LevelUP Games (School Project)

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WHAT IS eSPORTS? Spectator gaming, sometimes called e-sports, is the next big thing. Remember when video games weren’t cool?

Jarzabkowski’s father also takes delight in name dropping his son. He had a patient come by who talked about how much he enjoys video games. Jarzabkowski’s father told him that his son is a famous Counter-Strike player.

“He asked him who I was,” he says, “My father said, ‘pashaBiceps.’” Jarzabkowski laughs. “He was in fucking shock!” - Jarzabkowski aka PashaBiceps in a Interview on 1337mag.

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QUOTED: “Teams will act online like they’re doing a certain thing, and then when they get to a tournament, they’ll do something completely different to throw you off.”

- Call of Duty: Ghosts player Seth “Scumpi” Abner on how professional videogame teams surprise their competitors.

For some people, it’s esoteric and dull. For others, it’s a thrilling spectacle. Its legions of fans can recite the names and long, rivalrous histories of its many players. And right now, a major tournament has gathered the faithful in one place for a boisterous showdown.

Among Us, and Microsoft’s Killer Instinct.

It’s sometimes difficult to explain why the professional players are so impressive if you’ve never seen or played the games at a nonprofessional level. The basic goals are accessible enough — usually boiling Soccer? Nope. Professional com- down to “kill the other guy” — but petitive videogaming. like the significance of one particular opening move or another in Many within the pro gaming world chess, the means to accomplishing call it eSports, and the organizer that goal are deceptively simple. of this weekend’s tournament in Anaheim, Calif. — Major League “I think one of the issues is, eSGaming — makes a point of com- ports is just insanely fast compared paring itself to the traditional to other sports, so keeping up with sports world, early and often. The what’s going on is difficult,” MLG 12-year-old company’s logo would co-founder Mike Sepso said. “That be right at home alongside the challenge of, how do you get more MLB’s and NBA’s, and last year it people interested in understanding began broadcasting the eSports Re- what’s going on on the screen, it’s port, an online show that borrows not something unique to eSports. heavily from ESPN’s SportsCenter All sports have the same challenge.” as it recounts the latest in pro gaming news.

In that context, traditional sports have a big leg up. Basketball has But there are some big differenc- been around for 123 years, while es between eSports and “normal” the Call of Duty franchise isn’t old sports that may keep them just enough to have had a bar mitzout of reach for non-gamers. You vah. Plus, the fields, courts and know, besides the whole exercise rinks in sports are boringly boxy, thing. but each new installment of or update to a franchise can be a literal THE GAMES game-changer. Players (and viewers) transitioning from 2012’s Call One of the biggest differences be- of Duty: Black Ops II to 2013’s Call tween a pro sports league like like of Duty: Ghosts had to learn the the NBA and a pro gaming league ins and outs of 12 new multiplayer like Major League Gaming (MLG) maps. is, of course, that the latter covers multiple games. There are five “This Call of Duty has been out games being played at this week- since last November, so a lot of end’s tournament, which concludes people already know the game,” today. On the largest stage, Activi- professional Call of Duty player sion’s shooter Call of Duty: Ghosts; Seth “Scumpi” Abner said. “[But] on the second-largest, Blizzard’s teams will act online like they’re strategy game Starcraft II: Heart doing a certain thing, and then of the Swarm; and on the smallest when they get to a tournament, stage, three fighting games — Nin- they’ll do something completely tendo’s Super Smash Bros. Me- different to throw you off.” lee, Warner Bros.’ Injustice: Gods

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“

TRAIN YOUR MIND TO SEE TH

The Leagues and Tournaments With apologies to MLG’s PR department, the MLG Championship Anaheim is definitely not directly comparable to the World Cup in significance. Not yet, anyway.

The international fandom of eSports is heavily splintered, and the jury’s still out on who really “owns” it. Is it MLG, well-known to pro gamers in the U.S.? Is it the Europe-based Electronic Sports League, or ESL, which is preparing to challenge MLG on its home turf? Is it Twitch, the video platform where anyone can broadcast gameplay, and that serves as a proving ground for games that are fun to watch?

$18.5 million at the time of this writing. Blizzard also runs its own tournaments for its eSports-friendly games like Starcraft at the BlizzCon convention in November. And last year, the finals of Riot Games’ League of Legends Championship Series sold out the 15,000-seat Staples Center … in one hour.

others like Cloud9 and Team Curse are spread out across multiple titles. Rather than representing a location like New York or Boston, teams are effectively composite brands, and sponsorship aggregators, for personalities and styles of play.

“All of these guys, if you talk to them, they’re all such different personalities,” Call of Duty commentator Ryan “Fwiz” Wyatt said.

“Just like traditional sports — people like Floyd Mayweather because he’s good and he’s arrogant about it.

Some people like the humbler vicThe Teams and Players tory. You find those things and, all of a sudden, you find these teams, To hear MLG itself tell it, this is the and you’re an EnVy fan or an Opkey to understanding eSports. Sep- tic fan or an EG fan. It doesn’t take so said the company’s sales pitch long.” to potential advertisers focuses strongly on the players and teams, And what happens when players and barely on MLG or the games. decide to leave those teams?

“As an advertising sales organization, we spend a lot of time talking about personalities,” he said. “Are you a Yankees fan or a Red Sox fan? Are you an Optic fan or an EG Or maybe there is no single unify- [Evil Geniuses] fan? Those are the ing force. storylines that connect for people.”

Game publisher Valve, for instance, runs a tournament called The International, solely devoted to its own game, Dota 2; this year, it used crowdfunding to build the prize pool for players to nearly

“Optic and EnVy have gone through major roster changes over the past few years, but the team goes on,” Sepso said. “They have the same personality, even though the players might change. It’s the same as Yankees versus Red Sox. When the Yankees traded for JohnThose names he mentioned — Op- ny Damon, they made him shave tic Gaming and Evil Geniuses — his beard.” are just two of the many eSports teams represented here. Some, like But teams aren’t the be-all end-all Team EnVyUs, specialize in cer- of eSports. Some players that qualtain games like Call of Duty, while ified to play in the championship

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HE GOOD IN EVERY SITUATION

matches are free agents, and still others didn’t, in fact, qualify initially. Adjacent to the 1,500-seat Call of Duty section is a sprawling 300-station lineup of PCs and consoles for what’s called the “open bracket.” Hundreds of attendees paid between $55 and $125 to play in the open bracket, and the best of the best get a chance to challenge, the pre-qualified players onstage.

The Fans As a relative newbie to eSports myself, this has been one of the most fun things to see at this weekend’s tournament. Attendance is something of an endurance test, with some 34.5 hours of playtime on the official schedule, though no one would dare stop a game that runs long.

Unlike most traditional sports, the live experience of watching a game at MLG Anaheim is centered around the company’s simultaneous broadcasts. That means there’s always something for the audience to listen to, complementing the gameplay. At a Starcraft match I

watched, small cheers emerged 5 Things You Didn’t when crowd favorite Sasha “Scarlett” Hostyn pulled ahead, but the Know About Pro audience only burst into loud ap- Gaming plause when she emerged victorious from her soundproof booth.

If “professional gaming” was once an oxymoron, those days are long At the Super Smash Bros. stage, gone. Video games, once a somehowever, there were no soundproof what solitary affair, have explodbooths, and the crowd’s hooting ed into full-featured social affairs, and hollering often drowned out thanks to the rise of massive multhe play-by-play commentators. tiplayer online PC games and A special round on Friday pitted features that developed over the players from the East and West lifespan of the Xbox 360 and Playcoasts against one another, and, Station 3. this being a tournament near Los Angeles, the crowd tilted heavily The realm of professional gaming, westward. One audience member known as “e-sports”, truly compriswaved a full-size California state es its own world. With customs, flag from his seat, and audience etiquette and language all its own, members frequently broke out into to the outsider or even the casual soccer-style chants of “ole, ole ole gamer (you know, the Mario Kart ole ole!” type), pro gaming is a whole different ballgame. To wit: “We’re the smallest crowd out there, but we’re the biggest crowd,” 1. People Watch A Lot Of It Smash Bros. commentator Chris “Wife” Fabiszak said. “I was talking As pro gaming’s premier online to MLG staffers at lunch, and they platform, Twitch airs both gamer were saying, ‘I can’t hear my game channels and major competitions. over your game.’ The finals [on The company’s formula smashSunday] are going to bring the es together the stickiness factor house down.” of some of the stickiest services around. Video games already boast impressive engagement numbers, and Twitch blends in social and streaming video—two realms known for their massive engagement numbers, à la YouTube.

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2. You Can Get Rich Doing It 3. E-Sports: Just Like Real Sports, Sort Of In pro gaming, there are two major ways to cash in. One: join a part- With obsessive fans, cutthroat ner program, build a huge online competition and thriving rivalviewership, and get a cut in the ad ries between teams, pro gaming revenue your gameplay rakes in. competition has more in common YouTube, Twitch, MajorLeague- with “real” sports than you might Gaming and plenty of other ser- think. Like any athletic sport, from vices host popular gamers. For the NFL to Olympic figure skating, example, Twitch partner Roberto to become an elite contender in Garcia, better known as Towelliee, e-sports demands intensive pracmade around $96,000 annually tice. according to a Reddit post from 2013—and he’s not even playing Massively, a site dedicated to the pro-gaming’s big money games. broad genre of “massively multiplayer” online games offers this The less D.I.Y. side of playing video advice: games for a living is the surprisingly glitzy world of tournament play.

Practice is the only thing separatIn major e-sports competitions, ing novice League of Legends playthe pot for winning players can be ers from experts. No pro player huge. In a Call of Duty champi- got to where he is today by playing onship last month, winning team only one or two games a day.

CompLexity took home $400,000 of a $1 million prize, divvied up Mastering the jargon of a given among the best. For pro gaming’s game, the names of its characmost elite tournaments prize pots ter classes, moves, strategies and of $2 million and $3 million are greats, is a feat of its own. standard.

Like athletic sports, e-sports can fill a stadium too: last year’s League of Legends championship sold out 13,000 seats at LA’s Staples Center, with millions more watching live online.

and even openly hostile to new players. Dota 2, a multiplayer online battle arena game (called a “MOBA”), boasts such a notoriously high learning curve that your average hardcore gamer won’t touch it with a 10-foot pole.

Skilled Dota 2 player Kevin “Purge” Godec fills his channel with coaching sessions and offers a 10,600word beginner’s guide on his site fittingly titled “Welcome to Dota, You Suck”. It’s not uncommon for gamers to mention Malcolm Gladwell’s 10,000 hours rule—the theory that it takes 10,000 hours of practice to become an expert at something—in reference to getting good at League of Legends, an extremely strategic e-sports staple.

5. South Korea Pwns The Globe

While the U.S. might like to think it’s on top in all things competitive, 4. Playing Games Is Really, South Korea is the uncontested Really Hard king of professional gaming. There are a variety of reasons behind the Many of pro gaming’s most pop- country’s dominance, but wideular (and most lucrative) compet- spread access to ultra-fast Internet itive titles are endlessly complex connections—a prerequisite for

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online games in which a fraction of Depending on the game, they can a second can make a difference— get alot of views online and on the certainly helps. The nation’s Inter- tornament. Just look at those: net is the fastest in the world (the U.S. is ranked 8th) and it’s about to get even faster.

League of Legends, Dota 2 and CSGO are some of the games with the biggest audience.

Widespread, screaming-fast connections power a culture that considers its e-sports winners celebrities. On global leaderboards, South Korea leads e-sports total winnings with $17.6 million and boasts the world’s most successful player, Jae Dong Lee, who’s made over half a million dollars in games like StarCraft. If PC gaming lulled for a bit in Western markets as console gaming stormed into the mainstream, it continued to thrive in Asia.

Still, competitive gaming is a worldwide phenomenon, instantly connecting players who would be total strangers in any other context. In the last few years, pro gaming has taken off in the U.S. and it certainly shows no signs of slowing down.

Gamers can tune in to watch other gamers hard at play or opt to broadcast or record their own gaming session. Unlike your average viral Web video, an average Twitch viewing session spans 28 minutes—longer than the runtime of a sitcom. In 2013, 58% of Twitch users spent more than 20 hours a week on the service and the average user watched 106 minutes of gameplay per day. In the image below you can see how much the top 4 country earn.

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Fnatic are the champions of ESL One Cologne 2015. The Swedish team managed to take down Team EnVyUs 2-0 to win the title and $100,000.

ESL Cologne

Fnatic won the finals against Team Envyus . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . at the ESL Studio in Cologne, and Robin “flusha” Rönnquist is from there the Top 8 teams set to one of the most reliable compete in the quarterfinals were players out there. He always performs well and picked. Starting on the 22nd, the even when all others have matches were played in the LANXan off day he is there to ESS Arena in Cologne. There was score the important points. much hype for Cologne, and it ............................... was most certainly deserved. Since the last major, ESL One Katowice, which Fnatic took, the global scene has changed dramatically.

This year, from August 20th to the 23rd, the largest CSGO event in history took place: ESL One Cologne 2015. The tournament was slated to be incredible, with many top contenders vying for the trophy, the $100,000 grand prize, and of course, the prestige that comes with winning a major tournament.

The first two days of the tournament, the group stages, took place

Fnatic’s seemingly unstoppable form had fallen off quite a bit, evidenced by their consistent losses to TSM and occasional losses to teams such as Cloud9. However, during this tournament, they brought their all, leaving a trail of destroyed teams (albeit some who took a map in their series) as they progressed undefeated to the grand final, where they played against EnVyUs on Dust2 and Cobblestone. Despite an incredible 12-3 on first half on Dust 2 for the French, Fnatic used a tactical pause and seemingly magically brought the game back and went on to win

19-15 in overtime. From there, it was easy pickings for them as they went on to beat EnVyUs 16-8 on Cobblestone, taking not only the series, but also the major, for their second major win in a row, and fifty percent of total majors won.

Fnatic’s seemingly unstoppable form had fallen off quite a bit, evidenced by their consistent losses to TSM and occasional losses to teams such as Cloud9. However, during this tournament, they brought their all, leaving a trail of destroyed teams (albeit some who took a map in their series) as they progressed undefeated to the grand final, where they played against EnVyUs on Dust2 and Cobblestone. Despite an incredible

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12-3 on first half on Dust 2 for the French, Fnatic used a tactical pause and seemingly magically brought the game back and went on to win 19-15 in overtime. From there, it was easy pickings for them as they went on to beat EnVyUs 16-8 on Cobblestone, taking not only the series, but also the major, for their second major win in a row, and fifty percent of total majors won.

In March of this year, Natus Vincere changed its lineup to drop starix and pick up a new player: flamie, the young Russian star. He later proved to be an excellent pickup, as Na’Vi, after an excellent showing earlier this year at EWSC and other events, was one of the biggest contenders to win the entire event, a drastic departure from their from in the past. Behind only Fnatic and TSM (with the latter debated by many), Na’Vi had a solid chance to win during the tournament. However, after being stomped 16-2 by Fnatic in the group stages, they didn’t look quite a strong as they did before, and after a 2-0 loss to EnVyUs in the quarterfinals, they went out of the tournament, not in awful form, but certainly one far inferior to what they displayed previously this year.

Virtus.Pro, after displaying incredible form at CEVO, where they took the event, and terrible form at FaceIt, where they lost to Team Kinguin 16-0, were not very strongly placed in the tournament. If they managed to turn on the “Virtus. plow”, people conjectured, then they would most certainly make it at least to the semifinals, and that is exactly what they did, proceeding undefeated to the semifinals (knocking NiP out of the quarters with a 2-0 series along the way), where they lost to Fnatic in a close series that went 2-1 in the Swedes’ favor.

Ninjas in Pyjamas have been in a “slump” for a long time. Despite having two of the 10 best players of all time from 1.6 (f0rest and GeT_RiGhT), one of which is considered by many to be the number one player of all time (f0rest), they cannot seem to break into the Top 6 teams. In the past 6 months, the only Tier 1 team they managed to actually win a BO3 against was Team Dignitas, whose Tier 1 classification can be debated. In this tournament, NiP managed to make it into the quarterfinals, where they were knocked out after a 2-0 loss against Virtus.Pro. Despite excellent play by f0rest during the tournament, their slump continues, and community speculation points towards the stagnation of their playstyle and their inability to simply out-aim and out-frag other top teams like they used to previously. Recently, it has been revealed that their player contracts all end in October, and the organization released a statement notifying the world of the departure of their coach, Joona “natu” Leppänen.

result certainly, but the American team still shows potential and hopes to put up a better performance at Dreamhack Winter later this year.

The North American scene had fallen hard, but recently, Cloud9, the #1 team from NA, had begun a streak of fire, including a multitude of Top 4 finishes and finals played.

Despite not winning events (understandable when pitted against teams like Team SoloMid, Fnatic, and Na’Vi), they demonstrated that they were capable of being one of the world’s best teams. While not being considered strongly for making the final or winning the event, they were a strong contender for reaching the quarterfinals, or perhaps even the semis. However, when on the cusp of reaching the quarterfinals, the multi-national Team Kinguin lineup upset them majorly on Cache, knocking them out of the group stage, and out of the tournament. A disappointing

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BETHESDA: FALLOUT 4 DEVELOPMENT IS BASICALLY DONE When Bethesda announced Fallout 4 earlier this summer, not everyone was pleased with the post-apocalyptic role-playing game’s graphics and gameplay. Now, Bethesda marketing chief Pete Hines has responded to those criticisms as part of a new interview, saying it “definitely doesn’t upset us.”

pletely different game. But at the same time, when you’re playing it it’s a mix of familiar and different.

There are things that are the same and there are things that are very different.”

Those things are difficult to demonstrate in a single, short video, like the one Bethesda released Speaking with Metro, Hines--a at E3. The company hasn’t shared 16-year video game industry vet- any other official gameplay footage eran--said he’s not surprised that yet, though some recently leaked. some people are upset. After all, Once you finally get to play Fallout gaming is a form of entertainment, 4, however, you should realize that and you can’t please everyone. it’s not at all a copy/paste of Fallout 3.

“As with most forms of entertainment, you never get 100 percent “If you jump into the game and agreement on anything,” he said. you play it for an extended period “And so, at the end of the day, of time you’ll start to feel the differwhether it’s what the graphics look ences and how much some things like or whether the gameplay is have changed,” he said. what you want or whether you like In other recent Fallout 4 news, the setting, or whatever it is, every- Bethesda says it will not talk much body is entitled to their opinion.” more about the game’s story in the lead-up to launch. In addition, alSpeaking at E3 in June, game di- though Bethesda does have DLC rector Todd Howard said Fallout plans in place for Fallout 4, the de4’s graphics might not the best they velopment team’s principal focus could be. But dialing things back in right now is on getting the core terms of visuals was necessary for game out the door in November. the benefit of other game systems.

You can also enter a contest to win Some fans have also taken issue some Fallout 4 goodies, including with the way in which they per- the ultra-rare Pip-Boy Edition. In ceive Fallout 4’s gameplay to be addition, Bethesda says it will antoo similar to its 2008 predeces- nounce the game’s PC specs somesor, Fallout 3. Hines said he’s not time in October. surprised, as Bethesda’s goal with Fallout 4, overall, is for it to come The Fallout 4 release date is set for across as “a mix of familiar and dif- November 10 across P C , ferent.”

Xbox One, and PlayStation 4.

“I mean, certainly it ought to look and feel familiar,” he said. “If you played Fallout 3 you ought to be able to see things that are recognizable or similar or whatever.

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EG takes home more than $6.6 million.

EVIL GENIUSES

WINS THE INTERNATIONAL 5 DOTA 2 CHAMPIONSHIP ...............................

Sumail quickly became the highest rated player in the in-house league, establishing himself as one of the best upcoming talents in the North American scene.

CDEC have proven to be one of the dark horse success stories of an International full of them. Formerly a "junior" team for Chinese eSports organization LGD, CDEC branched off on their own late last year. They were largely ignored over the unofficial 2015 season that kicked off around the Dota 2 Asia Championships early this year, and CDEC failed to secure their TI5 berth at the Chinese qualifiers, losing to EHOME 3-1.

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After weeks of regional qualifiplayer's career. EG saw other major ers, wild card matches, last week's lineup changes after the event, ingroup stages, and six days of main cluding the departure of their most event play, the winner of TI5, the popular player, Artour "Arteezy" 2015 International Dota 2 ChamBabaev. pionships, is Evil Geniuses, who overcame CDEC in a tense, back and forth 3-1 victory in a best-of- However, CDEC clawed their way As Babaev left to join Dota 2 back into the competition in the "dream team" Secret, Loomis refive series. wildcard qualifiers, and became assumed his role on the team, and Chinese team CDEC and North virtually unstoppable, sitting at the before the Dota Asia ChampionAmerican team Evil Geniuses top of the group stages and handi- ships in January of 2015, EG stumfaced off in the upper bracket final ly defeating everyone in the upper bled upon a then-unknown 15on day four of the TI5 main event, bracket, including EG, whom they year old Pakistani prodigy in Syed sending the American squad to sent to the lower bracket on day "Suma1l" Hassan, who went on to stun the Dota 2 community with the lower bracket to face more stiff four of the main event. his breakout performance, filling competition. Evil Geniuses odds were considered to be less than Evil Geniuses is one of the most the void left in Babaev's departure.

50-50 against Chinese team LGD prominent eSports organizations Evil Geniuses won the Dota Asia in the lower bracket final, but un- in North America, and the team Championships, making Hassan expected hero picks and drafting placed third at last year's Inter- the youngest player in the history carried EG to a strong 2-0 finish. national competition. However, of Dota 2 to exceed $500,000 in EG secured the the organization's they were considered to have un- winnings. first trip to The International's fi- derperformed in some circles; the nals, and the first appearance in an team had to replace one of their Evil Geniuses would prove inconInternational final from a North most important members, Clin- sistent as the year went on howevton "Fear" Loomis, due to injuries er, frequently finding number two American team. that many felt would end the older finishes against Team Secret, and ...............................................................................................................................................................................................

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finishing below CDEC in the TI5 group stages. They seemed strong in the upper bracket but were handily outdrafted by CDEC in the upper bracket final; their surrender in game two of that match marked the fastest loss at TI5's main event.

In the lower bracket final on the last day of TI5, Evil Geniuses were forced to face strong Chinese team (and former stablemates to CDEC) LGD Gaming, a match Valve's TI5 analyst desk did not favor them to win. But EG team captain Peter "PPD" Dager assembled an unorthodox, aggressive hero draft, forcing LGD to respond to surprising picks that left the Chinese team unable to effectively respond. Evil Geniuses would go on to win the lower bracket final 2-0, which once again pitted them against CDEC. As first place finishers of TI5, Evil Geniuses will take home more than $6.6 million in prize money from the overall prize pool of more than $18 million. CDEC will take home more than $2.8 million.

GAME 1

GAME 2

GAME 3

GAME 4

The first two picks and bans went identical but as the draft continues CDEC focused Suma1L with their bans. EG’s last pick was Windranger for Suma1L but CDEC surprised the boys in blue with a unaccounted for Broodmother.

CDEC outplayed and outmaneuvered Evil Geniuses with the way they laned their heroes, sending Brood mid lane while what EG read as a support Leshrac turned to be a core pick for Shiki. EG were in big trouble right from the get go and although they did their best to recover after a really bad laning stage they ended up losing the game two to Brood’s split push power combined with extremely aggressive plays from the entire CDEC lineup.

The third game of the grand finals could be described as the best game of the entire International and it is definitely a must to watch one. EG played for the third time of the evening Gyrocopter while CDEC continued to open the bans with Techies. Suma1L received an Ember Spirit to play with and he impressed pushing the hero to its limits.

graphs were completely even 57 minutes into the game.

The turning point happened at the 55 minute mark when Suma1l nullified CDEC’s initiation power with a Linken’s Sphere. EG turned the tables on the Chinese, wiped them and took the first tier three tower.

It all came down to one single decisive teamfight and that one was better executed by Evil Geniuses who took the lead of the series after an insane one hour long game there.

Being one game away from winning the biggest DotA2 TOURNAMENT, ppd composed himself and drafted a perfect lineup that surprised CDEC with last pick Ancient Apparition.

The big wombo –combo EG had, a Naga Siren Song to setup the teamfights, a Gyro’s Call Dawn an AA ultimate on top of a Echo Slam always perfectly timed by Universe, was too much to handle for Agressif and his team.

The key moment of the final was the final fight in the Roshan Pit where CDEC felt comfortable enough to adventure in after they ganked Suma1L’s Storm Spirit. They did not expect EG to contest the Aegis but the boys in blue pulled off the knock-out combo Echo Slam into AA’s ultimate and instantly killed four enemy heroes.

Winning big team fights after teamfights, EG started to feel the big victory coming their way and so did the audience who was enchanting USA-USA continuously for the last 20 minutes of the game.

At the end of intense 50 minutes last game, Evil Geniuses wrote Dota 2 history by winning in a final that lived up to its hype. But congratulations are in order for CDEC CDEC never stopped to pressure too after their amazing run from EG even though they were a bit be- qualifiers to grand finals. Most cerhind sometimes and as a result, the tainly their story just began.

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Invite list complete - Eight teams receive direct invite . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . The Frankfurt Major ESL is the world’s largest esports company, leading the industry across various games with numerous online and offline competitions. It operates high profile, branded international and national leagues and tournaments such as the Intel® Extreme Masters, ESL One, ESL Pro Series, StarCraft® II World Championship Series, as well as grassroots amateur cups, leagues and matchmaking systems. ESL covers a broad field of services in gaming technology, event management, advertising and TV production, fully catering to the needs of the esports ecosystem. With offices in Germany, Russia, France, Poland, Spain, China, North America and partners in many other countries, it has a truly global footprint .

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ESL and Valve announced the eight teams being invited to The Frankfurt Major—the first of Valve’s new series of ‘mini-Internationals’ spanning the year-long gap between Dota 2’s world championships. The European Major will be held in Frankfurt (if that wasn’t obvious) from the 16th-21st of November. This is a world championship-level event, by anyone’s standards, and if you’re in the area then you can attend for free. Only the Saturday, when the finals take place, will require a ticket.

The invites are, for the most part, fairly predictable. International champions EG are a given, as are CDEC, LGD, Vici Gaming, EHOME and Virtus.Pro—in that order, these teams make up the top 6 places at TI5. Team Secret’s new roster gets the next spot, followed

by Vega Squadron—the surprise winners of last weekend’s ESL One New York 2015 tournament.

York: given how early Vega were eliminated from the International, it’d be an amazing act of foresight to invite them prior to this most recent result. Similarly, Secret’s 2ndplace finish in New York proved the potential of their new lineup, something that wasn’t guaranteed before.

The remaining eight places will be determined by four regional qualifiers—Americas, Southeast Asia, China, and Europe. There are open spots in each of these qualifiers, with anybody able to enter a massive bracket this week to compete for a space. The odds of a Cool Runnings-type result where a group of unknowns enters the open qualifier and goes on to sweep the entire thing are incredibly low, but if you’re entering your team—good luck!

This year, Frankfurt will continue to build on its reputation as a capThe prize pool is $3m and not, as ital of European Dota 2 competithe image above might suggest, tion. Having already been host to some kind of giant golden bust of two incredible ESL One tournaa peacock. That peacock is, in fact, ments at Frankfurt’s iconic Comsupposed to be an eagle, and the merzbank Arena, the city will now also be the site of Valve’s first Dota Instinctively, it feels like the plan thing that it’s attached to is an item 2 Major, set to take place at Fes- was always to invite the TI5 top from Dota 2 called an Eaglesong. thalle Messe from the 16th to the six and then settle on the last two You may think that it looks like places based on ESL One New the top of a recurve bow, but it is, 21st of November. ...............................................................................................................................................................................................

16.

in fact, a horn—a horn that grants The group stage format and schedule of the bonus agility, for some reason. This Frankfurt Major revealed is confusing because, in DotA 1, Eaglesong was called Eaglehorn—a reference to, of all things, a bow from the Diablo series. That’s right!

The bow named after a horn became a horn that looks like a bow, and nobody in this process figured out what an eagle’s neck looks like.

This is arguably the least confusing thing about Dota.

Similarly to TI the group stage will take place shortly before the Main Event and will not be available for the audience to see live. For the Frankfurt Major it will happen during the 13th and the 14th of November, and we will be treated with 13 hours of Dota 2 action each day (from 11 AM to midnight). When it comes to the format it will be the same as is used in Global StarCraft II League (GSL).

MLG WF Champions - Team Secret will be one of the favourites at the upcoming Major.

Participating Teams

This means that 16 teams will be divided into four groups of four. Then within each group teams will play something similar to a double elimination bracket with top 2 squads being seeded into the Winners Bracket at the Main Event. The bottom two teams from each group on the other hand will have to start in the Lower Bracket of the ME. This means that the same as at TI 5 no teams will be eliminated during the group stage and everyone will have a chance to play in front of the live audience.

Invited

Qualified

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17.

23 10 15

What it takes to enter on the enemy base on Stealth mode

METAL GEAR SOLID V:

THE

Series creator Hideo Kojima has been making Metal Gear games with publisher Konami for close to 30 years, creating sequels and prequels that bounce back and forth between the future and the past of a labyrinthine fictional world of spies, cold wars and walking nuclear weapons bearing the series’ name. The Phantom Pain, an open-world stealth game about the adventures of Big Boss, also known as Snake, seems to be his unexpected swan song. The Phantom Pain closes the loop on the three decade-long Metal Gear saga and the result, warts and all, turns out to be one of the best entries in the series.

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PHANTOM PAIN

Set between the events of 2010’s Metal Gear Solid: Peace Walker and the original Metal Gear, the 1987 stealth game progenitor in which Big Boss plays the role of chief antagonist, The Phantom Pain serves as a sort of “missing link” between those two games, an opportunity to learn how Big Boss transformed from a sympathetic hero to an iconic villain.

Players who haven’t touched last

year’s Metal Gear Solid 5: Ground Zeroes will find themselves thrust into a conflict that, without similar knowledge of previous Big Boss-starring games Metal Gear Solid 3 and Peace Walker, can be pretty confusing. The Phantom Pain doesn’t waste much time getting players up to speed, but tells them that they’re on a mission of revenge, a mission to rebuild Big Boss’ once-thriving private army.

In an effort to grow that force, named Diamond Dogs, and expand the group’s stronghold, Mother Base, Big Boss takes on paid mercenary missions to fund his private military group. These missions include exfiltrating prisoners; eliminating military commanders either through assassination or kidnapping; dismantling the infrastructure of occupying forces and more.

Big Boss has a wealth of weapons, tools and tactics at his disposal in stealth and combat situations.

He can sneak in quietly, knocking out foes with tranquilizer darts or go on a murderous rampage, unleashing air strikes and sniper fire

Hideo Kojima is a Japanese video game designer, screenwriter, director and producer. He was the director of Kojima Productions, which he founded in 2005, and a former vice president of Konami Digital Entertainment.

............................... at bases until everyone stationed there is dead. I found both tactical options to be valid in The Phantom Pain, sometimes depending on the mission at hand, though taking a stealthier approach I found paid dividends over time. As a stealth game pacifist, I preferred to keep my kill count low, though I rarely flinched when required to shoot some poor young soldier in the face. Occasionally, I felt better about just shooting them in the knees to disable them, then hoping that they’d survive a trip back to Mother Base.

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An open world game, must be epic and MUST include a lot explosions, A LOT

JUST CAUSE 3 The sequel to popular open world action title Just Cause 2, creatively named Just Cause 3, brings Rico Rodriguez – codenamed Scorpio – to an entirely new fictional setting: the Mediterranean archipelago of Medici. The new map is the exact same size as the previous instalment’s gigantic world, clocking in at a massive 400 square miles of explorable environment.

Just Cause 3 also introduces a new dictator, General Di Ravello, who has conveniently taken to the same approach as the previous game’s antagonist, Pandak Panay.

The ways in which this dictator tries to keep control over the people of Medici is almost identical to the way Panau was controlled by Panay, using propaganda spewing radio masts and vehicles, as well militaristic force to assert his dominance, and all of these things tie into gameplay that’s similar to the mechanics found in Just Cause 2.

However, Rico’s new and upgraded

gadgets give you extra opportunities to play to your liking.

Firstly, the grapple from the previous games has been upgraded to allow some additional gameplay options. Instead of just being able to grapple one object to another, you can now grapple multiple items together at the same time, which, as you’d expect, allows for even more chaos. The other improvement to the grapple is an elasticated ability that allows you to bring two grappled items together with force, and this was demoed to us by making an oppressive statue of the dictator destroy itself by face-palming.

These added grapple abilities open up many more enjoyable possibilities for you to experiment with throughout your free roaming journey.

the ground and gives you some added manoeuvrability. Much like the parachute, keeping momentum going relies on your ability to use the grappling hook and attach it to anything within range. The wingsuit is a great, quick, and easy mode of transport and will be enjoyed most by those that hate long travelling times between missions.

The other main addition to the game is a faster mode of transport by air: the wingsuit. This can be activated whenever Rico leaves

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Want to take hostages? Or rescue them?

TOM CLANCY’S RAINBOW SIX: SIEGE Ubisoft’s decision to forgo a single player campaign for Rainbow Six: Siege is an odd choice for a series that previously focused on delivering a challenging and in-depth ‘campaign’ for those wanting to go solo. The fortunes of the series now rest with the online modes in providing the strong concepts and range of content required to satisfy the Rainbow Six fanbase. While it’s too early to tell if Ubisoft has succeeded here, the recent beta test shows how the use of the AnvilNext engine and RealBlast technology is used to create tactical shootouts that offer players a wide range of choices to tackling various situations, while also targeting a 60fps update for the main multiplayer mode of the game.

Mounting an assault into a suburban town house, we set charges and blast our way through a boarded-up window before spraying the room with bullets, taking down one unlucky opponent in the pro-

cess. Here, the use of RealBlast allows for bullet impact physics to procedurally damage parts of the environment, with soft surfaces such as clipboard breaking apart when shot while brick and metals become lined with holes. Explosive changes do more than destroy windows too, allowing players to blast through walls, ceilings and doors, alongside weaker concrete

construction elements creating a wealth of smoke and debris in the process. To counter such an aggressive approach to combat, players can reinforce surfaces susceptible to being destroyed with metal barricades, or erect removable barriers during a gunfight. This adds a distinctly dynamic feel to gameplay where no two matches play

out in the same way.

These pockets of spectacle in often-tense tactical battles of attrition are deployed equally across all three platforms with matching effects work and lighting. However, as a consequence of having to cram all these effects into a small 16.67ms render-time to hit 60fps, the graphical make-up of the game appears a little mixed in other areas. The lighting model often appears rather flat under certain conditions, while materials rendering often varies, with some surfaces more realistically displayed than others. However, there are some nice touches in play, such as the environmental destruction model that allows for players to smash, shoot, or blow holes through soft walls and ceilings. Chip damage, along with use of various effects including volumetric smoke add to the experience, with the latter providing thick clouds for tactical cover in combat.

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23.

Guild Wars 2 the best PVP game on the World!

The future of Guild Wars 2 eSports and PvP: an interview with the ArenaNet team There’s a lot going on in the world of competitive Guild Wars 2 and we got the chance to talk with associate game director John Corpening, competitive events manager Josh Davis and Stronghold game designer Hugh Norfolk about about events past and future as well as what ArenaNet has lined up next for its PvP players.

World Tournament Series. To top it off, Orange Logo had been struggling in the tournaments leading up to the World Tournament Series in Boston. They definitely didn’t share the same dominance over Europe that the Abjured did over North America. On paper, JOSH: This was hands down one it seemed like the Abjured were of the most exciting tournaments clearly in favor of taking the win. we’ve had in Guild Wars 2 history.

There was a lot of uncertainty on The first time that Abjured and which team would take home the Orange Logo faced off in the upwin. On one hand you had North per bracket, it seemed almost cerAmerican team the Abjured, de- tain that Abjured would take those fending World Tournament Series games just as easily as they had for Champions, confidence fueled by months prior. There was a moment, the fact that they hadn’t lost a sin- somewhere, where Orange Logo, gle tournament match in the three in sheer defiance, in their unwillmonths preceding the event. On ingness to lose, pulled out one of the other hand you had European the craziest comebacks we’ve seen, team Orange Logo whose roster stopping Abjured dead in their consisted of three members of the tracks at three points shy of the team that lost to Abjured in the first win, and going on to steal a ChiefLEVELUP: Hi, guys! You just wrapped the second World Tournament Series Championship in Boston at PAX East, with a prize pool of US$50,000. There was quite a shocking finale - what are your thoughts on the outcome?

tain kill for the win. A loss isn’t something that the Abjured isn’t experienced in dealing with, and Orange Logo definitely used this to their advantage through the next match and into the grand finals.

In short, we couldn’t have asked for a more exciting tournament.

Well played, Orange Logo, and congratulations to Europe! We hope to see some familiar faces at the next World Tournament Series event at gamescom in August.

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LEVELUP: What made you We have also been building our decide that Conquest was the competitive scene brick by brick. game mode you wanted for PvP? We started with the launch of Custom Arenas that allowed players to JOHN: Leading up to launch, host tournaments. This led to variwe prototyped a number of game ous support programs for commumodes. We decided on Conquest nity shoutcasters and tournaments, because we felt it best highlight- and the PAX invitational. Last ed the dynamic combat system year we worked with community in Guild Wars 2. Conquest in groups to create the Tournament of Guild Wars 2 places an empha- Legends. Originally we thought we sis on player skill by breaking would get dozens of teams signing the fights up into several smaller up but we ended up with hundreds fights that can change from a 1v1 of teams registering, so we decidup to a full team fight depending ed to do a second Tournament of on the tactics of the teams, the Legends that had over 400 teams dynamics of the map and the in- register. teraction of secondary mechanics.

LEVELUP: What does the future of Guild Wars 2 PvP look like?

JOHN: We have been shaping PvP since launch to better suit our community. PvP looks completely different now than it did at that time. Each revision has brought improvements tailored to our community and has drawn in more players as a result. For example, last year we overhauled gear and rewards, created a much easier to use build interface, created ranked and unranked arenas, introduced an innovative map selection system and a host of other improvements. We plan to continue working with our community to evolve the game even more. Currently, our most requested feature is a new game mode, and Stronghold is the next step in that evolution.

through the development of these events.

LEVELUP: Are you satisfied with the current state of the game?

JOHN: I absolutely love playing Guild Wars 2 PvP. I play almost every night, and whether I’m jumping into queues alone or playing with friends I have a great time doing it. It’s never been a better time to play PvP in Guild Wars 2, and with all the excitement in our competitive scene it’s never been better to be a fan of our top-tier teams and tune into our livestreamed events.

That said, we are always looking for ways to take that experience to the next level. We plan to grow and to evolve even further.

LEVELUP: Will Stronghold be played competitively just like Conquest is now?

There has also been an All-Stars JOSH: While developing Strongtournament at gamescom with hold, we asked ourselves a few difteams from NA, EU and China, ferent questions at every step of the the Tournament of Glory, the ESL way: is it fun to play, is it easy to Go4 cups and ultimately the World understand and is there competTournament Series (WTS). We had itive potential? We’re confident in our first WTS in Beijing broadcast saying yes to all of them. The great live on television in China to mil- thing about Stronghold is that lions of viewers and our latest WTS we’ve created a mode where playwas held in Boston on March the er choice, not only player skill, is a 7th at PAX East. This is a truly in- major determinant in the outcome ternational event with a team from of a match. After all, the end result China and Europe and two teams of a match, the win or the loss, is from North America as the host really the sum of your team’s colof the Boston event. It is our plan lective decisions. to keep growing our competitive scene on the trajectory we have set Stronghold really highlights the ...............................................................................................................................................................................................

26.

opportunity cost that players will need to contend with at every turn, starting with the few seconds of the match and continuing all the way until the very end. Players will constantly ask themselves: “Do I attack there, do I defend here or is there something else I should be focusing on right now?” Once players get their hands on Stronghold, I think we’ll really start to see new strategies take shape, where the most dominant teams will be the ones who are able to adapt the quickest.

opportunities for higher level strategy and creating other objectives that don’t necessarily require you to be the most skilled player to help your team win. Providing players a clear goal, giving them multiple ways to achieve that goal and allowing players to make high-level decisions that can have different outcomes on a match makes for an experience that a greater diversity of players can get into. While being a good mechanical player is still extremely important to winning Stronghold, having great map awareness and adapting to the opLEVELUP: Do you think Strong- ponent’s strategy is just as crucial. hold will bring more PvE and WvW players to PvP? LEVELUP: Is it possible that we’ll see Stronghold played in major HUGH: When we were design- tournaments like the WTS instead ing Stronghold, we really wanted of Conquest? to reach out to a broader PvP audience while keeping the overall JOSH: Stronghold is currently in content a more engaging and fun beta, so first we want to get Strongcompetitive experience. What we hold out to our community, hear have seen during our internal tests what they have to say about it and is that players who are generally then take it from there. That said, competitive but have shied away we feel that Stronghold has a bright from Guild Wars 2 PvP in favor competitive future, and it was great of PvE or WvW are really enjoy- seeing how our players at PAX East ing Stronghold. One of the ways and the World Tournament Sewe went about making Stronghold ries teams felt about the new game more attractive to players is by mode when they tried it out for the adding more ‘game’ into the map. first time at our booth in Boston.

lar Guild Wars 1 GvG game mode?

We did this by creating multiple LEVELUP: Will Stronghold be roles for players to assume, giving Guild Wars 2’s answer to the popu-

LEVELUP: Thanks for taking the time to talk with us, guys!

HUGH: The community asked us to look for inspiration for our new game mode from a number of places including WvW, MOBAs and our roots in Guild Wars GvG. Stronghold isn’t the same as Guild Wars 1’s GvG but we’ve definitely took inspiration from it, primarily the win condition of killing the enemy lord but players have also seen some parallels to GvG flag running in the role of smuggling supplies and both Strongholds in our map, Champion’s Dusk, have trebuchets.

Ultimately, though, we set out to create a game mode that was right for Guild Wars 2 and its fast-paced dynamic combat.

LEVELUP: Do you think the Stronghold Guild Ladder will help motivate guilds and teams to keep practicing and getting better?

JOHN: Absolutely! One of our major goals is help players make friends, form teams and succeed together. We feel providing a platform for a team to be rewarded and earn recognition for their accomplishments are a vital part of this goal. We are not ready to dive into the details of this system yet, but this is a major goal behind it.

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27.

DENIAL VICTORIOUS IN CALL OF DUTY CHAMPIONSHIP 2015 GRAND FINAL

Call of Duty Championships 2015 Denial eSports fought against Team Revenge to claim the Call of Duty Championship 2015 title and the first prize of US$400,000 over the weekend in downtown Los Angeles.

On the tournament’s’ second day, favourites Optic Gaming lost to Denial and then Faze Red, who also toppled another favorite Team Envy. Denial, Faze Red and Revenge went toe-to-toe on the final day with Denial winning against Revenge in the first round of the day.

Revenge had to go up against Faze Red in the second round to see who would challenge Revenge in the Grand Final. Revenge proved to be too strong in the Capture the Flag, Search and Destroy and Hardpoint rounds.

point, Revenge dominated Search and Destroy and Uplink, while Denial steamrolled with a Capture The Flag win. Both teams went into the deciding Search and Destroy match tied until Denial secured the Championship title and prize money after some tight games.

Denial eSports and Revenge Gam- The europeans lost the championing took to the Main Stage to fight it ship. out for the $400,000 in prize money and trophy, with Revenge only The Call of Duty finals event, which having to win two of five matches offers a $1m prize purse, attracted to take home the grand prize.

32 teams from all over the world, after a series of regional qualifying Denial come out on top in Hard- events. In each match, two teams of four players each compete over a series of maps and game modes in a best-of-five competition.

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28.

HTC: Mainstream VR is 3-5 years off

Valve and HTC’s Vive stand at the precipice of VR’s future, but they may have a long wait After years of hype for the Oculus Rift, Valve suddenly became the frontrunner in the race to consumer VR when it announced SteamVR in March 2015. SteamVR, made in cooperation with smartphone company HTC (the headset is called the HTC Vive), is the culmination of years of research into VR at Valve. It’s finally real, it works, and it works well—Valve has solved most of VR’s major roadblocks, like positional tracking and motion sickness. Here’s everything we know about SteamVR so far.

What’s the release date?

lus Rift, the Vive is a VR device that contains two screens (1080x1200 resolution) streaming data at high refresh rates (90Hz) to create the sense of 3D virtual reality. Lenses sit between your eyes and the displays to create a rounded field of view and help your eyes focus on the LCDs. The headset will connect via a hardwire to a PC, which will run games and other VR software.

emit make contact with sensors arranged around the surface of the Vive headset. The tracking system is extremely fast and precise, and can also be used to map the boundaries of a room, which can be incorporated into the VR experience. Stand close to the wall, and a representation of it can appear in front of you, preventing you from walking headfirst into it.

When Valve announced SteamVR in March, it claimed that the headset will be available to consumers by the end of the year. Valve also said that devkits would be available to developers this spring. There’s been no news since GDC in March about those devkits, and whether they’re already in the hands of developers, or still on track for a The HTC Vive headset is just one The third element of SteamVR is spring release. component that makes up Steam- a pair of wand-shaped controllers VR. The headset’s position and ori- Valve designed for VR games. The What is it? entation in space are tracked with a SteamVR controllers represent SteamVR is a virtual reality system, pair of laser-emitting base stations Nintendo Wii remotes with senwith a headset built by Valve and that Valve calls Lighthouse. Two sor arrays mounted on top of them partner HTC. The headset itself is base stations are placed in the cor- for the same degree of positional called the HTC Vive. Like the Ocu- ners of a room, and the lasers they tracking as seen in the headset. The ...............................................................................................................................................................................................

30.

controllers use haptic thumbpads that can be split into a number of “buttons” or directional inputs. A trigger on the back serves as the primary button.

SteamVR is the latest iteration of virtual reality hardware from Valve, after years of R&D and experimenting with different tracking options. Notably, while the Oculus Rift is still presented as primarily a seated experience, SteamVR is designed to support standing and walking around a room with full positional tracking.

for SteamVR, but it’s expected to fairly similar to what you’ll need to cost more than the Oculus Rift for support SteamVR. a couple reasons. HTC has stated that its wants to deliver a high-end, . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . premium VR experience. The la— NVIDIA GTX 970 / AMD 290 equivalent ser-based tracking system is likely or greater more expensive than the camera system Oculus has been using with — Intel i5-4590 equivalent or greater its headsets. SteamVR also in- — 8GB+ RAM cludes a pair of controllers that will — Compatible HDMI 1.3 video output add to the cost.

We don’t know if all those pieces will be bundled together or if there will be an option to buy them separately.

— 2x USB 3.0 ports — Windows 7 SP1 or newer

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What else do we know?

Very little. The Oculus Rift, SteamVR’s biggest competitor, is launching in the first quarter of 2016.

According to the CEO of Oculus, the consumer Rift headset and a PC capable of running it will cost around $1500.

What’s happened recently?

Valve first announced SteamVR in February 2015, and demoed it at GDC in March and at Mobile World Congress that same month.

Since Oculus has announced the system specs needed to run its headset, we can guess that the Oculus Rift will cost around $300— conceivably as low as $200 or as high as $400. SteamVR may come in at a higher price point than that.

Many prominent game developers tried on SteamVR at the 2015 Game Developer’s Conference, and came away true believers. Cliff Since March, there’s been very little Bleszinski called it a transcendent public information about Steam- experience when we interviewed VR. Valve said that it would give him a few days later. free Vive Developer Edition headsets to some developers. Those What are the system resign-ups opened on April 21. quirements?

On April 30, Valve released the There are no system requirements SDK for SteamVR, and also sup- for SteamVR yet. Because VR reports Unity and Unreal Engine 4. quires high refresh rates pushed to two displays, it’s going to be fairly How much does it cost? demanding. Below are the recommended system requirements for Valve hasn’t announced a price yet the Oculus Rift, which are likely ...............................................................................................................................................................................................

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32.

‘Mirror’s Edge Catalyst’ is make or break for Faith Even now, after seven years, Mirror’s Edge is a unique and exhilarating parkour thriller. It’s littered with flaws -- a paper-thin story, some frustrating level design and unnecessary gunplay -- but the clean, dystopian world and fluid motion still impress. The game didn’t sell particularly well, so it was a surprise when EA first announced that it was giving developer DICE another roll at the franchise. Mirror’s Edge Catalyst is a complete reboot for Faith, but it could also be the team’s last chance to prove the series has a future. If the game can’t find a larger audience this time around, it’s unlikely that EA will green-light another.

been shown so far feels like a complete do-over -- the game that the original Mirror’s Edge aspired to be.

“We wanted to make sure that we had a game that could appeal to our core fans and also appeal to a broader audience of action-adventure fans,” Jansson says. Part of that vision involves a richer narrative and giving Faith some proper character development.

She has an iconic look and a pretty badass attitude, but in the original game little was revealed about her past or how she was recruited into the rebellious world of freerunning. In Catalyst, there’s a larger and more meaningful storyline that weaves through the “We have big plans on what we missions, as well as CG cutscenes want to do after this and moving and expanded dialogue while ahead,” Sara Jansson, senior pro- you’re jumping around as Faith. ducer for Mirror’s Edge Catalyst says. “But I really do think that if “Even if it’s a very personal stothis doesn’t fly -- if people don’t ry, and it’s personal elements that like this game -- there’s really no trigger her, we wanted to put her reason to keep building on it.” in the middle of a national conflict,” Jansson says. “So what she All or nothing does has an effect on the people around her, and that’s something Catalyst is a gamble for EA. When that’s very important in Catalyst.” the team at DICE started to think about a follow-up, they quickly realised that it couldn’t be half-assed.

To make a worthwhile successor, they needed the publisher’s full support, which meant a “AAA” budget and a lot of development time. They didn’t want Catalyst to be a small downloadable title, or even Mirror’s Edge 2. To do Faith justice and broaden the game’s appeal, DICE was committed to a grander vision that retold the character’s origin story. What’s ...............................................................................................................................................................................................

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CURIOSITY: DICE has formed pairs of level designers and artists who work in tandem on every building in the game A new playground Even the world and overarching structure of Catalyst is more ambitious than its predecessor. Whereas the original Mirror’s Edge took you through linear, tightly choreographed levels, Catalyst offers a seamless open world. DICE says there are no load screens and as you take on more missions, new rooftop districts in the city of Glass will open up. For a game like Mirror’s Edge, which relies so heavily on traversal and the feeling of momentum, this poses a number of challenges. Every object has to link into a possible route for the player and also compliment the sparse, geometric aesthetic the game is known for. To do this, DICE has formed pairs of level designers and artists who work in tandem on every building in the game. Each pair physically sits beside one another, and an area can’t be finalized until both team members have given their blessing.

Designing an open world is tricky, but Jansson says it should help players to learn the mechanics and improve their freerunning skills.

“Traversing is actually most fun around the fifth time,” she says.

“Because you’re starting to know the space and that’s when you can find all of the ultimate paths.

When you have this open structure and you’re navigating across the city between different buildings and missions, you’re learning the city -- it’s starting to become yours. Then you know it and that’s when it becomes the most fun.”

EA has faith

“Because it is a risk. It’s more high risk than doing a Battlefront or a FIFA.” But the team’s pitch paid off. And while the game is a financial risk, it does seem to support EA’s changing public image. Two years ago it was named “the worst company in America,” and since then the publisher has tried to show that it’s putting gamers first.

For instance, it’s funding Unravel, a whimsical 2D platformer that won the hearts of gamers at E3 this year. Both Unravel and Catalyst had huge booths at Gamecom too, rivalling EA’s tentpole franchises such as Need for Speed and FIFA 16.

Catalyst is unashamedly different.

Even firearms, which were difficult to control and largely out of place in the original, have been ripped out to focus on Faith’s hand-to-hand takedowns. The extraction will be welcome news to fans, but for DICE it’s another risky move that positions the game further from established first-person shooter franchises.

“That’s how you should use the fact that you have some really established franchises,” Jansson argues.

“You have Battlefield and that’s great -- people love it, they want it and they want it often. But hav“To be completely honest, when we ing that strong portfolio -- I think pitched this we were not at all sure you should use that. There’s almost that EA was going to want to do it an obligation to use that to create and take that risk,” Jansson says. something else that might be more

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risky.” Ultimately, it’s those creative risks that could give both EA and DICE another Battlefield-level success. The critical acclaim that followed the first Mirror’s Edge suggests that the team has stumbled onto something rather special. The hope now is that a well-funded sequel can unlock the concept’s true potential and produce a game that is both artistically and commercially successful. For Jansson and her team, it’s just another leap of faith.

A FEW Seconds All it takes are a few seconds of play to remember exactly why its predecessor carried so much potential.

Vaulting across the rooftops of the sharp and ultramodern fictional city of Glass is as quietly empowering and exhilarating as ever. As you clamber up drainpipes, hurdle railings, slide into ventilation shafts and make death-defying leaps across the skyline--often in one beautiful flowing motion--it feels as though you are pushing the human body to the peak of its physical possibilities. No studio other than DICE has managed to capture this solitary Zen of first-person urban parkour so wonderfully.

Crucially, its heroine Faith remains

as easy to control as Mario. Two buttons and two analogue sticks are usually all you need to dash and spring across the city. The Xbox One Controller’s Left Bumper (PS4: L1) is the ‘up’ button, which ordinarily results in a jump, but is also used to climb upwards in certain contexts. Meanwhile, the Left Trigger (L2) is ‘down’, which can mean crouch, or slide, or dropping from ledges, etcetera.

In a game that hinges so much on how it flows, simplicity is king.

the first challenge that most players encounter. The goal: Jump across various rooftop real estate and reach the end point in the fastest time possible. On my first attempt I crossed the line in about 45 seconds, and yet when returning to the challenge some 10 minutes later, all the advanced free-running tricks and ideas I had learned meant I was able to shave off an additional 15 seconds.

It’s the purity I love. I didn’t acquire speed boosts or jump perks; I unlocked my own ideas. So, instead of thinking about how I could clamber across a mesh of ventilation tunnels and pipeworks as fast as possible, I began to realise I could instead leap across the whole obstacle entirely if I wall-dashed As a concept, fluid and foolproof across a building that overlooked it. first-person platforming has always seemed like a bridge too far.

But the thought that DICE has put into Catalyst means that players will have a comprehensive understanding of the basics in a matter of minutes. Your doctorate in parkour begins from that moment onwards. ...............................

This is perhaps best demonstrat“We have big plans on ed in the time-trial segment of what we want to offer” the Gamescom demo, which is . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

A vast open world to explore

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35.

League of Legends Worlds 2015 Knockout Stage After two surprising weeks of competition, the 2015 World Championship Group Stage has come to an end, making way for the Knockout Stage. Now, the remaining eight teams that have tasted international glory will continue their journey towards the 2015 World Championship Finals.

lated with the top two teams from each Group from the Group Stage.

Each Quarterfinal match will feature one No. 1 seed and one No. 2 seed from the Group Stage; however, no two teams from the same Group can be placed in the same half of the bracket. This organization rewards higher seeds for their performance in the Groups, and Here are the top eight League of prevents rematches before the FiLegends teams in the world right nals. The winner of each Quarternow: finals match will move on to the Semifinals.

Group A: Flash Wolves (LMS), KOO Tigers (LCK) The teams were paired with opponents randomly, live during the Group B: SKTelecom T1 (LCK), Quarterfinals Group Draw at the Edward Gaming (LPL) end of the Group Stage.

Group C: Fnatic (EU LCS), ahq e-Sports Club (LMS)

The Semifinals will feature two Best of 5 matches between the Quarterfinals winners. The winners of the Group D: KT Rolster (LCK), Ori- Semifinals will then move on to gen (EU LCS) compete against one another in the Finals of the 2015 World ChampiThe Knockout Stage is broken up onship! into three parts: the Quarterfinals in London, England; the Semifinals The Finals is a Best of 5 face off in Brussels, Belgium; and the Finals between the year’s top two League in Berlin, Germany. Each match in of Legends teams. The victorious the Knockout Stage is a Best of 5. team will become the League of The winner of each match moves Legends 2015 World Champion on, while the loser of each match is and hoist the coveted Summoner’s eliminated from Worlds 2015.

Cup. The Quarterfinals bracket is popu-

37.

Fnatic dodges Jinx bullet vs. ahq, earns No. 1 seed in Group B If you thought Fnatic’s Fabian “Febiven” Diepstraten had harsh words for Cloud9 when asked by Sjokz on-air to predict the outcome of the final match of the Worlds 2015 Group Stage, you can rest in the knowledge that he’s just as ruthless when assessing his own team’s performance. Despite having just left the stage after clinching the No. 1 seed in Group B, Fnatic’s mid laner was despondent, using the adjective “bad” eight times over the course of our interview, averaging 1 BPM (‘bad’s per minute).

Nevertheless, his team managed to pull out a thrilling win in its final game against Taiwan’s ahq e-Sports Club -- but triumph was donated, not earned.

could have gotten two or three Bar- hearing rumours they could get a ons for free. Next week if we play shiny blue Nexus for 75% off retail like this then we’re probably going price. to lose if the [opponent] is better.”

Chun-An “AN” Chou’s scary 12/4/4 Jinx had nearly single-handedly broken Fnatic’s spine. All ahq had to do was huddle safely on the opposite side of the map, spamming team-flair and dance emotes while they waited for the Victory animation to trigger. Winions could likely have closed out the game He’s not wrong. When ahq took unaided. Fortunately, despite bethe hot-headed and completely ing down, Fnatic had the presence unnecessary team fight at 48 min- of mind needed to slap down ahq’s utes that threw the game, Fnatic’s haphazard engage, ace them, and base looked like downtown Tokyo finish the game in a single heartin the wake of a Godzilla tem- in-throat counter-push. The specper tantrum. With two Inhibitors tating French audience leaped to down, super minions pushed into its feet, waving Fnatic flags and “We should’ve lost this game,” says Fnatic’s base like belligerent shop- screaming uncontrollably in supFebiven. “They could’ve just ended pers streaming through the doors port of the Europeans. the game if they wanted to. They of a Wal-Mart on Black Friday after ...............................................................................................................................................................................................

38.

“We knew that we were the better team, but we drafted poorly because we were overconfident,” says Febiven, who sounds pretty damn confident. “I was overconfident because I knew that I was a better player than Westdoor. So I decided to take the [LeBlanc vs. Zed] skill matchup instead of a farm-heavy mage. And our bot lane got a bit behind so it was extremely hard and our attitude got so bad in this game so the communication was bad and our decision-making was bad.”

What does bad in-game communication look like for Fnatic?

on steal, which is no mean feat on a champ like LeBlanc, who has to throw herself into harm’s way with Distortion and can’t rely on a hailmary snipe from outside the pit.

Febiven remains hopeful that they’ve gotten the jitters out of their system and will be stronger going into the Knockout Stage.

Our interview took place just prior to the Quarterfinals draw, in which Fnatic got matched up against China’s Edward Gaming for their next test. (Febiven told us he was hoping for Origen or KOO Tigers.)

larger damage output percentage, though at 33%, there’s not a huge amount in it. Febiven also resides in the Unkillable Quarter - the top 25% of Semifinalists who have died fewer than 15 times throughout the entirety of Worlds.

Back at the Mid-Season Invitational, Febiven and the rest of Fnatic performed well enough to proceed to the Semifinals, where they would manage to take two games off of SKTelecom in a Best of 5.

With the additional team synergy and strength gained from the recruitment of Rekkles since MSI, expectations going into Worlds were high. Fnatic had an incredible Summer Split, going undefeated all the way until the Finals in Stockholm, and Febiven has been integral to their success. Believed by many to be one of the strongest mid laners in Europe, his chances going into Worlds were looking good. Even if dropping a couple of games to Origen put a small scratch in Fnatic’s veneer of invulnerability.

“Everyone is calling different stuff because everyone is frustrated,” says Febiven. “We all do whatever we want. If something goes bad, then it goes more bad. For me, I did some really bad things this game, which I normally don’t do “I hope we get one of the weaker if I’m in an optimal mental state. teams,” he says, “because then of course it will be easier for us to win and go through. Because I want to travel the world more. I want to play everywhere. We have to beat every team so it’s going to be ex- The first week of the 2015 World tremely hard.”

Championship Group Stage was a tough one for Fnatic. After opening Febiven and Fnatic have a guaran- the show on a high -- forcing InvicWhen I jumped into the top lane at teed trip to London. Whether his tus Gaming to surrender after just the second tower where I got one- squad is still in the race when the 30 minutes -- the team found deshot, I don’t know why I did that. competition moves on to Brus- feat in their next two games. Many It just starts because something sels and Berlin later in the month, questioned whether the team’s goes wrong and then communica- however, will depend on how bad magic had been lost, but Febiven tion is negative. And then it gets to they want it. and his teammates used their praceveryone’s head and everyone feels tice time well, and bounced back desperate, or like they have to do Febiven is a real damage power- in the second week with a consomething. And then bad things house. Of the mid laners who have vincing 3-0 in their Group. As the managed to get to the Semifinals Quarterfinals arrived in London, it happen.” in Brussels this week, he’s serving was unclear whether Fnatic could Europe’s top seed going into up a larger portion of his team’s progress in the competition, as Worlds 2015 see-sawed back and damage than any other. 31% of all they would be facing the winners forth between bad and badass damage dealt by Fnatic at Worlds of the hard-fought Mid-Season during the Group Stage, but they came through Febiven’s magic fin- Invitational, Edward Gaming. Demade the clutch plays when it mat- gers. Even the Semifinalist ADCs spite these fears, Fnatic sauntered tered. In the game against ahq, are having a hard time keeping up, through the Best of 5 against EDG Febiven pulled off a godlike Bar- with only Origen’s Niels boasting a with very little cause for concern. ...............................................................................................................................................................................................

39.

Uncharted 4 story details revealed ...............................

Naughty Dog have been tightlipped about the plot for Uncharted 4: A Thief ’s End since its announcement in 2013, but as part of Game Informer’s exclusive coverage, they’ve finally opened up.

“Everybody believes that he’s quippy and he’s off the cuff, but over the course of each game, you’ve seen that he’s actually driven by something way deeper than what’s on the surface.”

As teased at the end of a gameplay demo shown at PlayStation Experience last month, Uncharted 4 sees protagonist Nathan Drake reunited with his long-lost brother, Sam.

Nolan North, Drake’s voice actor, . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . explained the importance of family plore is] that every treasure that Drake pursues has a cost to it - an in Uncharted. emotional cost, a relationship cost “The theme throughout all these sometimes. It sounds dark, but games is family,” said North, refer- again that to me is the humanity ring primarily to the family Drake within who Nathan Drake is. There has created with people like Victor are two sides to everything that we do in life, and in this game we’re Sullivan and Elena Fisher. going to try to explore those two “And he’s made his family because aspects of it.” he thought he lost so much.” Obviously, the return of Sam adds an Release date - March 2016 confirmed extra layer to this familial theme.

Three years after the events of Uncharted 3, Drake has settled down and more or less retired from his life of adventure and thrill-seeking, when Sam shows up seeking Drake’s help over some high stakes.

Naughty Dog, Inc. (known as Jam Software before renaming in 1989[2][4]) is an American video game developer based in Santa Monica, California.

Founded by Andy Gavin and Jason Rubin in 1984 as an independent developer,[2] the studio was acquired by Sony Computer Entertainment in 2001.

What exactly those stakes are, Naughty Dog didn’t say, but a cutscene Game Informer saw had There will be more to Uncharted 4 We originally thought it might be released some time toward the end Sam saying, “We’re buying my life than the family element, though. of this year, as all three Uncharted back.”

“One of the themes that we’re ex- games have launched in either OcWhile Uncharted 4 will still have ploring with Uncharted 4 is the tober, November or December, but the series’ trademark humour, idea of obsession,” said creative di- we now know that won’t be the case with Uncharted 4. After a string of Naughty Dog said it will take a rector Neil Druckmann. delays, Sony has finally given Undeeper look at Drake and provide “Passion can become obsession. charted 4 a definitive release date. some closure.

Obsession can become an addic- Announced this morning at its To“Nathan Drake is an interesting tion, and they’re all kind of very kyo Game Show conference, Uncharacter in that he’s got this fa- similar ideas. But they have a cost charted 4 will now launch worldand this idea [we wanted to ex- wide on 18th March 2016. cade,” said director Bruce Straley. ...............................................................................................................................................................................................

40.

SMITE Now Available Through Steam Hi-Rez Studios’ fast-growing MOBA title SMITE recently launched on the Xbox One and now the free-to-play game has managed to expand to Valve’s digital distribution, Steam. Gamers looking to get in on the action can do so right now.

The separating factor that SMITE has from its fellow competitors is that the game is more of a third-person melee shooter as opposed to an isometric real-time strategy or tower defense game. A lot of the characters in Heroes of the Storm or Dota 2 can be played like a stanThe five-on-five title landed on dard tower defense game, but in Steam with a smattering of positive SMITE you actually have to move reviews from users. They seem to the character around and focus-fire be enjoying themselves and have your skill shots just as if you were taken to Hi-Rez Studios’ free-to- playing Gears of War or Uncharted. play MOBA with keen interest.

Due to the necessity of reflexThe game sees two teams consisting ive skills and teamwork, SMITE of five gods going head-to-head. has been able to distinctly sepThe game features 60 playable gods, arate itself from the nature of each with their own skills, traits the current crop of MOBAs out and abilities, and the objective is there, and a lot of gamers are lovto work with fellow teammates to ing the title for that very reason. capture points on the map in order to overthrow your opponents. Also, given that the game is freeto-play it easily makes it suscepNow a lot of people may know tible to the possible machinations about MOBAs but not everyone of microtransactions. However, is familiar with the intricacies of many of the reviews point out how they work. For instance there that SMITE actually manages to are some slight differences in how maintain a very healthy cash shop teams and characters level in a game ecosystem; you can’t pay to win. like Heroes of the Storm compared to League of Legends or Defense While there are some complaints of the Ancients 2, just the same as about balance issues, the main there are item and talent differences discussion is centered around the that separates Dota 2 from League fact that the game allows you to of Legends; so on and so forth. purchase only cosmetics for the

heroes, which does little more than give players a more distinct and personalized look on the field.

Speaking of the field... there are some complaints about the lack of map variety in the main Conquest mode, but otherwise the complaints are kept to a minimum. ...............................

Hi-Rez Studios is an independent, privately held video-game developer based in Alpharetta, Georgia, United States. The company was established in 2005 by Erez Goren and Todd Harris, and is now one of the largest video-game studios in the southeast United States.

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41.

Blizzard’s want to enter on the MOBA genre

Interview: Blizzard’s Chris Sigaty and Alan Dabiri on Heroes of the Storm Blizzard has now released its next big new game which takes characters from their vast universes and smashes them all together in a massive team-based rumble. It doesn’t stop there though, because they will be constantly updating the game with new features, game balances, and content like new battlegrounds and heroes.

The best part about it is that it’s a load of fun and you can play it for free. We were invited back once again to chat with some of the creative developers at Blizzard, this time talking to Executive Producer Chris Sigaty and Technical Director Alan Dabiri. direction and wanting to pull it all together. But those last two battlegrounds were critical for us to step back and say, “This is the ground floor of where we want to be when we ship Heroes of the Storm to the Chris Sigaty: One of the pri- world.” mary drivers was battlegrounds; getting to our seven we felt like it Alan Dabiri: There were also was a great mixture of the variety some basic features that we just we wanted to see. Our heroes too, needed to make sure were in the we wanted to have a good repre- game like progression systems, sentation across all of it. We actu- your profile, our ranking system ally slowed down on the release of and all these other modes. That’s Heroes in the last two major releas- kind of when you talk about when es a bit. We wanted to really to get you feel you’re ready; this is the ready for it and focus a lot more on point where we are like, “Okay the polish, the stability of the entire this is the platform, the base of online system and performance of this game.” But also the other key the game, all of those things. So thing to say is that now that we are there was a lot more focus in that launching it doesn’t mean that we LEVELUP: From the transition to that and into full release what was it that made you confident that Heroes of the Storm was ready to be put out there?

are done.

Chris: Yeah, not at all.

Alan: This is just the beginning.

And now we keep on going, we keep on adding new stuff, new features and new content.

LEVELUP: Chris you’re also working on [StarCraft 2] Legacy of the Void.

Chris: Yeah, as executive produc-

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42.

er. I’m looking in on both games and really the most important part of my role is to make sure that the Legacy of the Void team has everything they need to be successful and the Heroes team has everything they have to be successful.

So there’s constant conversation with both teams, and we are really trying to give both teams what they need. It’s a tough place to be in right now because they derive from the same place ultimately. That’s been an interesting challenge, but exciting because it’s all building right now and it’s a lot of the same people with overlap.

LEVELUP: And so with one game it’s a $60 or $100 price model and the other is a free to play game.

How have you found working with the different price models and how that fits into what style of game you’re going to be developing?

Have you found much of a difference between them?

Chris: Oh yeah, it’s a massive difference. The biggest one is on delivery. Our entire team was based around releasing content every 12 to 24 months, which is StarCraft 2 right… Well, closer to 24 months generally. But we do a patch here or there, and we certainly try to

make sure the balance is great, but it’s not the same as releasing constant content. Transitioning the teams mindset the way we thought about things before to this new concept for Heroes it was a huge undertaking, and it was a lot of us really scratching our heads and asking each other on the team how should things change, like our process was not based on this at all. So there was a lot of metamorphosis of a tonne of people and a lot of process. We have gotten to a reasonably good place, but we have so much more to go, we want Heroes to be constant with its content and that’s something that doesn’t impact the StarCraft team as much.

But we do expect a lot of the learning and things that came from that to come across over to StarCraft 2 as well.

ods so we are not stepping on each other’s toes. But also from a feature perspective, on the online side we are working on for Legacy of the Void doing an entire automated tournament system. The long-term goal of this tournament system will be, what can we take from that and change for Heroes so that we gain the benefit of it. And generally it’s not just a plug and play thing; there are a lot of design teams and all of that. But there are benefits to being so close at the same time.

LEVELUP: Alan, do you have any other thoughts on your experience working on Heroes of the Storm?

Alan: He basically covered it all at the end there for me which is that we are benefiting from a shared

LEVELUP: Okay, so the decisions you’re making here are influencing the other games you’re working on as well?

Chris: Sure, and even technology too. It’s not even just process and how we are going to do it, but there are tons of tools that have been developed, and lots of technology.

An example of it, which goes both directions, is lots of behind the scenes build tools and things that have been done that are coming over and helping how builds come out for StarCraft 2. We try to compartmentalise those builds and not let people in during various peri-

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44.

heritage between the two games.

So there a things that we can benefit from on both sides. Anything like performance improvements, any features we develop; it can all be shared across. Also, purely from a features standpoint, things that already exist in StarCraft 2 that maybe we don’t have in Heroes yet, you’re going to see those things come online. We have replays in Heroes, but we don’t yet support the multiplayer replays – like watching with your friends. But that’s a feature we have in StarCraft

which will be coming to Heroes as well. Naturally there are things we can benefit from on both sides.

That the rank 30 person just hasn’t played as many games as you have, but they have won all of the games that they have played. They might be on this crazy win streak.

Where this placement match system came from is we really want to make sure your ranking is as accurate as can be. And we already have this with StarCraft, where we have placement matches where you play LEVELUP: I just wanted to quickly touch on community engagement and where you see Blizzard fitting in that area. The two biggest competitors you’re looking at are Riot with League of Legends and Valve with Dota 2. They both have two different approaches to the way they do their thing. Riot is very hands on with the community and involved – to the point where they have things like player managers for the professional teams. Where-

as Valve has this hands off approach and a lot is run by the community.

Where do you see yourselves with how involved you’ll be with things that the community would like to see within the game?

with development. Our community is part of development. We really feel like with Heroes – and StarCraft for that matter, that being much more connected is critical to it. It’s been a shift, it used to sit in different buildings but now we all Chris: I guess somewhere in the sit together. middle. Where are not looking to either of the models necessarily. LEVELUP: Just to wrap things We’ve been working really hard on up Twitch has really become a big the Heroes team to be much more thing over the last few years, you in contact with our communi- can have your everyday person ty. We feel like Heroes very much that can jump on it and show off a evolved through constant com- game. What are thoughts on how munication from our community that has evolved and how it’s shapthrough beta, through Blizzcon, ing the future of games? and through really listening. We’ve Alan: Yeah man its awesome. We always listened, but I don’t know if we’ve spoken back as much as we have been with Heroes. We are making a concerted effort to really be shaking hands with the players and the community these days. I expect that to continue, but I can’t really say how it directly applies to watch games on Twitch all the the other approaches. I feel like it’s time, we watch a lot of Heroes of an even more in contact place for the Storm , and we watch StarCraft Blizzard than we have been in the 2. past.

Chris: Its really helped eSports, it’s Alan: We have this set of commu- something that is really near and nity managers as well who are not dear to my heart – and to Blizzard’s only interacting with the commu- in general. It’s one of the most exnity on our own forums, but also on citing things in games to see the other external websites like Reddit, highest level players compete, and and other places where our players streaming has really made it grow hang out in. We will respond to much more than it would have posts there, and in fact this whole without that technology. It’s a very thing I just talked to you about re- exciting time and without that garding the ranking changes that technology I don’t think we would you read on our blog post, that’s be where we are today, and I mean another way that the community the gaming industry in general, team works with us and tries to get just how popular it is and how big all that information out. That’s like a deal competitive eSports has bea dialogue, the community has giv- come. But also in creating personen us a lot of feedback, we’ve had alities and really tweaking what it internal feedback and we are like, means to have community mem“Yeah, you know what, there are bers and community leaders. A things we want to improve here.” lot of them are entertainers at this point who have established themChris: Internally what that has selves from being fun to watch on meant for us is community sits streams. It’s so cool.

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45.

First place get 100,000$! Second Place get 50,000$!

Thijs and Neirea are the first Europeans to qualify for BlizzCon For Dutch player Thijs “ThijsNL” Molendijk, this was the test of his career. The Gamers2 spearhead was greeted by the group of death as he had to overcome Frederik “Hoej” Nielsen, Sebastian “Ostkaka” Engwall and Michael “Maverick” Looze if he wanted to make it through to BlizzCon, a goal that eluded him in 2014.

Despite the stacked competition, ThijsNL came into the tournament considered by many, including ourselves, the best player of the eight. Also holding the #1 spot in the GosuRankings, with a record quickly approaching the all-time high 1,327 held by TiddlerCelestial after DH Summer, the Flying Dutchman was seen as the favorite.

Thijs played his opening match against Maverick off-stage. Despite admitting to having played his Patron suboptimally, he took a 3-1 lead and stepped on the main stage to face Ostkaka, the winner of the Na’Vi team kill in the first game of the day. Bringing an antic-

ipated line-up of Druid, Handlock and Patron, Thijs looked as solid as ever, only losing one game in the series.

The repeat 3-1 put Thijs in the top 4 of the tournament, and thus locked him for BlizzCon. He was soon followed by Yevgeniy “Neirea” Shumilin of Liquid, who before the tournament started found himself in a similar position – a last year EU Championship attendee who failed to snatch a BlizzCon seed.

Neirea opened the group with a surprising win against pool favorite Adrian “Lifecoach” Koy, dropping only a single game to his Druid.

The winners match was a tougher task for the Ukrainian, however, as he faced Empire’s Pavel Beltukov.

The Russian youngster did not go down without a fight, and Neirea had to fight back from a 1-2 deficit, locking the series in a Warlock mirror in game five.

Now that their BlizzCon seeds are secured, Thijs and Neirea have only one thing to worry about – the title of the first European champion and the $10,000 that go with it.

Structure The 2015 Championship is a tour-

Thijs and Neirea ...............................................................................................................................................................................................

48.

nament between 16 players, 4 from each region: Americas (North America and Latin America), Europe, China and Asia-Pacific (Korea, Taiwan, Southeast Asia, Australia, New Zealand, and Japan).

These 16 competitors will be selected through Regional Qualifiers and Regional Championships, before competing in the World Championship itself.

Point Structure : January to August, Gain Hearthstone World Championship points through ranked play seasons as well as Blizzard-sanctioned tournaments and events.

Regional Qualifiers: September, Each region’s top players (based on their point standing) compete in a double-elimination tournament for entry into their regional championships.

top of one of the most competitive regions in Hearthstone.

With little to no international tournament experience, however, at least compared to pillars of the CN scene like Xieyu “TiddlerCelestial” Wang, the group of four will need some training and this is where Blizzard China is coming in. Between October 1-7, the quartet will spar against the best that China and Korea have to offer, preparing them for the biggest tournament of their careers.

A total of 28 showmatches will be played in that one week period with a small prize pool of $4,500 on the line, just as an extra incentive.

Regional Championships: September to October. The eight players who emerged at the top from the crucible of the regional qualifiers duke it out to see which of them are worthy to proceed to the The GamersOrigin player is the Hearthstone World Championship first champion of the Americas reto represent their region. gion after a five-game final against Hotform.

Hearthstone World Champion- In the time span of two days, Ryan ship: Late Fall, Sixteen players who “Purple” Root went from being the have proven their skill and tenaci- most likely candidate for the local ty in the Regional Championships throne, to being almost eliminatwill move on to the World Cham- ed on several occasions, to actualpionship and compete for the title ly becoming the best player in the of 2015 Hearthstone World Cham- Americas. pion.

It was a tough road for the GamersOrigin playing coach. His opening Asia teams up to prep Chi- match against Vinicius “Coreia” na’s quartet for Blizzcon Pupo wasn’t as one-sided as many probably expected as the Brazilian China found the four players that put up a good fight and dragged will represent it at Blizzcon rath- their series to full five games. Bareer early. In August, after a week- ly getting out of it alive, Purple end-long offline tournament, than stumbled onto Justin “JAB” LoveVC, NoTomorrow, Zoro and Black, who demolished him 3-0 Zihao made it through, coming on in the winners match of Group A,

leaving Purple one loss away from elimination. In the decider match of the group, Purple once again had to face Coreia and play another tense five-game series to eventually earn a seed for the playoffs.

The direct elimination matches were no picnic either. With Patron Warrior in his line-up, Purple would’ve likely preferred to meet anybody else but Victor “Nias” Shelstad, the upcoming player who made his name as a Patron slayer during the online qualifier. Down 1-2 in the series and playing the unfavorable Handlock versus Patron match-up, Purple had to summon all his strength to reverse the score and make it to the grand finals.

Who got what it takes to take the Trophy home?

Its the europeans? the asians?

Or the americas?

We will find out on the next Blizzcon.

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49.

Star Wars Battlefront: what the biggest beta test in EA’s history, attracting over nine million players

Star Wars Battlefront . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . the whine of a swooping Tie-FightStar Wars: Battlefront is a series of first- and er to the almost mournful laser third-person shooter video games based on blast of the AT-ST walkers. There is the Star Wars films by George Lucas. Originalalso thrilling use of the John Willy published by LucasArts beginning in 2004, EA DICE has taken over the franchise follow- liams score, bringing in the main ing The Walt Disney Company’s acquisition theme at certain points and never of LucasArts. Players take the role of soldiers failing to produce a rush of adrenin either of two opposing armies in different time periods of the Star Wars universe. aline and nostalgia. ...............................

“Star Wars – what’s bigger?” says It was, according to Electronic Niklas Fegraeus, design director Arts, the biggest beta test in the at developer Digital Illusions Crepublisher’s history. Over nine mil- ative Entertainment (Dice), speaklion people turned out this week to try an early version of Star Wars: Battlefront, the online multiplayer shooter set for release on 17 November. Most came away with some fun stories and a few huge questions.

One thing pretty much everyone agreed on was that this game nails Star Wars. The recreation of Hoth is visually astounding, with its glittering snowscapes and bustling rebel base – and the design of the storm troopers, the guns and the spacecraft is near perfect. The audio too, is wonderful, capturing all the well-known sound effects, from

ing to us on the eve of the Beta’s launch. “One of the main goals of the game is to be a Star Wars experience – that’s a huge thing. The whole franchise is enjoyed by so many different types of people – of course we want to give them something to enjoy, we want them to be able to just jump into the game and have fun.”

Sign up to our Film Today email Read more This brings us to the key complaint coming out of the beta experience: that the combat is too shallow. The four available laser guns, though exhibiting different specs, all look and feel the same, and success seemed hugely reliant on levelling up and grabbing the better items, rather than learning the maps and figuring out how to coordinate attacks with teammates. Right now, the distribution of power-ups over the map surface, which give access to sentry guns, defence shields and other goodies (replacing the genre’s now conventional “kill streak” style rewards), takes away the usual rhythm and sense of progress within a bout. snappy Of course, what the beta also lacked was the character progression element of the full game, which will hopefully allow players to personalise their avatars with specific skills – perhaps along the traditional lines of medic, sniper and assault – thereby fleshing out the strategic play. But then Dice keeps stressing that this isn’t a Battlefield game for Battlefield fans,

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it’s a Star Wars game for Star Wars fans. In truth, as we mentioned after playing the game at E3, the dynamics of the combat do very much reflect the feel of the Battlefield series – just with many of the more complex load-out options, progression systems and tactical elements (like squads and commanders) removed.

tional approach. Also, participants set the capture process off by holding down a button, but they don’t have to remain in the immediate vicinity for long, making defence more open and tactical. During the beta, this is where most players started out, engaging in the quick skirmishes and levelling up their characters to unlock the better guns and equipment such as greFegraeus assures us however, that nades, one-shot sniper rifles and there will be something there for jet packs. the more dedicated gaming audience – though that does seem to Walker Assault, however, was the come down to the breadth of game beta’s true showcase mode. Here, modes, rather than the depth. “It’s two sides – rebel and imperijust this large palette of experiences al – face off in a recreation of the very closely tied to iconic Star Wars Empire Strikes Back’s opening assault. The rebels are required to reach a set of uplinks and get them running, in order to triangulate Y-Wing bomber strikes on the advancing might of the imperial AT-AT walkers. The Empire has to stop the rebel scum, while slowly watching its walking mega-tanks stuff that you can play,” he says, “I plod into the battle. think that gives not only a big appeal to a lot of people - that’s the “We have lots of experience when it intent, we want Star Wars fans to comes to these large scale designs, feel like this is something for them so we use a lot of that experience,” - but at the same time, if you’re an says Fegraeus of the overall Hoth advanced player and you want to experience. “But at the same time, be very tactical or competitive or it’s a great challenge for us to make whatever, there are modes for that too. It gives you options and choices when it comes to what you want to play.”

There were two key multiplayer modes available in the beta: the snappy Drop Zone, set on the new planet of Sullust; and Walker Assault, the more in-depth 20 vs 20 conflict on the surface of Hoth.

Drop Zone is a take on Battlefield’s standard Conquest mode in which teams compete to secure key areas of the map – except here, the areas are escape pods that drop on to the surface in random positions, forcing a much more fluid, improvisa-

experience. We really started with this foundational idea of ‘let’s let people jump in to their Star Wars battle fantasy and play it their way’,” he says, “That has been the guiding principle, and that hasn’t changed at all.”

If that’s the guiding principle, then the beta is definitely a success of sorts. Taking control of a TIie Interceptor, carrying out strafing runs on fleeing members of the New Republic; swooping low and fast in a Snowspeeder (while dropping in the odd “I’ve found them, repeat, I’ve found them”); prancing about in full control of an AT-ST walker - there’s always plenty going on and plenty to do (even if the controls of the flying craft are currently a little unintuitive and weird, so dog-fighting with an X-wing can often feel a bit like trying to parallel park a Reliant Robin with two flat tyres).

Star Wars: Battlefront, then, is true to the source material; everything it does fits with what you would expect. The problem could be that the underlying action is so familiar – we’ve had over a decade of the Call of Duty and Battlefield titles now, and they have rigidly defined the military FPS experience that Battlefront adheres to. It’s risky to draw too many conclusions from what is essentially a technical test not a demo, but if the beta is anything to go by, those who aren’t utterly seduced by the chance to fight as rebels or stormtroopers raiding Tatooine and blowing up something that really speaks Star snow bases may even – gulp – find Wars, being in that universe and themselves tiring of a highly recogworking in that universe’s rules. nisable shooter. “... It’s been the really exciting part of the challenge – just diving into this universe and learning its ins and outs and kinks, and trying to make something that speaks to that, so it becomes a true Star Wars

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Inside the Eve clash that destroyed $13K worth of ships this week

Eve Online ...............................

The Bloodbath of B-R5RB or Battle of B-R5RB was a massive-scale virtual battle fought in the MMORPG space game EVE Online, and was possibly the largest player versus player battle ever, were involved over 7,548 players. he in-game cost of the losses totalled over 11 trillion InterStellar Kredit (ISK), an estimated theoretical real-world value of $300,000 to $330,000 USD.

Coalition. Despite being allied, RMC never helped Triumvirate in their efforts. Once the war ended and Triumvirate became allied with the Geminate Coalition, Triumvirate wanted revenge. And so they went to war for Insmother.

The RMC has its reasons to fight, too. The original Red Alliance’s ancestral homeland was Insmother for years, and since then they’ve either wanted, held, or been fighting for it. When the alliance previously holding Insmother fell apart last year, Red Alliance and friends swooped in to reclaim their property. To RMC, Insmother is not just a place for fights but a place of history and emotion.

set their timer to spark a fight with its opponents, and RMC delivered.

Initially RMC deployed a fleet of dreadnaughts, huge damage output capital ships, alongside its subcapital Machariel-class battleship fleet. The dreadnaughts quickly destroyed the starbase and exited, RMC extracting them in favor of deploying Archon-class carriers, capital-sized repair platforms designed to keep the battleships alive.

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Earlier this week, Eve Online was host to another of its famously massive battles, this time destroying 1165 ships (over $13K) and involving over 1600 players. It all started because of a moon. In Eve, the majority of an alliance’s income comes from mining moons, and as moons go this one wasn’t very Now we come to the meat of the worthwhile. Composed of hafni- matter, the Battle of YPW-M4. To In response, Triumvirate and its um, it produces enough money friends the Geminate Coalition per month to cover one to three deployed its own fleets of Machaadvanced ships. This moon orbits riel-class battleships and strategic a planet in system within a region cruisers along with dreadnoughts. currently at war, where the TriThe superior numbers quickly decumvirate alliance and friends are imated the RMC Machariels and fighting the Red Menace Coalition destroyed all of its carriers.

(RMC) over the Insmother region. mine a moon you must erect a starbase in orbit around it. When All in all, the fighting involved n the last war in that area of New this starbase is initially attacked it 1694 players and resulted in 729.38 Eden, Triumvirate was allied with goes into a ‘reinforcement’ state, billion Interstellar Kredits deRMC while fighting another group a condition of invulnerability for stroyed, or $13,250 if converted to of Russians called the Geminate a set amount of time. Triumvirate real money. ...............................................................................................................................................................................................

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One of the worst game ever made by Robomondo and Disruptive

Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater 5 Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater 5 occasionally flirts with the joy of movement and attitude that made the original four games classics, but the wheels quickly come off. There are a disappointing number of design and technical problems that range from frustrating to flat-out broken, making this attempt at returning the series to glory a non-starter.

moments of zen that balanced the combination of learning the maps, memorizing your move set, and the risk-reward of when to pull out of a chain.

Also, though Tony Hawk 5 is ostensibly an online game, I don’t recommend playing it that way (or at all, really). The addition of a dozen other players skating around your map slows the framerate down, adds to load times, and doesn’t really introduce any interesting social elements. I found myself playing offline in order to have a smoother experience. But “smoother” is a relative term, because even then, menus don’t convey enough information and load screens pop up far too often, killing momentum in what should be a fast-paced game.

pretty well-versed in music, and yet I was hard-pressed to find more than a handful of bands I even recognized, let alone liked.

Apart from the music, the levels generally lack any sort of charm or identity. Many are a hodgepodge of elements from classic maps like The Warehouse, but none of them really stand on their own as memorable. Even worse is that many of the trick lines aren’t conveyed in a effective manner. There aren’t enough visual cues throughout the levels to give you confidence in your next move, and I found my character obscuring my view far too often, making it impossible to see what was coming up next.

Developer Robomodo started with a good idea: paring Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater back down to the basics of the series. You won’t be hopping off your board, exploring open worlds, or standing on a weird Classic Tony Hawk attitude is the piece of plastic. Instead, Pro Skater other big thing I miss in Pro Skat5 leaves you to test your ability to er 5. Starting at the soundtrack, a chain together tricks, manuals, and seminal part of previous games, grinds, much like classic Hawk. It this one’s music doesn’t pay homalmost works. At times, I found age to the west coast hip-hop and Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater 5’s rare myself getting back into that fa- punk scene from the past four moments of nostalgic joy are miliar rhythm that made me fall in decades in the same way that the drowned out by its abundance of love with the original games. I had originals did. I consider myself control problems, bugs. ...............................................................................................................................................................................................

53.

Everything you need to know about the Need for Speed REBOOT

Need for Speed

build, crew, and outlaw, respectively.

you enter the direction and a cutscene ensues, your car suddenly Most racing games put story to becomes a seamless part of that one side, or it’s the flimsiest of pre- real-world environment, with the tences for why you’re competing in actors performing alongside it. race after race. Need for Speed has flirted with story more frequently than its peers – 2011’s The Run really tried to push the idea of a narrative-driven racer – and the new Need for Speed wants this to be a cornerstone of the franchise. The set-up is you’re a young racer entering the nighttime world of illicit Authentic Piece of Car street racing. It’s simple but rich in Culture possibilities.

Need for Speed really wants to There are supporting characters, flaunt its credibility as a racer going who communicate with you face- forward. It’s leaning heavily into its to-face and via social media pop- relationship with Speed Hunters, a ups when you’re racing around the car culture blog incidentally owned city. But the most striking aspect by EA, to represent current trends is the execution: Need for Speed is and feel like a contemporary, credusing live-action footage to tell its ible racing experience. At Gamesstory. It’s a bold choice, and the de- com, it also revealed that five of the cision was taken in light of a tech- world’s biggest racing icons will nological innovation made by the form a major part of the narrative. developer which allows game as- The icons – Magnus Walker, Ken sets to be composited in real-time Block, Nakai, Risky Devil (a drift with live-action footage. So if you crew), and Morohoshi – are indimod your car – add an outlandish vidually associated with a differbody kit or respray it – the moment ent tenet of gameplay: speed, style,

Each one represents a different type of experience the player can have. You can choose to favour one above the others or invest time equally across disciplines. I’m still not sure how different these challenges will really be, but I’m definitely interested in the idea of character classes being incorporated into an open-world racer.

Story-Driven Experience

Photorealistic Visuals Need for Speed wants to set the benchmark in a genre where the standard is always being raised.

Frostbite is allowing EA Ghost to do some truly innovative stuff when it comes to blending ingame assets and live-action, but it’s being used to great effect in the game where it really matters. I only played Need for Speed for a short amount of time during Gamescom but I was definitely impressed by

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its cars and the small amount of the contemporary experience. But this map I was able to explore. customisation depth also extends to handling, where I counted 24 Open World different variables to tweak from tire traction to spring stiffness, Recent entries have embraced the downforce and brake bias. There’s open-world setting, and through a lot of micro-adjusting if you want innovations like Autolog, cities to get sucked in, but if you don’t, it were transformed into automotive can largely be ignored, with a genplaygrounds. Those elements have eral slider allowing you to make it been retained in Need for Speed, play more like a sim or an arcade with Ventura Bay forming the racer. backdrop this time around. Events take place across a single-night, I only played Need for Speed for but it’s unclear of just how varied about seven minutes, so I’m still the city will be at this stage. not entirely sure how many of its new elements work and combine We’ve seen some footage of wind- into a fluid experience, nor do I ing hills high up above the city, but have a good sense of how diverse when I played I was limited to a or fun Ventura Bay really is. That stretch of rather unremarkable city, said, the cars look great and handle where back alleys and car parks brilliantly (I tweaked it to exactly blended together. There were very my preferences), which isn’t a bad few jumps, for instance, in the area start at all.

I explore, so I’m still unsure of how realistic or how wild the setting of Ventura Bay will really be.

Customisation

vorite genre, I’m often confident that I can place well (if not first) in my multiplayer racing booth demos at E3 year after year. Need For Speed threw me for a loop, given that its design is not as straightforward as point to point races.

In a form of thoughtful rebranding Need For Speed’s multiplayer score attack is called 8-Player Rep Attack. It keys in on the kind of skill-based driving that has been very popular these many years. It’s not surprising for Need For Speed developer Ghost Games, which is primarily made up of former talent from Criterion Games, a studio known for the risk-taking driving from the Burnout series. From slick drifting to near miss car passes, you’ll earn points toward your rep when you’re competing with seven others at Rep Attack.

In all, I enjoyed how the controls and my preferred grip setting felt.

More importantly, the hands-on experience managed to emulate the intensity and visual realism of the flashy E3 2015 trailer. The isolated feeling from touring the dark streets of Ventura Bay (a fictional version of Los Angeles) were punctuated by the light-bleeds from the street lights and headlights. Need For Speed’s attention to detail is never more apparent than in the garages. Rather than present them in their most pristine state, the cars in your collection have a “just driven” look, as if you had each of your cars out in the wet weather sometime in the last couple hours.

The last few Need For Speeds have done a commendable job catering to different driving preferences, but this latest installment just might be the most accessible version yet. The franchise has been around long enough that it has different fanbases from different eras, whether it’s the period when the cars tended to grip the pavement and the era when there was more of an emphasis on drifting. Customization and tuning is commonplace in all kinds Need For Speed comes out on Noof racing games, and while the next vember 3, 2015.

Need For Speed offers a wealth of options to personalize your handing, having a Grip vs Drift slider makes the experience very pick up-and-play.

Some racing games take customisation very seriously indeed. Need for Speed has recently been less interested in this type of experience. In recent entries I’ve hardly dabbled in customisation beyond the most superficial tweaks. Need for Speed rectifies, but it’s there only if you want to get involved.

Almost every part of the car can be tweaked cosmetically: body kits, window tinting, spoilers, rims, everything you’d expect. Current trends in customisation are represented, like colouring front and rear alloys differently – again, the ambition is to make this feel like a Given that arcade racing is my fa-

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WILDSTAR IS GOING FREE-TO-PLAY! HERE’S ALL YOU NEED TO KNOW

WildStar “Free-to-play” means that anyone can play without spending any money to buy WildStar and without committing to a required subscription fee.

other payment to their account to to include optional purchases with continue their Signature service, all new content. We may also offer should they choose to. some new content and full expansion packs exclusively for purchase All players will be able to create in the future. characters of every race, class, and path, and choose any tradeskills The game will have NCoin is purthey like. Characters can achieve chased with real money and used level 50 and path level 30, just as on the in-game store to purchase they can under the current system. boosts, bonuses, and cosmetic There are some initial restrictions items. NCoin can be purchased on services and social functions— through NCSOFT account manwhich can be unlocked through agement, or in-game directly from the Cosmic Rewards system. the store. Purchasing and spending NCoin both reward Cosmic Points.

All accounts that have an active recurring payment method, C.R.E.D.D. redemption, or a game time card redemption when the transition occurs will be considered active. These accounts will automatically convert to Signature service, which will persist until their current “active period” ends.

For example, if an account has 20 days of time remaining through one of the methods above, those 20 days will convert to Signature service since game access is now open Those who purchased and claimed to everyone. a box code for WildStar before September 29 will receive some grandPlayers with a recurring payment fathered benefits only available to plan for subscription service will box-purchasers, which will ensure have that plan automatically con- that these accounts retain an expeverted into a recurring plan for rience that most closely matches Signature status. that of the launch game.

Last but not least additionally, as a reward to those who were continuous subscribers from WildStar’s launch until the transition to freeto-play, we’re giving away an exclusive Ikthian Crawler mount, an exclusive DJ Caretaker housing décor item, a Disco Snoglug companion pet, a new housing music track, four months of Signature service, and two new titles: “Living Legend” and “Nexus Loyalist.”

Players with non-recurring pay- Most new content and features will ments, C.R.E.D.D., or a game be available to both free and Signatime card will need to apply an- ture players. However, we do plan ...............................................................................................................................................................................................

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Darksiders II Deathinitive Edition confirmed?

Darksiders II Deathinitive Edition A release date for Darksiders II “Deathinitive” Edition, a remastered version of the 2012 action-adventure game for Xbox One and PlayStation 4, has not been officially announced by publisher Nordic Games. However, major United States retailers agree that the title will launch on October 27.

“When we thought about what we wanted to do for the Deathinitive edition of Darksiders II, obviously we wanted to run in native 1080p and increase the resolution of the textures,” design director John Pearl said in a statement. “Additionally, we decided to rewrite the renderer to be physically based like a lot of other current generation That’s the date listed on the Death- game engines.” initive Edition product pages on Amazon, GameStop, Best Buy, and Walmart. We spoke with a representative for Nordic Games about the game’s release date, but they were not able to confirm the date right away. We’ll update this post if we hear something definitive.

Outside of the visual upgrade, the new version of Darksiders II comes with refinements to the game’s balancing and loot distribution systems. Also included is all previously released downloadable content.

Leading development on Darksiders II Death-initive edition is Gunfire Games. This studio is staffed almost entirely by people who worked on the Darksiders franchise at creator Vigil Games before its closure. The game launches this winter for Xbox One and PlayStation 4.

Looking ahead, Nordic Games-which acquired the Darksiders franchise from THQ when the “What this means visually is met- company went bankrupt--has said al, leather, stone, and skin look and it has plans for a third game in the respond to light as you would ex- series. pect them to in the real world. This new rendering method meant we revisited every texture and surface The Darksiders II Death-initive in the game, reworking and re-auedition runs at an improved 1080p thoring them for the new renderer. resolution, but there are also char- To take full advantage of these texacter model changes and new ture changes, we’ve also gone back lighting effects. and relit the entire game.” ...............................................................................................................................................................................................

57.

$50,000 STARCRAFT II: LEGACY OF THE VOID CHAMPIONSHIP AT DREAMHACK WINTER 2015

Starcraft II Championship DreamHack Winter 2015 is quickly approaching! The world’s largest digital festival will be heading back to Jönköping, Sweden from November 26th-29th, 2015. Today, DreamHack is extremely excited and honoured to announce the DreamHack Winter 2015 Legacy of the Void Championship, featuring 24 competitors fighting for a share of $50,000 in prize money.

rights as one of the first big Legacy PRIZE POOL - $50,000 of the Void tournament champi- USD ons!

1st – $20,000 “StarCraft II is part of our esports 2nd – $10,000 DNA at DreamHack. Dream- 3rd – $5,000 Hack Winter already has an iconic 4th – $3,000 StarCraft legacy, and we’re thrilled 5/6th – $2,000 to be holding a major Legacy of 7/8th – $1,500 the Void tournament there,” said 9-12th – $1,250 Michael Van Driel, International Esports Manager at DreamHack. The first day of DreamHack Winter The epic conclusion to the “This will be one of the first pre- 2015 will feature the action-packed StarCraft II trilogy will be officially mier Legacy of Void tournaments, group stage, as all 24 players conreleased on November 10th—just and we’re excited to see who comes tend for the top places across 4 after BlizzCon 2015—and we’re out on top!” groups. The next day, the top 12 super excited to be hosting one of competitors will be seeded into the first major Legacy of the Void DreamHack’s tournament format a cutthroat double elimination tournaments. In a shift from the will consist of 5 wild cards and 19 bracket, where they’ll try and battypical DreamHack Open tourna- qualifier slots, primarily focused tle their way to the final. ment format, DreamHack Winter on Europe, but with open qualifiers will feature 24 competitors, who’ll for Oceania and America as well. qualify through a combination of regional-based qualifiers, and wild card invitations. The winner will take home a massive $20,000 prize cheque, as well as earning bragging ...............................................................................................................................................................................................

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Football, soccer and...Super Smash Bros? E-sports becoming a big business Lynch on the cover, accompanied by stories about video games, including a profile of a League of Legends superstar player from South cute pink animal from the popular Korea. The company also partners Pokemon monster hunting video with game makers to stream the game. Imagine a stuffed animal, world’s most popular tournaments give it even cuter eyes, and you online on its ESPN3 channel. have Jigglypuff. It sings opponents to sleep.

Meanwhile, some of the world’s largest tech companies are jumpIf you were to construct a time- ing in. Both Microsoft’s Xbox line of popular technologies in One and Sony’s PlayStation 4 can the video game industry, people stream games live to the Internet. being watched live by an audience Amazon-owned Twitch and Gooas they play competitively over the gle-owned YouTube, which last Internet would be at the bleeding week launched a dedicated gaming edge. The trend has spawned en- hub, dominate e-sports viewership. tire businesses, it’s the subject of In 2012, Major League Gaming, a TV stations in South Korea and it’s sports league launched in 2002, expected to attract an audience of started its own streaming service 134 million people this year, up 91 as well. percent from the year before, according to industry watcher SuperData Research.

Esport on ESPN3 Would you believe more people watch people playing video games than they do basketball or baseball?

For proof, look no further than a recent competition in Los Angeles.

Reggie Fils-Aime, the towering and affable president of the US division of Japanese game maker Nintendo, had been preparing for the past year to compete in a World Championship of the company’s games.

The game was Super Smash Bros., one of Nintendo’s most popular fighting tites. He was controlling Ryu, of the faces of the iconic Street Fighter franchise. The character, muscles bulging and forever wearing an intense expression, is equipped to fell opponents with his trademark hurricane kick.

Even sports channel ESPN has joined in, with its magazine pubFils-Aime’s challenger, competitive lishing its first e-sports issue this gamer Juan “Hungrybox” Debied- month featuring US National ma, was controlling Jigglypuff, a Football League player Marshawn

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