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If you're looking for a couple of games that you can really sink your teeth into and spend a large amount of time with, you might want to check out the latest Humble "Stardock 2019" Bundle. As you might imagine from the name alone, the bundle features a variety of strategy games, each one of which is quite massive in scope.
You can find the full list of games, as well as the pricing tier they appear in, right below. Have a gander:
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[Update]: The PC version of Catherine has now suddenly arrived on Steam!
After the success of games like Bayonetta, Yakuza and Valkyria Chronicles on Steam, it appears that the puzzle-platformer Catherine will be transitioning from consoles to PC in the near future as well. Mind you, we still have no official confirmation, but given the teasers and leaks so far, it really does seem like it's just a matter of time before the veil of secrecy is lifted.
The first and most important clue is that Catherine's ESRB rating has recently been updated to include a PC version. If that isn't enough, you might also be interested to hear that Valkyria Chronicles 4 and Bayonetta have now posted pictures of sheep onto their Steam pages, which is quite significant given how prominently they feature in Catherine.
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[Update]: The balance update has now arrived, and it is pretty darn impressive! As for the surprise, it is a short story featuring Ana and Soldier 76, with a special guest appearance from Ana's fancy new Bastet skin!
Overwatch has been getting monthly balance updates for quite a long time now, and while there was a little bit of a break during the holiday season, you'll be glad to hear that things will be going back to normal next week. According to Jeff Kaplan on the official forums, the team is hoping to put a brand new patch onto the PTR next week, though there is still a chance things might get delayed if a major issue ends up popping up.
More interestingly, however, Jeff Kaplan has also announced that a "cool little surprise" will be coming next week as well. What exactly this surprise will be, nobody currently knows, but given that it will have patch notes on the PTR, I think it's safe to say it will be something gameplay related.
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[Update]: The game has been revealed as the mobile-only Alien: Blackout.
The classic sci-fi horror movie Alien will be celebrating its 40th anniversary this year, so it shouldn't come as much of a surprise to hear that the official Alien Twitter has now released a brief teaser for some of the upcoming projects. While the details are few and far between, it does appear that there is both a movie and a game currently in the works.
What exactly that game might be, nobody knows, but I can only hope it'll be a sequel to Alien: Isolation as that was a genuinely excellent game. That said, a co-op action game in the vein of Colonial Marines could also be a pretty fun one to mess around with. After all, the concept itself was fine, it's just that the execution was a bit... lacking.
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[Update #2]: The roguelike game mode has now also been canceled, but in its place Ritual of the Night is getting a highly customizable Randomizer mode.
[Update]: Bloodstained: Ritual of the Night has now been officially released and I'm glad to say it's received good reviews so far! Unfortunately, Mac and Linux versions still remain canceled.
Despite having an incredibly successful Kickstarter campaign back in 2015, the Castlevania inspired Bloodstained: Ritual of the Night has unfortunately ended up running into one problem after another. As such, it might not come as much of a surprise to hear that due to some compatibility issues the Mac and Linux versions have now been canceled.
"We have made this tough decision due to challenges of supporting middleware and online feature support and making sure we deliver on the rest of the scope for the game," reads the developer update. "We will be offering backers who planned to play the game on Mac and Linux the option to change the platform of their order."
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Back in July Valve shared the list of bestselling games from 2018, and much to my surprise, a good chunk of them were either indie games or games from relatively small studios. Since that list ended up receiving an overwhelmingly positive response, Valve has now gone a step further and released the list of top games across a variety of categories, and once again I am pleased to say that there's quite a few indies up there!
So if you're curious about what the bestselling games of the year are, as well as which new games have been the most successful, you should head on over to Steam. There's also a list of the best received VR games, Early Access releases that have seen the greatest success, and perhaps most importantly of all, a list showing which games have managed to captivate the largest amount of players.
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Monster Hunter: World devs have been going all-out with the crossover events these past few months, and while I'm usually not the biggest fan of the idea, I certainly can't complain about all of the new and vastly different armor sets that have been coming as a part of the deal. After all, it's not every day you get to dress up your Palico as Mega Man and yourself as Dante from Devil May Cry!
With that in mind, I'm sure it won't come as too much of a surprise to hear that Monster Hunter: World is now having a crossover event with Assassin's Creed. So if you're up for getting the new and fancy Assassin's Creed themed layered armor, as well as the new Assassin's Hood specialized tool, make sure to head on over to the Events section in order to get started.
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After spending nearly a year in Early Access, the oldschool action-platformer TY the Tasmanian Tiger 3 has now finally released in full. Much like its predecessors, I am glad to say that its time in Early Access has not been wasted given that it has arrived alongside 100% positive reviews on Steam! The sample size is a bit small right now, but given that both of the previous remasters hold a similar rating, it's almost certainly not just a fluke.
As far as improvements over the original game are concerned, the remaster has brought with it better visuals and audio quality, enhanced controls and camera movement, stable performance across the board, as well as support for HD resolutions and 60 FPS. The one complaint I have seen repeated frequently is that some of the driving sections are a bit troublesome to control with a keyboard, so if you have a gameplay laying around, it might be a good idea to play TY the Tasmanian Tiger 3 with it primarily.
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Fortnite's developer Epic Games recently decided to leverage their absolutely gigantic playerbase to create a seemingly serious competitor to Steam - the Epic Games Store. In order to get people to try it out, however, they have also announced that they will be giving away a new game every two weeks, all the way through 2019!
The first (and now long gone) game on the list was the always-excellent Subnautica, while the giveaway for the next two weeks will be the equally awesome Super Meat Boy. Simply head on over to the Epic Games Store, click on that giant "Free" button, and you'll be ready to start tearing your hair out due to the immensely high difficulty as soon as the brief download is complete.
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With video games already being swamped with microtransactions, season passes, battle passes and various other forms of monetization, there are very few things that can surprise me anymore. However, Capcom has recently managed to do just that given that they not only introduced advertising into Street Fighter V, but also plastered it all over the characters themselves, often ruining their entire style in the process.
While these advertisements were indeed optional, there were significant enough in-game rewards for using them that players ended up feeling stuck with them, regardless of their preference. Thankfully, the community outcry against these advertisements and their ill-fitting nature was so massive that Capcom has now pulled them out, though not without alluding that they will be returning in a different form at some point in the future.