Destiny’s Weekly Strikes Are Now Only Available To DLC Buyers

Destiny has been a monster release in more ways than one. After a reported cost of $500 million to develop and promote, a lot was expected from the Activision-published title. That cost turned out to be barely a risk, however. Players bought it it droves, and Activision made that $500 million back through day one sales figures. Bungie’s multiplayer space shooter has even picked up some awards, including “Best Online Experience” at The Game Awards 2014.

It’s no surprise, then, that Destiny’s first additional content pack The Dark Below has kept the buzz going. Alongside new story missions and weapons, some of the main highlights of the DLC are the additional strikes and raids on show (with an extra strike for PS3 and PS4 players). Not only that, but Bungie has also upped the ante in terms of difficulty levels for the new strikes in The Dark Below.

Unfortunately for players who don’t want to spend $20 on the new DLC pack, it looks as though the release of The Dark Below will have a negative effect on the vanilla version of Destiny when it comes to the aforementioned strikes. Both the Weekly Nightfall activity and Weekly Heroic activity are set to The Will of Crota – The Dark Below’s new strike this week, meaning that players who do not have the additional content will not be able to access this week’s activities. Essentially, the most rewarding activities outside of the raid have been stripped away from non-DLC buyers.

It is, of course, somewhat expected – after all, The Dark Below launched today and Bungie will have been itching to unveil what the expansion pack has in store. However, it’s still a kick in the teeth for players who have not purchased the DLC pack yet, or who have no intention of getting it. After all, it is literally stopping players from accessing an important part of Destiny’s content. A potential and all-too-obvious workaround could have seen Bungie including an alternative strike for those without The Dark Below.

David “DeeJ” Dague, Bungie Community Manager, has confirmed that this exclusion is not just a one-off. In future weeks, The Dark Below’s strike could also rotate back into contention as a weekly strike. Speaking on Twitter, DeeJ revealed that “featured heroic activities will be a blend of old and new from week to week.” This was backed up by Bungie’s head of community Eric Osborne. Speaking with Polygon, Osborne stated that “activities like nightfall will periodically feature expansion 1 content.”

It’s not just the playable content that could be a hindrance to players, though. For those who are unfamiliar with Destiny, or who are at low levels, the weekly strikes are the only way for players to earn “strange coins.” These strange coins are a rare currency for the mysterious vendor Xur, who only appears once a week with a variety of high-end gear. By not being able to access this week’s strikes, some players will have to put off buying that top level item.

What do you make of the news? Do you think it’s fair on players who have fought to reach level 30 if they don’t want to buy additional content? Or do you think it’s fine for Bungie to switch out DLC strikes periodically? Let us know in the comments.

Source: Twitter, Polygon

Destiny’s Weekly Strikes Are Now Only Available To DLC Buyers

Sixth ‘Battlefield 4′ DLC Pack To Be Announced Next Week

The Battlefield franchise is in a weird place. The rushed release date-focused Battlefield 4 sort of backfired for developer DICE and publisher Electronic Arts to the point where it received less-than-stellar reviews and helped ignite several lawsuits from shareholders against the publisher for the quality of the game.

For the gamers, the consumers, Battlefield 4 proved problematic for many and required over a year of extensive updates to become the game it should have been at launch. So, after launching in a broken (“unacceptable” according to EA’s CEO) state, and providing less content than its predecessor (Battlefield 3 at least tried to include a co-op mode), EA still went ahead in double-dipping against the player base, asking for players to essentially pay twice the price of the game to get the “Premium” experience and all the DLC that comes with it. They also have those pesky, dirty microtransactions to buy in-game items that are held back from players unless they grind.

For the most hardcore players who stuck with it all along, BF4 is in a much better place now. We really wish Battlefield 4 came out now – with all of its content – instead of when it did with so much less. It would have been one of the better games of 2014. The final DLC as part of the season’s pass, Battlefield 4: Final Stand, released a few weeks ago for Premium subscribers and this week finally released for regular sale. And just as it did, EA is about to share news that they aren’t done. There’s more DLC on the way.

But first, they of course had issues with Battlefield 4: Final Stand this week where it didn’t work for players who purchased it separately. That issue, EA has confirmed, has since been rectified. We couldn’t be more relieved that they made sure to delay Battlefield Hardline until March 2015. Imagine if that came out a month or two ago? At this point, the way games have been releasing in the last few months and given EA and Battlefield’s recent history, it was practically guaranteed to be a mess.

As for what’s next, we’re guessing EA is going to sell more DLC for the Battlefield community to have something new to fill the gap between now and Hardline’s release. We don’t know any official details outside of Producer at DICE LA David Sirland teasing that an announcement on the sixth DLC pack could be announced next Tuesday, December 9th.

@tough_soldier On the 9th I think

— David Sirland (@tiggr_) December 4, 2014

In November, a special dogtag with the word “Uprise” was discovered in the CTE (BF4′s community test environment) which when added to rumors that a sixth DLC is on the way and news of another fan-focused Battlefest month of in-game bonuses, led fans to believe it could be the title of another game expansion.

For the next DLC, DICE and EA have a chance to do something special for fans (to get back that player trust they admitted to losing) if they play their cards right. Charging for this separately after all the nickel and diming they’ve done so far would just be aggravating so perhaps a free DLC pack to bring players back or to entice newcomers to purchase the entire (now discounted) package, would be smart. It would also be a good way for DICE to do something a little more fun-focused, something they just started to do in Final Stand where they teased the origins of Battlefield 2142 and included a usable hovertank.

If you’ve been following our Battlefield coverage these last few years, you know what I’m thinking. Unleash the dinosaurs, DICE. Jurassic World is on the way. The timing is right! Call of Duty has aliens and zombies…

Note: There’s little to no chance of that happening. Perhaps they could use new DLC to tease or setup Hardline or the recently confirmed Battlefield 5 which i coming fall 2016.

In other news, Visceral promised their Frostbite-powered EA shooter will “work” at launch.

Battlefield 4: Final Stand is now available on all platforms. Battlefield Hardline releases March 17 2015 for PC, PS3, PS4, Xbox 360 and Xbox One.

Follow Rob on Twitter @rob_keyes.

Sources: EA, Game Informer

Sixth ‘Battlefield 4′ DLC Pack To Be Announced Next Week

‘Battlefield 4′ Guide: How To Unlock the Phantom Bow

Although needlers and chainsaw guns were all the rage a short decade ago, these days gamers can’t get enough old school bow and arrow. The classic weapon’s comeback may have something to do with The Walking Dead’s Daryl Dixon or the CW’s popular Green Arrow makeover; but regardless of the reason, the weapon is back in a big way. The trend has spilled over into the world of video games in the last few years and it became the weapon of choice in Tomb Raider, The Last of Us, and Crysis 3. Although the bow and arrow dealt some serious damage in those games, the destruction capabilities of Battlefield 4′s Phantom Bow definitely wins the prize.

Battlefield 4′s latest DLC, Final Stand, released on November 18th for Battlefield Premium members and thanks to the overpowered weapon, the game is generating some unexpected hype. Battlefield 4 had a hard time recovering from a rocky launch and the first four DLC packs came and went relatively unnoticed,  but players wreaking havoc in private matches with the Phantom Bow has helped put the first-person shooter back on the radar and add more hype to the game’s final DLC pack. Thanks to the Battlefield community, we now have a crash course on how a player (with the help of other dedicated players) can get their hands on the compound bow.

In the video above, YouTuber jackfrags explains how to access the secret area that players need to visit to pick up the Phantom Bow. Like all DLC weapons in BF, players will need to complete assignments (in this case, three) to unlock the bow. This one is a little tougher than usual, but thankfully, the early access players have already followed the clues and cracked the case. Here are the CliffsNotes…

Use the Elevator in Hangar 21 – This is more complicated than it sounds… Finding the elevator in Hangar 21 is easy enough, but players will need a team of four to get it working. First, each member of your team will need to be wearing one of the new dog tags released in the DLC. Each player must be wearing a different tag, so there can’t be any repeats. Each player also needs to have the secondary Phantom Skull dog tag, as well as the Phantom Soldier and Phantom Weapon Camos equipped. Good luck assembling all of that…

Once you and your team arrive at the elevator rocking all the appropriate flare (on a ranked server), the elevator should be operational.

Unlock the Phantom Facility – Once players arrive at the Phantom Facility, which contains the Phantom Bow and a number of other secrets, they will need to enter a password on the keypad to unlock the room. The Battlefield community assembled on Reddit over the weekend and cracked the code together. Once riding in the elevator, any of the players can enter 1290 429 397648 970 to remove the room’s force field.

Once the force field is deactivated, the whole party can enter the room and start admiring the treasures. In addition to the Phantom Bow, the room also contains orders for the Phantom Operative Assignment. It seems highly likely that the room contains other secrets as well and we have no doubt that the Battlefield community will uncover them shortly.

YouTuber Westie has already begun uncovering some of the other secrets in Final Stand, including an icicle knife and a mini walker. Here is a compilation of some of the secrets he’s already stumbled across…

We’ll be interested to see if the Phantom Bow craze actually brings a lot of players back to BF4 or if the game is too far passed its prime. There are certainly plenty of other new-gen first-person shooters crowing that market, so BF4 has plenty of competition.

Do you plan to pick up the last Battlefield 4 DLC pack so that you can try out the Phantom Bow or have you moved on to newer games? Let us know in the comments.

___

Battlefield 4 is available on PC, PS3, PS4, Xbox 360, and Xbox One.

Follow Denny on Twitter @The_DFC.

Source: YouTube, Reddit

TAGS: Battlefield 4, DICE, Electronic Arts, PC, PS3, PS4, Xbox 360, Xbox One

‘Battlefield 4′ Guide: How To Unlock the Phantom Bow