Thursday news, a long part two:
Warframe is gearing up for its wildest expansion yet with The Lotus Eaters update on August 21
https://www.pcgamer.com/games/third-person-shooter/warframe-is-gearing-up-for-its-wildest-expansion-yet-with-the-lotus-eaters-update-on-august-21/
Warframe: 1999 looks nuts. Prototype warframes, boy bands, dating—a lot of weird stuff is on the horizon. That's all coming in winter 2024, but Digital Extremes is already gearing up for it with the next update, The Lotus Eaters, which is dropping on August 21.
We're getting a Civilization 7 deep dive at The Future Games Show at Gamescom, hosted by GTA's Michael de Santa and RDR2's Sadie Adler
https://www.pcgamer.com/gaming-industry/events-conferences/were-getting-a-civilization-7-deep-dive-at-the-future-games-show-at-gamescom-hosted-by-gtas-michael-de-santa-and-rdr2s-sadie-adler/
Gamescom is right around the corner, and you definitely don't want to miss the opening night on August 21. Our sister site GamesRadar+ will be there powering the Future Games Show, dazzling our screens with over 50 games from publishers like 2K, Plaion, and Nacon, as well as some extra treats along the way.
NIS America says Trails and Ys RPG fans won't have to wait so long for future English releases: 'We want to bring that timeline down'
https://www.pcgamer.com/games/rpg/nis-america-says-trails-and-ys-rpg-fans-wont-have-to-wait-so-long-for-future-english-releases-we-want-to-bring-that-timeline-down/
Few game communities have had to learn patience like Japanese RPGs fans. Series like Nihon Falcom’s Ys have historically taken well over a year to see an official English translation. Yet the latest entry in the series, Ys 10: Nordics, is slated to launch worldwide three months quicker than its predecessor Ys 9: Monstrum Nox did compared to its respective Japanese release. According to publisher NIS America, it's a sign of things to come.
StarCraft 2 spiritual successor Stormgate launches to a mixed rating on Steam, but Frost Giant is undaunted: 'Mixed reviews are to be expected at this stage'
https://www.pcgamer.com/games/rts/starcraft-2-spiritual-successor-stormgate-launches-to-a-mixed-rating-on-steam-but-frost-giant-is-undaunted-mixed-reviews-are-to-be-expected-at-this-stage/
Stormgate was unveiled in 2022 and it's come a long way since then: It was the biggest videogame Kickstarter of 2023, earning $2 million on top of $35 million already raised through an initial funding round, and even managed to attract some celebrity voice acting from Simu Liu and Chris Metzen. It also made a big impression on online editor and PC Gamer strategysmith Fraser Brown, who declared that "for the first time in a while, I'm excited to dip my toes into the competitive side of real-time strategy again."
The early access launch for Kickstarter backers hasn't gone smoothly, however. Since its debut on July 30, Stormgate has earned a "mixed" rating on Steam across just over 2,000 user reviews: Common complaints include an incomplete story and unremarkable unit interactions, sub-par enemy AI in PvE modes, the lack of manual saving and loading, and over-aggressive monetization.
Baldur's Gate 3 anniversary statistics cement the popularity of Astarion, kissing, and being turned into a cheese wheel
https://www.pcgamer.com/games/baldurs-gate/baldurs-gate-3-anniversary-statistics-cement-the-popularity-of-astarion-kissing-and-being-turned-into-a-cheese-wheel/
Baldur's Gate 3 released about this time last year, and even though Larian's gearing up for what's next the studio is still monitoring what people do and don't do in the hit RPG. Much like it did a couple times late last year, Larian has compiled some strange and interesting bits of data about how you all managed to get surprisingly weird in a game that's surprising and weird even when you don't go out of your way to get turned into cheese—which 1.9 million people did.
Fans of MOBAs and extraction shooters should sign up for Seekers of Skyveil's playtest on Steam and prepare for its closed beta next month
https://www.pcgamer.com/games/moba/fans-of-mobas-and-extraction-shooters-should-sign-up-for-seekers-of-skyveils-playtest-on-steam-and-prepare-for-its-closed-beta-next-month/
Seekers of Skyveil is like playing a MOBA with a tight time limit. You have to get in and out alive so you can come back with better stuff. It's an extraction shooter without the shooter, a genre twist that hooked me when I played it in May. Its developer Elodie Games runs regular playtests on Steam—which you can sign up for now—and next month it's going to enter closed beta.
Previously unreleased Life By You screenshots are making life sim fans even sadder that it got cancelled
https://www.pcgamer.com/games/life-sim/previously-unreleased-life-by-you-screenshots-are-making-life-sim-fans-even-sadder-that-it-got-cancelled/
Life By You looked set to be the game that finally gave The Sims a run for its money, until it was beset by delays and then, in June, a surprise cancellation followed almost immediately by an unsurprising closure of developer Paradox Tectonic. Now, as so often happens in cases like this, previously unreleased images from the game are starting to come to light, giving us a look at what might have been—and it looks like it might have been really good.
Bungie can't catch a W: Rather than buffing the drop rate of Destiny 2's most-wanted exotic items, the latest patch nerfed it into dust
https://www.pcgamer.com/games/fps/bungie-cant-catch-a-w-rather-than-buffing-the-drop-rate-of-destiny-2s-most-wanted-exotic-items-the-latest-patch-has-nerfed-it-into-the-ground/
It turns out that if you fire a bunch of your QA staff, the game you're making will tend to run into quality issues. I'm not saying the problems with Destiny 2's latest patch are a direct result of last week's drastic headcount reduction at Bungie, but it can hardly help.
Yesterday's weekly reset also saw the rollout of update 8.0.5, which included a swath of fixes and balance changes. The most anticipated of these was a buff to the drop rate of Prismatic exotic class items.
>> And Sony has used usual BS business terms to explain the layoff of those 220 Bungie employees.
Lone Echo developer Ready at Dawn has reportedly been closed by Meta
https://www.pcgamer.com/games/vr/lone-echo-developer-ready-at-dawn-has-reportedly-been-closed-by-meta/
Ready at Dawn, the developer of The Order: 1866 and the Lone Echo VR games, has reportedly been closed by parent company Meta. An Android Central report says the studio's closure comes as part of an effort to meet budget reductions, reported in July, at the company's Reality Labs VR division.
>> A shame, but they sold themselves to the devil.
A mischevious dagger slid Diablo 4 players free XP boosts under the table before Blizzard caught it
https://www.pcgamer.com/games/rpg/a-mischevious-dagger-slid-diablo-4-players-free-xp-boosts-under-the-table-before-blizzard-caught-it/
Several Diablo 4 players have reported that they randomly received the biggest XP boost of their life in the latest season. One player went from level 60 to 100 instantly, a process that usually takes several hours grinding dungeons. After some investigating, Blizzard found the culprit: a mischevious new unique dagger for rogues.
World of Warcraft: The War Within gets a new 2D cinematic, reminds us that Xal'atath is an ancient knife piloting a corpse puppet for kicks
https://www.pcgamer.com/games/world-of-warcraft/world-of-warcraft-the-war-within-gets-a-new-2d-cinematic-reminds-us-that-xal-atath-is-an-ancient-knife-piloting-a-corpse-puppet-for-kicks/
World of Warcraft: The War Within's story is shaping up to be, against all odds, actually kinda neat. (...)
Further spinning up my 'hey this might be decent, actually' engine is Threads of Destiny, the 2D cinematic seen above. It's gorgeous, owing to Blizzard's impossibly big budget for this kind of thing—but it also gives us a look into the central antagonists of the expansion's first leg, the Nerubian Empire.
The next game from Dishonored co-creator Raphael Colantonio is a first-person immersive sim with a structure between Prey and Fallout: New Vegas—'We favour density over size'
https://www.pcgamer.com/games/the-next-game-from-dishonored-co-creator-raphael-colantonio-is-a-first-person-immersive-sim-with-a-structure-between-prey-and-fallout-new-vegaswere-going-for-density-over-size/
Raphael Colantonio wants you to imagine a spectrum. On its left you have Dishonored, the series he co-created with fellow immersive sim veteran Harvey Smith. It's relatively linear and tightly mission-based; once you've finished with a level there's no going back. On the right there's Fallout: New Vegas—a rambling open world. 2017's Prey is in the dead centre, open but dense, with some areas gated off until you have the equipment (or creativity) to get in.
Colantonio says the new immersive sim from his team at WolfEye Studios sits between Prey and New Vegas on that spectrum—"We favour density over size." That's all you need to say to rocket to the top of my wishlist. Billed as a "First-person action RPG," Colantonio and WolfEye CEO Julien Roby make the game sound like a return to their roots at Arkane: "We are even closer to that Fallout thing, [but] still with the values of previous games we've worked on like Prey and Dishonored. It's mobility and that kind of physicality, the level design, the worldbuilding of those games, but served in a structure that is more open than ever."
>> Two articles about this game we know nothing about in two days. Someone is trying to create hype.
Hunt: Showdown's tradition of dropping horrifying little freaks into the Wild West continues with the 'Hellborn,' a roaming fire demon that hurls molten lava balls
https://www.pcgamer.com/games/hunt-showdown-s-tradition-of-dropping-horrifying-little-freaks-into-the-wild-west-continues-with-the-hellborn-a-roaming-fire-demon-that-hurls-molten-lava-balls/
A few weeks back on PC Gamer, Crytek debuted Hunt: Showdown's first new map in three years, Mammon's Gulch. We all had a good time taking in the sights of Hunt's vision of Colorado, a sun-baked mountain range with oil fields and an extensive mining operation, but Crytek was holding something back: There's a new wild target on the loose in Mammon's Gulch, and it's arriving alongside a new event called Scorched Earth.
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