biteho.com

Developer id Software has dropped a brand-new Doom Eternal update for the first-person shooter’s asymmetrical multiplayer experience, Battlemode. We’ve compiled the full patch notes below.

The update only targets PS4 and Xbox One Battlemode players, where id Software saw a disparity between the PC and console experience. According to the studio, the new patch should “bring the challenge for Console-Slayers more within reach and the overall feel of the match will be more consistent now between all platforms.” It’s available now and doesn’t require a download to install.

Id Software made some adjustments to Battlemode by decreasing the demon respawn timer to 20 seconds, tweaking the way team heal and healing zones work, and balancing some of the demons’ abilities. The studio is also aware of an inconsistency between the team heal ability and its description, though it’s unclear when id Software will resolve this.

In other Doom Eternal news, it’s been discovered that the first-person shooter has a secret weapon buried in the game’s code. It was originally cut because it didn’t fit Doom Eternal’s flow, but console commands reveal a way to access the first gun you were originally supposed to start with: the pistol. And if you wanted to know something else that the game may have hidden from you, we’ve put together a quick guide for removing those helpful but pesky tutorials.

Doom Eternal Battlemode April 9 Console Update

Demon Respawn Timer

• Demons respawn timer increased from 20 to 22 seconds.

Team Heal

• The caster of Team Heal is now healed for 25% of their total health, down from 50% of their total health.
• The teammate of the caster continues to be healed for 25% of their total health (which is unchanged).

Healing Zone

Reduced the strength of the healing zones:

• Level 1 becomes 600 HP over 8 seconds (75 HP per 1 second), available every 60 seconds.
• Down from 800 HP over 8 seconds (100 HP per 1 second), available every 60 seconds.
• Level 2 becomes 800 HP over 10 seconds (80 HP per 1 second), available every 50 seconds.
• Down from 1200 HP over 12 seconds (100 HP per 1 second), available every 45 seconds.

Noxious Hazard

• Reduced damage done per tic on The Slayer when in the hazard volume from 15 to 12 damage.

Mancubus

• Reduced flamethrower damage per projectile from 4 to 3 damage per hit.

Pain Elemental

• Shield cooldown duration increased from 4 seconds to 5 seconds.

Archvile

• Flame Wall cooldown duration increased from 6 to 7 seconds.

Known Issue on Console

• The description for the Team Heal ability is inconsistent with amount of healing done by the ability. Team heal will heal both demon players for 25% of total health, but the description states that the user gets a 50% heal instead.

The Switch’s big Spring Sale on the Nintendo Eshop is filled with plenty of great deals, but you won’t find very many Switch exclusives for discounted prices, especially first-party Nintendo games. In a rare move, Amazon is selling digital codes for three AAA Switch games for $40 each: Donkey Kong Country: Tropical Freeze, Splatoon 2, and Kirby Star Allies.

More Spring game sales

Each game is regularly $60 despite being years-old at this point, which shouldn’t come as a surprise for anyone who owns a Nintendo console. The $40 price is likely the best you’ll see anytime soon, and we can’t recall the last time any of the three were available for less than $40.

Splatoon 2 | $40 ($60)

Splatoon 2 is one of the best multiplayer games on Switch. A sequel to the breakout Wii U hit, Splatoon 2 offers more variety and an improved online experience for its paint-splatting gameplay. A Nintendo Switch Online subscription is required to play online, and you’ll definitely want to play online. The game earned an 8/10 in GameSpot’s Splatoon 2 review.

---

Donkey Kong Country: Tropical Freeze | $40 ($60)

Donkey Kong Country: Tropical Freeze was ported from the Wii U to Switch with minimal additions besides the new playable character, Funky Kong. Playing as Funky Kong is essentially an easy mode, which makes Tropical Freeze easier to recommend for beginners and youngsters. Nevertheless, Tropical Freeze is a truly superb side-scroller with meticulously-crafted levels and challenging platforming sequences. I personally bought Tropical Freeze on both Wii U and Switch because it’s that good. It earned a 9/10 in GameSpot’s Donkey Kong Country: Tropical Freeze review.

---

Kirby Star Allies | $40 ($60)

Kirby Star Allies is yet another side-scrolling game starring the pink puffball. But this one really leans into cooperative play, supporting four-player local co-op throughout the entire adventure. Kirby’s bag of tricks has expanded too, which adds even more to a series already known for its quirky power-ups. Kirby Star Allies is a great game to play with the whole family, and there’s even some more challenging content to dip into after completing the rather easy (even by Kirby standards) story mode. The game earned an 8/10 in GameSpot’s Kirby Star Allies review.

Blizzard has announced it’s making a few big changes to competitive Overwatch–specifically to the hero pools and map pools systems that it introduced over the last several months. Hero pools will undergo some major changes, while map pools will be going away entirely.

First, the hero pools for competitive play and Overwatch League will be unified into a single pool starting on April 13. Any heroes with a play rate above a certain amount in competitive matches will be eligible for removal, and the higher the play rate the more likely they are to be removed. Based on that data, the pools will remove one Tank, one Support, and two Damage characters. Regardless of the data, heroes won’t be removed two weeks in a row. New rotations will be announced at the end of Overwatch League matches on Sunday, or on Monday morning when OWL is out of season.

“We’ve… heard that some aspects of the [hero pool] system are confusing or unclear, including why certain heroes or roles are rotated each week, or why the exact number of heroes available is inconsistent from week to week,” Blizzard said in the announcement. “In addition, having separate Hero Pools for Competitive Play and the Overwatch League in the same week led to a confusing or disjointed experience for players who follow the League.”

In addition, starting on April 14, the game will no longer have rotating map pools. Competitive play will include all maps, with the exception of Paris and Horizon Lunar Colony, which are being temporarily counted out while Blizzard tweaks them. Blizzard said it originally introduced map pools to reduce the number of matches played on those two maps, and also to give the competitive seasons more unique flavor.

“However, we saw a lot of feedback asking for Map Pools to vary more often than every two months at the start of a competitive season,” Blizzard explained. “Some suggested one month, others two weeks, and some even one-week rotation periods. However, if the Map Pool were to rotate more frequently, it would stop providing the competitive season with the ‘identity’ we were going for. In addition, if we change the Map Pool faster, you might not even notice that maps were missing or back from one cycle to the next.”

The Overwatch team is currently at work on more Tank and Support heroes, just after introducing another Damage type, Echo. But we’ll also have to wait for more Tank and Support, because Echo is the last new hero until the launch of Overwatch 2.

A new event has begun in Pokemon Go. The game’s spring celebration is now live until April 16, and it introduces a couple of new springtime Pokemon to catch, as well as a new Shiny.

During the spring event, Pokemon like Exeggcute, Chansey, Mareep, Marill, and Torchic will appear in the wild more often than normal. You’ll also have a chance to find Shiny Exeggcute, as well as two special Pokemon: Buneary wearing a flower crown and Pikachu wearing a flower hat.

In addition to the increased wild spawns, you’re more likely to hatch Pichu, Togepi, Tyrogue, Chingling, Happiny, Munchlax, and Riolu from 2 km eggs. Any Pichu and Togepi that you hatch will likewise be wearing flower crowns. Niantic has also rolled out a special set of event Field Research tasks that lead to encounters with Alolan Exeggutor, Azumarill, and the rare Gen 5 Pokemon Audino.

Finally, you’ll be able to take advantage of a few bonuses during the spring event. First, you’ll receive twice the usual amount of Candy for hatching Pokemon. Any Lucky Eggs that you use will also remain active for an hour rather than their usual 30 minutes.

The Pokemon Go spring event runs until 10 PM local time on April 16. You can read more details about it on the official Pokemon website.

The spring event isn’t all that’s happening in Pokemon Go right now. The Legendary Landorus is appearing in Raids until April 21, and there’s a new batch of Field Research tasks for April. Each Research Breakthrough you achieve this month will lead to an encounter with Alolan Exeggutor. You can also claim some free items in Pokemon Go.

Yooka-Laylee and the Impossible Lair is a good sequel to the original N64 throwback, with one central issue: its titular Impossible Lair. While its challenge isn’t insurmountable, it stands in stark contrast to the difficulty of the rest of the game, which is why developer Playtonic Games is introducing two new modes for it in the latest update, which goes live on April 14.

The Impossible Lair is now split in two. The “Not So Impossible Lair” is the new standard mode, offering you the ability to save your progress at checkpoints. Each of these checkpoints registers how many bees you have in your bee shield (effectively how many hits you can take before dying), letting you practice certain sections repeatedly without having to worry about reaching the same point consistently. Playtonic notes that you can ignore checkpoints entirely too if you want to replicate the experiences from launch.

The “Impossible Lair” variant is an even tougher challenge than originally presented, with no checkpoints and no bee shield to protect you during its grueling run. That means you have to make it through the lengthy stage without taking a single fault, which should please fans itching for a new challenge.

In addition to these difficulty changes, Playtonic is also adding a new chiptune, 8-bit soundtrack to all 2D stages in the game, which can be accessed from the in-game menu. The new tracks are also going to be available to stream on Apple Music and Spotify. It’ll be out on April 14, the same day as the update.

Although Yooka-Laylee and the Impossible Lair builds positively on the original game, it still stumbles in some areas that keeps it from hitting those same highs as older classic platformers. In our 6/10 Yooka-Laylee and the Impossible Lair review, we said, “The Impossible Lair is definitely a better attempt at capturing the magic of platformers than Yooka-Laylee’s first crack at it, but it’s still not remarkable. If you’re itching to return to a bygone era, then The Impossible Lair might scratch it. Just don’t expect much beyond that.”

Ubisoft has taken the decision to delay Year 4 Season 2 of For Honor due to the ongoing situation regarding COVID-19. The update has been pushed back and will now release on June 11 for PlayStation 4, Xbox One, and PC.

“First and foremost, we hope that everyone is doing well and is safe at home during these times,” the developer said in a statement. “On our side, the team is still hard at work to keep For Honor fully operational even though we are doing so from home.

“We are proud of how quickly everyone on the development team has adapted to the situation,” the statement continues. “However, even with all our efforts during these times, the disruption over the past weeks is having an impact on our ability to deliver our near term content updates. For this reason, we have taken the decision to delay the release of Year 4 Season 2 to June 11, 2020.”

Despite the disappointment, Ubisoft is planning to bring back some fan-favorite activities to compensate for the delay. These will be available in May, with more details set to be shared in For Honor’s upcoming May roadmap.

For Honor is just the latest game to be impacted by the COVID-19 pandemic. The launch of The Last of Us Part II was recently delayed indefinitely by Sony, while Marvel’s Iron Man VR was hit with a similar delay. Other games, such as Dirt Rally 2.0 and Sniper Elite 4, have been combating the virus with in-game messages about staying at home. Meanwhile, Cyberpunk 2077 developer CD Projekt Red recently spoke about how the crisis could impact how people buy games.