Tag Archives: batman arkham knight

Warner Brothers Scraps Plans For Batman: Arkham Knight Linux And Mac Versions

Posted on by John Williamson
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Batman: Arkham Knight will go down in history as one of the worst PC ports ever released. The PC version is marred by atrocious optimization with sudden frame-drops, bugs, instability and a host of other inexcusable problems. The reason behind this catastrophe revolves around money, and Warner Brothers decision to cut costs on the PC development. The publisher hired Iron Galaxy, a studio without much PC experience, and this clearly was a project which overwhelmed their small team. Since the game’s release, Warner Brothers has proudly proclaimed that the PC port is now a top priority, and promised to rectify the poor performance.

However, this doesn’t seem likely due to the abandonment of SLI support, and minor changes from the latest patches. Not only that, some reports have suggested that the latest patch has actually resulted in worse performance. As you can see, Batman: Arkham Knight is a shambles on the PC platform and for that reason, we’ve stopped using it for benchmarking purposes. It’s a terrible indicator of GPU performance, and there’s no consistency in the numbers whatsoever. According to a recent Steam post, the studio has cancelled plans to launch Mac and Linux versions. The announcement reads:

“We are very sorry to confirm that Batman: Arkham Knight will no longer be coming to Mac and Linux. If you have pre-ordered Batman: Arkham Knight for Mac or Linux, please apply for a refund via Steam.”

This is extraordinary and even though these operating systems are niche for PC gaming, it’s not doing Warner Brothers’ reputation any favours. Furthermore, SteamOS is slowly increasing in popularity, and it’s disappointing to see a major game remain exclusive to Windows. Although, I wouldn’t be too concerned because the Windows version barely functions and requires either luck or brute force to run properly. Warner Brothers hasn’t shown much respect for PC players of late and it’s a worrying trend.

Batman: Arkham Knight Receives PC Performance Patch

Posted on by John Williamson
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Batman: Arkham Knight launched in a horrendous state on PC and suffered from frame hitching, poor optimization and instability. Unbelievably, Warner Brothers decided to outsource the PC version to Iron Galaxy, a studio with a fairly sketchy record. For example, they are still a relatively new studio created in 2008 and were responsible for the clunky Borderlands 2 port on the PlayStation 4. Batman: Arkham Knight took things to a completely new level and customers had to resort to the Steam Refund policy because the game was completely broken. Warner Brothers admitted this was a massive error on their part, and promised to make the PC version a priority. Despite this, the PC edition is still quite buggy and doesn’t run that well on some setups. Additionally, there’s no support for SLI at all, and the publisher said the possibility of it being integrated is zero.

Yesterday, Batman: Arkham Knight received a new patch and changelog on the official Steam page which reads:

“Hi Everyone,

The latest patch for Batman: Arkham Knight was released today and contains the following updates:

  • Fixed some issues with stars being awarded or lost incorrectly in specific AR Challenges
  • Improved target prioritization during combat
  • Restored heavier rain during the opening section of the game
  • Fixed missing rain effects on a few remaining player character skins
  • Miscellaneous gameplay fixes and stability improvements
  • Fixes to some keyboard and mouse prompts after being rebound
  • Made frame times more consistent for 60hz monitors running at 30fps with VSync enabled
  • Previously equipped gadgets can be selected with keyboard and mouse again after restarting an AR Challenge
  • Fixed the default key binding for Harley’s Snare gadget
  • Batgirl’s Remote Hacking Device can now be properly selected with keyboard & mouse in AR Challenges
  • Minor performance optimizations for certain combinations of hardware
  • Fixed keyboard & mouse controls that did not function in DLC AR Challenges when no previous save data existed
  • Quick Photo Mode can now be triggered with keyboard and mouse controls when using the Batmobile
  • Special Combo Takedowns can now be performed with Quickfire Gadget binds if they were rebound
  • Fixed graphical corruption that may occur after Alt-Tabbing
  • Improvements and corrections to some localized text
  • Added new Classic Harley Quinn skin for use in AR Challenges & the Harley Quinn Story Pack
  • Added Arkham Knight as a playable character for AR Challenges & the Red Hood Story Pack
  • Added support for December DLC content”

How does Batman: Arkham Knight run on your PC?

Batman Arkham Knight Will Never Have Multi-GPU Support

Posted on by Samuel Wan
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It looks like fans and owners of Warner Bros Batman Arkham Knight will be dealing with more unwelcome news. According to a statement given out via Steam, the developers have given up on ever implementing multi-GPU support like Nvidia SLI or AMD Crossfire. This means for PC gamers with the highest end rigs, they will never be able to fully enjoy the game. This is especially true of those with multiple displays or 4K  which require multiple GPUs to run games at high fps.

According to the developer, even if there were gains from implementing SLI or Crossfire support, there would be a high chance that adding such support would cause more bugs. This really speaks to the buggy nature of the game that launched buggy, stayed buggy, and finally became decent. With WB offering full refunds to customers, it looks like the developers have given up on implementing new features and are just focusing on bugs. The biggest hope is that the gaming industry as a whole will have learned a lesson when not to ship games.

You can read the full statement below:

We’ve been working with our development and graphics driver partners over the last few months to investigate utilizing multi-GPU support within Batman: Arkham Knight. The result was that even the best case estimates for performance improvements turned out to be relatively small given the high risk of creating new issues for all players. As a result we’ve had to make the difficult decision to stop work on further multi-GPU support. We are disappointed that this was not practical and apologize to those who have been waiting for this feature.

Batman: Arkham Knight Re-Release Still Broken

Posted on by Ashley Allen
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Warner Bros. re-released Batman: Arkham Knight for PC yesterday (28th October), after an initial launch back in June saw the release of a broken, buggy game that angered many customers. Despite numerous delays to the game’s release at the insistence of developer Rocksteady, Warner Bros. still went ahead with the release of a game it knew was broken, and has had to do a lot of work to make the PC version playable, but reports from gamers suggests those efforts were for naught.

Hours after the game hit Steam again, Warner Bros. were forced to issue a statement via its Steam page warning that Windows 7 users may hit hard drive paging issues after playing for long periods – resolved by “simply re-launching the game” – and that Windows 10 users require 12GB of RAM for a playable experience.

The statement reads:

“Hi everyone! I’m going to jump in and help out Yorick as a second pair of eyes and ears for you all. 

With the game now available for sale, I wanted to provide a status update since the release of the September patch. 

As we confirmed earlier today, the PC version of the game now supports all add-on content that has been released thus far for console. The configurations for this content are being updated now and we expect everything to be available in the next few hours. We’ll confirm when this process is completed. 

We are still working with our GPU partners to add full support for SLI and Crossfire. In addition, we are working with these partners to address stability issues on certain cards related to the latest drivers. 

After extensive testing, a hard drive paging issue with some GPUs on Windows 7 may occur after extended gameplay sessions. If you encounter this, simply re-launching the game will resolve the issue. 

For Windows 10 users, we’ve found that having at least 12GB of system RAM on a PC allows the game to operate without paging and provides a smoother gameplay experience. 

UPDATE: We became aware of an issue with the Season Pass DLC content where it was not being downloaded automatically. We’ve recently resolved this issue with help from Valve, and everyone should be receiving their Season Pass content now.”

Image courtesy of Nerdist.

Official Re-Release Date for Batman: Arkham Knight Has Been Revealed

Posted on by Cernescu Andrei
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There’s no use sugar-coating it: the PC version of Batman: Arkham Knight has been a complete disaster, with numerous users reporting massive performance issues even on high-end hardware. The relatively good news is that Warner has acknowledged these issues and decided to pull the game from Steam in order to give its team time to fix it, and after many months of waiting with bated breath, it looks like October 28 will bring with it the re-release of the fourth installment in the Batman: Arkham series.

Those who already own the title will receive a new update that will bring the game to its latest version. Moreover, they will also be able to access Big Head Mode, Photo Mode, and the Batman: Arkham Asylum Batman Skin, while season pass holders will also enjoy access to all of the content that has been released since launch. Obviously, we’re all quite eager to see how the game will perform after this major update, and we’ll be sure to keep you updated on this subject. I know that some of you have probably lost faith in the game completely, but I don’t think that you should lose hope just yet. Warner might still surprise us after all, this time in a positive way.

WB Will Make More Batman Games without Rocksteady

Posted on by Ashley Allen
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Rocksteady, the developer responsible for the lauded Arkham trilogy (pale imitation Batman: Arkham Origin was made by Warner Bros. Games Montréal), might have called time on its Batman series after the recent release of Batman: Arkham Knight, but publisher Warner Bros. insists that it will continue to utilise the Dark Knight in future games, beyond the Traveller’s Tale’s LEGO Batman games and NetherRealm’s Injustice: Gods Among Us.

In an interview with the PlayStation blog, Warner Bros. Vice President of Product Development Ames Kirshen reaffirmed its commitment to delivering further games involving the Caped Crusader. “Batman is one of the cornerstone IPs for Warner Bros,” Kirshen said. “With the Arkham series, we were finally able to realise the full potential of the character. We don’t have anything to talk about at this time, but the possibilities are endless with a character as dynamic and beloved as Batman.”

Batman: Arkham Origins was likely a test-run for when Rocksteady hung up its proverbial cowl after Batman: Arkham Knight, with future Arkham games a distinct possibility, delivered by either Warner Bros. Games Montréal or even Avalanche Studios, fresh of its sojourn into another IP, Mad Max.

Kirshen also suggests that other DC Comics properties could be ripe for game adaptations. “When choosing what DC Entertainment IP we might focus on for any game, it boils down to honing in on the IPs that map the strongest, genre-wise, to what fans are interested in seeing and playing. From there, it’s about getting the development studios with the strongest passion for those IPs to make the games,” Kirshen added.

Thank you PCGamesN for providing us with this information.

Batman: Arkham Knight Receives an Interim PC Patch

Posted on by Cernescu Andrei
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The PC version of Batman: Arkham Knight has been a complete fiasco since launch, with countless players complaining about the game’s incredible performance issues with both Nvidia and AMD graphics cards. The game was so unplayable that Warner Bros eventually decided to pull it off Steam altogether while a dedicated team started to work on some serious patches. Even though the game’s major patch was expected to arrive in August, an interim patch for Arkham Knight has only just been released a few days ago in September. The patch is currently available on Steam for those who already purchased the new Batman game before it was removed from the digital distribution platform. Opinions regarding the patch’s usefulness seem to be divided, but most users seem to agree on one fact: the game still uses too much VRAM.

You can find the patch’s changelog below:

  • Reduced frame rate hitches.
  • Optimizations for system memory and VRAM usage.
  • Improved performance on all GPUs (requires the latest drivers).
  • More Comprehensive In-Game Settings.
  • Fixed low resolution texture bugs.
  • Fixed hitches when running on mechanical hard drives (HDD).

In addition to the above, we’re continuing to work on the following for future updates:

  • Adding support for SLI and Crossfire.
  • Adding support for the latest DLC & Season Pass content.
  • Adding support for additional updates such as Photo Mode.
  • Continued improvements and bug fixing for a Windows 7 specific memory issue that occurs on configurations with 8GB of system RAM and some NVIDIA GPUs during extended game play.
  • Continued improvements for Windows 10 specific issues on systems with some AMD GPUs.

Thank you TechSpot for providing us with this information.

Free Game for Batman: Arkham Knight Early Adopters

Posted on by John Williamson
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The aptly named, No Bull Intentions indie studio has decided to provide a free copy of their satirical comedic game, The Supreme League of Patriots to Batman: Arkham Knight purchasers. This even applies if you have already filed for a refund and able to send a proof of purchase. Although, doing so would be taking advantage of this kind gesture. Cynical folk might argue this is nothing more than a PR exercise from a small studio to gain publicity and help lackluster sales figures. However, I will give No Bull Intentions the benefit of the doubt and applaud their passionate plea to PC Gamers. In a Tumblr post, the developer said,

“We think that PC gamers get taken for granted far too often. Those who choose to play on PC are often subjected to shoddy console ports, driver problems, poor optimisation and game-breaking bugs, not to mention invasive DRM and launch delays of weeks or even months for some titles. We’re making this offer to show our support for PC gamers.”

“As such, we’re offering anyone who bought Arkham Knight for PC before midnight PST on 30th June, 2015 (digital or retail) a free copy of the entire first season of Supreme League of Patriots. While we have every confidence that Rocksteady and Warner Bros. will keep patching Arkham Knight until it’s the amazing game we all anticipated, that doesn’t take away the disappointment that gamers felt. We recognise that our little superhero caper can’t do that either, but we hope the comical adventures of The Purple Patriot will bring a smile to their faces while they’re waiting.”

Supreme League of Patriots is a traditional point-and-click adventure game designed to mock popular culture, politics and rely on self-referential humour. The leading protagonist isn’t familiar with political correctness and runs amok as a freak accident turns him into a superhero! To take advantage of this offer, you need to e-mail supremeleagueofpatriots@gmail.com and attach an image showing the purchase confirmation.

On another note, there are some rumours circulating about Batman: Arkham Knight customers being offered a free WB game or season pass. This would follow a similar pattern to Assassin’s Cred Unity but the current time frame for this occurring is unknown and there’s still doubts if this will be offered at all. Another factor to consider is, will this offer or anything from WB games in the future apply to those who received a free copy with their NVIDIA 900 series GPU.

If you are intrigued by the game’s concept, here is the official trailer:

Batman: Arkham Knight Beats The Witcher 3 in First-Week Sales

Posted on by Ashley Allen
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Batman: Arkham Knight, despite crippling problems upon release, has surpassed The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt in first-week sales, becoming the best-selling game of the year so far, according to figures from UK sales monitor Chart-Track.

It is also the highest-selling game of the week. Game sales for the week ending 27th June are as follows:

  1. Batman: Arkham Knight
  2. Lego Jurassic World
  3. The Elder Scrolls Online
  4. Yoshi’s Woolly World
  5. The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt
  6. Grand Theft Auto V
  7. Call of Duty: Advance Warfare
  8. FIFA 15
  9. Destiny
  10. Final Fantasy XIV: Heavensward

The problems experienced by Arkham Knight – billed as the last game in Rocksteady’s Batman trilogy (not counting Batman: Arkham Origins, developed by Warner Bros. Games Montréal) – since its release drove Warner Bros to pull the PC version from the market, apologising for its poor performance, but that doesn’t seem to have affected sales too much. Rocksteady is already rolling out patches for players that already bought the game, and are hard at work to fix the major problems before a re-release, which it admits may take some time.

Batman: Arkham Knight was perennially delayed, with Rocksteady and Warner Bros promising that it will only be released when ready. Oh, how silly they look now.

Thank you GameSpot for providing us with this information.

The First Patch for Batman: Arkham Knight Is Here

Posted on by Cernescu Andrei
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It’s quite clear by now that Batman: Arkham Knight’s PC release was a disaster, but at least Warner Bros and Rocksteady are doing their best to fix the game, as proven by the fact that they’ve already released its first PC patch. According to Warner, Rocksteady has been hard at work over these last few days in order to make the game playable, but since fixing a game of this caliber is anything but easy, we’re probably going to have to wait a bit more in order to enjoy a stable release.

“The work is significant and while we are making good progress on improving performance, it will take some time to ensure that we get the right fixes in place.”

The main issues that they’re trying to fix right now are the following:

  • Support for frame rates above 30FPS in the graphics settings menu.
  • Fix for low-resolution texture bug.
  • Improve overall performance and framerate hitches.
  • Add more options to the graphics settings menu.
  • Improvements to hard drive streaming and hitches.
  • Address full-screen rendering bug on gaming laptops.
  • Improvements to system memory and VRAM usage.
  • NVIDIA SLI bug fixes.
  • Enabling AMD Crossfire.
  • NVIDIA and AMD updated drivers.

As for the patch, it’s just 67 MB in size and does not include any performance improvements, but rather it takes care of a few crashes and bugs. Below you will find the complete release notes for it:

  • Fixed a crash that was happening for some users when exiting the game.
  • Fixed a bug which disabled rain effects and ambient occlusion. We are actively looking into fixing other bugs to improve this further.
  • Corrected an issue that was causing Steam to re-download the game when verifying the integrity of the game cache through the Steam client.
  • Fixed a bug that caused the game to crash when turning off Motion Blur in BmSystemSettings.ini. A future patch will enable this in the graphics settings menu.

Thank you Dsogaming for providing us with this information.

Warner Bros Halts Batman Arkham Knight Sales

Posted on by Samuel Wan
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Warner Bros has shaken the gaming landscape with their latest monumental move. In a bid to get ahead of troubles caused by the Batman Arkham Knight launch, Warner Bros is taking the radical step of suspending all sales until most issues have been fixed. While urging patience on the hand of fans, for those seriously unhappy with the game, WB has pointed out that they can refund either through Steam or their retail locations.

Community Admin Yorrick released a statement on both the Steam community and Batman Arkham Knight site. The key parts are as follows:

We want to apologize to those of you who are experiencing performance issues with Batman: Arkham Knight on PC. We take these issues very seriously and have therefore decided to suspend future game sales of the PC version while we work to address these issues to satisfy our quality standards… [and]… do whatever we can to make the experience better for PC players overall….We [will] work to deliver an updated version of Batman: Arkham Knight on PC so you can all enjoy the final chapter of the Batman: Arkham series as it was meant to be played.

Suspending sales while fixes are being implemented is a radical step for the publisher to take. Such a move is beyond rare and even other titles that suffered at heavily launch like Watch Dogs did not have their sales suspended. However, given the poor state of reviews, it’s unlikely many gamers will pick up the title and many hardcore fans would have already bought the game, making the loss a sales a moot point. In ensuring the game is actually polished when it is re-released, more gamers are less likely to have  a negative image of the Batman series and Warner Bros. Steam’s new refund policy also likely played a huge role as there would be no point in selling a game many might later refund.

From a more negative viewpoint, by removing the title from sale, it means that WB knows that the game was released prematurely and requires a considerable amount of time to fix, so much so that taking the game out of sale is required. While a laudable move, WB should have just delayed the PC launch as GTA:V did and released a finished game later than the console versions. Hopefully, other developers will take note of this and make sure their releases are suitable for release on launch day. Even massive day one patches, can’t solve everything if the patches don’t fix everything.

Nvidia Releases New GameWorks Trailer for Arkham Knight

Posted on by Cernescu Andrei
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Batman: Arkham Knight has the potential to become the most detailed and beautiful Batman game every made, mostly thanks to Nvidia’s Gameworks middleware software suite. The company has previously released a GameWorks trailer that showed off impressive effects such as Interactive Smoke and Fog, Interactive Paper Debris and Enhanced Rain. The first trailer was mostly focused on Batman’s own combat moves while this new freshly released one displays the damage that can be done using the Batmobile.

The new video highlights Interactive Smoke and Fog, as well as various destructible objects such guard rails, fences and trees. Hopefully, turning on these advanced features won’t be too taxing on our graphics cards, but we’ll just have to wait for the game to be released in order to know for sure. The general truth is that if we want to be able to enjoy a game at its full potential, GameWorks or not, we need to invest in some decent PC parts. However, I’m pretty sure that Batman: Arkham Knight boasts more than adequate graphics even with these features turned off.

The newest Batman game is expected to become available for the PC, PlayStation 4 and Xbox One on June 23. Below you will find the two GameWorks trailers that Nvidia has released so far.

Thank you Dsogaming for providing us with this information.

NVIDIA adds Batman: Arkham Knight to GeForce GTX Bundle

Posted on by Bohs Hansen
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Nvidia is currently bundling keys for the upcoming Witcher 3 game with their GeForce GTX 970 and GeForce GTX 980 cards, but they decided to add one on top of that and give their customers even more freebies.

There will be a second game code added with the cards and this time it’s for the new Batman: Arkham Knight that is set for release in June. This is a great deal with a retail value of £100 MSRP on top of a great graphics card. Both these games are of course built on the NVIDIA GameWorks and as such should present themselves in full glory on the GTX 980 and GTX 970 cards. We all love free stuff, so this is nothing but great news.

“Both Batman: Arkham Knight and The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt raise the bar for graphics, rendering two very different open worlds with a level of detail that we could only dream of last decade. On the PC, each game is also bolstered by NVIDIA GameWorks – increasing fidelity, realism, and immersion.”

The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt is set to launch on May 19th while Batman: Arkham Knight will be available on June 23rd 2015. Two great games to tie you over for the summer holidays, bad weather, or just for some extra free fun and gaming.

Sony Releasing Limited Edition Batman PlayStation 4

Posted on by Ashley Allen
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The 20th Anniversary limited edition PlayStation 4 released last year was pretty chic, but Sony has thankfully realised that things are infinitely cooler with added Batman, so that’s exactly what they’ve done. Behold, the limited edition Arkham Knight PS4:

The grey and black beast will be released as part of a bundle with the Batman: Arkham Knight game which, after two delays, will be released on 23rd June.

Sony unveiled the console on its blog, saying, “This special bundle will be available for $449.99 (MSRP) and will include the limited edition Steel Grey PS4 system chassis with a custom Batman: Arkham Knight faceplate, a matching DualShock 4 wireless controller in Steel Grey and the explosive finale to the award-winning Arkham trilogy, Batman: Arkham Knight.”

Source: Engadget

Batman: Arkham Knight Delayed Again

Posted on by Ashley Allen
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The forthcoming Batman: Arkham Knight has been delayed again, Rocksteady has announced. The game, originally slated for release on PC, PlayStation 4, and Xbox One on 2nd June, will now be out 23rd June.

This is the second time that Rocksteady has pushed back the release of Arkham Knight, and for the second time the company cites a dedication to make sure that the game is ready for release as the reason for the delay.

A statement from Rocksteady reads:

We’re a developer that hates to make any compromises, so we are sorry to say this means it’s going to be just a little bit longer until you can play the epic conclusion to the Arkham trilogy. As a reward for your patience and understanding, and to make the wait even more unbearable, we are pleased to whet your appetite with a new gameplay video of Batman: Arkham Knight.

Thanks so much from everyone at Rocksteady for your continued support. We are working as hard as we can to make you proud.

Sefton Hill
Game Director
Rocksteady Studios

Come Watch the Batman: Arkham Knight “Ace Chemicals Infiltration” Trailer

Posted on by Henry Reeve
2

Batman: Arkham Knight is getting closer to release, with the developer teasing the final act of its trailer trilogy during the PlayStation Experience keynote. Here are all three trailers:

Rocksteady Studios is developing this Batman game once again, which will reach the PS4, Xbox One and PS4 in June 2015.

Source: Joystiq.

Sony E3 2014 Media Briefing

Posted on by Ian Viado
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Sony E3 Coverage

The PlayStation E3 2014 media briefing was the very last conference to attend for the day here in sunny Los Angeles, CA. Sony hosted an array of big announcements and reveals, setting out an exciting year ahead for PlayStation gamers.

The console war was almost completely lopsided in Sony’s favor but with Microsoft’s strong showing to the media  Sony’s going to have to step up their game. Primarily in the games department because that is definitely something that is lacking since the PS4 was released. Granted, the Xbox One was suffering from the same problem but things should be changing soon.

First and foremost, the show saw a number of major new exclusive first party games unveiled for PlayStation consoles.

Destiny

Set in the distant future, Destiny casts players as Guardians of the last city on Earth, who will traverse the ancient ruins of our solar system from the red dunes of Mars to the lush jungles of Venus. Able to wield incredible power, players must battle humanity’s enemies and reclaim all that was lost during the collapse of mankind’s Golden Age. 

Destiny’s many destinations will feature areas called Public Spaces where players journeying solo or with friends will seamlessly cross paths with other players and Fireteams, some on similar missions, others engaging in completely different activities. And in the public events, gamers can join real-time dynamic events that players and Fireteams in the area can choose to engage in. These Public Events are short skirmishes where multiple players work together to defeat their common enemies and collect awesome loot.

[youtube]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BhmNltVxOm0[/youtube]

It was announced that Playstation+ members will have exclusive 30 access to the beta starting on July 17th. Along with the release of Destiny is the PS4 bundle that includes the great looking white PS4 and a 30 Playstation+ voucher.

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