Darendukes

Fortnite owes much of its massively scaled success to the fact that anyone can download and play the game's battle royale mode for free. But that free-to-play popularity hasn't stopped people from paying heavily inflated prices of up to $450 for disc-based retail copies of the game.

Gearbox Software published a limited number of physical disc copies of Fortnite for PS4 and Xbox One (and the PC in Europe) alongside the game's paid Early Access release last July. That $60 release—which was focused on the player-vs-environment "Save the World" mode—came well before the game started getting outsized attention for the launch of its free-to-play battle royale mode in late September.

The retail discs, which have been out of stock at major retailers for months now, are quickly becoming sought-after collector's items for rabid Fortnite fans. A quick search of recently completed eBay listings shows retail console copies of Fortnite (including new, used, and sealed copies) selling for an average of about $130 (and a median of $110) over the past two weeks. Used copies from Amazon's third-party sellers are currently going for a minimum of $175 for a bare disc without the case.

Just before 8pm on Tuesday, June 5, Joshua Phillip Yabut, a 29-year-old 1st Lieutenant in the Virginia National Guard, drove off the Guard's Fort Pickett training center in Blackstone, Virginia in an M577 command post vehicle. This unscheduled deployment was followed by one of the strangest police chases ever.

(Update, 15:49 EDT) Just before hitting the road, Yabut posted a selfie, flashing the Wu Tang Clan sign.

wutang clan ain’t nothin to fuck wit booiiiiiiii pic.twitter.com/NUvnVRCRkE

— Joshua [BCH] (@movrcx) June 5, 2018

He also posted video from inside the M577 while it was moving. Based on the time it was posted, it was while he was driving off Fort Pickett. His sidearm is visible.

Bodnar's Auction House

In this day and age, all but the rarest of rare classic video games are relatively easy to find with a simple eBay search. Still, the massive classic gaming collection being auctioned off in suburban New Jersey today deserves attention for the sheer volume of retro gaming pieces being sold off in one place.

The gargantuan collection, encompassing tens of thousands of items, has been gathered together over decades of work by 45-year-old Bill Loguidice, an author specializing in books about classic games. While there are thousands of boxed and unboxed games—ranging from common to one of a kind—the highlight of the collection is the hundreds of pieces of video game hardware and accessories covering pretty much every major console and gaming computer released since the Fairchild Channel F.

Enlarge (credit: Compulsion Games)

SANTA MONICA, California—It took a few years, but We Happy Few is finally shaping up to play as well as it originally looked.

The 3D adventure game has thus far taken a strange publicity route, as its splashy 2016 reveal was followed by a bizarre early access game launch. Gamers were sold on something that looked like a trippy, story-filled fusion of Bioshock and Brave New World, but the paid, playable version was instead a procedurally generated sneak-and-fight sandbox.

"The problem was, you don't want to play half-baked story after half-baked story in the early-access process," Compulsion Games Creative Director Guillaume Provost explained at an E3 preview event. Rather than string early access players along with unfinished plot morsels, the studio chose to give eager players a look at the game's mechanics first.

Enlarge (credit: Jeff Dunn)

Amazon confirmed an Echo owner's privacy-sensitive allegation on Thursday, after Seattle CBS affiliate KIRO-7 reported that an Echo device in Oregon sent private audio to someone on a user's contact list without permission.

"Unplug your Alexa devices right now," the user, Danielle (no last name given), was told by her husband's colleague in Seattle after he received full audio recordings between her and her husband, according to the KIRO-7 report. The disturbed owner, who is shown in the report juggling four unplugged Echo Dot devices, said that the colleague then sent the offending audio to Danielle and her husband to confirm the paranoid-sounding allegation. (Before sending the audio, the colleague confirmed that the couple had been talking about hardwood floors.)

After calling Amazon customer service, Danielle said she received the following explanation and response: "'Our engineers went through all of your logs. They saw exactly what you told us, exactly what you said happened, and we're sorry.' He apologized like 15 times in a matter of 30 minutes. 'This is something we need to fix.'"

Enlarge / Exhaustion, injuries, and low morale stack up pretty quickly within your community.

I wanted to be a “State of Decay person” since the first game came to the Xbox 360 in 2013. My friend pretty much forced the issue. I remember a straight month where all they wanted to do was whack zombies from a third-person perspective, scrounge vital materials, and maneuver the valuables through menus to keep a playable squad of survivors happy. True State of Decay fans found the hunt for food and ammo was just a vehicle for ambient stories of post-apocalyptic survival. Assuming you could stomach the game’s many vicious glitches, that is.

Very little has changed in the half-decade since that original game. In State of Decay 2, you smack undead “zeds” around to loot the supply-rich structures they guard. The gear shores up your semi-safe headquarters. And while I’m still not feeling the fantasy as much as I’d like, the bugs sure are back in full force.

State of Decay’s continued lack of polish is sort of infuriating, and not just for the obvious reasons. The game’s premise was always sound: like the best zombie fiction, it gives us a window into an egalitarian nightmare-fantasy, where debt and bureaucratic power are wiped away by a threat we can exercise six-gun justice against, largely guilt-free.

Few other games strive to be a sandbox where those stories crop up organically. With a bit more polish and a lot more direction, State of Decay could have been an undisputed classic—and not just among a devoted cult of followers. Theoretically, State of Decay 2 should be that polished follow-up. It has had five years to cook, leverages more powerful hardware, and already has its own predecessor as a sound proof of concept.

As pre-E3 hype ramps up, fans have reason to anticipate new sequels and entries from their favorite game series. Today brings a surprise announcement of a brand-new Halo game—the kind of news you might expect as an E3-keynote surprise.

There's almost certainly a reason this news is coming today as opposed to the middle of the E3 rush: it's not a traditional Halo first-person shooter, and it's not even coming to console. The new Halo: Fireteam Raven is an arcade-exclusive light-gun shooter, coming "this summer" exclusively to Dave & Busters arcades in the United States and Canada. (Other arcade chains will get a crack at the massive arcade game "later this year.")

Enlarge / Black Ops 4's Blackout mode will replace the traditional single-player campaign in the upcoming game. (credit: Treyarch)

At a community reveal event today, developer Treyarch confirmed previous rumors that the upcoming Call of Duty Black Ops 4 will be the first game in the series without a traditional single-player campaign. Instead, the new game will launch on October 12 with a focus on a new "three-pillar" structure of traditional multiplayer modes, alternative zombie-mode side missions, and a new battle royale mode called Blackout.

"It's all about having fun with your friends," Treyarch Chairman Mark Lamia said at the end of the event. "More fun than you've ever had. Black Ops 4 doesn't have a traditional campaign; we're weaving narrative into each of the modes."

For those who might prefer playing alone, Lamia promised "unique ways to play solo in multiplayer and zombies [modes] regardless of your skill level," without going into further detail. "Those of you who just want to ramp up on your own, we've got you covered, too," he said.

REDMOND, Washington—The Xbox Adaptive Controller (XAC), slated to launch "later this year," looks almost incomplete at first glance. The clean, confusing-looking slab, nearly the length and width of an Xbox One S, has no joysticks. The usual selection of Xbox inputs has been reduced down to a few menu buttons, a D-pad, and two black, hand-sized pads.

Don't let the pared-down design fool you. The XAC is one of the most unique and widely useful control tools Microsoft has ever designed, and it seems poised to change the way many players interact with the games they love.

Sam Machkovech

Enlarge / A scene from Lawbreakers (credit: Nexon / Boss Key)

Boss Key Productions, the studio behind gravity-bending shooter Lawbreakers and '80s-themed battle royale game Radical Heights has shut down. Founder Cliff Bleszinski, previously best known for his role as director on the Gears of War series, announced the studio was "effectively no more" Monday afternoon on Twitter.

"Lawbreakers was a great game that unfortunately failed to gain traction, and in a last-ditch attempt we scrambled to do our take on the huge battle royale genre with Radical Heights which was well received, however, it was too late," Bleszinski's statement says, in part. He adds that while "videogames will forever be a part of who I am, and I hope to make something new someday," he will be "tak[ing] some time off to reflect" in the near term.

After decades as a major public face of Epic Games, Bleszinski retired from the company in 2012 only to announce a comeback by forming Boss Key in April of 2014. What started as Project Bluestreak would eventually become Lawbreakers, which Boss Key launched in 2017 after extensive public demonstrations, beta tests, and gameplay tweaking.

Enlarge / Dr. Dre performs onstage with Eminem during the 2018 Coachella Valley Music and Arts Festival Weekend 1 at the Empire Polo Field in Indio, California. (credit: Christopher Polk/Getty Images for Coachella)

A federal trademark judge has ruled in favor of a Pennsylvania-based gynecologist who goes by the name Dr. Drai—finding that use of this name does not violate the trademark of Dr. Dre, the famed rapper.

The case, which was filed in October 2015 to the United States Patent and Trademark Office’s Trademark Trial and Appeal Board (TTAB), claimed that Dr. Draion M. Burch's efforts to use the "Dr. Drai" moniker in a trademark were a "close approximation" of the stage name of Andre Young. Dre's lawyers wanted the Drai trademark, which was first filed in 2011, to be annulled.

"Applicant has admitted that DR. DRAI sounds identical to DR. DRE (Burch Tr. at 154:20-155:1), and, thus, a consumer hearing them would think they are the same. As to appearance, the names look remarkably similar," lawyers representing Dre wrote in a November 2017 court filing.

Enlarge / The Steam Link app will go well beyond the functionality of the existing Steam Mobile app shown here, but we don't have imagery for the Steam Link yet, so....

Users will be able to turn their phones and tablets into de facto portable PC monitors for playing Steam games around the house later this month. That's when Valve has announced it will be launching its new Steam Link app for iOS and Android, officially bringing Steam's long-established in-home streaming feature to mobile devices for the first time (though there have been unofficial apps to provide similar functions for a while now).

The free Steam Link app will be available for phones and tablets running Android or iOS (though Android support will be in beta for launch) starting the week of May 21. Apple TV and Android-based TV platforms will also run the software, Valve said, essentially turning those set-top boxes into versions of Valve's own standalone Steam Link hardware.

The mobile app will link to a "Mac or PC" host system, according to the announcement (Update: A Valve representative tells Ars Linux and SteamOS are also supported), relaying game images and sound and transmitting controller input over 5Ghz Wi-Fi or wired Ethernet. While Valve said the app will include support for the Steam Controller, MFi-certified iOS controllers, "and more," it's unclear whether more generic USB/bluetooth controllers and/or mouse/keyboard setups will be usable via the mobile app (Update: A Valve representative tells Ars that keyboard/mouse controls will be supported, with a fuller list of compatible controllers available before launch).