Warhammer 40k: Rogue Trader official artwork and logo for the CRPG

[Update]: Good news! Warhammer 40,000: Rogue Trader is coming to PC on December 7, 2023!

If Baldur's Gate 3 has given you an appetite for playing complex RPGs alongside a friend or two, you'll be happy to hear that the upcoming Warhammer 40,000: Rogue Trader, from the studio behind Pathfinder: Wrath of the Righteous and Kingmaker, will be launching with a co-op mode as well. That's certainly bound to be one heck of an adventure as Owlcat's games tend to take nearly 100 hours to fully finish, and that's with only one player at the helm!

As for the actual details, including the number of potential players, I'm afraid nothing has been revealed so far. The good news is that Owlcat has promised to share more in the near future, so we hopefully won't have to wait for too long.

Vermintide 2 key art for Sienna's new Necromancer career

It took a surprisingly long time for us to get here, but Sienna's long-awaited fourth career has now finally been revealed! The big surprise is that instead of getting one of a variety of fire based specializations like many have been speculating about over the past year, Sienna will begin dabbling into necromancy on October 19th!

Before I say anything else, allow me to share with you the cinematic trailer setting all of this up. Have a gander, it's a fun one:

World of Warcraft: Classic artwork for the Onyxia raid

[Update #2]: World of Warcraft: Cataclysm will be getting the Classic treatment and many new improvements in 2024.

[Update]: World of Warcraft: Classic has now launched Hardcore servers, and I'm happy to say they're quite fun!

After witnessing how popular the 'no death' runs have been in World of Warcraft: Classic over the past couple of months, Blizzard has now decided to make the whole thing official. As such, on August 24th WoW Classic will be getting Hardcore realms with slightly adjusted rules and only a single shot at life. This means no resurrections, reincarnations, soulstones or anything similar.

If you end up making a mistake and kicking the bucket, don't worry as you character won't simply disappear. By using the Free Character Move service you'll be able to transfer your character to any Classic Era realm, though obviously Hardcore servers will forever be locked for them.

Dota 2 artwork showing off the 10th anniversary items

[Update #2]: Dota 2's Patch 7.34c has arrived to fix some of the recent balance mishaps.

[Update]: Dota 2's final Summer update has enhanced the visuals and massively improved the report system.

In order to celebrate Dota 2's upcoming 10th anniversary, Valve has now released a commemorative treasure chest containing a variety of unique cosmetics items from Dota 2's history. And since this is the 10th anniversary we're talking about, naturally there are thirteen items up for grabs!

The list includes the 'controversial' cowboy Ursa set that was deemed too silly for the game back in the day, Earthshaker's awesome Bindings of Deep Magma set, a recolor of Void Spirit's 2019 Immortal set, and even the anime-themed Mirana persona. If you want to play Dota 2 on hard mode, there's also a really distracting CRT filter to mess around with.

Alan Wake 2 empty road teaser screenshot

If you were hoping to dive into Alan Wake 2 this October 17th, I'm afraid I have a bit of bad news. According to the latest developer update, Alan Wake 2's release date has now been pushed back ten days, or until October 27th to be specific.

As for the reason behind the delay, that would be the simple fact that October is absolutely stacked with interesting games so Remedy figured they'd give themselves, and their players, a bit of breathing room. Additionally, this puts Alan Wake 2's launch closer to Halloween, which is definitely a plus given its atmosphere and tone.

images/2022/3/Dota-2-Spring-Cleaning-2022-artwork.jpg

[Update #2]: Dota 2's final Summer update has enhanced the visuals and massively improved the report system.

[Update]: Dota 2 is celebrating its 10th anniversary with a bunch of thematic (and free) cosmetic items.

In order to shake up the metagame for the upcoming tournament qualifiers, Dota 2 launched Patch 7.34 a couple of days ago. The update brought with it a massive assortment of changes to everything from items to gameplay mechanics and pretty much all heroes. Unsurprisingly, given the sheer scale of the tweaks, not all of them have ended up working out as planned.

So in order to fix the various balance problems introduced with Patch 7.34, Valve has now unleashed the much smaller though still quite impactful Patch 7.34b. The one big general change is that Spirit Vessel has been made weaker and cheaper - it now provides +6 to all attributes instead of +12, gives an additional +125 health, and costs 200 less. It's still going to be a great item, though no longer an auto-include for any Universal core.

World of Warcraft: Dragonflight official key art without the logo

[Update #2]: Patch 10.1.7 - Fury Incarnate has now arrived with new questlines a bunch of fresh content to mess around with.

[Update]: World of Warcraft: Classic will be launching Hardcore/Permadeath realms on August 24th.

Only a month has gone by since the Fractures in Time update added a bunch of new stuff to mess around with, and already the World of Warcraft team is planning to release the next batch of content. Patch 10.1.7 - Fury Incarnate will be coming this September 5th with an assortment of new story quests, Heritage Armor quests for both the Night Elves and the Forsaken, as well as a variety of new customization options for both of the races.

Additionally, each week one of the four original Dragon Isles zones will be getting hit by dreamsurges. These public events will have you face off against powerful creatures and bosses in order to collect catch-up gear, pets, and as is tradition, numerous cosmetic items.

Diablo 4 Season of the Malignant artwork and logo

In order to sort out the mess left over from the rather unfortunate Season 1 update, the Diablo 4 team has just recently unleashed Patch 1.1.1. It brings with it some nifty buffs to all of the classes but especially Barbarians and Sorcerers, an increase in monster density for Nightmare Dungeons and Helltides, as well as a drastic increase in late-game boss health in order to make them more of a challenge.

To compensate for the increased level of difficult, Patch 1.1.1 has also made bosses, Treasure Goblins and Legion events more rewarding. Bosses and Legion Events will now always drop a Legendary item from level 35 and onward, while Treasure Goblins will do so from level 15. As such, finding those build-defining Aspects should be a lot easier now.

Total War: Warhammer 3 artwork for the Shadows of Change DLC

[Update]: The Shadows of Change DLC has now arrived, and I'm afraid it's been getting some fairly negative player reviews so far.

If you're currently itching for some new Total War: Warhammer 3 toys to mess around with given that it's been a fair few months since the last expansion, I'm afraid I bring both good and bad news. The good news is that the Shadows of Change DLC will be coming this August 31st with the Changeling representing Tzeentch, Yuan Bo, the Jade Dragon leading Cathay and Mother Ostankya summoning the forces of nature to help Kislev.

The bad news is that price has increased dramatically and so Shadows of Change will set you back 25€ compared to Champions of Chaos' 16€ or the numerous 10€ Lord Packs from Total War: Warhammer 2. If Total War: Warhammer 3 was at its peak and not riddled with bugs and all sorts of issues I wouldn't mind this so much, but as it stands it really feels like Creative Assembly is trying to see just how far they can push things before they finally snap.

Darktide screenshot showing off the original four guardsmen from the trailer

[Update #2]: Fatshark have now revealed more about the upcoming RPG-like talent trees and accompanying balance changes.

[Update]: Darktide will be getting RPG-like talent trees and an Xbox version on October 4th.

While it may have taken far, far longer than I would've liked for us to get here, I'm incredibly happy to say that Darktide has now finally fixed its mission selection system. Thanks to Patch #12 you now not only have a much wider selection of maps to choose from, but also a larger assortment of difficulty options that range from relaxed romps to soul-crushingly brutal gauntlets of misery.

The way it works is that there are now two distinct mission boards for you to peruse. The normal one has only the most basic modifiers and is meant for casual play, while the advanced Auric board is exclusive to level 30 characters and comes with a much, much more challenging set of missions. Combine that with faster map rotations and a new "Maelstrom" mission type that comes with fun extra modifiers (and extra rewards), and the end result is a highly diverse mission system that has really managed to revitalize my interest in the game.