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Crusader Kings 2 has always been a bit of a niche experience, a strategy game designed for those that wish to delve deep into the politics behind a kingdom, but the upcoming DLC is really starting to stretch how niche CK2 can truly become.
The Reaper's Due, as you might expect given its ominous title, brings with it one of the deadliest phenomena the world has ever seen - the black plague! Here's the rather... bizarre trailer to get you in the right mood, as well as a brief overview of what to expect with The Reaper's Due:
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The Dark Souls series is my favorite bunch of games in all of existence and roguelikes are my favorite way of passing the time, so you would think that a combination of the two would result in a game so amazing I would never leave the desk again, but unfortunately Necropolis fell short from such a lofty goal.
Thankfully, there is a bit of hope on the horizon as Harebrained Schemes has promised to release an entire series of free updates in order to address community criticism and turn Necropolis into the game everyone wanted it to be. All of this was detailed in the recently posted announcement, so if you're interested in the full picture I'd recommend you head over there, but for now here's the short version of what to expect in Necropolis' near future:
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Even though it might not seem like it given the show's intentionally crappy art style and crude humor, each episode of South Park has a lot of thought put behind it, especially when it comes to the writing and timing for the various jokes.
Now imagine how complicated things get when you have to retain the show's quality and still somehow make all of it into an entertaining game that can last upwards of 10 hours, longer than an entire season of the show! If your imagination is a bit faulty due to the summer heat, however, here's the most recent South Park: The Fractured But Whole development video with Trey Parker and Matt Stone discussing how the game slowly took shape:
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The 3D Sonic games don't have the best reputation these days given that the majority of them either released unfinished, unpolished, or just downright bland, though there are a couple of exceptions. Sonic: Generations and Colors are two genuinely fun games that have managed to take the 3D premise and concoct some compelling gameplay to go along with it, rather than simply stick to the 2D formula and wonder why it just isn't working.
With that in mind, I'm happy to announce that the team behind both of those games has been assembled once more to create a brand new 3D Sonic game - Project Sonic 2017 (a working title, I'd imagine). While there isn't any gameplay footage just yet, here's the announcement trailer showcasing not just Sonic, but two Sonics:
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The Sonic series has always been a bit of a roller-coaster in terms of quality, but I think everyone can agree that the classic 2D Sonic games are some of the best examples of how fun Sonic can truly be. Unfortunately, at least as far as I'm concerned, the Sonic Team mostly spent the past decade working on 3D iterations of the series and pretty much failing every single time, though I have to give special credit to Generations for being genuinely fun.
With that little introduction out of the way, I hope you can now understand how astounding it is to hear that Sega has teamed up with Christian Whitehead, Headcannon, and PagodaWest Games to create a brand new 2D Sonic game - Sonic Mania! There will be new zones and remixed classic levels, new gameplay mechanics to keep the "gotta go fast" attitude alive despite various platforming challenges, and best of all, all three of the original characters will be playable (Sonic, Tails and Knuckles).
If you're interested in what Sonic Mania looks like, here's the announcement trailer and I would suggest you skip to 55 seconds:
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I consider The Witcher 3 a golden standard when it comes to open-world exploration. The various locations you can visit are absolutely gorgeous, the writing and voice acting are almost universally stellar, and the majority of the quests are interesting enough that it never felt right skipping them. However, I still have to admit that there is a certain level of immersion unique to The Elder Scrolls series simply due to the first person perspective bringing you closer to the world.
As it turns out, there is a solution to this little conundrum, and it comes in the form of Skacikpl's The Witcher 3 First Person mod. Rather than waste your time explaining what the mod can do, here's a video showcasing the first person perspective in action:
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With No Man's Sky's release date fast approaching and concrete information being nearly impossible to find, the developers have started up a video series with the intent to briefly show what exactly the various parts of No Man's Sky are all about.
Today's video, as you can guess from the title, is all about trading, gathering strange and alien resources, unlocking new technology, and exploring the wide universe in search of further riches. Here's the video and a short description of trading that came along with it:
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Creative Assembly released a video detailing all of the Beastmen campaign mechanics and research trees a couple of days ago, and as promised, they have returned once more to showcase their battle prowess.
As you might expect given their name, the Beastmen are brutal, straightforward combatants, preferring to jump straight into the bloodbath rather than rely on such silly things as artillery or heavily armored units. The end result, while often not healthy for the Beastmen's unit count, is fairly spectacular, as you'll see in the developer gameplay video embedded down below:
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When you set aside cosmic deities and various other forces that work from within the void, Gul'dan is the most ruthless and outright evil bastard that has ever plagued Azeroth. He's killed innumerable innocents, brought down entire civilizations, and is still actively plotting the destruction of not just the world, but the entire universe as well, and yet Blizzard has somehow managed to make him a sympathetic character in their latest animated short.
The Harbingers short tells the story of Gul'dan's rise to power from a crippled, lowly shaman in a village long forgotten, to the very incarnation of the Burning Legion's hatred for all things still living. Here's the video and I fully recommend you give it a watch, its rather well done:
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If you were wondering how prominently space will feature in the upcoming Call of Duty: Infinite Warfare, you don't need to look much further than the recently posted gameplay video from the San Diego Comic-Con.
The video showcases the first ~12 minutes of the campaign, and outside of the mandatory "slow-walking" story section you will barely spend any time with your feet planted firmly on the ground, choosing to instead bring the fight to the enemy on board your very own star-fighter. Have a look: