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Vampyr is an upcoming vampire themed RPG from Dontnod, the studio behind the wildly popular Life is Strange. It's set to arrive this June 5th, bringing with it a story focused around a noble doctor that's trying to prevent a deadly plague from sweeping through London, a doctor that's also wrestling with a vampiric curse that forces him to feed on those he's trying so desperately to save.
While in-game you will have plenty of ways to choose your own destiny, the latest preview video shows off what happens when the good doctor fully embraces his bloodthirsty nature. So if you're up for seeing what Vampyr looks like in action, as well as get a couple of hints about the overall story, you'll find the video right below. Have a gander:
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Battletech launched on April 24th alongside some highly favorable reviews, though unfortunately with a whole bunch of bugs and issues as well. With that in mind, you'll be glad to hear that Harebrained Schemes have now announced their plans for future content and updates, a good portion of which is dedicated to various bug fixes.
The first thing on the list are solutions for critical problems, mostly for the crashes that come as a result of hardware/system compatibility issues. There is currently no release date set for these fixes, but Harebrained Schemes have said that they will be put onto the test servers as soon as they are available. As far as general bug fixes and improvements are concerned, there will be a major update later this month with a whole bunch of unannounced changes.
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If you're a fan of strategy games but you've somehow managed to avoid playing XCOM 2, you might be interested to hear that it's currently having a free weekend. Simply head on over to Steam, click that green "Play Game" button, and you'll be blasting away aliens in no time. That said, you might want to hurry as the free weekend will only last until Monday, May 7th!
As for whether XCOM 2 is actually worth your time, I would say the answer is a definite yes. While it does have some annoying flaws, mostly with how randomness can completely ruin your missions, it's still one the most enjoyable turn-based strategy games out there. So if you're a fan of the genre and you don't mind losing a couple of days constantly trying to finish "just one more mission", I would fully recommend giving XCOM 2 a try. After all, it's completely free for the time being!
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The Humble Monthly is a $12 subscription service that instantly gives you access to one game, and then a whole bunch more once the next month rolls over. The quality of the bonus games tends to be all over the place, so if you do decide to grab it, make sure it's mostly because of the featured game/s. Last time around the featured games weren't anything too special, which is why I'm very glad to say that this month has brought with it a rather significant upgrade - Destiny 2!
While Destiny 2's endgame and DLC policy leave a lot to be desired, for $12 I can't help but recommend it to just about anyone. This goes doubly so if you have a friend that's willing to play it through with you, even if you don't plan on doing any of the super-serious endgame content. The basic missions alone will keep you entertained for dozens upon dozens of hours, and for $12 you really can't do much better.
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It has only been a couple of days since Brigitte became available in Overwatch's competitive mode, and already Blizzard is looking to bring her power level down. On the newly launched PTR patch the maximum armor her ultimate ability Rally can give to each player has been reduced from 150 to 100, though the Overwatch team is also considering slowing down her Shield Charge cooldown from 5 to 6 seconds. The latter change has not yet been implemented, however, so don't be surprised if Blizzard decides to go in some other direction with Brigitte.
On a slightly different note, I'm sure you'll be glad to hear that everyone's favorite sniper-grandma Ana is getting some much needed love! First and foremost, on the PTR patch she has the ability to shoot through teammates with full HP, which means the amount of reliable healing she can put out in hectic teamfights is going to go up considerably. In order to further improve this aspect of Ana, the upcoming patch will also increase her magazine size from 10 to 14, which again, should go a long way towards making her more reliable.
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If you ever wanted to give For Honor a try and see what it's all about, now would be the ideal time to do so. Not only has Ubisoft recently added a highly useful tutorial and practice mode, but For Honor itself is also currently completely free to play!
All you need to do is head on over to the official website, choose the platform of your choice, and you'll be beating down vikings in no time. Speaking of which, this free weekend will only last until Monday, so do make sure to dive in as soon as possible.
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[Update]: Patch 1.0.8 has now arrived to the live servers. You can find out more by heading over here.
As promised during last week's update, Vermintide 2's absolutely gigantic Patch 1.0.8 has now made its way to the beta servers. It brings with it noticeable improvements to performance across the board, significant changes to level geometry in order to prevent enemies from shooting through walls, the much-needed ability to adjust the light adaptation system, a plethora of bug fixes, and just as a little bonus, some rather nice hero buffs as well. The only downside is that the patch is gigantic in more ways than one, by which I mean it's around ~20GB in size!
You can find the full list of changes, as well as brief developer explanations, by heading over to Steam. If you don't feel like browsing through all of those changes, however, allow me to list out what I feel are some of the most important ones. The list is still a little bit on the hefty side, but I don't think I can cut it down any more without losing out on important information. Anyway, have a gander:
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Unlike the usual Total War game that span large stretches of land and equally gigantic time periods, the newly released Total War Saga: Thrones of Britannia offers a much more detailed look at the events and battles that took place shortly after the English king Alfred the Great halted the Viking invasion in 878 AD. In gameplay terms this means you can expect to see the most intricate map the series has seen so far, a variety of factions that borrow heavily from real history, as well as a plethora of improvements to the politics & intrigue system in order to better emulate the time period.
Since trying to explain all of this through words alone is a bit of a pointless task, allow me to share with you one of the recent developer previews starring the Kingdom of Mierce. In my campaign the poor buggers survived only 10 turns, but thankfully the ones in the video will be alive for long enough to show you what Thrones of Britannia is all about. Have a look:
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After spending a little over a week on the PTR, the new Escort map Rialto has now finally made its way to the live servers alongside the much-anticipated Hanzo rework. The endlessly annoying Scatter Arrow has been completely replaced by a new rapid fire ability, while Hanzo's somewhat dreadful mobility has been significantly enhanced with a new short-ranged leap. Whether these changes are a bit too excessive, that still remains to be seen, but what I can tell you right now is that the new Hanzo is ridiculously fun to play!
As far as Rialto is concerned, it would probably be for the best if I just shared with you the recently posted trailer. It won't exactly tell you how to navigate across the map, but it will at least show you some of the prettiest and most interesting locations. Have a gander:
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Overwatch's Scott Mercer went to the official forums earlier today in order to discuss what Blizzard is doing to make Overwatch a friendlier and more competitive place. Perhaps most importantly, he also announced some rather significant changes to how punishment will be dished out, especially for players with a history of abusive behavior.
"We’ve also made some changes to how we penalize repeat offenders for abusive chat. Repeat offenders used to be penalized with a silence, restricted from communicating with other players in the game, with each subsequent infraction incurring a longer silence duration," explained Mercer. "We’ve changed this so repeat offenders can now be suspended, and therefore unable to play Overwatch, for longer and longer durations. If someone continues to use abusive chat even after being warned, silenced, and suspended enough times, they’ve proven they do not want to be a positive member of the Overwatch community and will be permanently banned from playing Overwatch."