News
Sea of Thieves “Death Tax” Cancelled
Sea of Thieves is getting a ton of feedback from users who feel like the game is more like a BETA than a live game and despite all that Rare has done to make the game better, it’s hard not to agree with the outcry.
Dying in Sea of Thieves brings you to the afterlife and you’re forced to wait on the ship of an undead ferryman before making your return to live making time the only real cost for respawns.
Rare recently announced their plans to implement a death tax, or fee for respawning.
“This new feature has the Captain of the Ferry of the Damned deduct a small gold fee when you die,” Rare said in an announcement last week. “Rates are dependent on the cause of death, so the more avoidable the death, the less patience the Captain will have when we enable this feature!”
Gamers pushed back claiming that the penalty could increase toxicity, makes very little sense and discourages players from doing other fruitful things in the game, among other things.
Rare reacted to the fight back and is now cancelling the death tax plans:
“Letting everyone know we’ve heard the feedback and the proposed ‘Death Cost’ in #SeaOfThieves is, well, dead,” Neate said on Twitter. “We messed up with the messaging around this, and it’s now gone. Thanks for the honest feedback & discussion on this.”
FromSoftware title ‘Armored Core 6: Fires of Rubicon’, which is published by Bandai Namco, has laid claim to the top spot of the boxed charts in the United Kingdom this week following it’s August 25th release.
Armored Core 6’s debut pushed Mario Kart 8 Deluxe to the second overall spot in news that video game journalists have been covering extensively.
According to GamesIndustry.biz, Bandai Namco believes that ‘Armored Core 6: Fires of Rubicon’ is a “big step up in the franchise’ and communicated their hopes that it would surpass previous Armored Core games following the increased popularity in the game developers work on Elden Ring.
The United Kingdom charts also saw The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom move back to the 3rd spot, and FIFA 23 holding the 4th spot.
The biggest rise was from Lego Star Wars: The Skywalker Saga, which jumped back in the top top from it’s previous 24th spot to land in 6th with a 146% increase in sales. That game, along with Hogwarts Legacy, is currently a part of a Playstation 5 bundle.
The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt Game of the Year edition entered the Top Ten this week with an appearance in the 9th spot.
The news wasn’t so good for The Texas Chainsaw Massacre which saw a debut in the 13th spot last week but has now dropped to 37th following a 43% decrease in sales week-on-week, despite it’s initial push on every video game streaming platform following it’s heavily hyped arrival.
Here is a breakdown from the United Kingdom Boxed Top Ten for the week ending on August 26th, via GamesIndustry.biz.
| Last Week | This Week | Title |
|---|---|---|
| New Entry | 1 | Armored Core VI: Fires Of Rubicon |
| 1 | 2 | Mario Kart 8 Deluxe |
| 4 | 3 | The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom |
| 3 | 4 | FIFA 23 |
| 9 | 5 | Hogwarts Legacy |
| 24 | 6 | Lego Star Wars: The Skywalker Saga |
| 5 | 7 | Mortal Kombat 11 Ultimate |
| 7 | 8 | Minecraft (Nintendo Switch) |
| 12 | 9 | The Witcher III: Wild Hunt GOTY Edition |
| 2 | 10 | Grand Theft Auto V |
Interactive drama developer and BAFTA-nominated studio Scriptic has raised a total $6.2 million in additional seed funding, including $500,000 from the Sony Innovation Fund, bringing the total seed investments to $8.7 million.
The funding will be deployed to continue going towards the expansion of its mobile narrative offerings, and the studio aims to provide its generative AI developer tools to more writers and storytellers.
“It’s a huge honor to have Sony Innovation Fund join our roster of stellar investors, and we’re thrilled that they share our vision for the future of interactive media and storytelling,” Scriptic CEO Nihal Tharoor said, according to GamesIndustry.biz.
This marks another example of studios who find Angel Investors and find VC investors to fund their initiatives, and those deals making waves in the gaming industry.
Following news earlier this year that Larian Studios cited technical issues developing the port, there is now official confirmation that Baldur’s Gate 3 will be launching on Xbox Series X|S consoles this year.
Larian Studios CEO Swen Vincke officially announced the update on social media following a meeting with Xbox head Phil Spencer.
“We’ve found a solution that allows us to bring Baldur’s Gate 3 to Xbox players this year still, something we’ve been working towards for quite some time,” Vincke said in the announcement. “All improvements will be there, with split-screen coop on Series X.”
The Xbox Series S console version of the RPG will not feature split-screen coop, a disappointing part of the update, but Baldur’s Gate 3 will have cross-save progression functionality between Steam and Xbox Series consoles.
Stay tuned here or other prominent video game journalists for more information on Baldur’s Gate heading to Xbox in 2023.
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