- By Ash
- in News
Despite all of their flaws, the two modern Tomb Raider games have been positively received by both critics and the general public, so much so that Rise of the Tomb Raider currently holds a truly impressive 97% approval rating on Steam. Given these sort of statistics you would think that Crystal Dynamics would have the greenlight to create even more sequels and potential spin-offs, but according to Square Enix's comments the series did not perform as well as expected. As such, the future of the series has always been in a bit of a limbo, which is a real shame since it has some genuine potential.
With that little bit of background now out of the way, I hope you can understand just how surprised and happy I am to say that Square Enix has now announced a brand new Tomb Raider game! There is currently no actual information about the game itself, but what I can tell you is that you won't have to wait long between the official announcement and the game's release.
Guild Wars 2 devs have released a behind-the-scenes video for the most recent Twilight Oasis Fractal
- By Ash
- in News
Guild Wars 2: Path of Fire's very first content expansion "Daybreak" arrived a little while ago, bringing with it a rather stunning amount of content. There was a brand new and fairly lengthy zone to explore, a new story chapter with some of the best voice acting so far, a variety of new weapons and armor to collect, a new raid to repeatedly smash your head against, and naturally, a brand new Fractal - Twilight Oasis.
If you're interested in finding out what Twilight Oasis is all about, as well as getting a bit of a behind-the-scenes look at ArenaNet's development process, you'll find what you seek in the recently posted developer video. Have a look, its a fairly short but interesting one:
- By Ash
- in News
Deus Ex: Mankind Divided has been available on PC, consoles, and Linux for a very long time now, while the Mac version was unfortunately delayed due to its reliance on an upcoming update. Well, Apple's latest graphics API "Metal 2" has been released relatively recently, and as such the Mac version of Deus Ex: Mankind Divided will be following suit next week as well! To be more specific, you can expect to see it arrive this December 12th.
As with the vast majority of ports these days, the Mac and Linux version were not created by the developers themselves, but rather by Feral Interactive. If the name doesn't ring a bell, you might know them from their work on the Mac and Linux versions of Total War: Warhammer 1 and 2, XCOM 2, Tomb Raider, Dawn of War 3, and the list goes on. So far they've had a pretty spotless record, so chances are high that this Mac version will be of excellent quality as well.
- By Ash
- in News
In honor of Finland's 100 years of independence Steam has now unleashed a sale featuring a variety of Finish developers. So if you've somehow managed to avoid filling out your backlog during the recent Autumn Sale, you now have another chance to celebrate freedom by liberating the contents of your wallet.
Unlike the Autumn Sale, however, this most recent one will only last for a short amount of time. To be more specific, the sale will end at 10am PST this Friday. It's not exactly a lot of time, but there aren't that many games on sale either, so you should be able to do a bit of research and figure out which games you would love to mess around with.
- By Ash
- in News
Total War: Warhammer 2's long awaited Foundation Update arrived onto the test servers a little while ago, but unfortunately the Norsca faction and its accompanying 30 new Regiments of Renown did not manage to make the cut. If you're a fan of the savage Northerners I'm afraid I have some further bad news as Creative Assembly has just released a detailed overview of Total War: Warhammer 2's current development, upcoming features, and the reasons why Norsca is being delayed yet again... this time until May, 2018!
You can find all of the details by visiting the actual article, but here's pretty much everything you need to know about Norsca and its delay: "The truth is we screwed up. We got so good at branching and merging builds, we thought we had it mastered. There was one tiny problem with this plan, which a bit of deeper (research) might have discovered. It was bollocks." So while I'm still annoyed we won't be seeing Total War: Warhammer 2's pre-order bonus until half a year passes from the launch itself, it is very refreshing to see Creative Assembly speak so openly about their problems.
- By Ash
- in News
In a rare moment of solidarity, the gaming community recently banded together to protest the truly ridiculous 'microtransactions' in Star Wars Battlefront 2. If you're wondering just how ridiculous things were, let's just say that unlocking one additional hero took upwards of 40 hours, while players willing to dish out hundreds of dollars could get a significant advantage over their fellow players given the extremely slow rate at which in-game currency could be gathered. This paid portion of the system has since been pulled back, at least for the time being, but the painfully slow in-game progression remained exactly the same.
Thankfully, the latest update has finally managed to address that problem by drastically increasing the number of in-game currency you can earn just by playing. The Arcade Mode now offers three times more Credits daily, the end-of-the-round payout has been buffed in order to reward contribution over simple time investment, and finally, the Daily Login Crates now provide additional crafting parts which can be used to create Star Cards. If you're interested in learning just a little bit more about this update, with the emphasis firmly placed on "little", you should head over to the official website.
- By Ash
- in News
The Surge is a Dark Souls inspired sci-fi action-RPG developed by the studio behind Lords of the Fallen. As you would expect given their inspiration, The Surge features tactical and visceral combat against some truly dangerous enemies, a variety of unique weapons and armor pieces, and naturally, a bleak and depressing world.
However, while the developers have done an excellent job of making The Surge's world as unwelcoming as possible, there comes a point where one starts to yearn for even a bit of color to break up all of the monotony. As such, I am very glad to say that The Surge's very first expansion "A Walk in the Park" has now arrived with a whole bunch of new content set in an open and colorful environment - a twisted theme park! Rather than try and explain this, allow me to share with you the recently posted trailer. Have a look:
- By Ash
- in News
The Escapists 2, as you would imagine from the name alone, is a sandbox prison-escape game that will ask of you to brawl, sneak, craft, and potentially even explode your way out of some rather problematic situations. When it released back in August it came with a decent amount of pre-build maps, but no matter how good those maps may be, eventually the players will figure out all of the best tricks and the challenge will slowly dissipate.
If you're currently in this type of situation, or if you're just looking for new maps to play, you might be very glad to hear that the PC version of The Escapists 2 now has a fully fledged Map Editor! Here's the recently posted trailer showing it off in action:
- By Ash
- in News
Scott Cawthon, the creator of the Five Nights at Freddy's series, seems to be an endless source of surprises. Back in July he abruptly announced that the long-awaited Five Nights at Freddy's 6 has been officially canceled because he just got tired of working on the series. A completely understandable reason given how many games he released in a relatively short period of time.
Usually that would be the end of the story, but Scott Cawthon is not your usual developer, so instead he has now suddenly released Five Nights at Freddy's 6 onto Steam... completely free of charge! And since this is Five Nights at Freddy's we're talking about, even the game's launch is shrouded in a veil of mystery. What I mean by this is that Scott didn't simply release Five Nights at Freddy's 6, he released Freddy Fazbear's Pizzeria Simulator that contains the actual game within it!
- By Ash
- in News
Abandon ship is an upcoming naval strategy/adventure game that seems to embody the same ideas as FTL. You have to command a single ship and its crew in order to explore a massive and randomly generated world, solve a variety of quests while avoiding danger, fight off pirates and attempt to keep your crew alive throughout the whole ordeal, and naturally, try and avoid having your ship chomped on by gigantic monstrosities that inhabit the uncharted deeps.
Since words alone won't give you a 'proper' idea of what Abandon Ship is all about, I am very glad to say that the developers have now released an extremely lengthy gameplay preview. So if you have even a bit of interest in Abandon Ship, or games in this type of genre, I would highly recommend you give the video below a look. Have a gander: