Tacoma: Fullbright explores the future in microgravity
Gone Home developer Fullbright announced their latest project, Tacoma, at the Game Awards last week - you can see the lovely trailer in our Game Awards trailer holding cell - but the teaser revealed few details beyond the game’s space setting.
Fullbright’s spilled the beans on the studio’s blog, though. “What mysteries await you, 200,000 miles from Earth? Who is exploring Lunar Transfer Station Tacoma? And what happened here?”
Ubisoft expects Assassin's Creed Unity patch 4 to fix remaining bugs
Assassin’s Creed Unity is a billboard sized advertisment for the follies of annualised games, which has lead to folks over at Ubisoft scurrying around, attempting to plug in the gaps and fix the game-breaking bugs. The last patch fixed over 300 bugs, but that didn’t solve all the problems. Patch 4 is underway, and a full preview of what it fixes is expected this week.
In the meantime, Ubisoft has released details on the biggest problems it’s set to tackle.
H1Z1 gets an early access release date of January 15th; Smedley admits it's not yet as feature rich as DayZ
H1Z1, SOE’s zombie survival MMO, has just had a release date stuck on it. An early access release date, anyway. There will be two versions, one which has yet to be announced, and a basic early access SKU that will launch on January 15th for $19.99.
“We wanted to set a high bar quality wise for Early Access,” CEO John Smedley said on Twitter, just before the announcement. “Happy with where we ended even if it took longer.”
Team Fortress 2 bolstered by body warmers and bathing equipment in End of the Line
Even before Team Fortress 2 and Dota 2 item makers starting earning an average of $15,000 each, the shooter community was getting organised. Last year, TF2 item creators marshalled a team and, with the backing of Valve, released the Robotic Boogaloo update to “huge success”.
The Boogaloo was a test, to see if the TF2 community could follow through on an ambitious project with deadlines - and they passed. Hence today’s End of the Line release - a bundle of community cosmetics, taunts and tools, built and deployed by the most able fans on the Steam Workshop.
League of Legends players suffer locked out spells; Riot pledge fix in next patch
Timing is everything in League of Legends. It’s the sort of game where not being able to mind your Ws and Qs can lose you a game.
That’s the complaint of a frustrated summoner, who found himself locked out of one of his abilities during a team builder match and discovered threads full of fellow players with similar problems. Thankfully, Riot have already worked out a fix - which they plan to pack into their next update.
Hearthstone: Goblins vs Gnomes and its 120 crisp new cards now live UPDATE: everywhere but Europe
Take a look at the new Goblins vs Gnomes cards coming to Hearthstone - over 120 of 'em. Before today, we’ve only been able to stare at those images through the cold pane of our monitors, like so much WoW concept art. But today is the launch date of Hearthstone’s new expansion, which means you can now pick those cards up with your mouse and fling them about the board as minions, spells and whatnot.
UPDATE: The comment section attests to the fact that the expansion hasn't yet made it to European climes. Hrrm.
Civilization: Beyond Earth patch ramps up affinity rewards
Civilization: Beyond Earth’s fall update makes an astronomical number of changes. There are balances across buildings, diplomacy, aliens, covert ops, and many other areas of the game. Most units in the game have had their values altered, in many cases making them more dangerous.
There’s even been a stack of bug fixes.
Dean Hall leaves Bohemia. Opens RocketWerkz
Dean Hall, creator of DayZ and the project lead on DayZ Standalone, has left Bohemia Interactive to start his own studio. He’s been quite public about his intentions to strike off on his own but it’s still a significant moment for the developer and the game.
Hall’s moved back to his native New Zealand to start his studio, Rocketwerkz.
He’s currently advertising staff positions on Twitter.
Microsoft Flight Simulator X: Steam Edition lands in time for Christmas
First released back in 2006, Flight Simulator X is finally making a touchdown on Steam and just in time for Christmas, too.
There’s stacks of planes, missions, and airports to visit and the promise a future add-ons in the works.
Holidays are coming: Euro Truck Simulator 2 - Christmas Paint Jobs Pack
Watch out, look around, something’s coming to Euro Truck Simulator 2. T’is the season for a festive DLC. SCS Software packed their latest DLC to the gills with something magic: wintry skins for your trucks.
Crusader Kings II: Way of Life will let you break up with your medieval lover on December 16th
The scant amount of free time I’ll have this Christmas will be spent chipping away at my infinite backlog, so of course there’s a new Crusader Kings II expansion coming out, diverting my attention with medieval intrigue and conquest.
Way of Life is Crusader Kings’ ninth expansion, and this one’s all about roleplaying. Like a Christmas bird, Paradox’s grand strategy romp is getting filled with new events that will help to define your dynasty. And it’s due out on December 16th.
Cube and Me: It's all fun and games until an adorable alien dies
Cube and Me lulls you into a false sense of security. As the new guardian of a group of adorable alien cubes, all smiling faces and the illusion of personality, you are tasked with making them happy. You feed them, clean up their poo (don’t worry, they actually excrete crumpled bits of paper), wash them when they get dirty, and comfort them when they get sad. You grow attached to them.
It’s all lovely until one of them dies at the hands of an evil robot, or you sell one of them off to feed your potted plant addiction. All of a sudden, Cube and Me goes to a dark place, as you watch weeping aliens freak out as one of their number is snatched up by a big mechanical claw. This never happened in E.T.
Warlords of Draenor's Highmaul raid gets its mythic mode and appears on raid finder
Warlords of Draenor’s Highmaul raid, a city filled with unpleasant ogres, is opening its doors to players using the raid finder. Last week, raiders got to take on the likes of Kargath Bladefist and Imperator Mar’gok in normal and heroic modes, but tomorrow will be the first day of it being in the raid finder in Europe, and it’s already live in North America. Only the first wing will be available, though.
SimCity 2000 Special Edition is temporarily free on Origin
You usually need to work your way up to becoming a mayor of a city, or at the very least have enough money and favours to call in.
Not today, though. SimCity 2000 Special Edition is the latest game on Origin to be given away for free, so you can bankrupt an entire city of mold it into a prosperous utopia without kissing a single baby or making any deals with organised crime.
Elite: Dangerous won't be getting a launch wipe, so don't panic
Beta testing a game, particularly one with a persistent, online universe, is a tense experience. Those countless hours you put into the game, all the things you’ve achieved, they get wiped clean. In Elite: Dangerous that would mean a whole galaxy of ships and pilots would suddenly cease to exist.
That’s not going to happen, though. Community manager Edward Lewis made an announcement on the forums, yesterday, confirming that there would not be a wipe at launch.
Free Alien: Isolation update adds new difficulty modes for masochists and scaredy cats
Alien: Isolation just sprouted some new modes today in a free update. Creative Assembly has been tweaking the difficulty, and has put together a nightmare and novice mode for those that want to ramp up or tone down the challenge.
To the former, I say this: you are out of your nut.
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