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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.
Dota 2's International 2023 update has added a cosmetics-free Battle Pass alongside a Profile rework
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[Update #2]: Dota 2 will be getting the rather megalomaniacal Ringmaster hero in 2024.
[Update]: Dota 2's Patch 7.34d has now arrived with some last-minute balance changes before The International.
A little while back Valve announced that they will be stepping away from the usual Battle Pass system in favor of dishing out new cosmetics and sizable updates all throughout the year. They certainly weren't joking about that latter part as Dota 2's been receiving some stellar updates over the past few months - both in terms of new content and general improvements.
Naturally, Valve haven't gotten rid of the Battle Pass system entirely, though the freshly released International 2023 Compendium is certainly a lot different than those that came before. First and foremost, there are absolutely no hero cosmetics to be found in the Compendium. Not even a single one! The whole thing has been created as a way to support Dota 2's esports scene, and so all of the challenges, mini-games and rewards are focused around the competitive scene and its various teams.
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After spending a fair bit of time in testing, it looks like Valve has decided that Counter-Strike 2 is now finally ready for its big debut. And so, without any prior warning and without much fanfare, Counter-Strike 2 has now been unleashed as a free update to CS:GO!
The Source 2 powered Counter-Strike 2 brings with it greatly improved visuals and audio, smoother online play, enhanced Workshop modding tools, updated ranked play, as well as a whole bunch of gameplay tweaks. The most important of these are the new smoke grenades as they no longer produce simple spheres, but rather dynamically fill the environment with smoke which can be affected by shooting or using HE grenades. Needless to say, it's an incredible change, and one that's bound to shake things up on even the most classic of maps.
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Nearly a decade has gone by since the original The Talos Principle, but I'm happy to say that the fancy new sequel is nearly upon us! According to the latest announcement, The Talos Principle 2 will be heading over to PC (via Steam and the Epic Games Store), PlayStation and Xbox on November 2nd, 2023!
Much like its predecessor, The Talos Principle 2 will bring with it a combination of challenging yet somewhat strange puzzles, relaxing music and a highly philosophical storyline that might just give you a bit of an existential crisis! That might not sound all that appealing on paper, but if The Talos Principle 2 is anything like the original, it's almost certainly going to be a unique and compelling experience.
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Quite a few years have gone by since the original announcement, but Starbreeze's co-op shooter Payday 3 has now finally been released. Unfortunately, it has done so alongside some serious server problems and an impressively tedious progression system that have mostly overshadowed the otherwise entertaining gameplay.
While the servers are likely to get fixed up in the next few weeks, getting the progression system into shape is going to take some serious effort as the current iteration is both grindy and unsatisfying. Basically, instead of getting experience by playing the game normally, the only way to gain experience and further your character is to complete challenges which are often very specific and also don't scale based on difficulty.