Genshin Impact continues rolling along with another big content drop coming February 3. The open world free-to-play gacha game is bringing a character that you may have met much earlier in your journey in as a new playable 5-star character. Yep, I hope you've been saving your primogems, because Xiao is here! Xiao is an Anemo (wind) character that uses polearms, with the ability to siphon his own life force to do more damage. Also, he has a freaking cool mask.

Yeah, basically I've been saving up my primogems since before Klee came out, so I'm ready to take a bunch of rolls on Xiao's banner.  No idea how to get started in Genshin Impact, what gacha is, or what any of these weird terms mean? Check out our guide to getting started here.

Okay, on to event news! During the Lantern Rite event, players can get 10 free Intertwined Fates per day via a login event and pick up 1600 primogems by completing various event activities. Players also get to pick a free 4-star character from the Liyue roster to add to their team, which may or may not give you some valuable constellation boosts or round out your team. The event brings a smattering of special activities and quests to complete focusing on Liyue, so look for food stalls and other festive fare around town. Get a taste of everything coming in 1.3 in the trailer below!

A new tower defense strategy activity is available during Lantern Rite called Theater Mechanicus, so that will be interesting to try out. Are you drowning in resources you don't want but never have the ones you need? This patch also adds the Parametric Transformer, which allows you to morph your excess resources into sutff you actually want.

Vicarious Visions has moved from the Activision side of the company to the Blizzard side moving forward, reports Gameindustry.biz. This shift also places the studio head, Jen Oneal, on the Blizzard leadership team where she will report to Blizzard president J. Allen Brack.

Vicarious Visions has a wealth of work on Activision titles under its belt, most recently the Tony Hawk game resurrection in the form of Tony Hawk's Pro Skater 1+2, which was well received.

"Forget the weird peripherals, bad sequels, and questionable ports that defined Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater in the series’ later years," says Game Informer's Brian Shea in our review.  "Instead, remember the glory days of the late ‘90s and early ‘00s, because that’s where you’re going with Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater 1 and 2. By returning to the first two games in the franchise and modernizing them with changes large and small, developer Vicarious Visions reminds us why we fell in love with this series in the first place." Over the years, Vicarious Visions has been involved with myriad Activision properties, including the Skylanders and Guitar Hero franchises. The list of games Vicarious has touched is huge, but also includes Call of Duty, Destiny, and Crash Bandicoot. Whew!

This shift is not expected to move the 200-ish person Vicarious Visions team out of their New York company headquarters. What role Vicarious will play at Blizzard and what projects they will be working on isn't yet known, but they will be working on existing Blizzard games and initiatives, as far as the initial scope goes.

What do you think about the change for Vicarious Visions? Is this an opportunity to buff up some Blizzard titles that could use some extra power? Are you lamenting the potential loss of more Tony Hawk titles? Let us know what you think of the merger in the comments below!

[Source: Gameindustry.biz]

Robert Kirkman is best known for his comic series The Walking Dead and its subsequent television adaption. Soon, another one of Kirkman's comics will be hitting your screen, this time as an exclusive to Amazon Prime. The new show is called Invincible, and Kirkman has announced that it will debut on March 26.

Between all of the games and movies that revolve around superpowers these days, you may have reached your saturation point when it comes to heroes in tights with special abilities. Even so, Invincible might be worth giving a chance. It's about a young man named Mark who discovers he has superpowers, but he also happens to be the son of Omni-Man – a Superman-like figure who is the world's most powerful hero. Check out the clip above for a sneak peek at the dynamic between the two characters, and get a broader look at the show with the teaser trailer.

If the concept alone isn’t enough to entice you, then maybe the phenomenal voice cast can lure you in. It features an astounding array of talent, including Steven Yeun (Glenn from The Walking Dead) in the lead role of Mark, and J.K. Simmons (J. Jonah Jameson in Sam Raimi’s Spider-Man trilogy) as Omni-Man. Other people lending their voices to the show include Mark Hamill, Seth Rogan, Gillian Jacobs, Jason Mantzoukas, Sandra Oh, Walton Goggins, Mahershala Ali, and more (including other alums from The Walking Dead). Check out the show’s Wikipedia page and soak in the star power.

Those on the Game Informer staff who have read the Invincible comic say that it is an under-appreciated work, and its quality may even surpass The Walking Dead. So, even if you've never heard of it before today, it seems like fans of superhero fiction should definitely have this upcoming series on their radar. 

A new Cyberpunk 2077 update is now available for PC and console players alike, as well as Google Stadia. The latest patch is one of many on the horizon following a chaotic launch and this update tackles major areas of improvement including open-world issues, commonly reported bugs, and overall stability concerns. 

CD Projekt Red took to the game's blog to share with players what the latest update has in store, saying "In this update, we focused on various stability improvements, which you can find outlined in the patch notes below. We will continue this work in patch 1.2 and other upcoming updates. At the same time, we will keep fixing the bugs you encounter and listening to your feedback on how to improve the overall game experience."

While new DLC and new-gen updates are still on the horizon, the main priority for the Polish studio currently is to get the issues that contributed to the messy launch under control. This especially became an important focus when Poland's Office of Competition and Consumer Protection began its investigation into the company concerning the game's launch on the heels of two class-action lawsuits from investors. 

The latest patch, called Update 1.1, tackles various stability issues including: 

• Memory usage improvements in various systems within the game: characters, interactions, navigation, in-game videos (news, tv, etc.), foliage, laser effects, minimap, devices, AI, street traffic, environmental damage system, GPU-related, and more.
• Various crash fixes (related to, among others, loading saves, game opening/closing and Point of No Return).

It also tackles many of the quest bugs that players have been reporting and a few open-world issues that have been shared as well, especially concerning any of the content surrounding Delamain and achievement/trophy issues. 

For the full list of what the latest patch entails, check out the full update notes below courtesy of CDPR: 

Quests/Open World

• Fixed an issue where calls from Delamain would end immediately and seem like they cannot be picked up in Epistrophy.
• Fixed an issue where players would not receive calls from Delamain when approaching relevant vehicles in Epistrophy.
• Fixed an issue where the objective could get stuck on "Answer the call from Mr. Hands" in M'ap Tann Pèlen.
• Fixed an issue where Judy could teleport underground in Pyramid Song.
• Fixed an issue where it would be impossible to talk to Zen Master in Poem of The Atoms.
• Fixed an issue where Takemura wouldn't call in Down on the Street.
• Fixed an issue where Jackie could disappear in The Pickup.
• Fixed an issue where it could be impossible to get out of the car in The Beast in Me: The Big Race.
• Fixed an issue where players could stop receiving calls and messages after moving too far away from A Day In The Life area.
• Fixed an issue where opening the package wouldn't update Space Oddity.
• Retro-fixed the saves affected by a rare issue where speaking to Judy in Automatic Love would be impossible due to an invisible wall. The underlying issue is under investigation.
• Fixed an issue that prevented players from collecting the reward in Gig: Freedom of the Press. The quest will auto-complete for those who could not collect the reward previously, and the reward will be provided automatically.
• Fixed an issue where Delamain would remain silent throughout Epistrophy if the player initially refused to help him.

UI

• Fixed an issue where prompt for exiting braindance could be missing.
• Removed an invalid item from loot.

Visual

• Fixed an issue where a grenade's trajectory could be displayed in photo mode.
• Fixed particles' hue appearing pink when viewed close up.
• Fixed cars spawning incorrectly in Reported Crime: Welcome to Night City.

Achievements

• Fixed an issue where completing one of theassaults in progress in Santo Domingo would sometimes not contribute towards progression for The Jungle achievement, preventing its completion.

Miscellaneous 

• Addressed the issue responsible for saves getting oversized (related to the modifier indicating if the item is crafted), and trimmed the excess size from already existing saves (note: this won’t fix PC save files corrupted before 1.06 update). 
• Fixed an issue where input could stop registering upon opening the weapon wheel and performing an action.
• Fixed an issue where the "Continue" button in the Main Menu could load an end game save.

PlayStation-specific

• Performance optimization of crowds on PlayStation 4 Pro and PlayStation 5.
• Various crash fixes on PlayStation 4.

Xbox-specific

• Improved memory usage for character creation, mirrors, scanning, camera remote control, menus (inventory, map) on Xbox One, Xbox One X and Xbox One S.

PC-specific

• It will now be possible to obtain achievements while in Steam offline mode. Note: Offline mode needs to be enabled before starting the game. This change does not work retroactively.
• Addressed the game startup crashes related to loading cache on NVIDIA graphics cards.

Stadia-specific

• Concert audio should no longer be inaudible in Never Fade Away.
• Fixed corrupted textures on several melee weapons.
• Tweaked default deadzone settings to be more responsive. Note: the change will not affect settings unless they’re set to default.  

Interested in learning what else is going on in the world of Cyberpunk 2077 and the studio behind the open-world game? You can check out our previous coverage here that includes news, mods, and our reviews for both PC and last-generation systems.