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[Update #2]: The day has finally come, Uro and Omnath have been fully banned from Historic play!
[Update]: Two weeks after the previous ban, MTG Arena has now thrown out the dreaded Omnath.
If you've returned to MTG Arena for the Zendikar Rising set like I have, you've most likely noticed that Uro, Titan of Nature's Wrath seems to be present in just about every single deck you face in the ranked mode. Tournaments aren't free of his tyranny either, as the vast majority of competitive decks are running the exact same core: Uro, Omnath and Lotus Cobra. Needless to say, there's a bit of a problem here!
With that in mind, I am very happy to say that Uro has now finally been banned from Standard play. Any copies you owned will still remain fully playable in Historic modes, and more importantly, you will also receive a mythic wildcard for each copy you had when the ban took effect. So if you were wise enough to craft a playset of Uros in anticipation of this ban, congratulations as you've just scored yourself a few copies of an immensely powerful mythic card for free!
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[Update]: December 1, 2020 has now arrived, and with it Empire of Sin has been unleashed!
Empire of Sin, Romero Games' seedy turn-based strategy game set in 1920s Chicago, was originally supposed to arrive in spring of 2020. As is tradition with pretty much every game this year, its release date ended up being pushed back in order to ensure the team has enough time to get everything polished up and ready to go.
A fair bit of time has gone by since then, and I'm pleased to say that we can now finally see the light at the end of this tunnel. In other words, Empire of Sin will be arriving onto PC and consoles on December 1st!
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[Update]: In order to avoid Cyberpunk 2077, Path of Exile's next big update has been pushed back until January.
After the crafting and end-game focused Harvest league, the freshly launched Heist update has now once again pushed Path of Exile into a more combat-heavy direction. However, unlike some of the previous leagues that just involved smashing monsters over the head, the new Heist league is all about planning and then executing daring raids on vaults filled with treasure.
To start it all off, you'll first need to discover the location of a valuable artifact and the defenses that guard it. Once you have all of the boring details, you'll then need to assemble a team of skilled specialists and thieves in order to help you bypass the traps, avoid the patrols, and hopefully get away with all of the delicious loot before the alarms start blaring!
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[Update #2]: Baldur's Gate 3 will be leaving Early Access in August 2023.
[Update]: Baldur's Gate 3 has now launched into Early Access with around 25 hours of content.
As is tradition with pretty much every game releasing in 2020, Baldur's Gate 3 has now been delayed. However, while some have been pushed back a full year, Baldur's Gate is only going to take a week longer to get here! In other words, you can expect the Early Access version of Baldur's Gate 3 to assemble its party and embark on an adventure this October 6th!
"Our guiding principle for early access is that it's fine for there to be smaller bugs or a few things that are lacking polish, but it needs to offer a fun gameplay experience with as few crashes as possible," reads the developer update. "We're nearly there but we have a few unexpected delays, and we still have some stability issues we're sifting through."
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[Update]: Dying Light's crossover event has added Left 4 Dead's Bill and the majestic Gnome Chompski.
In collaboration with Valve, a bunch of Left 4 Dead 2 community members have gathered together to release an absolutely massive new update - The Last Stand. I'm not overstating its size either, because The Last Stand has added a little bit of something to pretty much every aspect of Left 4 Dead 2!
You can expect to see a brand new campaign, 26 new survival maps to test yourself against, 4 new scavenge maps to remind you the game mode even exists, 2 new melee weapons, and in a rather surprising move, the official implementation of Counter-Strike: Source weapons! The Left 4 Dead 1 infected have also received their original skins, a bunch of previously unused voice lines have been added in, numerous animations have been spruced up, and naturally, there's a whole bunch of balance changes and bug fixes to round things out.
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[Update]: Hangar 13 have announced that a brand new Mafia game is currently in development.
In a bit of a strange move, two thirds of the Mafia: Trilogy collection released back in May 2020. To make matters even more confusing, the two games barely had any improvements between them, making the whole collection feel a bit pointless.
Thankfully, the full remake of the original Mafia game has now finally arrived, thus not only completing the trilogy, but also giving it that crucial centerpiece it so clearly lacked. I say this because the newly launched Mafia: Definitive Edition has reworked the visuals and audio from the ground up, expanded the dialogue and added even more storylines, and naturally, fixed up a whole bunch of annoyances from the original.
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[Update]: Overwatch's Halloween Terror 2020 event has arrived alongside an assortment of awesome cosmetics, as well as the Soldier 76 weapon rework!
If you're a fan of McCree, I have both good and bad news. The good is that he's now finally received some buffs in order to compensate for the constant nerfs to his damage output, while the bad news is that the proposed combat roll buff that would have him soar through the air like an acrobat did not go through. Unfortunate, but I suppose it didn't really fit McCree's character.
Besides the tweaks to McCree, this newest update has brought in some excellent buffs for Orisa and Roadhog, a relatively small buff to Baptiste, as well as an equally small nerf to Ashe. Here's the full list of changes:
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[Update]: Devolver Digital is planning to release a new Serious Sam game in January 2022.
After going through a little bit of a delay, Serious Sam 4 and its ridiculously numerous hordes of enemies have now made their way to PC and Google Stadia. As for the console versions, those will be launching at some point in early 2021, barring any further delays.
When it comes to the actual gameplay, Serious Sam 4 is exactly what you would expect from the series at this point. It's all about mowing down overwhelming numbers of enemies with overpowered weaponry, laughing at the storyline that somehow keeps getting even stupider with each game, and then teaming up with some friends in order to bring down an even greater amount of baddies!
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I hope you're in the mood for feeling like an ancient dinosaur, because the classic puzzle game Chip's Challenge 1 is currently celebrating its 30th birthday! While newer generations might not even recognize the game, those of us that sat through IT class in school have likely played around with it given that it came pre-installed with Windows 3.1 and some of the later versions.
The actual gameplay in Chip's Challenge 1 is remarkably simple. All you have to do is roam around the 144 levels, collect items and avoid hazards, and slowly piece together the solution to whatever puzzle stands before you. Simple does not mean easy, however, so if you do decide to dive into Chip's Challenge 1, be prepared for quite a difficulty curve as some of the later puzzles are not only tough, but also rather lengthy!
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If you ever wanted to take Rocket League for a spin, today would be the ideal time to do so. Not only has Rocket League just now gone free-to-play, but it also received a major new update to help spice things up even further!
In terms of fresh content, you can expect to see a new bot difficulty, an updated menu system, changes to the various achievements, as well as the inclusion of a bunch of new game-wide challenges. There's also numerous quality of life changes and bug fixes, the addition of things like Heatseeker to private matches, and perhaps most importantly, the start of the very first ranked season!