#109: Battlefield Series Returns In 2021

Top Story

Things get steamy between EA and Valve in latest investor call

Corporate love is in the air once again as EA announces that they’re back together with Valve and that they will move their catalogue back into Valve’s love shack, including Star Wars Jedi: Fallen Order. EA packed their stuff and left back in 2011 to focus their amorous attentions on their own digital distribution platform, Origin.

EA will also be looking to spread the EA Access love to Steam users, after the service saw considerable success on PlayStation 4. Valve is obviously happy to welcome EA back into their arms to counteract Epic’s advances and exclusivity offers.

Battlefield is taking a year off to regroup before launching a new offensive in 2021

The last quarter revenue was mostly driven by digital distribution, with PC and ‘live services’ contributing most of the growth, followed by console and full game sales. Mobile revenue dropped 21%.

Apex Legends boasts over 70 million players, and it hasn’t even launched on mobile yet. Madden NFL 20 and FIFA 20 are, perhaps unsurprisingly, doing good business as usual. EA’s bread and butter franchises such as The Sims and their stable of sports titles will be expanded with new content over the next year.

Some highlights, courtesy of Daniel Ahmad:

• EA Access launch on PlayStation 4 grew subscriptions
• Battlefield V and Anthem updates are still in the works
• NBA Live 20 is officially cancelled and is being repurposed
• No EA title launches in Q4 FY2020, which spans January-March 2020
• Next major Battlefield title no earlier than April 2021
• Apex Legends is EA’s primary shooter series for next fiscal year
• Two unannounced partner titles from third-party studios in development
• Additional internal projects in the pipeline from DICE, BioWare, Maxis, Criterion and Motive
• DICE’s Star Wars Battlefront 1 & 2 clear 33 million sales combined
• Star Wars Jedi: Fallen Order expected to ship 6-8 million before April 2020
• Dragon Age 4 not likely to release before April 2022

Time For A Quick Daily Quiz?

Which is these is NOT a real ending to a Silent Hill game?

• The dog was behind it all
• You get abducted by aliens
• Pyramid Head cuts you a birthday cake
• You get turned into a block of tofu

The answer will be revealed at the end of this issue!

News Bits

Launch trailer for Hideo Kojima’s Death Stranding

Kojima’s latest opus is so close you can almost touch it, and Death Stranding hits PlayStation 4 next week on November 8th. In an effort to make the wait even more unbearable, Kojima Productions have released a launch trailer that goes on for no less than 8 minutes, which even includes some spoilers. Not that it matters too much – this is a Hideo Kojima game after all, so you probably won’t have any idea what’s going on until the 20th playthrough anyway.

Respawn “hyper-focused on Apex Legends” so no Titanfall 3

Grab a handkerchief so you can dry those tears you’re about to shed for Titanfall 3: EA big cheese Blake Jorgensen says that they “want to keep the team hyper-focused on Apex Legends.” That means there’s no time to develop Titanfall 3, but Respawn Entertainment “certainly won’t forget about it.” Apex Legends will remain EA’s big shooter for at least another year, as the next Battlefield won’t appear until 2021.

Daily Fact

Angry Birds had a touch of swine flu and caused a loss of appetite

The sensation that was Angry Birds took the mobile gaming world by storm — one might have even called it a plague. You wouldn’t be far wrong as the sickly green pigs in Angry Birds were designed specifically because of the swine flu epidemic at the time, which is a bit rich considering bird flu had just the same level of global hysteria. A pox on both thy houses!

Incidentally a study was conducted that actually proved Angry Birds could cause a loss of appetite. The Ryerson University in Toronto showed that people who played Angry Birds consumed 50 fewer calories on average during mealtimes compared with those who hadn’t played it prior to a meal. They believe this was due to the player being happier and so they ate less. Collectively the world has played 200,000 years’ worth of Angry Birds, equal to the stretch of time modern humans have existed.

Daily News

Round-up of Iceberg Interactive’s Paris Games Week announcements

The Paris Games Week 2019 show starts today and lasts until November 3rd in – where else – Paris. Iceberg Interactive is peddling their wares at the show and just aired a live stream of announcements for PC, PlayStation 4, Xbox One and Switch. Here are some highlights:

• Railroad Corporation (Corbie Games) – Trailer – November 2019 (PC) – Early Access
• Still There (GhostShark) – Trailer – November 20, 2019 (PC, Switch)
• Pax Nova (Grey Wolf Entertainment) – Trailer – Early 2020 (PC) – Early Access
• Transient (Stormling Studios) – Trailer – Late 2020 (PC, PlayStation 4, Xbox One)
• Lunacy: Saint Rhodes (Lazarus Studio) – Trailer – TBA 2020 (PC)
• Shortest Trip to Earth – Supporters Pack (Interactive Fate) – DLC Trailer – October 23, 2019 (PC)
• Headsnatchers (Iguanabee) – Trailer – November 7, 2019 (PC, Switch)
• Gas Guzzlers Extreme (Gamepires) – Trailer – November 2019 (PlayStation 4)
• The Sojourn (Shifting Tides) – Trailer – September 20, 2019 (PC, PlayStation 4, Xbox One)
• Antigraviator (Cybernetic Walrus) – Trailer – October 29, 2019 (PlayStation 4)
• Circle Empires Rivals ( Luminous) – Trailer – Early 2020 (PC)
• Blazing Sails (Get Up Games) – Trailer – Early 2020 (PC)

Call of Duty enjoys blockbuster launch “once again” with Modern Warfare

Activision Blizzard and Infinity Ward’s Call of Duty: Modern Warfare reboot has had an explosive launch, earning over $600 million in global sales, becoming the fastest-selling Call of Duty this generation.

It’s not just the biggest Call of Duty launch in a while, it’s actually the “top-selling digital opening in Activision history.” It also broke PlayStation Network records for most pre-ordered game, and became the best-selling Call of Duty game on Battle.net – which is maybe not that impressive considering its only competition is Call of Duty 4 Black Ops 4.

All in all, the game has earned about twice as much as the new Joker movie, which should give you an idea of how massive Call of Duty really is.

It’s all in the moustache and mutton chops

”Through the first three days, Modern Warfare has more total players and total hours played than any Call of Duty opening release in the last six years. More importantly, our players are having a great time playing,” said Rob Kostich, president of Activision. “Congratulations to Infinity Ward and all our teams involved on an incredible game and its spectacular launch. We also want to thank the community for your incredible support. The launch of Modern Warfare is only the start. There’s much more to come.”

Call of Duty: Modern Warfare is regarded as a return to form for the series, with a more daring and morally ambiguous campaign. It was released on PC, PlayStation 4 and Xbox One on October 25th and is expected to continue to print money for the foreseeable future.

News Bits

Pokémon Sword and Shield preloads begin today — no save data backups

If you’re itching for some fresh Pokémon adventures, the Nintendo eShop starts preloading Pokémon Sword & Shield today in Japan. The download is about 9.5GB, the game won’t support save data backups because of potential trade exploits and there’s no touch screen support, but at least it supports Pro controllers and surround sound.

Pokémon Sword & Shield launches for Switch on November 15th.

WarCraft III: Reforged multiplayer beta starts this week

Blizzard is busy remaking WarCraft III, and they’re finally ready to unleash a limited trial. For now you can play as Horde or Alliance in 1v1 and 2v2 matchmaking, with Undead, Night Elves and other game modes to be added in the weeks ahead. Owners of the Spoils of War edition receive the first wave of beta invites, with standard edition owners to follow.

Weekly Giveaway

Anthill on Nintendo Switch

This week’s DailyBits giveaway is a cute strategy game for Switch, which is 100% handheld! We are giving away 5 codes for Anthill, a tower defence-style strategy game – with the twist being that you’re also directing your ants to retrieve the dead bodies of enemies for dinner! The Switch version features all DLC, and can only be played in handheld mode.

All you have to do to enter the sweepstakes is to follow Dailybits on Twitter or Facebook. We will choose five random followers over the course of the week, and each will receive a code for Anthill on Switch! It couldn’t be any easier.

Quiz Answer - Did You Get It Right?

Which is these is NOT a real ending to a Silent Hill game?

Answer: Getting turned into a block of tofu!

Yes, all of these are real endings from various Silent Hill games – except for getting turned into a block of tofu, which is the ridiculous final reward for completing Resident Evil 2 3 times with an A ranking plus unlocking The Fourth Survivor.

The remake makes it slightly less arduous: You just have to finish The Fourth Survivor to get tofu’d. The Silent Hill series is famous for having silly endings, with most of them requiring multiple playthroughs to unlock.

The longest-running joke ending is the alien or UFO ending, a tradition that started in the first Silent Hill and was carried on in later games as well. The most famous one, however, is the dog ending in Silent Hill 2, which reveals that a Shiba Inu was the villain all along. The last game in the series, Silent Hill Downpour, had a weird surprise party ending where Pyramid Head shows up to slice you some cake. Makes you wonder what Silent Hills had in store before it got cancelled.

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