Extra launchers are like per-channel streaming services: not needed

Another?? launcher bits the dust. The Bethesda launcher is no more by the time May 2022 hits, and you can transfer to Steam a month early in April.

Her??e's the gist, and the bolded part is important:

"We’re saying goodbye to the Bethesda.net Launcher this year. We would like to thank you for your support and assure you that all of your games are safe. If you’re not playing PC games through the Bethesda.net launcher then your work is done here. Thanks for reading! If you do have games through the Bethesda.net launcher, don’t worry. Starting in early April you’ll be able to migrate your games and Wallet to your Steam account. For more details on what this process will look like, read on. You have plenty of time to plan and begin migrating your Bethesda.net library to your Steam account. The migration to Steam will include your game library and Wallet �meaning you will not lose anything from your Bethesda.net account."

Basically everything will transfer from the Bethesda launcher. Saves, character progress for Fallout 76, atoms (microtransaction currency), seasonal progress, friends lists, the works. The only game saves that cannot transfer, curiously, involve Wolfenstein Youngblood. This seems to be as painless as possible, which is a ??huge plu?s.

If you're impacted, you can find the entire article here? ??with all the details. Fallout 76 has its own FAQ here, which is relevant because testing took place in the Bethesda launcher exclusively. According to the publisher, "going forward, playtesting for all future PTS phases wil??l only be available on PC thro??ugh Steam." Again, easy!

As for the closure; competition is good, in theory. Steam is a monolith, and if someone wants to come along and provide products in a different way, with advantages (like how GOG provides ??????????????????????????DRM-free games), so be it. Competition benefits everyone, as Steam has added consumer-friendly features in direct response to other services in a bid to stay relevant.

Having said that, not every p??ublisher needs their own launcher, especially if it's adding nothing of value.

The post The Bethesda launcher is dead, everyt?hing will move to Steam appeared first on Destructoid.

Sisters and bros

Road trips and family bonding. Those are the themes for the newest additions ?to Xbox Game Pass. Also, monster slaying an?d Nazi slaughtering. We'd be remiss if we didn't mention all the death.

Tomorrow, Xbox Game Pass gets two big games in two big franchises. Both Final Fantasy XV and Wolfenstein: Youngblood are coming to Xbox Game Pass on both Xbox One and PC. Final Fantasy XV is somehow already approaching its fourth anniversary later this year; Youngblood i??s younger blood, as it just released la??st summer.

The road forks between platforms when it comes to the third game. Consoles get co-op puzzler Death Squared on February 13. PC gets Death's Gambit, which can probably be most succinctly summed up as a "Castlevania Souls-like."

Of course, there isn't addition without subtraction. Xbox Game Pass is losing Disney Epic Mickey 2, Jackbox Party Pack 2, Pumped BMX Pro, Rage, and Shadow of the Tomb Raider soon.

Coming Soon to Xbox Ga?me Pass for Console: Final Fantasy XV, Wolfenstein: Youngblood, and Death Squar??ed [Xbox Wire]

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La Resistance

Bethesda has released a glut of free content for its wild co-op shooter Wolfenstein: Youngblood. The new update, which is live in-game right now, sees our heroes Jessie and Zofia continue to lay waste to the N?azi menace embedded within Neu-Paris.

Players who complete the Da'at Yichud Artifacts side-quest will now have access to a new endgame chapter, adding two new treasure-hunting locations including a heavily-fortified Nazi bunker and a beautiful Parisian reservoir. There will be no time ?for sight-seeing, however, as new enemies - such as the turret-sporting Las?erhund, the Electrodrohne drone, and the teleporting Wurmlochsoldat - are all out to put a grim end to your day.

To help you combat The New Order, a selectio??n of new abilities are being added to the skill tree. This includes Silent Killer for stealthier assassination, Quad Damage for the more bombastic among you, Resilience to make walking through explosions a breeze, and God Key Sense for easier location of hidden treasures. There will also be some new skins made available, so you can look amazing whilst you liberate Europe.

Wolfenstein: Youngblood is available now on PS4, PC and Xbox One. A Nintendo Switch port is expec??ted in the near future.

Wolfenstein: Youngblood – New? Mi??ssions, Maps, Abilities & More in Update 1.0.7 [Bethesda]

Explore ALL NEW areas of Paris in #Wolfenstein: Youngblood Update 1.0.7, our biggest content update yet, now LIVE on PC, PlayStation 4, and Xbox One; and coming soon to Switch! //t.co/bX13XLu5m5 pic.twitter.com/P6iXrDFaNK

— Wolfenstein (@wolfenstein) November 12, 2019

The post Wolfenste?in: Youngblood free content update adds new locations, skins, and skills appeared first on Destructoid.

Those Nazis aren't so tough now

Wolfenstein: Youngblood just got easier, nearly across the board. Developer MachineGames has implemented some tweaks in the newest patch that should make Youngblood less difficult in all regards.

Update 1.05 has a lot of changes, but the standouts concern boss fights. MachineGames has adjusted the difficulty of all boss fights to make them easier. General Winkler is specifically mentioned ?as a boss that has his health lowered t?o better match the difficulty of the Zeppelin level.

Another import?ant fix is the addition of checkpoints. Now, tower missions and tower guardian fights have checkpoints so that dying doesn't negate too much progress. Also, failing and restarting at a checkpoint ?now guarantees that base weapons are filled to at least 50 percent capacity.

Wolfenstein: Youngblood's?? 1.05 patch is live today on Windows PCs; it's coming soon to PS4 and Xbox One. Here are the patch notes in full:

Patch Highlights:

• Adjusted difficulty of all boss fights.
• Enemies can now have their health bars toggled on or off in the Options menu. (This does not turn off armor types.)
• Took a variety of actions to reduce the feeling of enemy "bullet sponginess."
• An amount of ammo for basic weapons is now replenished after a player respawns.
• Added more special weapon ammo throughout more difficult areas.
• Added duplicate tutorial laptops to the game to make 100% completion more attainable.
• Fixed an issue that could cause some enemies in certain areas to spawn prematurely.
• Increased the speed of switching between certain weapons to make it easier to adapt to enemy armor types.

Bug Fixes:

• Client players can now explode Host player DKW charges by shooting them.
• A data tape required to complete the Silent Outpost mission could go missing, preventing completion of the mission. This tape will now appear correctly for all players.
• Equalized damage modifiers for all weapon classes and upgrades for Host and Client players. Previously a bug could cause one player to do a lot more damage with certain weapon types and upgrades.
• The "available unlocks" and message could play despite there being active enemies. This will no longer occur.
• Fixed a variety of timing bugs with completion events that could cause progression not to be saved in certain circumstances.
• Co-op levers will now work much more reliably when playing solo.
• Improved sister AI so that she gets out of the way of large enemies more often and improved ability to successfully heal the player when they are downed.

Balance Changes:

• Tutorials not collected by players in Paris Streets sections 1 or 2 will now be present in Paris Streets section 3. This will allow players to backtrack from later sections of the game in order to get tutorials that count towards game completion percentage.
• Added checkpoints to all Tower mission and Tower Guardian fights. Note that returning to the towers after completing the main missions will not have checkpoints.
• Players who expend all lives and reset to the latest checkpoint will now find their base weapons refilled to at least 50% of ammo capacity. This will function with all ammo modifier skills and upgrades but does not affect special or heavy weapons.
• Additional special weapon ammo has been added to all boss and guardian fights.
• We have doubled the amount of damage done to armored enemies by the incorrect weapon type. This will result in enemies feeling much less absorptive of damage when the player has the wrong weapon equipped. We still highly encourage players to spend their silver to upgrade a variety of weapon types so as to maximize damage to tough enemies.
• General Winkler has had his health lowered to be more in line with the difficulty of the Zeppelin level.
• The Bombdog damage has been slightly lowered.
• The base Shotgun, Autopistol, and SMG damage output has been increased to bring them in line with other basic weapons.
• Tower Gate Guardians have had their level lowered in all Districts to better reflect the level of enemies inside the Towers. The Towers are still intended to be played by players level 20 or higher.
• Added the ability to toggle "iron sights" on/off. This option can be found in the Controls menu.
• Lowered controller rumble on Xbox One.
• Added the option to turn off enemy health bars to the Gameplay options. Note that this will not turn off armor barriers or enemy level, so we recommend players have a high degree of familiarity with enemies before turning health bars off.
• Added more than 20 additional duplicate tutorials to the Districts to allow for easier game completion as well as better coverage for new players.
• Added a unique icon for Tutorial Computers when player has the correct Secrets Collector upgrade.
• Lowered Lothar's healthpoints during the "Penthouse" stage of the boss.
• Made a variety of changes to Lothar's accuracy and damage during his final stage.
• Added an alarm and audio cue for the 4th Reich jet planes during the Lothar fight to give players more of a chance to dodge or shoot down the planes.
• Reduced the number of missiles during the Lothar flight stage.

Balance changes, bug fixes and more arriving in Wolfenst?ein: Youngblood's 1.??0.5 Patch [Bethesda]

The post Wolfenstein: Youngblood’s latest patch turns down the difficulty appeared first on Destructoid.

1.0.4 coming 'later this week,' 1.0.5 is on the way

Wolfenstein: Youngblood is trucking along with its co-op-ness, and the co-development teams of Machine Games and Arkane are still updating it. It's already up to patch 1.0.4, actually, which is set to arrive "la?ter this week," with a heap of improvements.

Oddly enough the ability to "pause offline mode" is one of them (gaming in 2019, am I right?), coupled with a handful of bug fixes and improved animations. You can read all of the alterations below, but a tease of update 1.0.5 sounds much more interesting. The big thing is "additional checkpoints," which shoul??d make some of the later missions feel like less of a slog, especially if you're going in underleveled. This will be accompanied by "difficulty adjustments across the board," with boss fights specifically called out as a focus: the term "bullet sponges" is also used, which is a common complaint from the playerbase.

The co-team is also adding more ammo, the chance to toggle health bars on/off, and are making it easier to get 100% game completion. I mean straight up that's a direct response to a lot of the outcry surrounding the game. These changes should make Youngblood feel less like Borderlands and more like Wolfenstein.

As someone who r??ecently played through the campaign with a co-op partner, I think 1.0.5 is going to be a marked improvement, and 1.0.4's fixes are welcome.

Upcoming Wolfenstein: Youngblood Patches [Bethesda.net]

Upcoming Patch Highlights

Update 1.0.4

The team at Machine Games has been working on adding a pause function for Offline mode, as well as fixing several issues that players have encountered with achieving 100% game completion. We are targeting this update for later this week on PC, and a couple days later on PlayStation 4 and Xbox One. Stay tuned for further news on the?? Nintendo Switch version.

You can read the full patch notes for 1.0.4?? below.

Update 1.0.5

In our 1.0.5 u?pdate, we are working to address a host of game difficulty and progression issues based on your feedback.? This includes:

• Additional checkpoints
• Difficulty adjustments across the board, especially in boss fights
• Addressing the feeling some players have expressed that some enemies feel like “bullet sponges”
• Adding additional ammo throughout the game
• An option to toggle enemy health bars on/off
• Making it easier to get 100% game completion

Please stay tuned for more specifics and timing of this update soon! Be sure to follow us @ Wolfenstein on Twitter and Facebook for all the latest news.

Update 1.0.4 Patch Notes (Coming later this week)

Gameplay

All Platforms

• Added ability to pause the game in OFFLINE mode only. Although we have tested this feature extensively, if you encounter any issues please let us know by submitting a support ticket to //help.bethesda.net.
• Removed the ability to open padlocked doors from the wrong side, as this was causing some issues with mission progression
• Client players will once again take normal damage from environmental explosions (fire extinguishers, fuel tanks, etc.)
• Players will now correctly be able to catch friendly and enemy grenades after taking the Grenade God upgrade
• Client players were having health and ammo fully restored in some circumstances after picking up a heavy weapon
• Uberhammer projectiles will now explode properly under all conditions
• Fixed an issue where one player could end up rotated in the wrong direction while interacting with elevator levers

Art and Graphics

All Platforms

• Improved the animation when viewing your sister opening Shared Life crates (eliminates teleporting)
• Fixed a variety of audio issues, including resolving audio dropouts after equipping the flashlight weapon upgrade on the Kugelgewehr

User Interface

All Platforms

• The Protohund marker for “Destroy the Protohund” and “Collect the Box” missions will no longer appear on the minimap when the mission is not set to active
• Opening the Journal while activating fast travel now interrupts fast travel. This corrects a variety of issues with loading and UI
• Fixed a reticle issue that could cause your weapon crosshair in Wolfenstein: Youngblood to appear when playing the “classic” Wolfstone 3D arcade game in the Paris Catacombs
• Corrected an issue that could cause “Call for Help” to not be available after using a Shared Life. “Call for Help” should now be available if the player is down but their sister is alive
• Fixed an issue when performing certain actions while opening the in-game options menu that could cause the camera to become permanently tilted

Xbox One

• Fixed an issue that was causing some players to create an Online game even though they chose the Offline option

Audio

All Platforms

• Fixed a variety of audio issues, including resolving audio dropouts after equipping the flashlight weapon upgrade on the Kugelgewehr

Online Co-op

All Platforms

• Fixed a network packet issue that could cause session disconnects when too many explosions occurred in co-op, resulting in players getting dropped from their co-op game
• Resolved crash that could happen with the Client in a co-op game used Crush, then immediately performed a melee attack on the enemy

PC

• Fixed the error message players would receive if their Steam Privacy settings were set to Friends Only. Note that your Steam profile must be set to Public in order to ?view Steam friends through the in-game invite menu

Miscellaneous Bug Fixes

All Platforms

• Enemies will no longer float in midair next to the walkways in Lab X
• The last used weapon was not being properly equipped when the player dropped a heavy weapon
• Resolved issue where enemies could become stuck floating during the “Lothar and Juju’s trap” mission

PC

• Changed “Could Not Write Crash Dump” error message to be more descriptive. Crash Dumps are files that contain information relating to a crash; this message would appear any time a crash occurred—which could occur for different reasons—and may have led to confusion that “Could Not Write Crash Dump” was a specific error. As these files tend to be large (~58mb) Crash Dump writing remains off by default. The new message gives explicit instructions on how to turn on Crash Dump writing should you choose to assist in diagnosing the cause of your crash

The post Wolfenstein: Youngblood’s newest patch includes classic Bethesda bug fixes and an offline pause option appeared first on Destructoid.

Sisters Are Doin' It for Themselves!

Wolfenstein II: The New Colossus has become an incredibly divisive game since its release in 2017. While it brought some hefty and frenetic gunplay with excellent presentation, the actual gameplay aspects took a backseat to a poorly written and sloppily paced story mode. While BJ Blazkowicz was still a fairly deep and interesting character (along with being portrayed wonderfully by actor Brian Bloom), most of the supporting cast were caricatures in the vein of grindhouse films without any of the same charm. It also didn't help that the story mode peaked around the mid-point and petered out ??without much fanfare at the end.

When Wolfenstein: Youngblood was announced, I was happy that MachineGames was sidelining BJ for a bit. While the man is captivating and a clear anchor for this series, taking a step away from the legendary figure to focus on his offspring could lend some new ideas that may strengthen the inevitable Wolfenstein III. Breaking it out into a co-op game, too, could allow for a stronger focus on gameplay versus the overwhelming story bits from II.

MachineGames has certainly succeeded in catering more to the gameplay aspect than last time, but it hasn't quite nailed the same formula that made The New Order feel so refreshing five years ago.

Wolfenstein: Youngblood (PS4, PC [Reviewed], Xbox One, Nintendo Switch)
Developer: MachineGames, Arkane Studios
Publisher: Bethesda Softworks
Released: July 25, 2019 (PC), July 26, 2019 (Consoles)
MSRP: $29.99

The beginning of Youngblood makes it seem like this will be another story-heavy experience like Wolfenstein II. In ??a cutscene where BJ Blazkowicz's children, Soph and Jess, are training, the iconic figure gives a speech about how the girls need to be aware of their surroundings at all times. It's a clear setup for the? new co-op focus, which sees you and a friend blast Nazis together and have each other's backs. BJ is basically a god, at this point, so he knows a thing or two about spotting Nazis without looking.

After that, Youngblood cuts to you and your partner on a mission in the Paris Catacombs. With Hitler dead (spoiler alert, I gues??s), Soph and Jess are tasked with mopping up the stragglers to the Nazi regime. When you return, you discover that your father has gone missing on his latest expedition into the heart to the N?azi forces. Not a duo to sit around and wait, you take up arms in locating your father and purging the Nazis from this world once and for all.

That's really about the gist of the story, too, because it takes a backseat to what Youngblood is really about: shooting Nazis. As I said above, the gameplay portion of this latest Wolfenstein game is tipped far more in favor of letting players interact with its game world than New Colossus was. That's kind of a blessing and a curse because I'm still not? quite sure how I feel about it.

I'm also not sure I’m totally down with the changes done to the formula here. Previous Wolfenstein games were more like old-school shooters in that you only had to worry about enemy positioning and ammo counts. They operated with very light RPG and upgrading mechanics to give you a sense of progression throughout your playthrough. Youngblood might as well be called Borderlands: Nazi Edition because this is pretty much a loo??ter shooter with heavy RPG mechanics.

As you kill Nazis, you'll gain experience that levels you up. As with any RPG, you gain permanent stat boosts for each level and are awarded experience points to invest in various attributes. These take the place of the perk system in the last two Wolfenstein titles. In those games, using guns and performing specific actions gave you permanent upgrades for BJ that would increase his fire rate, give him more health and ammo, or allow him to move ??silently.

For Youngblood, you're now working through a skill tree that you unlock with the aforementioned experience points. A separate currency of silver coins also factors in by allowing you to unlock weapon u??pgrades, cosmetic options, and "Peps," which are co-op specific actions that provide temporary boosts to you and your friend. You'll find things like a health booster that restores 50 health upon use, to a power-up that will grant you 10 seconds of invulnerability for getting out of tight situations.

I can't believe I'm writing this all out in regards to a Wolfenstein game, but Youngblood really does buck the trend of what you'd expect. This even follows into the level design, which has far more sprawling and open-ended layouts than the three games before it. Thanks to the guidance of Arkane Studios (famous for Dishonored and Prey), Youngblood almost feels like Deus Ex with how many different pathways you can take to reach the same location. This isn't an open-world, mind you, but more a sandbox than the linear corridors of what MachineGames previously did with Wolfenstein.

It's really the best aspect of the game because the RPG systems make the gunplay stumble quite a bit. Instead of being a skill-based shooter, this is now a numbers game and you'll get instances where you're unloading entire machine gun clips into an enemy without them falling. I'm especially taken back by how the pistol, which was super versatile for stealth takedowns in both The New Order and The New Colossus, is now practically worthl?ess since it can't perform heads??hots.

The weapons that take the biggest hit are the heavy guns, though. For all its faults, Wolfenstein II had these amazing moments where you'd rip a turret off its mount and go to town on Nazi fools. Much like the neutering of the pistol, the heavy weapons are basically useless against the inflated health bars of your foes. In an interesting move, specific enemies have weaknesses to different guns – which forces you to think smarter about what you're firing – but it seems none of them a?re ??weak against these heavy options.

Even with those faults, it's hard to deny that coordinating with your buddy and striking from multiple points is just plain fun. I'm guessing those health bars were increased because the game would be too easy otherwise. Even on "Challenging" difficulty, the game’s hardest available setting, my co-op partner and I were barely breaking a sweat. It was mostly us ducking behind cover, popping near 100 bullets into a foe, and watching as the AI failed to stick to a single target. There we?re some amazing bits where I'd be face to face with some jerk, peppering him with bullets with reckless abandon, while my partner was across the map distracting him. It's kind of hilarious in its stupidity.

What further reduces this difficulty is the nifty system put in play for when you are downed. While there was obviously going to be a revive state (what co-op shooter doesn't have that?), Youngblood provides you with a shared life system for getting out of tricky situations. While this doesn't avoid the problem of being downed while stuck in a revive animation, the game doesn't immediately end when both players are at zero health. One of you can opt to? spend a shared life to heal on the spot and get back into the action. When you're out of those shared lives, then the game is over and you'll need to reload your checkpoint.

Bafflingly, the checkpoints are spotty as hell. While the early missions saw us getting regular saves in scene transitions, the later ones restarted us completely from the beginning after death. We'd get to the boss encounter (of which this game does feature a few), die, and have to navigate through the whole map again. You don't lose your XP or loot, but it's a total pain in the ass to shoot the same foes again in what feels like artificial padding of length. The same could be said for the completely unnecessary co-op actions – such as both of you having to open a door together. It ??also doesn't help that the Nazis level-up alongside you, making the whole XP system feel redundant. It's mostly a reminder that you're playing a video game instead of an interesting new development.

Worse still, my co-op partner and I were never quite sure what we were doing. The main missions are not clearly marked, and there are practically zero interstitial cutscenes to keep you motivated. In much the same way that Metal Gear Solid V felt like too far of a course correction from the overloaded narrative of Metal Gear Solid 4, Youngblood might as well be a mod for Wolfenstein II. There is some st?ory, but its presence is rarely felt during the campaign.

That's a real shame, too, because the dialogue and short interactions between Soph and Jess are honestly a lot of fun. They're written like idiots, but the way they sound when gunning down Nazis or correcting each other's mistakes creates an authentic relationship between the duo. You feel there is a lot of shared respect not only for each other, but for their father, and it helps build the Blazkowicz family into this unstoppable force of nature. The sillier elements of Wolfenstein II are?? still present, but a lot has been done to keep the tone consistent instead of fluctuating all o??ver the place.

I appreciate that aspect and even the well-thought-out level design, but I'm just so torn on everything else. It's fine to make an RPG shooter, but there isn't a lot of care taken in incorporating those elements into Wolfenstein. It's great to let the narrative take a backseat, but you also should remind players what they're fighting for. Youngblood ne??ver feels like a fully realized idea, which ultimately hurts what could have been a great game.

Maybe I just expected too much, but I find myself missing the careful balance of story and gameplay that The New Order had down pat. Youngblood makes plenty of strides forward for this series, but it also takes some steps? backward that end up hurting the overall package.

_{[This review is based on a retail build of the game provided by the publisher.]}

The post Review: Wolfenstein: Youngblood appeared first on Destructoid.

Mein Relief

An earmark of the new Wolfenstein games, at least for completionists, is that they are oppressively hard. Each entry has increasingly-tough difficulty-related achievements/trophies. Wolfenstein: New Order and Old Blood required beating on the Uber difficulty, the most challenging setting developer MachineGames came up with. The ante is upped significantly in Wolfenstein II : The New Colossus with Mein Leben mode; Mein Leben is the toughest difficulty with permadeath?. Fail a single time and you're right back to the opening cutsc??ene.

None of that, surprisingly, is the case with Wolfenstein: Youngblood. MachineGames breaks the trend so that completionists won't have to break a sweat. Youngblood's achievements/trophies have released, and there's nothing related to difficulty. Actually, it seems like you're only expected to spend a good chunk of time with the game to nab everything. Also, there's very little emphasis on cooperative play for a game whose defining hook is that it's Wolfenstein but with co-op.

Without some Mein Leben nonsense in the way, you're (probabl??y) clear to snag a platinum trophy if that's your style. Or, just enjoy the Soph and Jess Rollercoaster and don't worry about optional objectives. But, completionist types will celebrate like it's Victory in Europe Day.

Here's the full list of Wolfenstein: Youngblood's achievements/trophies:

• Youngblood (Platinum) -- Unlock all trophies
• Teamwork (Bronze) -- Complete a mission with a co-op player
• Resistor (Bronze) -- Kill 500 enemies
• Swatter (Bronze) -- Kill 20 drones
• Immovable Object (Bronze) -- Kill 10 charging Supersoldaten
• Bomber (Bronze) -- Kill 50 enemies using explosives
• Supreme Ninja (Bronze) -- Kill 50 enemies using thrown weapons
• Stealthy (Bronze) -- Stealthily kill 50 enemies
• Ripper (Bronze) -- Kill 75 enemies using takedowns
• Trigger Happy (Bronze) -- Fire 100,000 shots
• Prepper (Bronze) -- Pick up 250 loot supplies
• A Red Mist (Bronze) -- Gore 150 enemies
• Rasputin (Bronze) -- Revive or get revived 25 times
• Intruder (Bronze) -- Get through 10 code locks
• Partisan (Bronze) -- Complete all missions
• Airborne (Bronze) -- Kill 50 enemies while airborne
• Sting like a Bee (Bronze) -- Stealth kill 10 Supersoldaten
• Hard Boiled (Bronze) -- Kill 100 enemies while dual-wielding
• Right Tool for the Job (Bronze) -- Kill 75 enemies using the weapon type that's most effective against their shield type
• Heavy Artillery (Bronze) -- Tuck a Hammer weapon away for later
• American Football (Bronze) -- Kill 50 enemies with your Crush ability
• Predator (Bronze) -- Kill an enemy within 3 seconds of uncloaking 50 times
• Supportive (Bronze) -- Perform 100 pep signals
• Tacticool (Bronze) -- Fully upgrade a weapon brand
• Kitted Out (Bronze) -- Obtain 10 weapon upgrades
• Gear Head (Silver) -- Obtain all improved weapon upgrades
• A Better You (Bronze) -- Obtain 5 abilities
• Extra Everything (Bronze) -- Obtain 15 abilities
• More Human Than Human (Silver) -- Obtain all abilities
• See My Vest (Bronze) -- Obtain 5 power armor skins
• Brother 1 (Silver) -- Defeat the Ubergarde in Brother 1
• Brother 2 (Silver) -- Defeat the Ubergarde in Brother 2
• Brother 3 (Silver) -- Defeat the Ubergarde in Brother 3
• Explorer (Bronze) -- Open 200 supply crates
• Expert Explorer (Bronze) -- Open all red supply crates
• Tribute (Bronze) -- Obtain the souvenir from Dunwall
• Audiophile (Bronze) -- Find all Cassette Tapes
• Librarian (Bronze) -- Find all Readables
• Hacker (Bronze) -- Find all Floppy Disks
• 3-D (Bronze) -- Find all 3D Glasses
• Banker (Bronze) -- Find 60,000 coins
• Dark Days (Bronze) -- Find all Undergrounds
• Cinephile (Bronze) -- Find all UVK Covers
• One Woman Army (Bronze) -- Achieve mastery level 10 with all weapons
• Gunslinger (Bronze) -- Achieve mastery level 10 with the Pistole
• Chopper (Bronze) -- Achieve mastery level 10 with the Sturmgewehr
• A Cloud of Lead (Bronze) -- Achieve mastery level 10 with the Kugelgewehr
• Electric Feel (Bronze) -- Achieve mastery level 10 with the Elektrokraftwerk
• Dust to Dust (Bronze) -- Achieve mastery level 10 with the Laserkraftwerk
• Demolition Woman (Bronze) -- Achieve mastery level 10 with the Dieselkraftwerk
• Hammer Time (Bronze) -- Achieve mastery level 10 with a Hammer weapon
• Spray and Pray (Bronze) -- Achieve mastery level 10 with the Blitzgewehr
• Get the Strap (Bronze) -- Achieve mastery level 10 with Maschinenpistole
• Chop and Slice (Bronze) -- Achieve mastery level 10 with a melee weapon

Hidden Trophies:

• God Key (Bronze) -- Obtain the God Key
• Plain Sight (Bronze) -- Enter the Lab X
• World's Best Dad (Bronze) -- Meet up with your father
• Among Friends (Bronze) -- Link up with the resistance
• Airship Down (Bronze) -- Defeat Winkler
• God Mode (Bronze) -- Kill 50 enemies with their own bullets
• Viva la Revolution! (Gold) -- Kill Lothar

Wolfenstein: Youngblood Trophy List Revealed [TrueTrophies]

The post Wolfenstein: Youngblood ??ditches the stupidly tough difficulty achievements appeared first on Destructoid.

Sisterly bonding

BJ Blazkowicz ??is a world-renowned Nazi killer. Turns out, he's not too?? bad at giving a pep talk either.

Wolfenstein: Youngblood is a day away from releasing on PC (and two days on consoles), and BJ has the right words to inspire his twin daughters. In the launch trailer, he reminds his offspring that the world can be an awful place but that they're capable of overcoming all of it. It's probably in BJ's interest that they feel properly motivated; they're off to save him after all.

This isn't BJ's story, though. It's the coming of age tale of Jess and Soph Blazkowicz. It just so happens that coming of age in the Blazkowicz family means painting the streets with?? Nazi blood. The apple doesn't fall far from the tree. 

The post Wolfenstein: Youngblood’s launch trailer is the pep talk you need appeared first on Destructoid.

Jess and Soph can't wait

For some reason, Wolfenstein: Youngblood will be hitting PC a day earlier than the other versions. On Twitter, Bethesda had posted a short trailer noting that Youngblood would be landing on consoles July 26. When a user questioned about the PC version, the company confirmed it will be coming on July 25 for keyboard warriors?.

As of writing, the Steam store page has not been updated, but I think it's hard to refute Bethesda saying the date. I don't know if that aligns with the retail PC version, but everyone e??lse will be a day behind on getting into Jess and Soph's Nazi-killing adventure. If you need to play this as soon as ??possible, then PC is the way to go.

Bethesda [Twitter]

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Censored and Uncensored

Bethesda has announced that both Wolfenstein: Youngblood and Wolfenstein: Cyberpilot (the VR spin-off I'm sure many of you have forgotten about) will be receiving two versions when they launch in Germany. A censored version with all Nazi imagery removed will be the standard release while ?a completely uncensored version with no localization will also be available. This will give German customers the choice between which version of the game they want, even if they won't be able to understand the uncensored one.

The history of Wolfenstein and its German releases is a long and complicated affair. Due to laws put in place after World War 2, the use of Nazi imagery in media has been banned in Germany for obvious reasons. Whether or not you agree with that is a different debate, but this effectively stopped the Wolfenstein series from ever being released in the country until somewhat recently. The first game to receive an official release was Wolfenstein: The New Order and it d?id so by scrubbing away ??everything that made reference to Nazis.

The reason Youngblood and Cyberpilot will be releasing without edits is due to a change in Germany's USK rating board system. Instead of blanket banning any game with Nazi symbolism, the board now looks at the context in which said iconography is being used. Since Wolfenstein is clea?rly not a piece of propaganda, it can be released without edits in the country. Now everyone can kill Nazis instead of having to pretend th??ey are doing it.

Wolfenstein: Youngblood and Cyberpilot will be released uncensored in Germany [The Sixth Axis]

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Slay, sister

Sitting down next to my temporary sister in ??Bethesda's booth at E3, we shake hands. He takes control of Jess while I ge??t to handle Soph. We're the twin daughters of legendary Nazi fighter B.J. Blazkowicz, and he's raised us right. Which is to say, he's raised us to be Nazi killers too.

Out in the deserts of Texas, Jess goes hunting with her father while Soph practices close-quarters combat with her mother. The parents seem a little paranoid, but it becomes apparent why not lon?g after. The twins get thrust int??o their first real combat situation. It's do or die, but they have each other to rely on.

Infiltrating a Nazi zeppelin, Jess and Soph move in for their first kill. Jess tries to kill an unaware Nazi with a hatchet, but fails to land a finishing blow. He readies his weapon to retaliate just as Soph strikes from another angle, turning his head into a splattery red mush. Immediately after, the sisters celebrate their initiation, alternating between cheering and vomiting. Jess complains that his brains got in her mouth. It's a scene th??at manages to be graphic and bloody, but also somehow light and slapsticky.

Finally, my co-op buddy and I gain control, and it's time for us to skulk around this zeppelin and kill some Nazis ourselves. We both took the cloaking option for our first skill, so we use that to good effec??t, using countdowns to get simultaneous stealth kills on two different guards in a room.

We can't keep up the stealth strate??gy forever. Eventually, we flub a knife swing or two and things get loud. Nazis pour in from all sides and their guns are bigger than ours. Thankfully, we just need to kill some of them and take their weapons, then the fight becomes more even.

Movement is crucial in these high-stress situations, and I felt more than capable with all the tools available. The sprint seems especially fast, sliding into a room and blasting a dude never gets old, and the?? combination of a double jump and an edge clamber make maneuvering around the battlefield natural.

We eventually make it to the target we were sent to assassinate on the zeppelin, and he's got a power suit with a ton of armor. I went at him hard and eventually ran out of ammo with everythi?ng but my pistol. My sister was low on health and playing a game of cat-and-mouse with him. We finally got him onto a wing and then shot him into a jet engine, by simultaneously hitting both of his hands as he was hanging. My buddy goes in for a fist bump, and you know I wouldn't leave him hanging.

The example of shooting his hands at the same time is sort of the extent of cooperative mechanics shown in the two-mission demo. There are also the obligatory "doors that are too heavy for one person to open alone" and the "buttons on opposite ends of a room that need to be pressed simultaneously." One cool idea is that the sisters have a shared pool of lives, encouraging you to pick up a downed team?mate, and also creating situations where we were both incapacitated so I chose to bleed out faster so I could come back and pick up my partner, thus spending only one shared life instead of two. It's nothing revolutionary, but perhaps it doesn't need to be.

What it needs to be is a functional shooter that works as well with a living cooperative partner as it does with an AI sister for people who pref?er to play solo. At that, it's looking like it'll be a successful romp through Nazi territ?ory in the hopes of locating the twins' father.

I'm personally interested to see more of the sister moments. The scene surrounding their first kill was endearing con?sidering the subject matter, and I want to get to know them better. I loved seeing their personalities bouncing off each other, and the fact that I'd get those scenes peppered in between a lot of Nazi killing is pretty much fine by me.

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The wolves are loose

Bethesda didn't dwell on Wolfenstein: Youngblood for too long during its E3 2019 press conference, and that's probably f??or the best. It's about what you'd expect – more frenzied FPS action – and it's coming soon enough. Let the trailer do most ??of the talking and we're good. No need to linger any longer.

On July 26, you and a friend can team up (or you can just go it solo) as BJ's twin daughters while they fight their way through Nazi-controlled Paris during the 1980s. That soundtrack was a good de??cision.

Are you down for more Wolfenstein? After finishing Wolfenstein II, I absolutely was, but I feel like I've cooled since then. I'm sure I'll play this eventually – maybe even with Brett! If you spring for the Deluxe Edition of Youngblood, ??you'll get a Buddy Pass tha?t grants access to the full game for a friend.

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Wolfenstein: Youngblood

Although we found out about Wolfenstein: Youngblood a while ago, just this week Bethesda dr??opped some new knowledge on us on what to expect from this not-fully-ret??ail-priced-project.

It'll arrive on July 26 for $30 base ($40 deluxe): if you opt for the deluxe edition you'll net a buddy pass that lets them play the full game for free with you. The pass apparently allows you to invite one friend at a time with an unlimited amount of uses. That info is all well and good, but naturally a lot of folks are wondering if Panic Button will return to handle the Switch port after their celebrated work on Wolfenstein II: The New Colossus, and the answer is yes.

Tucked away on the official FAQ is a confirmation that Panic Button is coming back, a smart move given how poorly a lot of other publishers have handled Switch port visibility. Panic Button has been busy, netting Switch contracts left and right with the aforementioned Wolfenstein work in addition to the recent Doom, Warframe, Subnautica and even Doom Eternal.

Wolfenstein FAQ [Bethesda.net]

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The Terror Twins sounds like a pop band

Wolfenstein: Youngblood, the co-op pseudo-sequel to Wolfenstein II, will be launching on July 26, 2019. Bethesda tweeted out the news via the official Wolfenstein Twitter account with a trailer that sets up the stor?y. Protag??onist BJ Blazkowicz has gone missing and his two daughters, Jess and Soph, are in Paris looking for him. It looks like quite the trip.

In a nice move, buying the "deluxe" edition of the game will grant you the "buddy pass." This will allow you to invite your friend for free so they don't have to buy their own copy. I see Bethesda is taking a page from A Way Out and I appreciate that.

Wolfenstein: Youngblood will be coming to PS4, Xbox One, PC (via Steam), and Switch for $29.99.

Wolfenstein [Twitter]

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Beat the living fuck out of those Nazis some more

Get ready to grab a friend and kill some more Nazis as the twin daughters of B.J. Blazkowicz, named Jess and Soph, in Wolfenstein: Young Blood! Coming next year -- with no official release date as of yet -- it appears Young Blood will be?? taking us to Paris in 1980 for our Nazi killing adventure (if that Oktoberfest ??banner in the trailer is anything to go by).

Notably, this is roughly 19 years after BJ Blazkowicz helped start the second American Revolution in Wolfenstein II: The New Colossus. According to the YouTube trailer's description, the goal of these young gals is to find their missing dad. Here's hoping for a Switch port to follow up on the release of Wolfenstein II on Switch!

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