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[Update]: Ana's Bastet skin has now arrived in-game, and it's entirely free to grab until January 21st!
It has been quite a while since we have received any sort of lore in Overwatch, which is why I am delighted to say that the devs have now released a short story by the name of Bastet. While Bastet won't tell you a lot about the future of Overwatch, it will give you a much deeper look at Ana and Soldier's characters, as well as a bit of a peek at some of the problems the organization has caused by attempting to singlehandedly police the world.
You can find the full story, as well as artwork showcasing Ana's upcoming Bastet skin, over at the official website. It's fairly short, as the name would suggest, so if you're even remotely interested in the Overwatch characters I would highly recommend you check it out. And if you need a bit of a teaser, let's just say that this short story has revealed Soldier 76 as Overwatch's second gay character (with Tracer being the first)!
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As you're most likely aware, Telltale Games closed down their doors back in September and filed for bankruptcy. This left the vast majority of Telltale's developers without a job, and the still-unfinished The Walking Dead: The Final Season without much hope of ever seeing a conclusion. Not exactly an ideal situation, I'm sure you'll agree.
This would usually be the unfortunate end of the story, but Skybound Games appeared pretty much out of nowhere, hired a good chunk of the developers, and promised to bring the fans and Clementine an ending worth waiting for. And to make things even better, it's also important to mention that the founder of Skybound Games is none other than Robert Kirkman - the writer behind The Walking Dead comic!
With that little bit of a history lesson now out of the way, I am very glad to announce that Episode 3 of Telltale's The Walking Dead: The Final Season will be arriving this January 15th. If you're wondering what the "Broken Toys" episode will be about, as well as whether the quality has remained the same, you'll find the answers you seek in the recently posted trailer. Have a gander:
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In anticipation of the series' 40th anniversary, the official Alien Twitter recently announced that there are multiple Alien projects in the works, including a brand new game. Given how excellent and successful Alien: Isolation was, I fully expected this unannounced game would either be a straight up sequel, or at the very least a spiritual successor. What I and many others could not have expected, however, was that the newly announced Alien: Blackout would be a mobile-only game!
Given the uproar about Diablo Immortal I fully expect this announcement will disappoint a great deal of people, but I have to admit I'm quite curious to see how they plan to make a horror game work on mobile. The genre relies almost entirely on atmosphere, sound design and a slowly-building tension in order to 'properly' terrify players, and that's not something you can really do on mobile devices where the player might be on the toilet or a crowded bus. So while I would certainly prefer Alien: Isolation 2, I can't help but wonder what the developers have up their sleeves for Alien: Blackout.
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Even though it's quite literally the very beginning of the year, we may have just received the most impactful Overwatch PTR update of 2019. Not only has the patch finally addressed the dominance of GOATs compositions (triple tank/triple support), but it has also fundamentally changed what makes extremely tank-heavy lineups so difficult to deal with.
The answer, as some of you may have guessed already, is to reduce armor's damage reduction from -5 to -3. A seemingly inconsequential change, but one that will make a lot of the currently mediocre DPS heroes significantly more viable against tanks, while not really buffing the powerful ones like Hanzo or Widowmaker. For example, Soldier 76 is expected to gain 16% more damage against tanks, which is quite significant when you consider the next change on the list, while someone like Hanzo is going to receive quite literally 2 extra damage. A pretty darn good change, and one that I have been looking forward to for years!
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Given the massive success of the Crash Bandicoot N. Sane Trilogy, it was only a matter of time before the team moved onto the other Crash games. And as you might imagine, the next one on the list is the downright amazing kart game Crash Team Racing!
The upcoming Crash Team Racing Nitro-Fueled will bring with it improved visuals and audio, support for modern resolutions, tighter controls, and naturally, all of the classic content. As an additional 'little' bonus, Nitro-Fueled will also be adding some new karts and tracks from beyond the original game, as well as the much-needed ability to test your driving skills against other players in online matches.
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[Update]: Quake Champions' Season 7 update has brought in a new map and a variety of cosmetic rewards
If you were thinking about giving Quake Champions a try, now would be a pretty good time to do so. Besides the usual batch of balance changes and optimizations tweaks, the most recent update has also added a new Capture the Flag game mode alongside its own map, as well as greatly reworked the progression system.
Rather than randomly unlock cosmetics through chests, you will now be able to directly purchase the items you want by using in-game currency. There is also a new Battle Pass system that offers a variety of daily and weekly challenges to help you earn currency, as well as a paid version that contains a couple of unique cosmetics. I haven't played Quake Champions in a while so I can't comment on how faster or slower these new changes have made item acquisition, but I can certainly appreciate the removal of loot boxes in favor of simply being able to work towards the items you want!
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Even though Battle for Azeroth's Tides of Vengance update arrived in early December, the expansion's second raid Battle for Dazar'alor is still not available. The reasoning behind this delay, as is tradition for World of Warcraft, is to give players plenty of time to enjoy the holiday season before having them spend hours upon hours trying to break through the newest batch of bosses.
The holiday season is now well and truly over, however, so you might be glad to hear that Battle for Dazar'alor raid will finally be unlocked this January 22nd for Normal and Heroic difficulties. Mythic difficulty will be arriving alongside the first Raid Finder Wing on January 29th, while the second and third Wings will become available on February 12th and 26th respectively.
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Continuing with the genre's tradition of crossovers, Jump Force is Bandai Namco's upcoming fighting game that will feature some of the most popular characters from a variety of manga (Japanese comics). You can expect to see the usual bunch of suspects from series like Dragon Ball and Naruto, as well as some less frequently seen ones like Yugi from Yu-Gi-Oh or Light from Death Note, though unfortunately it appears that Light will only be there for the story mode.
If you prefer to create your very own characters, however, you might be glad to hear that Jump Force will also have a seemingly extensive custom character creation system. You can get a bit of an idea of what this will look like, as well as what the overall story will be about, by checking out the recently posted trailer. Have a gander:
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If you're looking to pick up a couple of slightly older games at a steep discount, you might want to check out January's Humble Monthly bundle. It currently offers instant access to The Division and Yakuza 0 at a $12 price tag, with a bunch of other games coming in as a little bonus on February 1st.
I won't pretend I'm a big fan of either game as they're simply not my kind of thing, but they are still pretty darn good games. Even The Division, Ubisoft's open-world shooter that launched with somewhat mixed reviews, has slowly but surely managed to transform itself into something quite entertaining. So if you have even a bit of interest in the two games, for $12 I do believe they are well worth checking out.
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[Update]: The Hitman HD Enhanced Collection has now arrived, though only on PlayStation and Xbox.
We're still in January, and this is already shaping up to be a pretty darn good year for the Hitman series. The reason I say this is because one of the best Hitman games out there, Hitman: Bloody Money, will be getting a HD remaster this January 11th as a part of the Hitman HD Enhanced Collection, which also includes an HD remaster of Hitman: Absolution.
As you would expect from any modern remaster, the Hitman HD Enhanced Collection will support resolutions up to 4K, run at 60 FPS, as well as bring with it significantly improved lighting and spruced up visuals. Perhaps most importantly of all, especially when it comes to Hitman: Bloody Money, the HD Enhanced Collection will also update the controls in order to make the whole experience a lot less clunky!