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12 CommentsElite: Dangerous ‘predicted’ the discovery of the Trappist-1 system
This week, astronomers announced the discovery of the Trappist 1 system, 39.5 light years away, which contains seven rocky worlds orbiting their star within a zone believed to support liquid water, therefore good candidates for life. It turns out that a while ago, the wide-open spacefaring adventure Elite: Dangerous, through its algorithm, created a system that closely matches the real one, and not only that, put it in the same location relative to our Solar System.
Frontier Developments made this discovery itself when it went looking to recreate the Trappist-1 system in the game, as it's done in the past for other discoveries (notably the exploration of Pluto and its satellite in 2015). David Braben, the game's director, explained the game's Stellar Forge engine and how it generates...
News
19 CommentsVideo game releases for March 2017
Here are some of the big video game releases for the month of March 2017. Be sure to check out the list we put together of our most anticipated games of 2017 and subscribe to Polygon's YouTube channel for tons of gaming videos. Also, here are the free games you get with your Xbox Live Gold subscription this month. Additionally, here's what is coming to your favorite video streaming services and here's what is leaving in March.
What are you looking forward to playing? Did we miss anything? Let us know in the comments.
Note: This is not a comprehensive list of releases and only games with specific dates are listed below. Some games are announced for March but have no firm release date.
Mar. 3:
Nintendo Switch — Nintendo's newest hardware is a console/portable hybrid...
Cover Story
Issue
25
January 9, 2017
Final Fantasy 7: An oral history
30,000 words! 35 interviews! 4 videos! A trivia minigame! We take an in-depth look back at Square’s breakthrough role-playing game.
Read moreNews
18 CommentsOverwatch’s latest update points to one thing: Doomfist
Big things are happening in the world of Overwatch. A new update that rolled out today on the game’s public test region — aka the PTR, where players can try out upcoming changes to the game — indicates one thing: Something big is happening with Doomfist.
Earlier today, Blizzard tweeted out a new teaser image on the official Overwatch Twitter accounts. The image showed a location that Overwatch players are intimately familiar with, the opening spawn area on the Numbani map, only now the airport terminal appears to have been severely damaged.
A group of OR15 defense machines appear to have been destroyed by an “unidentified assailant,” according to the tweet. Notably, one of those OR15s appears to have been punched right into a wall.
[BREAKING] OR15 defense units destroyed in...
News
0 CommentsXenonauts 2, original XCOM’s spiritual successor, launches a demo
Xenonauts 2, the sequel to the spiritual successor of the original X-COM: UFO Defense, has quietly released a free demo on GoG.com. You can download it and play it right now.
Way back before Firaxis announced it was rebooting the XCOM franchise, a little company called Goldhawk Interactive was doing the same thing. But instead of making something glossy in the Unreal Engine, it went much more old school. The result was the first Xenonauts, a very complex game built with a defiantly two-dimensional art style.
Reviews were mixed. For me personally, a huge XCOM and turn-based strategy fan, it was not my jam. Too slow. Too capricious.
Xenonauts 2 has been in the works for some time now, and Goldhawk has clearly gotten with the program and upgraded to a fully 3D style. The screenshots below...
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News
5 CommentsNorthgard is the indie game at the top of the Steam charts right now
It’s been a good couple of weeks for games. For Honor dropped on Valentine’s Day, right on schedule, around the same time as Sniper Elite 4. And, oh yeah, there’s that new Nintendo console on the way. But one little indie game has been able to cut through the chatter to consumers. It’s called Northgard, and the day after its release it was number one on Steam’s top sellers list.
So what’s a Northgard?
At first glance, the game looks a lot like Banished, a medieval colony simulation game made by a single developer named Luke Hodorowicz. It’s one of my favorite games of the past few years. But Northgard has a lot more going on.
First, it’s about Vikings so there’s quite a bit of combat in it. The art style looks a bit like Clash of Clans had a baby with Warcraft 2. But it’s also an...
News
35 CommentsResident Evil 7’s next DLC stars Chris Redfield
Resident Evil 7 biohazard players will get to spend some time with a familiar face in the game’s next downloadable add-on. Chris Redfield, one of two playable main characters in the original Resident Evil and many of its sequels, will be featured in a new episode titled Not A Hero.
Not A Hero will be released for free sometime this spring, Capcom confirmed today. “Who or what is he chasing? Find out soon in this separate story,” Capcom teased in a tweet.
[Note: The following contains spoilers for Resident Evil 7.]
Resident Evil fans who finished Resident Evil 7 are well aware that Chris makes a cameo in that game, though his brief appearance was shrouded in mystery. In fact, when Chris shows up at the end of the game, he identifies himself simply as “Redfield.” Given the indication that...
News
43 CommentsFuture Halo games will bring back split-screen
Future Halo games — specifically the franchise’s first-person shooter entries — will bring back split-screen features, a longtime staple of the series that was dropped for 2015’s Halo 5: Guardians.
343 Industries head Bonnie Ross said at this week’s DICE Summit in Las Vegas that Halo FPS games will “always have split-screen going forward,” calling the removal of the feature — and the ensuing fan outcry — a painful learning lesson for the studio.
At DICE, Ross spoke about 343 Industries’ efforts to evolve the Halo series since the studio was established in 2007. Ross said that 343 is proud of its efforts to both “honor the core” of the franchise and move beyond what original developer Bungie did with Halo, “even if that means sometimes we fail.”
“I like what we've done moving it...
News
3 CommentsPAMELA blends BioShock with DayZ, hits Steam soon
PAMELA, the futuristic, single-player survival horror game from a tiny Canadian development team, is entering Steam’s Early Access program on March 9.
When Polygon first heard about PAMELA we were struck with the glossy, modern design of its environments. Turns out that the developers at NVYVE started out doing architectural visualizations. That means the failed, utopian world called Eden that they’ve created is as much a character in the game as anything else. The player’s main ally will be P.A.M.E.L.A., Eden’s AI overseer. She can share information on how to survive, and also grants the player amplified abilities.
NVYVE Studios
PAMELA will feature weapons and abilities inspired by series like Deus Ex and Mass Effect.
Much of...
News
11 CommentsGame of Thrones’ Natalie Dormer is in Mass Effect: Andromeda
Natalie Dormer, veteran of Game of Thrones, The Hunger Games and Elementary, will play an important role in Mass Effect: Andromeda — as the first person you meet in the galaxy of Andromeda.
Dormer’s character is an Asari doctor who goes by the name Lexi T’Perro, and she is the first person to greet the Andromeda’s lead when they wake from the 600 years of cryosleep that got them through the journey to a new galaxy.
“Having Lexi, sort of, almost wake you up from your 600-year sleep, and being that first friendly face that you meet ... it was very important that we treat that character in a way that you would find interest in them but also find some compassion as well,” creative director Mac Walters says of the character in one of two videos BioWare released on T’Perro and Dormer today....
News
7 CommentsWartile is gorgeous, back from the dead and coming to Steam next month
Wartile stormed onto Kickstarter less than a year ago, but the campaign was canceled in part due to a lack of funding. Now the small team at Playwood Projects is back with a more complete version of the game, launching on Steam’s Early Access platform March 17.
Even more impressive is the fact that even without crowdfunding support, Playwood still got the game ready to meet the delivery date that it originally pitched in its Kickstarter campaign.
Wartile is a unique blend of real-time strategy and tabletop miniatures-based gameplay. While the enemy moves and attacks on their own, players click and drag their own game pieces around making attacks. It looks a bit like a sublimely animated version of Battle Chess, with one key difference.
The terrain in Wartile is absolutely stunning.
F...
Report
14 CommentsOverwatch's defining characteristic is its location
Blizzard has taken its players and fans to many strange places. They've visited the fantasy lands of Azeroth, StarCraft's alien-infested outer space and the gothic underworld of Diablo. But for the famed company, one of its biggest challenges yet was setting a game on Earth.
Speaking at the DICE Summit in Las Vegas today, Overwatch game director Jeff Kaplan explained why the team wanted to make a game set on Earth, and why the prospect was so daunting.
As previously chronicled on Polygon, Overwatch was born from the disaster of failed MMO project Titan. A rump Titan team was tasked with coming up with a new game concept. In the “despair” and “dark situation” of Titan's cancellation, Kaplan said the team was naturally drawn to "a bright and hopeful world." They wanted to create a fantasy...
Opinion
13 CommentsPlaying World of Warcraft is now the fastest way to earn Overwatch loot
Blizzard introduced a new feature that allows players to use the WoW Token market to exchange their World of Warcraft gold for Battle.net balance, which is store credit that can be used to buy Blizzard software or to purchase microtransactions in any of Blizzard’s games.
WoW game director Ion Hazzikostas said the players with enough extra gold to sell were dedicated WoW players, and they were using their Battle.net balance mostly within the WoW ecosystem; they were buying cosmetic items in the WoW cash store and paying for account services like name changes and server transfers.
But that’s thinking small! The new Token system means that you can earn everything from new cards in Hearthstone to more loot boxes in Overwatch by grinding for gold in WoW.
And doing so is, in fact, much...
News
1 CommentH1Z1 tournament to air on The CW in primetime
H1Z1: King of the Kill is headed to primetime television. The finale of a $300,000 tournament series is set to air April 20 on The CW Network at 9 pm ET.
Daybreak Game Company, formerly known as Sony Online Entertainment, launched H1Z1 into Steam’s Early Access in February 2015. The zombie-themed online multiplayer survival game was originally expected to be free-to-play, but it eventually split into two games — H1Z1: Just Survive and H1Z1: King of the Kill — both retailing for $19.99. Throughout its lifespan the competitive mode, originally called Battle Royale, has been incredibly popular. It remains among the most-played games on Steam and the most-streamed games on Twitch.
The “tournament and eSports docuseries” will be called H1Z1: Fight for the Crown and will launch on The CW and...
Dishonored 2 guide
0 CommentsDishonored 2 collectibles guide
There are four types of collectibles in Dishonored 2 — runes, bonecharms, paintings and blueprints. In this guide, we'll show you how to find every one of them.
Looking for a walkthrough?
Our Dishonored 2 coverage doesn't end with a full walkthrough. We also have a Dishonored 2 walkthrough that will show you how to beat the game stealthily or … murder-ly. It's your call.
Table of contents
All A Long Day in Dunwall collectibles
All Edge of the World collectibles
All The Good Doctor collectibles
All The Clockwork Mason collectibles
All The Royal Conservatory collectibles
All Dust District collectibles
All A Crack in the Slab collectibles
All The Grand Palace collectibles
All Death to the Empress collectibles
Video
3 CommentsElder Scrolls Online: Morrowind has its first gameplay trailer, new screenshots
The Elder Scrolls Online: Morrowind dropped its first gameplay trailer today, and it’s custom built to send your nostalgia into overdrive.
The video, which is included above, is set to a motion-picture style orchestral soundtrack. You’ll see familiar locations from the 2002 classic, The Elder Scrolls 3: Morrowind, recreated in the modern MMO engine. We recognized Seyda Need, that games’ backwater swamp town, as well as Balmora where its first major quest line took place. There’s also a smattering of giant mushrooms, dwemer ruins and more bone armor than you can shake a glass mace at.
The Elder Scrolls Online takes place 700 years before The Elder Scrolls 3, but that’s not stopped the developers from including locations made famous in Elder Scrolls games, including the imperial city of...
News
6 CommentsMore huge Hearthstone changes incoming with Arena mode tweaks
It’s been a big month of long-anticipated announcements for Hearthstone, including card nerfs, changes to the ranked mode ladder format and some cards shifting out of standard as the game enters the Year of the Mammoth. Blizzard isn’t done with the news, however, as it hits players with another big announcement today.
This time the changes are focused around Arena mode. In this mode, which has existed mostly unchanged since before Hearthstone’s full launch in 2014, players must pay either 150 gold or $1.99 to buy in to a run. Once you’re in, you choose one card from a set of three over and over until you have a full deck of 30 cards. Then you play against others who put together their deck the same way until you lose three times or manage to get the maximum of 12 wins. A reward is doled...
News
2 CommentsRocket League Original Minis toys expanding with light-up cars (update)
Rocket League’s upcoming pull-back racers from Zag Toys’ Original Minis aren’t the only toys in the works. Those 12 cars will soon be joined by a line of light-up cars, Zag Toys told Polygon at Toy Fair New York today.
The light-up toy cars will feature LEDs for the vehicles’ headlights, as you would expect. But since Rocket League is a game about jet-fueled battle cars, these toys will also illuminate at the back — with a “cloud” of rocket exhaust. Zag Toys plans to release the light-up cars this summer, after the spring debut of the pull-back racers.
For both lines of toys, the initial rollout of cars will just be a start. While Zag wouldn’t let us take photos at Toy Fair because the vehicles were pre-production prototypes, the non-final retail box for the toys featured a “Series 1”...
News
45 CommentsIs this Overwatch’s next hero?
Blizzard Entertainment appears to be ramping up to a reveal of a new hero for Overwatch, posting an “interview” with a previously unseen character: 11-year-old robotics and artificial intelligence prodigy Efi Oladele, a native of Numbani.
The interview with Efi was posted on the Overwatch website under the Atlas News byline, the same byline used to provide early details or background on the game’s other characters, including Sombra and Soldier: 76.
While it seems unlikely that an 11-year-old would be the game’s next hero — pulling off sick headshots as Widowmaker on a little kid might just feel weird — it’s Efi’s expertise in building things that may point to who (or what) is coming to Overwatch next. From the interview:
How did you get into robots and artificial intelligence?
Well,...
Rogue Legacy creators reveal new brawler, Full Metal Furies
The team behind roguelike platformer Rogue Legacy is working on a new team-based brawler called Full Metal Furies, developer Cellar Door Games announced today. Bound for Xbox One and Windows PC, Full Metal Furies “will challenge you to think like a team, and to rethink what a brawler could be,” according to its creators.
Full Metal Furies was developed “completely around cooperation,” the developer said in a news release. Up to four players can play as one of four character roles (sentinel, engineer, sniper, fighter) and battle creatures from Greek mythology (titans, minotaurs, lycoans).
Cellar Door will also offer something for the lone single player as well. As seen in Full Metal Furies’ announcement trailer above, players can “quick-swap” between two characters on the fly, chaining...
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