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In a bit of news that pleases me greatly, Bandai Namco America has announced that Dark Souls 3 is the fastest selling game in the company's history, and to top it all off, its also the current champion on the UK weekly sales chart, followed by The Division, and EA's UFC.
To celebrate such an achievement Bandai Namco has released a brand new Dark Souls 3 trailer, this time around with music that actually matches the tone of the Souls series! Do be warned however, there are some minor boss spoilers in there as well, so if you want to have a 'pure' playthrough I'd suggest averting your eyes... or simply not clicking the play button:
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The good news is that the closed beta for Mirror's Edge: Catalyst begins on April 22 and lasts all the way until April 26. The bad news, however, is that the closed beta sign-ups are now, well... closed, and only those that signed up for the Mirror's Edge 'Frontrunner service' (a fancy name for a newsletter) will be eligible to join this phase of the beta.
While the closed beta will only feature a couple of main and side missions, the social play features such as time trials, races, and various others should in theory provide plenty of replayability. Here's a brief DICE video explaining the whole concept of social play and how the multiplayer features will work:
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Earlier this week the most popular Vanilla World of Warcraft server Nostalrius was shut down by Blizzard, a decision that did not go over well with the its immensely loyal following of old WoW veterans. Instead of the issue blowing over in a couple of days like Blizzard most likely expected, it has been gaining steam with numerous online personalities coming out and publicly supporting the petition for legacy World of Warcraft servers.
And to add even further fuel to the fire, or perhaps a stick of dynamite in this case, the Vanilla World of Warcraft team lead Mark Kern came out and stated that he would personally send a message to Mike Morhaime if the legacy petition reaches 200,000 signatures. Here's the full quote:
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This week has been marked with quite a few Doom related announcements: The latest Doom's open beta is currently ongoing, the graphical/visual overhaul mod Doom 3: Redux is now available, and for those of you that prefer the old school games, Doom 1 and 2 can now be played in virtual reality.
The mod in question is GZ3Doom, and its entire goal is to bring Oculus Rift support to the classic PC shooters, Doom 1 and 2. Here's a brief trailer showcasing it in action:
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If you're interested in the creative vision behind the Half-Life series and how each of the characters, monsters, and locations evolved over time, there is simply no better book than Half-Life 2: Raising the Bar, which contains ~300 pages filled with artwork and Valve commentary.
The reason I'm bringing it up now is because the book was originally going to be a ~100 pages thicker, as recently discovered by a Half-Life fan who bought the publisher's version of Half-Life 2: Raising the Bar, and found it to be filled with far more information and concept art than the actual release.
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Guild Wars 2 is currently in the worst shape it has ever been. The entirety of its "massive" €45 expansion was devoured within a month, WvW is practically dead, dungeons have been scrapped, Fractals are worse than they were prior to the rework, and the best feature of Guild Wars 2, the free-flowing open world quests, have been put on a timer so if you can't dedicate 2 full hours to them then you can simply forget about getting any rewards out of it.
ArenaNet messed, and they messed up so bad that people have started comparing Heart of Thorns with Spore when it comes to pre-launch promises and reality. There is some hope in this sea of negativity, however, as Mike O Brien came out recently and stated that the big Spring Update will be arriving on April 19, and bringing with it numerous fixes the community has been begging for over half a year now.
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[Update]: The promotion is now over.
Cobalt is a 2D platformer/brawler/shooter where every single thing is done through the use of combat rolling, extreme slow-mo action, and plenty of good ol' regular shooty action as well. It released back in February to some mixed reviews, mostly on account of the story campaign being rather imbalanced, but from what I can tell the multiplayer is almost universally praised.
So if you would like to give Cobalt a spin and see if its the sort of thing you might enjoy, now would be the prime time to do so as Cobalt is free to play on Steam for the next 22 hours. Here's the trailer, so you can hopefully get a better idea of what on earth Cobalt is all about:
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I'll be the first one to say that Doom 3 wasn't very good, mostly because it threw away everything that made the classics so great in favor of half-assed horror elements, but its still heartwarming to see someone this passionate about bringing Doom 3 in to the modern era.
The mod in question is Doom 3: Redux, a solo developed project that boasts improvements to the visuals and audio design, new game modes, restored content, new features, but most importantly, no changes to the overall spirit of Doom 3. If you're wondering how exactly this looks in action, here's a rather lengthy trailer:
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Dark Souls 3, while an absolutely amazing game in nearly every respect, launched with a rather shaky PC version that featured frequent crashes, and bugs for a non-insignificant chunk of the playerbase.
While I was thankfully spared of even the tiniest of problems, those among you that were less fortunate will be glad to hear that the big bug-fixing and balancing patch will be arriving on Monday (April 18). Here are the brief, but significant patch notes for the imaginatively named Update 1.03.1:
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Ubisoft's team orientated FPS Rainbow 6 Siege went through quite a few controversies after its launch, but is now mostly fixed up, and most importantly, actually fun to play.
If you would like to test that theory for yourself, you now have the chance as Rainbow 6 Siege is going to be completely free all the way until 1 pm PT on April 17. You can grab it either on Uplay, or on Steam after which you will have to go through Uplay anyway, but at least you have the illusion of choice!