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After a little bit of a wait, Total War: Three Kingdom's biggest DLC so far, Mandate of Heaven, has now made its way to both macOS and Linux. It brings with it over 40 new combat units to fill out your armies, six new warlords with their own unique mechanics, as well as origin stories for some of the most famous characters in the time period.
It's also worth mentioning that unlike the previous DLC, the Mandate of Heaven campaign will seamlessly transition into the main campaign. The various important events, as well as the rise of brand new factions, will all unfold as you progress through the years. So while the campaign map is unlikely to look the same by the end, you should still be able to experience everything Three Kingdoms has to offer.
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[Update]: A few years later, THQ Nordic has now shared a new and atmospheric look at the greatly revamped Gothic 1 Remake.
THQ Nordic recently released a playable teaser for a potential Gothic 1 remake, all in order to judge the community's reaction and see whether there's any actual interest. They didn't have to wait for too long in order to figure out the answer to that question, however, as even on the very first day it became very obvious that the Gothic community is more than eager to re-experience Gothic 1!
According to THQ Nordic's stats, over 180,000 players checked out the playable teaser, while those that filled out the optional survey were overwhelmingly (94,8%) in favor of the remake. As such, it shouldn't come as much of a surprise to hear that THQ Nordic has now officially announced that the Gothic Remake has been greenlit!
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[Update #2]: Enchanter's Lair, the grand finale of the Curse of Drachenfels trilogy, has now been released alongside the best boss fight so far.
[Update]: The newly released update has removed Beastmen from the Blood in the Darkness map, as well as slightly nerfed their overall power.
A short while ago, Vermintide 2 developer Fatshark announced that they will be adding three new (and entirely free) maps throughout Season 2. The first of the trio, Old Haunts, released alongside the Season 2 update and was heavily inspired by the original game's Castle Drachenfels DLC. Needless to say, it ended up being a pretty good map.
With that in mind, I'm sure you'll be glad to hear that the second map has not only just arrived, but that it is even better than the first! So if you're in the mood for interrupting yet another dastardly Chaos ritual, do make sure to give the newly added Blood in the Darkness map a try!
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While I've thankfully never been affected myself, there's quite a negative stigma surrounding DRM in games. Some of it is overblown, as is tradition, but there are legitimate concerns about poorly implemented DRM causing performance issues, crashes, as well as making the game in question potentially problematic to play on the next generation of PCs.
With that in mind, you might be glad to hear that GOG and Bethesda have now partnered up to release a bunch of great games with absolutely no DRM. First and foremost, the entirety of the Dishonored series (Dishonored, Dishonored 2 and Dishonored: Death of the Outsider) now not only has no DRM on GOG, but is also on a rather deep discount. So if you're a fan of sneaking around and you haven't played Dishonored just yet, this would be a pretty good time to give it a try.
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Ever since Overwatch first launched, players have been clamoring for more lore and animated shorts. Yet despite these requests, the storylines in Overwatch are moving at a disappointingly glacial pace, while the characters themselves never really seem to grow or change. A real shame given the potential at hand.
With that in mind, I'm quite glad to say that Blizzard appears to have teamed up with Netflix and another unannounced studio in order to produce a Diablo and Overwatch animated series respectively! All of this comes from the LinkedIn profile of Nick van Dyk, co-president of Activision Blizzard Studios, in which Gamespot has recently spotted direct references to both shows.
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[Update]: Right on cue, the Echoes of a Fallen Star update is now live and running.
If you're itching for a reason to dive back into Final Fantasy XIV, or simply looking for more content, you might want to mark February 18th on your calendar as that's when Patch 5.2, Echoes of a Fallen Star, is set to arrive. It brings with it a brand new raid, dungeon, trials, beast tribe, crafting improvements and new fishing content, new story quests, and the list goes on for a while.
You can get a bit of a sneak peak at what Echoes of a Fallen Star's story will be about, as well as what sort of bosses you'll be squaring off against, through the recently posted trailer. Have a look:
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Balance is something every game tries to achieve, yet no matter how much the developers try, true balance will almost always elude them. This is the most obvious in complex strategy games that revolve around a variety of specialized units, as changing even a single variable can have cascading and often unpredictable effects on the overall balance.
So you can imagine just how difficult of a task Creative Assembly has when it comes to balancing Total War: Three Kingdoms. Not only do they need to make sure all of the units play well in singleplayer and multiplayer, but they also need to ensure they remain equally viable in both the semi-realistic Records mode and the completely crazy Romance mode.
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[Update #2]: Outriders has now been unleashed alongside a free demo!
[Update]: People Can Fly have released a lengthy gameplay preview for Outriders, and I'm afraid it's still looking a bit generic.
If you're in the mood for gunning down hordes of enemies and collecting equally large piles of loot, you might want to keep an eye on the newly announced Outriders. To put it simply, it is a co-op focused looter-shooter from the developers behind Bulletstorm, featuring four unique classes and plenty of different ways to customize your weapons and gear.
You can get a good idea of just what all of this looks like in terms of gameplay, as well as what the story is all about, through the two recently posted trailers. Have a gander, starting with the more story-focused reveal trailer:
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[Update]: Steam has now greatly improved the process of searching for games through keywords.
Back when I didn't have a lot of money to work with, whenever I got a brand new game I'd usually play it religiously for months on end. These days, with massive sales, various bundles and an overwhelming amount of quality games, I've started having a bit of a different problem. I just have no idea where to even begin with my ever-growing backlog of great games!
If you share my predicament, you might be glad to hear that Steam has now introduced a rather nifty new tool. To put it simply, it uses the same technology as Steam's recommend system to help you choose which game to play next, all based on what you've recently played and what type of games you tend to stick with.
- By Ash
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[Update]: The next giveaway has now arrived, bringing with it Assassin's Creed Syndicate and the card game Faeria.
If you have a good chunk of free time and a desire to sink your teeth into a nice RPG, you'll be glad to hear that Kingdom Come: Deliverance is now entirely free to grab! All you have to do is head on over to the Epic Games Store, log into your account or create a new one, and you'll soon be able to figure out just how useless you are in an actual sword fight!
As you're likely well aware by this point, there is also a time element to this giveaway. So if you're planning to grab Kingdom Come: Deliverance, make sure to do so before February 20th as that's when it'll be replaced by a brand new game.