Image: Gearbox Software/2K Games
Gearbox is putting the ‘love back in Lovecraft’ next month
Image: Simon Stålenhag
Simon Stålenhag’s paintings have also been adapted into an art book and a tabletop role-playing game
The tutorial screen for Plague Inc.’s Fake News update, which launched at the beginning of December. | Image: Ndemic Creations
Reasons not given, coronavirus tensions likely involved
A maquette, Wikipedia tells me, is a “scale model or rough draft of an unfinished sculpture”. Maquette is also a beautiful new game from Graceful Decay and publishers Annapurna. Fittingly, those two definitions aren’t as separate as they might seem. Releasing sometime later this year, Maquette is a recursive first-person puzzle box about models within models, where small-scale adjustments can have a massive impact on the world at large.
Developer The Behemoth announced that its upcoming Alien Hominid Invasion will launch on Steam for PC, Nintendo Switch, and “Xbox” alongside releasing a gameplay video.
Announced last month, the latest game from Castle Crashers and Pit People studio The Behemoth is a co-op run ‘n’ gun game that is a “re-imagination of the studio’s first game, Alien Hominid HD.”
Instead of the set level structure from the original, Alien Hominid Invasion will feature “a non-linear level experience” filled with enemy “Agents in sectors built from hundreds of hand-crafted city blocks.”
The studio detailed other gameplay changes in a blog post:
Unlock and equip an arsenal of weapons and boosts, level up, then beam down to invade Earth with up to three other friends. Abduct intel from your enemies to sabotage their plans, observe the oddities of human life, blow up bosses, and mutate into a variety of powerful Alien forms in order to take down the not-so-secret Agents that are dead set on ruining your day.
Players in co-op can also choose the difficulty individually such as friendly, normal, and insane modes.
No release date has been revealed yet, but the game is currently playable at PAX East, the annual convention in Boston which began today until Sunday, March 1.
Today Larian Studios revealed the first gameplay of the upcoming RPG Baldur’s Gate 3, and boy it looks good.
The gameplay was presented by Larian boss Swen Vincke himself on stage at PAX East.
Incidentally, we also learn that the game is going to enter early access when it’s ready, which should be in a couple of months.
We start with a small intro in which our character is infected with a rather terrifying tadpole by a Mind Flayer.
We then move to the character creation with a whole bunch of racial options and classes.
Following another introduction, we get to see Vincke playing an Origin story.
Vincke also provided plenty of explanations, so you can hear everything about the gameplay in the video below. You can also enjoy the beautiful opening cinematic on its own.
In a new trailer for the Steam Version of Final Fantasy III, Square Enix has announced that new patches are coming to the PC port.
This is a little strange considering the game came out in 2014, but seeing what the updates are, and that Final Fantasy is such a huge franchise, it’s no surprise these games get these random little updates.
The official statement is as follows:
“Final Fantasy III has received a number of brand new updates on PC (Steam), iOS and Android!”
This update includes:
Final Fantasy III was originally released back in 1990 for the Super Nintendo and was ported to the Nintendo DS back in 2006, mobile in 2012, and Steam in 2014.
The ported versions of the game were remade in 3D instead of the original’s pixelated graphics. Final Fantasy III was praised for it’s extensive job/class system that lend to tons of customization.
Final Fantasy III is a great game and it’s good news that even more people get to play it because of this update.
The Behemoth is taking another crack at Alien Hominid with everything it's learned from Castle Crashers, BattleBlock Theater, and Pit People, and the result is Alien Hominid Invasion – an up-to-four-player run-and-gun arcade shooter with character customization, XP-based leveling, loot drops, and longer legs.
The new game – and it is a new game, not a remake – was announced in January. Today, just in time for PAX East, The Behemoth shared its first gameplay footage and screenshots for Alien Hominid Invasion.
Before I drone on, it's worth stressing that co-op is local and online. (I hate when that info is buried.)
In a lot of ways, the footage is what I expected. It's unmistakably Alien Hominid, but with a new non-linear format that fits into the current climate. I'm all about games with "life steal" weapon attributes. Other possible incremental stats include shots-per-second, piercing, movement speed, and defense.
If you're puzzled by that town-map screen in the trailer, the central hook of Alien Hominid Invasion is beaming down to Earth to "invade randomly-assembled neighborhoods built from hundreds of hand-crafted city blocks," so it's more free-flowing. You'll also "abduct intel from your enemies to sabotage their plans, observe the oddities of human life, blow up bosses, and mutate into a variety of powerful Alien forms in order to take down the not-so-secret Agents that are dead set on ruining your day."
You won't need to worry about one-hit kills like before, but they might be a factor in certain scenarios. On that note, The Behemoth is planning to have Friendly, Normal, and Insane difficulty settings.
Guns, Love, and Tentacles: The Marriage of Wainwright & Hammerlock. That's the lengthy, headline-unfriendly title of the second major expansion for Borderlands 3. It only gets better from there.
During Gearbox's PAX East panel today, the developer gave us our first look at DLC number two for Borderlands 3. It takes place on the ice planet of Xylourgos, where Wainwright and Hammerlock have decided to get married. Xylourgos is full of frostbitten beasts, a town of cultists, and the carcass of a giant Vault Monster. Hope no one's a groomzilla because things will not go to plan.
Guns, Love, and Tentacles has a high-profile cameo from Gaige. Returning as a wedding planner, Gaige was the mechromancer add-on character in Borderlands 2. Her job title assumes that she'll ensure order, but she'll probably cause everything to go further off the rails.
There's some interesting influence in this add-on. Gearbox specifically mentions Eldritch horror as an obstacle to overcome. That's the Lovecraftian genre of cosmic horror. Those cultists are going to summon Borderlands' version of Cthulhu, aren't they?
We'll find out soon enough. Guns, Love, and Tentacles: The Marriage of Wainwright & Hammerlock launches on March 26 on all platforms.
Earlier this week, the developer behind Baldur’s Gate 3, Larian Studios, invited press to watch hours of gameplay in which a developer died over and over again in the difficult isometric RPG based on Dungeons and Dragons. I went because the Baldur’s Gate series is one of my absolute favorite ever made—and also because…
Before Overwatch, StarCraft, Diablo, and even Warcraft, Blizzard Entertainment and Sunsoft released the video game adaptation of DC Comics’ The Death and Return of Superman saga. While the 1994 Super Nintendo game and its 1995 Sega Genesis port are far from the best side-scrolling beat-em ups, they are the most fun…
Gearbox announced Guns, Love, and Tentacles: The Marriage of Wainwright & Hammerlock, the second piece of post-release Borderlands 3 story content, at PAX East earlier today. It will launch on March 26.
Borderlands 3 will be waving goodbye to Epic Games Store exclusivity on PC and hello to Steam on 13th March, and it'll be followed by second paid DLC episode, Guns, Love, and Tentacles: The Marriage of Wainwright and Hammerlock, two weeks later on 26th March.
According to Gearbox, cross-play will be supported across Steam and the Epic Store come 13th March, meaning that all Borderlands 3 players on PC can knockabout in the same matchmaking pool. Unfortunately, there's still no update on cross-play between different platforms - that is PC, PlayStation 4, and Xbox One - a feature that Gearbox CEO Randy Pitchford asserted would arrive "as soon as practicable after launch...on as many platforms as possible".
Following Borderlands 3's Steam release, Gearbox will resume its schedule of post-launch content, which has so far included free limited-time events such as Bloody Harvest, and the first paid DLC episode Moxxi's Heist of the Handsome Jackpot.
It's time for Siliconera's fourth Super Smash Bros. Ultimate night on February 29, 2020.
The post Siliconera’s Fourth Smash Bros. Ultimate Night Will Give You Something to Believe in appeared first on Siliconera.
The latest Famitsu shows how the new Class VII members are doing now that the war is over.
The post The Legend of Heroes: Hajimari no Kiseki Catches Up With the Erebonia Chapter Crew appeared first on Siliconera.
The newest feature coming to Pokemon Masters is the Battle Villa, a tower of challenging battles that can knock out sync pairs for an entire day — but only in the Battle Villa. This new event likely won’t be the thing that brings you back if you’re a lapsed player (though maybe the new chapters and sync pairs added since launch can), but it is an interesting way to mix up daily in-game tasks.
If you are one of those lapsed players, here’s a short rundown of all the other things added to Pokemon Masters since its launch last summer:
Chapter 19 to 24
Sync Grid
Weekly bingo missions
Sync pair level cap increased to 120
New sync pairs, including Legendary Pokemon
Interactable characters in the Dex
The Battle Villa was definitely designed with longtime players in mind given how quickly it gets difficult. The challenge in this event space is to defeat as many of 25 “halls” of enemies as you can to earn tons of rewards before the two-week event is over. Each hall can have one to three rounds of opponents waiting, and you can scope out their Pokemon weaknesses through the Area Details menu like you can in any other battle.
But unlike the rest of Pokemon Masters, any damage your sync pair takes stays with them for the whole day and you can only select nine sync pairs to play within the Battle Villa for that day. You can heal during a battle and once out of battle if you have the right items. However, you can’t heal any sync pair that have fainted within the Battle Villa, so you’ll need to wait until the next day to get them back.
Photo: The Walt Disney Co.
Everything you wanted to know about Disney’s new CEO Bob Chapek but were too afraid to ask
Image: Rockstar Games
Go back to the glory days when carcinogens could be advertised
Baldur’s Gate 3 looks like it might be Larian Studios’ most ambitious game yet – and if you’ve played Divinity: Origin Sin 2, you’ll know that’s saying something. Below we’ve answered the biggest questions about the upcoming RPG, from the Baldur’s Gate 3 release date to our knowledge of the game’s setting, companions, system requirements, and more.
Packed enough shield batteries, champ? Apex Legends is going all robotic with its next Collection Event, System Override. As usual, that means two weeks of themed get-ups for the arena’s characters, weapons and intangible banners. But respawn are also taking this chance to experiment with the ApeLegs format by introducing a power-hungry new shield and removing the randomness from their battle royale.
Click here to watch embedded media Happy Pokémon day! And a happy day it is indeed, as the nearly shot-for-shot remake of Pokémon: The First Movie: Mewtwo Strikes Back drops on Netflix today. Brian Shea, Jeff Cork and I attempted to record a commentary track, and ended up with something pretty insulting and kind of crude for a kids movie. So I hope you enjoy!
You can watch and listen to our commentary above, or just do the listen part below. Let us know if you want more commentaries, this one was really fun to do!
As if I needed another reason to boot up Bloodborne and accidentally play the whole game again.
Yesterday, Bloodborne speedrunner GiantCookieJar discovered a glitch that let his brave hunter clip through some walls in the starting area and reach the Forbidden Woods, not unlike a similar skip that was patched out years ago involving a well-positioned jump onto a ledge. We're back in business!
This demonstration from Distortion2 shows how the new skip in Iosefka's Clinic works.
After alerting the first enemy in the game – a low-health werewolf who won't respawn – you need to turn around, run up the stairs, and get the wolf to grab you in the left corner. While you're being grabbed, "you want to spam L2 and R2" to clip out of bounds, then walk to the right, and drop down.
"You can skip straight to the Forbidden Woods on a fresh character," according to Distortion2. That means you can bypass bosses like Father Gascoigne, Blood-Starved Beast, and Vicar Amelia.
"The mashing of L2 and R2 is important when you get grabbed because it does a different animation where your character pushes the wolf off of you, and that allows you to actually clip through things."
GTA Online is a lawless mayhem simulator where being a bad person is promoted, encouraged, and rewarded. That's why the newest addition to this money-printing MMO seems, I don't know, just a little off-track.
Today, Rockstar introduced Formula 1 racing to GTA Online, which is being called "Open Wheel Racing" so as to dodge a lawsuit. But make no mistake about it, they're F1 cars zooming around windy and dangerous F1 courses.
The lengths Rockstar has gone to in order to simulate real racing is sort of staggering. This isn't just an arcade-like free-for-all. Players have to make pit stops. Damage has a real effect rather than being cosmetic. Tires wear down, leaving your car slipping more and more until they're swapped out.
But, early reports indicate that the reckless abandon of GTA Online's players does not mesh with this new mode. People can't (or won't) wrap their heads around discreet racing, rather barreling into turns at full speed and causing massive pileups. It's not a formula for success, as a broken car won't make it far in a race that lasts upward of 20 minutes. It's an exercise that favors caution and precision, and literally nothing about GTA Online has trained anyone for that.
Following its work on the horror adventure Man of Medan, Supermassive Games is switching gears to Little Hope, the next standalone game in the Dark Pictures Anthology. It's a witch tale with Will Poulter.
We got a new trailer today from Bandai Namco ahead of Little Hope's summer 2020 launch on PC, PlayStation 4, and Xbox One. I'd strongly encourage you to skip the first two minutes – they're fluff.
"Trapped and isolated in the abandoned town of Little Hope, four college students and their professor must escape the nightmarish apparitions that relentlessly pursue them through an impenetrable fog. Witness terrifying visions of the past, haunted by the events of the XVIIth century Andover Witch Trials."
I haven't personally gone through Man of Medan yet (I've seen a chunk of the ghost-ship adventure streamed), but Little Hope seems more my speed. The witch-trial backdrop already has me on edge.
Will there be a wicked goat? If so, I'll do whatever it commands.
Two decades ago, Ash, Pikachu, and friends sent Mewtwo packing. Now, the weirdo psychic feline is back for revenge—not on late-’90s moviegoers but on 21st-century Pokémon players. This weekend, in celebration of Pokémon Day, Sword and Shield players have the chance to partake in a doozy of a Max Raid Battle against …
Star Wars Battlefront II was limited at launch in 2017 but has expanded since to add battles from the Clone Wars and odd new hero characters. The latest update brings two new specialized units: the cunning Imperial Security Bureau agent and a small Ewok scout. Both are deadly, but the Ewok is a special kind of…
After a tease last month, here’s the first full trailer for Pokemon the Movie: Coco, which is out in Japan in July. Looks like Zarude is going to play a pretty big role, explaining his reveal in Sword & Shield earlier today.
Today on Highlight Reel we have helpful Pavlov VR players, Destiny 2 hitboxes, sudden Elite Dangerous ejects, and much more!
Microsoft's next exclusive, Ori and the Will of the Wisps, launches on March 11 for Xbox and PC, and through Xbox Game Pass. A sequel to the well-regarded 2015 original from Moon Studios, the sequel moves beyond the forests of Nibel and into a new domain, with puzzles to solve and abilities to use.
Like the original, Will of the Wisps is developed by Moon Studios, a team of independent developers around the world who work together as part of a unique decentralized studio structure.
In the lead-up to Will of the Wisps' release next month, GameSpot caught up with executive producer Daniel Smith and composer Gareth Coker to learn more about the ambitious project. In the interview, the developers speak about the unique development structure, where the story idea for the sequel came from, what makes the music so compelling, and lots more.
Continue Reading at GameSpotDuring PAX East 2020, Gearbox revealed the 2020 Spring Content Road Map for Borderlands 3. The three months of content will kick off with the Lovecraft-themed Guns, Love, and Tentacles DLC before seeing regular free updates.
In March, Guns, Love, and Tentacles will be released, which introduces a new planet to visit and story missions to complete. Gaige and Deathtrap will both return and the DLC will offer plenty of new legendary loot and cosmetics.
In April, Borderlands 3 will get its Mayhem 2.0 update. This update is aimed at altering the endgame Mayhem Mode, which is a challenge-based game mode for players looking to earn legendary loot more quickly. The update will alter the mode so that its effects are more in line with Borderlands 3's tone. So, for example, instead of shotgun damage decreasing and pistol damage increasing, you'll have goofier effects like everyone getting a big head--increasing the likelihood of scoring headshots for both you and your enemies.
Continue Reading at GameSpotThe Borderlands movie has been in the works for a half-decade already, and it's still just getting started. But it crossed a major milestone recently when Gearbox announced that Hostel director Eli Roth had come aboard to direct the video game adaptation.
Roth appeared at the Gearbox PAX East panel today in Boston--he grew up in Newton--where he reacted to joining the movie and shared some new insight. In particular, he revealed that he wants to cast cosplayers in the movie, and then do terrible things to them.
Starting off, though, he did his best Boston accent. You really need to watch the full video for the complete effect, but here's what he said: "Dude, it's f**king wicked awesome to be here. I got f**king wicked hammered last night, went to Dunkies this morning, had like four cruellers, I'm like wicked wired right now."
Continue Reading at GameSpotThere are a ton of free games to play this weekend across Xbox One and PC, all of which are surprisingly great. Microsoft just announced three more fantastic games for its current Free Play Days event, which runs until March 1 at 11:59 PM PT / 2:59 PM ET. Dragon Ball FighterZ, The Division 2, and Just Cause 4 are all free to play right now for Xbox Live Gold subscribers--Game Pass Ultimate includes Xbox Live Gold in its subscription.
If you want to keep playing them after the event is over, then you can pick all three of them up at a very nice discount--if you're a Game Pass for console member, then you can continue playing Just Cause 4 after this weekend as part of your subscription. Dragon Ball FighterZ is discounted to $15 USD, The Division 2 is only going for $3, and Just Cause 4 is $14. Each game's special editions are also discounted. These deals are valid until March 2.
One of the most popular MMOs around is free on PC for the next few days. From now until 7 AM PT / 10 AM ET on March 2, you can grab Black Desert Online from Steam or the game's official website free of charge. Black Desert Online doesn't require a subscription, so once you click "Add to Account," it's yours to play for as long as you like. While it normally only costs $10 on PC, you can't beat free.
Like many MMOs, Black Desert Online is a time sink that you can easily dump dozens if not hundreds of hours into. The free promotion coincides with the four-year anniversary of the MMO's release on PC, and it's the first time the game has been given away for free.
Black Desert Online is action-oriented with fast-paced combat and a large, sprawling world filled with monsters to slay alongside your friends. The game has 19 character classes and a robust crafting system that lets you create practically anything found in the world if you have the right materials.
Continue Reading at GameSpot
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Neck 'n' Neck sees a pair of players stretching and contracting a giraffe's neck to avoid obstacles, racing towards the finish line while riding stuffed animals. ...
For a few years now, some very talented artists have been coming up with posters for some some of the most popular board games on the planet, all thanks to BoardGameGeek’s Artist Series.
Image: Netflix