Six months after its Xbox One launch A PC version of Gears of War: Ultimate Edition was announced last June at E3 2015 without a firm release date, and lo and behold it launched today. It’s available on the Windows Store for Windows 10 PCs for $29.99.
The PC version trails the Xbox One’s release by about six months. A post on Xbox Wire announcing the launch said “a whole ot of work under the hood" was necessary to make the PC launch worthwhile. As a result, says Microsoft, "medium" performance settings will net an audiovisual experience similar to what has been seen on the Xbox One version, which launched in August.
Higher-performance machines will deliver 60 frames-per-second and 4K resolution video in the single-player campaigns, "and stay quite close to that benchmark in multiplayer," Microsoft says.
Here are the game’s specs:

Minimum: OS 64 bit Windows 10 (v. 1511), Processor: Intel Core i5 @ 2.7Ghz / AMD FX 6-core, Memory: 8 GB RAM (2 GB VRAM), GPU: AMD R7 260x / NVIDIA GTX 650 Ti, HD Space: 60GB, DirectX12
Recommended: OS 64 bit Windows 10 (v. 1511), Processor: Intel Core i5 @3.5GHz+ / AMD FX 6-core, Memory: 8 GB RAM (4 GB VRAM), GPU: AMD R9 290X / NVIDIA GTX 970, HD Space: 60GB, DirectX12
Ideal: OS 64 bit Windows 10 (v. 1511), Processor: Intel Core i7 @4GHz+ / AMD FX 8-core, Memory: 16 GB RAM (6 GB VRAM), GPU: AMD R9 390X / NVIDIA GTX 980 Ti, HD Space: 60GB, DirectX12

Gears of War Ultimate Edition is a remaster of the landmark 2006 shooter for Xbox 360. For more, see Polygon’s review of it for Xbox One; we scored it an 8.0.

Disney Infinity may not be getting an upgrade to 4.0, but it is getting something that might be even better: a Marvel fighting game.
Due out March 15, the Marvel Battlegrounds playset brings four-player brawling to the open-world game creation title.
Disney Infinity’s John Vignocchi likens the brawler to Capcom’s Dreamcast fighting game Power Stone.
The playset, which only works inside Disney Infinity 3.0, includes support for all previously released Marvel characters, as well as upcoming Marvel figures. That means it will have a roster of more than 25 playable fighters.
Disney is also releasing a slew of new figures alongside the playset.
Ant-Man, Black Panther and Vision will all be in costumes inspired by the upcoming movie Captain America: Civil War, which premieres May 6. The playset comes with Captain America: The First Avenger, who will also be in a Civil War-inspired costume.

Along with the new characters, Disney will be releasing a Battlegrounds-themed Power Disc Pack. It includes:

Cosmic Cube Blast – Unleash a powerful energy blast on nearby foes

Darkhawk’s Blast – Blast obstacles with a powerful energy beam

Nova Corps Strike – Call upon the Nova Corps to unleash a tactical strike from above

Ghost Rider’s Motorcycle – Take a ride on the wild side with Ghost Rider’s flaming motorcycle

Marvel Battlegrounds, developed by United Front Games in partnership with Avalanche Software, will include destructible environments and a light story that has villains and heroes fighting to gain control of Wakanda’s Vibranium.
The playset will include a dozen levels in eight “dynamic" arenas.
Make sure to check back with us a bit later today for a full rundown of the news and what it means to the franchise.

Disney’s toys-to-life franchise will focus on new play sets There will be no Disney Infinity 4.0 released in 2016. Instead, Disney announced today, the company will continue support of Disney Infinity 3.0, which came out last summer.
Prior to this year, Disney has released a new version of its open-world game annually since Disney Infinity’s debut in 2013.
Continued support for 3.0, said John Blackburn, general manager of Disney Infinity, will come in the way of new play sets and new characters released throughout the rest of this year and timed to the biggest events coming from Disney. The company’s 2016 theatrical slate, from Disney, Pixar, Marvel and Lucasfilm, includes Zootopia, The Jungle Book, Captain America: Civil War, Alice Through the Looking Glass, Finding Dory, Doctor Strange, Moana and Rogue One: A Star Wars Story.
In our review of Disney Infinity 3.0, we called the latest iteration “a deeply complex system of games, an aspirational creation that strives to do many things well.
"In essence, Disney has finally thrown open its vault of treasured characters and stories and wants you to play," we said. "What better way to do that than laying on the floor side-by-side with your child, laughing until you’re sick, creating not just video games, but memories."
We also noted that the game was plagued by some lesser issues including long load times and creation tools that could use some work.
When the game released, it included support for all of the previous figures and added the Star Wars universe to the series.

Make sure to check back with us a bit later today for a full run-down of the news and what it means to the franchise.

Bucking a trend that had new editions of the game hit every year, Disney today announced that Disney Infinity 4.0 won’t be released in 2016. Instead, the company will continue to support and grow out its current game, Disney Infinity 3.0, which was released last summer.
The good news is that it means there’s no need this year to buy a new starter disc, which typically sold for $65 with a hub and new figures, or spend $30 for the game alone.
The bad news is that it means there won’t be any major overhaul to the game’s core systems, hub world or Toy Box mode.
Instead, Disney is riding on the framework of Disney Infinity 3.0, using it to support at least four more playsets and a stream of new figures.
“For all existing fans, this is great news to them," said John Vignocchi, vice president of production at Disney Interactive. "For people on the fence about buying into the game, we’re giving them a chance to take another look.
"We’ve always positioned Disney Infinity as a family gaming platform and brought some of the best developers to work on it, and we feel like we have achieved a level of quality with 3.0 that is indicative of the Disney brand."
That said, news today that Disney won’t be investing in another major update to Disney Infinity this year does come on the heels of the company’s earnings report earlier this month that showed the game isn’t selling as well as expected.

"At Games," according to the financial report, "growth was due to higher licensing revenue from the success of Star Wars: Battlefront, partially offset by lower Disney Infinity results. The decrease from Disney Infinity was due to higher inventory reserves and lower unit sales volume."
When I asked Vignocchi if the two were connected, he said they weren’t, and maintained that Disney is still deeply invested in its Disney Infinity games.
"We are number one in this category," he said. Disney’s earnings report "did not have an influence on whether to put out this year.
"The company has been completely behind Disney Infinity. If you look at all of the creative content coming out this year, you can see they are still proud and still 100 percent behind us."
Recent promotions within the company do seem like they could work well for Disney Infinity.
James Pitaro, the new co-chairman of Disney’s consumer products division, is also the president of Disney Interactive.
"He’s been a big supporter of Disney Infinity over the years," Vignocchi said of Pitaro. "Jimmy’s appointment as chairman is significant because it shows our company’s commitment to the merging of physical and digital content together."
Disney Infinity meets Power Stone

The biggest evidence that Disney is still behind its series of open-world exploration and creation games is the flow of content the company announced during today’s video event.
The 15-minute video laid out plans for four new playsets, each delivering unique gameplay to Disney Infinity 3.0 and a number of new characters.
"Disney Infinity will support all of the major events and theatrical releases at Walt Disney in 2016," Vignocchi told Polygon. "This year we will release four new playsets, each introducing unique gameplay for the platform. Each of the playsets will represent new content from our core properties."
Those properties, he said, are Disney, Marvel, Pixar and Star Wars.
The first playset is the one we already know about. The Marvel Battlegrounds playset, which hits March 15, brings with it four-player rumbles using any of the previously released or yet-to-be-released Marvel characters.

Vignocchi likened the game to Capcom Dreamcast classic Power Stone, and said it would include destructible environments, a light story and level transitions.
The March release of a Marvel playset leaves Disney, Pixar and Star Wars for the remaining three playsets, though Vignocchi declined to talk about them.
The new characters kicked off today with Judy and Nick figures from Zootopia. The Marvel Battlegrounds playset will include Captain America figure in a Civil War-inspired costume. Disney will also be releasing Ant-Man, Vision and Black Panther in Civil War costumes on March 15, along with Spider-Man in his black suit. Black suit Spider-Man was previously available only as part of a starter pack.
Finally, March 15 will see the release of Baloo, tied to the Jon Favreau remake of The Jungle Book.
"With all of the content we are releasing this year, this will be the largest Disney Infinity release to date," Vignocchi said.
What won’t change
While Disney Infinity 3.0’s core game mechanics won’t change, that doesn’t mean there won’t be additions to the game outside of the playsets and toys.
"There will be elements added inside the hub throughout the year," Vignocchi said. "We will be running a bunch of Toy Box TV content to support the releases."
He said the team will also be designing playable games and levels that can be accessed through the hub’s Toy Box mode.

What won’t be changing is the face of the hub. The design of that central world, like the game’s mechanics, won’t be getting any sort of upgrade while Disney Infinity remains at 3.0.
"The hub is designed very specifically as an onboarding mechanism to help players fully understand the breadth of content inside of Disney Infinity," Vignocchi said. "Doing any changes to that would change the overall flow of the hub."
All of today’s news was announced during something called Disney Infinity Next, a video that is designed to not just lay out the future of Disney Infinity, but also to give viewers some insight into the process of making Disney’s games, movies and other content.
"There will be more episodes coming this year," he said. "We haven’t determined the cadence yet; it needs to line up with retail and releases."
And there seems to always be more news to share for a game that stretches across so many different properties.
BB-8, Darkwing Duck, VR and AR
I asked Vignocchi about the strange absence of Star Wars: The Force Awakens fan favorite BB-8 from the current roster of Disney Infinity’s Star Wars figures.
Is there a BB-8 figure in our future?
"We are absolutely investigating BB-8," he said. "It’s a challenge because BB-8 is a totally different sort of character than we’ve done before; he’s not a vehicle, not a biped or even a . We’re looking at what we can do for that particular character. We will release it when it makes sense, if we’re going to."
Darkwing Duck, a long-held personal favorite of Vignocchi’s, is also still not in development as a figure. At least not yet.

Disney Infinity continues to poll fans for their favorites, and Darkwing Duck is high on the list, though that doesn’t necessarily mean he’s coming to the game as a figure.
Finally, I asked Vignocchi about virtual and augmented reality.
With VR or AR headsets planned for many of the platforms on which Disney Infinity 3.0 is available, is the company looking at bringing the game to these different reality headsets?
"We are looking at the technology," he said. "Finding ways we can leverage technology to provide new and compelling experiences for our fans is a priority to us at Disney."

Defeat the gangs of New York to take back the city Tom Clancy’s The Division arrives a week from today, and you can get caught up on the game’s story and setting in a launch trailer released today by publisher Ubisoft.
The Division takes place in a post-pandemic New York City, with chaos reigning in the aftermath of a virus that has decimated the city’s population. The game’s title refers to a plainclothes military unit that is activated in an attempt to restore order. The Division plays out in a one-to-one virtual recreation of midtown Manhattan; the pandemic has cut off access to the other boroughs, even though we’ve seen them in previous trailers.
Developer Massive Entertainment has run multiple betas for The Division, with the most recent one, an open beta last month, drawing more than 6 million players. You can check out our beta impressions, which included thoughts on the Dark Zone PvP mode, in the video below.
The Division launches March 8 on PlayStation 4, Windows PC and Xbox One. It was announced at E3 2013 and was originally scheduled to be released in 2015.

Last week, Polygon’s offices were sent a big pack of press materials about the 30th anniversary of Frank Miller’s The Dark Knight Returns. The accompanying information said that it looked forward the recipient’s editorial coverage of the occasion, and that it hoped “you have your own Frank Miller story to tell." Opinion

This is the usual boilerplate for this kind of thing. It’s not like I get on social media or draft a big story for every email asking for coverage or every box of comics that arrives on my desk. But the irony of the situation struck me.
"The 80-page giant comic cost 25 cents, but I bought it anyway."
The more I chewed it over, the more I did want to write something, about how I was born the month the final issue of The Dark Knight Returns hit shelves. About growing up with a Batman who’d never not been influenced by Miller’s work.
So, here’s my Frank Miller story.
I’m 11 and I’m at a Barnes & Noble. My mom says I can get one book. Lately my interests have been drifting down a thin, lazy creek — from the Richard Donner Superman films to Superman: The Animated Series to Batman: The Animated Series — and they’re about to hit a mighty, rushing river I’ll be following for the rest of my life. Standing in the graphic novel section (this is 1997, so it consists of a magazine rack on top of a single column of shelves), I pick up a book called Batman: Year One.

I’m not sure I like the art inside. Every scene sort of looks like somebody put a different color of cellophane over the lens of a camera. But the back cover says it’s about the first year of Batman’s history, and I instinctively know that I’m not allowed call myself a fan of a comic book character unless I know literally everything about them first. I get my mom to buy it for me. It is the first American comic I have ever consciously purchased.

There are some parts of the book I won’t understand for years, like what it means when Catwoman’s pimp says "That vice I smell? That crazy vet bit — thas old, man," after a disguised Bruce Wayne approaches one of his girls. I carry the book around in my 6th grade backpack for weeks. I practically memorize it. Every panel of David Mazzucchelli’s art still instantly inspires feelings of deep nostalgia for me. "Your feast is nearly over. From this moment on, none of you are safe," I can still recite it from heart.
The nearest comic book shop is two towns over and there’s no such thing as a wiki yet, so I start ordering trade paperbacks and graphic novels on Amazon and devouring every superhero comic in the public library. They’re in Non-Fiction, on the same shelves with the How To Draw books.
I’m 12. I read The Dark Knight Returns and it scares me. Batman uses guns. The Joker calls him by pet names and applies his own makeup. Alfred dies. In the end Batman is raising an army of youths to fight the… government, I think?
But it’s got a girl Robin and I like that, even if there is a weird scene where she hugs Batman when he’s completely naked. Everything says that it’s the book that made people realize that superheroes can be for adults, and at the age of 12 that’s a hill I will die on. I decide that if it scares me, it’s probably supposed to be scary.

I’m 15, and just starting to look at colleges. No campus visit is complete until I check out the local comic book store. I read Miller’s sequel to The Dark Knight Returns, The Dark Knight Strikes Again, as it comes out. The art is weird. The colors are nuts. Superman and Wonder Woman have mid-air sex so hard that volcanoes erupt and it’s the goofiest thing I’ve ever seen. I decide it’s got a few good fight scenes in it, some good one-liners and mostly forget about it.
I’m 18 and the Sin City movie is in production, so I ask for the first volume for Christmas. I imagine how desperate Goldie must have been to go to someone as clearly violent and emotionally stunted as Marv for protection, and shudder. I go see Sin City in theaters. "Is every woman in this film a sex worker?" I wonder. I remember the exception: Marv’s lesbian parole officer — she’s forced to watch as Elijah Wood eats her severed arm and is later murdered by the police.

I realize that I have never read a Frank Miller book with an original female character who didn’t fall into two categories: sex worker — or victim of a brutal beating or murder. Even the first female Robin gets sliced up by a bad guy in the climax of The Dark Knight Strikes Again. Come to think of it, Miller also seems to enjoy characterizing his extra-creepy male villains as having ambiguous sexuality or gender. You’re not threatening, it seems, until you’re sexually threatening to a straight guy.
I’m 19 and I pick up All-Star Batman and Robin #1. The first scene is one in which journalist Vicki Vale complains at length about Bruce Wayne’s ethics but drops everything to go on a date with him as soon as Alfred, not even Bruce, calls her to arrange it. It includes a double page spread of her trying on different outfits in pink lace lingerie, babbling about how she can’t believe she’s going on a date with Bruce Wayne. It might be the first time since I began buying monthly comics that I decide a Batman story isn’t worth reading.
I’m still 19 and Frank Miller announces Holy Terror, Batman, a book he wants to write where Batman "kicks Al-Qaeda’s ass." I can’t even begin to articulate all the reasons why that sounds like a terrible idea. While speaking to NPR about his personal reaction to the September 11th attacks a few months later, Miller would say: "For the first time in my life I know how it feels to face an existential menace." I think that I’ve never heard something so white, straight, male and sheltered. He will eventually repackage the idea as simply Holy Terror, after jettisoning any reference to the superhero.

I am 20 and I’m majoring in Creative Writing, because I want to write comic books for a living. 300 is out, but I’m waiting for it to hit the local discount theater so I won’t have to pay more than a penny per Spartan soldier to see it. My roommate is double-majoring Pre-Med/Classics and loves terrible movies, so she drags me along. We roll our eyes when the Spartans make fun of Athenian men for being "boy lovers." Years later, I’ll read the original 300 and be shocked only by Miller’s audacity in writing an effusive comic book love letter to what he characterizes as a culture of peak masculinity — while erasing the extensive evidence that homosexuality was not merely commonplace in Grecian militaries, but occasionally embraced as tactically sound. Instead, he codes Xerxes as the Sissy Villain.
I’m 24, I’m in my first year of managing a "nerd entertainment" news site and a guy I’m dating gives me a collection of Miller’s early work on Daredevil. I read it because I know it was Miller’s first big break, and to widen my knowledge base in Marvel comics.

Elektra is introduced, glorified and murdered in a single volume. At this point I don’t even bat an eye. I know the character’s history from years of osmotically accumulating comics knowledge. Like Catwoman in Batman: Year One, she’s another iconic comic book badass-lady-until-she-wants-the-hero-as-a-boyfriend with a Frank Miller-penned origin. Like Barbara Gordon in The Killing Joke, she’s brought into an iconic story arc about a male character in order to take the brunt of a terrible act of violence, and other writers will work for decades to reclaim her agency and humanity in her universe.
My copy of Batman: Year One contains an introduction written by Miller in 1988, a year after the comic first hit shelves — and two years after I was born. In it, he describes being eight years old, standing in a supermarket and flipping through his very first Batman comic. He paints a picture of his young self being immediately drawn to a dark, damp and beautiful Gotham City, full of terrors … but a Gotham in which the scariest monster of them all was on our side.

"A madman laughed wildly, maliciously. The laughter echoed forever … Glistening wet, black against the blackened sky, a monster, a giant, winged gargoyle, hunched forward, pausing at a building’s ledge, and cocked its head, following the laugh’s last seconds," he writes.

"The 80-page giant comic cost 25 cents," he concludes, "but I bought it anyway." The copy of Batman: Year One that I flipped through in that Barnes & Noble in 1997 was $9.95 ($13.95 Canada).
I’m 11 and I’m at a Barnes & Noble. My mom says I can get one book.
It’s hard to imagine Frank Miller anticipating that his story, with that introduction, would ever fall into the hands of an 11-year-old, mixed-race girl, much less that it would ignite in her a life-long passion not simply for Batman or superheroes but for comics as a whole.
Miller doesn’t mention who wrote, who drew, who edited the book that made him a fan, the book that gave him an obsession that he was lucky enough to turn into a successful career — a career that, for better and for worse, has made an indelible impact on the history of comics.
And a part of me wishes that I could forget, too.
The views expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily represent the views of, and should not be attributed to, Polygon as an organization.

On both Xbox One and Windows PC Killer Instinct’s third season launches March 29 on Xbox One and Windows 10, Microsoft announced today during its big spring showcase rollout of news.
The newest season of the fighting game delivers three stars from the roster of 1996’s Killer Instinct 2 — Kim Wu, Tusk and Gargos — along with guest stars Rash from Battletoads and the Halo franchise’s Arbiter. 343 Industries, which aided in production, explained why the latter character is an Arbiter, not The Arbiter, over the weekend. Four more characters will be revealed later.
The Windows PC and Xbox One editions have cross-play and cross-buy functionality, the announcement noted, including fight stick support. This will be the debut on Windows PC for the fighting game franchise, which rebooted on Xbox One in with that console’s launch in 2013.

In each episode of Quality Control, Polygon editor-at-large Justin McElroy talks to a critic after they review a new game and allows them to add a little bit of extra context and insight. Why did they feel the way they did? What do they wish they had been able to discuss in more depth in their review? Also: Did they play it wrong?
In this episode, we talk with Griffin McElroy about his review of The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess which you can find right here. We’d love to know what you think in the comments below!

Read the review
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Email: qualitycontrol at polygon dot com
Music: Goodwill by The Custodian of Records

The writers behind Game of Thrones know that it can be difficult to keep track of who’s related to who, which family is supposed to be in power and perhaps most importantly, who’s alive and who’s not.
To prepare fans for the upcoming sixth season, HBO has released a few animated videos that go over some of the history and lore of Westeros. The series, which includes 15 episodes in total, will focus on various families, regions and battles, and will be narrated by members of the cast.

Although only two episodes are available online right now, the rest will be included in the Blu-ray edition of the show’s fifth season. In the first video, Ser Barristan Selmy himself, Ian McElhinney, provides in-depth details about the fall of Aerys the Mad King and the rise of Robert Baratheon. Easily one of the most pinnacle moments in the series, the video is a great refresher, especially for those looking to start the show again from the beginning.
The second video explores the “Many-Faced God," which is otherwise known as the God of Death. It’s a symbol with immense importance in the city of Braavos and will be explored much further this upcoming season.
Game of Thrones returns to HBO April 24.

Another publisher scales back on 2016’s big gaming expo Publisher Activision will be at E3 2016, but the company won’t have dedicated floorspace at the show. Instead, the company behind Call of Duty, Skylanders and Guitar Hero will rely on its partners — namely Sony Computer Entertainment — to showcase some of its wares.
The new Call of Duty game from Infinity Ward will be at this year’s E3, the company confirmed today, but attendees will have to visit the PlayStation booth to see it.
“In June, we’re going to be at E3 showcasing gameplay from Infinity Ward’s ambitious new game," Activision said on its official blog. "We’re looking forward to sharing exciting new details about the next great Call of Duty game in partnership with our friends at PlayStation. We’re proud to be participating in this premier video game event, but won’t have an Activision booth on the show floor."
Activision isn’t the only major publisher forgoing a formal booth presence at E3 2016; Electronic Arts announced earlier this year that it will break from tradition and hold a dedicated off-site event called EA Play instead of showing games on the E3 show floor.
This isn’t the first time Activision has officially broken from E3. The company bowed out of E3 2008.
In recent years, Activision’s floor presence at E3 has consisted primarily of meeting rooms, where behind-closed-doors presentations were held, and large displays showing trailers for the company’s upcoming games.
Polygon has reached out to the Entertainment Software Association, which runs E3, for comment on Activision’s move.