The Tribes inspired free-to-play shooter Midair has now launched on Steam
- By Ash
- in Indie Games
Midair is a fast-paced jetpack shooter heavily inspired by the Tribes series of old. What this means in gameplay terms is that you will have to use 'skiing' mechanics and momentum to propel yourself across the map at absolutely ridiculous speeds, build defenses and guard your flag from enemies that might come from pretty much any angle, and naturally, master a variety of weapons in order to reliably land shots on enemies that are constantly flying around.
Rather than babble on, allow me to share with you the recently posted trailer. It's a little bit on the short side, but it should still give you a pretty accurate idea of what Midair is all about. Have a look:
Overwatch PTR update has finally buffed Ana and slightly nerfed the newcomer Brigitte
- By Ash
- in News
It has only been a couple of days since Brigitte became available in Overwatch's competitive mode, and already Blizzard is looking to bring her power level down. On the newly launched PTR patch the maximum armor her ultimate ability Rally can give to each player has been reduced from 150 to 100, though the Overwatch team is also considering slowing down her Shield Charge cooldown from 5 to 6 seconds. The latter change has not yet been implemented, however, so don't be surprised if Blizzard decides to go in some other direction with Brigitte.
On a slightly different note, I'm sure you'll be glad to hear that everyone's favorite sniper-grandma Ana is getting some much needed love! First and foremost, on the PTR patch she has the ability to shoot through teammates with full HP, which means the amount of reliable healing she can put out in hectic teamfights is going to go up considerably. In order to further improve this aspect of Ana, the upcoming patch will also increase her magazine size from 10 to 14, which again, should go a long way towards making her more reliable.
Ubisoft's For Honor is completely free to try out until Monday, May 7th
- By Ash
- in News
If you ever wanted to give For Honor a try and see what it's all about, now would be the ideal time to do so. Not only has Ubisoft recently added a highly useful tutorial and practice mode, but For Honor itself is also currently completely free to play!
All you need to do is head on over to the official website, choose the platform of your choice, and you'll be beating down vikings in no time. Speaking of which, this free weekend will only last until Monday, so do make sure to dive in as soon as possible.
Massive Vermintide 2 Patch 1.0.8 has greatly improved performance and fixed a plethora of long-standing problems
- By Ash
- in News
[Update]: Patch 1.0.8 has now arrived to the live servers. You can find out more by heading over here.
As promised during last week's update, Vermintide 2's absolutely gigantic Patch 1.0.8 has now made its way to the beta servers. It brings with it noticeable improvements to performance across the board, significant changes to level geometry in order to prevent enemies from shooting through walls, the much-needed ability to adjust the light adaptation system, a plethora of bug fixes, and just as a little bonus, some rather nice hero buffs as well. The only downside is that the patch is gigantic in more ways than one, by which I mean it's around ~20GB in size!
You can find the full list of changes, as well as brief developer explanations, by heading over to Steam. If you don't feel like browsing through all of those changes, however, allow me to list out what I feel are some of the most important ones. The list is still a little bit on the hefty side, but I don't think I can cut it down any more without losing out on important information. Anyway, have a gander:
Battlerite will be getting a 20-player Battle Royale game mode this Summer
- By Ash
- in Indie Games
After seeing Path of Exile's battle royale April Fools' joke, I was left wondering why studios aren't experimenting with the classic battle royale formula in other genres. After all, the concept is fairly simple. All you need is a bunch of people, some solid moment-to-moment gameplay, a decently lengthy stretch of land, and plenty of reasons to go and find other players in order to hit them over the head until they explore into a shower of medpacks and resources. As long as the basic combat mechanics are good, there is no reason why the battle royale formula couldn't work on anything from platformers to moba-like games.
With that in mind, I am rather glad to announce that Stunlock Studios are working on a battle royale game mode for their "action-packed arena brawler" Battlerite. While the details are still in short supply, you can expect to see a map that's about 30 times larger than the usual arena, 20 people in each match, as well as the ability to play in teams of two or solo. As for the matches themselves, Stunlock Studios are trying to make them about 10 minutes long so there's never too much waiting in between all of the action.
Thrones of Britannia, a highly focused and detailed Total War spin-off game, has now arrived on Steam
- By Ash
- in News
Unlike the usual Total War game that span large stretches of land and equally gigantic time periods, the newly released Total War Saga: Thrones of Britannia offers a much more detailed look at the events and battles that took place shortly after the English king Alfred the Great halted the Viking invasion in 878 AD. In gameplay terms this means you can expect to see the most intricate map the series has seen so far, a variety of factions that borrow heavily from real history, as well as a plethora of improvements to the politics & intrigue system in order to better emulate the time period.
Since trying to explain all of this through words alone is a bit of a pointless task, allow me to share with you one of the recent developer previews starring the Kingdom of Mierce. In my campaign the poor buggers survived only 10 turns, but thankfully the ones in the video will be alive for long enough to show you what Thrones of Britannia is all about. Have a look:
Overwatch's new Escort map Rialto has now arrived alongside the quite amazing Hanzo rework
- By Ash
- in News
After spending a little over a week on the PTR, the new Escort map Rialto has now finally made its way to the live servers alongside the much-anticipated Hanzo rework. The endlessly annoying Scatter Arrow has been completely replaced by a new rapid fire ability, while Hanzo's somewhat dreadful mobility has been significantly enhanced with a new short-ranged leap. Whether these changes are a bit too excessive, that still remains to be seen, but what I can tell you right now is that the new Hanzo is ridiculously fun to play!
As far as Rialto is concerned, it would probably be for the best if I just shared with you the recently posted trailer. It won't exactly tell you how to navigate across the map, but it will at least show you some of the prettiest and most interesting locations. Have a gander: