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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!
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If you ever wanted to give Overwatch a try, but you weren't sure if its the type of FPS you'd enjoy, you're in luck as Blizzard has just announced a free weekend. From November 17th at 11am PT until November 20th at 11:59pm PT Overwatch will be free to play across all regions and platforms.
As with all of the previous free weekends, the upcoming one will give you access to all of the content besides Competitive Play, for obvious reasons. Most importantly of all, the free weekend will include the 26th hero Moira which is currently on the PTR! Whether this means she'll be patched in next Tuesday during the usual update period, I don't know, but Blizzard has clearly stated that the new players will have access to all "26 heroes", so look forward to seeing Moira and her accompanying balance changes in the near future.
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Guild Wars 2's Path of Fire expansion released a little over a month ago, bringing with it some massive changes to all professions, as well as entirely new Elite Specializations to mess around with. As you might imagine, this many drastic changes and additions quickly resulted in some very wonky PvP balance. Not exactly ideal considering the expansion launched in the middle of a PvP season!
As such, I am very glad to say that Guild Wars 2: Path of Fire's first balance update has now arrived! You'll find the full patch notes over at the official website, but if you can't be bothered to go through all of the changes, just know that most of the classes have received some much needed balance tweaks and quality-of-life changes. This goes doubly so for the Mirage Elite Specialization as ArenaNet has finally removed some of the annoying delays between the various Axe attacks!
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A little while ago the future of Hitman and IO-Interactive seemed to be quite grim, though thankfully that entire episode ended with IO-Interactive becoming an independent studio and Hitman getting a bunch of new content to mess around with. And now, with the Game of the Year Edition successfully launched, the developers have come out to announce their continued support of Hitman.
However, instead of simply revealing a second season with new maps and events, it appears that IO-Interactive is working on an entirely new Hitman game! The details are still unfortunately lacking, but according to the brief announcement the developers are making great progress on some "exciting new features and franchise firsts".
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[Update]: The next big Sonic the Hedgehog game will focus on open-world exploration.
While its initial announcement was met with a resounding "meh", the public opinion on Sonic Forces changed considerably when Sonic Mania ended up being not only good, but downright amazing! It really seemed like the Sonic Team knew what they were doing, that they were finally going to bring Sonic back into the spotlight as more than the butt of a joke.
With that in mind, I am extremely glad to say that Sonic Forces did not end up being a disaster like Sonic Boom, but unfortunately it did end up being just as disappointing. The core gameplay is quite fun, don't get me wrong, but the whole campaign is ridiculously short. Each mission takes only a couple of minutes to beat, while you can blaze through the entire game within a couple of hours. You'll probably want to repeat some of the missions because they are quite the spectacle, but I highly doubt it'll be enough to keep your interest for very long. Not exactly ideal for a game that costs €20 more than Sonic Mania.
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It seems that after Legion and all of its various world-destroying threats Blizzard has chosen to dial things down a few notches with World of Warcraft: Battle for Azeroth. Instead of banding together to destroy a being of immeasurable power that seeks to annihilate all life, the new expansion will primarily focus on the two factions having a big ol' slap fight over territory, honor, and whether or not one should cover all of their armor and buildings with copious amounts of spikes.
Besides the new storyline, the Battle for Azeroth will also come with the ability to group up with fellow players in order to explore uncharted islands, a new large-scale PvP 'mode' that lets you claim and build fortresses in strategic locations, the option to play as one of the various sub-factions such as Dark Iron Dwarves or Nightborn Elves, and naturally, the usual slue of new raids, zones, dungeons, and quests to mess around with. You can get a sneak peek at what all of this looks like in-game via the recently posted "Features Overview" trailer. Have a look:
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Battlerite is the spiritual successor to Bloodline Champions, and much like its predecessor its a highly skill-based and team-orientated PvP brawler. There is absolutely no luck factor or randomness that can possibly influence your matches, so the only way you're going to secure victory is through teamwork, knowledge, and personal skill! Its not a game for everyone, but if you're looking for something truly competitive then Battlerite fits the bill quite nicely.
With that in mind, I am very glad to say that Battlerite has now reached its long-awaited free-to-play phase! As you might expect, the free-to-play version has some limitations when it comes to the number of available characters, but since all of them are competitively viable its not exactly a massive problem. At least not one that you can't overcome through skill alone.
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Obsidian has recently released an expansion for Tyranny and is currently working on the long-awaited Pillars of Eternity 2: Deadfire sequel. Given how massive both of those projects are, I must admit I'm quite surprised to announce that Obsidian is currently hard at work on yet another game!
All of this information comes from the recently posted Tweet listing all of Obsidian's major games, as well as a mysterious new addition that's currently simply titled as "???". What that game might be, I'm afraid I don't know for certain, but what I can tell you is that its not going to be an expansion or DLC as all of those are missing from the list.
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Nioh is a samurai action-RPG with a focus on challenging but fair combat. It features a wide variety of weapons and items to experiment with, an equal amount of deadly enemies to test your mettle against, large levels with plenty of secrets to discover, and naturally, plenty of bosses to bash your head against.
If you're wondering what all of this might look like in-game, wonder no more as the developers have recently posted a launch trailer. There's not a lot of straight up gameplay, but it should still give you a decent idea of what Nioh is all about and how exactly it plays. Have a look:
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The Surge is a sci-fi action-RPG developed by the studio behind Lords of the Fallen. Much like its predecessor, as well as Dark Souls from which it draws a lot of inspiration, The Surge is all about tactical melee combat against enemies that can easily obliterate you. In order to succeed you will need to choose from a variety of unique weapons and fighting styles, carefully time your attacks to exploit an enemy's weakness, as well as pay close attention to your surroundings to avoid running face-first into a deadly ambush.
I personally found it to be a great deal of fun, which is why I'm glad to say that The Surge will be getting a major expansion this December - A Walk in the Park. Unlike the depressing industrial setting from the original, A Walk in the Park will offer a breath of fresh air by setting the action in a more open and colorful environment. Don't let the cheerful visuals deceive you though, because the CREO World theme park is going to be just as deadly, if not even more so!