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[Update]: As expected, Diablo 2 will be getting a proper remaster!
While the original Diablo was a great game, its sequel transcended into something else entirely. Not only did Diablo 2 heavily set humanity back by devouring hundreds of productive hours from people across the globe, but it was designed and crafted with such love and care that it remains the primary influence for every single new ARPG, even twenty years after its original launch!
So in order to celebrate its momentous legacy, Blizzard has now released a brief retrospective, along with some comments from the various Diablo team members. You can find the full retrospective over at the Diablo website, but for now, here's a little taste of what it has to offer:
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[Update]: Telltale's terrific Tales from the Borderlands has now finally returned for both PC and consoles.
When Telltale Games closed down their doors in 2018, their games quickly got pulled from digital storefronts. Some, like the immensely popular The Walking Dead series returned just as swiftly, while others were unfortunately left in limbo.
One of these games, as you might imagine from the title, was Tales of Monkey Island. However, in a stroke of good fortune, it would appear that all of the background issues have now been resolved as Tales of Monkey Island has just returned to both Steam and GOG! Best of all, it's currently on a 50% sale as well!
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If you happen to be a fan of Transformers and strategy games in general, you might want to keep an eye on the newly announced Transformers: Battlegrounds. The details are sadly few and far between, but so far it seems to be a rather colorful tactics game where Autobots and Decepticons rampage across an unfortunate city.
You can get a little bit of a sneak peek at what all of this looks like in gameplay terms through the recently posted announcement trailer. Have a gander, it's a fairly short one:
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[Update #2]: Valorant's next Agent will be the defense and turret focused Killjoy.
[Update]: Newest update has buffed Viper, nerfed Raze, and rebalanced Brimstone.
It has only been a little while since the ranked mode was introduced, and already Riot has come to announce their plans for Valorant's future. Unsurprisingly, they contain quite a few new agents, maps, and cosmetics to mess around with!
According to the developer update, Valorant will have two episodes each year, with every episode consisting of three acts that last two months each. The launch of an episode will bring with it massive changes that shake up the gameplay in a significant way, while the acts will bring with them new Agents, cosmetics, and potentially even new game modes. This is not a rule set in stone, however, so there might still be major features launching alongside the release of a new act.
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A brand new Dota 2 update has just launched, and as you might expect, it has brought with it a whole host of balance changes. However, unlike the usual patch where the list of hero tweaks is so long it takes a good ten seconds to scroll through them, the newest Update 7.27 is almost entirely focused on the items themselves.
The biggest change is that the vast majority of items that once provided raw stats as an additional benefit have now been tweaked to offer something else instead. For example, the always useful Mekansm now no longer gives +4 to all stats, but instead has a +3 armor aura. While the power of the affected items is likely to remain quite similar, this does make certain builds a lot more squishy and prone to being ganked, which seems to be a focus in Update 7.27.
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If you ever wanted to just take a break from the zombie apocalypse and go for a short holiday, you'll be glad to hear State of Decay 2 has now added a brand new difficulty setting - Green Zone. It's essentially a more relaxed, accessible apocalypse, designed for those that would love to explore the world of State of Decay 2 without too much stress.
What this means in gameplay terms is that the enemies will deal less damage, your stamina will last significantly longer in a fight, while the special freak zombies will be much rarer. You will also be able to find more resources in rucksacks, scavenging will deliver more weapons and skill books, and most importantly, any sort of crafting and building will be cheaper. Doing all of this will obviously remove most of the challenge, so I'd recommend only giving the Green Zone a try once you've gone through State of Decay 2 the normal way.
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[Update]: Ys IX: Monstrum Nox has now landed onto PC and Switch, and so far it's looking pretty good!
The Japanese version of the action-RPG Ys IX: Monstrum Nox has been around on the PlayStation 4 since 2019. So if you're like me and you've been wondering when in the world it's going to come to the west, I have both good and bad news to deliver.
Let's start with the positive one first. NIS America has confirmed that the western version of Ys IX is now not only in the works, but that it will be releasing on PC, PlayStation 4 and the Nintendo Switch. The bad news? Well, I'm afraid you'll have to wait for quite a while as Ys IX is set to arrive at some point in 2021!
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[Update]: Minecraft Dungeons will be getting cross-platform support on November 17, 2020.
If you've finished Minecraft: Dungeons and you're now looking for an excuse to dive back in, you might be happy to hear that the very first DLC is just around the corner. To be specific, the Jungle Awakens DLC will be launching onto PC and consoles this July 1st!
In terms of actual content, Jungle Awakens will bring with it an assortment of new enemies to square off against, as well as a big ol' Jungle Abomination boss to serve as the grand finale. There will also be three new story missions to explore, adorable little pandas to gawk at, and naturally, a whole assortment of new weapons, armor sets and artifacts to toy around with.
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[Update]: Doom Eternal is shifting development from the PvP Invasion mode to the single-player Horde mode.
As a part of Doom Eternal's first update, the developers added Empowered Demons to the singleplayer campaign in order to spice up the whole experience. However, in an effort to disrupt the actual gameplay as little as possible, they ended up making the Empowered Demons incredibly rare, and thus almost completely inconsequential. Now that Update 2 has arrived, this has thankfully been fixed and Empowered Demons will be a lot more likely to show up and get annihilated alongside their brethren.
Update 2 has also included a brand new Battlemode map by the name of Torment, as well as an assortment of bug fixes and improvements. For example, you can now set up unique keybinds per demon, the recent latency issues have hopefully been corrected, while the customization menu has been made a lot more intuitive to use.
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[Update]: The surprisingly demon-infested Hellraid DLC has now arrived!
While Dying Light 2 seems to be having some development troubles, the original Dying Light is still going as strong as ever. So strong, in fact, that the developers are now getting ready to release a brand new piece of DLC for it - Hellraid!
As the name might imply, Hellraid will have you explore a massive dungeon and face off against a horde of demons with a wide assortment of fantasy weapons. Each run through the dungeon will reward you with coins that can be used to transfer the new weapons into the standard version of Dying Light, and the more challenges you undertake, the more coins you'll get at the end. Best of all, you'll be able to tackle the Hellraid DLC alone or in co-op with up to four players!