The PC version of Final Fantasy XV will be releasing in early March
- By Ash
- in News
After numerous announcements listing it's release date as either "soon" or "early 2018", I am very glad to finally say that the PC version of Final Fantasy XV will be arriving on March 6th. It will bring with it all of the content and patches currently available on the console version (including all of the DLC), as well as a couple of new features. For example, you can expect to see a new dungeon in the Insomnia City Ruins, an unlockable action-orientated mode of the Armiger, the ability to pilot your own boat, and so forth.
In terms of general improvements the PC version will bring with it native support for 4K resolutions (with the ability to go up to 8K), support for HDR 10, and perhaps most importantly of all, mod support! It's currently unknown how much we're going to be able to change, but even the most basic of mods is capable of adding a variety of quality-of-life fixes and extra content, so it's definitely something worth getting excited about.
Season 8 of Overwatch Competitive Play has now arrived alongside some potentially major changes
- By Ash
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A brand new year has now arrived, and with it a brand new season of Overwatch Competitive Play. However, while not much has changed in the real world over the past 24 hours, Overwatch's freshly launched eight season has brought with it some potentially major adjustments.
First and foremost, the maximum Skill Rating difference between the highest and lowest rated player on the same team has been greatly reduced. So for Bronze-Diamond games the maximum range is 1000 SR, 500 SR for Master games, and a surprisingly small 250 SR for Grandmaster games. This system doesn't seem to be active in placement matches since the few games I've played were all over the place in terms of SR, but that is a small price to pay for what is hopefully going to be some of the most balanced matches Overwatch has seen so far.
Kingdom Come: Deliverance's latest preview video shows off what it takes to deal with a bandit camp
- By Ash
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Kingdom Come: Deliverance is an upcoming medieval RPG that aims to be as immersive and faithful to the era as possible. What this means in gameplay terms is that you won't be throwing fireballs or beating down scores of bandits with your own bare hands. Instead, if you want to survive anyway, you'll have to get some backup before tackling groups of enemies, use trickery and stealth to take them down one by one, and then ideally join the fight only when the odds are stacked in your favor since you can't just block sword swings with your face.
If you're wondering what all of this might look like in-game, wonder no more as the developers have recently posted a lengthy preview video showing off what it takes to clear out a 'simple' bandit camp. The developer commentary strikes a nice balance between being informative and entertaining, so I'd say the video is well worth a watch. Have a look:
Ubisoft has released the official source code for the World in Conflict servers
- By Ash
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It would appear that someone at Ubisoft really likes World in Conflict. First they introduced a whole bunch of new players to it by offering it for free twice in a row, and now they have taken an extra step by releasing the source code for the World in Conflict servers as well!
Ever since World in Conflict's official servers shut down back in 2015 the community has went to great efforts to create their very own alternative, eventually resulting in a highly impressive project called Massgate. It currently features just about everything the original servers had, though there are a couple of limitations and hoops you'll need to jump through in order to play it. However, with the official source code for the backend server now fully available, anyone is going to be able to start their very own servers and recreate the online multiplayer in all of its glory!
PlayerUnknown's Battlegrounds' latest update has significantly reduced in-game lag and rubber-banding
- By Ash
- in News
[Update]: It took over four years, but PUBG has now gone free-to-play on all platforms.
PlayerUnknown's Battlegrounds launched last week alongside a new map and a whole bunch of new features like weapons, vehicles, and even the much-requested ability to vault over small obstacles. As anyone that played PUBG for any lengthy period of time could've predicted, an update of this magnitude quickly gave rise to a variety of performance issues, including things such rubber-banding, in-game lag, poor hit detection, and other such lovely bugbears.
While some of these issues still remain, you'll be glad to hear that the very 'first' PC update has just arrived with a fresh batch of fixes! If everything has gone according to plan you will find that the hit detection is no longer as wonky, and that the in-game lag has been significantly reduced. However, due to overloaded servers there will still be the occasional bit of lag and rubber-banding, problems the developers will be looking to fully correct over the coming weeks and months.
Star Citizen devs have released a lengthy preview of the standalone singleplayer campaign Squadron 42
- By Ash
- in News
[Update]: After more than a decade in development, Star Citizen's Squadron 42 will finally be launching in 2026.
Squadron 42 is an upcoming singleplayer campaign set in the Star Citizen universe. Much like Star Citizen itself, Squadron 42 is currently very early in development, although it does have a rather impressive list of features on its roadmap. If all goes according to plan you can expect to see a gigantic campaign that focuses on both storytelling and combat (in ships and on foot), an immersive universe filled with A-list voice actors, hand-crafted environments mixed in with procedurally generated ones, numerous ships and vehicles to pilot and explore the world with, and the list goes on.
While none of this is still anywhere near completion, the developers have just recently posted a lengthy preview showcasing a "vertical slice" of what Squadron 42 is all about. So if a singleplayer Star Citizen campaign is something you're interested in, and you don't mind watching unfinished gameplay, you'll find the recently posted developer video right below. Have a look:
Warhammer: Vermintide developers are giving out a bunch of in-game items as a small holiday gift
- By Ash
- in News
Even though they're hard at work on Warhammer: Vermintide 2, Fatshark just recently released a brand new piece of DLC for the original Vermintide - Death on the Reik. And now, as an additional little holiday gift, the developers are giving out a free in-game item each day for the next 12 days.
The whole process is fairly simple. All you have to do is jump in-game and claim your daily gift. That said, the servers seem to be a bit overloaded right now so you might not get the pop-up message every single time. If this happens to you there's no need to worry as your item has not disappeared into the endless void, it has simply been deposited into your stash and you can pick it up at any time.