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Before you start screaming and running away because I'm going to talk about yet another open-world zombie survival game, it is worth mentioning that State of Decay 2 does things quite differently from the rest of the genre. Instead of playing as one overpowered character that only needs to worry about occasionally snacking on sandwiches that magically appear in cupboards, in State of Decay 2 you will essentially be playing as an entire community, with all of the benefits and vulnerabilities that come with such an arrangement.
Each of your survivors is their own person with a mixture of skills, attitudes and interests that determine what they can do, what they want to do, and how far they're willing to go in order to do it. More importantly, each of the survivors can get hurt and tired, so in order to truly prosper you will need to find a way to make the most out of what you have, even if that sometimes means taking massive risks and potentially losing some of your people. It is a concept that worked great in the original State of Decay, so here's to hoping it'll work even better in the sequel!
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After the extremely well-received Pillars of Eternity, Obsidian returned to crowdfunding in late January of last year in order to secure funds for Pillars of Eternity 2: Deadfire. The fans loved the idea so much they not only contributed enough to reach the initial goal, but kept going until the Fig campaign ended with Pillars of Eternity 2 securing $4,407,598 in funding - 400% of the original target!
A fair bit of time has passed since then, and I am now delighted to say that Pillars of Eternity 2 is just about ready to launch! To be more specific, it will be coming to Windows, Linux and Mac on April 3rd. As for the console versions, not details have been given just yet, but you can expect Pillars of Eternity 2 on PlayStation 4, Xbox One and Nintendo Switch at some point towards the end of 2018.
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[Update]: Overprime is a third-person MOBA heavily based on Epic's long-canceled Paragon.
While Fortnite is growing at an absolutely ridiculous rate, Epic's previous game Paragon has not been as fortunate. It launched as an extremely solid proof of concept, but despite being in Early Access since March of 2016 it has still not managed to live up to its potential. As such, it sadly won't come as much of a surprise to hear that Epic will be shutting down Paragon on April 26th.
The official reason, as you might expect, is the inability for Paragon to support itself given the constantly decreasing playerbase. After all, a MOBA game needs a really good matchmaking system in order to make it fun for everyone, and that is not exactly possible when there is only a small portion of the playerbase left. Here's the full, albeit somewhat small quote from the developers:
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After a brief foray into space and World War 2, it would appear that Call of Duty is returning to what it knows best with Black Ops 4 - slightly futuristic but still fairly grounded action. As expected given the previously announced three-year schedule, this year's Call of Duty is being developed by Treyarch, the studio behind the whole Black Ops series.
While I would love to tell you more, I'm afraid Activision hasn't shared any actual details about the gameplay or story. As for the latter, I can only hope it's going to be better than what Black Ops 3 had to offer since I found it to be so disappointing I can barely even remember it at this point. Not exactly a major complaint given that barely anyone plays Call of Duty games for the story, but it's still something I would like to see addressed in Black Ops 4 regardless.
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Warhammer: Vermintide 2 arrived on PC merely two days ago, and already the developers have detailed their plans for the future! As promised during the lead-up to launch, one of the first major updates will bring with it the much-needed dedicated servers. So if you're sick and tired of watching hosts kick their entire party mid-mission, or just getting hit by enemies you clearly dodged due to high ping, you'll have to wait for a little while but salvation is definitely on its way.
If you're itching for even more content, however, you'll be glad to hear that Fatshark has announced that they are putting the finishing touches on mod support. I'm not exactly sure what you'll be able to tweak with the new tools, but if they are anything like the original Vermintide's it's safe to say that you'll be able to create and join matches that almost feel like an entirely different game. Whatever the case may be, the addition of mod support is going to be quite an exciting one!
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The medieval RPG Kingdom Come: Deliverance arrived last month, and as is expected from pretty much any open-world game, it did so alongside a whole host of bugs and performance issues. As such, I am very glad to say that the newly released Update 1.3 has greatly improved performance, fixed over 300 quests, and perhaps most importantly of all, added a Save and Exit feature!
Additionally, the update has also made your save files much more robust, so even if your game crashes while saving they won't get corrupted. On the more interesting front, the lockpicking minigame has been improved so that it's much easier to hold the sweet spot while turning the lock, especially for those of you using the controller. On the other hand, while the lockpicking has been made easier, some of the overpowered early game rewards have been removed. In other words, you're no longer able to pick up some of the very best gear within 5 minutes of starting your playthrough!
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If you're a fan of D&D inspired RPGs but you've never played the original Neverwinter Nights due to its age, you might be interested to hear that the remastered version will be coming this March 27th. It is being developed by Beamdog, the studio behind the fairly solid remasters of Baldur's Gate 1 and 2, so chances are high that Neverwinter Nights: Enhanced Edition will be a quality game as well.
In terms of improvements you're looking at support for modern resolutions, as well as the ability to adjust the UI so you won't have to spend the entire game squinting at absolutely tiny text. There will also be a variety of seemingly minor improvements to the visuals, most notably to the shaders and post-processing effects, as well as the ability to mess around with the contrast, vibrance, and depth of field options. Since trying to explain visual changes through words alone is a bit of a silly task, allow me to share with you the original reveal trailer. Have a gander:
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While Far Cry 5's main storyline appears to be taking itself fairly seriously, everything else surrounding it has decided to forsake realism in favor of cheesy scenarios and over-the-top action. As such, Far Cry 5's Season Pass will give us the ability to travel back in time in order to fight in Vietnam, leave Earth behind in an effort to eradicate the Martian spiders, and even face off against hordes upon hordes of zombies in true b-movie fashion.
If you're wondering how all of this translates into actual gameplay, allow me to share with you the recently posted trailer. Have a look, but keep in mind that the video is just as over-the-top and ridiculous as the content it's showing off:
The Crash Bandicoot N. Sane Trilogy will be coming to PC, Xbox One and Nintendo Switch in early July
- By Ash
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This might come as a bit of a surprise given that the information was about as easy to find as nuclear launch codes, but the Crash Bandicoot N. Sane Trilogy has been a timed-exclusive from the very beginning. With that in mind, I am extremely happy to say that the modern remasters of Crash Bandicoot, Cortex Strikes Back, and Warped will be coming to PC, Xbox One and Nintendo Switch this July 10th!
In terms of improvements you can expect to see better visuals and support for modern resolutions, re-recorded dialogue and an improved soundtrack, a unified save and menu system, time trials for all three games, as well as a variety of tweaks to the gameplay mechanics. From what I've seen online most of these changes have been well received, though it does appear that the new jumping mechanics have made the original Crash Bandicoot even more unforgiving, as if that was possible!
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H1Z1 was originally supposed to be a free-to-play game, though was changed shortly before it launched in Early Access. After that the developers claimed it would be free-to-play once it eventually left Early Access, but again, all of that fell through when H1Z1 was split into two different games. Just last week H1Z1 finally released from Early Access alongside a brand new Auto Royale game mode, and as expected, it released as a paid game.
However, it wouldn't be H1Z1 if it didn't flip-flop on the issue immediately, and so the developers have now announced that it has gone entirely free-to-play! This is no doubt due to the ever-growing popularity of Fortnite and PUBG, but it still feels incredibly sleazy to advertise and sell a game under the pretense of it being finally finished, only to then turn around a week later and release it for free. I've never been much of a H1Z1 fan, and this sort of anti-consumer behavior is certainly not going to win it any favors any time soon.