Plants vs. Zombies: Garden Warfare gets Aquafina-sponsored characters in new DLC

Plants vs. Zombies: Garden Warfare developer PopCap Games is adding a new map, a new mode, Aquafina-sponsored characters and more to the shooter on Windows PC, Xbox 360 and Xbox One next month, the studio announced today.

Known as the Tactical Taco Party Pack, the downloadable content includes the new Jewel Junction map, Vanquish Confirmed mode and an eight-versus-eight playlist across all modes.

The add-on also comes with two new character variants sponsored by Aquafina FlavorSplash: Berry Shooter and Citrus Cactus. In screenshots of both characters, which you can see in the gallery below, it doesn't seem that Aquafina branding appears in gameplay. This is different from another EA game with sponsored content, SimCity, whose Nissan Leaf Charging Station bears the auto manufacturer's logo.

The Tactical Taco Party Pack will be released July 1. Jewel Junction is already available on PC, where it launched as a timed exclusive on the platform along with the PC version last week. And Vanquish Confirmed will be a timed exclusive on Xbox 360 and Xbox One for one week; it will be released July 8 on PC.

For more on the Tactical Taco Party Pack, you can check out the preview video above from Microsoft's Larry "Major Nelson" Hryb, as well as our full review of Plants vs. Zombies: Garden Warfare.

Source: Polygon

DICE improving Battlefield 4's core gameplay, Rush mode, Dragon's Teeth DLC

Through DICE's Community Test Environment, an initiative for players to help develop and improve Battlefield 4's experience, the developer is testing and rolling out improvements for the game's Rush mode, Dragon's Teeth DLC and core gameplay.

According to a Battlelog post by associate producer David Sirland, DICE will start making changes to Battlefield 4's core gameplay beginning with improvements and fixes related to the new Dragon's Teeth expansion pack. The expansion will launch with fixes made to its new Ballistics Shield, where its bash damage has been tweaked and is no longer possible to one-hit kill enemies and single tank AP-rounds now kill players carrying the Ballistics Shield.

The developer is currently testing out changes to Rush mode in CTE to increase its balance and flow. The new changes are being tested on the Siege of Shanghai, Zavod 311 and Operation Locker to start with. General tweaks to Rush include the removal of commander by default, radar sweep has been reduced around attackers base, changes to MCOM placement and cover passes.

Additional areas of improvements that the developer will be looking at in the future through the initiative includes general weapon balance and suppression tuning, 3P head-flinch dampening, visual recoil ADS tuning, vehicle tuning/balance, HUD improvements and bug fixes. Continued tweaks to Obliteration Competitive and Conquest small will made. You can find out more about the changes in the video above.

DICE began recruiting Battlefield 4 PC players in May to help test possible patches and ideas to the title before rolling them out on all platforms. The developer hopes to improve the overall quality of the game through CTE where it can collect player feedback early on in the design process.

Through CTE, the developer tested out and released updates to the game's Netcode in June. The updates included improvements with player-to-player interactions within the game such as registering damage done to others. The developer also tweaked the game's general networking capabilities and the "tickrate" of its servers.

Battlefield 4 launched for PlayStation 3, PlayStation 4, PC, Xbox 360 and Xbox One last fall and has been plagued with ongoing issues since its release. To date, DICE has published numerous patches for the game across all platforms and delayed some DLC to focus on improving the game's quality.

 Source: Polygon
 

Sniper Elite 3 keys stolen, canceled, buyers left to fend for themselves

Numerous keys for Sniper Elite 3 have been invalidated and their owners left practically empty handed after Steam and developing studio Rebellion discovered they were stolen and then re-sold to other vendors.

Rebellion is offering the "Target Hitler" DLC extension as a make-good for those affected, but as far as the full game, they're being told to contact the reseller and demand a refund. Neither Rebellion nor Steam are offering that.

Rebellion, in a forum thread now stretching more than 700 comments, explicitly held the resellers blameless. "One of our PC retail distributors informed us that some of their allotted Steam keys were stolen," Rebellion wrote. "We believe these keys were then resold to multiple companies, with no payments going to either Valve or the retail distributor."

Rebellion informed Steam of this, and Steam revoked these keys.
"We have in no way targeted any specific vendors (who may have also thought these keys were legitimate)," Rebellion added, "just this one set of keys."

Rebellion is facing a storm of angry responses on the game's Steam page as well as the studio's Facebook page. The most it's offering is the DLC, on the understanding that some may have preordered these keys and, therefore, if they lose the game they would also lose "Target Hitler," which for now is available only as a preorder incentive.

Buyers of the revoked keys have until July 4 to claim that DLC.

"All we can suggest if you have been affected is to please contact your vendor and first ask for a replacement key, and then contact us for the free pre-order DLC if you are successful," Rebellion wrote.

Source: Polygon