PC Gamer

Remember when Riot Oceania announced they'd sink an artificial reef off the coast of Australia to celebrate League of Legends? Now they're putting on a show at Sydney's Luna Park to celebrate the Oceanic Pro League Grand Final. In addition to the grand final itself, the event will feature a heap of other LoL-related shenanigans including cosplay comps and workshops, among other things.

It takes place August 8, with tickets on sale right now for $15 each. The grand final itself will commence at 5pm but the day kicks off at 11am, meaning you can ride the rollercoaster, be sick, have a nap, and recover in time for the final itself. 

The winner of the final will rep Oceania at the International Wildcard Tournament, which decides who gets a stab at the World Championships. We spoke to Chiefs captain Derek 'Raydere' Trang about the Australian League of Legends scene a couple of months ago, and it's well worth a read if you're interested in how pro gaming is developing in the country.

Wolfenstein: The New Order

MachineGames and publisher Bethesda have not been shy showing off Wolfenstein: The Old Blood. We've already seen heaps of footage, but now there's another lengthy video showcasing the standalone expansion. The game releases this week so it might be worth avoiding this if you're keen to be surprised, but if you're impatient or just wanna watch the world burn, the video is above. 

Reported to have a more "pulpy, B-movie vibe" than its serious older sibling The New Order, The Old Blood will take place across eight chapters, and is expected to be punishingly difficult on its hardest setting (a redundant observation for anyone brave enough to play The New Order on its hardest difficulty). It's due to release on May 6 and will require similar system specs to The New Order. 

Cheers, VG247.

PC Gamer

We didn't name Middle-earth: Shadow of Mordor "game of the year", but clearly someone did, because its getting a Game Of The Year edition. It releases Tuesday for $49.99 and comes bundled with all downloadable content, including The Bright Lord and Lord of the Hunt, as well as all the usual aesthetic adornments and bonus items.

These include six skins, nine extra runes, three extra missions (in addition to the bigger mission packs listed above), seven challenge modes and a new photo mode. 

If you don't own the game already it's well worth checking out, with our Leif Johnson rating it highly. "The tech specs are demanding, but this is the Middle-Earth game to rule them all," he wrote in his review.

Here's the box art for those who intend to purchase it on disc:

PC Gamer

Space can be lonely. Boring, even. So it makes sense that while cruising from one planet to the next, you'll feel the need to destroy things on the way. Perfectly human instinct, that is, but one that was recently made punishable in Elite: Dangerous

A recent update to the game increased the severity of no fire zones. Previously, shooting other players in these neutral zones would incur fines. But where there's a will to be destructive there's a way, and players soon cottoned on that you could ram other players instead, without alerting the intergalactic cops. 

Frontier Developments noticed, and implemented a punishment system for collisions in no fire zones. While a well meaning change, it also put an end to space destruction derbies a fun, player-created phenomenon not anticipated by the devs. These emergent mini-games are arguably the marker of any successful sandbox game, and feeling peeved, players resorted to the best form of protest available to them: goat memes.

The result was this: an endless stream of goat pictures under the Twitter hashtag #EDProtestGoat . The Elite forums were swamped with them too, prompting lead designer Sandro Sammarco to respond to the goat controversy.

"I'll need to check with some clever coder folk on this, but I'm hopeful that we can have this crime not squawked with "don't report crimes against me"," Sammarco wrote. "As long as all participants use this functionality then they would be safe to race near each other - though hitting spectators would still trigger the crime."

So there you have it, online outrage wins again, but this time for good! It's worth reading through Sammarco's full notes on the forum if you play Elite and are heavily invested in the whole controversy. 

PC Gamer

Riot's been semi-regularly updating the community on its infrastructural progression, and so far so good. I've actually noticed a reduction in my average ping over the last few weeks—which, granted, isn't entirely necessary when my champion pool mostly consists of heavy close-range bruisers. Skill shots? That's for mid laners to bother with. I just want to run up and hit people.

But it does help. And their eventual plan to develop what is effectively a semi-private nationwide routing network has great implications for the development of North American esports by reducing the artificial limitations on skills development for more easterly players. Right now, west coasters have a significant advantage—30 ms from San Jose versus 100+ is basically the difference between reacting and predicting. While there is certainly value in developing strong predictive skills in-game, which is the basis of Madlife's legend-inspiring Thresh and Blitzcrank play, a player's mechanical strength is based at least a little on the speed they react to developing situations in a fight. Especially in solo queue.

Granted, it isn't the only thing, or arguably even the most important. Low reaction speed can be compensated for with a good team composition and strategic planning. Sure, you might be liable to miss crucial Smites or whiff difficult Glacial Prisons, but a good understanding of blind points, play patterns and ability abuse has lifted even the most remote players to the top of solo queue rankings.

Case in point: AHQ E-Sports Club's own ace in the hole. Liu "Westdoor" Shu-Wei is a feared local legend, dominating not just the Taiwanese Garena servers but slashing through the ranks of North America and even Korea in yesteryears. The average ping from Taipei to Los Angeles? 166 on a good day, or ten times that of an LCS pro duking it out somewhere in the vicinity of Santa Monica. Sure, Westdoor is incredibly skilled, but given that he made his name off Twisted Fate's fire-and-forget Gold Cards (as opposed to Riven's frame-by-frame intricacies) it's clear that "skill" in League of Legends extends past just reactionary play.

That said, an east coast server is probably going to be necessary in the long run, and not just for ping parity. There's a metagame aspect that is oft-overlooked: all of Asia's involved in a coordinated conspiracy to keep the world championship trophy to themselves, and it's got a lot to do with their server regions.

Eastern alliance

I've verified it over the spring split with multiple teams, on the record. Heck, LMS teams have said so on video (albeit in Mandarin, so mostly to the ignorance of Reddit et al). It's not exactly a big secret, just one that's often overlooked by the region-specific narrative espoused by most commentators. Shanghai, Seoul, Taipei: three server regions, but one practice circuit. While Korean and Chinese teams do focus primarily on their domestic circuits, thus forming the particular metagames and trends of each region, they regularly swap notes and test the strength of each other's best.

It's why, for instance, Westdoor popped out the Cho'gath mid pre-Cinderhulk. Korean solo queue's been using it as a LeBlanc counter since early spring, the conical Silence on Feral Scream doing a serious number to what was then an assassins-heavy meta, dependent on champion ability and burst potential. It was weeks later until the west picked up on it, and by then it was less about shutting down assassins and more about providing another layer of meat in front of the AD carry.

It is, I suspect, a major reason for the eastern regions' continued strength. The Korean exodus did more than just weaken KeSPA's stranglehold on esports success—it's networked the eastern hemisphere regions into a loosely organized competitive federation. Though not one without its pain points.

In Taipei, for example, the Taipei Assassins have caught a little flack over their scrim schedules. Sure, it makes perfect sense for them to want to spend a lot of time scrimming Korean teams—it's why they brought in a Korean coach in the first place, to provide that sort of networking opportunity. For them to do so almost at the exclusion of their fellow LoL Master Series teams, though, has engendered a little ill will. There is some nationalism with the Wolves and AHQ in that they're working to redeem Taiwan's reputation in international esports, yet the Wolves claim that it's easier to get scrims with GE Tigers than it is with TPA!

Quid pro quo

But even with neighborly issues, it's hard to pretend that the Taiwanese teams haven't undergone substantial improvements this year. Their exposure to the practices and habits of Chinese and Korean peers has greatly expanded their playbooks and tightened their mechanical executions—in lieu of actual international competition, they can at least have international practices to keep them truly ready come the MSI and Worlds.

That's not possible for EU and NA teams. The last time that the two regions were interconnected was back in 2012, when TSM was an East Coast team and bearing with 150+ ping to occasionally practice against their Old Country counterparts. Nowadays, the only cross-cultural interchange is between North America and Japan—and it's mostly Japan stuck playing on NA servers by virtue of lacking their own, and they're too new to really offer much in terms of experience to the more established North American scene.

That's going to impede western strategic development. It probably already has. It is by no mere accident that Europe's picked up a reputation for sluggish, grinding play, and no accident that TiP so rapidly tore through established North American teams back when they were LMQ and staffed entirely of Chinese players. It is natural for a region to copy the play styles of their most successful teams, but the insulated nature of the western regions means their best teams have very few opportunities to learn how they might get punished by somebody working off a wholly different set of assumptions.

Thus: a trans-Atlantic server. Or, at the very least, deliberate effort to extend Riot's ongoing network development program with the trans-Atlantic connection in mind. And, if at all possible, with Brazil in mind as well, as the rapidly developing CBLoL program is arguably mature enough to deserve a guaranteed Worlds seed in 2016.

What might that cross-pollination result in? Better League. Better play. Less 50+ minute European snoozefests as teammates bicker and snark—at each other—over how best to not shut out a game when they're ahead. It's not as if Chinese games don't run the clock either, but it's much rarer—and even when they do, the kill tallies pile up like an avalanche over the entirety of it.

I think that's something we can all approve.

PC Gamer

Last year I played a multi-generational game of grand strategy Crusader Kings 2 using the A Game of Thrones mod, which transforms the historical medieval setting of CK2 into the continent of Westeros from George R.R. Martin's A Song of Ice and Fire novels (and the HBO series). My goal was to play as the most minor of lords and experience the conflict and drama of Westeros from the ground floor. Game of Checkers will run on Sundays for ten weeks.

A Storm of Sisters

Going from playing as Ninedrick to his son Neddrick was a bit jarring. Going from Neddrick to his daughter Nondrosie (I ll just call her Rosie from now on) who is eleven years old? I m not sure how to describe that.

Even by Westeros standards, Rosie is still a kid. She s so young we can t even see what she looks like: she still has the default child avatar. We can look at her stats, though, which are disheartening: she s a poor fighter, taking after her father, clearly. She s also arbitrary. She s envious. She s deceitful. Well, she definitely sounds like an eleven year-old kid.

This is a pretty precarious spot to be in, game-wise. The war against the Iron Throne that killed Neddrick still rages on, and while I m no longer on the battlefield, the fighting is right at our doorstep. Half of The Vale is burning with sieges, the other half crawling with tens of thousands of enemy soldiers. And, weirdly, perhaps even grossly, my first priority is to find little Rosie a suitable future husband. As a little girl, my only heirs are two other little girls, Nondrikki and Nondruby, formerly my daughters, now my sisters. It s not much of a safety net as losing Rosie would mean I become an even younger child. Not to mention, we re all in the same castle. If something terrible happens to Rosie, the same thing will probably happen to Rikki and Ruby a moment later. I have to at least lock down a potential husband to get things lined up for a future heir.

Finding a spouse is much trickier now. Acquiring suitable wives for male lords isn't hard, but finding husbands for women comes with a built-in problem. Typically, when a man and woman marry, the woman goes to live with the man, and their children become part of his dynasty, and are his heirs.

I can t marry Rosie that way. Her children would be the heirs of her husband s dynasty, not her own, which means that when Rosie died, her kids would not be playable characters for me. She needs to find a man willing to move to her court and let their children become a part of her dynasty: a matrilineal marriage. I could probably find a number of willing commoners, but it s not easy to find highborn men, or the guardians of young highborn boys, who will agree to that.

In fact, there are only a couple non-commoners I can find. One is Viserys Targaryen, brother of Daenerys. I won't be marrying him. Sure, he s a prince, but he s also cruel and insane. All the prestige in the world isn't worth marrying that dirtbag.

Then there s Moryn Blackbar. He s son of Lord Paramount Margery Tyrell, herself a prominent book character, and he s Heir to the Reach. He s only 13, which is at least age appropriate, though why Margery would agree to a matrilineal marriage, where her grandchildren would become part of my dynasty, I have no idea. I staple a note to a raven, and a week later she sends back a winged response. She s happy with the match, despite it being matrilineal. Amazing! If this goes through, I ll have married into the Starks, the Lannisters, and the Tyrells. Not bad for a House that came from a little stretch of worthless land.

Meanwhile, the few still-living main characters from the books are looking old. Jaime Lannister is in his 50 s, and is Master at Arms for King Michael Baratheon. Jon Snow is 39, Master of Whispers in Karhold, and married with couple of kids. Brienne of Tarth is Master of Laws in Blackhaven, married with one son. Samwell Tarly is around, married and Master at Arms (surprisingly!) of The Westmarch, with three kids. And good old Littlefinger is still at it, Castellan of The Vale. He s certainly not expanded his influence as far as he would like, but when it comes to The Vale, he s still pulling the strings.

Tyrion Lannister is pushing 50, is married (with a mistress, natch) and has four living children including a daughter, Rosamund, whom, he reminds me in a missive, is betrothed to Nerdrick, the suspiciously thin and blond member of my family. Once my son, then my brother, and now my uncle, I give Nerdrick the go-ahead to get officially hitched.

Since I m enabling hookups left and right, I might as well keep going. I arrange a future matrilineal marriage for my sister, Rikki, to boy-lord Aeamon of the Stormlands, but I can t find anyone suitable for little Ruby at the moment. Meanwhile, I seem to be butting heads with my aunt Nanndrick (Ninedrick s third, largely-forgotten child, who was born just as he died of pneumonia). She s a year younger than me and we do not get along. I guess we just come from different generations.

Rosie also doesn't get along with… well, anyone. My sister Ruby doesn't like me much. Rikki absolutely hates me, probably because I (as Neddrick) changed the succession laws so she wouldn't inherit any titles. I give her a present of some gold which makes her a little happier. I m sure the peasants of Pebble and Wycliffe would be thrilled to know their taxes are being given to cranky children to improve their moods.

The war eventually winds down, with King Michael again keeping his butt affixed to the Iron Throne, giving the continent plenty of time to bust up into other, smaller, even more pointless wars. My small collection of exhausted peasant soldiers wander around following my new liege, Lord Paramount Gilwood, for a few years. In the meantime, I get word that Jaime Lannister has been killed in personal combat with some randomly generated character. He was 58.

Rosie turns 14 and marries the Heir to the Reach, Moryn Blackbar. Now Margery, Lady Paramount of the Reach, is my ally. Good news, because I've started thinking, again, about that other small island in The Fingers: The Paps. Neddrick s claim on it died with him, but I guess the paperwork is still lying around because I immediately receive a fresh claim. Unfortunately, I can only scrounge up a combined 200 troops from Pebble and Wycliffe, not nearly enough to storm The Paps. I don t have the cash for mercenaries, either, so I m going to have to wait.

Family Plots

With what little gold I've got, I've started construction on a castle town in Pebble hoping to increase my tax base a little. With only military holdings, it s really tough to raise any money.

And, something actually happens: I've been appointed Master of Whispers to Lord Paramount Gilwood! Hell yeah! Just call me Rosiefinger! Wait, don t call me that. That s weird. Not to be outdone, Littlefinger becomes Regent for like the 20th time. I also notice some activity on Midlor Point: Littlefinger is building some barracks to increase the size of his armies. Sure, as soon as I start building a town, he starts building military structures. He must know something I don t.

More Iron Throne business erupts. Former King Arrec, who was chilling in the Iron Islands, has been mysterious murdered. Now, some people want Herbert, Arrec s son, to take the throne instead of current King Michael, Robert s bastard, who has already put down several rebellions. I sense some pointless marching in our future.

In less heartening news, my family still doesn't like me. Everyone has a negative opinion of Rosie. Uncle Nerdrick and his wife. Both of my sisters. Even my new husband despises me, probably because he s heir to the Reach and has to live on a crummy island called Pebble. I m too broke from building a castle town to buy anyone gifts, but I award my husband the honorary title of Cupbearer, hoping it ll cure his grouchiness. Nerdrick and his wife Rosamund have a daughter they name Marianne. Weird name. My opinion of their child is negative six. I am not impressed by you, stupid baby.

Tyrion Lannister dies at age 56, after falling into a coma. I get busy, trying to get young Ruby promised off to some stranger. The best bet is another one of Margery s sons, Humfrey Blackbar. It s another matrilineal marriage and it gives us a healthy dose of prestige. It s a little weird that both she and I will be marrying two brothers, but in Westeros, that's nowhere near as weird as some relationships.

Meanwhile, there s still no action between the sheets for Rosie and Moryn. We are pretty much neutral to each other. His goal is to have a son, so I make that my goal, not that I care if I have a boy or a girl. I just figure with a common goal we might get to humping at some point. I m now in my twentiespractically middle-aged for this world—and haven t produced an heir

While I m idly scrolling around the map, waiting for time to pass, I notice, way off to the west, something I've never seen before. A tiny island, miles out to sea. It s called Lonely Light. Technically, Lonely Light is part of the Iron Islands but it s eight days away by boat to even reach it.

I decide to send a message, via raven, to the commander of Lonely Light, and I decide that message should be an insult. It just strikes me as funny. This guy lives on an island eight days away from the rest of the world. Imagine getting a raven waaaaay out there and opening the message and it just says U smell. Look, I have no money and very little to do. You have take your entertainment where you can get it.

As if to reward this act of trolling, I become pregnant. Soon my daughter is born, and I name her Nondaisy. It's fantastic news for me and my husband, but terrible news for my sister Rikki, who was heir by default. She suddenly hates my guts. Well, she already hated my guts, but now she completely loathes me. Sister Ruby continues to dislike me, and my Aunt Nandrick isn t much fonder.

All this hatred is clearly leading somewhere, and I m genuinely not surprised when my spymaster taps me on the shoulder one day and whispers the words I've been waiting for: there s a plot to assassinate my newborn daughter. The plot was hatched by my sister Rikki, which is depressing but not really a shock. What's more, the plot is being backed by Lothar the Lame! I d made him my Master of Coin a couple years ago, and I m glad I did: if he d been my Master of Whispers, he certainly wouldn't have revealed a plot that he himself was taking part in.

I tell them I m aware of their plan and that they both need to knock it off. They back down and drop the murder plot, but it s pretty horrifying to be in close quarters with two people who want to kill my baby daughter.

I decide to make some changes: I replace Lothar with another Master of Coin and hope he buggers off out of my court, or at least dies soon (he s 66). As for Rikki, when her betrothed is old enough to marry, I m going to see if I can switch her marriage from matrilineal to traditional. That way she ll move in with her betrothed and off my island. Hell, if I hadn t already promised her to Aemon of the Stormlands I d marry her to that Lonely Light island commander let her spend the rest of her life counting seagulls and filing all the insulting notes I d send them.

Another plot comes out. My aunt, Nanndrick, is trying to kill my Master of Whispers, Marsella. Backing this plot is Lothar (again, he s still hanging around my court) and my grandmother, Dana Whent (wife of Ninedrick! Remember him? And her?). So, Marsella, for being kind and competent enough to prevent my baby daughter from being murdered, is now in the crosshairs herself.

Once again, I rap on Lothar s chamber door and say, Hey, could you please stop backing plots to murder everyone I know, you limping shit? He agrees, so I move onto Grandma Dana. She also agrees to drop her plot. Then I confront Nanndrick. It takes her nine days to respond, despite the fact that we live in the same castle, but she finally promises she will end her plot.

There's a saying: keep your friends close and your enemies closer. But what the hell do you do about family, who at times represent your best of friends and worst of enemies? Frankly, I feel like I need keep them as far away from me as possible.

Suddenly, I m pregnant again. Great. Another relative. Another potential enemy. This castle is suddenly feeling far too small.

Spoiler Alert

I'll continue Rosie's story next week, but before I go, I want to relate something interesting that happened elsewhere in the world. Since this event contains something of a spoiler for the fiction, it's on the next page, but here I'll explain as vaguely as possible why it might be considered a spoiler.

If you're only interested in the storyline of Game of Checkers, you can just come back next week—nothing on the next page has anything to do with my little dynasty. You won t miss any of Rosie s story: this is just an account of what happens with the current war for the Iron Throne, and it takes place without any of my involvement. And, the event isn't one that takes place in the fiction, it just involves a certain character from the books whose very name might be a spoiler.

See, there s a character that died well before the books began, though there are a number of hints to indicate this character is actually alive and secretly living elsewhere. We don t really know if it s true. It has not been definitively revealed in the books yet (and I don't think this character has even been mentioned on the TV show.) One character in the books has met someone claiming to be this person, but it s just a claim and hasn't been confirmed.

Anyway, this next section involves this character, so proceed with caution, or just leave now and come back next week.

Dragon Lands

Hey, guess what? A new claim on the Iron Throne is being pressed. This is nothing new, but this time it s the claim of a Targaryen. It s not Daenerys. It s not Vicerys.

It s Aegon.

In the history of the novels, Aegon (son of Rhaegar) was killed as a baby when Mad King Aerys was overthrown, though it s possible that Varys, Master of Whispers, actually smuggled baby Aegon out of King s Landing to have him raised in Essos, allowing a peasant s baby to be killed in Aegon s place. The idea was that Aegon might return one day and claim the Iron Throne, bringing the rule of the Seven Kingdoms back to the Targaryens. That day has apparently come.

One of my response options to this is news is to declare Long Live the True King! Meaning King Michael Baratheon. Look, even if you hate the Targaryens, how can anyone in Westeros say any one of the collection of bastards we've rotated on and off Iron Throne is the true king? I m very tempted to throw in with the Targaryens, because we sure have made a mess of things without them. But, I m following my liege, like a good little lord.

So! A Targaryen invasion. Exciting! Instead of some inbred jerk sitting on our throne, we may get... a different inbred jerk sitting on our throne (canonically, the Targaryens did a lot of inbreeding).

Aegon makes his landing at Dyre Den, right in my neighborhood, with about a thousand of his own soldiers and 10,000 Golden Company warriors (a mercenary fighting force). My immediate thought is: 10,000? That s it? I m sure they look really impressive and all, but it seems a bit weak: my grandfather Ninedrick was once attached to an Iron Throne army some 50,000 strong. No one from Westeros seems to have thrown in with Aegon, either, so he s not going to have any local support. Still, I m pretty damned excited to see him. Aegon, in the flesh, stepping off a boat onto my turf.

After laying siege to Dyre Den and easily claiming it, Aegon heads to North Crackclaw Point where there are about 4,000 Iron Throne soldiers awaiting him. There are also 67 ships bearing soldiers from The Reach approaching.

I guess I was right: 10,000 Golden Company warriors do look damn impressive, because the ships from the Reach turn right around and vanish, and the 4,000 Iron Throne soldiers skirt around Aegon and slip away into The Whispers, letting him sack North Crackclaw.

I hope Aegon is happy seeing his enemies flee before him: I suspect it s going to be all downhill from here. A full 34,000 Iron Throne soldiers advance from the west, with 27 ships appearing in the Bay of Crabs for additional support. 2,000 Thronemen peel off and begin taking back Dyre Den.

Galleys land and start pooping out soldiers. The Iron Throne s forces are up to 52,000 now, and another 22,000 are marching in through Rook Rest, only a couple of weeks away. The clash begins in North Crackclaw, and Aegon s army is whittled down to 5,000 men within a month. He s left himself no escape on land: the Bay of Crabs is north of him and Claw Cape is to the east and south. The only way to run is west, where the land is crawling with more Iron Throne soldiers.

With only 2,000 men left, Aegon retreats through The Whispers. In pursuit are the 50,000 soldiers he was fighting. 32 ships worth of Westerlanders arrive by boat, not that they ll be needed.

And then it s over. Offered peace, with no other choice, Aegon accepts, having only briefly conquered Dyre Den. The invasion, if you can even call it that, ends with a whimper. He s thrown in jail in King s Landing.

The war is over. The remnants of the Golden Company just stand there on North Cracklaw Point, no one left to pay their tab.

The Binding of Isaac

If you're a Binding of Isaac player, you've probably already moved on to Rebirth by now, the recent, spritely remake that adds new content and performs way better, on account of it not being made in Flash. Well now you have a reason to return to the original game. Florian Himsl—co-developer of the original version—has just released his promised update that adds a new Hard mode, "eternal" enemies, and makes bug fixes and other changes to the game. The free update is on Steam now, and you'll need the Wrath of the Lamb expansion to play it.

The above video details some of the changes, which should make for a nice challenge for Isaac pros.

PC Gamer

With the news that Dead Island 2 has been moved back to 2016, you're probably worried about having nowhere to turn to get your zombie fix. Other than the thousands of other zombies games out there, I mean. Like Dying Light! With mod tools recently appearing, it's not a bad time to revisit the zombie-hopping open world game and see what modders have been up to.

The difference between night and day in Dying Light is like the difference between, well, night and day. At night, the infected are far more powerful and bloodthirsty, meaning your only two options for survival are hiding and running, and neither of those work for very long. Daytime zombies, though, are far more passive, usually standing in the street and not even bothering with you unless you run right up to them or cause some kind of ruckus in their immediate vicinity. The I Am Legion mod changes this, and while it doesn't turn day into night, it definitely ups the challenge by altering the behavior of daytime zeds.

First and foremost, it adds more zombie spawn points. Thanks to the mod, the zombies (and we're talking the general type of zombies, not the recently infected or specialized types) no longer just stand around in the street. They walk and prowl around, as if they're actively looking for you, or at least looking for someone. Once they spot you or hear you—and now they can at much greater distances—they become much more aggressive than they do in the unmodded game, and their group AI has been beefed up, meaning they're more likely to attack in packs from all sides. They also don't give up quite so easily if you simply run away, and even when you enter a safe zone, they won't forget you. They'll be waiting for you to come back out. Eek.

In addition to this, areas you've cleared of zombies repopulate much more quickly. Armed human goons are much less frequent, which initially sounds like it would contribute to a safer city, but really means weapon and ammo pickups are much more rare. Buying guns and ammo from dealers is tougher, too, as prices have been goosed up a bit.

The end result is a much more hostile and dangerous daytime environment, which will require you to keep to the rooftops as much as possible, plan your routes in advance, and keep moving! As you can imagine, this mod makes beginning a fresh game much more of a challenge. Good luck.

You can grab the mod from Nexus Mods or Moddb. There are two versions, The Ultimate Survivor, and The Survivor, the second of which isn't quite as hardcore. Installation instructions are contained in the download. If you'd like to donate to this modder, here is the link to do so.

PC Gamer

Warner Bros has detailed the contents of Arkham Knight's pricey season pass over on Facebook—and one of the DLC bits will let you play as Batgirl. Look, there she is up there, with a cob on that would make Batman smi...that would make Batman glower in sullen approval. In addition to this prequel story that makes Batgirl playable for the first time, we can also expect more Batman story missions, 'Gotham City Stories' that allow us to play as Batman's other chums, plus various character skins, challenge maps and batmobile tracks. So quite a lot of stuff, in other words.

Here's the full season pass breakdown (thanks, Reddit):

"Earlier this week, we announced the Season Pass for Batman: Arkham Knight. While the story of Rocksteady s Batman: Arkham Trilogy will come to a close on June 23rd, we are excited to continue telling stories and delivering more content to explore and play through in the 6 months following the game s release. We ll be building more narrative, more missions, more challenges and more characters and vehicles that we want players to experience, even though they didn t fit into the storyline of Batman: Arkham Knight.

We ve heard from our community that you want more information on what we ll be delivering in the Season Pass. While we aren t ready to unveil every aspect of the content we ll be developing, we would like to share more detail now to give you a better sense of the scope of the Season Pass.

Batgirl: A Matter of Family

An all new prequel story expansion in an entirely new location where you play as Batgirl for the very first time in the Arkham series - check out the first render of Batgirl.

The Season of Infamy

Play as Batman in all new story missions featuring legendary super-villains invading Gotham City, with new story arcs, missions and gameplay features.

Gotham City Stories

Play as Batman s key allies in narrative missions extending their storylines, from both before and after the events in Batman: Arkham Knight.

Legendary Batmobiles with Themed Tracks

Drive the most iconic Batmobiles from Batman s 75-year history, on custom-built race tracks, each themed to that Batmobile s specific era. Every Batmobile will be drivable across every race track.

Crimefighter Challenge Maps

Engage in a series of new challenge maps utilizing the unique play styles of Batman and his allies.

Character Skins

A variety of skins from across the eras for Batman, Robin, Nightwing and Catwoman. As we fully ramp up development on the Season Pass, we will be sharing even more details on each monthly content drop. We hope you enjoy playing Batman: Arkham Knight as much as we ve enjoyed making it."

PC Gamer
face off

Samuel Roberts, Editor is a faceless cog in the machine, but demands that his face be at the front of the magazine every month.

Andy Kelly, Section Editor thinks games need bold auteurs leading the project, otherwise they ll increasingly become a sad beige slurry.

In Face Off, PC Gamer writers go head to head over an issue affecting PC gaming. Today, Sam and Andy argue about who deserves credit when great games get made.

Andy Kelly: YES. All great art is the result of an unflinching creative vision, and games should be the same.

Sam Roberts: NO. Games are collaborative, and praising just one person doesn t make a lot of sense.

AK: When Ridley Scott was making Blade Runner, everyone hated him. He made the cast and crew endure hours of gruelling takes on dark, rainy, foggy movie sets, and people would routinely quit the production. And the results speak for themselves. Scott had a bold, unwavering creative vision for the film and, even though it pissed a lot of people off, it resulted in a genuine masterpiece. That s what games need. They need someone who won t compromise to appease the suits, and who doesn t design by committee. 

SR: There are some games where that s seemingly been the case, like Ken Levine at Irrational on the BioShock series—he s a fairly famous example. But at its height, over 100 people were working at Irrational—and creative vision is as much about course correction as it is about seeing it through. BioShock Infinite went through six years of development and, while Levine was lead writer, four others are credited on the writing of that game. Studio culture and the way it informs the finished product is way more powerful than the influence of one individual. Filmmaking has a much more direct power structure that relies on the vision of the director. Games are too complicated for that to work the same way. 

AK: Making games is a complex process, no doubt. But when you look at something like Metal Gear Solid, Hideo Kojima s presence is felt in every scene. Even though attributing the series brilliance exclusively to him is unfair to all the talented artists and coders who make his mad fever dreams a reality, they re still guided by his hand. Kojima is enormously respected and influential at Konami, and a rarity in the industry, but I d love to see more of that. When publishers start meddling in game development, you end up with stuff like the microtransactions in Assassin s Creed Unity. Having a Kojima or a Scott at the top of a project is the best way to keep their dirty, money-grubbing poison away from the art. 

SR: Hey, I make an exception for Kojima. His games are so confidently bizarre that I can t possibly think how you would get those results in any other way. He does come from an era of smaller teams, though—he s been a fixture for a while, as has anyone we consider or have considered an auteur in the games industry, like Levine or Peter Molyneux. It s proportional relevance. Could you really see someone attaining that status out of a modern studio with 100-200 people in it? It s a little different with indie studios, where the team sizes mimic the earlier days of games development. But even then—auteur? Really? It s a bit highfalutin as terms go for Bloke Who Does Press Interviews or Stage Demo Figurehead. Those are more relevant job titles, Andy. Every studio should have those two people instead. 

AK: Auteur is a bad word to use. Anything French sounds pretentious, like raison d tre or croissant. A Levine or a Kojima takes years to develop, and is usually the result of them making a hit game. But what studios should do is actually hire someone whose job is being the creative driving force behind a project. Their word is law, and everything goes through them for approval. Like an artistic dictatorship. That s how Ridley Scott made Blade Runner amazing, and I think developers would massively benefit from having someone like that to answer to. Will it ever happen? I doubt it. Not when the suits are there waving their spreadsheets. But it should, because it stops games feeling like cynical cash grabs. AC Unity felt like a product to me, in the way, say, a Stanley Kubrick film doesn t. I know I m living in a naive fantasy world, but I like it here. Leave me alone. 

SR: So you re comparing auteurs to croissants now? Why not just hire a senior croissant consultant and do away with auteurs altogether? Or a chief creative raison d tre? They can drive the creative direction of this industry—who needs auteurs when someone has croissant in their job title? I think I ve won this one. 

AK: Look, I know I ve spent several pages this issue talking about Blade Runner, but what games really need are genetically engineered super-developers who are made up of the best bits of legendary directors. A bit of Kojima, a bit of Levine, a bit of Mikami, a bit of Molyneux. There s always a chance they could go rogue and turn murderous, but then I d get to put on a trenchcoat and hunt them down in a cyberpunk city as Vangelis follows me around playing a synth.

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