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For those of you that might not be aware, Conan Exiles is an open-world survival game with a heavy focus on building up your own settlements and taming the otherwise hellish landscape. If this sounds like something you might enjoy, you can now find Conan Exiles on Steam, though I would recommend reading up a couple of reviews before diving in head-first as this is an Early Access release after all.
If you're wondering what all of this might look like in action, here's the recently posted Early Access trailer. It doesn't feature much in terms of straight-up gameplay, but it should give you a general idea of what to expect. Have a look:
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In an announcement that arrived as a bit of a shock to me, Blizzard recently came out to say that 25 million players have gotten their hands on Overwatch over the past year. I knew Overwatch was popular, I mean I've spent well over 300 hours on it already, but 25 million players spread across three platforms is quite the impressive number... although, it might be a bit too impressive.
While Blizzard never came out to official confirm this, I think its safe to assume that the number includes every account ever created. In other words, the numbers are probably inflated from all of the free-to-play weekends and alt-accounts, but even so I have no doubts that Overwatch has been a wild success for Blizzard. And for good reason! Not only is Overwatch great from a purely gameplay perspective, but its also one of the rare few games to receive constant high quality updates.
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If you're a fan of the two modern XCOM games and would like to take a look at how all of it started, you're in luck as Humble Bundle is giving away X-COM: UFO Defense for the next 16 hours. Simply head on over to the Humble Store, log in or create a new account, and that's pretty much it.
Before you dive in, however, it is important to note that the classic X-COM is much sillier and lighthearted in nature than the modern ones. And if you're wondering how silly a game about alien invasions could possibly be, allow me to share with you the intro cinematic... its quite something! Have a look:
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If you were itching to find out what exactly you'll be doing in Mass Effect: Andromeda, besides the rather nebulous goal of finding a new home for humanity, you'll be glad to hear that the latest trailer offers at least a tiny bit of insight. It features a few brief glimpses of the main bad guy, the male Pathfinder and his trusty crew, as well as a couple of rather lovely worlds.
There's not much in terms of gameplay on display, but if you're up for some hilarious facial animations and absolutely gorgeous landscapes you'll find the trailer right down below. Have a look:
Pillars of Eternity 2: Deadfire crowdfunding campaign is currently blazing through its stretch goals
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For those of you that might not be in the loop, Obsidian has spent the past two weeks teasing something called "Project Louisiana". Given the name and the success of Fallout 4 many expected this to be the long-rumored Fallout: New Orleans, but as you can probably guess from the title it was actually Pillars of Eternity 2: Deadfire... not that I'm complaining!
What followed next was a Fig crowdfunding campaign that asked for a rather significant $1,100,000 in order to cover the most basic version of Pillars of Eternity 2. Much to my delight, that goal was squashed on the very first day, and as of right now Pillars of Eternity 2 sits comfortably at $1,783,697. There are still 25 days left to go, however, so I have a feeling that number is going to get much, much higher.
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Stardock's 4X strategy game Galactic Civilizations 3 has recently received one of its biggest patches so far. The rather plainly named Update 2.0 brings with it a new resource, Starbase Administrators, reworked diplomacy, a better ship builder UI, as well as various bug fixes. Out of all these changes the biggest one is the addition of Starbase Administrators which you will now need in order to construct... you guessed it, a Starbase! As such, you will no longer need to crank out Starbases in order to stay competitive, so feel free to toy around with smaller, more focused empires.
As for diplomacy, the AI will now take several factors into account when determining trades: your current standing with them, your relations with their allies and enemies, how the trade will affect their economy, and so forth. If trying to keep track of all of this sounds a bit tedious, worry not as Stardock has also added detailed information on why a specific trade was accepted or rejected, so you can always adjust your strategy in future deals.
For those of you interested in all of the specifics, here are the full patch notes:
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When you have a game as diverse as Overwatch not every hero is going to be viable at all levels of play. Junkrat for example is a great hero at the lower ranks, but as you climb higher his lack of accuracy starts becoming a serious detriment, hence why most higher ranked players tend to avoid him. But there is unfortunately one Overwatch hero nearly every skill tier tends to avoid - Bastion. As it turns out, having the potential to dish out insane amounts of damage does you little good when you're a sitting duck for every enemy projectile.
There is some hope on the horizon, however, as Overwatch's Principal Designer Geoff Goodman just recently posted a couple of Bastion changes they're going to release onto the PTR (Public Test Realm) in the near future. Here's what you can expect to see:
Hearthstone's Game Director has released a brief post defining "complexity, depth, and design space"
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Hearthstone is currently going through a bit of a rough patch. In Legend rank 40% of the players are using Shaman, every class capable of utilizing the 'pirate package' is doing so, and the rest of the decks are either a Reno variant or Dragon Priests. And to top it all off, Hunter and Paladin are in such a bad shape right now that they might as well not exist.
While all of this is pretty awful when it comes to Hearthstone's fun factor, it has managed to at least bring with it one blessing - Blizzard has finally started communicating! In his most recent Reddit post Hearthstone's Game Director Ben Brode has detailed how the team treats complexity and depth, as well as what exactly "design space" means for Hearthstone. The whole post is fairly short, so if you're interested in the design side of Hearthstone I fully recommend you give it a read. As for me, I would like to comment on Brode's thoughts on strategic depth:
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If you've been clamoring for Valve to bring back Diretide or any such similar Dota 2 events, you'll be glad to hear that they have just recently added the Dark Moon mini-game. It is very similar to the previous Wraith King event, by which I mean you will spend most of your time defending against waves upon waves of deadly enemies, with your potential rewards increasing with every every wave you vanquish.
While the concept itself is fairly simple, actually succeeding in the Dark Moon event is anything but. In order to win you will need to create a well-balanced team that consists of good crowd control, area-of-effect damage, and healing, or else you will find yourself quickly overwhelmed. Since your entire team needs to be on the same page when things go terribly wrong I would recommend you only play the Dark Moon event with people you can trust, as otherwise you're going to be rolling the dice on whether your teammates have any clue about what to do.
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Even though Prey shares the same name as its predecessor there doesn't seem to be much of a connection between them. The original Prey was a simple enough story about a Native American trying to save his beloved from the clutches of evil aliens, while the new Prey on the other hand has portable black holes, Slenderman demon/aliens that are able to transform into chairs and cups of all things, and superpowers you apparently inject straight into your eye.
And before you ask, no, not a single one of those features was exaggerated. So if you're interested in seeing some absolutely bizarre aliens and a whole bunch of ridiculous weaponry such as the surprisingly useful gloo-cannon, here's the recently posted trailer: