MTG Arena's mini-expansion Alchemy: Eldraine is launching on October 10 with 30 brand new cards
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[Update #2]: MTG Arena's dinosaur-flavored The Lost Caverns of Ixalan is launching on November 14th.
[Update]: Alchemy: Eldraine has now arrived, and best of all, MTG Arena added the ability to favorite card styles soon after!
Quite a few months have gone by since the last Alchemy set. The reason, as you would expect, is that between the Standard-focused March of the Machine: The Aftermath supplemental set and the fully fledged The Lord of the Rings set the MTG Arena team was stretched far too thin to attempt to add yet more cards.
However, now that things have calmed down a bit, the Alchemy-focused mini expansions will be continuing as before. The first of these, the 30-card strong Alchemy: Eldraine, will be launching on October 10th with an assortment of unique cards specifically designed for Alchemy and Historic play.
Wrath of the Lich King Classic will be getting new dungeons and the legendary Icecrown Citadel raid on October 10
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[Update #2]: World of Warcraft: Cataclysm will be getting the Classic treatment and many new improvements in 2024.
[Update]: Good news, everyone! Icecrown Citadel is now live!
While there are some that will give this title to Ulduar, in my humble opinion the most legendary raid in all of World of Warcraft Classic is Icecrown Citadel. Besides having a bunch of fun boss fights to smash your face against, it also represents the climactic end of the long-running Warcraft 3 storyline, as well as Arthas as a character. Well... if we ignore his brief appearance in Shadowlands anyway, which in all honestly we really should.
With all of that in mind, I'm very pleased to say that Patch 3.4.3 will be heading over to Wrath of the Lich King Classic on October 10th! Patch 3.4.3 will bring with it three 'new' dungeons, the Random Dungeon Finder, an improved quest log, a new tier of challenging Titan Rune dungeons, a new Collections UI, and the list goes on for a while.
All of Darktide's upcoming Patch #13 abilities, grenades and major talents have now been revealed
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[Update #2]: Darktide's Patch #14 has brought in yet another massive batch of balance tweaks.
[Update]: Darktide's Patch #13 has now arrived, and I'm happy to say it's already looking quite amazing!
In order to help spice up the launch of the Xbox version on October 4th, the Darktide team is planning to release the absolutely massive Patch #13 alongside it. While the full list of changes has not been revealed just yet, the definite highlight of the update is the addition of RPG-like talent trees for all four classes which will bring with them all sorts of new abilities and playstyles to explore.
For example, the Psyker will be able to choose between three different 'ultimate' abilities: a powered up version of the current one, a chunky psychic shield that blocks enemy ranged attacks, or a ridiculously powerful buff that will have you dish out insane amounts of damage while constantly building peril. However, you can slow down the peril build up by securing kills, so as long as you're aggressive enough it looks like you'll be able to keep the buff going for a very long time.
Total War studio's multiplayer extraction shooter Hyenas has now been canceled
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In an announcement that is probably not going to come as too much of a surprise given the extremely low levels of excitement surrounding the game, Total War studio Creative Assembly have now revealed that their extraction shooter Hyenas has been canceled. Additionally, some of the upcoming unannounced games have been canceled as well, though unsurprisingly no details have been given about them.
The truly unfortunate news it that these cancellations will be followed by a restructuring within Creative Assembly, which is a polite way of saying that some of the staff is going to be losing their jobs. On the positive side, Creative Assembly has announced that they'll be working on reallocating as many people as possible to new roles within the company, so with a bit of luck, the human impact will be minimal.
Dota 2's International 2023 update has added a cosmetics-free Battle Pass alongside a Profile rework
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[Update #2]: Dota 2 will be getting the rather megalomaniacal Ringmaster hero in 2024.
[Update]: Dota 2's Patch 7.34d has now arrived with some last-minute balance changes before The International.
A little while back Valve announced that they will be stepping away from the usual Battle Pass system in favor of dishing out new cosmetics and sizable updates all throughout the year. They certainly weren't joking about that latter part as Dota 2's been receiving some stellar updates over the past few months - both in terms of new content and general improvements.
Naturally, Valve haven't gotten rid of the Battle Pass system entirely, though the freshly released International 2023 Compendium is certainly a lot different than those that came before. First and foremost, there are absolutely no hero cosmetics to be found in the Compendium. Not even a single one! The whole thing has been created as a way to support Dota 2's esports scene, and so all of the challenges, mini-games and rewards are focused around the competitive scene and its various teams.
Without any prior warning, Valve has just unleashed Counter-Strike 2 as a free update!
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After spending a fair bit of time in testing, it looks like Valve has decided that Counter-Strike 2 is now finally ready for its big debut. And so, without any prior warning and without much fanfare, Counter-Strike 2 has now been unleashed as a free update to CS:GO!
The Source 2 powered Counter-Strike 2 brings with it greatly improved visuals and audio, smoother online play, enhanced Workshop modding tools, updated ranked play, as well as a whole bunch of gameplay tweaks. The most important of these are the new smoke grenades as they no longer produce simple spheres, but rather dynamically fill the environment with smoke which can be affected by shooting or using HE grenades. Needless to say, it's an incredible change, and one that's bound to shake things up on even the most classic of maps.
Croteam's puzzle game The Talos Principle 2 is heading to PC and consoles on November 2, 2023
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Nearly a decade has gone by since the original The Talos Principle, but I'm happy to say that the fancy new sequel is nearly upon us! According to the latest announcement, The Talos Principle 2 will be heading over to PC (via Steam and the Epic Games Store), PlayStation and Xbox on November 2nd, 2023!
Much like its predecessor, The Talos Principle 2 will bring with it a combination of challenging yet somewhat strange puzzles, relaxing music and a highly philosophical storyline that might just give you a bit of an existential crisis! That might not sound all that appealing on paper, but if The Talos Principle 2 is anything like the original, it's almost certainly going to be a unique and compelling experience.