Dishonored 2's bug-shaped powers

As someone that enjoys stealth games to a rather... unhealthy degree, Dishonored was a welcome and quite enjoyable surprise. Compared to most stealth games released around that time it offered genuine challenge, well designed levels, and a gripping world that still has me pondering the nature of the mysterious Outsider. In other words, it was actually good, especially the DLC which managed to ramp everything up a couple of notches and create some of the best "sneaky levels" around.

If you share my love for Dishonored you will be glad to hear that from what Bethesda shown so far Dishonored 2 looks to be just as good as the original, if not better! There are two gameplay videos to check out, so let's start with the shorter one, the official gameplay trailer:

Massive carrier ship from the Mass Effect: Andromeda trailer

As is tradition with Mass Effect: Andromeda, EA has released an exciting new trailer that brings about many questions, but offers next to no answers. It does, however, give us a glimpse at the new Normandy-styled ship, currently rumored to be the "Tempest", as well as a look at the potential FemShep.

You will find the two-minute long trailer right below, and if you're a fan of the Mass Effect series, well, prepare for some goosebumps:

Clementine and Javier from The Walking Dead: Season 3

The existence of The Walking Dead: Season 3 should come as no surprise to anyone, especially considering its the series that made Telltale into the giant it is today. What might surprise you, however, is that the main character is once again Clementine, though in her teenage years this time around.

Before I say anything else, here's the recently posted teaser trailer, though don't raise your expectations too high since the whole video infuriatingly short:

Red eyes from the Prey trailer

After Prey 2 got canceled due to years of troubled development the "series" slowly faded away into obscurity. This didn't stop the rampant rumors, however, and despite it being officially canceled numerous unnamed sources kept repeating that the Prey series is getting a second, or rather third chance. All of this culminated with the recent "leak" that pointed towards a Prey reboot being announced during this years E3, and as luck would have it, they were absolutely correct!

During their showcase at E3 Bethesda unleashed the first trailer for Prey, a reboot that aims to reimagine the franchise from the ground up... "with an added psychological twist". I would usually dismiss that as simple marketing tactics, but they've actually recruited Chris Avellone, one of the writers and designers behind some of the best RPGs in history (Planescape: Torment, KOTOR 2, Fallout: New Vegas, etc.), so there might be more to Prey than simple "shooting doods in space".

Digressions aside, here's the trailer, though I'm afraid you won't find any gameplay in there:

Paragon's Howitzer looks like Rocket Raccoon

As I've mentioned in my review the moment Paragon launched, the game feels like a mix between an FPS and a MOBA game, but one where the two sides don't really fit well. The rapid out-of-combat movement and lane-based mechanics just aren't the type of thing that go together, and as predicted, it eventually resulted in a metagame where 5 heroes form a "deathball" and just roll around the map attempting to pick off the enemy team, while they do exactly the same.

You'll be glad to hear, however, that Epic is aware of all this and that they are working on countermeasures to both increase Paragon's complexity and skill ceiling, while also making it more fun for everyone. This announcement comes from the latest "The Future of Our Meta" blog post, and if you're interested in Paragon I fully recommend you give it a read, but for now here are the important bits:

Overwatch's Widowmaker

There is a rather interesting phenomena happening in Overwatch right now. As a player's skill in the game increases their undying hatred shifts from one hero to another, and without a fault, its always the same few candidates. The beginners hate Bastion and Torbjorn, slightly better players shift their ire towards Mei and her devilish grin, those even better than that focus their glare towards McCree and his infuriating Fan the Hammer kills, and finally, once you get past the McCree tier its universally Widowmaker as the prime antagonist, every single time.

Since Blizzard has already announced changes to both McCree and D.VA (a nerf and a buff respectively), that only leaves one troublemaker in need of fixing - Widowmaker. If you've reached the final, balance-forsaken tier of hatred you will be immensely glad to hear that Blizzard is currently looking into Widowmaker, as noted on the official forums:

Kael'Thas from Tempest Keep - World of Warcraft

When Blizzard issued a cease and desist notice to Nostalrius, the biggest private World of Warcraft server, the community was sent into an uproar. Ever since then more than 260,000 people signed a petition asking Blizzard to either reconsider their decision, or to create their own Vanilla WoW server.

After it became apparent that this isn't just a passing trend, and that people are truly interested in a playing some oldschool World of Warcraft, Blizzard decided to invite the Nostalrius team to their offices. With the meeting now finally done, the Nostalrius team has returned to the spotlight with a report on their 5-hour long chat with Blizzard. You can read it in its entirety by heading here, but for now here's a couple of the most interesting excerpts:

Total War: Warhammer's Archaon the Everchosen

First things first, there are some slight campaign spoilers below, so if you want to have a 100% pure experience then I would advise you avoid this article for the time being. Don't worry, my ego can take it. That said, its not often that you see a game get a post-launch "trailer", especially not one that arrives weeks after the game itself, but as long as the folks at Creative Assembly keep having fun with them they'll remain a welcome contribution.

The recently posted video details a battle between two Chaos armies, one led by the player controlled Archaeon the Everchosen, and the other by The Everwatcher, a greater demon of Tzeentch and a rather rude fellow, as you'll quickly learn in the campaign. Here's the video, and I hope you enjoy watching Chaos fanatics beat the ever-living daylight out of each other, because you're going to see a lot of that:

Torment: Tides of Numenera shadow screenshot

Torment: Tides of Numenera is the spiritual sequel to one of the best RPG games of all time - Planescape: Torment. Much like its predecessor it features an in-depth dialogue system, numerous ways of solving each problem, a cast of unique and compelling characters, and some of the most intriguing storytelling in recent times.

As you might imagine, crafting all of that from scratch is a fairly daunting task, so it shouldn't come as much of a surprise to hear that Torment has been delayed until Q1 2017 in order to ensure it launches as the best game it can possibly be. Here's what the team had to say about the delay and their reasoning behind it:

The Witcher 3 is getting an official Gwent card game

Given that your starting Gwent deck in The Witcher 3 sucks more than a black hole its very easy to dismiss the whole minigame as just a simple diversion, something like dice poker from the previous games in the series. However, after investing a tiny bit of time with it I found Gwent to be strangely irresistible, so much so that I've managed to collect every single card and probably add a good dozen hours to my playthrough, all thanks to this fairly simple card game.

If you share a similar experience, and I know for a fact there's many of us out there, you'll be delighted to hear that CDPR is working on an official Gwent card game! This news comes from Nerdleaks who had managed to spot a new trademark and logo registered by CD Projekt, one that quite clearly states Gwent: The Witcher Card Game.