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[Update #2]: The Lost Caverns of Ixalan has now arrived with dinosaurs, vampires, bonus Commander cards and a surprisingly aggressive limited format.
[Update]: All of The Lost Caverns of Ixalan cards have now been revealed ahead of the November 14th launch. And, Brawl players are getting a little bonus surprise!
If you're a fan of the Ixalan plane and its weird mixtures of dinosaurs and vampires, among other things, you'll be happy to hear that MTG Arena will soon be making a return! Once it arrives this November 14th, The Lost Caverns of Ixalan will bring with it around 300 new cards to mess around with, most of which are focused around the concept of exploring a long-forgotten underworld.
In terms of new mechanics, there are three you should keep an eye out for: Craft, Descend and Discover. First and foremost, Craft is a new way of transforming artifacts. By paying the craft cost and exiling a specific number and type of cards from the battlefield or graveyard, you can transform your artifact and get a powerful effect.
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[Update #2]: All of The Lost Caverns of Ixalan cards have now been revealed ahead of the November 14th launch. And, Brawl players are getting a little bonus surprise!
[Update]: MTG Arena's dinosaur-flavored The Lost Caverns of Ixalan is launching on November 14th.
It took far, far longer than anyone could've expected, but I'm pleased to say that MTG Arena's latest update has now finally added the ability to select your preferred card style. As a part of this addition the entire 'styles' portion of the collection screen has now been removed, while all of the styles and alternate arts have been bundled together under each individual card.
So if you want to change your preferred printing or card style, all you have to do is click on the arrows located at the top left side of the card, select whichever version or style you want, and you're done. Your favorites (marked with a heart) will be stored from that point onward and you won't ever have to worry about them ever again. And if you want to use a different style for a little while, that whole process is as simple as adding your preferred variant to your deck, even if something else is favorited.
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[Update #2]: Darktide's Patch #15 has added the first Carnival map and expanded the Veteran's skill tree.
[Update]: Darktide will be giving PC players a fancy set of armors as a way of saying thanks.
As a part of the recent Patch #13 Darktide added RPG-like talent trees with new abilities and 'grenades' for all classes to mess around with, as well as a massive array of balance changes for both the players and the enemies. Unsurprisingly, given the sheer number of tweaks that happened at once, the balance didn't end up being exactly perfect. Some abilities like Assail were so strong they could basically solo the game on the lower difficulty levels, while some weapons like the classic shotgun were left with such a low damage output that pretty much nobody used them.
So in order to sort these problems out, as well as to spruce up the gameplay even further, Fatshark has now unleashed Patch #14 with yet another massive batch of changes! The highlights include sizable buffs to the Plasma Gun that allow it to pierce through an insane amount of enemies, stronger and less numerous melee elites like Crushers and Ragers, as well as a much tougher time for players trying to speedrun missions while leaving their teammates behind.
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[Update #2:] Overwatch 2's Season 9 will bring self-healing to DPS and tank heroes, among other major changes.
[Update]: Season 7 has now arrived, and aside from a small hiccup with Hanzo, things seem to be going quite well!
While it has the unenviable task of trying to live up to the massive Season 6 update, Overwatch 2's Season 7 will be coming this October 10th to wow players with some fun new changes and additions. You can expect to see a tropical new Control map by the name of Samoa, reworks for both Sombra and Roadhog, as well as a plethora of new cosmetics, including Hanzo's rather fancy Mythic-tier skin.
Speaking of Sombra, her invisibility has been transformed into a passive ability that triggers when she's out of combat. Her signature hack ability prevents enemies from using their own abilities and reveals them through walls, and can also be used on health packs in order to lock them from the enemy team and make them respawn faster. Translocator is no longer a set-and-forget kind of ability and will now always teleport you when thrown - either after a short delay or when it hits the terrain.
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[Update #2]: Dota 2's Patch 7.34e has arrived with nerfs to most of the annoying and omnipresent heroes.
[Update]: Dota 2 will be getting the rather megalomaniacal Ringmaster hero in 2024.
Dota 2's annual The International tournament is nearly upon us, so in order to ensure the meta is as diverse as possible, Valve has now unleashed a sizable balance update. Supremely effective 'tank' items like Blade Mail and Heart of Tarrasque have received small nerfs, as have some of the more powerful early game neutral items like Occult Bracelet and Tumbler's Toy.
On the hero front, it should come as little surprise to hear that two of the strongest carries, Phantom Assassin and Sven, have both scored some major nerfs. Pangolier has also scooped up a whole suite of nerfs, though given that he's been nerfed like a dozen patches in a row, I doubt this will be enough to truly bring him down. Still, it might knock a couple percent off his winrate, so hopefully he won't be too dominant at The International.
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[Update #2]: Darktide will be giving PC players a fancy set of armors as a way of saying thanks.
[Update]: Darktide's Patch #14 has brought in yet another massive batch of balance tweaks.
Instead of simply adding a single new specialization for each of the current classes, Darktide studio Fatshark has decided to take things in a drastically different direction with Patch #13. They ditched the very idea of locked-in specializations, and instead created an RPG-like talent tree where you can mix and match different options and abilities in order to create unique and varied builds.
For example, as a Psyker you can crate a fire-centric build that fights in close quarters and relies on the new psychic shield in order to keep yourself alive, or you can focus on buffing your weaponry and function more like a classic sniper than a mage, or even just create a build that's all about throwing different flavors of lightning around in order to both crowd control and melt important targets. Or if you're so inclined, you can even mix two entirely different archetypes together since the talent tree is relatively free-flowing and doesn't restrict you much outside of the big keystone talents.
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[Update #2]: MTG Arena's dinosaur-flavored The Lost Caverns of Ixalan is launching on November 14th.
[Update]: Alchemy: Eldraine has now arrived, and best of all, MTG Arena added the ability to favorite card styles soon after!
Quite a few months have gone by since the last Alchemy set. The reason, as you would expect, is that between the Standard-focused March of the Machine: The Aftermath supplemental set and the fully fledged The Lord of the Rings set the MTG Arena team was stretched far too thin to attempt to add yet more cards.
However, now that things have calmed down a bit, the Alchemy-focused mini expansions will be continuing as before. The first of these, the 30-card strong Alchemy: Eldraine, will be launching on October 10th with an assortment of unique cards specifically designed for Alchemy and Historic play.
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[Update #2]: World of Warcraft: Cataclysm will be getting the Classic treatment and many new improvements in 2024.
[Update]: Good news, everyone! Icecrown Citadel is now live!
While there are some that will give this title to Ulduar, in my humble opinion the most legendary raid in all of World of Warcraft Classic is Icecrown Citadel. Besides having a bunch of fun boss fights to smash your face against, it also represents the climactic end of the long-running Warcraft 3 storyline, as well as Arthas as a character. Well... if we ignore his brief appearance in Shadowlands anyway, which in all honestly we really should.
With all of that in mind, I'm very pleased to say that Patch 3.4.3 will be heading over to Wrath of the Lich King Classic on October 10th! Patch 3.4.3 will bring with it three 'new' dungeons, the Random Dungeon Finder, an improved quest log, a new tier of challenging Titan Rune dungeons, a new Collections UI, and the list goes on for a while.
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[Update #2]: Darktide's Patch #14 has brought in yet another massive batch of balance tweaks.
[Update]: Darktide's Patch #13 has now arrived, and I'm happy to say it's already looking quite amazing!
In order to help spice up the launch of the Xbox version on October 4th, the Darktide team is planning to release the absolutely massive Patch #13 alongside it. While the full list of changes has not been revealed just yet, the definite highlight of the update is the addition of RPG-like talent trees for all four classes which will bring with them all sorts of new abilities and playstyles to explore.
For example, the Psyker will be able to choose between three different 'ultimate' abilities: a powered up version of the current one, a chunky psychic shield that blocks enemy ranged attacks, or a ridiculously powerful buff that will have you dish out insane amounts of damage while constantly building peril. However, you can slow down the peril build up by securing kills, so as long as you're aggressive enough it looks like you'll be able to keep the buff going for a very long time.
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In an announcement that is probably not going to come as too much of a surprise given the extremely low levels of excitement surrounding the game, Total War studio Creative Assembly have now revealed that their extraction shooter Hyenas has been canceled. Additionally, some of the upcoming unannounced games have been canceled as well, though unsurprisingly no details have been given about them.
The truly unfortunate news it that these cancellations will be followed by a restructuring within Creative Assembly, which is a polite way of saying that some of the staff is going to be losing their jobs. On the positive side, Creative Assembly has announced that they'll be working on reallocating as many people as possible to new roles within the company, so with a bit of luck, the human impact will be minimal.