The first half of Black Desert Online's 2020 roadmap was revealed earlier this week, giving players a sneak peek into what developer Pearl Abyss has planned all the way through to summer, including a new feature where players can compose music and play it on instruments—which definitely won't result in towns becoming overwhelmed with would-be bards thrashing out Sandstorm on a lute.

You can look at the Black Desert Online 2020 roadmap here, but you won't have to wait long for one of its most exciting additions. Coming on January 22, The Guardian will join the roster of available classes. This northern warrior wields a massive battle axe that she uses to cleave through groups of baddies and plays similarly to her male counterpart, the Berserker, which is to say they both excel at charging into the thick of it.

In addition to The Guardian, several classes will get new customization options through the new Succession system. When players reach a certain level, they have the option of choosing Awakening, which gives them a new weapon and a suite of abilities to use, or they can choose Succession, keeping their current weapon and abilities but with enhanced powers. Throughout the first quarter of 2020, the Witch, Wizard, Striker, Mystic, Lahn, and Guardian will all receive their new Succession abilities.

Black Desert Online's 2020 roadmap also includes some features that'll benefit everyone. Sometime this spring, players of the Shai class will be able to compose and play their own music. A new region called Papua Crinea, where adorable otters and "Papus" are locked in a bloody conflict, will also be added. So sad. Around summer, players can expect another story chapter and accompanying area called O'dyllita.

You can check out the full roadmap here. It will presumably be updated later this year to reveal what's coming in the latter half of 2020.

I was quite taken by the idea of Pandemic Express when it was announced last year. It's a multiplayer survival game that has a group of 30 people attempting to escape a zombie apocalypse, the twist being that one of them—unbeknownst to the rest—is already infected, granting them powerful abilities, unlimited respawns, and a burning hunger for brains. Cue a running fight to the last train out and a final stand by whoever's left alive, and it sounds like a pretty good time to me.

The player numbers haven't been great, though (to put it mildly), and so publisher Tinybuild is taking another run at it by making the game free to play. Under the new system, players will earn "stars" by playing matches that can be spent on costumes, emojis, and in-game music. If you don't want to wait, you can opt to buy them instead. 

"We believe this is the most fair and transparent way to do free to play," Tinybuild said. Anyone who bought the game prior to the free-to-play transition will be given 2000 stars and access to all music tracks, as a thanks "for being with us from the start."

Tinybuild didn't say how, or if, the change will impact its long-term plans for the game, which include new game modes, an in-game tutorial, regional servers, and an overhaul of the transport system. Based on the comments on Steam, the response among players so far seems cautiously hopeful, and Steam Charts indicates a significant uptick in players in the past 30 days: It's still a tiny population, but maybe it'll be enough to get something started.

Certain marketers would like to have us think that a gamer's diet should include copious amounts of sugary energy drinks like Mountain Dew and Monster. However, if you're after more of the finer things in life and want to give your game experiences a flourish, Noelle Brandmier's blog Wine and Game Pairing has got you covered. 

If you're after a more sophisticated drinking experience then this is the blog for you, Noelle has matched all sorts of games and gives detailed reasons for her pairings that go beyond a bottle with the prettiest label — a reason for choosing wine for which I am incredibly guilty. 

Want to know what wine evokes the rough wilderness of Skyrim? Noelle writes that it's 810 Meadworks Jewel of the Newell, a wine that's "earthy and slightly dry, with lovely notes of wildflower honey, oak, and a subtle amount of pomegranate." How about the heavy strategy and planning of Civilization VI? Noelle suggests the luxurious Silk and Spice Red Blend. "Notes of lush, ripe dark berries, spices, and a subtle earthy oaky taste accompanies each sip of this delicious red. A fine pairing that I think any strategy gamer would enjoy, whether they're building an army or the Louvre."  

It's definitely more in-depth and refined than my personal technique of buying the cheapest thing on offer. 

I ask Noelle how she decides on her pairings: "The first thing I do is think about the weight and tone of a game," Noelle explains. "Is the game dark and heavy, like Dark Souls? Time to look for a heavy, dry red. Maybe most of the game takes place in fields, so I'll try to find something with grass notes. Or maybe there's a lot of fire in the game, so I'll look for something with smokey notes. I have a lot of fun because games are so different and they can inspire me in different ways. Sometimes I'll play a game that takes place in a certain area of the world, so I'll look for a wine from that region. Or the game mentions a particular type of wine, like mead or sake, and that will point me in an immediate direction."

Wine and Game Pairings has been active since 2017 and has a hefty backlog of thoughtful and perfect pairings. In her most recent post about The Outer Wilds Noelle recommends Shooting Star Zinfandel which she describes as "full of rich, brambly berry flavours, baking spices, and a bit of tobacco. It's an exciting burst of tannin, acidity, and flavour...yet the notes are familiar and comforting. Which, weirdly enough, seems to match my experience with Outer Wilds."

Noelle has also matched Donut County, Slime Rancher, Untitled Goose Game, No Man's Sky, and Cuphead. Her posts are always fun and personal, although sometimes pairing up certain genres can be tough. "The hardest games for me to pair are games that take place in space,"  she says. "I've got a running list of sci-fi games I'd like to pair with no inkling of where to start. Obviously, I haven't been to space. I can't even imagine what things taste or smell like up there, and those are two of my biggest factors in pairing wine with a game."

There are hardly any clues that would give an indication of what space wine would taste like, like in Mass Effect, for example, wines are only mentioned in passing, although other types of booze like beer, sweet liquor, and ale are readily available. Out of the virtual booze I've come across in games, Stardew Valley's fruity wines are a must-try for me, the Starfruit wine in particular sounds fantastic.

"I just finished my first playthrough of Afterparty," Noelle says. "The cocktails in that game sound awful and delicious at the same time (keep in mind they're made for the patrons of Hell). I really wish I could try one...even though it would probably kill me. I'd also happily try a glass of arcwine from World of Warcraft if I could. Can you imagine the taste and effects of a magical wine like that?" 

Noelle not only does videogame pairings, she also matches the perfect wine to boardgames and has alcohol recommendations outside of wine. "I'm always working on more pairings!" she says. "I've actually got something a little different in the works for an upcoming pairing: I'm trying out a recipe for a tea-themed game. It involves my first attempt at home-brewing, and I'm pretty excited about it. Hopefully, I'll have a simple recipe to share with others to try out at home!"

Make sure to check out all of Noelle's full reviews over on Game and Wine Pairing and if there's a game you think Noelle should check out next, let her know over on Twitter and Instagram. 

Destiny 2's Guardians have been attempting to unravel a mystery in the Corridors of Time, hanging up their guns and becoming code crackers and sleuths. Nobody knew what they were going to find in the end, but thanks to the efforts of some diligent squads, now everyone does. 

Lots of players and streamers have combined their efforts to crack it over the last five days, using codes earned from going through the Corridors of Times to construct a map. But now the solution is out in the wild, letting everyone reach the next step. 

Once you input all the Destiny 2 codes and unlock the mystery of the Corridors of Time for yourself, you still won't be quite done with the quest. You'll need to hoof it back to the Tower where you'll get another task from Saint-14. This should prove a lot simpler, thankfully, and you'll be able to let your brain rest for a moment as you kill a bunch of Fallen. Relaxing! 

For your trouble, you'll get the Destiny 2 Bastion quest. Watch streamer Datto is model it below. 

The weapon was revealed in the Season of Dawn roadmap and was expected to appear later this month, so everyone can get their hands on it early. So far, the response to the reward has been tepid, however, even though the gun itself seems pretty neat. Apparently not neat enough to justify the effort. Or maybe there are just a lot of fusion rifle haters on Twitter.

343 Industries is planning to start the first public test for Halo: Combat Evolved Anniversary next month, according to an update on the forums. Testing, or 'flighting',  for the next addition to Halo: The Master Chief Collection was previously planned for January, but it looks like only 343's external partners will be getting a shot this month, while everyone else will need to wait just a little bit longer. 

The first test will be a broad one, covering various systems and modes. 343 wants to put dedicated servers, crossplay and the new UI through its paces, letting testers get their hands on the singleplayer and co-op campaign, multiplayer, customisation and progression. 

While it looks like there will be a lot to test, players won't be able to run wild. If you get in, you'll have limited access to certain areas, much like last year's tests for Halo Reach. Combat Evolved is a slightly less exciting prospect, but only because it's one of the few entries in the series that we've actually been able to play on PC. This will be the first time we've been able to play 2011's Anniversary edition, though. 

If you already tested Halo Reach, you should already be set up. Prospective testers will need to sign up to the Halo Insider programme, opt in for the tests and to be contacted by 343 Industries, and provide a DXDIAG by uploading one to your profile. If you don't get into the first test, you'll likely have other chances later. 

There's no release date yet, but the plan is still to get the entire collection out on PC in 2020.

Ubisoft has filed a lawsuit against a website allegedly selling a DDoS service that's been used against Rainbow Six Siege servers.

The SNG.ONE website sells subscriptions, ranging from around €150 to €500 and payable only by Bitcoin of course, which allow purchasers to choose from a variety of targets. While SNG.ONE currently advertizes itself as a service for testing your own firewalls against attack, Ubiosft's suit alleges that its owners also ran r6s.support, which targeted Siege specifically, as well as listing other potential targets customers could choose from including Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 4, FIFA 20, and Fortnite.

The suit also claims that, "knowing that this lawsuit was imminent, Defendants have hastily sought to conceal evidence concerning their involvement, even going so far as to create and publish a fictional seizure notice on one of the websites used by Defendants falsely claiming that the domain had been seized by “Microsoft Inc. and Ubisoft Entertainment” pursuant to a fictional “Operation(D)DoS OFF.”"

The suit seeks damages, injunctive relief, and other equitable relief. You can read the full thing over at Polygon.

Developers Croteam and 2x2 Games have released a beta patch for Unity of Command 2 that adds a standalone scenario for playing the Battle of the Bulge as the Axis powers. The Update 10 Test adds the scenario “Wacht am Rhein!” to the game, allowing players to take on the command of German forces in a scenario specifically designed to be played that way for the first time. While fans on Steam Workshop have already hacked together scenarios as the German army, this is the first signal of the inevitable full-fledged Western Front German campaign for UoC2. You can download the beta patch and try out the new scenario on Steam by going to Game Properties, clicking the Betas tab, and using the drop-down box to select the beta branch.

The prospect of more Unity of Command 2 is quite exciting, as I personally gave it a 91% in my review. The dynamic nature of the campaign, while it did have some problems in overall strategic management, was an exciting experience that reinvigorated my desire to play wargames. I called it “An excellent wargame for both new and hardcore strategy fans,” saying that “the strategy is very simple to manage but just complex enough that it feels like a challenge.”

The beta update otherwise includes some important bug fixes, a few new features, UI improvements, and some campaign balance changes. You can find all the update notes on the game’s Steam page. 

VR fantasy slash-em-up Blade and Sorcery has a sweet new mod that crams in 95 more weapons, many with unique magical effects new to the game. It's a pretty hefty addition since with physics simulation at the heart of the game it's the weapons and how they're used that really make Blade and Sorcery special. There are a few purely new weapons in this—big heavy fantasy swords and the like. There are also: Volcanic explosions swords, poison swords that make enemies spasm, swords that make your blood explode out of you, swords that make you go to sleep, swords that suck out your soul, and a swords that invoke the very wrath of the gods and explode you into giblets that immediately fly in every direction. This is absolutely the kind of abuse that a fully physics-driven game with mod support demands and I am for it. Seriously, I cannot stop laughing at  parts of this trailer: 

There’s a bit there at the 51-second mark where a lady gets stabbed and then begins to comedically spray blood like, I don’t know, a punctured hose. It is completely over the top and I love it.  This is absolutely the kind of abuse that a fully physics-driven melee combat VR game with mod support demands and I am for it. 

You can find Blade and Sorcery on Steam and the Fantasy MegaPack on NexusMods. 

Ys VIII: Lacrimosa of Dana came to PC in April 2018, but despite a multi-month delay leading up to that release it was in rough shape when it arrived. Several quick patches followed to smooth out the worst of the problems, tapering off in June of that year, and the "mostly positive" user reviews on Steam suggests that the worst of the issues have been addressed.

Today a major new update went live, courtesy of Peter "Durante" Thoman, and this one promises to go a lot farther than the others, with improvements to graphics, performance, and overall stability, plus the addition of an experimental two-player co-op mode. It sounds a little limited—there must be two or more characters in the party in order for the second player to join, spirit points are shared, the second player will not benefit from "AI cheats" like AI-controlled characters do, and there will only be limited support for troubleshooting because none of this is officially supported—but it's a way to enjoy the game with a bud that we didn't have previously.

The new Ys 8: Lacrimosa of Dana update is live now. It's also on sale on Steam for half price—$30/£22.50/€27.50—until January 20. The full changelog is below.

Graphics/Performance:

• Arbitrary main rendering resolution enabled
• Improved frame-pacing and animation sync accuracy at all framerates
• Improved menu opening/closing behavior
• Character and enemy animations now correctly timed at 100+ FPS
• Support for high-refresh monitors and >60 Hz V-sync
• Replaced ineffective anti-aliasing blur filter with high-quality screenspace AA
• Bloom, refraction, and glare post-processing effects now scale with resolution
• Minimap rendering resolution now adapts to rendering resolution, preventing pixelated map at high resolution
• Greatly improved quality of menu backgrounds (replacing low-res screen capture)
• Improved standard shadow filtering without performance loss, plus two new, higher quality filter options
• Added option for rendering additional environment shadows
• Added supersampling/subsampling option (which also affects secondary 3D rendering)
• Improved shadow rendering performance by preventing unnecessary memory traffic
• Fixed animation speed of HUD elements at >30 FPS (e.g. full health bar)
• Improved the quality of volumetric lighting
• Implemented HBAO+ ambient occlusion as alternative higher-quality SSAO option
• Added a draw distance setting which applies to grass/clutter, monsters and NPCs
• Implemented anisotropic filtering setting
• Added high-quality texture pack (generated from original sources, partially with AI upsampling, and full mipmaps)
• Character poses in the equip menu now update at >30 FPS

Input/UI:

• Improved camera mouse controls, replacing joystick emulation with direct 1:1 control
• Movement keys are now individually bindable
• Added keybinding for walking (slow movement) with keyboard/mouse controls
• Changed default bindings to fit common usage by PC gamers

Stability:

• Fixed multiple video memory leaks
• Fixed potential crash when switching between languages
• Switched to 64-bit build to prevent address space fragmentation issues in long sessions
• Improved render thread synchronization to prevent specific types of race condition crashes
• Removed superfluous asset encryption

Miscellaneous:

• Fixed unlocking of some achievements when playing with mouse/keyboard controls
• Fixed several typos and dialogue/text issues throughout the game
• Fixed slightly-too-low cloud save limit when using a very large number of saves

Co-op mode:

• Need to supply two Xinput controllers
• You must have 2 or more characters in the party in order for the second player to join the game.
• SP is shared
• Second player does not receive the “AI cheats” (ie. AI controlled characters only take half damage, whereas second player in co-op mode will take the full amount of damage.)
• Not officially supported and limited support will be available for troubleshooting

To enable co-op mode:

• Open Steam libraries through the Steam client
• Right-click on Ys VIII: Lacrimosa of DANA, and click “Properties”
• Click “Set Launch Options”
• Input “--coop” into the parameter and click “OK.”
• Launch the game
• Press “Start” on the second controller to enable second player

The klaxons sounded earlier today when HTC China president Alvin Wang Graylin shared a few slides from his recent talk on the future of VR, including one that said, "Valve HL Alyx/LFD3 will drive consumer and AAA studio interest." The acronym isn't quite right, but the reference to Left 4 Dead 3 was obvious.

There was an initial jolt of excitement—surely a highly-placed executive at HTC would have an inside track on this kind of thing, right?—but it was all very thin and out-of-nowhere, and people quickly began to theorize that Graylin's source was actually the highly-speculative Valve News Network site, a theory bolstered by this tweet from December 2019.

It seemed weird to me that an HTC president would go out on a limb like that based solely on a VNN report, but some of his other bullet points were pretty pie-in-the-sky too: "AR/VR connected 24/7 to AI Cloud will make humans super intelligent," for instance, or "Elderly will use VR to re-enter work force and travel the world." 

However accurate or inaccurate those predictions prove to be, we can say for sure that the one about Left 4 Dead 3 is way off the mark.

"We’ve seen rumors to this effect for the last couple of months. We did briefly explore some Left 4 Dead next opportunities a few years ago. But we are absolutely not working on anything L4D related now, and haven’t for years," Valve said in a statement sent to IGN. 

"It’s clear some people are having fun creating misinformation to spin up the community and other outlets. Unfortunately, for now a new L4D game is not something we’re working on."

Sorry, everyone. But if leaks and rumors are your thing, we've got a roundup of all the Left 4 Dead 3 scuttlebutt we've run across over the years that you can dive into right here.