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After being teased for a couple of weeks now, Hearthstone's long-awaited and much-needed balance changes have now arrived. The intent behind all of these tweaks, as you might imagine, is to tone down some of the most oppressive decks currently in Standard and Wild, as well as hopefully ensure that more cards from The Witchwood expansion get to finally see the light of day.
With this in mind, it shouldn't come as too much of a surprise to hear that Naga Sea Witch, Spiteful Summoner, Call to Arms, Possessed Lackey, and similar cards have ended up being the ones on the chopping block. However, unlike some of Blizzard's previous and rather questionable balance changes, I am very glad to say that these ones are actually quite reasonable and that it's likely these cards will still see some play! But enough babble from me, here's the full list of changes:
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RuneScape devs have now announced that RuneScape Classic, the very first version of RuneScape that released all the way back in 2001, will be shutting down on the 6th of August. Before anyone starts panicking, allow me to just mention that the shutdown will have absolutely no ramifications on Old School RuneScape (OSRS) - that will continue onward as planned.
"With advancements in technology helping to further support both RuneScape and Old School RuneScape, our tools are no longer compatible with Classic," reads the brief announcement. "This is particularly a problem with our community safety and macro detection tools. The game is now easily abused with the use of 3rd party macro tools, and botting has become an increasing issue."
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Vermintide 2's recent 1.0.8 update bought with it a whole bunch of interesting changes that greatly expanded the amount of viable weapons, but unfortunately the update also buffed Kruber's Huntsman specialization so much it could practically triple-tap bosses. As such, it really shouldn't come as much of a surprise to hear that the latest update has significantly toned down the Huntsman's boss damage.
The update has also made it so the Ranger Veteran and Shade ultimates no longer guarantee ranged critical strikes, which should both reduce their boss damage and limit the amount of ammo they can regenerate by firing into hordes. I'm not exactly sure this change was necessary, but I doubt either of the careers will be heavily impacted by it since they have plenty of other strengths to rely on.
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After being teased for a little while now, Stellaris's major Story Pack "Distant Stars" has now finally been released. As its name would imply, Distant Stars is a discovery and exploration focused DLC that will have you venture into the darkest corners of space in search of mysterious anomalies, ruins of long-forgotten civilizations, and even signs of absolutely gigantic space-faring creatures.
Since all of this doesn't exactly tell you what to expect in terms of gameplay, allow me to show you the recently posted Feature Breakdown dev video. It should give you a pretty darn good idea of what Distant Stars brings to the table and whether its something you might be interested in. Have a look:
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The Elder Scrolls Online's next expansion will be coming this June 5th, bringing with it the ability to finally explore a land we've only been able to visit in the very first Elder Scrolls game - Summerset! Besides exploring the High Elf homeland, the Summerset expansion will also allow you to learn new abilities from the ancient Psijic order, resolve a whole bunch of storylines that have been going on for years, craft your own incredibly powerful jewelry, and naturally, conquer delves, various public dungeons, world bosses, and other such group content.
If all of this sounds like something you would love to toy around with, you'll be glad to hear that the Early Access phase for the Summerset expansion has now begun. The catch, as you might expect, is that you will need to pre-purchase the PC version in order to explore Summerset ahead of the general public. If you play on the console version, however, I'm afraid you'll have to wait until launch to roam across Summerset, regardless if you pre-order or not.
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It is said that if a series goes on for long enough, it will eventually head into space. Apparently, this little 'rule' also applies to Age of Wonders as Triumph Studios have just announced Age of Wonders: Planetfall - a seemingly complex turn-based strategy game set in a newly created sci-fi universe!
As you might expect from an Age of Wonders game, Planetfall will have you explore and conquer this new land in a variety of ways, all depending on your type of playstyle. You can try and simply conquer all of the other factions, you can build up a massive empire and slowly advance your way to utopia, you can be a master diplomat and forge alliances with all of your neighbors, or you can just create a doomsday weapon and obliterate pretty much half of the planet.
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Total War: Thrones of Britannia has just recently launched on PC, and almost immediately it created a divide in the community. You see, while Thrones of Britannia brought a whole bunch of improvements and new ideas into the Total War series, it also took out a few of the series mainstays and attempted to simplify some aspects of gameplay. The end result is a rather peculiar game, one that is by no means bad, but unfortunately just a bit unfocused right now.
If you don't mind taking a little bit of risk with it, however, you'll be glad to hear that Thrones of Britannia will be coming to macOS this May 24th. As is tradition these past few years, the port will be handled by Feral Interactive, the team that has worked on both the macOS and Linux versions of Total War: Warhammer 1 and 2. So far their ports have been pretty solid, so I think it's fair to say the upcoming macOS one will be as well.
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Space Hulk: Deathwing had a lot of potential behind it, but unfortunately it launched with a whole bunch of bugs and gameplay problems, problems that just made it feel far too underwhelming. With that in mind, I am now delighted to say that the developers have finally released an Enhanced Edition on both PC and PS4, bringing with it solutions to many of the community's complaints.
What this means in gameplay terms is that the Enhanced Edition has introduced a variety of new weapons, the Chaplain as a new playable class, new enemy types and the "highly-replayable" Special Missions mode, as well as the ability to go in-depth with class customization. Perhaps most importantly, all of these features have been added to the PC version for free, while also serving as base content for the newly launched PS4 version!
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While it's unfortunately not as relevant these days as it was in the olden times, I am still happy to announce that the Unreal series is now celebrating its 20th birthday. And what better way to celebrate such a momentous occasion than by giving everyone a chance to play the game that started it all - the original Unreal!
So if you're up for a blast from the past, simply head on over to GOG or Steam in order to claim a free copy of Unreal Gold. The promotion will only last for another ~40 hours, so if you're interested make sure to pick up your copy as soon as possible.
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After being teased for a little while now, the Overwatch Anniversary 2018 update has finally made its way to the live servers. It has brought with it a variety of new cosmetics to collect, as well as all of the previous seasonable brawls and skins, so if you've missed out on any of the past events, now is your chance to catch up!
Since trying to describe these new cosmetics through words alone is a bit of a pointless task, allow me to share with you the recently posted trailer. It's one of the best edited non-cinematic videos the Overwatch team has posted so far, especially when it comes to how the music syncs up with the action, so I'd definitely recommend you give it a look. Here's the video: