Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson To Induct His Grandmother, Lia Maivia, Into WWE Hall Of Fame
As first announced by her grandson Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson, wrestling promoter and matriarch of the Anoa’i family, Lia Maivia will be inducted into this year’s WWE Hall of Fame class. She joins Paul Heyman–who will be inducted by Roman Reigns–Bull Nakano, The U.S. Express, Muhammad Ali, and Thunderbolt Patterson in this year’s induction ceremony.
She will be inducted by Johnson, who also inducted his father Rocky Johnson, and grandfather “High Chief” Peter Maivia into the hall in 2008.
Maivia took over control of the National Wrestling Alliance territory in Hawaii known as Polynesian Pro Wrestling where she became one of wrestling’s first-ever big-time woman promoters. Within three years, she put together the company’s biggest card, A Hot Summer Night.
The event featured worldwide headliners like Andre the Giant, Ric Flair, “Soulman” Rocky Johnson, Dusty Rhodes, Antonio Inoki, Jimmy Snuka, Bruiser Brody, and many more. The main event saw Flair defend his NWA World Championship against Siva Afi–who later performed as one-half of the Islanders in the WWE, and drew 20,000 fans.
Maivia passed away in 2008 at the age of 77 but has left a lasting and profound impact on the wrestling industry. The WWE Hall of Fame ceremony will take place on Friday, April 5, right after Smackdown.
Horror Co-Op Game Content Warning Is A Surprise Hit Thanks To Free-To-Keep Promotion
The co-op horror game Content Warning is the latest independent title to climb the charts on Steam, thanks in part to a promotion that made the game free-to-own for 24 hours.
Content Warning launched on April 1. The game is free until 9 AM PT / 12 PM ET on April 2, after which the game will revert to its base asking price of $8. Content Warning is a riff on Lethal Company, another smash hit co-op horror game. Like Lethal Company, it tasks players with exploring strange environments and completing objectives while running from terrifying creatures. The primary twist is that players are content creators, recording themselves exploring and fleeing from horrors. If they survive and return, they can upload their footage to the game’s equivalent of YouTube, “SpookTube,” for fame and fortune.
Back at home base, the game’s aesthetic is cute and cuddly with bright colors. Even the game’s diver avatars have neon-colored helmets styled with emoji. Once players take their diving bell to the underground, they’ll find a sheer, dark, and monochrome world with plenty of terrors, both great and small.
According to a tweet from publisher Landfall Games, Content Warning hit over 100K active players and 4.5M owners within that first 24 hours. As of writing, the game sits at the sixth position on the Steam “most played” chart, has over 200K concurrent players, and got 8,865 reviews with an overall rating of “overwhelmingly positive.”
Xbox Game Pass Adds Handcrafted Sci-Fi Adventures And Intense Racing In April
The first wave of Xbox Game Pass titles for April has been finalized, and throughout the month, you can raid some tombs, build some Lego, and explore a narrative game years in the making. Kicking things off today is Superhot: Mind Control Delete, an expanded version of the popular first-person shooter where time has slowed to a crawl and only picks up when you move. This isn’t the first time it has been available through Xbox Game Pass, but in case you missed it, it offers more story, more action, and a lot more guns to play around with.
On April 3, Lego 2K Drive races onto Xbox consoles and cloud-compatible devices. This is a fun Lego open-world racing game where you can build the car of your dreams, explore a vibrant toybox full of fun activities, and take on rivals as you compete for the prestigious Sky Trophy. On April 4, the Game Pass library expands with the adorable open-world adventure Lil Gator Game and you can tee off in EA Sports PGA Tour.
Now Playing: Harold Halibut Release Date Reveal
Kona, an investigative game with surreal elements, will be available starting April 9, and it’ll be joined by Botany Manor, a day-one release. In this game, you can explore the historic manor home of retired botanist Arabella Greene, admire their collection of rare flora, and earn your green thumb by completing gardening puzzles. Shadow of the Tomb Raider: Definitive Edition arrives April 16, and while the final game in the reboot trilogy doesn’t live up to the high benchmark set by the previous two games, it does come with all seven DLC challenge tombs, bonus weapons, extra outfits, and skills.
The highlight of Xbox Game Pass this month is easily Harold Halibut, as this will be a day-one release of the highly anticipated narrative-adventure game. Featuring a retro-futuristic design, this game will see you join Harold as he explores a city-sized spaceship submerged in an alien ocean. 14 years in the making, Harold Halibut features some of the most visually striking art direction of the year, thanks to almost every element having a handmade origin before it was digitally scanned and converted into a 3D object.
A few games will be departing Xbox Game Pass on April 15, including one of the best Left 4 Dead spiritual successors and some gnarly horror games. As usual, you can save up to 20% off your purchase to keep them in your library.
Xbox Game Pass April 2024 Wave 1 Additions
Available Today
- Superhot: Mind Control Delete (Cloud, Console, and PC)
April 3
- Lego 2K Drive (Cloud and Console)
April 4
- Lil Gator Game (Cloud, Console, and PC)
- EA Sports PGA Tour (Cloud, PC, Xbox Series X|S via EA Play)
April 9
- Kona (Cloud and Console)
- Botany Manor
April 11
- Shadow of the Tomb Raider Definitive Edition (Cloud, Console, and PC)
April 16
- Harold Halibut (Cloud, PC, and Xbox Series X|S)
Helldivers 2 Patch Makes It Easier To Rescue Squishy Civilians, Triples Level Cap
A new Helldivers 2 patch is live, bringing with it numerous tweaks, buffs, and new environmental threats to the game. As if firestorms, tremors, and ion storms weren’t bad enough, you can now expect to encounter blizzards and sandstorms on certain planets while trying to avoid the insect hordes and the chanting Automaton forces. For anyone looking to chase higher numbers and new titles, the game’s level cap has tripled from 50 to 150, and PS5 owners can expect the loadout-reset bug to be addressed in this patch.
Developer Arrowhead has also reworked several weapons, tweaking and buffing them to be more effective in battle. The Anti-Materiel Rifle does 30% more damage, the Arc Thrower has increased stagger force, and the Dominator got a big damage boost. A few weapons have been tweaked to be more balanced, but when you’re out of Stratagems, your arsenal should be more reliable when your back is against the wall.
Now Playing: Helldivers 2 Review – Starship Bloopers
Other interesting changes include the Retrieve Essential Personnel mission being easier to complete. Additionally, and the negative effects of operation modifiers that increase stratagem cooldowns have been halved. This particular mission will see enemy spawn points moved farther away, giving players a fighting chance to shepherd civilians into a bunker when they’re being chased by homicidal machines equipped with chainsaw-arms.
Arrowhead also noted that it’s working on fixing cross-play invites not appearing in player inboxes–an issue that has been around for several weeks now.
In other Helldivers 2 news, players are currently engaged in a major campaign to retake planets from the Automatons. To help motivate its troops, Arrowhead recently introduced the MG-101 Heavy Machine Gun and the LAS-99 Quasar Cannon. The new energy cannon is proving to be especially popular, as it has infinite ammo and does high damage against even the toughest Terminids and Automatons. The only drawback is its long cooldown period, but otherwise, it’s an exciting new addition to Helldivers 2.
To see the other tools of the managed democracy trade, you can check out all the weapons and armor introduced in the Cutting Edge Warbond battle pass.
Helldivers 2 Patch 01.000.200
Planetary Hazard additions
- Blizzards
- Sandstorms
Increased level cap
- Level cap has been increased from 50 to 150
Balancing
Retrieve Essential Personnel
- Moved the enemy spawn points further away from the objective to give players a fairer chance of defending the location.
- There are fewer civilians required to complete the mission on higher difficulties.
Destroy Command Bunkers
- Now has more objective locations, the mission was too easy before compared to other missions.
- It can now appear in operations from difficulty 5.
Operation Modifiers
- Halved the negative effect of operation modifiers that increase stratagem cooldowns or call in times.
Primary, Secondary, and Support Weapons
- Arc Thrower: fixed charging inconsistencies; it will now always take 1s to charge a shot.
- Arc Thrower: reduced distance from 50m to 35m.
- Arc Thrower: increased stagger force.
- Guard Dog: now restores full ammo from supply boxes.
- Anti-Materiel Rifle: damage increased by 30%.
- Breaker Incendiary: damage per bullet increased from 15 per bullet to 20 per bullet.
- Fire damage per tick increased by 50% (from all sources).
- Liberator Penetrator: now has a full auto mode.
- Dominator: increased damage from 200 to 300.
- Dominator: increased stagger.
- Diligence Counter Sniper: increased armor penetration from light to medium.
- Slugger: reduced stagger.
- Slugger: reduced damage from 280 to 250.
- Slugger: reduced demolition force.
- Slugger: fixed armor penetration tag in the menu.
- Slugger, Liberator Concussive, Senator: fixed incorrect armor penetration tags in the menu.
- Recoilless Rifle: increased the number of rockets you restore from supply boxes from 2 to 3.
- Spear: increased the number of missiles you restore from supply boxes from 1 to 2.
- Heavy Machine Gun: the highest fire rate mode reduced from 1200 rpm to a more moderate 950.
Stratagems
- Patriot Exosuit: rockets will now penetrate armor only on direct hit.
Enemies
- Balancing adjustments have been made to
- Chargers normal melee attack now does less damage against Exosuits.
- Bile Spewer and Nursing Spewer do less damage with their puke.
- The Bile Titan can no longer be stunned.
- Shriekers no longer create bug breaches.
- Shriekers hitting you while they are dead now does significantly less damage.
Helldiver balancing adjustments
- Heavy and medium armor protects better and you now take about 10% less damage than before while wearing heavy and about 5% less when wearing medium armor. Fortified commando and light armor is unchanged.
Fixes
- Fixed issue where save settings for PS5 would be reset when the game is rebooted, causing things such as loadout and hint settings to reset.
- Enemies now properly target Exosuits. Previously, many enemies effectively ignored Exosuits if a helldiver on foot was available for them to target.
- Fixed Exosuits being able to fire their weapons while opening the minimap.
- The Helldiver and the Exosuit both had a bug that made them sometimes take explosion damage multiple times making things like automaton rockets be too deadly, this is now fixed.
- Automaton enemy constellations that preferred to spawn more of certain Devastators types did not work and are now functioning as they should. This means that sometimes when playing against the Automatons you will face more Devastators instead of other enemy types.
We have improved the system that prevents hellpod steering close to large or important objects.
- We have solved issues where the effective area around objects was a lot larger than intended.
- We have reduced the number of objects that prevent hellpod steering.
- Note: This system is intended to prevent softlocks where players can drop on important interaction points, or drop into unintended places. We will continue to monitor the state of the system after the update to see if additional tweaks are necessary.
- Fixed cases where the ground under some assets could be bombed causing them to float.
Ballistic Shield changes
- Collision mesh has been slightly increased in size for more forgiveness
- Changed shield poses so that less of the helldiver is exposed
- Addressed bug where parts of the helldiver would become vulnerable while using the shield in first person
Tutorial
- Invisible collision partially blocking the doorway leading to the launch pad in the Tutorial
Known Issues
These are issues that were either introduced by this patch and are being worked on, or are from a previous version and have not yet been fixed.
- Game might crash when picking up a snowball or throwing back a grenade
Various issues involving friend invites and cross-play
- Cross-platform friend invites might not show up in the Friend Requests tab.
- Players cannot unfriend other players befriended via friend code.
- Players cannot unblock players that were not in their Friends list beforehand.
- Players cannot befriend players with Steam names shorter than 3 characters
- Explosive weapon stats include only direct hit damage but not explosive damage.
- Explosions do not break your limbs (except for when you fly into a rock).
- Planet liberation reaches 100% at the end of every Defend mission.
- Drowning in deep water with a Vitality Booster equipped puts Helldiver in a broken state.
- Stratagem beam might attach itself to an enemy but it will deploy to its original location.
- Some player customizations (like title or body type) may reset after restarting the game.
