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[Update #2]: The next round of nerfs has hit Widowmaker, Brigitte and Wrecking Ball, while Symmetra recieved a small buff.
[Update]: Blizzard has now announced significantly faster balance changes and weekly hero bans in order to keep Overwatch fresh and interesting for years to come.
Blizzard recently promised that they would be releasing more frequent balance updates for Overwatch throughout 2020, and so far they have done an admirable job! Barely any time has past since the previous update, and already a new one has landed with yet another dose of nerfs.
As you might imagine given how omnipresent they are, Hanzo, Orisa, Sigma and Baptiste have received some much needed power reductions. Unfortunately, the 250HP McCree with a slower firing gun has remained on the PTR, but hopefully we'll get that in the near future as the poor cowboy really needs some help to stay alive in the current meta. That's a story for another time, however, so allow me to instead share with you all of the newly added balance tweaks:
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[Update]: The next update, Visions of the Past, has brought back four long-lost Season 1 story missions!
While I would prefer a proper expansion at this point, ArenaNet is at least being quite consistent with the Living World story updates. It's only been a little while since the Whisper in the Dark released, and already the second episode of the Icebrood Saga is now upon us - Shadow in the Ice.
Expect to see a brand new storyline focused around Braham and his desire to prove himself to the spirits, a large new area to roam across, as well as new mastery traits to acquire which will help you further explore the frigid North. There are also a bunch of fancy new weapons to acquire, a ceremonial raven armor to adorn yourself with, and naturally, a whole bunch of achievements and challenges to undertake for even more cosmetic goodies.
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[Update]: Warcraft 3: Reforged devs have now released a lengthy blog post addressing some of the community concerns.
With the beta test now well and truly over, Warcraft 3: Reforged has now finally been released in full. It brings with it a variety of remastered character models and textures, improved online connectivity and matchmaking, a couple of minor changes to the campaign, and most importantly of all, a whole bunch of balance tweaks for all the races.
If you're wondering what this might look like in gameplay terms, as well as how the cinematics have fared after some minor improvements, you'll find your answers in the recently posted launch trailer. Have a gander:
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If you're sick and tired of the endless winter that permeates all of Frostpunk and you're looking for a bit of a change in scenery, you might be glad to hear that the prequel expansion The Last Autumn has now arrived. It tells the story of Site 113 and their struggles to construct a powerful generator before the endless winter encroaches upon them, which in gameplay terms means you'll have a brand new set of challenges to overcome, as well as plenty of difficult choices to make along the way.
You can get a bit of an idea of what to expect, as well as further delve into the story, through one of the recently posted trailers. Have a peek:
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While Yooka-Laylee was heavily inspired by 3D collectathons like Banjo-Kazooie, Yooka-Laylee and the Impossible Lair chose to go in a bit of a different direction by taking inspiration from 2.5D action-platformers like the Donkey Kong series. If that sort of gameplay style sounds like something you'd love to dive headfirst into, you'll be glad to hear that the Impossible Lair now has a free demo available on PC.
All you have to do is head on over to Steam, click on the "Download Demo" button on the right side, and you'll be good to go after a brief download. In terms of content, the demo offers a "slick selection of 2D levels," as well as a variety of game-changing tonics to help spice things up once you've completed all of the available maps. Perhaps most importantly, your progress throughout the demo will carry over the the full version, so don't be afraid to check it out even if you're already planning to buy the Impossible Lair.
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[Update]: The second of the new map trilogy, Blood in the Darkness, is set to arrive mid-February as a free update.
The original way to acquire cosmetic hats in Vermintide 2 has been nothing short of a disaster. Not only could you not aim for a specific hat you were interested in, but the actual drop chance was so low you could play for hundreds of hours and never get the one you liked. For me it took nearly 300 hours of opening chests only on Kerillian before I finally got the golden Shade mask, and even that can be considered lucky as there were quite a few other hats still left in the pool.
With that in mind, I hope you can imagine just how happy I am to say that there is now a much more reasonable way of acquiring cosmetics in Vermintide 2. By simply completing daily and weekly quests you can earn in-game currency, which can then be used to directly purchase the cosmetics you want. It'll take you a week or two for each piece, but it's still something you can slowly but surely work towards, which makes the whole system both more satisfying and fun to mess around with.
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[Update]: Blizzard has now announced significantly faster balance changes and weekly hero bans in order to keep Overwatch fresh and interesting for years to come.
According to multiple developer comments, Overwatch will soon be getting a major new feature. What exactly this feature will be, nobody outside of Blizzard currently knows, but its goal will be to ensure that no team composition remains dominant for long periods of time, as well as to make the overall gameplay feel fresh and interesting again.
As you might imagine from that description alone, a good chunk of the community immediately assumed that Overwatch will be getting hero bans like Dota 2 or League of Legends. However, in a uncharacteristically fast response, Blizzard have now come out to say that they have indeed considered adding hero bans, but have opted against the idea due some of its downsides.
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[Update]: New and improved Disco Elysium - The Final Cut has now landed onto PC and consoles.
If you've already beaten Disco Elysium and you're looking for some way to spice up your second playthrough, you'll be glad to hear that the recent update has added a hardcore difficulty mode. As the name itself would suggest, hardcore mode will make it so everything is significantly more difficult to accomplish, while failing in a spectacular fashion will be easier than ever.
In other words, the difficulty of every skill check will be going up, while the amount of money you'll be able to scrounge up will be noticeably lower. If that wasn't bad enough, the price of pharmaceuticals will also be increasing, while their healing effects won't be nearly as potent.
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Wasteland released all the way back in the ancient days of 1988 and has been considered a bit of a classic ever since. However, while it holds an important place in the history of RPGs, actually playing through it these days is a bit of a chore due to the clunky controls and messy UI.
Thankfully, this won't be the case for long as the upcoming Wasteland Remastered is looking to heavily improve upon the original. Expect to see brand new graphics, audio and music, as well as new artwork and all of the storylines from the physical book that came alongside the original Wasteland. Perhaps most importantly of all, Wasteland Remastered will feature a modernized UI which should make actually playing the game significantly more pleasant!
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[Update]: Ys IX: Monstrum Nox is heading to PC and Switch on July 6, 2021.
To say that Ys VIII: Lacrimosa of DANA had quite a few issues when it first launched back in 2018 would be a major understatement. No matter what I tried, no matter how many patches got released, Ys VIII would simply crash after the tutorial and delete my save file. So after dozens and dozens of attempts at getting it to work, I eventually just accepted that it'll forever remain as an unplayable tease in my Steam Library.
As such, you can imagine my surprise when Ys VIII got updated out of nowhere with better visuals, an experimental co-op mode, and most importantly of all, fixes for the gamebreaking crashes! Now, instead of crashing over and over again after the tutorial section, Ys VIII runs as smooth as silk all the way through. I can't say I expected this would happen, especially not years after the original release, but I am more than pleased to finally be able to give it a proper playthrough!