Activision responds to PC gamer woes over ‘Marvel Ultimate Alliance’ port

By Gabe Gurwin August 3, 2016

Marvel Ultimate Alliance and its sequel were recently re-released across Xbox One, PlayStation 4, and PC at a slightly discounted price, giving a new generation of players a chance to try out the Diablo-like action game. The console versions, while perhaps unremarkable, have not attracted significant attention. The PC version, however, is a different story.

Input issues with controllers across both games, audio crackling, and a lack of DLC characters have fans rightfully upset, especially when each game is still $40. But Activision doesn’t plan to abandon the port now that it’s out in the wild.

“Both the standalone and bundled versions of Marvel Ultimate Alliance 2 feature all of its original DLC. We are still working on making the DLC for the first Marvel Ultimate Alliance available in the coming weeks as a free update for everyone who has purchased the title on these platforms alone or as part of the bundle,” Activision said in a statement obtained by Eurogamer.

The last bit of that statement is what’s truly odd about this situation: “in the coming weeks.” This suggests that the two games were likely not ready for release and were rushed out the door anyway. Given that there was little to no fanfare before they were put on digital shelves, it’s confusing that Activision would not have delayed their release altogether.

“We’re focused on identifying and fixing the issues that have been occurring. Thank you for your continued patience as we address these issues,” the statement adds.

Marvel Ultimate Alliance isn’t the only PC game running into technical issues today, either. Batman: The Telltale Series, which recently launched its first episode, is reportedly a mess on the platform. Resolution and UI issues, crashes, audio glitches, and poor frame rate — a perpetual problem in Telltale Games — have all been mentioned. But the game is brand new, and doesn’t cost $40.

Editors' Recommendations

Topics

Former Digital Trends Contributor

Gabe Gurwin has been playing games since 1997, beginning with the N64 and the Super Nintendo. He began his journalism career…

Gaming

Sea of Thieves beginner’s guide: 16 tips for new pirates

sea of thieves how to play solo sanctuaryoutpost 2

Cooperative piracy simulator Sea of Thieves is a game that drops players right off the plank and into the deep end of the ocean as soon as they start it up. You're left to figure out how to do almost everything alone or with a crew of friends. All of it is picked up through experience as you play, which is part of what makes Sea of Thieves interesting. There are tons of little nuances and best practices, however, that you need to become an effective pirate.

If you want to win sea battles, escape plunderers, gather treasure, and generally be the best pirate on the Sea of Thieves, there is a lot to learn. Luckily, these tips will make you an effective sailor, a deft brawler, and a smart privateer when you join up with a crew. Going it alone has its perks as well, so check out our tips for your lone pirate voyages.
Start with the tutorial mission

Gaming

How to hack in Fallout 4

A computer terminal in Fallout 4.

No matter what perks or skills your character has in Fallout 4, hacking will always come down to your ability as a player. There's no way to cheat the system here, and if you don't grasp what the game is asking you to do, you're mostly out of luck. Terminals will hide great loot behind their cryptic puzzles, as well as allow you to take over certain controls to turn your enemy's security against them. Some have very interesting logs about certain characters or events for all you lore junkies out there. Hacking has tons of uses, so let's brush up on your computer skills and give you a refresher on how to hack in Fallout 4.
How to hack in Fallout 4
When you first interact with a terminal to hack in Fallout 4, it will be a little overwhelming. As long as you have a high enough hacking skill to attempt a hack, you can go right into the minigame.

The basic idea of hacking is to find words hidden in that jumble of letters and symbols. Your goal is to find the correct word to crack the terminal before you run out of attempts. Once you find any word and select it, the terminal will tell you how close that word is to the correct one based on how many letters it has in the same space as the answer in the form of a likeness rating. The higher the rating, the more letters it has in common. It is somewhat similar to Wordle, only you don't type in the words yourself.

Gaming

Best PS5 SSD deals: Add more storage to your PS5 from $120

A 2TB WD Black

When the PlayStation 5 was originally released, it had the option to expand its internal memory, which was quite small at the time at a little under 900GBs. Of course, the issue is that there weren't any SSDs that worked on the new standard the PS5 was using, so even if you wanted to upgrade, you couldn't. Luckily, since then, there have been a lot of great SSDs for the PS5 that have been released, and upgrading its storage is pretty easy and can be done by pretty much anybody, provided they have a screwdriver. So, whether you picked up a PS5 from one of the PS5 deals or already have a PS5 and want to upgrade, be sure to check out the SSDs that will work great for your PS5 below.
Our favorite PS5 SSD deal

It wasn't that long ago that you'd have to pay well over $100 to get an SSD for your PS5, and often, it'd be slower than the pricier alternatives. These days, you can buy a Samsung 980 Pro 1TB SSD with heatsink for just $120 from Best Buy, thereby saving $45 off the regular price of $165. The SSD offers speedy performance while also having its own nickel-coated high-end controller to help deliver effective thermal control. It means it won't overheat and performance won't be compromised. Being a PCIe Gen 4 SSD, you get twice the data transfer speed of PCIe Gen 3 which is useful. Offering maximum read speeds of 7,000 megabytes per second, it's a good upgrade to go alongside your existing hard drive with 1TB offering plenty of extra space at a shrewd price.