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Wednesday news, part two:

Half-Life Collection is free-to-play until the launch of Half-Life: Alyx (Updated)
https://www.pcgamer.com/half-life-might-be-going-free-to-play-until-the-launch-of-half-life-alyx/
Update: And now it's official: The full Half-Life Collection is, for awhile at least, free to play. "Half-Life: Alyx is coming in March, and we are celebrating early by making all games in the Half-Life Collection FREE to play for Steam users, from now until the day it launches," Valve said in announcement.
>> Well, I guess the salt wasn't really necessary.

Valve is holding a Half-Life: Alyx AMA tomorrow on Reddit
https://www.pcgamer.com/valve-is-holding-a-half-life-alyx-ama-tomorrow-on-reddit/
Do you have questions about Half-Life: Alyx—like, maybe, when are we going to get a proper release date? If yes, you'll want to tune into Reddit tomorrow at 9 am PT/12 pm ET for an AMA with the development team.
>> The announcement tweet is from yesterday (21st), so it should happen today.

Doom Eternal is apparently twice as long as its predecessor
https://www.pcgamer.com/doom-eternal-is-apparently-twice-as-long-as-its-predecessor/
Doom Eternal is not a nice, relaxing game about slowly sauntering. It's fast, ultra-violent and you're going to be juggling a lot of guns, demons and abilities. But that doesn't mean you'll be done with it quickly. According to creative director Hugo Martin, it will take you around 22 hours to get to the end.

Doom Eternal developers were 'crunching pretty hard' for most of 2019
https://www.pcgamer.com/doom-eternal-developers-were-crunching-pretty-hard-for-most-of-2019/
Doom Eternal was scheduled to be out in November 2019, until id Software pumped the brakes and pushed it into March 2020. By all appearances it's going to make that date—previews went live today (here's ours), and the overall impression seems very positive—but executive producer Marty Stratton acknowledged to VG247 that it's taken some pretty hard crunching to reach this point.

Hearthstone's new solo adventure Galakrond's Awakening is live
https://www.pcgamer.com/hearthstones-new-solo-adventure-galakronds-awakening-is-live/
The first chapter of Galakrond's Awakening, the new solo adventure in in the Year of the Dragon-concluding Hearthstone: Descent of Dragons, is now live. The adventure features two separate story campaigns, one for the League of Explorers and the other for the League of E.V.I.L., and the first chapter of the E.V.I.L. campaign, with four card rewards to earn, is free for all players.

Telltale's The Walking Dead games are coming back to Steam
https://www.pcgamer.com/telltales-the-walking-dead-games-are-coming-back-to-steam/
The Walking Dead games were delisted from Steam in late 2018, a victim of the surprise implosion of developer Telltale Games. New series owner Skybound Games later brought them back to the Epic Games Store, and they remain available on Steam for people who have already purchased them. You can also see them there, but not purchase them, if you have a direct link like the ones below, although the store pages no longer appear in searches.
That will soon change, as Skybound announced today that Telltale's The Walking Dead Season 1, Season 2, A New Frontier, and The Final Season will all be re-released on Steam later this week.

Fortnite's latest skin is the enemy of my anemone
https://www.pcgamer.com/fortnites-latest-skin-is-the-enemy-of-my-anemone/
Why, Rippley, have you lost weight? No, that's just Fortnite's newest skin, a very undersea-looking, sniper rifle-toting killer named "Jellie."
Introduced this Tuesday in Fortnite's item shop for a cool 1,200 V-Bucks, Jellie sports a distinctly blobbish vibe, just minus 50 or so pounds. Is it Weightwatchers? Ring Fit Adventure? The new face of Peloton bikes? Nah, it's probably all that running around, sniping people from afar.

Temtem's Early Access launch is faring better after an update
https://www.pcgamer.com/temtems-early-access-launch-suffers-from-bugs-and-server-disconnects/
It turns out that 'Pokémon, but an MMO on PC' is an attractive pitch: At the time of writing, I'm around 14,000th in the queue to connect to monster battling MMO Temtem, which launched in Early Access today.
Update: There's still long queue—over 6,000 when I last joined, which took about 30 minutes to wait through—but after a small patch Temtem seems to be working much better. I haven't had a disconnect and have played through several combat encounters without the freeze I ran into this morning.

Tencent wants to buy 'full ownership' of Conan Exiles developer Funcom
https://www.pcgamer.com/tencent-wants-to-buy-full-ownership-of-conan-exiles-developer-funcom/
Multimedia giant Tencent has announced that it's currently seeking to acquire Funcom, perhaps best known in recent years for multiplayer survival game Conan Exiles. The studio is currently working on an open-world Dune game.

Explore the rooftops in free 3D platformer Myrtle Takes The City
https://www.pcgamer.com/explore-the-rooftops-in-free-3d-platformer-myrtle-takes-the-city/
Like Super Mario Odyssey's New Donk City, only slightly lower-res, Myrtle Takes The City invites you to explore a 3D metropolis, jumping over rooftops and collecting whatsits in order to a) line your pockets, and b) help out the many residents requiring your aid.

Nioh 2 trailer to premiere tomorrow
https://www.pcgamer.com/nioh-2-trailer-to-premiere-tomorrow/
Nioh publisher Koei Tecmo recently announced that a brand new Nioh 2 trailer would premiere on January 23, 2020. The trailer is due to go live at 10 pm JST/1 pm GMT.

Vermintide 2 is getting an in-game store that actually sounds pretty good
https://www.pcgamer.com/vermintide-2-is-getting-an-in-game-store-that-actually-sounds-pretty-good/
Vermintide 2 will soon let its ragtag group of heroes deck themselves out with cosmetic items without making sacrifices to the petty gods of RNG. Instead of praying their random loot drops will give them what they want, players will be able to hit up a new in-game store, and for the most part they won't have to dip into their wallets.

Lost Words gets a new trailer at the New York Video Game Awards
https://www.pcgamer.com/lost-words-gets-a-new-trailer-at-the-new-york-video-game-awards/
Last night, the most recent trailer for upcoming indie platformer Lost Words: Beyond The Page debuted at the New York Video Game Awards 2020.
"Embark on a captivating journey through the mind of a young writer," the trailer says. Developed by Sketchbook Games and featuring a story written by Rhianna Pratchett, Lost Words is centered on the diary of a child named Izzy.