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[Update #2]: Sonic Frontiers has now arrived onto PC and consoles alongside some highly divisive reviews.
[Update]: Sonic Origins is coming this July 2022 with four remastered classics and plenty of bonus content.
In stark contrast to the rest of the series, the recently announced Sonic Frontiers will focus on open-world gameplay and exploration. As is tradition you'll still be doing basic platforming, collecting rings, beating up hordes of enemies and smashing head-first into walls at high speed, just with a lot more freedom in how you tackle things than before.
There is sadly no lengthy gameplay preview available just yet, but you can get a decent idea of what the Sonic team is trying to go for through the original announcement trailer. Have a little peek:
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[Update]: My review of Monster Hunter Rise (PC) has now been released, and I'm very happy to say that it's a great port for a compelling yet somewhat unambitious Monster Hunter game.
After a few months of teasers, the PC version of Monster Hunter Rise is now nearly upon us. Once it arrives on January 12th it'll bring with it support for 4K resolutions, high-res textures, uncapped framerates, ultrawide support, as well as a whole assortment of customization options.
Best of all, unlike Monster Hunter: World which took an incredibly long time to reach parity with the console version, Monster Hunter Rise will launch with the vast majority of post-launch content already present and accounted for! You won't have to wait all that long for the rest to arrive either, as Capcom is expecting Monster Hunter Rise to achieve full parity between the two versions by the end of February 2022!
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[Update #2]: Apex Legends' Season 12 - Defiance is launching on February 8, 2022 with the new Legend Mad Maggie.
[Update]: Right on time, the Dark Depths event has now gone live!
If you're looking for something to help pass the time before Apex Legends' Season 12 arrives in early February, you'll be pleased to hear that Respawn has just announced a brand new event - Dark Depths. Once it arrives this January 11th, Dark Depths will bring with it a lush new Arena map by the name of Habitat, as well as a whole assortment of new cosmetics to collect.
First things first, allow me to share with you the brief teaser trailer. It should give you a nice little peek at the Habitat arena, as well as show what some of the new items are all about. Have a look:
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[Update]: The greatly improved Death Stranding Director's Cut has now landed onto PC as a $10 upgrade
In an announcement that really shouldn't come as too much of a surprise, 505 Games have revealed that the new and improved Death Stranding Director's Cut will indeed be arriving onto PC as well. The exact release date has not been confirmed just yet, though you can expect to see it launch simultaneously for Steam and the Epic Games Store in Spring 2022.
As for the actual improvements, the Director's Cut will bring with it a variety of new equipment to play around with, everything from the cargo catapult to the buddy bot, as well as smoother controls and better melee combat. You can also expect to see new missions and storylines, along with UI improvements and various fixes.
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[Update #2]: Overwatch's Year of the Tiger event has now arrived, though sadly with even less content than usual.
[Update]: Microsoft has acquired Activision Blizzard for nearly 69 billion dollars.
As a part of December's highly experimental balance test, Blizzard toyed around with a variety of new mechanics and concepts. Some of those tweaks seem to have gone over incredibly well with both the community and Blizzard's own testers, because the freshly released update has just added a bunch of them to the live version of Overwatch!
Cassidy (formerly McCree) can now roll in the air, Hanzo's Storm Arrows ricochet once upon impact, while Moira's fade allows her to super-jump! Here's a quick rundown of all the new changes and additions:
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[Update #2]: Apex Legends' Season 12 - Defiance is launching on February 8, 2022 with the new Legend Mad Maggie.
[Update]: The Dark Depths update is bringing in a lush new Arena map and a bunch of free cosmetics on January 11, 2022.
In order to help pass the time before the big Season 12 update arrives at some point in February, Apex Legends devs have now unleashed a brand new animated short. Unlike some of the previous ones, the freshly released Stories from the Outlands: Gridiron is not here to tease new content, but rather to give us a bit of an insight into Bangalore's history.
So if you're interested in learning some more Banga-lore that's thankfully not 10 minutes of her overexplaining basic concepts to people, allow me to share with you the cinematic short. It's quite an interesting one!
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With the great winter sale and the last round of voting finally concluded, Valve has now officially revealed the 2021 Steam Award winners! You can find the full list, all neatly sorted by category, over at the Steam Awards website.
Despite being a purely community-driven affair and thus liable to become a popularity contest, I'm very happy to say that this year's winners have been well chosen! Nioh 2 got recognized as a difficult but highly enjoyable game, the heavily co-op focused It Takes Two rightly secured the Better With Friends category, while the Labor of Love award went to Terraria and its never-ending stream of quality updates.
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[Update #2]: Techland has now also revealed their plans for Dying Light 2's post-launch updates and DLC.
[Update]: My review for Dying Light 2 is now up, and I'm happy to say that it's a somewhat misguided yet still highly entertaining bandit-kicking simulator!
After going through a bunch of development trouble and numerous delays, Dying Light 2 is now nearly upon us. So if you're in the mood for parkouring your way through the zombie apocalypse, mark February 4, 2022 on your calendar as that's when Dying Light 2 will be wall-jumping onto PC and consoles.
As for what exactly you can expect to see in terms of gameplay and tone, that you can find out through two of the recent trailers. The first is the fancy cinematic showing off what sort of atmosphere Dying Light 2 is going for, while the second one is a lengthy gameplay preview. Have a gander:
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If you're looking for some games to cuddle up with over the next few weeks, you might be interested to hear that the modern Tomb Raider trilogy is currently free to grab. All you have to do is head on over to the Epic Games Store, grab yourself a copy of each one, and you'll be good to go.
The only catch, as always, is that the giveaway is time limited. So make sure to snag the trilogy before the giveaway ends on January 6, 2022, after which you'll be able to play the games whenever you want and for however long you want.
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[Update #2]: Weird West has now arrived alongside some pretty positive reviews.
[Update]: Weird West devs have now released an extremely lengthy preview showing off talking pigmen and other assorted craziness.
Weird West is an upcoming dark fantasy action-RPG that combines the usual stories about lawmen and gunslingers with fantastical creatures and otherworldly powers. So not only will you be able to engage in shootouts at noon, but also transform into everything from a werewolf to a tornado!
If that kind of nonsense sounds like it's right up your alley, I'm afraid I have somewhat bad news to deliver. Due to the WolfEye Studios team needing a bit more time in order to ensure Weird West is fully polished, the release date has now been pushed back from January 11 to March 31, 2022.