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[Update]: Fourteen years later, Sins of a Solar Empire is now getting an ambitious new sequel!
Seemingly out of nowhere, Stardock has released a brand new DLC for their space-based RTS/4X hybrid Sins of a Solar Empire: Rebellion.
The Outlaw Sectors DLC brings with it a whole bunch of new maps, 11 of them in total, as well as a variety of changes to increase the volatility of sectors. Pirates have been emboldened and will now strike out against multiple players at once. Autonomous planetary militias will grown, raid nearby systems, and eventually repopulate themselves in order to force the players into action, and finally, you can now designate a planet as a smuggling hub that brings with it numerous advantages, but also a large dosage of corruption.
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Paradox has been rolling in success lately. Hearts of Iron IV has managed to sell over 200,000 copies in less than two weeks after release, Stellaris is currently on 500,000 copies sold, and their "big hitter" Europa Universalis IV has just past 1 million copies sold, and this doesn't include any expansions or DLC!
Since Europa Universalis IV is a strange and wonderful game, Paradox has decided to celebrate its impressive milestone with an equally strange and wonderful DLC. The recently added "Fredman's Epistles" features a collection of traditional Swedish songs from the 18th century, and is set to provide an "authentic piece of Swedish culture to Europa Universalis IV, perfect for taking on the world as a Scandinavian superpower".
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After being in beta for nearly half a year now, the Hotline Miami 2 Level Editor is finally ready for a public release. In other words, you can now create your own Hotline Miami 2 maps, share them via the Steam Workshop, and then gloat at the incompetence of all your friends as they fail again and again to pass through your murder-hallway.
As a part of its transition from beta to full release the Level Editor has also received an update simply titled as v1.05, which brings with it a number of minor fixes and changes. You can read the full patch notes over at the Level Editor forum on Steam.
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After being teased last week the venerable Space Marines have finally brought their massive cathedral ships and equally massive weaponry to Battlefleet Gothic: Armada. Everyone who owned the game before June 21 will find themselves with a free copy of the Space Marine DLC, while the rest will need to offer up a sacrifice to the Emperor (in the form of €5,24 with the currently ongoing discount) in order to try them out.
As far as tactics are concerned, the Space Marines come with heavily armored ships, packed full with highly trained and genetically modified super-soldiers. Expect to do a whole lot of close quarters combat, aggressive boarding, and naturally, ramming anything even slightly smaller than you! If you're wondering what all of this looks like in action, here's the recently posted "Space Marines" trailer:
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With Battlefield 1 slowly approaching EA has decided to drum up a bit of excitement by offering a select few Battlefield 4/Hardline expansions packs for free. The first one of these is, ironically enough, the "Second Assault" DLC for Battlefield 4, which brings with it four remastered versions of Battlefield 3 maps.
You can grab the "Second Assault" DLC for free on Origin, but make sure not to slack off for too long as the promotion is set to end on June 28. While I'm not sure why EA decided this was an occasion worthy of a trailer, they went ahead and produced one anyway. You can check it out below:
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Fifteen years have past since Andrew, Paul, and Ian Gower created one of the longest running MMOs out there - RuneScape. With its grand anniversary now upon us, the brothers have decided to unleash a very special quest upon the world of Gielinor for everyone to enjoy, subscriber or free-to-play.
The aptly named "Gower Quest" features plenty of in-jokes designed to celebrate RuneScape's rich history, mages that deal exclusively with cabbages, and even a mighty sword forged in the name of the cabbage god himself. If you think that sounds absolutely ridiculous, I assure you things are about to get even stranger once you see the trailer:
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Overwatch's Game Director Jeff Kaplan recently discussed the team's plans for the competitive mode, and most interestingly, how they aim to award those that participate. As of right now, the primary reward behind the ranked mode is a whole pile of swanky new golden weapon skins, all of which will be available to even the average player, but will be more easily acquired by those truly skilled.
He unfortunately didn't share any images at that time, but the recent Public Test Realm brought with it a sneaky little surprise - the golden skins themselves! If you're wondering what all of them look in-game, here's a video from Overpwn demonstrating just that:
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Playing online games with friends is half the fun, but what do you do when a few of them are willing to buy the latest $15 DLC, and the others consider it a waste of money? Whatever you decide, someone is going to leave unhappy...
Thankfully, this is not going to happen with Titanfall 2 as the developers have recently gone on record by stating that they will not sell any maps, game modes, or other such "essential" content. There are numerous sources for these claims, but the short GamesRadar interview with co-founder Vince Zampella is the one that gives a somewhat clear picture of why exactly Respawn is doing this for, and what their future plans with Titanfall 2 are. Here's all of the relevant information, stitched together from a couple of quotes:
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While you're having fun in a massive shootout with eleven other people you probably won't even spare a single thought for the matchmaking system that made all of it possible, but its something that Blizzard has spent an absolutely insane amount of time with, and its still not perfect!
If you're wondering how complicated can it really be, and what are the pitfalls and challenges one needs to overcome before creating something that could be considered "good", I would recommend you check out the recently posted, and extremely detailed, explanation of the matchmaking system by Overwatch's Game Director Jeff Kaplan. I won't quote the entire thing since its absolutely massive, but I do want to bring attention to a couple of interesting quotes:
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Rocket League's long-awaited June patch is now finally available, and it seems to be pretty damn good. There's a couple of new DLC cars and (free) maps to toy around with, ranked players have received their fancy rewards, the loot update has brought in a bunch of new items, and there are even a couple of bug fixes to help everything run smoothly.
My personal favorite addition is the Quick Chat customization option that gives you the ability to take your passive-aggressive game to a whole new level. Why settle for "Nice Shot! Nice Shot! Nice Shot!" when you can use new phrases such as "Savage!" or "Calculated!" to truly take the throne as the most annoying person in the universe.