Pathfinder: Kingmaker devs have announced their new game - Pathfinder: Wrath of the Righteous
- By Ash
- in Indie Games
[Update]: Wrath of the Righteous has now been released, and as I've detailed in my review, it's a genuinely impressive CRPG!
The original version of Pathfinder: Kingmaker was rough, and that's putting it gently. The balance was all over the place, the performance was surprisingly shaky for an ARPG, and there were also quite a few bugs roaming around, and I don't mean the Bugbear kind.
To their credit, Owlcat Games quickly sprung into action and started to iron out most of the annoying problems, eventually going as far as to release a massively improved (and entirely free) Enhanced Edition. As such, the current version of Pathfinder: Kingmaker is actually pretty darn solid, though it does still bear some of the clunkiness and incomprehensible mechanics that have plagued it since launch.
Apex Legends update is finally overhauling level progression and rewards
- By Ash
- in News
Out of all the free-to-play games I've ever played, Apex Legends has surprisingly been the most stingy of them all. The amount of Apex Packs you could acquire by playing was severely limited, and unless you were particularly lucky, you would also end up at 'max' level without the ability to craft even a single quality skin. Not exactly ideal, to put it gently.
Thankfully, Respawn seems to have realized that it's probably a good idea to give players something interesting to chase after, and so the upcoming update will overhaul the level progression and rewards. The player level has been increased from 100 to 500, while the amount of Apex Packs you could earn has been increased from 45 to 199. As an added bonus, every 100 levels you will earn a Gun Charm which is essentially a small figurine you can dangle off your favorite weapons.
Classic XCOM inspired strategy game Phoenix Point has now launched on PC
- By Ash
- in News
If you're in the mood for a large-scale strategy game that emulates the oldschool XCOM, you might be interested to hear that Phoenix Point has now been released on PC. As you would expect given its inspiration, Phoenix Point features turn-based combat on procedurally generated maps, a whole bunch of deadly aliens you'll need to carefully dispatch from mission to mission, as well as the ability to manage every aspect of your base and the loadout of your soldiers.
You can get a pretty good idea of what all of this looks like in action, as well as get a Phoenix Point is really all about, through the recently posted developer tutorial series. Have a gander, it's a pretty long and detailed one:
Battleborn's singleplayer and multiplayer modes will become unplayable in 2021
- By Ash
- in News
[Update]: Gearbox's team-based shooter Battleborn has now closed its doors for good.
Battleborn has not exactly had the best of luck. Despite being a pretty fun concept that could've been slowly developed into something great, Gearbox and 2K Games chose to directly compete with Overwatch, to the point that their release dates were almost neck and neck. And with Overwatch having a gigantic amount of hype behind it, Battleborn never really managed to get the momentum it needed in order to continue development.
Quite a while has past then, and with the Battleborn situation never really changing for the better, it shouldn't come as too much of a shock to hear that the Battleborn's servers will be closing down in 2021. Given Battleborn's always-online requirement, both the singleplayer and multiplayer modes will become completely unavailable at this point.
Total War: Warhammer 2's Mortal Empires campaign map is getting greatly expanded
- By Ash
- in News
[Update #2]: The Shadow & The Blade DLC and its accompanying update have now arrived, and so far they have been quite amazing!
[Update]: The patch notes for the free update accompanying the DLC have now been released, and apparently the turn-end times will be getting improved by up to 60%!
Total War: Warhammer 2's The Shadow & The Blade DLC is coming next week, bringing with it a variety of improvements to both the Skaven and Dark Elves. However, unlike the past few legendary lords, Malus Darkblade and his counterpart Deathmaster Snikch will not start in one of the currently available provinces, but rather in entirely new ones!
In other words, the southeastern part of the Mortal Empires map will be getting greatly expanded with the addition of the Dragon Isles, Gnoblar Country, Wolf Lands and surrounding territories. And with the presence of both Deathmaster Snikch and Malus Darkblade, this previously tame corner of the map is going to become a lot more competitive, especially now that both Kroq-Gar and Khalida no longer have an impenetrable wall at their back.
Subnautica: Below Zero update has added the Shadow Leviathan and Crystal Caverns biome
- By Ash
- in News
[Update #2]: Subnautica: Below Zero will be leaving Early Access and launching in full on May 14, 2021.
[Update]: The next major update, Lost Ship, has now arrived with a boatload of new content to explore.
Much like how it went with the original Subnautica, progress on Subnautica: Below Zero seems to be chugging along nice and steady. It's only been a little while since the last major update expanded the world and added the mighty Ice Worm, and already we have a similar-sized update.
The freshly introduced Deep Dive update brings with it several new underwater biomes to explore, two new creatures to endlessly annoy while you traverse the map, as well as the Shadow Leviathan to give you a lovely, warm welcome to the Crystal Caverns. Most importantly of all, at least from a story perspective, we can now interact with one of the characters from the original Subnautica!
Stardew Valley's update 1.4 has brought in a ton of new content and quality-of-life improvements
- By Ash
- in Indie Games
[Update #2]: Stardew Valley's freshly launched Update 1.5 is the biggest the game has ever seen!
[Update]: Stardew Valley's upcoming Update 1.5 will add splitscreen co-op for both PC and consoles.
Back in 2016 I wrote a rather lengthy article explaining just how awesome Stardew Valley is and why you should consider giving it a try. Quite a few years have past since then, and I am extremely happy to say that Stardew Valley has only managed to become better and better with each passing update!
The latest in this series of patches is Update 1.4 which brings with it a ton of new content to toy around with, as well as some rather useful quality-of-life features. There's now a movie theater you can visit throughout the endgame, each of the spouses now have a new 14-heart event to further flesh out their characters, and you can now raise and harvest a variety of fish! There's also a new type of farm to mess around with, and naturally, a whole bunch of new items to collect and experiment with, both practical and cosmetics.