Overwatch's Anniversary update is coming on May 22nd alongside all of the event skins released so far
- By Ash
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[Update #2]: The Anniversary update has now arrived. You can learn more over here.
[Update]: All 11 of the upcoming Anniversary skins have now been leaked. You can check them out over here.
Overwatch's second anniversary is fast approaching, and so it shouldn't come as much of a surprise to hear that the second annual Anniversary update will be coming soon as well, on May 22nd to be specific. What might come as a bit of a surprise, however, is that the Anniversary update will bring with it all of the past seasonal items and brawls! So if you ever wanted to try out Lucioball, or just grab some cosmetics you missed during the previous months, this update will have you covered.
As far as new content is concerned, there will be 8 new Legendary skins, 3 new Epic skins, 3 new dance emotes (Doomfist, Moira, Brigitte), as well as 36 miscellaneous items to collect. If the previous event is any indicator, the full list of cosmetics is going to be announced throughout this week, but so far I can only tell you that one one them is going to be Pirate Junkrat. I can only hope Blizzard will continue with the costume theme and also introduce the Swordsman Genji skin teased in the Halloween comic, because that thing is pretty darn sweet!
Total War: Thrones of Britannia Review - Two steps forward, one step back
- By Ash
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Thrones of Britannia is the very first of the newly announced Total War Saga spin-off series, and it really shows. It has some great ideas and it even fleshes out many of the systems found in previous Total War games, but due to it being the first of its kind a lot of those systems are currently either unfocused or too easy to ignore. Yet despite all of that, Thrones of Britannia still remains a fairly enjoyable experience, and one that future Total War games will be taking a lot of inspiration from.
So if you're interested in finding out what Thrones of Britannia does right, as well as where it stumbles and falls flat on its face, allow me to share my thoughts after playing through a couple of campaigns on various difficulty levels.
The Flame in the Flood, a rogue-lite survival game, is free on Humble Bundle for the next 24 hours
- By Ash
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If you have a bit of free time and the will try out something new, you might be interested to hear that the rogue-lite survival game The Flame in the Flood is free for the next 24 hours. Simply head on over to Humble Bundle, go through the 'purchasing' process, activate your key, and The Flame in the Flood will be yours to keep for good.
As for whether its any good or not to actually play, however, I would go with a tentative yes. The difficulty curve is incredibly steep at the very beginning and you're probably going to die over and over again, but once you climb over that initial difficulty hump The Flame in the Flood becomes a lot more interesting, and ironically, a lot more relaxing as well. So if you don't mind losing a couple of 'runs' before you finally figure out what you're doing, I think it's well worth giving The Flame in the Flood a try - it's completely free after all!
Hearthstone's most recent update has sped up Shudderwock's animations and rebalanced arena once again
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While Shudderwock is by no means an overpowered card, it's overly-long animations are often a complete waste of time. As such, I am very glad to say that Hearthstone's latest update has now not only doubled the speed of Shudderwock's Battlecry animation, but doubled the speed of Lifedrinker's Battlecry animation as well! While this will prevent you from going for a sandwich every time someone plays Shudderwock, it will at least make the card a lot more fun to play against for those that might not be hungry at the moment.
On a similar note, Blizzard has now implemented a variety of changes to Arena in order to improve class balance. Unfortunately, they've done so in the classic Blizzard fashion, by which I mean they've given us absolutely no information or statistics to work with. The only thing I can tell you for certain is that Paladin's absurd winrate will be going down, though by how much and due to which changes I'm afraid I don't know.
Pillars of Eternity 2 has recently arrived on PC alongside some extremely favorable reviews
- By Ash
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After going through a highly successful Fig crowdfunding campaign and a refreshingly smooth development process, Pillars of Eternity 2: Deadfire has now finally made its way to PC. Besides continuing on with the original's storyline, Pillars of Eternity 2 features player-controlled ships that you can use to explore a gigantic world, plenty of uncharted islands with treasure to loot and danger to overcome, a whole bunch of new enemies to battle against, and perhaps most importantly, a variety of interesting companions to chat up.
If you're interested in a sneak peak of what all of this might look like in-game, allow me to share with you the recently posted launch trailer. It won't exactly tell you what Pillars of Eternity 2 is all about, but it will at least help you get into the right mood. Have a look:
Blizzard and the Breast Cancer Reaserch Foundation have teamed up to release a new charity-focused Pink Mercy skin
- By Ash
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Continuing their long-standing tradition of incentivizing charity donations via in-game items, Blizzard has now teamed up with the Breast Cancer Research Foundation in order to release a brand new and rather fancy Pink Mercy skin. The skin will set you back $15 and will only be available until May 21st, though more importantly, all of the proceeds from the Pink Mercy sales will be going directly to the BCRF, with a guaranteed minimum donation of $250,000 from Blizzard themselves.
As for the Breast Cancer Research Foundation, I am very glad to say that it not one of those useless charities that spend more on marketing than anything else. According to Charity Navigator, BCRF spends 90.1% of its donations to support a variety of medical institutions, and only 2.7% on its own administration. Those are some pretty darn impressive numbers, so don't feel bad about donating to them.
Total War: Warhammer 2's upcoming update will add a brand new starting position for the Dwarfs, among other changes
- By Ash
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[Update] The patch is now live. You can find the full patch notes, as well as more about the accompanying "The Queen and the Crone" DLC over here.
Creative Assembly has been teasing a whole bunch of Total War: Warhammer 2 changes and additions over the past few weeks. So far they've announced Giant Slayers as a new Dwarf unit, a major rework of the infamous Skaven food mechanic, as well as four new Monster Hunts for Norsca.
While all of these new features are quite welcome, the latest announcement is by far the most exciting one - Ungrim Ironfist is soon going to be starting from Karak Kadrin, the Slayers Keep! This might not sound like much on first glance, but when you consider that Creative Assembly recently said they're planning on updating the Old World races, things start becoming a lot more interesting. Could this upcoming update also add brand new starting positions for the Empire, Greenskins and Vampire Counts as well? I sure hope so, because these factions have an ton of Legendary Lords that are all crammed into one location, Legendary Lords that could really spice up the campaign map if they were spread across the world!