- By Ash
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Dungeons 2 is a faithful homage to the original Dungeon Keeper, and it pretty much hits all of the same notes when it comes to the gameplay. In other words, Dungeons 2 is all about creating you very own underground fortress, populating it with a variety of monsters and traps, and then crushing anyone even remotely heroic that dares enter your domain.
If this sounds like something you would love to try out, you're in luck as Dungeons 2 is currently free to grab over at GOG. That said, the offer will only last for another 20 hours as of time of writing, so do make sure to snatch it before it goes away. You don't even need to install it, just add it to your GOG account and you'll be golden.
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Total War: Arena is a free-to-play spin-off of the main Total War series. Instead of the usual Total War duels, Total War: Arena features 10vs10 RTS battles where each player controls only three units, though each of those can be customized in a variety of ways. It's a bit of a different take on the Total War formula, but from what little I've played it is one that has a decent amount of potential.
So if you would like to give Total War: Arena a try and see if it's something you could sink your teeth into long-term, you'll be glad to hear that it will be heading into Open Beta this February 22th. The transition to Open Beta will also be marked by the release of Hannibal Barca and his Carthaginian army... and yes, they will have elephants!
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For Honor is a highly competitive game that relies on precise movement, attacks and blocks. As such, it was quite strange to see For Honor launch with absolutely no dedicated servers, essentially leaving players at the mercy of other people's Internet connections, with the results being about as predictable as you would imagine.
A whole lot of time has passed since launch, but I am quite happy to say that For Honor will soon be getting its much-requested dedicated servers. And when I say soon, I really do mean soon because the fifth season "Age of Wolves" will be coming later today, while the dedicated servers will be following suit only a few days later, on February 19th!
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Sega's annual Make War Not Love event is currently ongoing, with each day bringing with it a brand new challenge and brand new prizes. And what better way to kickstart the event than with a bit of free DLC for Total War: Warhammer 2 - the "Steps of Isha" map pack.
The four new maps offer "striking visions of the High Elven lands, with a focus on their highly magical landscape." In terms of gameplay, however, the maps are focused around formidable defensive positions that discourage direct attacks, though with plenty of side-routes to take and potentially ambush from. It's nothing too out of the ordinary for Total War: Warhammer 2, but having more maps to endlessly wage war on is always a good thing in my book.
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After many teasers, previews, and developer updates, the medieval RPG Kingdom Come: Deliverance has now finally arrived for PC and consoles. As expected from pretty much any open-world game these days, the full release has brought with it a whole host of bugs and technical issues, though it doesn't appear to have affected the reviews very much as Kingdom Come: Deliverance currently stands at a 74% approval rate on Steam - pretty impressive for what is essentially a niche RPG.
If you're interested in seeing what Kingdom Come: Deliverance is all about, as well as get a good look at the highly praised visuals, you'll find two of the recent trailers down below. The first video is the launch trailer that will give you a general idea of what to expect, while the second is a developer-guided gameplay video that should clue you in on how the combat and quests work. Have a look:
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This shouldn't come as much of a surprise given that it was leaked multiple times, but CDPR has now announced that Gwent will be getting an Arena game mode. Much like Hearthstone, you will be have to construct your deck by picking from a random selection of cards of the same rarity, though unlike Hearthstone all of the faction restrictions will be completely lifted! In other words, if you ever wanted to know what happens when you introduce Northern Realms' King Foltest leader into a Monsters swarm deck, you will soon have a chance to do just that.
The entry fee will be a rather reasonable 150 ore (or €2), and you will be able to play until you either reach 9 wins or you get beaten 3 times. In terms of rewards you can expect to see one guaranteed card keg for all participants, as well as bonus rewards for those that manage to score a large amount of wins. One of these bonus rewards is a chance at a premium Gold card, so once the Arena finally arrives I would advise you take it at least a little bit seriously.
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During the recent Overwatch update we got a brief glimpse at some of the future balance changes. Most notably, some of Mei and Sombra's abilities were tweaked in minor yet still significant ways. The buffs have since then been pulled from the live servers due to a wide array of bugs, but worry not as they have now not only reappeared on the PTR, but they have brought some reinforcements as well!
If all of the changes go through Mei will have a much easier time freezing highly mobile heroes, Doomfist will 'reload' his shotgun slightly quicker, and Sombra will be an absolute terror to deal with. She is losing the ability to generate ult charge from health packs, but in return the spread of her weapon is being reduced, the speed of her hack increased, and perhaps most interestingly of all, she is being given the ability to see enemy health bars if they are at less than 100% health!
You can find all of the details, as well as some developer commentary and reasoning behind the changes, in the most recent Developer Update down below. On the other hand, if you just want the short version, I'll include the patch notes as well. Have a look:
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[Update]: Dynasty Warriors 9 now has a Complete Edition that combines all of the DLC and Season Passes into one package.
After many teasers and previews, the long-awaited Dynasty Warriors 9 has now made its way to both PC and consoles. The reviews are currently a bit of a mixed bag, even more so than what is standard for the Dynasty Warriors series, but the one thing that is truly worrying are the widespread reports of technical problems on the PC version.
I haven't played it myself so take the following with a few grains of salt, but even a single glance at the Steam reviews section tells a very unfortunate story. Some players are reporting crashes and terrible performance, others are having issues with the AI being completely inept at moving around, and the list goes on. As of right now Dynasty Warriors 9 sits on an utterly abysmal 23% approval rate on Steam with 430 reviews in total, the lowest I've seen in quite a while, which does lend credence to the severity of the problems.
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If you ever wanted to give Overwatch a try, but you weren't exactly sure if its the type of game you'd even enjoy, you're in luck as Blizzard has just announced a free weekend! From February 16-19, Overwatch will be entirely free-to-play across all three platforms: PC, PlayStation 4, and Xbox One.
As always, the free weekend will give you access to Overwatch's full roster of 26 heroes and 16 maps, as well as all of the various game modes. You will only be restricted from the competitive mode for obvious reasons, though as a new player you probably don't want to blindly stumble in there anyway. Naturally, any progress you make, and this includes achievements and all of the numerous cosmetic unlocks, will carry over if you ever decide to purchase the full version.
- By Ash
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Make War Not Love is Sega's annual celebration that pits their various strategy games and studios against each other, with the community being the ones that decide the victor. Unlike the past few years, however, the popular vote is not going to be the deciding factor for which game gets to receive bonus content. Instead, there will be pre-determined rewards set for every single day, and in order to unlock them the community will need to hit a certain amount of play time each day.
This might sound like a bit of an anti-climax, but given how last year the less popular games got more votes due to what appears to be some shady business, I'd say it's probably a good thing Sega is going with the "give everyone new stuff" approach. And speaking of new stuff, the rewards for the fist day are going to be Viking: Battle for Asgard, Total War: Warhammer's The Grim and The Grave DLC, as well as a 75% coupon for Dawn of War 2: Retribution. Not a bad start by any stretch!