Dying Light: Bad Blood has brought in parkour-focused gameplay to the Battle Royale genre
- By Ash
- in News
[Update]: Dying Light: Bad Blood has now become entirely free for all owners of Dying Light, regardless of platform.
Despite being yet another zombie game, Dying Light has managed to distinguish itself from the rest by focusing quite heavily on movement. You can quite easily climb even the tallest buildings, leap across objects and vault over zombies, dangle off ledges and quickly hop between distant beams, and basically never touch the ground unless you really want to.
In fact, the moment-to-moment gameplay in Dying Light has ended up being so enjoyable that Techland has now created an entire Battle Royale game centered around the concept. So as you might imagine, in Dying Light: Bad Blood you will need to scavenge for weapons in a zombie-infested area, destroy hives in order to level up and increase your power, and perhaps most importantly, use a vast assortment of parkour skills and weapons in order to outrun and outplay your opponents.
Frozen Synapse 2 is a challenging tactics game set in a vast, procedurally generated city
- By Ash
- in Indie Games
Frozen Synapse 2 is a fairly challenging tactics game with a bit of an interesting twist: instead of having hand-crafted levels with somewhat predictable enemy positions and behavior, Frozen Synapse 2 is bringing the action into a vast, procedurally generated city. So in order to succeed you'll need to set up various bases and outposts, deploy your forces across the map, and naturally, engage in some good ol' tactical combat as you attempt to secure the city.
If you're wondering what all of this looks like in-game, allow me to share with you the recently posted trailer. It's fairly brief, but it should give you a pretty decent idea of what to expect from Frozen Synapse 2. Have a gander:
World of Warcraft devs have now answered some of the most pressing concerns regarding the Battle for Azeroth expansion
- By Ash
- in News
World of Warcraft's Battle for Azeroth expansion arrived a little while ago, bringing with it an excellent leveling experience, some interesting new characters to interact with, as well as some rather beautiful zones to explore. Unfortunately, almost all of the new systems Battle for Azeroth added to freshen up the end-game, things such as the Warfronts, Island Expeditions or Azerite Armor, have ended up being the source of endless complaints from the playerbase.
While I'm afraid I can't tell you that Blizzard is already on the way to implement sweeping changes in order to correct some of these issues, I can at least tell you that they are well aware of the problems, and that they are looking to solve them throughout the expansion. This information comes to us from the recent Q&A session WoW's Game Director Ion Hazzikostas held over at Reddit, and if you're interested in WoW's future I would highly recommend you check it out.
On the other hand, if you don't have the time to sort through all of those answers, allow me to highlight some of the most important quotes about Azerite Armor, Island Expeditions and Warfronts. Have a look:
THQ Nordic has now picked up the Kingdoms of Amalur IP, a new game could be in the works
- By Ash
- in News
[Update #2]: Kingdoms of Amalur: Re-Reckoning has now arrived alongside some fairly minor upgrades.
[Update]: THQ Nordic has now announced a full-on remaster - Kingdoms of Amalur: Re-Reckoning!
Kingdoms of Amalur: Reckoning is one of those games I can quite easily criticize due to its vast amount of flaws and MMO-like quest design, yet despite all of my complaints it's also one of those games I reinstall every once in a while. Perhaps it's something to do with the cliche yet unique world it inhabits, and maybe it's because it's one of the very few games where you can tear through hordes of enemies with a gigantic chakram! Whatever the answer may be, I was immensely sad when I heard the studio behind it closed down, and with it any sort of hope that Kingdoms of Amalur could rise anew.
So imagine my surprise when THQ Nordic came out of nowhere to announce that they have acquired not only the "Kingdoms of Amalur" IP, but also all of 38 Studios' assets! Sadly THQ Nordic did not also use this opportunity to announce a brand new Kingdoms of Amalur game, but given that they have gone through the process of acquiring the license I think it's fair to say that they have at least some interesting plans with it in mind.
Papers, Please creator's adventure-investigation game Return of the Obra Dinn is set to arrive "soon"
- By Ash
- in Indie Games
Return of the Obra Dinn, much like the creator's previous work "Papers, Please", is not the type of game that likes to fit neatly into a specific genre. The brief text blurb has it described as "an insurance adventure with minimal color", which is absolutely correct, but not exactly helpful. To be a bit more specific, it is an adventure and investigation game that will have you wonder across the fabled merchant ship Obra Dinn in order to discover how it ended up drifting into port with damaged sails and no visible crew, all rendered in a bizarre yet fetching art style.
You'll need to figure out the events that led to the ship's demise, what exactly happened to each of the crew members, and like any good insurance investigator, finish by writing a detailed report for your masters at the East India Company. To do this you will be given a brief glimpse into past events and their consequences, though in order to figure out why and what exactly happened you will need to use a fair bit of logical deduction and good ol' fashioned adventuring. Just make sure to keep in mind that things might not always be as they seem at first glance.
A reworked version of the early battle royale game The Culling has now gone free-to-play on Steam
- By Ash
- in News
Before PUBG and Fortnite catapulted the battle royale genre into the stratosphere, there was a rather successful albeit somewhat niche battle royale game by the name of The Culling. Unfortunately, despite its impressive start The Culling ended up slowly losing its population due to various missteps, bugs and poorly thought out balance changes.
After trying something similar and once again failing with The Culling 2, Xaviant Games have now decided to return to the original in order to bring it back to its former glory. As such, the current version of The Culling features many of the design decisions and gameplay features that made the original so popular, though with a couple of new additions such as XP and leveling, new cosmetics and weapons, better matchmaking, and so forth.
Insurgency: Sandstorm has been delayed until December 12th in order to give developers enough time to act on beta feedback
- By Ash
- in News
Insurgency: Sandstorm, the sequel to the surprisingly popular tactical shooter Insurgency, was supposed to arrive on September 18th for PC. Unfortunately, according to a recent developer update, that will not be the case as Insurgency: Sandstorm has been delayed until December 12th.
"This was one of the hardest decisions our team has ever had to make and not one taken lightly. However, we feel it is in the best interest of the game and our community to spend more time working to ensure we deliver the best possible experience," reads the brief announcement. "By extending the beta and moving our launch date to December, the additional time will allow us to make significant improvements to the game with continued input from you."