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Overwatch’s Mercy Gets Drastic Change
Overwatch’s Mercy is getting a massive overhaul according to developer Jeff Kaplan, “and it’s going to seem a little bit shocking at first,” Kaplan said.
The big shocker? Mercy’s ultimate ability will no longer be Resurrect, which will now be a secondary common ability.
Mercy will no longer have the ability to resurrect multiple teammates at once and the ability will have a “rather long cooldown”.
However, Mercy now has Valkyrie, an ability that allows her to fly.
“She can fly, and I don’t mean that she can Pharah-boost in the air briefly, I mean she can fly,” Kaplan described (h/t Polygon).
“And it’s super fun. You have complete control of your character. After all, Mercy has those wings we might as well put them to real use. I mean, Guardian Angel’s pretty good, but imagine flying with Mercy, how much fun it could be.”
Valkyrie also unleashes the full power of Mercy’s Valkyrie Suit, enhancing her weapons and abilities for 20 seconds and will also boost Mercy’s other abilities, giving her a shorter Resurrection cooldown and making her more powerful in “Battle Mercy” mode.
Here is the breakdown:
- Caduceus Staff: Mercy’s healing and damage boost beams now affect all allies near the targeted teammate, and the staff’s effective range has been extended
- Caduceus Blaster: Granted infinite ammo, while simultaneously increasing damage and fire rate
- Guardian Angel: Increased range and movement speed
- Resurrect: Cooldown is instantly reset when Valkyrie is activated and reduced to 10s after the initial cast
- Hover: Mercy gains the ability to fly freely, at increased movement speed
- Regeneration (Passive): No longer interrupted when Mercy takes damage
Content creation platform Patreon has officially tabbed Adiya Taylor as their new corporate communications lead, effective in February, according to an official announcement.
Taylor worked for Amazon’s video game streaming platform Twitch for three years in a variety of roles, most recently serving as the company’s senior monetization communications manager prior to her departure.
Taylor’s hiring comes after Patreon brought on Brielle Villablanca as Vice President of communications and creator advocacy back in November 2023.
“I’m thrilled to begin crafting and implementing a communications strategy around policy, trust and safety, product and more,” Taylor said during an official post on the networking platform LinkedIn, adding that she believes Patreon is a “true advocate” for creators.
“I’m looking forward to more storytelling around how we’re fostering fandom so that creators own long-lasting businesses built around their artistry,” Taylor added.
Microsoft has responded to recent reports that there will be changes to it’s first-party strategy and has confirmed that four game titles will be released on rival consoles.
More specifically, Xbox head Phil Spencer said that ‘Starfield’ and ‘Indiana Jones’ will not be among the four titles heading to other platforms. Both games had a number of candidate platforms, per reports, adding that this is “not a change to our fundamental exclusive strategy.”
“We don’t damage Xbox and we can grow our business using what other platforms have to help us with that,” Spencer said, according to GamesIndustry.biz. “Looking forward, I think there is an interesting story for us of introducing Xbox franchises to players on other platforms to get them more interested in Xbox. We think there’s a good brand value for Xbox there.”
Xbox president Sarah Bond announced that Activision Blizzard games would begin to be added into Game Pass offerings, starting with Diablo 4, which will be added on March 28th.
Additionally, Bond said that Microsoft is still working on hardware for the future and that their focus regarding the future is “delivering the largest technical leap you will ever have seen in a hardware generation.”
Sega Sammy has released its financial report for the nine-month period that officially concluded on December 31st, 2023, and that report that demonstrated a rise in overall sales and profit despite a decrease in sales for Sega’s new titles.
That decline was offset by growth in pachislot and pachinko machines, however Sega had lowered its sales forecasts for the full financial year.
Here is a breakdown, courtesy of GamesIndustry.biz.
- Net sales: ¥349.9 billion ($2.3 billion, up 28.7% year-on-year)
- Operating income: ¥54.4 billion ($364 million, up 42.4% year-on-year)
- Ordinary income: ¥57.2 billion ($383 million, up 42.7% year-on-year)
- Net sales were up 130.3% to ¥120.2 billion ($805 million) in this segment
- Ordinary income increased by 521.3% at ¥45.7 billion ($306 million).
- Entertainment Contents segment, which includes video games, net sales were up 4.2% at ¥219.3 billion
- Profit decreased by 52.5% to ¥19.7 billion ($131.8 million) as a result of weak game sales
You can read a breakdown of the entire report at GamesIndustry.biz here.
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