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In a somewhat delayed celebration of the game's fifth anniversary, Sega and Relic Entertainment and currently giving away the World War 2 RTS Company of Heroes 2 for free. The offer will last until Monday, so if you're even remotely curious I would highly recommend you head on over to Steam and secure yourself a copy. There's no need to immediately install it either, so just add it to your account and you'll be good to go.
If you're wondering what exactly Company of Heroes 2 is about, as well as how well it has held up over the years, allow me to share with you one of the more recent trailers for the Master Collection. Have a peek:
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If you've been playing MTG Arena recently, you've probably realized that the ranking system has some rather major flaws. The amount of points you gain or lose seems completely random, there are no rewards or incentives to perform well, and perhaps most notably of all, the whole thing does absolutely nothing when it comes to the actual matchmaking.
With that in mind, you might be interested to hear that MTG Arena will finally be getting an actual ranking system, as well as more polished matchmaking, with the upcoming December 13th update. You'll find all of the details in the latest developer update right below, and don't worry, I'll also include my brief summary:
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After quite a few teasers and an endless parade of card previews, Hearthstone's newest expansion Rastakhan's Rumble has now arrived for both PC and mobile. It brings with it 135 new cards to collect, a Dungeon Run inspired singleplayer event to mess around with, a variety of new mechanics to explore, as well as a brand new keyword by the name of Overkill that gives you benefits whenever you deal more damage than an enemy has health.
You can get a pretty good idea of what all these new mechanics have to offer, as well as what the cards themselves are all about, by visiting the official list. But for now, allow me to share with you the recently posted and rather musical announcement video. Have a gander, the Hearthstone team really knows how to make a catchy trailer:
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Ever since it first launched, Fallout 76 has been a bit of a mixed bag, both in terms of gameplay, performance and bugginess. In order to correct this Bethesda has recently issued a major patch, but unfortunately it would appear that the update itself has followed the Fallout 76 formula a bit too closely given that it has arrived with some excellent balance changes and bug fixes, as well as with a bunch of unannounced nerfs to resource gathering and production.
For obvious reasons I can't give you an exact list of the unannounced changes, but you can get a pretty good idea of what has been tweaked over at the Fallout 76 Reddit. As for the actually announced changes and bug fixes, here's what the recent update has brought to the table:
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If you currently have more Overwatch coins than you know what to do with, you might be interested to hear that Blizzard has announced that the third annual Winter Wonderland event will begin next week. To be more specific, Winter Wonderland 2018 will run from December 11th to January 2nd across both PC and consoles.
You can expect to see festive versions of various maps (including the always lovely King's Row), all of the previous Winter Wonderland cosmetics and voice lines, the Yeti Hunt and Mei Snowball game modes, and naturally, a whole bunch of fancy new cosmetics. It's pretty much the same thing we've been getting every year, which is to be expected given that Blizzard has recently said their focus is less on events and more on adding new gameplay features like replays, demos, clans, and so forth.
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Battlefleet Gothic: Armada 2 is set to arrive this January 24th with all 12 playable factions from the tabletop version, as well as three distinct and narrative-driven campaigns. A pretty bold thing to do given that the original struggled with balancing half as many factions, but if nothing else, it will certainly make for a diverse and interesting gameplay experience!
Speaking of which, you can get a pretty good idea of what it takes to win in Battlefleet Gothic: Armada 2 by checking out the recently posted preview down below. The poor narrator appears to have been permitted exactly three breaths throughout the whole recording, but it's still a quite an interesting video. Have a gander:
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Like many publishers that came before them, THQ Nordic has recently started expanding quite rapidly, but unlike their competition they have done so by picking up mid-sized studios and long-forgotten IPs. Just this past year they've revived the Darksiders series, acquired Deep Silver and the rights to the Metro and Saints Row games, purchased rights to classic IPs like TimeSplitters and Kingdoms of Amalur, and the list goes on for quite a while.
With that in mind, I'm sure it won't come as too much of a shock to hear that THQ Nordic has now picked up yet another oldschool series - Carmageddon. What exactly they plan to do with it, THQ Nordic has not announced just yet, but I think its safe to say we'll be getting either a remaster or a brand new sequel at some point in the near future.
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[Update]: Mutant Year Zero's very first expansion Seed of Evil has now finally arrived.
Mutant Year Zero: Road to Eden is a newly released adaptation of the "Mutant" pen and paper RPG that has been milling around since the 1980s. The premise is about as simple as it gets - Humanity has managed to nuke itself into oblivion, thus leaving the planet populated only by killer robots, old-world ruins littered with supplies to scavenge, and naturally, a variety of mutated humans and animals.
When it comes to the actual gameplay, however, Mutant Year Zero is a combination of XCOM styled turn-based combat and real-time exploration, along with a bit of stealth thrown in for good measure. In other words, you're able to freely roam across the world and explore it at your own leisure, sneak away from problems or set up ambushes, and then when you inevitably raise fifteen different alarms, transition to good ol' fashioned turn-based combat.
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If you were wondering why Epic has never released Fortnite onto Steam, wonder no more as they have now announced their very own Epic Games Store. Perhaps most interestingly of all, Epic will only be taking 12% of the revenue (compared to Steam's 30%), and if the game is using the Unreal Engine they will also ignore the usual 5% royalty fee. A pretty damn good deal for the developers out there, especially considering there's no cost to having their game across multiple storefronts.
The Epic Games Store will also have the ability for developers to incentivize content creators on Youtube and Twitch by offering affiliate links with customizable revenue sharing. As an additional little bonus, Epic will be covering the first 5% of creator revenue-sharing for the first 24 months.
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[Update #2]: I have some bad news to deliver - The Settlers reboot has now been postponed due to negative beta feedback.
[Update]: After many delays, Ubisoft's big The Settlers reboot is launching on March 17, 2022.
While the last few The Settlers games were unfortunately flawed in some rather massive ways, I'm still quite pleased to announce that Ubisoft is not letting the series fade away into nothingness. Instead, for the 25th anniversary of The Settlers series, they have announced that a brand new game will be coming in late 2019!
Besides greatly improved visuals, the newly announced and rather plainly named "The Settlers" promises to bring a fresh take on the familiar gameplay mechanics, along with new features such as food requirements and motivation in order to help spice up the gameplay. As for the campaign, it will be fully playable in either singleplayer or co-op, and will have various side missions and bonus objectives to help you build up your empire.