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2 CommentsHalf-Life remake’s version of the game’s controversial alien world looks great
The creators of Black Mesa, the ambitious, fan-made remake of the original Half-Life, released something special for fans this holiday: the first public look at its version of Xen, the alien world players are transported to in the game’s final chapters.
Black Mesa developer Crowbar Collective released the first screenshot of Xen today on its forums. The team behind the Half-Life “recreation” also elaborated on their approach to remaking Xen, which was generally considered to be the weakest aspect of Valve’s landmark first-person shooter.
“We want our version of Xen to feel like it really belongs with the rest of the game in terms of mechanics, cohesion and progression,” the team said in a forum post. “But we also want to push the boundaries and explore this unique and varied setting; to...
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9 CommentsNew Overwatch heroes are in the works — but we may never get to play them
Overwatch has had a pretty big year, by most measures. It’s won several awards, millions of fans and hundreds of hours of players’ time since it launched this past May, among other achievements and honors.
But Jeff Kaplan, the game’s director, took to YouTube to offer more than just a pat on the back in his latest developer update. Instead, as he explains over the course of 12 minutes, he’s looking ahead to what 2017 will bring to Overwatch.
Not everything Kaplan discusses is so revelatory on its own, but even the vague hints of what’s to come should appease fans. Oasis, a map that’s now in beta on the Windows PC version’s public test realm, will launch in full early next year. Kaplan’s team is also working on adding customization to the spray and communication wheels, so that players...
Cover Story
Issue
24
November 4, 2016
Blizzard’s prodigal son returns
How one of Blizzard’s co-founders left the company, why he decided to come back and what it means for the future.
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9 Comments2016 Steam Awards finalists go all the way back to 2006
The finalists for the first-ever Steam Awards are in, and it’s clear that the Steam community still loves plenty of older titles that may not have gotten their due back in the day.
Valve did not restrict the field of potential nominees to games that debuted in 2016. As such, the majority of nominated titles were released prior to this year, including veritable classics like 2011’s Portal 2 and more niche titles such as 2013’s Euro Truck Simulator 2.
The Steam community’s memory stretches even further into the past, with one of the nominees — Facepunch Studios’ Garry’s Mod, a Half-Life 2 mod that became a stand-alone product — having been released a decade ago, in November 2006. And another game on the list is Age of Empires 2: HD Edition, a 2013 remaster of a game that debuted all the...
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11 CommentsLord of the Rings Online and Dungeons & Dragons Online live on with a new developer
It’s hard for any massively multiplayer game that’s not World of Warcraft to maintain momentum for five or six years, much less a decade. Yet The Lord of the Rings Online is coming up on its 10-year anniversary, and Dungeons & Dragons Online celebrated 10 years earlier this year. Both games were developed by Turbine, and both have been inching along with the support of publisher Warner Bros. Interactive.
Yesterday, both The Lord of the Rings Online and Dungeons & Dragons Online received a surprising new lease on life, with Warner Bros. giving them a chance to continue with a new developer and publisher. As announced in an FAQ on The Lord of the Rings Online website, development of both games will now be handled by Standing Stone Games, “a newly-formed independent game studio made up of...
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25 CommentsMass Effect 2 is free on PC right now (update)
BioWare’s 2010 sci-fi role-playing game, Mass Effect 2, is currently free to download for Windows PC through Origin. The only requirement is an Origin account.
Mass Effect 2 doesn’t appear to officially be part of publisher Electronic Arts’ Origin on the House program, which gives away free games; EA is currently giving away Dungeon Keeper as part of that ongoing promotion. However, developer BioWare said on Monday that it had five days worth of freebies planned for its fans.
In the spirit of the season, we're giving away five days of freebies starting tomorrow. Stay tuned. pic.twitter.com/0oNuMkAevX— BioWare (@bioware) December 19, 2016
Mass Effect 2 was originally released for Xbox 360 and Windows PC in 2010 to wide critical acclaim. The game came to PlayStation 3 the following...
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0 CommentsKiller Instinct’s next fighter is a cyborg with miniguns for arms
Killer Instinct for Xbox One and Windows PC will get a new fighter in January, Microsoft Studios and developer Iron Galaxy confirmed today. Kilgore, a cyborg who brings some major firepower to the fighting game, will join the roster next year.
Kilgore will draw obvious comparisons to Killer Instinct series veteran Fulgore, though beyond the twin minigun arms, we don’t know too much about the new character’s capabilities. While Kilgore won’t drop until January, Killer Instinct players will get a sneak peek at the new addition soon, the developer says. Players will get to fight against Kilgore starting later this week.
Microsoft Studios community manager Rukari Austin said on Twitter that Kilgore is an UltraTech-developed amalgamation. Some of Kilgore’s animations are borrowed from other K...
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2 CommentsNight in the Woods delayed to February
Night in the Woods, the gorgeous adventure game from Infinite Fall, has been pushed back to “somewhere in the first part of February,” the studio announced today.
That represents a delay of a few weeks from the previously given release date — Infinite Fall said in late October that it planned to launch Night in the Woods on Jan. 10, 2017.
“Some last minute things have come up suddenly over the past few days and we have to push back the [Night in the Woods] release by a few weeks,” said Infinite Fall in a Kickstarter update. “It’s all normal stuff, nothing is on fire, and it’s all to do with the fact that we’re a tiny team making a big game and doing a multi-platform launch is a whole *waves hands around* thing.”
It’s rough timing for Infinite Fall: Last week, the studio released the f...
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2 CommentsGlimpse Battlefield 1’s first expansion in this fiery concept art
Battlefield 1’s first expansion, They Shall Not Pass, expands the scope of the Great War to include the French Army, as you can see in the concept art that developer EA DICE released today.
They Shall Not Pass isn’t scheduled to arrive until March, so it makes sense that EA DICE doesn’t want to — or isn’t ready to — show anything beyond concept art at this stage. So far, the company has said that the expansion will allow buyers to play as the French Army in the game’s multiplayer component, and that a future add-on will bring in Russia. Austro-Hungarian, British, German, Italian, Ottoman and U.S. forces are currently playable in Battlefield 1.
As you may expect, the battlefields on display in the artwork include scenes of fire-ravaged forests, muddy trenches and tight corridors. They...
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0 CommentsLeague of Legends’ maker inks rich broadcast contract, with an eye on premium content
Riot Games will rake in $50 million a year — at minimum — under an arrangement with Major League Baseball's online streaming operation to monetize and commercialize League of Legends competitions.
The deal between Riot and BAMTech, which is a subsidiary of MLB Advanced Media, runs through 2023. MLBAM handles MLB.tv, the online streaming network showing the leagues' games throughout the season. Clients such as Disney, HBO, the WWE and the PGA Tour also use BAMTech for their premium content offerings.
In an interview with Yahoo! Sports, Riot representatives said the deal will not change or end the current supply of free League of Legends content found on Twitch, YouTube and other streaming platforms. However, with a $50 million minimum guarantee per year, it's obvious some kind of premium...
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7 CommentsStreet Fighter 5 rage-quitters get named and shamed in next update
Street Fighter 5 rage-quitters are due for a public shaming in the game's next update, according to observant fans who mined the newest version for information.
As noticed by NeoGAF, a new test branch for the PC version of Street Fighter 5 went up on Steam and fans plundered it for information before it could be pulled back. Among the discoveries: Players who quit in-progress matches too often are going to get a badge noting that.
"Special icons will be displayed on the Fighter Profiles of players who frequently disconnect, as well as those who never do, making it easier for players with the same icon to battle against each other," say the notes.
Consider this a Scarlet Q.
Rage-quitting has been an issue since the flagship fighting game's launch back in February. Street Fighter 5 l...
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4 CommentsAmazon’s hero-based sports brawler, Breakaway, playable for free this weekend
Amazon Game Studios’ mythological sport brawler Breakaway, a third-person competitive multiplayer game with elements of Rocket League, Powerstone and League of Legends, is playable this weekend in alpha form, the game’s creators announced this week. The Windows PC game will be available to download and play through Monday, Dec. 19 for free.
Breakaway is one of three projects in development at Amazon Game Studios, which is also working on New World, a massively multiplayer, open-ended sandbox game, and Crucible, a hero-based survival game set on an alien world.
Developed for PC platforms and built with Twitch streaming in mind, Breakaway is a 4v4 brawler infused with sports game rules. Each team of four heroes is trying to move a ball — known as the relic — into a goal located at the...
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35 CommentsBlizzard admits its ‘cool meter’ was off with Overwatch’s most hated holiday look
Facing backlash over a disappointing exclusive skin released as part of Overwatch’s holiday event, director Jeff Kaplan took to Battle.net to admit to fans that Blizzard Entertainment’s “‘cool meter’ was off” when it came to designing Mei’s deeply unpopular seasonal look.
“We just sort of make a gut call based off of what we think is cool,” Kaplan wrote in a post responding to fan complaints about Mei’s new skin, which hit Overwatch this week as part of the Winter Wonderland update. “Coolness is very subjective, and based off of the community reaction it seems like our gauge was off on this one.”
The community reaction, as we reported just after Winter Wonderland’s release, was resoundingly negative. Mei’s holiday outfit — her first seasonal event look — was nothing more than a festive...
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16 CommentsUbisoft offers seven PC games free this weekend
If you missed out on any of the Windows PC games that Ubisoft offered free as part of its 30th anniversary celebration this year, fear not: All seven are free again this weekend.
During this “Special Weekend,” which runs from today, Dec. 15, through Sunday, Dec. 18, the Ubisoft Club is offering the following seven titles free: Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time, Tom Clancy's Splinter Cell, Rayman Origins, The Crew, Beyond Good & Evil, Far Cry 3: Blood Dragon and Assassin's Creed 3.
Ubisoft has been running its “Ubi 30” giveaways since June, with each of the games available free for one month during that time. The current and final game is Assassin’s Creed 3, so if you don’t take advantage of the Special Weekend, you’ll at least be able to get that title free through the end of...
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3 CommentsNight in the Woods has knife fights and creepy platforming
Indie adventure game Night in the Woods has received its official trailer, and it’s here to prove that there’s more to this stylish game than meets the eye.
Night in the Woods is the story of Mae, a cat who returns home from college to her beleaguered rust-belt town. We’ve spent time with this game’s E3 demo, which was lavish in presentation and dense with dialogue. But from the looks of this trailer, that’s just the tip of the iceberg. It shows off the game’s many other characters, and also teases a few more mini-games including what appears to be a knife fight.
Night in the Woods won’t be available until its launch date, Jan. 10, 2017, when it will be out on itch.io, Linux, Mac and Windows PC via Valve’s Steam platform, and PlayStation 4. But there’s a few ways you can experience it...
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17 CommentsXbox One and Windows 10 getting Dolby Atmos surround sound in 2017
Support for Dolby Atmos, the new surround sound technology from Dolby Laboratories, will arrive on both Windows 10 and the Xbox One next year, Microsoft said today.
Going into detail on an announcement made in late October, Microsoft said that Dolby Atmos will be supported in games as well as in the Xbox One’s Blu-ray app. In fact, Xbox One Preview Program members can try Dolby Atmos in the Blu-ray app right now, and the feature will be available for everyone “soon,” according to Microsoft.
If you’re unfamiliar with Dolby Atmos, it’s a new format for mixing surround audio in movies, games and other media. Until now, surround sound has been delivered in channels, where the naming convention of “5.1” and “7.1” represents five or seven speakers arranged around a space plus one subwoofer...
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22 CommentsDoom wraps up premium DLC with Bloodfall
Doom added three multiplayer maps, a new weapon and other customization options in Bloodfall, the last of three premium DLC packs scheduled since its May launch.
The extension is $14.99 and is available now on the PlayStation Store, Xbox Marketplace, and for Windows PC.
Details may be seen in the video above. The three maps are Empyrian, Boneyard and Outbreak. The new weapon is the grenade launcher, which has a smoke bomb as a secondary fire option.
There also are lateral thrusters to give players short directional bursts, six new hack modules, a new player-controlled demon (the Spectre Pinky) and a slew of new customization options.
Doom and id Software earned four nominations at The Game Awards (including game of the year) and took home two, for best sound design and best action game.
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6 CommentsModern Warfare Remastered update introduces women soldiers to multiplayer
Call of Duty: Modern Warfare Remastered got a beefy title update yesterday, bringing the usual new maps and game types (all of it is free). Notably, it also brings female avatars to the landmark shooter's multiplayer for the first time.
Women soldiers weren't an option in the original Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare, which launched in 2007. Women were first playable in Call of Duty: Ghosts, which launched in 2013, the same year the U.S. military lifted its ban on women serving in combat.
Activision noted the addition with little fanfare or additional detail. Raven Software is the studio in charge of Modern Warfare Remastered, and obliquely referenced the addition in this remark:
We’re excited to support this great game with new content, beginning today with a ton of new customization...
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7 CommentsDishonored 2’s New Game+ mode lets you combine Emily’s and Corvo’s powers
Dishonored 2’s New Game Plus mode won’t just let players replay the game with the powers they acquired the first time through — it’ll allow them to combine powers from both protagonists.
The feature will come to Dishonored 2 on all platforms next Monday, Dec. 19, in Game Update 1. Arkane released a beta version of the patch on Windows PC today.
Completing Dishonored 2 with either Corvo Attano or Emily Kaldwin will unlock the New Game Plus Mode. On a subsequent playthrough, you’ll still have the option of selecting either of the two protagonists to play as, and you’ll start the game with all of the runes and bone charms you collected previously. More importantly, though, you’ll also be able to pick and choose from both characters’ abilities by reassigning runes.
“Dishonored players have...
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