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Paladins screenshot showcasing characters similar to Overwatch's cast

Paladins, a team based shooter from the developers of Smite and Tribe Ascend, entered open beta a couple of days ago. While that would usually be a great thing, I mean who doesn't love having more competition in the shooter genre, things became a bit heated when people realized that many of the Paladins characters share a similar playstyle to their Overwatch counterparts.

For example, Paladins features a medieval techno-knight that carries around a giant blue shield and charges at people, a short but bulky engineer that shoots molten lava and builds turrets, a character that flies around and shoots rockets from above, and so forth. The similarities between these characters and the ones from Overwatch are quite apparent, there's no denying that, but at the end of the day they are still their own characters with their own unique twists on the formula. And yet the backlash apparently got so large that Hi-Rez was forced to make a rather lengthy post detailing the history of Paladins throughout its development.

You can find the full post by heading over to the Paladins subreddit. While its unfortunate Hi-Rez had to go through all of this trouble to prove their point, I'm still glad they decided to do so because it gives us a bit of an insider look into the world of game design, and that is always exciting to see!

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Cossacks 3 screenshot showcasing a naval battle

Continuing on with the tradition of poorly named HD remakes we have Cossacks 3 - an HD remake of the original RTS classic that released back in 2000. Cossacks 3 brings with it twelve playable nations, 70 different unit types, over 140 different buildings to construct, and naturally, a whole bunch of historical battles to fight.

Since trying to briefly explain grand strategy games is a nearly impossible task, allow me to instead show you the most recent gameplay trailer. It should give you a good idea of what Cossacks 3 looks like, and more importantly, what it plays like. Have a look:

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Sorcery! Part 4 - Crown of Kings moon serpent screenshot

When it comes to RPGs, I am a simple man. All I want is a well written story, some unique and interesting characters that can't be described in a single cliche, a world that consistently follows its own rules, and most importantly, the ability to make a personal impact on the story.

Now that I've written all of that down it sure doesn't seem very simple, but there are some games out there that easily fulfill all of these demands. As you can probably guess from the title alone, the Sorcery! series belongs among that rather esteemed company, especially Sorcery! Part 4 - Crown of Kings as it represents the final evolution of everything the series has put forth so far. The stakes are higher, the atmosphere is much more intense, and the entirety of the experience is far more immersive than ever before.

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Battlerite is a spiritual successor to Bloodline Champions

For those of you that never had a chance to try it during its heyday, Bloodline Champions was a truly one of a kind arena brawler. There was no randomness, no overpowered moves or broken combinations, just you and a couple of buddies against the world. The only thing that could bring you victory was coordination and personal skill, which meant that Bloodline Champions had a practically infinite skill ceiling, and with it practically infinite replayability. Unfortunately, one of the long-awaited post-launch updates brought with it the very hammer that would strike Bloodline Champions down - the introduction of randomness and customizable stats. As you would expect, this quickly ruined the delicate balance and drove most of the dedicated playerbase away, me included.

While Bloodline Champions remains to this day as a shell of its former self, there is hope on the horizon as the original developers have just released Battlerite, a spiritual successor to the Bloodline Champions of old, onto Steam Early Access. If you're wondering what Battlerite looks like and how closely it emulates Bloodline Champions, here's one of the recent gameplay videos:

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Gears of War 4's old Marcus

We're still nearly three weeks away from the release of Gears of War 4, but for some strange reason Microsoft has decided to release its launch trailer anyway. This little detail aside, fans of the melancholic Gears of War trailers will be delighted to hear that this one features plenty of action set to a dramatic, escalating soundtrack - in this case a cover of Metallica's Nothing Else Matters.

While I won't say its as good as the original Mad World trailer, it does give you a pretty damn good idea of what's happening in the story, and more importantly, what's happening with a few of the fan favorite characters. Have a look:

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Elite: Dangerous screenshot

David Braben, the CEO & founder of Frontier Developments, recently announced that Elite: Dangerous will be dropping support for DirectX 10 and 32-bit Windows next year. The exact date hasn't been given just yet, but Braben did say it will take them at least six months in order to implement all of the changes.

In terms of playerbase, the loss of Win32 support will affect about 0.5% of all players, some which already own hardware capable of running 64-bit versions of Windows. On the other hand, the removal of DirectX 10 support is going to be a bit more troublesome given that around 2% of the playerbase still depend on it, many of which will need to upgrade their graphics card in order to continue playing.

Here's the full announcement message:

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Battlefield 1 screenshot showing camel riders and planes overhead

With Battlefield 1's October 24th release date just around the corner, DICE and EA have finally decided to release the PC system requirements. Given how much of a graphical powerhouse Battlefield 4 was, it shouldn't come as much of a surprise to hear that Battlefield 1 requires a similarly beefy rig.

How beefy? Beefy enough that even the minimum system requirements ask for an Intel Core i5 6600K CPU. It might not be in the upper reaches of processing power these days, but its still a damn solid CPU, so this should give you a general idea of how taxing Battlefield 1 is going to be on your system. This little diversion aside, here are the full system requirements:

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