Play H1Z1 for FREE starting now through Thursday at 10AM Pacific. You can also pickup H1Z1 at 75% off the regular price!*

If you already have Steam installed, click here to install or play H1Z1. If you don’t have Steam, you can download it here.

*Offer ends January 4th at 10AM Pacific

 “These kids are super smart, but they didn’t do anything high level—they just had a good idea. It’s the most successful IoT botnet we’ve ever seen—and a sign that computer crime isn’t just about desktops anymore.”

– FBI supervisory special agent Bill Walton on the creators of the Mirai botnet.

Wired recently published a piece interviewing several people who were involved in analyzing and investigating the biggest cyber security breach of 2016, caused by three college-aged individuals who were looking to gain an advantage in Minecraft by creating the Mirai botnet malware.

FBI supervisory special agent Bill Walton describes how the trio didn’t intend to create this sort of chaos. “Mirai was originally developed to help them corner the Minecraft market, but then they realized what a powerful tool they built,” he explains. “Then it just became a challenge for them to make it as large as possible.”

The creators of Mirai targeted French Internet provider OVH because it offered Minecraft DDoS mitigation tools and certain servers. “Why are these Minecraft servers getting hit so often?” FBI special agent Elliott Peterson remembers asking. 

Many of gaming’s most compelling stories come from those who’ve helped to create our favorite Xbox One games. In our Inside Xbox One X Enhanced series, these creators will share the behind-the-scenes accounts of the work involved in enhancing these epic games for Xbox One X, how they’ve helped chart the course of the world’s most powerful console, and what that means for the future of gaming. Today, we’ll be chatting with both Ubisoft’s Micha Noordegraaf and Steeve Dallaire, Graphics Technical Director and Lead Engine Programmer, respectively, on the inventive, action-packed game For Honor.

What specifically is your development team doing to enhance For Honor for Xbox One X?

Micha: The update has made significant improvements on various graphics features: water reflections, distance LOD, shadow resolution, and improved texture filtering along with providing For Honor in 4K resolution. We improved the esthetics of water reflections by implementing an SSR (screen-space reflections) model, which gives us dynamic reflections.

As for Distance LOD, the increase in processing power of the Xbox One X enabled us to draw small objects over a greater distance allowing for more detail in the maps. For shadow resolution, we have increased shadow map resolution by 50% to increase overall image quality. The shadows are crisper and more defined on Xbox One X. Finally, to achieve 4K resolution, we used a temporal upscale technique to get the best 4K resolution image possible for For Honor.

How do these enhancements impact the gaming experience?

Micha: Overall, these improvements allow for a greater immersive experience for players. Even those without a 4K set up will benefit from the graphical enhancements from this update.

Why did your development team choose to focus on these enhancement areas?

Steeve: This dev team jumps on any opportunity that presents itself to improve our game. As gamers, the passionate and talented 3D programmers researched the latest techniques in implementing the newest technology and wanted to bring it to the For Honor engine.

How has the process been to get the game up and running on Xbox One X?

Steeve: Pretty easy to be honest. The Xbox One X is fully compatible with the Xbox One so with some changes here and there we were able to have the game up and running fairly quickly. This actually helped us have a greater focus on improving the quality of the features available in this update.

What enhancement were you most excited about to explore leveraging for For Honor on Xbox One X?

Micha: I think 4K resolution is the obvious answer here, the increased resolution combined with the improvements in Distance LOD and water reflections really make the For Honor world shine.

What does 4K and HDR mean for your game, games in the future and development at your studio?

Steeve: It opens a new window of opportunity in terms of providing the best immersion and graphical fidelity when developing games.

Thanks to Micha and Steeve for taking the time to chat with us about Xbox One X Enhanced. We’ll be bringing you more interviews with more developers in the future, so stay tuned to Xbox Wire!

Remember the superb N64 Anthology we covered a while back? Well the team behind that excellent tome are now producing a sequel in the shape of the GameCube Anthology.

A crowdfunding campaign on Kickstarter has gone live, and currently sits at just shy of 29,000 Euros – the target goal is 40,000 Euros.

The final book will be 360 pages in length and will contain 388 game reviews as well as a complete history of the console and collector’s guides for both hardware and software.

Head over to the Kickstarter page now and you can see some sample images, as well as check out the various funding tiers available.

OKAMI HD / 大神 絶景版 is Now Available on Steam!

Experience the critically acclaimed masterpiece with its renowned Sumi-e ink art style in breathtaking high resolution. Purchase by January 15, 2018 to receive a free Dota 2 Amaterasu courier and bonus wallpapers!

Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Portal Power is Now Available on Steam and is 25% off!*

Shredder and the Kraang have spread chaos and evil across dimensions, and it’s up to the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles to stop them!

*Offer ends December 21 at 10AM Pacific Time

As demanding as playing on the hard difficulty setting is, this stand-alone hardcore mode offers an entirely new level of challenge for veteran pilots, with the additional caveat of disallowing improvement in starting conditions. Each run begins with the same fixed set of pilot perks, with ship perk upgrades only allowed at the end of each sector, provided you have collected enough credits.

Hardcore mode also introduces another nasty twist. When entering a new sector, players must select from different handicap modifiers, each having an adverse effect on overall gameplay. Essentially, players choose between the frying pan or the fire. In short, if you’re a diehard rogue-like fan, this will be a hell of a challenge and a whole lot of fun.

You’re gonna be pulling your hair out. You’re welcome!

As hardcore mode is not connected to the primary story, we needed a new end sector with a new end battle. Lots of Everspace fans enjoyed the end level placeholder boss fight from Xbox Game Preview, so we decided to come up with a design that borrows from previous gameplay mechanics, with a few added twits. Of course, the level design was created from scratch and the all-new Sector 7 provides a completely different look and feel.

Pro Tips for Survival

Avoid being hit
Super obvious, sure, but in hardcore mode, it’s even more vital to evade enemy fire and make sure you have enough energy to fire weapons or boost away when things get too messy. We promise: things will get very messy, indeed! Remember, in addition to only getting one life, losing that life means saying goodbye to any ship upgrades you’ve accumulated. Keep moving and use Boost often to fly around quickly and get out of a sticky firefight that isn’t going in your favor.

TLDR – Try to stay in one piece.

Watch your energy consumption
Boosting, shooting and using devices drains energy; entering a fight with a depleted energy core spells almost certain doom. If you’re low on energy, find a spot to hide to quickly regenerate, or craft Energy Injectors and use them directly from the crafting menu.

Prioritize your targets
Drones need to die quickly, or they’ll harass you non-stop. They deal a lot of damage, but have just a few hit points, so take them out first! Keeping this mindset, look for targets that can be destroyed quickly to increase your likelihood of survival. Elite and Mk 2/3 enemies might be more dangerous, but spending precious time chewing through their higher defenses while letting their weaker support live could spell your doom.

Use your secondaries and devices
It’s wise to be frugal, but you can’t use either if you’re dead. If a fight is going poorly, use whatever is at your disposal to survive. You can still craft new secondary weapons and devices if you have the resources, or gather new ones when the opportunity presents itself.

Position yourself aggressively
Enemies can’t shoot behind themselves (though Outlaws are good at strafing). Take advantage of this by using circular dodging, approach enemies quickly and get positioned behind them. This puts you close enough to never miss a shot while keeping you in their blind spot. If facing a group, boost to the last target and try to take it out before the others circle around. Get used to repeating this until you’ve mastered it. It’ll be a lifesaver.

Seek allied assistance
The mining corporation G&B Prospects are almost constantly being attacked and raided by outlaws, which explains their investments in so much security. So, try to arrange a not-so-friendly introduction when you got too many outlaws on your tail. Due to the peace treaty between the alien Okkar and the human race G&B units will ignore Okkars unless alien firepower hits their precious mining facilities. Perhaps you’re floating near those large G&B gas canisters and some Okkar shots that missed you happen to blow them up. Angry G&B forces in the area are gonna want payback. This also works with trader ships as well, which are remarkably durable and well-armed. Use them to your advantage!

Keep some distance
Not the best dogfighter? Well, most enemies aren’t the best snipers, either. Pick up a shock rifle or flak cannon and pick off targets at long range while they try to close in. Shock rifles can hit targets up to 4km away (3.4km for Pro), while the flak cannon has a 1.9km range. Most enemies only really become dangerous within 1km.

Be ready to be move
Always have an escape plan. Have an energized boost, or a teleporter device handy. When you’re in a bad spot, use them to back off, giving yourself that sweet, limited breathing room to quickly decide what to do next.

Try a different ship
Some pilots just don’t do well with certain ships and find themselves making much better progress and having more fun when they choose one that better suits their skills. It might just be that the current ship you’re flying doesn’t mesh well with you (yet), so consider changing things up. You can always come back later and give the ship that’s giving you trouble another go.

Loot as much as possible
You also want to take your time in each sector. Kill all enemies to collect as many credits as possible and gather all the resources available for much need upgrades later in the run. Modding weapons and devices can be a real game changer! Before you enter the next sector, make sure to invest credits in energy core upgrades and more device slots before anything else. Trust us, you’ll thank us later.

You’ve been introduced to hardcore mode, you know what to expect, and we’ve pumped your brain full of tips to survive the onslaught waiting for you. Practice some runs at the hard difficulty to prepare yourselves for the ultimate challenge, or beast it up and jump directly into hardcore mode. Enjoy, and see you on the other side!

For a good while now Nintendo UK has been running a social media campaign encouraging gamers to share their #ZeldaMoments from The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild. It’s now released a rather charming video in which some of those with the best submissions were seemingly given a nice t-shirt and a chance to talk about their experiences.

We certainly know of all sorts of gamers – with varying degrees of experience and different approaches – that have loved Breath of the Wild. The video does a pretty good job of reflecting that reality.

Share some of your favourite Zelda Moments in the comments below. 

In this writer’s case there was the frantic ‘review playthrough’ in the race to the credits ahead of an embargo. Approaching Goron City for the first time I missed the ‘proper’ route with elixirs etc, and instead went on a high stakes dash across hot territory, racing to get there before Link finally succumbed to the heat. Dashing from spa to spa, dodging falling rocks, I ended up gliding down into the town, nearly dead, desperate to find the right building. It turned out I swung right into the clothing store, and the Goron actually had a shocked look and said “how did you here?!”. The fact my brother was watching and helping as I took this unconventional route made it even more memorable.

Pinball FX3 – Carnivals and Legends, all new content for Pinball FX3 is Now Available on Steam and free for its launch week!*

Zen Studios presents the Carnivals and Legends two-table pack featuring original designs, “Adventure Land” and “Son of Zeus.” To celebrate 10 years of video game pinball excellence, it’s absolutely free to Pinball FX3 players!

*Offer ends Tuesday, December 19.