Banner and what the game refers to as ‘Broken Hulk’ and you can see that this it not the full Hulk but one that cannot not fully become the huge green behemoth that you get to use in the Prologue, though he is still  big enough, angry enough and loves to Smash all be it in a reduce way which I really want to see explained in the story. Miss Marvel is a great character from what has been shown in this beta and Is voiced perfectly by Sandra Saad with Troy Baker really bringing Bruce Banner to life. The two campaign missions see the two in search of Tony Stark by acquiring a back up copy of Jarvis to help them locate him and aid the remaining elements of S.H.I.E.L.D. lead by Maria Hill. The remainder of the beta content is in side missions accessed view the map table in the current base of the wreck of the Chimera hellicarrier. The Story missions is where I think MARVEL’s Avengers will really deal the best player experience and going forward, if they can adapt the big MARVEL universe stories into this game going forward would indeed be worth the price of admission if they can get it right.  Sadly though, that is not enough for me and this beta has too many signs that confirm my concerns about this game just going by what this demo build really, has shown.

Those concerns sadly right now are many and with such a short time to full release, I am worried. Starting off with just how incredibly buggy this beta/demo build is for I experienced a good few even before I can get into the gameplay issues I had as well. Cutscenes during the campaign missions would often lose the character dialogue track so would become a silent movie. Character animations in cutscene would also bug out such as Miss Marvel not having hair in one scene was quite disturbing. Several of the finisher animations that some characters have with Hulk in particular, was out of sync with the actual gameplay so was literally just beating up air.

The gameplay itself is very basic revolving around just beating things up and even the objectives of the side missions you can take a squad of MARVEL heroes on often comes down to just beating something up to destroy it or to protect someone or even just to control zones so JARVIS can slowly hack into the system for you. I also really hate how some of the side missions are so short and that the moment you complete the main objective its over with very little fan fair. The enemies you fight range from standard grunts with guns to melee enemies with shields which you will have to break down with heavy attacks before you can use light attacks on them. Depending on which character you play as, this can either be really fun or just down right repetitive and the side missions in this beta got really old, really quick for me.

Now the Devs did come out this weekend on social media to say that the full game will have a large variety of different enemies to fight and new locations that wont just be the same AIM building like in this Beta/Demo build but overall you will just be beating things up with your favourite characters and there is very little else from what this beta. The Gear system also had very little impact at all to my gameplay I found compared to the skills you can unlock as you level a character up. It uses the same system as Destiny for gear with different quality items having a buff effect and it can then be boosted further by the materials that you collect in the world in order to increase that Gear item’s power level. I do not feel that the Beta really showcased how the gear system will work, although a mission where enemies were using cryo weapons did say that having gear items that bet negate that would be advisable. Time will tell if this gear system can do as much to change your play style as it does in Destiny but it certainly shows just how much Destiny has played a part inspiring MARVEL’s Avengers.

Now the beta really came to life for me when playing with friends and forming a squad with all of us using the hero we wanted to use and when this happened, I did kind of love this beta but when playing it solo, I was forced to have a full AI controlled squad of the other three characters and to say the AI is a little iffy is an understatement. When you are knocked down and waiting to be revived, there were times when my squad did a full Gears companion AI and failed to revive me, there were also times where two of the squad just stopped and refused to join me further in the level. This could be a problem because it feels to me that this is a game that wants you to team with 3 friends for all the side missions with only the campaign missions reducing that depending on where you are in the main story. I do not mind playing with friends but sometimes I do like playing solo so I am hoping there is more refinement into who and how many AI controller squad mates you can have because the beta just gives you everyone and on some of the shorter side missions, you can really feel like you are not involved when you see Miss Marvel and Iron Man bust out their super move and become a giant and Hulkbuster and kick all the ass whilst you are not even nearby to throw a punch!

Coming away from this closed beta weekend on Xbox, I am not loving MARVEL’s Avengers but I am liking it far more than I expected to going into this weekend. There are plenty of elements that I really enjoyed by far too many that I disliked to make this an absolute day one purchase for me. This is following the same business model as a Games for service title like Destiny which means investing time and money in a game experience designed to run for years and not sequels and so far, not enough in this beta has me wanting to commit to that future spend based on what the beta has shown. I like Troy Baker as Bruce Banner but honestly hate the performance of Nolan North as Tony stark which is not helped by the cheesiest dialogue for Tony such as when he calls in his Hulkbuster armour crying out “Who you gonna call….Hulkbuster!” which sounds as naff as it was to type out.

Next weekend will feature the first and final Open Beta available to everyone on PS4, Xbox One and PC and I am hoping they have time to fix many of the issues shown in this beta as well as add more content that better reflects the full game experience because I really want to love this game but right now….too much is making me hold off hitting that pre-order button.

At the same time that the HALO Infinite 2021 delay was announced, Xbox confirmed via their official news site Xbox Wire, that the Series X will release in November though it still did not give an actual date or pricing.

The focus seems to be serving as both a reminder that Smart Delivery will offer a free update to Series X goodness on a growing list of third party games as well as all Xbox Studio games currently out for the Xbox One and Xbox Game Pass, but also going home hard on the backward compatibility element to the Series X.

The article reads:

We have plenty to keep you busy until Chief arrives: There will be thousands of games to play, spanning four generations, when Xbox Series X launches globally this November and over 100 optimized for Xbox Series X titles, built to take full advantage of our most powerful console, are planned for this year. And with brand new console features like hardware-accelerated Direct X raytracing, framerates up to 120 frames per second, faster loading times, and Quick Resume for multiple games, playing will look and feel better, no matter which games you choose to play on day one.

More than 50 new games planned for this year across generations and optimized for Xbox Series X, including Assassin’s Creed Valhalla, Dirt 5, Gears Tactics, Yakuza: Like a Dragon, and Watch Dogs: Legion. With Smart Delivery you only have to buy these games once to play the best versions for your console, across generations.

New games developed for Xbox Series X and launching with Xbox Game Pass,including exclusives like The Medium, Scorn, Tetris Effect: Connected, and more.

More than 40 popular games newly optimized to take full advantage of Xbox Series X such as Destiny 2, Forza Horizon 4, Gears 5, Ori and the Will of the Wisps, Madden NFL 21, and more.

It finishes with another plug for the Xbox Game Pass Ultimate subscription service, which I along with many others are believing to be the biggest selling aspect to Xbox right now…but is it enough to justify buying the Series X now its flagship title HALO Infinite is now a 2021 title?

The issue with Smart Deliver for free Series X updates for Third Party titles like Assassin’s Creed Valhalla and Cyberpunk 2077 is that they also confirmed the same free update for those buying for PlayStation 5 if you purchase the titles for your PS4 and if all Third Party games offer the same free new generation update for both consoles then its pretty much the same choice. Hell right now if Sony offer free PS5 updates for PS4 releases such as the recent Last of Us Part 2 and Ghost of Tsushima especially then well…it might just be a case of Xbox Game Pass clinching the deal.

COVID-19 has definitely had an impact on this new Console Generation launch but what worries me about the Xbox Series X side, is that so far the big games that have been linked with the launch in Hellblade 2, used when the Series X was revealed back in December 2019 and now HALO Infinite, which the entire Xbox Studio Showcase for the Series X was built around just a few weeks ago are now 2021 titles with now actual date for either.

Both sides in Xbox and PlayStation have been dragging their heels in both announcing a release date for their new consoles but also in pricing and when fans can place a pre-order. I have a real concern that this is going to stretch into September where the issue of stock quantity of new generation consoles might become the next issue COVID-19 has impacted on.

I am finding myself less and less enthusiastic about either launch and if both side keep losing their flagship titles to 2021, this is going be the quietest new console launch in decades. Xbox could be seen as being honest with its core fans about delays and trying to manage expectations of what to expect on Xbox Series X launch day but for me, both Xbox and Sony need to go and look in a mirror, have a talk to themselves and be fully transparent and honest about pricing, actual release date, pre-order and stock issues as well as what fans can expect in terms of launch titles on day one and they need to do this now in August and not drag it out for another month.

All eyes are clearly now on Sony and what they do and say next.

In news just breaking via the official HALO Waypoint website, the decision has been made to delay the release of HALO Infinite until 2021:

The statement reads:

Today I want to share an important Halo Infinite development update with the community. We have made the difficult decision to shift our release to 2021 to ensure the team has adequate time to deliver a Halo game experience that meets our vision.

The decision to shift our release is the result of multiple factors that have contributed to development challenges, including the ongoing COVID-related impacts affecting us all this year. I want to acknowledge the hard work from our team at 343 Industries, who have remained committed to making a great game and finding solutions to development challenges. However, it is not sustainable for the well-being of our team or the overall success of the game to ship it this holiday.

We know this will be disappointing to many of you and we all share in that sentiment. The passion and support the community has shown over the years has been incredible and inspiring. We wanted nothing more than to play our game with the community this holiday. The extra time will let us finish the critical work necessary to deliver the most ambitious Halo game ever at the quality we know our fans expect. 

Thank you for your support and understanding.

Chris Lee

Studio Head, Halo Infinite

My Thoughts…

I honestly can not say I am surprised though it is very disappointing to read. If we are honest, the very fact that Xbox built their entire “Part 1” Xbox Studios Showcase event just a few weeks ago around a game clearly not ready to be shown to anyone is rather worrying. Now in August the leaks are coming out faster than Microsoft is releasing official news, with the Xbox Series X controller packaging revealing the official name of the Lockheart version of the Series X, a reported less powerful all digital version which will be far cheaper than its bigger brother and in the unboxing video currently on YouTube, the manual shows a warranty expiry date of November 2021, and as Xbox products tend to have a 12 month warranty, this could suggest November 5th this year as a possible release date for the Series X and S.

But in terms of HALO Infinite, the gameplay shown visually alone was no where near what the Series X is supposed to offer with character models looking rather “last gen” and no evidence of Ray Tracing. Following the showcase event it was confirmed that the demo was running on a PC and not an actual Series X console which only made it worse for fans questioning what they were seeing.

End of the day, it is better to delay a game and allow it the proper time to be developed that fans and 343 Industries expect, especially with COVID 19 impacting the world as much as it is and continues to do so. But now the question has to be…..what the hell does Xbox Series X launch with because HALO Infinite was the big exclusive whilst Hellblade 2 seems to also be a 2021 title.

August is going to be very interesting for very nervous Xbox Fans.

Today we get the second Night City Wire episode where more about the upcoming Cyberpunk 2077 game will be revealed and teased for fans. It is still a very long wait until November 19th 2020 following the delay announced in June moved it from September.

Below you will find all the new and trailers from the event including my final thoughts….

Lifepaths

We open with a look at the “lifepaths” or backstory players will have and how this choice impacts on their game experience:

The Path you pick impacts your whole game experience, where you start the game can effect your knowledge of the city and its people such as Nomads who live in the Badlands and are family focused and the start of the game is leaving that family and trying to start a life in Night City. The Life Path or your chosen back story will thread throughout the story, different dialogue options and game options depending on which Life Path you chose. The Badlands surrounds Night City and you can as the player visit it at any time even if you do not choose the Nomad Life Path.

Trailer introduces “Fixers” in this case Pedro, Fixers are people that others will turn to if they have a problem they need resolving, especially the rich and powerful!

Music

Next up a look at the music of Cyberpunk 2077 including how the in game band “Samurai” is created with the reveal of the 4th track from the soundtrack “A Like Supreme”

Tools of Destruction: the Weapons of Cyberpunk 2077

Now we have a look at the varity of weapons available in Cyberpunk 2077 from Tech weapons, Power Weapons, Smart Weapons to Melee Weapons and Cyberware…my personal favourite to try out in the game!

The different types of weapons really offer so much choice for players and goes far beyond basic FPS gameplay. Different weapon companies create different types of weapon for just about any gameplay from conventional guns to smart weapons which guided bullets or modifications that can add non lethal ammo as well. Definitely going to be fun trying them all out!

The World of Cyberpunk 2077 Artbook plugged

Final Thoughts…

Another solid look and tease at the world of Cyberpunk 2077 and it just shows the many layers that will make up your player experience with the game. I love how your choice of Lifepath is more than just a cute little biography backstory but actually folds into your entire game journey in Cyberpunk which can give extra dialogue options or a new gameplay choice.

The music, especially for the in game band Samurai is incredible to see being brought to life with so much attention to the little things as well as the big elements that make up the musical performance of each track.

The diversity of the weapons has really impressed me and already I am imagining how to tailor my character to using which type of weapon. The focus on which company makes the gun as well has my interest, could be fun really creating different weapon load-outs depending on which style of combat I feel like.

Overall I am really loving seeing the developers getting to talk about the game and their work following news of another delay just before the first episode of Night City Wire. So far everything feels fresh in what is being talked about and I appreciated the episodic nature of slowly but deep diving into the game ahead of its now November release.

Now to wait for Episode 3 and its reveals….