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XCOM 2's War of the Chosen expansion aims to greatly improve upon the original, while also adding a bunch of new storylines to explore, factions to befriend, and enemies to miss despite having a 97% hit chance. Out of all these new enemies it is the titular Chosen that are by far the most dangerous as not only are they extremely capable fighters and psionics, but they are also much smarter than the common goon. In other words, expect them to hit you when you are at your weakest, and from angles you might not even consider covering.
And out of all the newly announced Chosen it is The Hunter that is going to prove the most troublesome to unprepared teams as he is a fan of both stealth and sniper warfare. If you're wondering what all of this might look like in gameplay terms, here's the recently posted trailer showcasing just that. Have a look:
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Dota 2 is one of the most complex games out there, so much so that it takes new players months, if not years to finally get a grasp on everything. It is because of this that Valve has repeatedly tinkered with the matchmaking system for new players, all in an effort to make those first few games less of a daunting task.
The latest of these new player focused updates has arrived today, bringing with it two major improvements. The first and perhaps the most obvious one is that new players will now only have access to a curated group of twenty heroes for their first twenty five games. Since all of the chosen heroes are relatively simple and straightforward it should provide an easy way for new players to get accustom to Dota 2 without having to learn any of the advanced mechanics just yet.
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[Update]: Ninja Theory is working on a highly ambitious sequel to Hellblade: Senua's Sacrifice.
Hellblade: Senua's Sacrifice is an upcoming viking themed action-adventure from the developers behind Heavenly Sword, Enslaved: Odyssey to the West, and DmC: Devil May Cry. Besides beating up a variety of deformed creatures and exploring some rather gorgeous locations as you would expect from an action-adventure, Hellblade will also focus on the quickly dwindling mental state of our protagonist.
How exactly all of this will manifest in gameplay, I'm not entirely sure, but you can get a good glimpse at what exactly Hellblade is all about through the recently posted trailer. I would recommend turning up the volume a bit because the voiceover is barely understandable at the best of times. Anyway, here's the video:
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In a bit of a surprise update Bethesda and id have made all of Doom's multiplayer DLC and weapons available for free! I'm still not a big fan of Doom's multiplayer, but even I must admit there is now a rather impressive amount of content to be explored, and all of it is in addition to the downright excellent singleplayer campaign.
Besides all of the free DLC, Update 6.66 has also revamped the multiplayer progression system to remove randomness and promote in-game challenges. In other words, instead of hoping the gods of randomness will give you the unlock you seek, items are now obtained through either specific level requirements or in-game challenges that can be completed at any time. For example, if there's a specific helmet you need to complete your awesome armor set, you now have the ability to get it directly as long as you're willing to focus your playstyle on whatever the challenge requires. Its a simple system, but it should be an effective one.
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Path of Exile will soon be getting its biggest expansion yet - The Fall of Oriath. Once it arrives the expansion will bring with it six new acts, thus completely removing the need for multiple difficulty levels and constant replaying of the same few zones, as well as a whole bunch of new enemies (including the damnable Bonewheel Skeletons from Dark Souls), spells, bosses, and the list goes on for quite a long while.
As is tradition with pretty much any major Path of Exile update, there will also be a brand new Challenge League for everyone to enjoy in both Softcore and Hardcore variants. The league in question is simply called "The Harbinger Challenge League", and as you might expect from the name alone you will be spending a whole lot of time fighting the new and mysterious Harbingers.
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Instead of the usual pre-order bonus Total War: Warhammer 2 will be giving everyone who purchases the game before or within the first week of launch access to the newly revealed Norsca faction. More importantly, you won't have to wait until Total War: Warhammer 2 arrives in order to play as the demonic vikings and their beastly minions - they will be coming to the original Total War: Warhammer on August 10th!
Like all other Factions that came before them, Norsca will bring with it two distinct tribes with their own Legendary Lords (Wulfrik the Wanderer and Throgg), a whole bunch of new units and mechanics, as well as the ability to align yourself to a specific god of Chaos! While the combat reveal has not yet arrived, Creative Assembly did just post a rather lengthy gameplay video showcasing the Norsca campaign and its mechanics, so if you're interested in seeing what they have to offer you'll find the video right below. Have a look:
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After a rather lengthy period of no changes Firaxis has now updated Civilization VI with the rather plainly named Summer Update. The patch has brought with it the option to regenerate a map with the single press of a button, the ability to save game configurations and settings for future matches, a variety of balance changes for Districts and individual factions, and the list goes on for quite a while.
Besides all of the adjustments, the Summer Update has also brought with it the Nubia DLC. With Nubia you can expect to see plenty of powerful and easy to build ranged units, as well as the Nubian Pyramid which gives massive bonuses to construction and district yields, perfect for any sort of early-game build. If you're interested in seeing what all of this might look like in-game, here's the recently posted trailer:
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Despite For Honor being touted as a competitive game, Ubisoft for some reason decided to launch it with absolutely no dedicated servers. While this didn't end up being as big of a problem as I anticipated, it was still incredibly annoying to get randomly booted out of a game, get hit from behind by an enemy that just popped into existence, and other such lovely examples of connection problems.
As such, I'm sure you'll be glad to hear that Ubisoft has announced that they are working on dedicated servers, among other major improvements such as better defensive combat, a new tutorial and training arena, as well as a whole bunch of new characters. There is a ridiculous amount of stuff to cover, so if you're interested in all of the details you will find what you seek on the official blog post, but for now allow me to share a few choice quotes about the dedicated servers:
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During the console beta announcement for Destiny 2 it was revealed that the PC version will be slightly delayed in order to ensure a quality port. The console betas have by now come and gone, and after a bit of a wait it would appear that Bungie is finally ready to showcase the PC version as they have just announced the Open Beta.
To be more specific, the Early Access phase will begin on August 28th, while everyone else will be able to join the Open Beta on August 29th. As with the consoles, the beta will only last for a couple of days, until August 31st. Its obviously not a lot of time, but it should be enough to give you a good idea on whether Destiny 2 is something you'd have fun playing.
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Call of Duty: Modern Warfare Remastered infamously launched as a part of the rather expensive Call of Duty: Infinite Warfare Special Edition package, which obviously ended up turning a lot of people off. As such, you might be glad to hear that the standalone version of Modern Warfare Remastered has just now appeared on Steam, though with barely any fanfare to herald its arrival.
What you might not be glad to hear, however, is that the user reviews are overwhelmingly negative. Apparently the multiplayer scene is completely dead outside of the deathmatch game mode, while optimization and performance issues are so bad they make Infinite Warfare look like a solid PC port. I haven't tried it myself, so take all of that with a few grains of salt, but there do seem to be some genuine problems with Modern Warfare Remastered.