News & Updates

One of the most anticipated games of 2020 is Cyberpunk 2077 by CD Projekt Red. It has garnered a lot of attention ever since an extended clip of gameplay surfaced a while back, showing futuristic settings and limitless possibilities for your created character.

We know that multiplayer will not be available at launch, but it is coming down the pipe eventually. Like most online multiplayer modes, there’s the question of monetary compensation. So many developers today include microtransactions in the online portion of their game as to continually make money. You can’t blame them for their tactics. It’s a sound way of keeping the revenue stream going well after a game has released.

Will Cyberpunk 2077 have them in its online portion? That’s still up for debate according to president of CD Projekt Red, Adam Kicinski. In a recent investors call, he talked a little bit about the monetary scheme in question. He wouldn’t confirm the inclusion of microtransactions — though — as it’s a little too early to lean on one side or the other.

This will be CD Projekt Red’s first multiplayer game, so it makes sense that they would cautiously plan out these sort of economics. It would make complete sense for them to add some sort of monetary scheme, though. Developers deserve to get paid for their effort, and judging by the sheer amount of details in Cyberpunk 2077, CD Projekt Red is putting in the overtime.

If they do decide to include such a scheme, they need to be strategic. For instance, they could charge extra for more character customizations. Players of RPGs have always enjoyed decking out their character exactly how they see fit. A little money for more cosmetic gear doesn’t sound too bad on paper.

It’s the pay to win scheme that CD Projekt Red will need to shy away from in their upcoming RPG. These schemes make people pay money to gain an edge on other players, and many developers have received negative backlash for such efforts.

Fortunately, CD Projekt Red doesn’t seem like a studio that would take advantage of gamers’ wallets just to earn a greater profit. They’ve said it time and time again that this game is a passion project for them. So far, this seems to be true based on all of the content that’s being put into Cyberpunk 2077.

Hopefully, as we draw closer to April, we learn a little bit more about this game’s multiplayer and its monetary design.

Bust out the straw hat, Luffy is heading to all platforms early next year. One Piece: Pirate Warriors 4 will set sail on March 27th, 2020, for PS4, Xbox One, Nintendo Switch, and PC.

This game franchise is based on the beloved manga and anime One Piece and is published by Bandai Namco Entertainment and developed by Koei Tecmo Games.

Here is the release date trailer posted by the publisher:

This is the fourth game in the One Piece: Pirate Warriors franchise, and the first one released since 2015. It was announced at the 2019 Anime Expo and received a great reception from One Piece fans.

The game will feature an original story in the land of Wano, as well as an original ending. The gameplay will be a lot like the Pirate Warriors that came before it, but with a few new features.

For example, the move sets have become more robust. For example, Luffy can now use attacks like Gigantic Thor Ax and Gomu Gomu no Hanabi. Playable characters will have up to four different special attacks, and each one can be leveled up to become more powerful.

One Piece: Pirate Warriors 4 will feature some different game mechanics then its predecessors, like more air combat, jumping, and juggling foes while airborne.

The game will have more than 40 playable characters players can choose from, including Nico Robin, Franky, Tony Tony Chopper, Usopp, Boa Hancock, Carrot, and of course, Monkey D. Luffy and Roronoa Zoro.

There will be story arcs included in the game that are a part of the manga, including the Dressrosa Arc, Whole Cake Island Arc, and Wano Country Arc. Also, the locations in the game will include Sabaody Archipelago, Dressrosa, Whole Cake Island, and Wano Country.

If One Piece fans pre-order the game now, they will receive early access to the Vinsmoke Brothers Ichiji, Niji, and Yonji. Gamers will also receive two costumes that will be announced later.

Europe Gamers will be able to buy The Kaido Edition. It comes with an exclusive 30 cm LED diorama of Luffy battling Kaido as well as the game. North America will hopefully get the Kaido Edition as well.

Also, anyone who buys One Piece: Pirate Warriors 4 will receive four Wano costumes:
• Luffytaro (Luffy)
• Soba Mask (Sanji)
• Onami (Nami)
• Zorojuro (Zoro)

One Piece: Pirate Warriors 3 received average reviews from accredited gaming companies. IGN gave the game 6.9 out of 10, 76 percent from Metacritic, and 3.5 out of 5 from Trusted Reviews.
There was a lot of room for improvement in this game, so hopefully Pirate Warriors 4 lives up to the hype.

Gamers waited for three years before the release of the Phoenix Point, the latest from designer Julian Gollop. Now, the game is almost here, and more details are coming out of the woodworks.

The Phoenix Point trailer lays down the groundwork for the establishment of the Phoenix Project. It was founded on Christmas Eve of 1945, just two months after World War II ended. The world’s superpowers acknowledged that tragedy should not happen again. They believe that lines among empires and nations should be blurred.

The Phoenix Project serves as an experiment to end conflicts even before they escalate into full-blown wars. Operatives go around the world in search of clues. The project had bases in 24 countries, and another one on the far side of the moon.

Humanity enjoyed a Golden Age, and progress accelerated. However, in 2022, an alien virus from permafrost was released. Scientists called it the Pandoravirus. However, those who came into contact with the virus did not die. Instead, they mutated into something else– monsters whose insatiable hunger leave everything devastated in their wake.

The earth itself changed, particularly the oceans where the virus seems to thrive.

You enter the game in that context. The year is 2047. There are now three human factions in the earth. You have the Synedrion, an anarchist group that seeks to build a new society. Another one is the Disciplines of Anu, a cultish group that sees the mutation as the savior of humanity.

Then there is the New Jericho, a militant group that sees the monsters and the Pandoravirus as the enemy. The group, led by Tobias West, wants all the creatures wiped out from the face of the earth.

But regardless of the factions, they are all driven to small refuges as the monsters continue to create havoc. Humanity is on the brink of extinction. However, their principles are so far apart that it might be impossible to work together.

As the player, you will lead one of the cells of the Phoenix Project. You have just been activated, and you gather at the Phoenix Point base. The mission is not clear. It is now up to you to unravel the mystery with a series of decisions to save humanity.

The Phoenix Point release date has been confirmed to be on Dec. 3, 2019. It will arrive on Windows PC, Xbox One, and the iMac.

The final episode of Life is Strange 2 is approaching, making the end of Sean and Daniel’s story for now. Sean and Daniel’s journey have taken them across the West Coast for four episodes, with players’ choices leading up to the ending.

The game has already made an impact on some gamers, but will soon have a more significant impact for many youth.

Life is Strange 2 stars brothers Sean and Daniel after a tragic accident. Now alone with only a few treasured belongings, they trek through the West Coast to Mexico. The game is a lesson in survival, as Sean and Daniel lose their home and become homeless. Luckily, they find support along their journey.

Unfortunately, many youths who become homeless don’t have the support they need. A new campaign surrounding the game aims to change that.

While Sean and Daniel are homeless, many others are “hidden homeless” or drift from different places trying to survive. They don’t have a home of their own and rely on their network for help.

Developer Dontnod Entertainment and publisher Square Enix are teaming up with Centrepoint, which supports more than 15,000 homeless young people every year. Centrepoint offers them the support they need to find employment and life independently.

Together, they have launched the “We Will Be Heard Campaign” with the hashtag #The22000. The campaign strives to petition the next UK government to help the homeless youth across the country.

The number comes from the number of youth who are homeless. From the official petition page: “Rising rents, a lack of affordable homes to buy, and an unstable job market have made life tougher than ever for young people. The UK government must end youth homelessness for good and give young people a future. And it can – by building affordable housing and making Universal Credit fair for young people. Young people didn’t cause this housing crisis. And yet, this Christmas, 22,000 of them are facing homelessness because of it. We will be heard. It’s time to fight back.”

Square Enix is also working with its team of creators and social media to help spread awareness. They will host livestreams throughout the next few weeks to promote both the game and charity. Centerpoint has created various graphics that will be displayed in London.

The final episode of Life is Strange 2 launches on December 3.

The ninth annual World of Warcraft Student Art Contest is here! The contest gives college and university students that chance to create their World of Warcraft masterpiece, using the art style that is prevalent throughout the franchise. The creative piece can be artwork or animation.

The contest is put on by Blizzard Entertainment’s University Relations and World of Warcraft teams, and they are looking for a unique art piece that fits seamlessly in World of Warcraft universe.

Here is a video about the contest:

The teams started this contest to help create interest in the art style that World of Warcraft utilizes.

World of Warcraft artists can submit their entry via the online submissions page on Blizzard’s contest page from now until 11:59 pm PST on January 31, 2020.

There are four categories to compete in. Each group has strict requirements for what needs to be featured in the art piece.

Environment Art Contest: Students can create an environment diorama that would fit right into the World of Warcraft universe.
Character Art Contest: Create a non-playable character (NPC) or creature that would perfectly in the universe.
FX Contest: Students will create a player ability that can be added to the arsenal of one of the existing classes in the game.
Animation: Designers can create a combat animation following one of the three guidelines in the contest, either a two-hit combo attack, weapon spell attack, or summon and transition.

To read the rules of each category and the overarching rules for the entire contest, head to the contest page! World of Warcraft fans can also check out all the winning pieces from the 2018 World of Warcraft Student Art Contest.

The prize for winning one of the categories is pretty impressive for World of Warcraft fans.

There will be four grand prize winners (one chosen from each category listed above.) The World of Warcraft art team will be selecting the winners, determining who wins these prizes:
• A tour of Blizzard’s headquarters in Irvine, California.
• A two-hour sit down with a senior Blizzard artist. This is a mentorship session, so come with a lot of questions!
• A full-year subscription to World of Warcraft.
• A Blizzard Entertainment notebook, containing an original sketch by a Blizzard artist.
• A Blizzard t-shirt.
Only Canadian and US universities and colleges are eligible to compete. However, residents of Quebec, Vermont, North Dakota, Maryland, or Connecticut are not eligible to participate.

What’s the first thing a cereal toy would do upon escaping from the cereal box? That’s right; party.

And that’s exactly what you’ll do in Skelittle: A Giant Party, a new entry for the ever-growing couch crowd, and a perfect, peppy playtime for the upcoming holiday season.

Skelittle: A Giant Party focuses on “bringing people closer together” through its zany party games, and so far it seems to be dutifully committed. With 15 games available for local multiplayer, it’s managing to do a lot with such a small roster.

A key aspect of Skelittle: A Giant Party is that the game have their roots in the mundane, but as a small skeleton-like creature, they take on a whole new aspect. Mosquitos become a game of target practice, a vacuum becomes a destroyer of worlds that you have to outrun, steal kibbles and bits from a dog, throw friends into a printer, it goes on. The microscopic world becomes deceptively massive in Skelittle: A Giant Party.

Backing the game is an upbeat, bopping soundtrack of fusion, funk, and rock, fitting perfectly into the comedic, kooky world of Skelittle: A Giant Party.

Perhaps the greatest draw is something not seen in a party game until now; a sandbox mode. Much like familiar builder games, you’re able to construct games of your own making to play. Build mazes, traps, any and all manner of maps to wreak havoc, test your skills, and potentially damage long-lasting relationships. For added incentive, as you progress through the game, you unlock more parts to use in sandbox mode.

Bubble Studios, the minds behind the game, are an indie studio that takes ‘involvement’ to new levels. They want involvement from the game community to such a degree they have a Discord devoted to feedback and involvement. When the game was in early access prior to its release in November 2018, they sought out testers and feedback from the community, and we’re transparent to a degree most AAA developers aren’t. Going further with that, Bubble Studios has also promised regular content updates, roughly two weeks with a major update every months.

The success and fervor has paid off, as Skelittle: A Giant Party leaves the tower and makes way for the Nintendo Switch, which will see a release date November 28th, 2019.

“The one permanent emotion of the inferior man is fear – fear of the unknown, the complex, the inexplicable.”

H.L. Mencken spoke these words, but they come to frightful life in the upcoming indie horror TheNightfall.

The most pressing kind of fear is the one you can’t see, the one you don’t know is coming and can appear anywhere at any time. TheNightfall uses this to full effect with heavy atmospheric tone, letting the scenery play out for itself. That’s not to say it forgoes the tired cliche of jumpscares, but thankfully, those moments are few and far between, and the traversing that pads those moments makes up for the presence of that trope.

TheNightfall starts off relatively simple. Victoria, the playable character, moves to a new house, in a new city, to start a new job. Things seem to be going just splendidly for her. Until she gets the message her husband and two children are arriving a day later. Leaving her alone in the new house. Anyone who’s played a horror game before can get a vague idea of where this is going.

Unable to sleep in her new and unfamiliar settings, insomnia and boredom give way to anxiety and apprehension as the house seems to gradually take on a dark life of its own. Shadows move jauntily along the wall, with nothing casting them. Things move around that Victoria knows she didn’t touch.

Mysterious, ominous notes she didn’t write appear all over the house. And as the hours pass and the countdown to sunrise splays across the screen at regular intervals, punctuated by the clanging tone of a grandfather clock, it seems less like a reprieve and more like a subtle threat. The house locks itself shut as well, leaving Victoria with demons of a different sort…

While the trailer does a good job of drawing in potential players, the actual game proper might leave horror junkies a bit wanting. The notes that progress the story can be found rather haphazardly, sometimes appearing in places that have nothing to do with the task at hand Visually, there’s a noticeable dip in quality from the trailer’s smooth polish, and the voice-acting for the characters sounds, in its best moments, stilted, and at its worst, like a pitched text-to-speech program, on top of a rather short playtime, the average being only a few hours.

But the atmospheric direction might provide some chills to newcomers of the horror game genre, just possibly not enough to justify a $40 price tag.

TheNightfall comes to Nintendo Switch November 28th, 2019.

There was some legitimately massive news in October for Heroes of the Storm. The introduction of the ultimate antagonist, Deathwing, was made, and he is finally playable via Public Test Realm (PTR.)

Known as many names like the Aspect of Death, Destroyer, or appropriately, World Breaker, Deathwing is a fantastic playable character joining the Nexus.

He has just been launched in the Heroes of the Storm PTR, and he is already living up to his destructive nature.

He is the official Spotlight video of Deathwing released by the Heroes of the Storm’s developers.

The video highlights the strengths and weaknesses of Deathwing. His strengths include being permanently unstoppable, delivering powerful area damage, and efficient crowd control.

However, because of this seemingly overpowered dragon, there are checks and balances.
Deathwing is unaffected by allied abilities, including healing and buffs, so when he is damaged heavily, he must fly away and leave the battle to heal up. He also faces a weakness to Poke and % – Based Damage.

With Deathwing just entering the PTR, players will be able to try him out and test out the balancing. This will give the developers a good indication of what works with Deathwing, and what doesn’t.

The World of Warcraft: Cataclysm antagonist will be fighting in style, with a few unlockable skins. The Destroyer is Deathwing’s base skin and features the all too familiar armor-plated, gothic, fire-infused look.

Follow the link in this tweet by WoWHead to check out all of Deathwing’s skins:

Deathwing is now on the Heroes of the Storm PTR! Check out all of his skins…as well as Destroyer Brightwing:https://t.co/eAx1HrMTar pic.twitter.com/iWjTBNXdI4

— Wowhead (@Wowhead) November 25, 2019

Heroes of the Storm players will receive the Savage Deathwing skin when he is unlocked. And players can also unlock other skins, each costing 120 Gems or 112 Shards. These skins are called Glorious Deathwing, Iron Deathwing, and Tyrannical Deathwing.

Deathwing’s abilities do not disappoint, as he can fight in one of two modes, Destroyer or Worldbreaker.

Deathwing’s Trait (Passive) ability is The Aspect of Death – Deathwing is granted Armor as he is covered in Adamantium Armor Plates. He also deals double the damage to heroes, and as mentioned earlier, he is unstoppable but not able to receive healing or buffs
by teammates.
He features a Mount ability called Dragonflight (Z,) which uses no Energy, and is subject to a 45-second cooldown.

Deathwing will become airborne, and after 3 seconds, he becomes immune to all enemy effects and will start healing 2.5 percent of his maximum health every second. Dragonflight cannot be used 4 seconds after a basic attacking, taking damage, or casting an ability. Once it is cast, it cannot be interrupted.

Deathwing must be in the air for at least 8 seconds, and then he can then fly back into battle by channeling a 1.75-second cast. Players will choose either his Destroyer or Worldbreaker mode, and he will deal 75 damage to enemies in the vicinity of where he lands (must be near allies.) Abilities are then subject to a 3-second cooldown.

Destroyer has two basic abilities for each of his forms, as well as one ability that can be used in any form, and of course a Heroic ability.

Check out the WoWHeads tweet embedded in this blog to read a breakdown of his attacks.