Elite: Dangerous has a new developer diary available in which David Braben discusses the space sim’s alpha launch, which will launch in December. The full game won’t be avaiable, obviously, instead the tester will contain to be revealed segments along with the combat, before moving on to other parts. News on the beta will be revealed at a later date and will then be followed by a “gamma” testing phase the game is released. Watch below. Thanks, PC Gamer.

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Sniper Elite: Nazi Zombie Army 2 will release on PC October 31, Rebellion has announced. You can pre-order the game now through the developers’ store and through Steam for 20% off. The first screens and trailer for the game have also been released and you can view those below. The game could also land on next-gen consoles, but has yet to be announced for the new systems.

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Blizzard has won another lawsuit against creators of bot programs developed to run with World of Warcraft. The latest legal battle lasted two years and was between the MMO developer and Ceiling Fan Software, which is now facing a $7 million judgment and ordered to cease operating – as you can see through the official website. In 2011 Blizzard won a lawsuit against the maker of Glider, one of the biggest and most notorious bot software programs of its time, which resulted in the company walking away with all of the trademarks associated with the program. More through WoW Insider.

Total War: ROME 2 has been updated with the free Seleucid Empire faction for both single-player and multiplayer. The update includes Patch 5 which delivers further performance and gameplay balancing improvements. Full patch notes are through here. Also featured, is Steam Workshop support and activation of the mod manager in the Total War Launcher, making the sharing and loading of mods rather easy. Hit up the links for more information and to acquire the update, just fire the game up and it will patch automagically.

The first ever World vs. World season is well under way in Guild Wars 2, with servers beating each other up through until November 21. A new league begins today, and ArenaNet is introducing a beta map made up of floating islands in an attempt to alleviate long queuing times and speed up gameplay.

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Bound by Flame, the new RPG from Spiders Studios announced back in March, has some new screenshots available showing some of the enemies included in the bestiary. Bound by Flame puts players in the role of a mercenary possessed by a flame demon who must choose between the powers offered by their host, or to keep their humanity with heroic talents. Bound by Flame will release in early 2014 on PC, PS3, PS4 and Xbox 360. Screenshots are below.

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Undoubtedly I will be lynched for this, but I don’t really know anything about Dota 2. But I’m told that the long list of changes made in the new 6.79 gameplay update are rather significant, and will result in some big changes. Rather than pretend to know what I’m talking about, I’ll just link to a forum post by a Valve developer which appears to be a preliminary list of the changes you can expect.

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Batman: Arkham Origins on Wii U and the disc version of the PC option will be released in Europe on November 8, Warner Bros. has confirmed to Eurogamer, along with the news that Blackgate, the handheld version, has also seen a delay on 3DS in the region.

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Female characters are proving quite the sticking point for forthcoming marquee shooters. Now Battlefield 4′s executive producer Patrick Bach has explained that he hopes the franchise can one day fully incorporate female characters, but that DICE needs to work out how much it would have to “sacrifice” to make it possible.

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Star Citizen has now hit $23 million in funding, which has unlocked the Xi’an scout plane. According to Cloud Imperium’s Chris Roberts, the goal isn’t “simply to add an extra ship to the game,” but to add a new type of ship which can be expanded upon. “Once we’ve put the effort into building an alien experience for the Khartu, we can apply it to other Xi’an ships moving forward. Essentially, the extra funding lets us build an even more immersive universe,” he said. The next stretch goal is $25 million and upon being reached it will provide a larger alpha testing net with extra servers and worldwide infrastructure. This will also expand the number of remaining alpha slots. Thanks, Massively.

Gran Theft Auto 5 PC rumors keep popping up, and now a Guru3D member has found a reference to the game in the latest AMD Catalyst driver.

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Magic: The Gathering – Tactics will be taken offline in March, SOE and Wizards of the Coast have announced. New game accounts can no longer be created and all code for the title will be retained by Sony Online Entertainment, which has no plans to license or authorize an emulator of the game by fans. All websites and forums associated the game will be shuttered, and players which have an existing deck inventory prior to November 18 will be able to access the cards until the service shuts down on March 28. More information can be found through the link. Thanks, TenTonHammer.

As part of RIFT’s server unification process, Trion Worlds will be resetting the names of inactive characters. Those who have an inactive character will be receiving an email with instruction on how to preserve the name, and in order to save said character name, players will need to log into each inactive character before October 23. The firm said this is its way of freeing up character names for players headed to new shards. More information can be found through the link. Thanks, TenTonHammer.

Wasteland 2 producer Montgomery Markland has posted an update on the game’s Kickstarter page, showing the world map and discussing some the situations players will come across when venturing around on it.

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EverQuest Next Landmark will be handled by Sony Online Entertainment in all regions, which mean those in Europe will not have to go through Prosiebensat.1 to play the game or its beta. Here’s the quote: “We are delivering an entirely new and unique approach to MMO game design and development with EverQuest Next Landmark, and given that SOE’s Player Studio program is one of the cornerstones of EverQuest Next Landmark, SOE will directly manage EQNL and Player Studio for all regions.” Beta sign ups for Landmark are through here.

APB Reloaded will be getting a “massive engine upgrade” meaning once the tech changes are made, the game will be using the same version of Unreal Engine which powers Gears of War 3.

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Assassin’s Creed 4: Black Flag will contain all manner of ways to be stealthy, according to an update on the Ubisoft Blog.

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Nividia has announced its desire for a connected gaming ecosystem and plans to implement a streaming technology standard called Nvidia GameStream which upon release later this month with support over 50 games for local PC streaming on its handheld Shield console. In the future, the firm plans to add the ability to play these games on the go through its Nvidia Grid cloud gaming service. The firm also detailed its Shield Console Mode, which transforms the portable into a full gaming and entertainment console on your big-screen TV. To celebrate the release of GameStream on October 28, the firm is offering $100 off Shield plus free copies of Assassin’s Creed 4: Black Flag, Splinter Cell Blacklist and Batman: Arkham Origins with the purchase of select GeForce GTX graphics cards. More details through the link.

During Nvidia’s Montreal conference, id Software and Oculus Rift man John Carmak said during the Q&A portion of a panel that if it has been “some other random” company other than Valve to come out and announce SteamOS and Steam Box, he would have been “pseudo-scornful” of the move.

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Star Wars: The Old Republic has
a new developer blog available touching upon the MMO’s Galactic Starfighter expansion which will contain 12 vs 12 space battles. While it doesn’t contain many details regarding gameplay, it does delve into the backstory, so it’s worth the read for players. More details regarding gameplay and the like will be revealed in a future update, promised lead designer Michael Backus. There are a few details regarding subscriber Early Access Rewards and Preferred Status player options through a previous post on the expansion if you care to have a look again. Galactic Starfighter will be offered as a free-to-play expansion to the public beginning on February 4.

Battlefield 4 lands on PC and current-gen consoles week after next, and what better time than now for VG247′s Sam Clay to have a chat with executive producer Patrick Bach regarding the game’s development. Video inside.

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ArenaNet is offering a hefty discount on Guild Wars 2 today – and as the MMORPG doesn’t have a subscription fee, that’s a terrific deal. Pick up the heroic edition for $30 or the digital deluxe edition for $42. According to the Guild Wars 2 Twitter, the deal is available for one day only – since that likely means US timing, get in as quick as you can.

Dark Matter players were disappointed this weekend to discover the game’s ending is a single title card of text, but developer and publisher have promised an update and explained the project’s decreased scope.

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The Stanley Parable only launched on PC late last week, but has already hit a significant sales milestone.

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Nvidia has found a way to sync monitor refresh rates with GPU output – not the other way round, as is usual – in order to reduce or eliminate some of the most persistent problems of graphics output.

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Previously exclusive to PlaySation 3 and Vita, The Director’s Cut version of Lone Survivor is coming to Mac and PC this month – and won’t cost current owners a cent.

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