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Black and Gold Nucleus locations on Astra

Black and Gold Nucleus locations on Astra

Tower of Fantasy’s summoning system hinges on a very simple set of tokens called Nuclei that you can find dotted all over the world. There are two different types of Nucleus Cache, Black and Gold, and they have their own set of tokens to spend on spinning them. There is also the exceptionally rare Red Nuclei, but they’re used for the specialty gacha. We have a full Tower of Fantasy currency guide if you need more information.

As you may expect, Black is more common than Gold, but you can still find plenty all over Astra if you know where to look. You can take a look at this pair of maps to see exactly where you can find all of them on Astra.

Tower of Fantasy Nucleus map 1

Tower of Fantasy Nucleus map 2

You can collect them primarily from interactable objects and locations in the world like Tar Pits or Kerosene Plants, but Gold nuclei are usually in much tougher locations like Strongholds. There are also different Caches you can find out in the world, Purple Caches indicate Black Nuclei, while Gold Caches will give you both Gold Nuclei and Dark Crystals.

Bare in mind that some locations will require time after activation before they yield any Nuclei, and we recommend keeping a fire weapon on hand to make the process go smoother. It’s also possible we’ve missed a few spots on this map, but what we’ve marked out should give you more than enough to get started.

Written by GLHF.

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Elden Ring Player Proves Faith Builds Rule With One Shot Kills

Elden Ring Player Proves Faith Builds Rule With One Shot Kills

matthew "Your Average Gamer" Farnkopf is just standing around while Elden Ring's final boss, the Elden Beast, collapses behind their faith/lightning-based Tarnished.

Elden Ring‘s faith stat is pretty flexible to build around, particularly because developer FromSoftware baked so many incantations and spells into the game. Still, it tends to see very little use at high levels, as YouTuber Your Average Gamer put it in an email to Kotaku DotCom, folks claim it’s not as good as other in-game stats like the health-defining vigor. In an effort to prove the masses wrong, Your Average Gamer took their ardent belief in faith and put it to the test. Not only did they take on the hardest difficulty possible, they also absolutely demolished a variety of bosses, including ones like Radagon and the Elden Beast, in a single attack. It’s nuts!

Matthew “Your Average Gamer” Farnkopf is a YouTuber dedicated to putting together “crazy Elden Ring builds.” they’ve got a video on destroying Malenia in 90 seconds, another breaking down the effectiveness of Godrick the Grafted’s Great Axeand a different one on the ultimate status effect build. In short, Matt has spent a lot of time with Elden Ring since it dropped on February 25. And yet, it’s still remarkable they were able to find a one-shot build powerful enough to take out two of the game’s hardest bosses, Radagon of the Golden Order and the Elden Beastwith an assortment of equipment and incantations on New Game Plus Seven, the highest difficulty option Elden Ring currently has to offer. Every round of new game plus retains all your gear and stats while increasing the overall damage output and health pool of the enemies around you, meaning Your Average Gamer’s run is some seriously gnarly shit.

FromSoftware

It looks like Matt’s just throwing things to be throwing things during the fight, but there’s actually an order to the madness. as they explained in a short video detailing what they’ve dubbed the “ultimate PvE build,” Matt first casts the Howl of Shabriri and Golden Vow incantations for some initial status effects, like madness buildup for attack power and attack negation, respectively. They then poison themselves to increase their intelligence stat and temporarily boost lightning attack damage, the latter is especially important when paired with the sole attack spell Ancient Dragons’ Lightning Strikea late-game ability you find in the labyrinthine legacy dungeon Crumbling Farum Azula. After a quick buffing session, Matt turns to their gear for even more buffs—the Gravel Stone Seal to up the damage of Dragon Cult/lightning-related incantations, the Jellyfish Shield for 20% increased damage for 30 secondsand the Kindred of Rot’s Exultation Talisman to raise attack power by 20% for 20 seconds when there’s poisoning or rot nearbyamong others—before entering the battle arena to show the final bosses what’s up.

It was curtains once Matt stepped in front of Radagon. They cast the Ancient Dragons’ Lightning Strike, a multi-hitting attack that sends down several bolts of lightning to strike in a determined area, and watched as the hammer-wielding god’s health bar melted away in seconds. The same thing happened to the colossal Elden Beast, and y’all, I’m gagging RN.

ReadMore: Elden Ring Fans Rejoice As Dreaded Bloodhound Step Nerfed In Enormous Gameplay Update

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matt canopy Kotaku over email that they wanted to dispel the myth permeating the game’s community that “faith [builds aren’t] nearly as good as magic.” It took them “nearly 20 hours of trial and error” to find the right combination of gear and incantations to do the necessary damage to slay Radagon and the Elden Beast in one shot, and the results were stunning.

“I was primarily inspired to prove that something that many said couldn’t be done could actually be done…even on the hardest difficulty,” Matt said. “When I pulled this off on Journey Three, that gave me hope that it was technically possible. Once again to prove how powerful faith can be!”

Matt, to put it plainly, loves faith. It’s one of their favorite stats to construct characters around, and a central theme to the game overall. Still, getting things just right to accomplish this feat was quite the headache, something that forced them to “quit two separate times” because of how time-consuming it was becoming. Regardless of the frustrations, Matt said they were “glad [to have] stuck it out” in the end.

“So I’m physically disabled,” Matt said. “I have ongoing day-to-day stomach issues that can get/have gotten severe at times. I had just gotten over a flare-up of Colitis that I had to go to the ER for. After failing so many times throughout several hours, I found myself possibly going back into another flare-up. So I relaxed, calmed myself down, and spaced out my time. From then on I set hours I would do it and took the pressure entirely off myself. The moment I said ‘Okay, if someone else does it that’s fine,’ I was able to relax. Shortly after, I was able to achieve it anyway!”

FromSoftware

Doing a one-shot kill in Elden Ring is impressive but not entirely new. there was one Redditor back in April who killed the notorious Tree Sentinel in one hit and another speedrunner that created a glass-cannon build to bonk bosses with a single swing of their hammer in May. While it may not be that fresh, slaying FromSoftware’s infamously challenging enemies in one hit is still a cool sight to see. I wish I were patient enough to do this.

While Matt’s Beaten Elden Ring several times now, he’s not done with the game. They’re hoping FromSoftware adds new content in the form of “very challenging bosses, much like Dark Souls 3‘s DLC” or “another late game spike that would test us yet again.” Until then, Matt is trekking through the Lands Between once more looking for new builds to experiment with.

“I’ve retired the lightning build/character,” Matt said. “He’s kind of a legacy to me now. I’m starting a new build fresh, and I’m going to focus on exploring and the next cool build I can come up with. Elden Ring is a fantastic game, and the community is amazing! And remember ‘Seek Lightning!’”

It’s worth noting that while FromSoftware dropped patch 1.06 for the game, Matt said their ultimate PvE build is still effective against the game’s bosses. If you want to try out Matt’s full build for yourself, here you go:

  • Gravel Stone Seal or Golden Order Seal
  • Jellyfish Shield
  • Mushroom Crown
  • Fetid Pots
  • Neutralizing Boluses
  • Blood Sword for Health Damage
  • Godfrey Icon
  • Lightning Scorpion Charm
  • Kindred of Roy’s Exultation
  • Red-Feathered Branchsword
  • Ancient Prayer book (for the incantation)
  • Lightning-Shrouding Cracked Tear
  • Intelligence-knot Crystal Tear
  • Howl of Shabriri Incantation
  • Golden Vow Incantation

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The top 10 worst movie tie-in video games ever

The top 10 worst movie tie-in video games ever

While definitely not as common as they used to be, movie tie-in video games are generally viewed as the absolute bottom of the barrel in terms of video game entertainment.

These are video games created often in short time frames, with limited development cycles, budgets, and anything else that you need in order to make a decent video game.

But, as with anything, some are worse than others.

So here, we have compiled the top 10 (in no particular order) worst of the worst, the rock bottom, the absolute dredge of them all for you to enjoy.

10. E. T. The Extra Terrestrial (1982, Atari)

While older than most people reading this, this game is often credited as having caused the video game market of 1983 to crash. The game itself was boring and bland, featuring awful graphics (even for its time) and repetitive tasks.

Rumor has it that Atari only gave developers five weeks to develop the game for the Christmas season, which would explain the lack of… well, gameplay in the video game. A huge number of these games were returned, Atari fell into bankruptcy, and, as the legend goes, the remainder of the stock was buried in a New Mexico landfill somewhere.

9. Tomorrow Never Dies (1999)

Remember golden eye 64? Remember how much fun it was to stay up late into the night with three of your best friends, getting mad at each other over picking Oddjob, or someone who grabbed the Golden Gun first? Those were good times. What if the next game released in the 007 franchise was worse in every conceivable way?

Tomorrow Never Dies did away with the first-person view, instead choosing a third-person view. The game only featured a story mode, lacking any multiplayer whatsoever. If they had named this game anything else, it probably would have been fine, but coming hot off the heels of the success that golden eye 64 was, it led many to see this as a downgrade in every way.

8. Marvel’s Avengers (2020)

Crystal Dynamics has done some good work in gaming, don’t get me wrong, but avengers fails in a lot of ways that don’t make sense. The launch of avengers had some serious game-breaking bugs tethered to it, and while most of them have been ironed out over its lifespan, one of the game’s core problems hasn’t been – how content dry and unrewarding it is to play.

The game has a decent story mode, but once you complete it, the only way to progress is to complete multiplayer missions, which are the same boring, repetitive missions that every other games-as-a-service game has. The multiplayer is not fun, and that’s the biggest advertising point of the game. Please just make another Legacy of Kain game, Crystal Dynamics.

7. Saw 2: Flesh and Blood (2010)

“Hey, what if we took a movie that was relatively unique in the horror genre for its interesting puzzles and turned it into a boring action video game?” said the developers of Saw 2: Flesh and Blood. I may be paraphrasing.

The puzzles are boring, the dialogue is boring, you’re having to repeat puzzles often because they do not explain how the puzzles work, and the majority of downtime in between puzzles are filled with quick-timed events. Low amounts of checkpoints means that you’re often having to redo several rooms multiple times.

6. Cat Woman (2004)

Not unlike the movie of the same name, cat woman did extremely poorly with critics and players alike.

Genuinely awful voice acting combined with seemingly malfunctioning camera controls and a mash-one-button-until-you-win combat style made this game an easy one to pass up.

5. Street Fighter: The Movie: The Game (1995)

In the games industry, there’s an unfortunate expectation that a video game made to tie in with a movie is gonna suck. So what happens when a movie is made based on a video game – that is then turned into a video game itself? It’s like an inception of bad video games.

This soulless shell of a game lacks even the most basic things that Street Fighter II had, namely its charm. Seeing Dhalsim stretch-punch or Ryu throw Hadoukens is timeless, but seeing digitized versions of the actors playing these characters doing the same is just painful.

4. James Cameron’s Avatar: The Game (2009)

Picture this: you’ve just seen Avatar in theaters, and it was a wondrous journey through what cinematic effects can look like in 2009. You can’t get over how cool the fight scenes were, how beautiful the landscapes were, or how intricate the sex-hair thing was. So you rush to your local store and immediately spy a copy of Avatar: The Game. Surely it must look just as good, right?

While the game does tackle events prior to the movie, expanding the lore of the world a bit, the graphics looked awful – I can think of a few late-gen PS2 games that looked nicer – the gameplay was bland and repetitive, made worse by the linear paths you have to walk in the game.

3. Evil Dead: Hail to the King

I cannot imagine watching Evil Dead 2having a wonderful time, and then picking this game up and trying to play through it. Hail to the King lacks pretty much everything that made Evil Dead 2 or Army of Darkness work, instead attempting to emulate some action-horror games that had come out before it.

Fixed camera angles are fine in some games, but the game has to be built around them for it to work. This game has problems with enemies swarming you, and you are unable to deal with them due to the camera perspectives.

2. Every Shrek Game That Isn’t Shrek SuperSlam

I don’t really have the energy to go into why all but one of the Shrek games are bad. In short, they’re poorly paced, have game-breaking bugs, are boring and feature repetitive gameplay. Instead, I want to focus on why SuperSlam is a great game.

SuperSlam is technically a bad game, in terms of gameplay and execution. It’s a broken platform/arena fighter, with several characters able to commit to ‘infinite’ combos that generally just make it unfun – in theory.

What makes it fun is that an entire competitive esports community has formed around the broken game, figuring out how the game works within how broken it is. To this day, tournaments are held online, with new players joining in to try to win.

1. Aliens: Colonial Marines (2013)

This one is a pain for me, personally. Alien is such a cool series, with a lot of lore and a lot of good horror sequences – Alien: Isolation is arguably my favorite movie tie-in game because of how oppressive and well-done the horror in that game is. Enter Colonial Marines: a game with broken AI, to the point where Aliens will crab-walk right past you while they try to figure out their pathing, or get caught in level geometry because the developers couldn’t figure out hitbox collision. The graphics were extremely bland for their time, especially when you compare it to the alpha footage that leaked before release, which looked incredible.

What’s worse, however, is the vast number of promises that the developers gave prerelease that were simply not true. It was a giant mess from beginning to end, and Alien fans the world over were truly disappointed.

Written by Junior Miyai on behalf of GLHF.

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Nobody Is Playing Netflix’s Games

Nobody Is Playing Netflix's Games

It’s been nearly two years since Netflix began its big push into gaming, and the streaming giant’s presence as a household name isn’t quite translating. According to recent findings from analytics company Apptopia, 99 percent of the service’s users have never touched a single video game on the platform. If you’ve played any of their titles, congratulations: You are the one percent.

Although perhaps not shocking, this news is eyebrow-raising. Netflix lost some 970,000 subscribers last quarter, and it seems the company is unlikely to recoup them by recruiting gamers. The stats obtained by CNBC via Apptopia reveal that games on the platform have an average of 1.7 million daily users—a fraction of Netflix’s subscriber base of 221 million. The total number of downloads for those games is about 23.3 million.

Tech giants dipping into gaming is hardly new. Amazon and Google have tried their hand by hiring all-star talent and working on in-house studios. Yet despite their best efforts, big companies with money have been unable to brute force their way to success. Video games are a yearslong endeavor requiring the hard work and talent of teams that can range from a handful of independent creators to hundreds of developers across the globe. Even when they produce decent games, as Netflix has, it takes more than a few titles to lure people away from their PlayStation, Switch, Steam, or Xbox ecosystems—or even the new season of Bridgerton—to play them. Netflix knows that its biggest competition for attention on your phone comes down to apps like TikTok.

Part of the problem, for Netflix at least, might be about awareness. Despite acquiring outfits like Oxenfree creator Night School Studio and Dungeon Boss developer Boss Fight Entertainment, the company’s investment into games doesn’t show in the way it markets and promotes them. (Just look at sites publishing well-read how-tos for finding Netflix games.) The streamer doesn’t have the best reputation when it comes to luring eyes to some of its more original ventures. The largely unknown fan site it launched in December had barely begun to germinate when it cut the majority of staff. It’s canceled dozens of shows after just one season—a list that continues to grow. With games, it seems, Netflix barely let users know they were there at all.

It would be easy to say the streaming giant isn’t gaining gamers because their offerings are bad, but they’re not. Titles like sci-fi strategy game Into the Breach and card game Exploding Kittens are established hits that have done well on other platforms ahead of their mobile releases for Netflix. Originals that expand the company’s streaming universes, like its stranger things games, have built-in fanbases. Critics have positive things to say, seemingly in spite of themselves. The games just haven’t been given time to gain traction.

Netflix did not respond to requests for comment about Apptopia’s findings or its handling of current titles, though the giant has been clear about its continued ambition for mobile gaming. The company has plans to offer roughly 50 games by the end of 2022, including new releases such as telling lies creator Sam Barlow’s next title, immortality. Netflix is ​​fond of iteration and its self-described “crawl, walk, run” model. Obviously, gaming is still in that infant stage.

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Anti-Apex Legends #NoApexAugust Campaign Fails Spectacularly

Anti-Apex Legends #NoApexAugust Campaign Fails Spectacularly

A pirate shrugs in Apex Legends.

screenshot: EA

It’s not a universal maxim, but in many cases, there’s no surer sign a game is alive and well than when waves of players start calling it a “dead game.” The most recent example is apex legendswhich just set an all-time player count record amid a coordinated—I use that word generously—social media campaign urging players to fall off the game for a month.

apex legendsa free-to-play first-person shooter some people still call Why Aren’t You Titanfall 3?, launched three years ago amid the industry’s battle royale boom. Though it initially seemed experimental, a fun if ephemeral multiplayer pitstop between developer Respawn’s blockbusters (like titan fall and Jedi: Fallen Order), Apex quickly adopted a seasonal model. It’s been riding the live service train ever since and is now on its 14th season. This brings us to #NoApexAugust, a community effort to highlight various issues fans have with the game.

#NoApexAugust has mostly organized around a hashtag on Twitter, though the genesis can be traced back to to Reddit post from last month. Initially, one player suggested a single-day strike against apex legends. The post blew up. Complaints about apex legends poured in (the initial post has more than 1,000 responses), and it eventually morphed into the idea that the community would take a whole month off from the game.

The idea of ​​#NoApexAugust was to spur Respawn and publisher EA into action, addressing what players see as issues with the game: the high-ping servers…or the lack of cross-progression…or the overpriced cosmetics…or the lack or interesting cosmetics …or the slew of specific items some say are too powerful…or, look, players have a bunch of nonsense issues, many of which seem minor in isolation but coalesce into a larger “please fix game” rallying cry.

Right out of the gate, #NoApexAugust sputtered. Some people pointed out that the player base actually increased (if only marginally) over the first two days of the month, immediately after the campaign kicked off. And just yesterday—again, while #NoApexAugust was supposedly in full swing—apex legends set its all-time record number of players on Steam: 510,286 players, according to stat-tracking database steamcharts. (The previous record of 411,183 was set in May. These figures don’t account for players on consoles, however.)

Some dead game.

Clearly, #NoApexAugust has failed spectacularly at its intended goal of getting players to abstain from playing apex legends. Due to the obvious irony, you are allowed at least one (1) chuckle. Still, that a social campaign—messy execution aside—was merited here in the first place calls attention to very real issues players have with the game. Those shouldn’t be ignored, even if players are coming out in record numbers.

Representatives for EA, which publishes apex legendsdid not respond to a request for comment in time for publication.

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How to Play Netflix Games

How to Play Netflix Games

Do you subscribe to Netflix and own a smartphone? The streaming company offers a small selection of mobile games to all subscribers at no additional cost, but you essentially have to complete a side quest to find them. Odds are you’ve never played a Netflix game even if you are a current subscriber.

You don’t need to be a mega-fan of stranger things to get enjoyment out of Netflix games. Sure, there are a couple of IP-based titles, but most of the over 20 available games have nothing to do with Netflix shows. There’s a rogue-like deck builder, arcaniuman adorable hidden object game, Krispee Streetand a turn-based strategy game, Into the Breach.

People who enjoy playing games on their phones may appreciate downloading titles that don’t have any ads or hidden microtransactions. Netflix games stand in contrast to contemporary mobile games that start off as free-to-play, only to pelt players with fees later on. (Yes, I’m talking about you, Devil Immortal.)

How to Find Netflix Games to Download

You can put away those next-gen consoles and home-built PCs: Netflix’s foray into video games is only on mobile devices. Your smartphone or tablet needs to run either iOS 15 or Android 8 and have space available for downloads. To retain access to the games, your subscription must be current, and the cheapest Netflix plan starts at $10 a month.

Already have the Netflix app downloaded on your Android or Apple device? You may see a tab for Games along the bottom of the screen when opening the app. This feature is not yet rolled out to all users. Don’t see a Games tab? You may find a breakout section featuring video games while scrolling through the home tab.

Click on the square icon for the game you want to play and choose Get Game. You’ll be redirected to the Play Store on Android and the App Store on Apple devices. Starting your search inside the Netflix app is alright when you’re just looking around for new experiences. Taking that into account, downloading the streaming service’s app is not a requirement to play and anyone who already knows which Netflix game they want can skip the above steps.

The full list of games is available on Netflix’s website, and the easiest way to download new titles is to pick a game from that list and search for it directly in the App Store or Play Store. All of the games owned by Netflix have a small “N” emblazoned on the top left corner of the app’s icon. After finding the game you’re looking for, go ahead and start the download process.

After the download is done, there’s just one last step before this quest is complete and you finally get to start playing! When you open the game for the first time, you will likely see a prompt to log in with your Netflix account. Start by tapping on Next. Then enter your account information and click log in. If the Netflix account has multiple profiles, choose whichever one is yours to track progress.

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Apex Legends Season 14 kicks off with a wild battle pass trailer

Apex Legends Season 14 kicks off with a wild battle pass trailer

The global launch for apex legends Season 14 is nearly upon us, and so is a slew of new cosmetics.

On Monday, developer Respawn Entertainment released another trailer for Apex Legends: Hunted. This one focuses entirely on what is included in the battle pass, such as skins for weapons and characters — keeping the “survival” motif going with everything. For example, Wraith now has the Veteran Voyager skin, which makes her look like some sort of dapper hunter from the 17th century. Meanwhile, Field Research Caustic is an alternative outfit that makes the mad scientist appear like he’s just starting experiments on people. Not really a softer side!

Watch the all-new trailer for Apex Legends: Hunted below. There’s also a high-quality YouTube mirror here.

Anyone curious about when the latest season goes live should check out GLHF‘s launch guide. Apex Legends: Hunted will have loads of sweeping changes to the charge rifle, spit fire, EVA-8, G7 Scout, and lots more. the overall level cap is rising while Kings Canyon is getting an overhaul as well.

Of course, the big draw of Season 14 is Vantage, the legend with an eye for sniping. She will likely have a profound effect on the competitive side of things.

Apex Legends: Hunted releases on Aug. 9, 2022, for PS4, PS5, Xbox One, Xbox Series X|S, Nintendo Switch, and PC.

Written by Kyle Campbell on behalf of GLHF.

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Pro Clubs and VOLTA FOOTBALL combined

Pro Clubs and VOLTA FOOTBALL combined

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Taking the headlines, Pro Clubs and VOLTA FOOTBALL progression is now combined. VOLTA is the pick-up-and-play, launched in FIFA 20. A take on street football (RIP FIFA Street) where small-sided games and skills reign, with thousands of unlockable cosmetics available.

Now, wherever you play, your two avatars earn the same progression items. You’ll earn VOLTA coins and XP/skill points across both modes, taking the grind out of either mode. Great when you fancy casual VOLTA Arcade games over focused soccer.

In FIFA 22, Pro Clubs fans played for hours without making a dent in their level. Thanks to community feedback, the player progression system has been increased to 100 levels, allowing players to level up sooner.

There’s a host of new perks to unlock including ‘poacher’, ‘interceptor’, ‘light passes’ and an exciting new signature ability called ‘take flight’. You’ll be high-jumping at corners like Cristiano Ronaldo in no time.

At the end of a match, you’ll now see an accolades screen showing the top performers from your game, such as most distance covered and most tackles made. This is a great way of comparing yourself against the rest of your party without looking at the scoresheet.

Speaking of comparing performances, player ratings have had a refresh, and are now fairer on Pro Clubs players who play defensive roles and don’t score goals.

New, larger VOLTA stadium in rotation which has much bouncier walls and a bigger goal area. More space equals more time on the ball, and this will change the way VOLTA plays. Fans of the small, current arenas don’t fear – the new stadium will appear 50% of the time along with other arenas.

With every new game comes new cosmetics, and finally in FIFA 23, your Pro Clubs and VOLTA player can have tattoos! There are also loads of the latest soccer boots and facial accessories including the broken nose protector. Sadly, some of the sillier items won’t be usable in Pro Clubs. As ever, players can expect new content to be released in batches throughout the year.

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Mario Kart 8 Leak Might Have Clues About Future DLC Courses

Mario Kart 8 Leak Might Have Clues About Future DLC Courses

Mario and friends race along the new MK8 stage Waluigi Pinball.

screenshot: Nintendo

Nintendo hasn’t revealed what the majority of mario kart 8‘s new courses will be, but players think they already know thanks to some clues reportedly left in the latest DLC files. Dataminers say the latest update contains a ton of leftover music references that hint at what 14 of the remaining 32 courses will be.

“Nintendo left then song prefetches to many future dlc courses in the BGM.bars of wave 2,” dataminer Fishguy6564 wrote on Twitter Thursday night. The discovery, apparently made by YouTube account recordreader, led to a list of music tracks pointing to various courses from past games in the Mario Kart series that would presumably appear in future DLC.

[SPOILERS] MK8D BOOSTER COURSE PASS MUSIC LEAK

The full list is:

  • Peach Gardens (DS)
  • Boo Lake of Broken Pier (GBA)
  • Alpine Pass (3DS)
  • Berlin Byways (Tour)
  • Waluigi Stadium (GCN)
  • Merry Mountain (Tour)
  • Rainbow Road (3DS)
  • Amsterdam Drift (Tour)
  • Singapore Speedway (Tour)
  • Los Angeles Laps (Tour)
  • Sunset Wilds (GBA)
  • Bangkok Rush (Tour)
  • Vancouver Velocity (Tour)
  • Maple Treeway (Wii)

Combining this apparent new info with Fishguy’s past datamining of the first DLC wave revealed a pretty thorough portrait of what types of courses could be coming in the future.

A lot of the courses are from toursthemobile Mario Kart spin-off. That’s not terrible news considering that the MK8 versions of many of those have been excellent so far. But players did quickly point out that if accurate, this means there are only two more Nintendo DS stages coming, and since one of them is Peach Gardens, not all of the fan-favorites like Airship Fortress, Luigi’s Mansion, and DK Summit will make the cut.

Fans will still have to wait a bit to see if these leaks get confirmed and how the rest of the question marks will be filled in. MK8‘s Booster Course Pass will add the remaining 32 new courses between now and the end of 2023.

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Activision Making More Off Phone Games Than Console And PC

Activision Making More Off Phone Games Than Console And PC

A solider with a rifle stands near a large, brown orc and both are in front of a screenshot of Candy Crush.

picture: Activision / Blizzard / King / Kotaku

Here’s a sign of the times: Activision has confirmed via newly released financial documents that it made more money on its phone games last quarter than it did on all of its console and PC games combined.

As spotted by tweaktown, Activision’s quarterly report was published last week and sheds some light on how its biggest games across PC, console, and mobile are doing financially. And because of games like Devil Immortal, Call of Duty Mobileand Candy Crush Sagathe beleaguered Call of Duty publisher’s making a lot of cash off phone games. In fact, more than half of its total earnings for the second quarter of 2022 came from mobile titles and not console or PC games.

According to the report, about 51 percent of Activision’s total earnings from the Q2 2022 period came from mobile games. That adds up to a total of $831 million in mobile game earnings. Meanwhile, its console games earned around $376 million and PC games brought in a bit less, $332 million. Finally, it made $105 million from events and esports.

What you might not expect, especially if you don’t realize how massive mobile gaming has become over the last decade, is that of the $831 million made off phone games, most of it came from King’s titles and not stuff like Call of Duty Mobile. In the report, Activision says that King titles like candy crush and FarmHeroes brought in over $680 million.

ReadMore: Lawyer To Pay Activision For Not Playing Call Of Duty

What these numbers reveal is that for big publishers like Activision, the future is likely one where it invests even more resources and money into mobile games and focuses less and less on console games. In an era where AAA games are more expensive to make than ever, take years to createand often flop, mobile games have become a lifeline for large game companies looking to keep their heads above water.

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Uses exclusive ultra-fast wireless tech to make sure your mouse is faster than you are, can be sued alongside special software for highly-customizable performance, and has 11 buttons to mess around with, a hyper-fast scroll wheel, and RGB lighting too .

For Activision it’s especially important as Call of Duty continues to lose millions of players and underperform. Seeing as the company has spent years focusing much of its energy on Call of Duty—at one point even having every studio it owned working on the franchise in some capacity—it’s likely it will seek to diversify into mobile more, not less, moving forward.

It should also be noted that Activision’s hugely successful mobile games are one of the main reasons Microsoft began the process of buying the company earlier this year following a huge, public fallout after the company was sued over years of sexual harassment and discrimination.

in some way, Call of Duty and warcraft are more like bonuses that Xbox gets top of King and his money-printing games.

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