Mutants in Manhattan is coming to PS4, PS3, Xbox One, Xbox 360, and PC. Heavily leaked before its official announcement, the game is published by Call of Duty and Destiny company Activision.

The game looks like it will tell the story of the Foot Clan's first assault on New York City and the origins of the ongoing clash between the Turtles and the Foot. The trailer also offers glimpses at other iconic characters such as Bebop, Rocksteady, and the cyborg shark Armaggon.

Its release on May 24 comes just a couple weeks before the next entry in the film series, Out of the Shadows, arrives in theaters, on June 3. You can watch the latest clip for the action movie here.

The last Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles game was released in 2013 for Xbox 360 and PC by Activision, with a PS3 version released in 2014. The game, titled Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Out of the Shadows, was developed by Red Fly Studio and only released digitally. It was critically panned in GameSpot's review, scoring a three out of ten for its game-breaking glitches and poor camera system.

Platinum Games is well known for its experience working on several action games, including the critically acclaimedBayonetta 2, as well as Metal Gear Rising: Revengeance. The studio is currently developing the upcoming Star Fox Zero, Nier: Automata, and Xbox One-exclusive Scalebound.

The next patch for NBA 2K16 — not its regular roster update, but a content update for the entire game — could be one that solely addresses one player: Stephen Curry, and the problem his real-world exploits pose to the balance of a video game.

Speaking to Bryan Wiedey in the latest Press Row Podcast, Visual Concepts' Scott O'Gallagher and Mike Wang tried to resolve Curry's once-in-a-generation talent without destroying the thing they and so many others have worked so hard to create. Curry is hitting a mind-boggling two-thirds of his shots from 28 to 50 feet — that's three feet behind the midcourt stripe — including this dazzler against Oklahoma City two weeks ago to cap a game that will be talked about for decades.

Those performances drive many to NBA 2K16 — casual and hardcore fans alike — to recreate Curry's feats. Visual Concepts has to give these players a way of doing so without breaking a system their studio has spent almost two decades refining. The answer, at least for now, appears to be in a "badge" or a special attribute applicable only to Curry or another player who matches his kind of talent for hitting long-long range shots — or perhaps more importantly, long-range shots with no one near him.

Under NBA 2K's current performance engine, "everyone in the league gets penalized at a certain distance in the same way," Wang, the gameplay director, told the Press Row Podcast. So, in the video game, Curry actually shoots a worse percentage from extreme long range than he does in real life. "He's still getting hit the same way as these other people taking these, quote-unquote, bad shots," Wang said.

O'Gallagher pointed out that NBA 2K16 also can't attribute Curry's effectiveness to defender proximity alone. That is, Curry may hit a lot of open shots (and plenty of old timers have complained about this), but more than 60 players in the NBA also hit more than 60 percent of their shots if no defender is within 12 feet.

To extend NBA 2K16's shooting accuracy to account for Curry, but condition it to defender proximity, would give ordinary players a godlike Curry status they don't deserve. That could have a devastating effect on the video game, because NBA 2K16's diehard core knows how to play a drive-and-kick game — particularly against inexperienced multiplayer opponents — to create that kind of space.

"Golden State has three guys shooting 75 percent on kick-out situations," O'Gallagher said. "They're making it more than free throws."

The answer seems to be not in improving an attribute that applies to the overall player population. Instead it's to give Curry a special "badge," a perk available only to a specific player — but theoretically one also available for created players who earn it within NBA 2K16's vast career suite.

"If 99 percent of the league is going to shoot worse when they're contested, and shoot better when they're open, if that's the rule, then you obviously don't have to make a rating to support that rule," reasoned Wang. "So it's more, let's create something to break that rule. ... That's what the badges are designed to do. They're designed to say 'Here's an exception, or a special context in the game for someone who excels at something and can do it better than anyone else,' and that's what we're looking to do with Steph."

"It's a tough balance. Because it's like, where is that breaking point? He's taking a 37-foot jumper," marveled O'Gallagher, himself a college player and overseas professional before joining 2K Sports. "It's literally a jumper. ... If that happened, if you lost a game that way, it's no different than losing on a hail mary in football, you want to throw your controller, but he's doing this stuff at an absurd rate, and we're reacting like everyone else."

Curry, paradoxically, saw his overall rating slip by one point in NBA 2K16's latest roster update (to 97 from 98) but he remains the game's deadliest shooter. If what Wang and O'Gallagher are contemplating comes to pass, it's remarkable on a couple of levels.

The first is that Visual Concepts and 2K Sports would deliver such a significant change, addressing an individual performer in a team sports title, this far from launch (NBA 2K16released in late September). Sports video games have the most watchful post-release support, especially among console genres, mainly because they're obligated to follow real world action and re-rate their performers to reflect it. Rarely does an entire title get modified for one player in the way Wang and O'Gallagher proposed.

The second is that if NBA 2K16 introduces a special badge for Curry's sharpshooting ability, presumably that badge would become available to created players in the MyCareer suite. If such a talent becomes available, especially within human-on-human multiplayer, watch out.

Let's be clear, a created player in NBA 2K16earns a badge only for on-court performance— you can't just buy one for real or virtual currency like you can a pair of shoes, or an ordinary attribute upgrade. The conditions to acquire Curry's shooting ability for a created player would likely be formidable.

But assuming this badge can be acquired by a player not named Steph Curry, especially if it's introduced when the NBA playoffs begin in April and everyone really starts watching, God only knows how many would hurl themselves at NBA 2K16 from then through the summer, trying to get it.

"We're taking our time with it, and we're going to do it in a way that's faithful to Steph Curry, but keeps our game the competitive and fun experience it's supposed to be," Wang said.

SEE MORE: http://www.polygon.com/2016/3/12/11212474/nba-2k16-steph-curry-patch-badge-perk

Mobile gaming is more a science than an art, and that’s a problem for some developers that are heavy on creativity and lacking in a capacity to crunch through data. That’s why one company is offering a boot camp-style crash course to help studios better understand their players.

OtherLevels is a services company for mobile developers that specializes in keeping players engaged in free-to-play games. The company does this by recognizing patterns in behavior and then targeting certain kinds of people with various types of messages to get them to return to a game they enjoy. After implementing these techniques, Fruit Ninja developer Halfbrick saw a 34 percent increase in active players and 100 percent increase in revenue for games like Jetpack Joyride. To help studios like Halfbricks (along with ZeptoLabs and online gambling site Bwin), OtherLevels has a software toolkit that and a “FastStart? program. The former is something developers can use on their own while the former has OtherLevels running a game’s leadership team through a 12-to-16-week course to help them better surface and act on important data. On top of the FastStart classes, OtherLevels can also form a lasting partnership with a developer like the one it has had for the last three and a half years with Fruit Ninja developer Halfbrick. Mobile gaming is worth $34.8 billion, and keeping engagement high is a key piece to capturing that revenue, which is why a firm like OtherLevels is thriving.

Engagement in mobile gaming is the buzzword that means a player is coming back several times a week to their favorite app. But it’s a complex idea that companies like Halfbrick spend a lot of time thinking about, according to OtherLevels managing director Brendan O’Kane.

“Halfbrick has thought about different kinds of engagement,” he told GamesBeat. “They know that they have to deal with the opted-in audience and the opted-out audience.”

In this context, opt-in refers to the player who says yes to receiving push notifications from an app. This means a game can say “Hey, you haven’t been around for a while. Come back, and we’ll give you some free coins” or something along those lines. That leaves the other kind of player who is nearly impossible to reach outside of the game. But either way, Halfbrick admits that it was not great at speaking to either of these people prior to working with OtherLevels.

“The communications we were sending through in-game channels were disparate and fragmented [prior to working with OtherLevels],” Halfbrick chief marketing officer Nicholas Cornelius claimed. “We looked to OtherLevels to help us tackle the inconsistency issues in our overall messaging strategy, chiefly to drive stronger customer lifetime value and lower our player acquisition costs.”

O’Kane says that this is where FastStart can really make a difference.

“FastStart is a very structured program,” he said. “We do extensive analytics and testing so we can have a fact-based approach to what’s going on. We’ll use techniques like control groups extensively. We track everything.”

After showing the studios how to get accurate data, OtherLevels shows them how changing certain messages can have both positive and negative outcomes. For example, if a push notification is driving a 10-percent increase in spending but producing 15 percent fewer players, it probably isn’t worth pursuing.

“We doing this in conjunction with our customers, and we’re sharing techniques and best practices,” said O’Kane. “The goal is that they can then take that, and depending on what they particularly want to do, they can pick it up and run with it and apply some of those techniques on their own.”

Sometimes studios, like in the case of Halfbrick, keep OtherLevels around in an ongoing consultancy position. This makes a lot of sense when you consider all of the variables you have to consider when trying to reengage a lost player.

“We do a lot of testing in terms of different types of messages, different cadence of messages, playing with user journeys,” said O’Kane. “Developers are always asking things like: Should we reach out after three days? Should we reach out after four? How does that vary by comparison if we have, for example, someone who’s been a high frequency user, or someone who might have been a high spending user? Perhaps they’re just tired. It’s inappropriate to go chasing them three times to jump back in. Maybe a slower cadence for a particular class of user. We do a lot of that type of testing to understand what’s going to work and what’s the best practice.”

And those are the big ideas. Most developers can probably think through a lot of those on their own. But once they see how a tiny shift in strategy can have a huge ripple effect across their entire player base, it can get overwhelming.

“So far the biggest [revelation with OtherLevels] is realizing how small changes in things like message tonality, frequency, cadence, and timing and better predictive analytics are helping us reach a stronger percentage of users per campaign,” said Cornelius

Finally, OtherLevels points out that one of the biggest challenges it has with developers is reminding them not to give up on players who don’t opt-in for push notifications.

O’Kane notes that while it’s great to have the opportunity to talk to lapsed fans, it shouldn’t come at the expense of crafting messages for people who are actively in the game. And FastStart tries to walk developers through the idea of keeping in contact with players using in-game messages.

“We often talk about ‘100 percent of audience,'” he said. “That, for us, is a reflection that you already have people engaging with you. Some of them are happy to receive messages of different types. They’ve opted in. Others aren’t. But you should look at your whole audience and build your campaigns and build your programs to work with that whole audience, not just the portion that’s ticked the box and said, I’m happy to be messaged.”

Blizzard Classic Games lead Robert Bridenbecker made the announcement in a YouTube video posted today byBack2Warcraft. The video is themed around the Chinese version of Warcraft III, but Bridenbecker explains that the update, 1.27, will be released around the world on March 15.

"Thank you very much for your support over the past decade, playing Warcraft III," he said. "Over the past few months, you may have noticed we have introduced a new battle platform. It's introduced features like matchmaking [and] the ability to communicate with your friends at a level that is unparalleled to anything we have done with Warcraft III in the market before. And on top of that, we're proud to announce that on March 15, the next patch for Warcraft III will be available in the market, simultaneously with the rest of the globe."

At this point, Blizzard isn't saying what's included in the patch.Back2Warcraft suggests in this follow-up video that the patch may include balance tweaks, but this is not confirmed.

Bridenbecker also teased in the video that Warcraft III's upcoming patch won't be the last, as Blizzard is planning more updates of unspecified nature for the future.

Diablo II's patch--its first in almost five years--introduced changes to help the game run better on modern computers. It's possible Warcraft III's will do the same.

These updates for old Blizzard games comes after the company formed Classic Games division last year.

"We need engineers to help maintain our legacy games," Blizzard said at the time. "We have a history of maintaining our games for many years. Our earlier games are still played and enjoyed today, so we want to continue to maintain them for those communities."

SEE MORE: http://www.gamespot.com/articles/now-warcraft-3-is-getting-a-new-update/1100-6435608/

"In these 20 million units sold, The Witcher 3 constitutes almost 10 million," Kicinski said during the briefing, according toTwinfinite.

Before this, the latest Witcher 3 sales number that CD Projekt Red disclosed was 6 million copies back in August 2015. This was before the holiday shopping season, of course.

By comparison, another high-profile single-player RPG--The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim--has sold more than 20 million copies.

The 20 million figure for The Witcher 3 referenced earlier includes sales of The Witcher (2007), The Witcher 2: Assassins of Kings (2011) and The Witcher 3 (2015).

Released in May 2015 to glowing reviews, The Witcher 3 is expected to be the final entry in hero Geralt's story, though not necessarily the last game in the series. Whatever the case, youshouldn't expect CD Projekt Red to release another Witcher game anytime soon, as the Polish studio is now focusing on Cyberpunk 2077.

More Witcher 3 content is coming this year, however, as the Blood and Wine expansion is due to launch in the first half of the year. Perhaps more interestingly, CD Projekt Red also plans to ship a brand new game before the year is out.