Overwatch 2 has rejigged the new support hero Lifeweaver's keybinds and buffed his abilities
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[Update #2]: Overwatch 2's Season 5 is nerfing snipers, buffing Lifeweaver and bringing back soft crowd control.
[Update]: I'm afraid I have some bad news. Overwatch 2 will be drastically downscaling the scope and amount of its long-awaited PvE missions.
Instead of going with a fairly generic support hero concept that's all about spamming healing, Blizzard decided to do something a bit more interesting with the recently released Lifeweaver. With him they opted to focus on utility over raw power, with the end result being a hero that's capable of manipulating the position of both allies and enemies, thus changing the course of the battle with the flick of a wrist.
Unfortunately, while the concept may be incredibly cool, the actual implementation left a lot to be desired. I say this because Lifeweaver not only released in a remarkably underpowered state, but his default keybinds were also really messy which just made him awkward to play. Luckily, most of this is now a thing of the past!
It looks like Microsoft's acquisition of Activision Blizzard won't be going through after all
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[Update #2]: Blizzard games are coming to Steam, starting with Overwatch 2 on August 10th.
[Update]: Plot twist! EU regulators have now approved the acquisition, which might just give Microsoft an upper hand in the upcoming legal scuffle.
In an announcement that I must admit comes as quite a surprise, the United Kingdom's Competition and Markets Authority has just announced that they are blocking Microsoft’s planned purchase of Activision Blizzard. This was done due to concerns over Microsoft becoming too dominant over the cloud gaming market as it already supposedly accounts for an estimated 60-70% of the global cloud gaming services.
"The UK cloud gaming market is growing fast. Monthly active users in the UK more than tripled from the start of 2021 to the end of 2022," reads the official explanation. "Microsoft has a strong position in cloud gaming services and the evidence available to the CMA showed that Microsoft would find it commercially beneficial to make Activision’s games exclusive to its own cloud gaming service."
Nearly a decade after its original announcement, Dead Island 2 has now finally been unleashed
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After going through nearly a decade of development hell which even saw the game change studios mid way through, Dead Island 2 has now finally been unleashed for both PC and consoles. The most shocking thing, however, is that it's actually quite decent!
It's not a high-brow game by any stretch, and you can definitely feel the decade long development drag it down at times, but smashing zombies over the head with an assortment of silly weapons is, unsurprisingly, a good bit of fun! Just don't expect much from the story because oh boy, it sure is a giant mess.
Diablo 4 will be running a free 'Server Slam' Open Beta test from May 12-14
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[Update #2]: Diablo 4 has now finally arrived, and while there are some notable issues, it's pretty good fun.
[Update]: It looks like Microsoft's acquisition of Activision Blizzard won't be going through after all.
If you missed the recent Diablo 4 beta, or if you're simply itching to dive in again ahead of the June 6th release date, you'll be happy to hear that Blizzard is planning one last beta test - the Server Slam! The event will be running from May 12-14 on PC, Xbox and PlayStation, and most importantly, will be entirely free to enter for everyone.
The Server Slam test will give you a chance to play through the prologue and the entirety of Act 1, with the big limit being that you can't go past level 20. That said, this is still a sizable chunk of content to plough through, so if you're on the fence about Diablo 4 and its gameplay style, giving the beta a try should help clear things up for you.
Steam has just launched the Puzzle Fest celebrating all flavors of brain-busting games
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[Update]: Steam's sizable Summer Sale 2023 has now arrived and will stick around all the way until July 13th.
If you're tired of the endless stream of shooty-shooty action games and want a more cerebral experience, you might want to check out the freshly launched Steam Puzzle Fest. As the name would imply, the Puzzle Fest brings with it sizable discounts on all sorts of puzzle games, as well as free demos for quite a few of the newer ones. The whole thing will last until 10am PT on May 1st, so you should have more than enough time to browse through the list and check out whichever games tickle your fancy.
For those of you that aren't sure where to even begin with, allow me to share with you a couple of my favorites. Even though I'm not the biggest fan of puzzle games the following crowd really managed to win me over, so definitely check them out if you're into the genre (or want to be). Without further ado, here's the brief list:
Dota 2's gigantic Update 7.33 has greatly expanded the map, reworked core mechanics and rebalanced just about everything
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[Update]: Dota 2's Patch 7.33d has nerfed Vanguard, Octarine Core and some of the overperforming heroes.
After a couple of fairly subdued patches that did little to shake up the gameplay, it looks like the Dota 2 team has decided to go all-out with Update 7.33. As such, not only does the freshly released update bring with it an absurd amount of balance tweaks, but it has also massively expanded the map, added a whole assortment of new things to fight over, reworked a bunch of heroes and core gameplay mechanics, and the list goes on for a very, very long time.
I'll avoid going into too many details as we'll otherwise be here for an hour, but here's a quick rundown of the most important bits and pieces that were added with the extended new map:
Frictional Games' claustrophobic horror game Amnesia: The Bunker has been pushed back to May 23rd, 2023
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[Update]: Amnesia: The Bunker has now been unleashed, and so far it's looking quite good! Best of all, there's even a free demo!
In an announcement that comes as quite a surprise, Frictional Games have now revealed that their highly atmospheric, first-person horror game Amnesia: The Bunker has been delayed. It's not the delay itself that comes as a shock, mind you, but rather the fact that it's only been pushed back a single week!
"We're pushing the release date of Amnesia: The Bunker back by one week, and it will now be coming out on May 23rd instead," reads the brief update. "This will give us a little more time to polish the game and make sure everything is perfect before launch. We appreciate your patience and hope you are looking forward to playing Amnesia: The Bunker. It will be worth the wait!"