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If you're tired of Hearthstone and you feel like giving another card game a try, now would be a good time to dive into Shadowverse. In order to commemorate more than 7 million downloads across all platforms, Shadowverse developer Cygames will soon be giving out seven free Rise of Bahamut card packs to all players.
All you need to do is log in from February 15th until February 27th and the packs will be yours. The only catch is that new players will need to first complete the in-game tutorial in order to receive this gift, but that shouldn't take very long, even if you're completely new to the genre. And if you're wondering what the whole "Shadow of Bahmut" thing is even all about, here's a brief trailer explaining the lore behind the expansion:
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If you're looking for some new games to play, you're in luck as the Humble 'Freedom' Bundle has just recently arrived with a whole boatload of them. By paying $30 or more you can instantly unlock 47 games and books, some of which are downright amazing. There's The Witness, Stardew Valley, Super Meat Boy, The Stanley Parable, Invisible inc, Day of the Tentacle Remastered, and the list goes on and on.
Unlike most of the previous bundles, however, you won't be able to choose where your money goes with this one. Its nothing sinister, don't worry, its just that all proceeds will go straight to the American Civil Liberties Union, the International Rescue Committee, and Doctors Without Borders. And as an added bonus, Humble Bundle will also pitch in their own $300,000 should we manage to reach that goal ourselves... something that happened within the very first day! And if you're wondering why exactly Humble Bundle chose these specific organizations, the following quote should clear everything up:
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If you haven't been paying attention to Hearthstone the past few weeks, all you need to really know is that the game is currently in a terrible state as far as balance is concerned. According to Ben Brode himself 50% of all ranked decks use the incredibly aggressive pirate package, while around 40% of all Legend players are piloting Shaman decks! Things have gotten stale in Hearthstone before, but I'm pretty sure this is the first time the game has ever become this homogenized.
Thankfully, there is hope on the horizon as Blizzard has announced some much needed nerfs to Small-Time Bucaaneer and Spirit Claws, two cards that are in pretty much every deck that can run them. And as an additional bonus, they have also announced that they will soon implement stop-gaps on ranks 15, 10, and 5, so once you reach them you will not be able to drop below them for that season. If you're interested in all of the details, you'll find the brief announcement post down below:
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Warhammer 40,000: Inquisitor - Martyr is an upcoming action RPG that aims to combine the grim darkness of the Warhammer 40k universe with the open-ended gameplay of the Diablo series. What I mean by this is that it will come with randomized levels, a massive focus on replayability, and naturally, a constantly rising difficulty curve.
If this sounds like something you might enjoy, and you don't mind trying out games in their unfinished state, you might want to check out the recently unleashed closed alpha, also known as "The Founding". It is by no means a fully finished or polished experience, but its there to provide the most dedicated fans with a way to try out the game ahead of time, and also share feedback on features and content moving forward. The catch, as you would expect from a game in alpha, is that early access will set you back a sizable chunk of money. In this case its $40 for the most basic version, with the option to go truly crazy with some of the some of the larger packages.
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Deus Ex: Breach was originally released as a part of Deus Ex: Mankind Divided as a sort of "arcade" take on the standard gameplay. It recently became its own standalone free-to-play game on Steam, though judging by the user reviews its still about as far removed from Deus Ex as it gets.
However, it appears that Eidos Montreal has a lot more faith in Deus Ex: Breach than the community given that they have just released a rather sizable update. It has brought with it randomly generated Ghost Networks that rotate on a daily basis, 11 all-new Picus Corporation maps for players to toy around with, a new conspiracy surrounding the very same Picus corporation, and naturally, a whole bunch of cosmetic items as well. The only catch is that you will need to solve all previous cases before attempting to do the Picus conspiracy, but that shouldn't come as much of a surprise given that its the continuation of a preexisting story.
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For those of you that might not be aware, in Korea your Battle.Net account is tied to your Social Security Number, so the punishment for being banned due to cheating is much more severe than in the West where you can just purchase another copy. Unfortunately, this whole system can currently be circumvented by creating free accounts on the NA or EU regions - a process that doesn't require any identifying information. These accounts can then be used in PC Bangs (Korea's version of an Internet cafe) to play Overwatch for a fairly minor fee, essentially giving you access to an infinite amount of accounts with no actual risk involved whatsoever.
As you might imagine, when there is no oversight or any real punishment the temptation to start cheating becomes far too much for some people to resist. And after many months of complete silence from Blizzard the situation has become somewhat unbearable due to the amount of cheaters in North American and Korean servers. Thankfully, that is soon going to change, as according to the most recent Overwatch blog the developers are going to start requiring foreign accounts to purchase the game itself before playing it in a PC Bang.
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Gwent: The Witcher Card Game, as you might expect from the name alone, is a standalone version of The Witcher 3's endlessly addictive minigame. It features all of the same strategies and intrigue, but with actual balance, less overpowered dragons, and a whole bunch of new cards to toy around with.
If you haven't given it a try, now would be a good time to sign up for the Closed Beta as Gwent has just recently been updated with not only the new Nilfgaard faction, but also a bunch of extra cards as well! As for what exactly Nilfgaard brings to the table, it shouldn't come as much of a surprise to hear that they are focused entirely around control, treachery, and using the enemy's strength against them. If you want to see all of this in video form, but also get a brief look at all of the other factions, here's the most recent "Factions in Gwent" trailer:
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In what might just be the most bizarre crossover this year, the card game Shadowverse has announced that they will be adding Street Fighter characters as alternate leaders. According to Famitsu Ryu is going to represent Dragoncraft, Juri Runecraft, Cammy Forestcraft, Chun Li Swordcraft, Karin Heavencraft, Vega Bloodcraft, and naturally, M.Bison is going to be the face of Shadowcraft.
If you're wondering what this sort of madness might look like in action, here's the recently posted announcement trailer. Its entirely in Japanese so I'm afraid I can't give you more information than that, but its still well worth checking out given how ridiculous all of it truly is. Anyway, here's the video:
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In an announcement that I must admit comes as a massive surprise, MrXLink from the Skylords community has come out to say that EA has given them the greenlight to revive the card game/RTS hybrid BattleForge. Most importantly, EA has also given the newly created Ardent Peak team the rights to commercialize the game to a point, so you can expect to see more content in the form of cards and maps in the distant future. With all of that said, don't expect to see much in terms of new content until the team is happy with how the servers are set up and running.
Why exactly EA would do this, I have absolutely no idea, but I certainly do hope this is an example other companies will follow in the future. It really is horribly depressing to see perfectly good games get axed because they aren't bringing in much of a profit anymore, even though the community would be more than ready to take over all server duties in order to keep the lights running for as long as there is interest.
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NieR: Automata is Platinum Games' upcoming action RPG with a heavy focus on precision strikes and well-timed dodges. It it set to arrive on March 7th in North America and March 10th in Europe and Australia, though its still unknown whether the PC and PS4 versions will be launching at the same time. That said, Square Enix has never mentioned any delays for the PC version either, so I suppose we'll just have to wait and see.
If you're wondering what NieR: Automata's story is going to all be about, here's the most recent trailer to hopefully enlighten you. I haven't played the original NieR so none of this made any sense to me, but the Youtube comments sure are excited about various numbers and letters, so I might just be the odd one out here. Anyway, have a look: