Blizzard announced Diablo 2: Resurrected at BlizCon last month. This new titbit comes from an interview between Blizzmen and the Ian Games Network, who capped it off by asking if players could import original saves. “Yes! Yes, keep those!” said producer Matthew Cederquist. “Back when we were working on [the remaster], we wondered if the old save files would work and we kind of shoved it in and it worked!...
Developers Blizzard Entertainment – who friendly reminder, are part of Activision Blizzard, who are currently being sued over an alleged culture of sexual harassment and discrimination and stand accused of destroying documents relating to the case – explained the 21:9 issue in a blog post. Apparently, as far back as April’s technical alpha test, it became apparent that ultrawide resolutions allowed players to see and interact with monsters (i.e. extinguish their lives) at ranges “beyond the original game’s intention....
Luiga last week revealed the “involuntary” departure of Disco Elysium designer Robert Kurvitz, writer Helen Hindpere and artist Aleksander Rostov from studio ZA/UM. Rostov tweeted a confirmation on behalf of the trio. “It happened late last year. They were fired on false premises and the entire ordeal has been very traumatizing for both them and people close to them,” said Luiga in a brief interview with GamePressure published today. Luiga, who was part of the creation of the world of Elysium and who worked at the studio during its first year, said he was unsure whether he was under NDA with the company....
Disco Elysium debuted on PC on October 15th, 2019. Since then, it’s been revamped with a Final Cut that added full voice acting and new content (Nic Reuben had mixed thoughts on that), and started bringing the game to consoles. Today, mere days before its second birthday, it’s finally coming to Switch and Xboxes. Our Alice’s original Disco Elysium review liked the game but didn’t love it as some insisted she should, and it’s possible she’ll never hear the end of that....
After spending far, far too long trying to obsessively control every detail of Distant Worlds 2, I’ve accepted that I need to take my own advice and work with its macromanagement systems instead. They are, after all, the reason its ludicrous scale is workable at all beyond the opening hours, and a major reason its predecessor was so interesting and forward-thinking to begin with. But they are also a source of great friction and confusion, especially if you don’t take the time to learn how they actually work....
Writing in a blog post this weekend, Bethesda outlined how these new trans-dimensional baddies work. If a demon does manage to land a killing blow on the Doom Slayer, they’ll become an Empowered Demon - a jacked-up version of their kind that will start appearing in other players campaigns. Killing them will dump a ton of additional health and ammo, with a nice little XP bonus for avenging your fellow Slayer....
In RPS’s Jupiter Hell early access review, it sounds like a good bit of demon slaying ripping and tearing. “Environmental features like exploding barrels not only honour the hallowed FPS that inspired Jupiter Hell, but also amplify this sense of dynamic movement,” Steve Hogarty says. “You can kite enemies to lure them towards barrels before manually targeting them to make everything pop at once, which is just as gratifying as it is in any other genre....
The original DQXI is one of the best PC RPGs, sez us, so building on that sounds good. DQXISEOAEADE pumps up the JRPG with some good stuff. New quests focus on the stories of your companions. You get to play with Japanese voices, if you want. And can switch between the original synthesised soundtrack and an actual symphonic version. A Photo Mode lets you pose characters and such. New side-quests visit past Dragon Quest worlds in a 16-bit style....
The good news is that this new version of Dwarf Fortress released on Steam does an admirable job of making the game considerably more approachable. I was apprehensive at first, but then something clicked and I lost the first of what would be many afternoons over the past fortnight, safe in the knowledge that when I eventually stepped away from this goliath, I’d be able to come back without feeling overwhelmed and have to start all over again....
Elite Dangerous: Odyssey is a new expansion that lets players hop out of their ships and explore on their own two legs for the first time. Unfortunately, it came out in such a buggy state that game director David Braben ended up apologising “wholeheartedly” to players suffering from the launch woes. Even known-Elite Dangerous fan Brendy couldn’t quite get past all the jank. In his Elite Dangerous: Odyssey review, he says the expansion wasn’t released in a finished state....
Top tip: don’t give a speech about how this is your day of ultimate victory before you fire your giant space lasers and wipe out your enemies once and for all. You’re just asking for some dramatic irony to befall you, and I bet the “aftermath” is just the Thargoids pissing themselves with laughter. If you want to see Elite Dangerous’s latest story content, you don’t need to have bought its most recent expansion, Odyssey....
Zenimax outline the basics of the new character paths system in a blog post. The pathing tool will let you set a walking route for any of the mounts or pets or followers in your home. For each one, you can create up to 30 nodes. They can walk to each in turn like a set path or go to each randomly to create a few favorite spots for them to hang out....
Dying is sort of a big deal in EVE. Ships cost money to replace, but so do your clones. Spare bodies cost more cash the more skills you have, and bricking it in deep space can also cost you any expensive implants (skill modifiers) you’re kitted out with. Normally, you get one chance to escape after your ship pops - a fragile escape capsule, hard to target but immediately doomed once a would-be assailant gets a solid lock....
As trailers go, it’s fairly upfront, showing a full minute of what certainly appears to be proper in-game footage. Although a little light on specifics, it packs a lot of elements in. We see rideable (and apparently hijackable, judging by the midair leap into a helicopter about 18 seconds in) vehicles, huge robots kicking and swinging axes at each other, hoverboards, even a robot dragon. And there’s your general first person shooting dotted throughout....
“This time, English recording is going first. And we have been focusing on British English,” Yoshida said during an interview on Washagana TV (translated by Gematsu). While the Japanese voice acting will come after, Yoshida says that the English has gone first so they can get face capture for the game. “We can’t possibly hand-animate every cut of a scene. So this time we are doing full facial motion captures and then adding voices to that,” he adds....
“The first option will warn you of a potentially disturbing scene ahead of time by displaying a non-intrusive pop-up that gives a brief description of the type of event that’s waiting around the corner, or in an audio or video log before you play it,” Dead Space’s lead senior experience designer Christian Cimon explained in a blog post. “The other option will actually hide the upcoming scene behind a screen effect....
Here’s the video: While I’m tired of fighting the undead in games, and of grimy worlds, I do like the idea that it’s gunpowder that turns the tide in a world of old gods and black magic. I was not previously familiar with the genre of “black powder fantasy”. There are hints of a unique flavour here, then, in Flintlock’s protagonist and references to trench warfare. Flintlock: The Siege Of Dawn is due to launch later this year on Steam and Epic’s game store, the Epic Game Store....
Great news! All of that will be worse soon! The upcoming Core Combat update revolves around emboldening players, introducing a load of tweaks that incentivise aggression. It’s not out ’til August 6th, but come watch this vid and and do some thinking about swords with me. As the vid establishes, the three goals of the update are to “increase consistency”, “enhance the viability of general offensive across the entire set of attacks for all heroes”, and to “counter light spam’s effectiveness”....
Weird West will be an “action-resolved version of something like Fallout meets Ultima 7”, says Colantonio, with “a space of possibilities where no two players have the same playthrough exactly”. He doesn’t let slip much more than that - but he does have some interesting things to say about immersive sim-iness, and why he left Arkane. All this comes from cheery RPS fanzine PC Gamer, but here’s what Wild West looks like before we get into sim chat....
So! Come January 23rd, Fortnite will add Kickoff Set outfits, which can made set to the kit from any of the clubs Epic have signed up. Those are: Manchester City FC, Juventus, AC Milan, Inter Milan, AS Roma, Seattle Sounders FC, Atlanta United, Los Angeles FC, Santos FC, Wolves, West Ham United FC, Sevilla FC, Sporting CP, Borussia Mönchengladbach, FC Schalke 04, VFL Wolfsburg, Rangers FC, Celtic FC, Cerezo Osaka, Melbourne City FC, Sydney FC, Western Sydney Wanderers, EC Bahia....
