Darktide's August update is looking to fix long-standing issues like crafting locks
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- in News
[Update #2]: Darktide will be getting RPG-like talent trees and an Xbox version on October 4th.
[Update]: Patch #12 has now arrived, and I'm happy to say it's quite a good one!
While the actual moment-to-moment gameplay in Darktide is some of the best I've ever seen, the systems surrounding it are... messy, to put it politely. Playing multiple characters is needlessly grindy since nothing is shared between them, trying to create weapons you like involves layers upon layers upon layers of randomness, and worst of all, you can't even choose the exact flavor of missions you want to run - it's all random!
Thankfully, after months of this nonsense, it seems that Fatshark is finally looking to address many of the long-standing community complaints. The details are still few and far between as this is an 'announcement of an announcement' type of deal, but you can look forward to some changes dealing with account based currencies, perk refinement, crafting locks and options on the mission board.
After a year in Early Access, the adorable card-slinging roguelike Oaken has now been unleashed
- By Ash
- in Indie Games
Following in the footsteps of games like Slay the Spire, Oaken is a turn-based, card-slinging roguelike set in a world inhabited by all sorts of cutesy nature spirits. Each run will have start by choosing your basic loadout and abilities, after which you'll be let loose to explore the world, fight an assortment of enemies with a combination of spells and spirits, and naturally, upgrade the power level of your cards to the point of absurdity.
What all of this looks like in action, as well as how adorable the art style really is, that you can check out through the recently posted trailer. Have a little peek:
Following the disastrous Season 1 update, Diablo 4 devs have announced many major improvements
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[Update #2]: Patch 1.1.1 has now arrived, and I'm pleased to say it's looking quite good so far!
[Update]: Diablo 4's August 8th update will buff Barbarians and Sorcerers, increase enemy density and improve boss rewards.
In a bit of a bizarre decision, the Diablo 4 team decided to take the freshly released Season 1 as an opportunity to nerf just about everything related to play power. Damage and survivability went down across the board, cooldown reduction and leveling speed both got reduced, while classes like Barbarians and Sorcerers collected so many random nerfs that their late-game potential cratered compared to the pre-season. Long story short, the update was a mess.
Thankfully, it looks like Blizzard has realized this as they have already announced a variety of major improvements. First and foremost, the Sorcerer and Barbarian classes will be getting some significant buffs in the next few weeks, though the exact details have not been revealed just yet. Personally, I really hope the changes will increase the amount of skill diversity for Sorcerers as having to run all of the defensive abilities on every single build has gotten rather old at this point.
Cities: Skylines 2 will be launching this October 24th alongside a bunch of technological improvements, new features and quality-of-life updates
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After nearly a decade of updates and expansions, Cities: Skylines will soon be getting a bigger and more technologically advanced sequel. Once it arrives this October 24th, Cities: Skylines 2 will bring with it fully realized transport and economy systems, a wide variety of new construction and customization options to mess around with, as well as a much better simulation of how each city and its inhabitants operate.
Perhaps most importantly, Cities: Skylines 2 will follow in its predecessors' footsteps and come with a suite of modding tools to help players add all-important features like a Sponge Bob themed sewage pipe. There is unfortunately one bit of bad news. Since Cities: Skylines 2 has been built from scratch, it's highly unlikely that any of the more interesting mods from the original will be easily ported to the sequel. Instead, they'll almost certainly need to be rewritten from scratch as well.
Diablo 4's Season 1 has now arrived, and it's unfortunately quite underwhelming
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[Update #2]: Diablo 4's August 8th update will buff Barbarians and Sorcerers, increase enemy density and improve boss rewards.
[Update]: Following the disastrous Season 1 update, Diablo 4 devs have announced many major improvements.
As a part of the pre-season update, Diablo 4 dished out a whole bunch of nerfs to player power, survivability, cooldown reduction and leveling speed, while offering only paltry buffs to underused skills in return. This made it so most characters played pretty much exactly the same as before, just slower and weaker.
My hope was that the Season 1 update and its new systems would help compensate for some of these tweaks, but so far it looks like Diablo 4's first season is similarly uninspired. Season 1 brings with it seasonal realms that offer a fresh start to all players, a brand new questline to explore, a fancy new boss to poke for loot, as well as a variety of new gems to acquire by slaying malignant monsters. While all of this is definitely a nice change of pace and something fun to mess around with, the problem is that this is pretty much the entirety of Season 1.
Boomer shooter Turbo Overkill's full launch has been postponed until August 11th
- By Ash
- in Indie Games
[Update]: Turbo Overkill's Version 1.0 has now arrived, and as I've detailed throughout my review, it's a ton of fun!
If you're like me and you were looking forward to blasting all sorts of fleshy abominations in Turbo Overkill's long-awaited final chapter, I'm afraid I have some bad news to deliver. According to the latest developer update, Turbo Overkill's full release has been postponed for a couple of weeks in order to polish things up just a bit more. The new launch date has now been set for August 11th.
“In short, the game is complete from start to finish,” reads the brief announcement. “We technically could release now, but we felt we need a little more time to resolve a lot of other things. We are not 100% there with some of the optimization and level flow. The multiplayer suite is still a little rusty (needs more options) and the amount of bugs I've encountered in the campaign I feel are a little much.”
Blizzard games are coming to Steam, starting with Overwatch 2 on August 10th
- By Ash
- in News
[Update #2]: Overwatch 2's next hero, the dual chaingun wielding Mauga, is fully playable until November 5th. After that, he'll be launching alongside Season 8 on December 5th.
[Update]: Overwatch 2's Anniversary Event 2023 has arrived with 'free' cosmetics and reruns of popular events.
In a bit of an unexpected announcement, Blizzard has just revealed that they're planning to bring a "selection" of their games to Steam. The free-to-play, competitive shooter Overwatch 2 will be the first one to test the waters as it'll be launching onto Steam this August 10th.
“It’s our goal at Blizzard to listen to players and try to exceed their expectations in everything we do,” explained Mike Ybarra, President of Blizzard Entertainment. “While Battle.net remains a priority for us now and into the future, we’ve heard players want the choice of Steam for a selection of our games, starting with Overwatch 2 on August 10th. We’re happy to work with Valve to make that happen.”