Latest news with #DBLTAP
Metro
01-08-2025
- Entertainment
- Metro
Battlefield 6 'doesn't need Nicki Minaj' says dev in knock against Call Of Duty
Fans of Battlefield 6 are worried the new game will pull a Call Of Duty when it comes to crossover skins, but the developer insists it will remain 'grounded'. According to current rumours EA is expecting to attract up to 100 million players to Battlefield 6, when it's released in October. That's orders of magnitude more than any previous entry in the series and more akin to the numbers enjoyed by the likes of Call Of Duty and Fortnite. Some influence from those games can already be seen in Battlefield 6, as the sequel will feature a separate battle royale mode. That isn't necessarily a bad idea but it has many fans worried that Battlefield may pick up some of Call Of Duty's other bad habits, especially when it comes to paid-for skins. Call Of Duty and Fortnite are known, for better and worse, for mountains of cosmetic skins based on movie stars, cartoon characters, real-life celebrities, and much more. Call Of Duty fans are getting increasingly fed up with the trend and it seems Battlefield 6 will be purposefully avoiding it. Speaking with DBLTAP during a recent London event, Battlefield 6 design director Shashank Uchil (who's been working on the series since 2018's Battlefield 5) expressed a disinterest in any sort of wacky crossovers for the game, insisting the game will remain 'grounded.' 'It has to be grounded. That is what Battlefield 3 and Battlefield 4 was – it was all soldiers, on the ground,' said Uchil. 'I don't think it needs Nicki Minaj. Let's keep it real, keep it grounded.' That second bit is a very pointed reference to how Activision added rapper Nicki Minaj as a playable skin in 2022's Call Of Duty: Modern Warfare 2. Not even as a character, but as herself and not in any sort of military wear. Sign up to the GameCentral newsletter for a unique take on the week in gaming, alongside the latest reviews and more. Delivered to your inbox every Saturday morning. Battlefield Studios head Vince Zampella (who famously helped create Call Of Duty) was also quizzed by Eurogamer about the possibility of crossover skins. 'We want to be true to Battlefield, we want this fantasy to feel like you'd expect of Battlefield, so that's what we've been focused on,' he answered. While it can feel like Call Of Duty fans are always complaining about something with each new game, the series' use of crossover skins has been a point of contention for many years now. Things started off with celebrity cameos like Lewis Hamilton and various footballers, but as the years went on the skins became more and more fantastical. It was one thing when Call Of Duty was adding action heroes like Rambo and John McClane, who at least somewhat fit with the series' aesthetic, but now you have the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles and cartoon characters like Beavis and Butthead running around shooting one another in Call Of Duty's otherwise realistic looking maps. There's no shortage of Call Of Duty fans hating on these sort of skins online, with the Beavis and Butthead ones prompting a Reddit thread labelled 'COD is cooked' with more than 8,000 upvotes. 'I was fine with the future tech, the anime, I reluctantly accepted the animal and mascot characters but… f***ing giant glowy cartoon character? Really?' reads the top comment. 'I remember coming around a corner and seeing Nicki Minaj knifing some dude and just turned the game off. It was the last time I played COD,' reads another. COD is Cooked [COD] byu/Purehate28 inCallOfDuty A separate thread from nine months ago innocently asked fans what their favourite Call Of Duty collab has been and while there are plenty legitimate answers, a lot of comments are people answering with none of them. The top comment is just a blunt 'No', with the second most upvoted being, 'None, I hate annoying skins, let alone crossovers.' As a result, a rumour from April, courtesy of frequent Call Of Duty insider GhostOfHope, suggests that despite the crossovers 'printing money,' Activision plans to rein them in because of fan complaints. By comparison, Battlefield fans have been elated at just how ordinary the skins for Battlefield 6 look so far. When the first line-up of skins leaked earlier this week, fans on Reddit praised them for looking like… generic soldiers. One comment simply reads, 'I love them, I love them, I love them,' while another says, 'Finally no weird operators, just plain anonymous soldiers.' That said, there remain concerns that EA will opt to sell weird crossover skins later down the line. After all, the reason Call Of Duty and Fortnite keep doing them is that despite the complaints plenty of people are willing to pay good money for them. More Trending 'The moment I see Nicki Minaj running through the map holding an M16, I'm out,' says one fan, with someone predicting it'll happen in just six months. Another fan writes, 'Modern military skins is totally okay, but that's a big no if we see some other characters for instance from Squid Game, Beavis & Butthead, Diablo 3, etc., etc. with anime guns and/or some other funky/pop/arcade things.' It's worth noting that Battlefield has dabbled in crossovers before, with Battlefield 2042 receiving skins based on Dead Space and Mass Effect. However, those are EA owned franchises and at least vaguely fit Battlefield's near future aesthetic. Even so, while the Battlefield 6 team might be disinterested in copying Call Of Duty's example when it comes to collabs, the higher-ups may have different ideas, especially if they want to market the game to a wider audience beyond the established fanbase. Email gamecentral@ leave a comment below, follow us on Twitter. To submit Inbox letters and Reader's Features more easily, without the need to send an email, just use our Submit Stuff page here. For more stories like this, check our Gaming page. MORE: Battlefield 6 pre-orders are live – here's everything you need to know MORE: Call Of Duty fans reject Blacks Ops 7 for 2025's other big shooter MORE: Call Of Duty 2027 will launch new franchise with martial arts theme says leaker
Newsweek
01-08-2025
- Entertainment
- Newsweek
'I don't think it needs Nicki Minaj' – Battlefield 6 Won't Have Silly Crossover Costumes
Based on facts, either observed and verified firsthand by the reporter, or reported and verified from knowledgeable sources. Newsweek AI is in beta. Translations may contain inaccuracies—please refer to the original content. Entertainment gossip and news from Newsweek's network of contributors Electronic Arts officially lifted the lid off Battlefield 6 last week, with a brand-new trailer showing off the game for the first time. The first game in the Battlefield series since 2021's ill-fated Battlefield 2042, Battlefield 6 has a lot of expectations to live up to. That's especially true thanks to the market it's launching in — live service shooters are a dime a dozen, with big hitters like Call of Duty and Fortnite dominating players' time. Part of the reason those games are so popular is because of their crossover skins, with both Fortnite and Call of Duty hosting hundreds of cosmetics from popular culture. Everything from Marvel and Disney to popular performing artists like Lady Gaga, Eminem, and Hatsune Miku have made an appearance in these games, often alongside a host of related cosmetics like weapon skins and sprays. A promotional still for Battlefield 6 showcasing the game's focus on destruction. A promotional still for Battlefield 6 showcasing the game's focus on destruction. EA Battlefield 6 won't be going down that route, though, according to a new interview featured on DBLTAP. Battlefield 6 director Shashank Uchil said that the new game will try to stay a little more grounded, focusing on realism above all else. "It has to be grounded. That's what BF3 and BF4 was — it was all soldiers, on the ground. It's going to be like this," Uchil told DBLTAP, reportedly pointing to key art for the game showing soldiers looking over a war-ravaged New York City. "I don't think it needs Nicki Minaj. Let's keep it real, keep it grounded." That realism applies to the gameplay, too, with terrain and buildings able to be destroyed with realistic physics. While not every object in the game world will be destructible, the team is working hard on making as much destruction as possible, while also balancing the need for cover. "The aim is to have everything be as destructible as possible," Uchil said. "That is the foundation for everything we've done. That's why it's taken so much work." Battlefield 6 is set to be released on October 10, 2025, on PS5, Xbox Series X|S, and PC.
Newsweek
28-07-2025
- Entertainment
- Newsweek
Bloober Team Says Its Newest Game Isn't Meant to be About the Pandemic
Based on facts, either observed and verified firsthand by the reporter, or reported and verified from knowledgeable sources. Entertainment gossip and news from Newsweek's network of contributors Bloober Team, the developer behind the very well received Silent Hill 2 remake, is about to launch a new original game, but despite first appearances, it's not actually about or directly inspired by the COVID-19 pandemic. Cronos: The New Dawn features a devastating pandemic that wiped out a big chunk of humanity and brought the world to its knees, as part of a cataclysmic event called The Change. A twisted, tar-like creature among a mountain of burnt corpses in Cronos: The New Dawn. A twisted, tar-like creature among a mountain of burnt corpses in Cronos: The New Dawn. Bloober Team According to a new interview with DBLTAP, though, the game's co-director Jacek Zieba has revealed that the events of the game weren't inspired by the COVID-19 pandemic – at least not consciously – and that the similarities were mostly coincidental. "It's something we realized after, like 'oh f***, we are making a game about a pandemic.' We didn't intend it, that wasn't the idea," Zieba told DBLTAP. "I think, subconsciously, we may have gone through some kind of therapy by including that. We know it lands as it lands, but [it's not a game about COVID]. There will be some themes – it's horror, we are touching on that – but it's not a game about that. It's a game about change — even symbolic change." The COVID-19 pandemic hit the games industry particularly hard, with a rapid shift to remote working necessitating major changes across the industry that many developers weren't particularly equipped for. Dozens of games, from tiny indies to massive triple-A productions, were delayed or changed significantly as a result, the effects of which are still being seen to this day, five years after the start of the pandemic. That said, it wasn't all doom and gloom for the industry, as Zieba points out. Moving to remote development meant broadening the talent pool when the time came to expand teams for new projects, and Bloober Team – whose projects were previously largely staffed by Polish developers – found a lot of fresh faces who otherwise wouldn't have been able to join the team. "The pandemic also helped us," Zieba says. "Because the games industry in Poland was growing, but without the people that are working remotely right now, I think we wouldn't be in the place we are right now. We hired people not just from Poland, but from Europe and so on. This really leveled us up as developers." Bloober previously revealed in interviews that Cronos: The New Dawn won't have an easy mode, citing the game's horror-focused roots as the primary reason, with Zieba at the time saying "it's survival horror, to make it work it needs to be a bit challenging." "The first experience is the first experience," Zeiba said at the time. "So if you do easy mode, okay, somebody will play it and maybe have less scares or something, but to play as intended, this is why we decided to go with our difficulty at the beginning." Cronos: The New Dawn is set to be released on PS5, Xbox Series X|S, and PC via Steam in 2025.
Newsweek
14-07-2025
- Entertainment
- Newsweek
'The Damage Has Been Done' – Bam Margera Won't Go Back to Jackass
Based on facts, either observed and verified firsthand by the reporter, or reported and verified from knowledgeable sources. Entertainment gossip and news from Newsweek's network of contributors Skater and movie star Bam Margera has said that he's likely never going to feature in Jackass again, after a falling out with Jackass co-star Johnny Knoxville and director Jeff Tremaine during the production of Jackass Forever. Margera revealed the news in an interview with DBLTAP, where he talked about his physical and mental recovery after a long history of alcohol abuse in the spotlight, as well as his last-minute inclusion in Tony Hawk's Pro Skater 3+4, a newly launched remake of the third and fourth games in the popular skater series. Bam Margera skating in the Suburbia level in Tony Hawk's Pro Skater 3+4 Bam Margera skating in the Suburbia level in Tony Hawk's Pro Skater 3+4 Activision The skater is best known for his contributions to Jackass, a long-running film series that sees people doing stupid things on camera — sometimes ending in bodily harm. It's a lot of high-octane slapstick fun, and while Margera was a mainstay of the cast for most of the series' history, he was absent from the most recent film, Jackass Forever. Margera says that he's unlikely to return to Jackass anytime soon after being cut out of the filming process for the film, which he says was "supposed to be us reuniting as a tribute" to Ryan Dunn, who worked alongside Margera and Knoxville on Jackass before his death in a car crash in 2011. "The damage has been done with that," Margera told DBLTAP. "To put me away in treatment and make me pay for it, and then secretly be filming the movie behind Hollywood's back, my back, and doing it without me. Something that I invented, and I get replaced by a guy named Poopies... Ryan Dunn's rolling over in his grave right now, saying, 'Why, Jeff? Why?' It was supposed to be us reuniting as a tribute, to get the band back together and create a cool thing in memory of Ryan Dunn, and now, what is it? It's not the same anymore, and you couldn't offer me enough money to be a part of that again." For now, at least, it sounds like Margera is more than okay with focusing on himself. He's been sober for over a year, he says in the interview, and he's turned his life around, picked skating up once more, and is finally in a place where he's having fun again. "Did I go to hell and back? Absolutely," he says in the interview. "But there was a point in time you could have told me that Metallica is playing across the street, and I have VIP passes. And I'd say, 'I don't feel like it. I've seen them before'. Everything made me bored. But when you get out of treatment after three years, everything becomes new and fun again. I'm in a convertible driving down the street with a pal listening to music. I'm at the beach having a coffee at a Starbucks outside. This is awesome. Everything became fun again." Bam Margera is available as a free unlockable character in Tony Hawk's Pro Skater 3+4, available now on PS4, PS5, Xbox One, Xbox Series X|S, Nintendo Switch, Nintendo Switch 2, and PC.
Newsweek
06-06-2025
- Entertainment
- Newsweek
Zenless Zone Zero Plans on Bringing Back Its Coolest Forgotten Feature
Based on facts, either observed and verified firsthand by the reporter, or reported and verified from knowledgeable sources. Entertainment gossip and news from Newsweek's network of contributors HoYoverse's urban fantasy action RPG, Zenless Zone Zero, will celebrate its first birthday in July 2025 and can look back at a rollercoaster of a debut year. Following a difficult start, the developers managed to turn things around by making significant changes to the game. Some beloved features from the original version were forgotten during this process, though, as the team's resources had to be focused elsewhere. In an interview with DBLTAP, ZZZ's lead producer Zhenyu Li fueled fans' hope for the return of one of the coolest forgotten features of the game: Faction-based Chain Attacks. Zenless Zone Zero character Pan Yinhu battling a mutated Ethereal. Zenless Zone Zero character Pan Yinhu battling a mutated Ethereal. HoYoverse The combat game boasts an ever-growing cast of characters, called Agents, players can use on their adventures. All of these Agents belong to specific Factions present in the game's world — these range from military units and government agencies to construction companies and martial arts temples. Players can combine these characters into teams of three without restrictions and their abilities lend themselves to certain team compositions. What many players have forgotten about by now, though, is that the original release featured an additional factor that went into team-building — the aforementioned Faction-based attacks. Ben and Koleda, two members of a Faction called Belobog Industries, get special animations for one of their combat moves when they're teamed up with each other. At launch, this was one of the most exciting features and players hoped that they'd be able to discover more of these secret combos. However, the Ben and Koleda combination was the only one available at the time and then the team had more pressing issues to work on than adding more of these. Gradually, players even forgot that this feature exists. Asked about this aspect of the game, Zhenyu Li said that Faction-based Chain Attacks are "one of the future directions for combat design" in ZZZ, not only confirming that the feature is still on the developers' minds, but actually marking it out as one of the core pillars for the future, which is an exciting prospect for all players who enjoy building themed teams. With today's release of ZZZ 2.0, the game also arrived on Xbox Series X|S, allowing an entirely new wave of players to enjoy its action-packed battles and twisting narrative.
