The Awakening update for MapleStory 2 is Now Available on Steam!

The monstrous Infernog has been defeated, and for a few scant moments the forces that drove the Sky Fortress into the sky seemed to melt away into the shadows. But Maple World still turns, and there’s a new magic in the air that warriors of both Light and Darkness will be desperate to claim for themselves. Adventurers welcome!

This week at Bungie, we revealed the next chapter of Destiny 2.

Today’s been fun. The week started with a Chalice and led to a reveal. Earlier today, we hosted a stream to unveil the next chapter for Destiny 2. If you’ve somehow found yourself reading this article without seeing the news, let’s get you caught up.

We’ll be diving deeper into all of these projects throughout the summer. Our next stop will be E3, though we won’t have the usual booth and fanfare this year. Instead, we’ll be visiting with people to talk more about what we have planned. Keep your eyes peeled next week, and you might see us in the media that originates at the show.

We’re excited for what’s to come. Until then, we have an entire Season of content to play. A Season… of Opulence!

Chalice to Calus

Season of Opulence kicked this week off with a six-hour race to get ready for a new raid. Teams from around the globe took on the challenge, methodically completing activities for powerful rewards to take on Gahlran and the Crown of Sorrow. With Contest mode active, enemies presented a challenge as players picked apart each encounter and its mechanics.

Employees from all disciplines flooded in to a small theater room to watch the action unfold throughout the race. As we approached four and a half hours, the crown was taken. Clan Be Bold is officially the bread winner of the Crown of Sorrow raid.

CG: World’s First, a title that means more than most people can imagine to me. I’ve played Destiny since launch and I’ve had the privilege of meeting and making friends for life. Some of these friends are my clanmates, the guys that I’ve been through a lot with. We’ve all been in top 10 raid race finishes before, but we finally did it with Crown of Sorrow. I’d like to say thank you to my amazing teammates who put up with the sound of me munching on various snacks for the entirety of raid day, to the amazing teams at Bungie for creating an incredible experience for everyone who plays, and to the awesome community for cheering us on and believing in us.

WE GOT THE BELT WOOOOOOO!!! 

Speaking on behalf of the people who developed Crown of Sorrow, here’s a few words from Design Lead Brian Frank:

With each raid, we are humbled by this community and your ability to overcome challenges. Whether you’re a hardcore raider, a Crucible legend, or you’re just here to enjoy the show, we can’t thank you enough for playing.

Destination: GuardianCon

We’ll be live on stage with the showrunners. We’ll be on the convention floor with a Bungie Booth bristling with attractions. If we’ll see you there, here’s a preview of what you can expect.

GuardianCon Exclusive Loot

Destiny 2 will be playable on 72 stations. We’ll be hosting a series of private Crucible matches in Season of Opulence. If you have yet to fully grasp the new meta, you’ll be invited to equip new weapons and suit up in a full set of Menagerie or raid gear as a Hunter, Titan, or Warlock.

To raise the stakes, we’ve conceived something special for GuardianCon that we’re calling Risk/Reward Matches. Win or lose, anyone who plays a Reward Match will receive a Drifter coin that can be earned only at the show. Lines permitting, you’ll be able to play as often as you like and collect as many coins as you can carry. Keep them or pay them forward. If you’d like to take a chance at winning a more prestigious reward, you can spend your coin to commit to a Risk Match against another fireteam. If you win that match, you’ll win a Guardian Pin that’s also exclusive to the show. We’re inviting you to leave with either a dog tag or a medal.

World First Award Ceremony

Ever since Aetheon made the first grand entrance in the Vault of Glass, many fireteams have been entered into legend as the first Guardians to complete a Destiny raid. At GuardianCon, they’ll take the stage with us to be celebrated as a champions.

Hefting all of these belts will not be light work, so we found a fan of the game to help us with the heavy lifting.

The Big Show will join us in our booth to meet players. You could have a chance to shake the hand that has broken a controller or two.

Please Note (and don’t panic) if you’ve earned World’s First Status, but can’t be at the show, your names will be spoken and we’ll send your belt to you by other means.

An Audience With Eris Morn

Ever since we plundered the dark below the Moon, the voice of Eris Morn has been a great friend of the Destiny community. She’s contributed her talent to every major release of Destiny content, and we’re about hear more from her this fall.

At GuardianCon, she’ll be an honorary member of the Bungie Away Team.

Morla will be on hand to meet players, sign memorabilia, and silence the screams of any Hive outbreaks that may occur (even though that’s her voice, too).

Gunsmith Inspection

The Destiny community includes many amazing prop makers, but Eric Newgard has been our official outfitter for some time. His works adorn several corners of our studio. We’ve commissioned him to create replicas of iconic weapons to commemorate special occasions. He has even moved among Guardians dressed in the robes of a Warlock. At GuardianCon, he’ll have his own corner of our booth to fabricate a Destiny weapon you’ve never seen.

Gather around his workbench to witness his creative process and assemble for photo ops with an arsenal of Destiny props fit for the heroes of our community.

Bungie Ride Along—Live!

If you’ve watched all of our streams, you’ve been on a Ride Along with our developers. We think of them as behind-the-scenes features delivered in a live-fire exercise. At GuardianCon, we’ll do it live!

Two of the creators of the Whisper of the Worm and Zero Hour missions will take to a stage to share some commentary while designated players move through experiences that have captured the imagination of the Guardians when they least expected it.

Players Meet Developers

We’ll have many people who work at Bungie on hand to meet the people who bring their work to life. They’ll be overseeing the Risk/Reward Matches. You’ll meet them at signing tables. They’ll move among you throughout the celebration, hoping to have a chance to hear your stories.

Players Meet Each Other

Those same signing tables in our booth will also be home to leaders of this community who need space to meet the people who have enjoyed their content over the years. We’re approaching our fifth anniversary as a community, so there are a lot of relationships to strengthen for the future. That’s our goal for GuardianCon. This will be a celebration of the people who make Destiny so much more than a game.

We hope we’ll see you there.

Goldsmiths

Opulence is upon us, but there are a few dents in the Chalice to hammer out. Destiny Player Support is on hand to walk us through the issues found since launch.

This is their report.

Destiny 2 Season of Opulence Known Issues

Following the launch of Season of Opulence, our local Player Support Team has begun tracking the following emergent issues:

A Menagerie of Movies

There’s a new raid, you say? That means there’s hundreds of hours of videos hitting the internet, with players meeting the new boss. Here we go.

Movie of the Week: Multiple what?

Honorable Mention: Winner Winner

Honorable Mention: What a nice hat you have

Winners, expect your fancy new emblems in a few days.

Additionally, we’ve got a 4k Shadowkeep wallpaper and some headers formatted for Twitter use, if you’d like!

Shadowkeep Twitter Header

New Light Twitter Header

Dmg04

Animal Crossing is right at the top of many people’s ‘must have’ lists on Switch, so anyone cold-hearted enough to create a fake video stating that the game has been delayed must surely have no feelings.

But that’s exactly what has happened; a rather official-looking video hit YouTube today which features development head Shinya Takahashi apologising for holding back the release of the upcoming ‘life sim’ sequel.

If the footage looks and sounds familiar, that’s because it is; some fiendish devil has edited the Metroid Prime 4 delay announcement to make it seem like Takahashi is talking about Animal Crossing. The cads!

Here’s the fake video:

And, for comparison’s sake, here’s the Metroid Prime 4 video that the footage was taken from:

So, if you meet anyone today who is visibly shaken at the prospect of not being able to sell their souls to Tom Nook this year, you can put their minds at rest.

Yooka-Laylee developer Playtonic Games looks set to share details on its next game as soon as tomorrow, according to a cheeky tease.

Lovingly crafted from some of the creative talent behind games like Banjo-Kazooie and Donkey Kong Country, Yooka-Laylee is currently the first and only game from the UK-based studio. Fans have been rather desperate to see more for some time now, so any new reveal should hopefully go down a treat.

As for what the game might be? Well, your guess is as good as ours. Yooka-Laylee was initially presented as being the first game in a series, so we’d certainly expect to see a sequel or new project in the same universe, but it could be just as interesting to see a whole new game, too.

The tease comes from the studio’s Twitter account, where it says that it’ll “Bee back tomorrow”.

If you’re intrigued to see what this new game could be, make sure to check back with us tomorrow; we’ll make sure to cover any announcements right here on Nintendo Life.

Liking the idea of a new Yooka-Laylee game? Hoping to see something else instead? Share your hopes and dreams with us in the comments below.

Developer Deadtoast and publisher Devolver Digital have revealed the release date for the upcoming slow-motion carnage that is My Friend Pedro. You’ll be able to get your hands on it from 20th June.

To celebrate, a brand new trailer has been released (which you can watch above) and an early discount has been detailed for those eager to put in a pre-order. If you grab the game from the Nintendo eShop early, you’ll be able to snag a 15% discount off the usual £17.99 / $19.99 price. Here’s a quick description if you’d like to learn more:

My Friend Pedro is a violent ballet about friendship, imagination, and one man’s struggle to obliterate anyone in his path at the behest of a sentient banana. The strategic use of split aiming, slow motion, and the ol’ stylish window breach create one sensational action sequence after another in an explosive battle through the violent underworld.

On a slightly related note, we thought we’d give you a quick insight into the daily routine of working at Nintendo Life. Today, we received a lovingly crafted email from the Devolver Digital folks which simply said the following:

“Hello! If you would like to request a review code for My Friend Pedro, please write your platform preference onto a banana and send a picture to [email address]”

We’re not shy here at NL, so off we popped into the office garden. Who said games journalism wasn’t super professional?

Never change, Devolver Digital. Never change.

With rumours doing the rounds that CDProjekt’s The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt might be Switch-bound, the internet is whipping itself into a frenzy of tinfoil hats and speculation. In order to assess if a potential port would even be viable on Nintendo’s handheld hybrid, our friends over at Digital Foundry have taken a look at the sort of cutbacks and compromises it would require.

Using a PC with specifications closely mirroring the performance of your favourite Nintendo console, Rich Leadbetter has been running the game to see if ‘Switcher 3’ could be more than just wishful thinking. Check out his analysis below:

As you can see, things start out looking pretty grim, but with some tweaking to the resolution and other variables, Rich manages to get the game running at a level approaching ‘acceptable’. Of course, that’s not good enough for most of us, but as pointed out in the video, this is PC code and any potential port would need to be optimised to take advantage of every last drop of juice the Switch has to offer. CD Projekt also has a track record with impressive console ports in the form of the previous Witcher game on Xbox 360, so while The Witcher 3 on Switch would be a huge undertaking, it’s not beyond the realms of possibility.

We’ve seen miracles before, of course, and the guys at Digital Foundry have already found Mortal Kombat 11 to be making use of the ‘boost mode’ opened up for developers in a recent firmware update, so perhaps this could be used to further improve performance. Again, this is all fanciful speculation until we hear something concrete from CD Projekt or Nintendo. Eurogamer’s Tom Phillips has got gamers salivating even more with the wording of this tweet introducing the video:

Does Tom know something we don’t? Are we all just clutching desperately at straws here? It’s tough to know with E3 fever making gamers the world over a little giddy. For now, Witcher 3 on Switch doesn’t exist… does it?

Are there any other ‘impossible’ ports you’d like to see grace Nintendo’s hybrid console? Crysis, perhaps? Let us know your thoughts on these rumours with a comment.

Partners recognized for innovative solutions and making more possible for customers worldwide

REDMOND, Wash. — June 6, 2019 — Microsoft Corp. on Thursday announced the winners and finalists of the Microsoft 2019 Partner of the Year Awards. The annual awards recognize Microsoft partners demonstrating excellence in innovation and implementation of customer solutions based on Microsoft technology. Award winners and finalists from around the world will be recognized at Microsoft Inspire, July 14–18, 2019, in Las Vegas, Nevada.

This year, Microsoft acknowledged partners in 41 categories celebrating each of the solution areas, industries and sectors in which Microsoft technologies are used. The award finalists and winners were selected from more than 2,900 nominations collected from 115 different countries worldwide based on their commitment to customers, their solution’s impact on the market, and exemplary use of Microsoft technologies.

“We’re thrilled to celebrate the finalists and winners of the Microsoft 2019 Partner of the Year Awards,” said Gavriella Schuster, corporate vice president, One Commercial Partner, Microsoft. “These companies are industry leaders helping businesses around the world connect and achieve more. I’m truly amazed by each winner and finalist, and I am honored to highlight the incredible work they are doing.”

Additional details on the Microsoft 2019 Partner of the Year Awards are available in a Microsoft Partner Network blog by Gavriella Schuster: https://blogs.partner.microsoft.com/mpn/congratulations-to-our-2019-partner-of-the-year-awards-winners-and-finalists.

Categories, winners and finalists appear below. A complete list, including the Microsoft Country Partner of the Year Award winners for 2019, is available at https://partner.microsoft.com/en-us/inspire/awards.

About Microsoft Inspire

Microsoft Inspire provides Microsoft’s partner community with access to key marketing and business strategies, leadership, and information regarding specific customer solutions designed to help partners succeed in the marketplace. Along with informative learning opportunities covering sales, marketing, services, and technology, Microsoft Inspire is an ideal setting for partners to garner valuable knowledge from their peers and from Microsoft. More information can be found at https://partner.microsoft.com/en-us/inspire.

About Microsoft

Microsoft (Nasdaq “MSFT” @microsoft) enables digital transformation for the era of an intelligent cloud and an intelligent edge. Its mission is to empower every person and every organization on the planet to achieve more.

For more information, press only:

Microsoft Media Relations, WE Communications, (425) 638-7777, rrt@we-worldwide.com

Note to editors: For more information, news and perspectives from Microsoft, please visit the Microsoft News Center at http://news.microsoft.com. Web links, telephone numbers and titles were correct at time of publication but may have changed. For additional assistance, journalists and analysts may contact Microsoft’s Rapid Response Team or other appropriate contacts listed at http://news.microsoft.com/microsoft-public-relations-contacts.