Every little piece of information we learn about video games can’t be classified as a story in itself. While we’d love to talk more about everything, the fact is that resources don’t permit us to discuss titles beyond ones we feel will resonate with our readers. Keeping that in mind, the stories still deserve attention so we’ve invented the daily briefing to get you up to speed.
Ark: Survival Evolved
Studio Wildcard revealed today at GDC 2017 that it has launched the Ark Sponsored Mods program, which will provide both financial support and development advice to select modders of Ark: Survival Evolved.
Backward Compatibility
Dead Rising 2: Case Zero and Dead Rising 2: Case West are now marked backward compatible on the UserVoice page. Apart from that, Cars 2: The Video Game and Meet the Robinsons also got updated to indicate that they’re backward compatible. Maybe this means the announcements are coming.
Battlefield 1
Battlefield 1 is getting a free trial from March 3 to March 5 for Xbox Live Gold members.
Cuphead
The Cuphead developers answered a lot of questions in their new post. While we’ve all heard about the visuals and gameplay, we didn’t know what the breakdown between boss rush levels and platforming elements was. Well, now we have an answer. According to the team, about 75% of the game is boss rush and about 25% of the game is platforming. The platforming elements are designed to break up the boss rush battles and give players some room to breathe.
Fable Fortune
A Fable Fortune closed beta will be launching next week! Early Access and Game Preview versions are coming in Q2 2017.
For Honor
For Honor players affected by Ubisoft server outages will receive free in-game items and Champion status as compensation.
Free Games
Battlefield: Bad Company 2’s Vietnam expansion and Dragon Age: Origin’s Awakening expansion are both free on Xbox One.
GDC 2017
ID@Xbox revealed a lot of new games coming to Xbox One which include Beat the Game, Etherborn, Inner Chains, Mages of Mystralia, Moonlighter, >observer_, Songbringer and The Way of Life: Definitive Edition.
Ghost Recon Wildlands
To help gamers achieve peak performance and live the full experience right at the heart of the game and of its world, Thrustmaster is thrilled to announce that it is launching a line of three Ghost Recon Wildlands-licensed gaming headsets.
Mass Effect: Andromeda
A day ago BioWare compared Mass Effect: Andromeda to softcore porn. Today the studio went back on their statement saying that it was sarcasm. I still think this is more of a cheap publicity stunt and they’re trying to boost sales through this rather than talking about narrative and other important elements. We’ll see how the game shapes up when it launches in a few weeks.
Overwatch
Overwatch got a patch which introduces the custom game browser. You can view all the other changes here.
Rogue Trooper Redux
The most feared soldier on Nu Earth is back in business! Rogue Trooper Redux will bring 2000 AD’s blue-skinned GI to Nintendo Switch, PlayStation 4, Xbox One and PC.
Stardew Valley
Stardew Valley is getting multiplayer but it will come to Nintendo Switch before other consoles.
Ubisoft
Today Ubisoft announced that two new official Assassin’s Creed busts have been added to the Legacy Collection, a series of exclusive limited-edition collectibles that include the most charismatic characters from the saga.
Unbox: Newbie’s Adventure
Merge Games is delighted to announce it has signed a global publishing deal with Prospect Games to bring the unique physics-platform game, Unbox: Newbie’s Adventure, to Nintendo Switch, PlayStation4 and Xbox One this summer.
Wargroove
Turn-based strategy game Wargroove is coming to Xbox One and Windows 10 in 2017.
Asher is a games journalist, former News Writer (Gaming) at Windows Central. They contributed 1110 articles to ICXM between 2015–2017, focused on opinion pieces, game reviews, Windows and PC, and Xbox news: wrote over 1,100 ICXM pieces on Xbox news, hardware reviews, and platform commentary before joining Future plc’s Windows Central in 2017.