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After spending a little while on the test servers, Vermintide 2's Update 1.0.5 has now arrived alongside some major changes. First and foremost, all weapons have had their cleave tweaked in order to give them a more defined role within a team, while all of the enemies have been made more resistant to staggering, with the effect being the most pronounced on the heavily armored Chaos Warriors. The goal behind these changes is to promote a greater variety among the classes and weapons, as well as shift the overall focus towards close quarters combat.
Since nerfs alone wouldn't exactly be fun, I'm glad to say Fatshark has dished out a whole bunch of buffs to all of the underperforming classes as well. So now the Shade can use her ultimate twice as fast, the Slayer and Zealot are a lot more resistant to damage, while the Huntsman and Handmaiden have received some rather lovely buffs to their talents. Whether all of this is going to be enough to make each class equally viable, I can't really say for sure, but it's certainly a step in the right direction.
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It would appear that Ubisoft's renewed focus on player-generated content and long-term support is really starting to pay off. Assassin's Creed Origins launch back in October to some immense success, while according to the latest announcement Far Cry 5 has more than doubled the first week sales of Far Cry 4 and now represents the second biggest launch ever for a Ubisoft game.
"I'm proud that the culmination of years of passionate work from the team is paying off, and that Far Cry 5's experience resonates with so many people," said Dan Hay, Executive Producer on Far Cry. "We are humbled by players' reception of Far Cry 5 and fired up to keep growing and supporting the Far Cry community in the months and years to come."
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While the series eventually met its end at the hands of the completely mediocre Red Faction: Armageddon, the previously released Red Faction: Guerrilla was a pretty darn enjoyable game given that it allowed you to demolish just about everything in your sights. As such, you might be interested to hear that THQ Nordic has now announced that they are working on a remaster, or rather the 'Re-Mars-tered' Edition.
You can expect to see fully reworked graphics with greatly upgraded textures, as well as various graphical additions like specular maps (it defines the shininess of a surface). The remaster will also feature improved shadow rendering and lighting, a rework of how the shader and postprocessing work, as well as support for all sorts of modern resolutions (including 4K).
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The Humble Monthly is a $12 subscription service that instantly gives you access to one game (or in this case three), and then a whole bunch more once the month's version rolls around. Last time the featured game was the truly excellent Dark Souls 3, while this time you're looking at combination of Deus Ex: Mankind Divided, God Eater 2 Rage Burst, as well as Mafia 3 and its Sign of the Times DLC.
While I have some major issues with all three games, for $12 I would say they are most definitely worth grabbing. This goes doubly so when you consider you'll be getting the bonus games in a couple of days as well. Speaking of which, this Humble Monthly will only be around for another ~31 hours, so if you're interested you might want to hurry up, lest you find yourself arriving too late.
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After teasing it's reveal for a few days now, Blizzard has finally announced that Overwatch's April 10th update will bring with it last year's Uprising PvE mission, as well as a brand new one - Retribution. As people have successfully predicted, Retribution will have us play as the clandestine Blackwatch team (Genji, McCree, Reaper and Moira) in a mission that went so wrong it started Overwatch's downfall.
If you're wondering what all of this looks like in gameplay terms, allow me to share with you the recently posted trailer. It's not exactly a very long video, but it sure an exciting one! Have a look:
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Breakway is (or rather was) a rather peculiar combination of elements from MOBA games, traditional sports, and seemingly even Rocket League. What this means in gameplay terms is that two teams of four players need to move the ball to their opponent's goal in order to score points, all the while beating the ever-living daylight out of each other.
If that sounds like an interesting concept to you, I'm afraid I bring some bad news. In a brief post on Reddit, Amazon Games Studios announced that Breakaway is no longer under active development as it just didn't manage to achieve the kind of success the team was looking for.
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This War of Mine is one of rare few games that successfully showcase the ugly and miserable side of war. You don't play as an elite soldier armed with the very best weaponry, but rather as a group of civilians constantly struggling with a lack of food, medicine, and supplies in general. And since you can't take bullets to the chin and regenerate by eating a bit of canned ham, there is a genuine risk to every decision you make, which is one of the main reasons why This War of Mine wound up being so compelling to me.
If all of this sounds like something you would like to experience yourself, you'll be glad to hear that This War of Mine is currently completely free on Steam. The offer will only last for another four days, so make sure to give it a look as soon as you can, lest you find yourself out of luck.
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Ubisoft has recently started introducing more and more ways for players to customize their own gameplay experience, and that is something I am definitely in favor of. While in the newly released Far Cry 5 this is accomplished through a comprehensive Map Editor, in Assassin's Creed Origins this freedom will soon manifest itself through the Animus Control Panel - a set of parameters you'll be able to tweak in order to drastically alter the gameplay.
Ever wanted to roleplay a beastmaster and fight alongside a horde of wild animals? You can do so. Do you want to go full-on realistic and make it so both you and your enemies die in one hit? Not a problem. Would you instead prefer if the enemies were super-perceptive and much trickier to stealth kill? Again, you can do so! In total there will be 75 different parameters across 11 categories to fiddle with, so no matter your preference you'll be able to twist the game world to your liking.
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While the previous few Humble Bundles had some sort of theme or genre connecting all of the games, this time around it is simply quality that groups them together. As such, you can head on over to Humble Indie Bundle 19 in order to grab games like SOMA, Superhot, Poly Bridge and more.
You can find the full list of games, as well as the pricing tier they appear in, in the brief list right below. Have a look:
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After being available on PlayStation VR for a little while now, Skyrim VR has finally made its way to PC as well. In terms of platforms, it features full support for the Oculus Rift, HTC Vive and Microsoft Mixed Reality, which probably means it'll work on just about any major VR headset as long as you're willing to fiddle with it.
Unlike the original launch of Fallout 4 VR, I am very glad to say that the PC version of Skyrim VR has arrived without seemingly any game-breaking issues. Since it is a Bethesda game we're talking about, Skyrim VR is naturally riddled with bugs and minor annoyances, some of which are a bit more severe now that they're directly in your face, but it's nothing you can't overcome through a bit of perseverance. Whether it's actually worth the €60 asking price though, that's something you'll have to decide for yourself.