Agency Brief – May 23
Xbox Games with Gold
Time is running out on your chance to get Defense Grid 2 and Peggle for Xbox’s free Games with Gold program, and rumors are swirling around June’s lineup. An image, reportedly first leaked by Jamie Moran suggests that we’ll be getting Ryse: Son of Rome, Lichdom Battlemage, Bioshock Infinite, and yes, Red Dead Redemption. Of course, until anything is confirmed, this is just a rumor to be taken with a grain of salt (UPDATE: This was just a rumor, the real Games with Gold list for June includes none of these titles). On the other hand, this is certainly plausible, given that Red Dead Redemption was seen earlier when Microsoft accidentally made some of the games they were testing for backwards compatibility available to the general public very briefly. This also could be a good segue into Rockstar revealing the sequel/prequel at E3…
Big Updates, Little Updates in GTA 5
Staying with Rockstar for a moment, the developer has announced some major updates and minor tweaks to their behemoth of a game (which is consistently a top seller despite being years old). They recently announced a “successor to Executives and Other Criminals… adventures in finance and felony” With this update will come “a selection of big new properties that serve as both headquarters for your Organization and warehouses for your hot merchandise” mentioning that you can procure and sell a variety of illicit goods, but you have to keep them safe from those who wish to get a piece of the action.
They also announced new stunt modes, more double money and RP bonus weeks, probably including repeats of previous ones, and more temporary discounts on properties, vehicles, and more. While many of the adversarial modes are wildly popular, I’m personally excited for more cooperative and mission based gameplay that this appears to be bringing to us. Now for that single player DLC…
Major Content for Ark on Xbox and PC; New Map, New Agents of Game Server
Ark: Survival Evolved is in early access on Steam and Xbox One right now, and they’ve just released a major update adding a new user created map called The Center, as well as numerous new prehistoric creatures to tame, and gear to use. Modder Ben Burkhart, also known as evilmrfrank, fully hand-crafted this astounding map, and is now being rewarded for his herculean efforts.
They’re also doing an update for the existing map, The Island, adding a new redwood forest, and tweaking some swamps and snow biomes, and that update should release in the next week or so, and if your base or dinos are in the affected area, you might want to consider moving them, at least temporarily. We’ve started a private dedicated server of the new map on Xbox One (with plenty of videos incoming), and we’re looking at renting an Ark server for PC as well. Stay tuned.
