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Titanfall pilots that are a bit fatigued from stomping around the same set of maps, take note - the game's first portion of DLC maps are due in May under the title of "Expedition." Polygon reports that the three-pack of maps will include "Swampland," a stretch of alien ruins that offers trees for wallrunning, "Runoff," a map that incorporates water, and "War Games," a map that's hosted within the game's training simulator.

"Expedition" is the first of three map packs included in Titanfall's season pass, which was announced in March alongside its $25 price tag. [Image: Respawn Entertainment]

At the PAX East Titanfall panel today, Respawn Entertainment announced Titanfall Expedition, a paid, campaign-continuing map pack coming to the Xbox and PC shooter. Read more...

During their PAX East panel today, Respawn announced that they're working on new modes for Titanfall. These updates, in addition to other micro updates that they've already been working on, will be completely free to owners of the game.Read more...

Below makes you feel small. Wonderfully, wonderfully small. Capybara Games' new adventure, a lush marriage of Dark Souls and the original Legend of Zelda, is a game of contrasts, encroaching dark and tiny lights with a wee character in a big, echoing world. "The idea of scale was the first thing we landed on. Ever since 1080p monitors came out I've had this dream of taking advantage of that technology in a different way," explained Kris Piotrowski, Below's creative director. "You've got this view you've never seen before, a character on a scale you've never seen before, and it gives the world a feeling of vastness and mystery."

The muted, thick colors and heavy rain surrounding the Wanderer, Below's fragile star, in the game's beach side opening are as oppressive as they are beautiful. Wanderer is tiny on the beach and rocky path leading up into the hills in the background, taking up almost no screen real estate and moving slowly. Even holding the run button, he only moves at a trot. Unsheathing your sword and shield takes a good beat as well, leaving you vulnerable. Climbing up a trail toward the monolithic cave first seen in Below's E3 2013 debut is immediately tense and alluring.

Those feelings of vastness and mystery sweep you up so much that you're not expecting it the first time spikes shoot out of a grey splotch of cave-floor, cutting your life short. When you start again as a brand new Wanderer, a little wiser and a little more ready with a sword, that's when this chilly game warms up, inviting you into its artful, challenging exploration one dark cave at a time.

He got some free stuff for reporting it, but he could've held out for more!

Why The Evil Within is like old school Resident Evil, and why that could be good or bad.

Capybara Games co-founder and president Nathan Vella tells Joystiq that its next game, Super TIME Force, should be available in either late May or early June for both Xbox 360 and Xbox One.

"It's in QA, going into cert soon," Vella told Joystiq when we asked about the oft-delayed game's release. "It's out of our hands until Microsoft certification is done with it, but it's not the hardest game to certify because it doesn't have any multiplayer and it only has a single leaderboard."

Vella tells Joystiq that the game's numerous delays were to enhance the game's original design, turning a good idea into a great game.

"I hate the idea of gamers wasting their time on a game. Buying something because they believed it was one thing and having it turn out to be something else, and with Super TIME Force that could have happened in a weird way. It was always cool, the original game jam game was cool, but what we've turned it into is what I think people expected when they saw the very first trailer." [Image: Capybara Games]

Prepare to laugh, cry, and be amazed in this week's Top 5 Titanfall Kills of the Week.

David Buckley, composer for Call of Duty: Ghosts, signed on to write the music for Batman: Arkham Knight. Buckley will co-compose the game's soundtrack with Nick Arundel, the composer that scored the other two games in Rocksteady's Arkham triology: Batman Arkham Asylum and Arkham City.

Aside from Call of Duty: Ghosts, Buckley's work in the video game space includes Metal Gear Solid 4 and Activision's Shrek Forever After game. He also composes music for the CBS TV show The Good Wife and the Ben Affleck-directed film, The Town, and provided additional music for Jerry Bruckheimer's Prince of Persia film.

Announced in March as the final game in the series from Rocksteady, Batman: Arkham Knight will prominently feature the Batmobile as a primary gameplay element. The game is set in a section of Gotham City that's said to be "five times larger" than that of Arkham City, and will include "traffic-friendly streets" to accommodate for the Dark Knight's favorite ride. It will also spotlight the aptly named Arkham Knight, an arch-villain created from scratch by Rocksteady and DC Entertainment CCO Geoff Johns. The game is slated to launch later this year for Xbox One, PS4 and PC. [Image: Warner Bros Interactive Entertainment]

Trials Fusion: Come for the camaraderie of four-person multiplayer races, stay because your pelvis was atomized by an oncoming tree. [Image: Red Lynx]

BioWare is building Dragon Age: Inquisition with voice controls via Kinect on Xbox 360 and Xbox One, similar to the voice commands in Mass Effect 3, Creative Director Mike Laidlaw told Xbox The Official Magazine.

"We're expecting that Xbox 360 and Xbox One editions will ship with a Kinect-enabled voice command feature, just like Mass Effect 3 did," Laidlaw said.

BioWare is also planning to use SmartGlass in some way, Producer Cameron Lee said: "It needs to make sense, of course. But we want Inquisition to be an experience you can take with you everywhere - to work, the commute home, the living room, bed."

Laidlaw also revealed that Dragon Age: Inquisition won't feature any character DLC because it would have to be partly on-disc, and BioWare doesn't want to inspire criticism from fans.

"Because of how deeply enmeshed in the system companion characters are, we can't just add them on the fly - part of them has to be shipped on the disc," Laidlaw said. "Which has led to criticism that we're forcing people to pay for content they already own. It's not the case, but we've decided this time to not go that route. There will be no DLC party members."

Voice-controlled RTS There Came an Echo is headed to the PlayStation 4 alongside previously announced ports for Xbox One and PC, developer Iridium Studios announced this week.

In There Came an Echo, players control an armed squadron using voice commands, issuing orders to the group and to individual teammates amid hectic firefights. Players can fully customize the game's recognized commands (allowing your squadmates to respond to a Captain Picard-esque "Make it so!" during combat, as the trailer above demonstrates), and the game features DualShock 4 controller support in addition to the default microphone controls.

There Came an Echo earned more than $115,000 in backer funding when it turned to Kickstarter for support in 2013, and is due for a Steam release later this year. [Video: Iridium Studios]

This summer, Magic 2015: Duels of the Planeswalkers brings the collectible card game series to Xbox One for the first time, but it looks like the game isn't coming to PlayStation platforms in the near future. Wizards of the Coast announced Magic 2015 for Xbox One, Xbox 360, Steam, iPad, Android and Kindle, with PS3 and PS4 conspicuously absent from the deck; previously editions have traditionally come to PS3 at launch. As for the summer due date, that's only specified for Xbox One, and Wizards of the Coast notes its releases may vary from platform to platform.

Talking of decks, you'll be able to build customized ones in Magic 2015, and Wizards of the Coast promises "more robust" deck-building features to boot. Meanwhile, the story pits players as the prey of primal hunter and generally deadly dude Garruk Wildspeaker.

Of course, we might be seeing Magic: The Gathering on bigger screens in the future, after 20th Century Fox's purchase of the series' screen rights earlier this year. We look forward to the inevitable video game based on the collectible card game based on the movie based on the collectible card game. [Image: Wizards of the Coast]

Press Play's new game, Project Totem, is a brain-bending platformer.

The Xbox 360 version of Titanfall will not be available via Xbox Live's Games on Demand service, according to a post on EA's official support website.

Bullets soar in slow motion once again in Sniper Elite 3, a new installment of Rebellion's third-person shooter coming to PS4, Xbox One, PC, Xbox 360 and PS3 this summer. Continuing the franchise's tense action through the second World War, Sniper Elite 3 focuses its efforts on the mountainous regions of North Africa in a prequel to the franchise's original releases.

What fascinates and still disturbs me about the Sniper Elite series is its relationship with bullets. Sometimes, you fire away and the ammunition is simply disposable destruction, but every so often the game becomes enamored with a single shell. It lovingly slows the camera down and sways as the killing shot exits your rifle's chamber, triumphantly careening toward its new owner (also known as the guy you just shot). As the bullet hits, the enemy's body contorts; in a single cut, the camera pans around both the baddie and the bullet in an eloquent and disturbing dance of death.

Get a room, you guys.

This is State of Service, an ongoing review of the online service of a recently launched game. See our scored review of Titanfall here. Friday, April 11 | Final Verdict
Overall State of Service: Good
Summary: Stable server performance. Isolated issues on PC.

In its first month of availability, neither the Xbox One or PC versions of Titanfall have run into debilitating or pervasive problems. Apart from a few brief outages, Titanfall's performance has been stable, with developer Respawn deploying a handful of updates, including a special matchmaking pool for cheaters and improved matchmaking in general. Yesterday, Respawn also added the ability to play private matches and issued a number of balance tweaks and bug fixes.

Joystiq staffers have encountered no serious problems with either the PC or Xbox One versions during Titanfall's launch month. Some users have reported technical problems on PC, though these seem to be isolated and most have workaround solutions. We've spent some time with the Xbox 360 version since its launch on Tuesday and, while it's visually less impressive and its frame rate isn't as solid, online play appears on par with what we've experienced on PC and Xbox One.

In short, the online-only warfare of Titanfall seems to be running as intended, and we're comfortable declaring that its overall State of Service is Good. The quality of online play has been consistent, and Respawn seems committed to delivering updates and listening to its community.

Press Play, the Danish studio behind Max: The Curse of Brotherhood, announced its next game today, codenamed Project Totem. Like Max, Project Totem is a colorful platformer, and is currently in development for Xbox One and Xbox 360. Press Play is preparing to launch the game this fall.

The "playful yet precise" game has players guiding two totem pole pieces with one game pad. The gameplay concept comes from two brothers, Asger Strandby (Game Director) and Bo Strandby (Lead Designer), who opted to add local cooperative multiplayer to Project Totem in addition to its single player campaign. [Image: Press Play]

Have you seen Child of Light
Ubisoft's platforming RPG?
It's coming on April 30
For consoles and PC.

If you hadn't already guessed
The whole story's told in rhyme
Luckily Ubisoft has better poets
Than Joystiq does. Check out our preview. [Image: Ubisoft]

What the above Sniper Elite 3 trailer lacks in gory, X-ray killcam footage of exploding Teutonic skulls, it makes up for in clear, concise discussion of the joys of stalking Hitler's goons with the aid of a friend. [Image: 505 Games]

This is the "pre-pre-pre-alpha" video of Cult County, the spooky survival game from Dementium series developer Renegade Kid. Developer Jools Watsham walks viewers through the first look at gameplay for Cult County, making sure to note how the dust, wind and creepy messages painted across signs contribute to the atmosphere.

In the game, you return to their childhood hometown in rural west Texas, only to find a new, cultish group has moved into town, Father Pearce has committed suicide, and a storm is rolling in. As the dust storm gathers, you begin to see shadowy figures on the edges of your vision. It's first-person with melee and firearm combat, though so far the main weapon we've seen is a big, red wrench.

Renegade Kid is the studio behind Mutant Mudds and Moon, along with DS horror games Dementium and Dementium 2. It's looking for $580,000 on Kickstarter, and with 21 days left, it's raised $32,000. Cult County is planned for PC, Mac, Linux, Wii U, Xbox One, PS4, PS3 and Vita. [Image: Renegade Kid]

How's it possible that the teaser clip for Below manages to be cute and foreboding at the same time? The upcoming game from the makers of Sword + Sworcery got announced at last year's E3 during the Xbox press event . But there's something of a surprise at the end of the clip that will be of interest to non-Xbox players. And, man, that Jim Guthrie music is freakin' great, right?Read more...

Private matches make their way to Titanfall along with numerous weapon balances.

A small but important feature is lurking in Titanfall 360's Options menu.

Sony reveals new MMO H1Z1 & Fable creator thinks Xbox One's Kinect is a joke. Plus, Titanfall update bringing private matches and Infamous: Second Son sold over 1 million copies.

Not all versions of Titanfall are made equal—at least, not when we're talking about the graphics. Read more...

Rainbow Six studio Red Storm is helping Ubisoft's Swedish house Massive Entertainment and UK studio Ubisoft Reflections with development of The Division, the open-world Tom Clancy game due out in 2014. Mainly, Red Storm's help comes in the form of realistic weaponry.

"I, personally, have been doing it for about six years now," Red Storm Lead Weapons Designer JD Cragg says in an Ubisoft blog post. "One of the guys on my team has been doing it for almost nine. This is pretty much all I do - authentic military weapons, vehicles and that sort of thing."

Red Storm is focusing on the weapons artwork, and it has an in-house authenticity department and connections with the local military. The studio has "tens of thousands of photos" of broken-down firearms.

"We've had manufacturers come in and literally disassemble the entire weapon all the way down to the nuts and bolts, and our guys are taking hi-res photos of those things," Red Storm Producer Tony Sturtzel says. "We probably have unparalleled access to these types of things because of our authenticity department and their focus on relationships. We're not ever gonna let the cat out of the bag on some of the relationships we have."

The Division is due out in 2014 for PC, PS4 and Xbox One, though that release window is reported to be "laughable," according to a Massive Entertainment team member. [Image: Ubisoft]

It's a general rule that most constantly-connnected competitive shooters will evolve and change a whole lot in their lifetimes. Titanfall's the newest king of the hill in FPSland and the hit game is no exception. There's a new patch inbound for the hit game and it's reconfiguring a lot of stuff. Among other things, it'll add a Private Match option. Huzzah!Read more...

Titanfall will receive an update "later today," Respawn Entertainment tweeted this morning. While it didn't offer a full list of details for the update, nor the platforms it will land on, the update will introduce private match support. "Update coming later today with private matches, gooser update, etc. We'll post lots of info on it as it rolls out," the tweet reads.

Respawn Co-Founder Vince Zampella said in March that private matches were one of the gameplay elements the developer planned to add after Titanfall's launch, one of the "things that we want in the game that we didn't get to ship in the final game."

The update will also tweak the Gooser Challenge in the game, which the developer also indicated was coming as of late March. The challenge previously required players to kill 50 ejecting pilots, which will be reduced to just five, according to the prior developer blog on the matter. "We went a bit too far with this challenge, especially considering the unique conditions that have to be met in order to have the opportunity to get a kill on an ejecting Pilot," Respawn wrote at the time.

We've reached out to Respawn for a list of the updates in today's patch. [Image: Respawn Entertainment]

Is it just me or is the current transition to 'next-generation' consoles extremely, extremely weird?Read more...