- By Ash
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While their addition to Constructed has been met with a great deal of success, Death Knight Hero cards have cause some significant problems for Arena. In a game mode with very limited answers and combos, having to deal with a permanently upgraded Hero Power proved to be nigh impossible, especially when you're faced off against some of the most powerful Death Knight cards like Frost Lich Jaina.
As such, I am very happy to announce that Blizzard will be removing all nine Knights of the Frozen Throne Death Knight Hero cards from the Arena pool this Tuesday, November 14th. Naturally, this won't affect already existing decks, so if you don't feel like fighting a swarm of Death Knights at the high win bracket you might want to wait a week or two for all of the current decks to clear out.
- By Ash
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Guild Wars 2: Path of Fire's very first balance patch arrived a couple of days ago, bringing with it some much needed quality of life changes and tweaks to pretty much all of the classes. While the update itself ended up being favorably received, it was quickly overshadowed by just how ridiculous the new Loot Boxes are. Instead of being able to buy or earn the exact mount skin you want, you have to buy Mount Adoption Licenses for 400 Gems ($5), each one of which gives you a random unique skin. Since there are 30 different mount skins in the box, most of which aren't exactly interesting, I think you can see why the Guild Wars 2 community was in such an uproar over the past few days.
ArenaNet has since then released an official response addressing the whole Loot Box controversy, and while nothing will be changing for this batch of skins you might be glad to hear that they will focus on bundles and individual cosmetics for future releases. Here's the full message:
- By Ash
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Given how EA and DICE often like to go overboard with paid DLC, I am very happy to say that they have now announced a whole bunch of free updates and community events instead. Everything will kick off on December 5th by having the players align with either the First Order or the Resistance, with the end goal being to complete various challenges in order to receive faction specific rewards.
On December 13th Finn will join the Resistance as a new hero, while the First Order will receive Captain Phasma. You will need to purchase them with in-game credits though, so make sure not to waste all of them before this update even arrives. As for the whole faction war, whichever side completes the most challenges that week will get a special reward: a create full of upgrades for Finn or Captain Phasma.
- By Ash
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Age of Empires: Definite Edition has been delayed a couple of times now, the latest one pushing its release date from October 19th all the way to early 2018. Unfortunately, this shift in release dates did not go over smoothly and some players have ended up being charged for their pre-order despite the launch still being a ways off.
If you're one of the affected players you'll be glad to hear that you're not only getting a full refund, but also an apology in the form of a free code for Rise of Nations: Extended Edition for Windows 10 - a rather awesome game if memory serves! More information will be sent to your email, but just keep in mind that the refund process will cancel your pre-order, so if you're still interested in the Definitive Edition you will have to purchase it again.
- By Ash
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Squad is a 50 vs 50 tactical multiplayer shooter that aims to be as realistic as it can possibly be. So if team-based strategies and methodical FPS gameplay sound like something you would love to mess around with, you'll be glad to hear that Squad is free to try out for the next two days!
Simply head on over to Steam, click on that giant green "Play Game" button, and you'll be getting riddled with bullets in no time. If you need a bit more information before diving in, however, allow me to share with you the relatively old "Introduction to Squad" video. The gameplay might be outdated, but it should still give you a pretty damn good idea of what to expect from Squad. Have a look:
- By Ash
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Three weeks ago EA closed down Visceral and restructured the previously singleplayer Star Wars RPG into some sort of multiplayer focused title, much to the public's dismay given how popular the original two Dead Space games were. With that in mind, it might come as a bit of a shock to hear that EA is now set to acquire Respawn Entertainment, the developers of Titanfall and Titanfall 2.
According to the brief press release, Respawn will continue to have their own culture and creative freedom, while EA will mostly provide the resources necessary to expand the scope of all future games. As lovely as that statement is, I can't help but feel a tinge of dread as EA has a bit of a history of meddling with their studios, with the end result usually being them bleeding all of their creative talent and eventually getting shut down. I can only hope this fate won't befall Respawn as well since the Titanfall series is just too damn awesome to go the way of Dead Space 3.
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On October 4th Obsidian published an in-depth survey asking players about their preferences regarding DLC, as well as a bit about their gaming background, the type of games they play, and so forth. All in all, around 55,000 people from across the various online communities participated in the survey, bringing with them some rather interesting insights about the average cRPG player.
You can probably guess a few answers given the type of players attracted to hardcore RPG games, but even so its a bit surprising to see that 92% of the participants were male, while only 6% identified themselves as female. This result was probably a bit skewed given how the survey was advertised and spread, but even so its a bit out of the ordinary to have such a low female representation, especially when the average for RPGs is around 20% from what I remember reading a little while back.
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While the recent Syberia 3 has received only mixed reviews, the original point and click adventure Syberia is still widely considered as a classic. So if you're up for a bit of a blast from the past, you'll be glad to hear that GOG is currently giving away the original Syberia for free, and yes, it actually works on modern systems!
It is important to mention that this promotion will only last for two more days (as of the time of writing), so if you're even remotely interested in Syberia you should head over to GOG as soon as possible. You don't even need to install it in order to secure yourself a copy. Simply add it to your GOG account and it will be yours to keep, a process that will only take you minute or two.
- By Ash
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After already being available on consoles for quite a while now, NetherRealm's 'superhero' fighting game will finally be making its way to PC next week. To be a bit more specific, you can expect to see Injustice 2 on Steam this November 14th at what I can only imagine is going to be a €50-60 price tag.
If you're not exactly sure what to expect, allow me to share with you the console launch trailer. It doesn't feature a ton of gameplay, but it should still give you a general idea of what Injustice 2 and its combat system have to offer. Have a look:
- By Ash
- in News
Total War: Warhammer 2 was recently updated with the Mortal Empires campaign. It represents a combination of the campaign maps from Total War: Warhammer 1 and 2, as well as all of the Legendary Lords and factions they lead. By all accounts it is one of the best updates a Total War game has ever received, but while the new campaign is downright awesome, it is also plagued by some rather annoying issues.
The biggest and most annoying example of these problems is the bizarre behavior of Chaos and Norsca invasions. Instead of declaring war on everyone and carving a bloody path throughout the old world, all they would do is declare war on the player alone and send an absolutely ridiculous stack of armies at them. So if you weren't prepared to fight off 15 different Chaos armies over the course of three turns, your campaign would pretty much be over. As such, I am very glad to say that Creative Assembly has now finally released a fix for this, as well as a few other issues!