This Week In PC Gaming is an easy way to catch up with all of the news that you might have missed the past week, organized in such a way that you can get a brief overview on all of the stories and from there you can find more information on those you are interested in.
Given that Christmas season is fast approaching there were a lot of announcements and updates happening all throughout the week so this first pilot article is going to be a content-packed one. With that said, let's jump right in:
Full Throttle & Day of the Tentacle Remasters announced
Shortly following Double Fine's crowdfunder for Psychonauts 2 these two classic point and click adventure games from the now-defunct LucasArts got their very own remaster announcements. You can expect significantly improved graphics, audio as well as a whole bunch of new features they didn't want to reveal just yet.
What's really cool about this is that a lot of the art simply couldn't be transported to a higher resolution so Double Fine is going through all of them and redrawing those that couldn't be updated and the results from what we were shown are phenomenal. The graphics shown with Day of the Tentacle look and feel like they're a part of the old game just simply upgraded to a higher quality, rather than something that was drawn from scratch.
Day of the Tentacle is coming in March of 2016 while Full Throttle is set to arrive in 2017.
The popular modding website Nexus Mods had quite the security scare
The first sign of trouble was that somehow a leaked version of Nexus Mod's user database appeared on a university network which prompted a security scare because user passwords could no longer be considered safe. The fact that a couple of prominent Fallout 4 modders had their accounts hacked during the same time period didn't help the situation much.
Luckily things ended up on a positive note. The leaked user database was from 2013, before the website transitioned to a more secure system so if you joined, or changed your password, since then you are completely in the clear. The few Fallout 4 modders with compromise accounts turned out to be using really weak passwords so them briefly losing their accounts had nothing to do with the whole database leak.
While there is no actual confirmation that anyone has managed to crack the old user database it is still recommended you change your password on Nexus Mods, and more importantly, use different passwords for all high profile websites and clients.
In Virtual Reality news HTC's Vive got delayed till April while the Oculus Rift guys announced EVE: Valkyrie is getting bundled with the Rift
HTC's Vive VR headset is getting delayed from its 2015 launch until April 2016, the reasoning being that they have a few more kinks they want to iron out before their limited commercial release is ready for the eager public. While the delay is slightly disappointing they did say they are producing 7000 more developer kits so once the Vive finally does launch it should have some excellent support.
The Rift however is proceeding as planned with its 2016 quarter 1 launch. They've also announced that EVE: Valkyrie, a space dogfighting game set in (but not connected with directly) the EVE MMO universe, is going to be bundled with pre-order copies of Rift. It was however never stated that Valkyrie won't be bundled with all copies of the Rift so that still remains as a possibility.
As a bonus bit of VR news, Ubisoft has announced their Eagle Flight, an exploration/multiplayer game designed fully with VR technology in mind. It also has high speed PvP eagle battles so there's something they can put on as their box blurb.
Blizzard has confirmed that Overwatch will NOT have heroes or maps as paid DLC
In a brief developer update Blizzard talked about the future updates coming to Overwatch but most importantly they talked about their plans regarding new heroes and maps. And in a piece of news that ushered in a sigh of relief from millions of Blizzard fans they've stated that heroes and maps are an important part of Overwatch and that they simply cannot monetize them.
So while cosmetics are more likely than not going to end up in the store eventually at least the entire gameplay of the game will be fully available for everyone to enjoy. Which makes a lot of sense when you consider that the game is a €40 title rather than a free to play game but its still a sad state of affairs we even needed to go for confirmation about this.
First things first, the use of Unreal Engine seems like a great idea given how beautiful the game looks. Much like how I commented with Day of the Tentacle the graphics here were reworked from the ground up but they managed to make them so close to the original I can't not be in awe.
In more controversial news they've also announced that the game will be released in an episodic format due to them not being able to do everything they want in a single game. This has left many people outraged but until we learn what exactly the system is going to be, and more importantly, what the pricing is going to be like I'd suggest you put away the pitchforks and simply wait this one out.
The canceled Star Wars 1313 might still happen
While none of this is officially confirmed, or even half certain at this point, LucasArts does seem to be looking in to a more mature and adult Star Wars game and Star Wars 1313 is definitely something they are interested in exploring.
Whether this means anything will happen with it or not I don't know, but what I do know is that the thought of an actually serious Star Wars game is an exciting one.
Tribes: Ascend is once again being updated after years of hiatus
After two years of no updates Tribes: Ascend is once again filled with various community members crying out "SHAZBOT" in joy. The update that came the past week made the entire game free to play, no more tediously unlocking gear, its all free to use with only cosmetics and sound packs being sold.
Besides simply opening the game up they've changed it in far too many ways for me to briefly go over. But long story short, there are no more classes, you now chose your armor type and weaponry. Vehicles are far more useful now, weapons have gotten rebalanced, there are new maps based on oldschool classics and so much more.
If a high speed FPS is something that interests you then I suggest you get in there and give it a try, Tribes: Ascend is back and its better than ever.
EA has created a competitive gaming division
This new division will be led by Peter Moore, an industry veteran, and will initially focus on FIFA, Madden NFL and Battlefield with the idea to expand to other compatible games as time goes on.
As of right now they haven't said what exactly they plan to do outside of organizing tournaments but with EA's capital and marketing power behind this I think we've just seen the birth of a new big player in the world of esports. Whether I'm right or not only time will tell.
On a side note, they totally should've named it EAsports!
Good news for modders - This War of Mine & Hotline Miami 2 have released their mod tools and The Binding of Isaac guys have announced upcoming level editors and mod support
This War of Mine 's mod support tools are fully functional and along with Steam Workshop can be used to create and share your creations. Hotline Miami 2's mod tools however are currently in a state of beta testing so if you're going to fiddle with those you will have to either jump through some hoops or simply wait a month for the full version to come out.
As far as The Binding of Isaac is concerned its mod tools are by far the most extensive allowing you to customize anything from levels to enemies and even the game's code. It was announced that you could in theory create an entirely different game with the Isaac game serving as a base. These tools are set to arrive in 2016 though an exact date is as of yet unknown.
CS:GO Winter Update brought up a bit of a controversy
The main problem with the update was the newly added R8 revolver, a weapon so overpowered the only thing you could see on various CS:GO forums was cries to nerf the damned thing back to whatever hell it came from. It was that bad.
Fully accurate while moving, capable of killing in one hit even at long range and with the rock-piercing power that could shame an AWP the revolver was truly a force to be feared and warped the entire game around it for the couple of days it took for it to get nerfed.
I've written a short opinion piece about the failings of this Winter Update patch and how Valve could've avoided all of the pitfalls they've fallen in to.
Star Citizen Alpha 2.0 is released along with multi-crew ships, FPS battles and spacewalking
I might not agree with how Star Citizen is being monetized but even I must admit that the updates have been both frequent and encompassing.
In last weeks update they've added multi-crew ships you can pilot around with friends, new zero-G areas to explore along with pirates you can fight in standard FPS style, better ship maneuverability, EVA walks (read as spacewalks) and a lot more. If you want the complete list of changes I'm afraid this article can't go that large so you'll just have to go through the rather large patch notes yourself.
And that is it for This Week In PC Gaming, if you are interested in any of the events I'd suggest you follow their links to get the full story. With that said, I'll see you next week with the second article in this series.