Halo Infinite surprise-launched its multiplayer a couple of weeks ago. People seem to like it a lot, grindy and unrewarding battle pass aside. If you, like me, are more interested in the game for its singleplayer, then have a gander below for the launch trailer put together ahead of the campaign's December 8th release.
I don't much envy Bethesda. All game development seems like a bunfight with the impossible, but following in the footsteps of Skyrim is surely cursed. Starfield, the team's sci-fi open-world game, needs to be the same and different and better than Skyrim, a game that has been consistently popular for ten years.
In the latest, teasing, behind-the-scenes Into The Starfield video, the development team discuss some of the values that remain the same between Starfield and Bethesda's other games. It maybe starts with the cups.
CD Projekt say that they're re-focusing GOG, their digital storefront, "more on its core business activity." This is in response to the store losing money - around $2.21 million year-to-date.
The Grand Theft Auto games are full of jokes - or, as I like to call them, "jokes". I'm referring to the habit of replacing words in signs and company names with rude soundalikes or double entendres.
These jokes have been restored by GTA: The Trilogy - Definitive Edition's latest patch, which corrects spelling on signage, puts the hard angles back on the Tuff Nut logo, and stops it raining indoors quite so often.
If you enjoy games where people are trapped somewhere mysterious in a deadly game, here's a new one for you: World's End Club. Released on PC today following Apple Arcade and Switch versions, it's made by a team including two heavy-hitting murdergame veterans: the director of the Zero Escape series, and the writer of Danganronpa. It's about a group of schoolchildren who find themselves in an undersea theme park and are forced by a clown to- oh for, what is it with these cheery mascots who have one jacked-up eye and a propensity for violence?
We've waited so long for Minecraft's Caves & Cliffs update to be complete, but it's finally here. Caves & Cliffs Part 2 arrived today, bringing with it deeper underground layers, taller mountains, and a couple of new biomes to explore. I've been really eager for the 1.18 update specifically so I can build a nice home in the new Lush Cave biomes. Underground houses are the best! And now I can live near pretty cave plants!
Fancy kicking off your advent calendar with a spot of 80s strategising? Atari are releasing Sid Meier's classic Command series on Steam tonight, so you'll be able to get your hands on Decision In The Desert, Crusade In Europe, and Conflict In Vietnam. They're a vintage bunch of RTS games that make you a commander in various wars, you know, if wars were about controlling tiny little blocky tanks in a bright blue desert.
In the last few weeks I’ve spent a lot of time looking through scopes. Red dots and ACOGs and telescopic ones. From one FPS to the other, I put my eye up to a lens and I press triggers. Sometimes I’m a sniper dropping Nazis to protect my father, sometimes I’m a soldier surrounded by 127 other players. Lately, I’m a chunky spartan with crunchy crayon armour.
All this time with the three big FPSes of the year, each packaged in their own ways, has left me wondering what’s important nowadays. Do they need campaigns, or is multiplayer-only the way to go? How about introducing one a bit later than the other?
Ubisoft's tactical FPS Rainbow Six Siege ushered in Year 6 Season 4 today. Named High Calibre, it introduces new defensive operator Thorn, who's special gadget is a sticky grenade that explodes into razors when it detects an enemy. Ouch. The other big change with this season is a rework of the Outback map, which cleans up a lot of junk to improve sightlines, and help attackers strategise.
You might be familiar with the Fnatic Streak65. Very small? Lives on our best gaming keyboards list? Answers to “Fnatic Streak65”? Whether it rings a bell or not, there’s a new version of this low-profile mechanical keyboard out, adding a handful of hardware enhancements. It’s brilliant.
“Play against type,” Sin Vega advised in her well good piece on getting the most out of strategy games. I’m sorry Sin. I failed. Tactical RPG Wartales gave me the opportunity to promote a wild boar to the captain of my troupe of wandering mercenaries. I did not. Instead, I fell back into stale, boring habits like “entrusting the lives of my comrades to someone with ambitions outside of ‘moar acorns plz’.” Not a moment goes by that I don’t wistfully consider what might have been.
Microsoft are now testing a feature to improve image quality in Xbox Cloud Gaming, their service which lets you play fancy new games through an Internet browser even on a cruddy old computer. Clarity Boost, as they call it, aims to make games look better through some client-side processing fanciness. The feature is currently only supported in a test version of the Microsoft Edge browser, planning to roll out to regular Edge soon.
Though Halo Infinite launched in decent shape (our Ed called it "the most stable FPS I've played all year"), one bone of contention has been the slow pace to unlocking things on the battle pass. The developers, 343 Industries already boosted progression pace, but evidently that wasn't enough, and now they're coming round for another pass at the pass. From today, they're planning to offer bonus XP for the first six matches you play every day.
I'm sure one day we'll get to masquerade as vampires, but it seems we'll be waiting a little longer than expected (again). Developers Big Bad Wolf have delayed Vampire: The Masquerade - Swansong into May 2022. They say the extra three months will help ensure their team keep a healthy work-life balance, while having more time to add polish and go through QA.
As CD Projekt Red continue to fix up their fancy-but-oh-so-flawed futuristic RPG Cyberpunk 2077, they've confirmed that we should expect a "major update" next year, by the end of March. CDPR had previously said Cyberpunk 2077's next-gen console update would be out by then, but confirming another big patch for everyone then too is news. Not big news, but welcome news, especially considering how many new players the game has picked up since going half-price in Black Friday sales.
Here we are, chums, Cyber Monday. Ahh, how the mighty have fallen. What was once an interesting online addition to the Black Friday feeding frenzy, is now a withered and useless appendage. We all shop online now and Black Friday lasts for at least three months of the year. Well, either that or I’m in some kind of deals post writing, Groundhog Day-esque limbo. Whatever the case may be, Cyber Monday is still a weird 90s relic, like many other things with cyber as a prefix. Cybergoth, for example, a sub-sub-culture whose chief point of relevance in the modern era is having their entire aesthetic appropriated by gaming peripheral manufacturers. You can’t move for black and neon doohickeys with LEDs dripping from every orifice. While I’ll be the first to argue that anything is better than the beige everything of yesteryear, sometimes you need to be a bit grown-up and accessorise your PC with reliable, understated, no-nonsense black. Like this HyperX Cloud Alpha S headset which is now discounted at Amazon.
I don’t know about you, but when I hear the word odyssey, I’m expecting something grand, something mythic, something literally homeric. Samsung’s line of monitors certainly contains models that fit the bill, including the cyclopean Odyssey G9. Sadly, such excess isn’t always practical. Your desk just isn’t big enough or, for some reason, you don’t have a grand just sitting around to spend on a monitor. Despite that, you still want to have a little odyssey, as a treat. An odyssette, maybe? Which I’ve just discovered is a real word and not something I made up for a bad gag. Well, don’t worry, chums, I’m here with a deal on the much more manageable Samsung Odyssey G5, for when you’re feeling just a little bit epic.
