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Crusader Kings 2 devs have recently announced a plethora of upgrades and improvements to the crusade system, changes that are now starting to appear even more impactful given that the newly revealed Holy Fury DLC is aiming to expand upon the system even further. Besides deeper gameplay for the crusades themselves, the Holy Fury DLC will also add a much more interesting progression system for Pagans, a whole bunch of changes to religion, as well as bonuses for descendants of "legendary" figures like Charlemagne and Genghis Khan.
Perhaps most interestingly of all, at least as far as my playstyle is concerned, Holy Fury will also add the ability to start on a completely fictional and randomized map of Europe. The landmass is unfortunately going to be exactly the same, but all of the factions and their starting 'powers' will be swapped around, which should provide some rather interesting gameplay opportunities!
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The Elder Scrolls Online's upcoming expansion will be shifting the action to Summerset, the ancient home of the High Elves and an area we have not been able to journey to since the very first and very old Elder Scrolls game. You can expect to see a variety of new and detailed zones to explore, a whole bunch of new storylines to unravel and enemy factions to thwart, the ability to join the mysterious Psijic order in order to learn new abilities, and naturally, a variety of public dungeons, delves, bosses and group content to tackle.
While the newly posted cinematic trailer won't tell you much about the gameplay, it will at least give you a sneak peek of some of the areas you'll get to explore, as well as the figures you'll be meeting along the way. Have a look, and make sure to pay attention to the backgrounds as there are quite a few intriguing individuals shown throughout the trailer:
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As I've mentioned in my review, Divinity: Original Sin 2 is a pretty darn good game, so good in fact that I called it "one of the best RPGs I have played in quite a few years." While I continue to stand by all of that, even I have to admit that Divinity: Original Sin 2 has quite a few little annoyances sprinkled throughout its lengthy campaign, especially once you start heading towards the end-game.
With that in mind, I am now very glad to announce that much like its predecessor, Divinity: Original Sin 2 will be getting a Definitive Edition! The exact release date hasn't been revealed just yet, but you can expect to see it this August with a whole bunch of improvements in tow. I'm talking about things such as extensive dialogue rewrites, greatly improved quests and characters, a redesigned journal, a brand new party-wide inventory option, as well as the much-requested ability to mark stuff on the map.
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Tomorrow, on May 22nd, Stellaris will be getting another major Story Pack - Distant Stars. As you might predict from the name alone, Distant Stars will be a discovery and exploration themed DLC that will have you venture into the deepest and darkest corners of space in order to search for anomalies, delve through ruins of long-forgotten civlizations, and maybe even befriend gigantic, space-faring 'critters'.
If you're curious about how all of this translates into actual gameplay, allow me to share with you the recently posted 'Feature Breakdown' video. It'll give you a pretty good idea of what the Distant Stars DLC is all about, and whether it's something you should be excited about or not. Have a gander:
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[Update] The patch is now live. You can find the full patch notes, as well as more about the accompanying "The Queen and the Crone" DLC over here.
Total War: Warhammer 2's Queen and the Crone DLC will be coming on May 31st, bringing with it a whole bunch of new content to play around with. You'll find a brief rundown of the accompanying patch and its changes over here, but as far as the DLC itself is concerned, you can expect to see two new Legendary Lords with unique campaign mechanics, a new Hero for the High Elves and a Lord for the Dark Elves, as well as a whole host of new units and Regiments of Renown.
Since trying to showcase all of this through words alone tends to be a bit difficult, Creative Assembly has now released a rather lengthy campaign preview showing off the Queen & Crone DLC in action. There are unfortunately no battles on display, but you should still get a pretty good idea of what to expect. Have a gander:
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It's fairly common for games to get delayed, especially when we're talking about massive, multi-platform projects. What doesn't happen even remotely as often, however, is that a game's release date gets pushed forward, yet this is exactly what's currently happening with the Crash Bandicoot N. Sane Trilogy.
According to a recent developer update, the N. Sane Trilogy will be coming to PC, Xbox One and Nintendo Switch nearly two weeks early, or on July 10th to be specific. A relatively minor shift in the grand scheme of things, but it's always good to see projects go so smoothly the developers are fully confident in releasing them early. What the end result is going to be like, I have no idea, but I must admit I'm looking towards the PC version with even more enthusiasm now.
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[Update]: Stalker 2: Heart of Chernobyl has been pushed back seven months, all the way to December 8, 2022.
Stalker 2 was originally revealed all the way back in 2010, but unfortunately it didn't get far in development before the whole project and the studio behind it fell apart. GSC Game World eventually came back, but nothing ever rose out of Stalker 2's ashes.
With that in mind, I am quite happy to announce that Stalker 2 is now officially in development once more! We're most likely going to have to wait until 2021 for it to actually release, but at the very least we now know that the cult classic series is not going to simply fade away.
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[Update]: The Anniversary update has now arrived. You can learn more over here.
Overwatch's second anniversary update is set to arrive this May 22nd, bringing with it an absolute ton of cosmetics to collect and brawls to undertake. Not only will it feature a variety of new skins and voice lines, but all of the previous seasonal items and brawls will be making a reappearance as well. So if you've missed any of the previous events, or if you didn't have enough currency to purchase the skin you wanted, you will soon have another chance at it!
As far as the new skins are concerned, Blizzard was planning to reveal most of them during half-time breaks in the Overwatch League, but unfortunately for them all of the skins have now ended up being leaked through Reddit. So if you don't mind a little bit of a spoiler, allow me to show you what sort of cosmetics the upcoming anniversary update will bring to the table. The quality isn't exactly the greatest, but you should still be able to get the general idea behind each skin. Have a gander:
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As you're probably well aware at this point, Shadow of War is a rather well made game that's unfortunately mired by some of the most ridiculous microtransactions around. Thankfully, those microtransactions will soon be entirely removed, and the grind they totally didn't cause will end up being lessened as well. It may have taken quite a while, but Shadow of War will soon become the sequel Shadow of Mordor truly deserved.
So if you would like to give Shadow of War a try and see if its even the sort of game you'd like to play with or without microtransactions, you might interested to hear that it's currently completely free to try out on Steam. I'm unfortunately a bit late with this announcement so you only have about 20 hours to go, but that should be plenty of time to make up your mind about Shadow of War.
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Vermintide 2's most recent and rather massive Update 1.0.8 brought with it a variety of bug fixes, balance changes, performance improvements, as well as tweaks to map geometry in order to prevent enemies from shooting through terrain. While all of that was and still is pretty darn good, the update unfortunately also brought with it some absolutely crushing nerfs to Kerillian's Shade career and Kruber's Executioner Greatsword.
With that last part in mind, I am very glad to announce that those changes were apparently a result of a bug, and as such have now been reverted! Not only that, but the Shade's somewhat lacking Dual Daggers have now been buffed even further, thus making them into the ultimate boss-killing weapon. They're still fairly mediocre against hordes, but at least now they have a considerable upside that might convince you to take them over the Dual Swords or Glaive.