The team over at Lucid Games is looking to bring the heat with Destruction AllStars season 1. The first season brings with it a new game mode, fanciful photo options, a new character, and more. We've also got a new trailer showing off everything players have to look forward to.

What's in Destruction AllStars season 1? 

This is the very first season for the game, adapting a popular model for online adventures in order to freshen up the gameplay experience for dedicated players. From getting new cosmetics to show off that in-game personality to the reveal of the new Blitz mode, check out the Hothots trailer below to get a first look at what's on the way: 

New Character

First off, let's talk about Destruction AllStars' newest personality. She goes by the name of Alba, and she's a fierce competitor that is no stranger to this particular arena. After leaving Destruction AllStars for "several years," Alba's back and ready to show everyone around her who's boss. 

Alba hails from Scotland and comes equipped with a very high-tech battle suit that gives her resilient armor against foes. While the studio says that it will have more to share on what she brings to the table at a later date, it did teaser her on-foot ability with Character Breaker. This ability will summon blockers to materialize in front of her. These blockers are called Bulwarks and their only job is to protect her from other competitors. 

Lucid also revealed her Hero Vehicle called Claymore. Claymore isn't like other in-game vehicles. Its focus isn't to slam, but instead to obliterate other vehicles with a laser beam that can hurt not only opposing rides but drivers as well. 

Season Pass

This game's season pass is called the AllStar Pass, and it basically works exactly the way you would think. Just like with similar games in the online arena, the AllStar Pass will reward players for their progress by unlocking unique cosmetics. The team is also doing something special with Alba's arrival. "With Alba returning to the competition, our AllStars have decided to roll out the red carpet and get dressed up for the occasion," reads the latest blog post from PlayStation. "You’ll see a lot of black ties and tailcoats in the AllStar Pass as our AllStars get ready to welcome back a renowned veteran. Some of our AllStars have taken things even further, with two Legendary skins and one Heroic skin available in the AllStar Pass to really stand out from the crowd. With skins, emotes, avatars, banners and shouts, there’s plenty of ways to show off your style and change up your AllStars’ look."

Photo Mode

Haven't you heard? Photo Modes are all the rage, as they should be. While not having one isn't a dealbreaker by any stretch of the imagination, this type of feature has become more and more prevalent in games over the past several years. Players want to capture cool moments on the fly and Photo Modes allow for unique customization options to ensure that every image is perfect. With this season literally called Hotshot, the ability to take snapshots comes at the perfect time. 

New Game Mode - Blitz 

Blitz is the new game mode that will arrive with season 1, giving really competitive players something special to look forward to. Blitz is essentially a modified Mayhem (which is likened to Deathmatch, for those that may be unfamiliar) and pits four teams of three against one another. So how is this new mode different than Mayhem? Simple, the rounds are shorter and designed to be way more fast-paced and "intense." It will also require a little more strategy, making players choose a new AllStar at the beginning of each round. But it's more than that; the Character Ability and Hero Vehicle will carry over from the previous round, allowing players to rollover that energy to kick off the next bout with a tactical advantage. 

Blitz will be arriving in the game mode lineup at the start of June. As for the first season itself, Destruction AllStars season 1 officially kicks off on May 5.

Are you excited to see how seasons shake up Destruction AllStars? What other inspiration would you like to see this team pull from going forward? Sound off with your thoughts in the comment section below! 

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Titanfall 2 took the wall-run-and-gun formula that made the first title so special and bolstered it with deeper multiplayer customization options and a fun single-player story mode. Despite its age, the sequel has remained popular in no small part due to Apex Legends’ continuous success. When Respawn Entertainment’s surprise battle royale dropped in early 2019, fans couldn’t help but fall in love with the Titanfall universe all over again. And now that Valkyrie (the literal personification of Titanfall’s interesting pilot lore) is set to drop in Season 9, players are flocking to the classic futuristic shooter in droves once more.

Titanfall 2’s player count on Steam has skyrocketed in recent weeks. An extremely generous sale price coupled with Apex Legends teasers has pushed the FPS into the limelight. Previous Titanfall 2 sales have been nowhere near as successful. A recent roundtable event was held days before Season 9’s Valkyrie was revealed. Developers remarked that “Titanfall is a war story, Apex is life after the war; we’re trying to integrate Titanfall into that. We’re looking at what Titanfall means for this universe. It has lasting impacts that are going to become bigger and bigger.” 

Javy Gwaltney loved his time with Titanfall 2 and voiced many of the same sentiments that players still share today, “In an era where it feels like the majority of shooters either have single-player or multiplayer tacked on, Titanfall 2 is the full package. The top-tier campaign has nearly perfect pacing, and the subtle revisions and additions to the multiplayer make it better than ever. For first-person shooter fans, Titanfall 2 is a must-play."

EA pledged total freedom for its many game development studios, including the Respawn teams working on the Titanfall series. While Apex Legends is still a major priority considering the fact that a mobile port is on the way and the game has surpassed a whopping 100 million players, there might just be a third Titanfall game somewhere in the foreseeable future. 

[Source: VGC]

The League of Legends community was riled up earlier this week when a fan-driven League of Legends project was shut down by Riot Games. While shutdown notices are nothing new, what caused the widespread disharmony was how a Riot representative approached communication with the project called Chronoshift. Under the name 'Riot Zed,' the representative was incredibly offputting, needlessly aggressive, and honestly? Really cheesy. When the email correspondence went public, the community reacted, and now Riot Games is responding to how the employee handled the entire situation, claiming a sense of "disappointment" over the encounter. 

For those that may be unfamiliar with this fan project, Chronoshift is/was a legacy server that allowed players to go back to an older version of League that they enjoyed. The original shutdown email can be seen here, but further correspondence reveals straight-up weird old school mob verbiage, making the entire exchange about a legal notice inappropriately comical: 

Neckbeard LoL developer "Zed" extorts indie mod developers of the Chronoshift project. I'm dying.

After the above Discord conversation was sent over to Riot's legal team to confirm its authenticity, the company confirmed that the takedown notice was real and echoed a previous takedown notice sent to the Chronoshift team back in 2020. That being said, the way it was handled is anything but what Riot was wanting, saying, "Regarding the exchange with Riot Zed, we're disappointed with the tenor of the conversation and we'll be addressing this internally," reads a recent statement from Riot to Eurogamer. "We often attempt good faith reach-outs prior to issuing legal documentation. In this case, however, given the Chronoshift team's response, we have proceeded through more formal channels."

Additional context from one of the members that worked on Chronoshift shows less of an angry reaction from their team, and more of a disappointed one. As spotted by the site, one person working on this project weighed in, saying, "Instead of opening a conversation about the future and interest in this kind of project, they attempted what could be seen as an attempt to take advantage of our work for free and start taking legal action against us," one developer said on Reddit. "To our best knowledge, and the assessment of the lawyers specialised in IT copyright we talked the project over with, we have not done anything illegal."

They added, "We have been working on this project for almost five years and thousands of hours," the post continued. "We never asked for even as much a donation during all of this time, paying all of the expenses out of our pockets. This project has always been about the preservation of the early seasons of the game that cannot be experienced anymore, a time capsule for something long gone that people still express a lot of interest in to this day."

While the takedown is, and shouldn't have been, a surprise, there needs to be professionalism when this type of correspondence is concerned. How 'Riot Zed' handled the entire situation reflects poorly on them, and Riot by association. Now that the company is taking to "more formal channels" for the takedown of Chronoshift, this fan project looks to finally have met its end. Which is a shame, legacy servers are a phenomenal way to keep the community engaged and longtime fans still interested in a property. While the issues with these fan-driven servers are understandable, I hope that this means that perhaps Riot will look into possibly creating an official legacy server in its own right. It would be even better if they hired on some of the talented fans that made up the Chronoshift project. 

Thoughts on how Riot Games handled the takedown of Chronoshift? Thoughts on how Chronoshift responded? Sound off in the comment section below and tell us what you think should happen next.