The 2015 edition of Assassin's Creed will be set in the city of London during the Victorian era, according to a Kotaku source, and will be called Assassin's Creed: Victory.

As announced by Ubisoft over the summer, development of Victory will be led by Ubisoft Quebec. It's expected that it will be the only "main" Assassin's Creed game released in 2015, and is currently planned to come out in the fall.

Kotaku described the seven-minute-long "target gameplay footage" video its staffers viewed as "slick" and said it could pass as an E3 presentation. The mission in the video once again pitted the Assassins against the Templars, and featured a grappling hook that allowed the assassin to go vertical.

Several stills from the video are up at Kotaku and they certainly look good, very Victorian and all that, but there is something irksome about seeing the next Assassin's Creed—even by way of leaked footage—while the current game is still such a mess. At the time of writing, Ubisoft had not commented on the video.

Update: Moments after this article was published, Ubisoft replied to our request for a statement:

"It is always unfortunate when internal assets, not intended for public consumption, are leaked. And, while we certainly welcome anticipation for all of our upcoming titles, we're disappointed for our fans, and our development team, that this conceptual asset is now public. The team in our Quebec studio has been hard at work on the particular game in question for the past few years, and we're excited to officially unveil what the studio has been working on at a later date. In the meantime, our number one priority is enhancing the experience of Assassin's Creed Unity for players."

Valve is making a move into livestreaming with the launch of the Steam Broadcasting beta. The service will allow gamers to watch games their friends are playing from within the Steam client, and also to stream their gaming sessions publicly.

The integration of Steam Broadcasting into the widely-used Steam client will, in theory at least, greatly simplify the process of livestreaming games. Streamers need only select who can watch them play and whether or not they must first make a request, after which the system will handle everything automatically: Selecting "anyone can watch my games" will make the broadcast visible on the game's Steam hub, and private broadcasts will start and stop automatically during play as necessary.

There are a few limits to the system, as the Steam Broadcasting FAQ explains, including browser support, which is currently limited to Chrome, Safari, and the Steam client. There's no way to invite anyone who isn't in your friends list, and broadcasts aren't currently being archived, so there will be no record of your digital glories. There are also limits on the bandwidth being allocated for the beta, so you may occasionally run into a "Broadcast unavailable" message.

It's hard to say yet whether this represents the first step in a concerted effort to slice off a big piece of the livestreaming pie, which would put Steam Broadcasting in direct competition with Twitch, or if the intent is simply to maintain engagement among Steam users by bolstering its value as a social network. As it stands, it feels like it's about connecting with friends more than broadcasting e-sports to large audiences, and it may well stay that way, but I can't imagine that somebody, somewhere, isn't considering the possibility of going bigger.

Christmas just came early for Hearthstone's goblin-fancying fans, as Blizzard revealed 53 new cards from the impending Goblins vs Gnomes expansion, which is due out sometime this month. The info dump is similar to a move Blizzard pulled just before the release of The Curse of Naxxramas, and given that senior designer Ben Brode has previously confirmed that the full set will be revealed before launch, it suggests that might be imminent. Our educated guess is next week, which doesn't give theorycrafters and deck builders long to chew on the deluge of new cards before battle commences.

In addition to that knowledge bomb, Blizzard has also announced a balance change that nerfs three of Hearthstone s most notorious cards will be made in an upcoming patch. The cards in question—Soulfire, Gadgetzan Auctioneer, and Flare—have all had their mana costs increased by 1, raising them to 1, 6, and 2 respectively. These three cards, most notably the Auctioneer, have long been considered strong candidates for the nerfbat, but the decision still comes as a surprise. 

Until this point, only four cards in total had been changed since the game left beta in April—all of which were nerfs, and three of the four cards coming from the Hunter class—so nearly doubling that total in a single patch will be sure to spark debate in the community.

While there might not be any official word on the release date for Goblins vs Gnomes, all the servers were down for an abnormally long maintenance session earlier today. Community manager Zeriyah confirmed on Twitter that a release date will be given ahead of time, which now that we're into December will presumably happen soon. You can see all the newly announced cards on the Hearthstone facebook page, (or a more organized version over at HearthPwn.com), and we ll be sure to update our review in progress soon.

[Update: The class-based Legendaries have now also been added, meaning the entire Goblins vs Gnomes set is now known. This is not a drill people. It's happening.]

Article by Tomi "lurppis" Kovanen

Last weekend's fourth CS:GO major,  DreamHack Winter, ended up as one of the most memorable tournaments of the year for a variety of reasons—some good, and some bad. Let's examine the biggest storylines that emerged from the event.

The Fnatic controversy

LDLC came into their quarter-final against Fnatic not only having never bested the Swedes, but having lost two straight tournament finals against them. They split the first two maps in their series, and then put up a strong 12-3 first half on the deciding map de_overpass.

Though Overpass is very counter-terrorist favored, LDLC managed to win their terrorist pistol round, thus giving them a very good chance of going up 3-0 in the second half—and practically eliminating fnatic. At 3-13, fnatic successfully used a previously unknown boost, which was so overpowered that it basically breaks the entire map, and thus was immediately ruled illegal by many.

After losing the second half 0-13, with olofm boosted on nearly every round, LDLC protested about the boost and DreamHack admins spent the next six hours determining what to do. Upon coming to a conclusion to replay the second half, Fnatic protested and the whole saga continued.

Ultimately  DreamHack's ruling was that both teams replay the entire third map, as they found LDLC using another potentially illegal boost. The community was outraged with the decision, and soon after fnatic wound up forfeiting the third map and withdrawing from the tournament.

In reality Fnatic probably knew their odds of winning without the boost were non-existent. They took a risk in using it, as there were no clear rules against it—but it obviously breaks the map when you see it in play. It was a gamble, and it didn t pay off.

It s only too bad it took DreamHack so long to come to a decision, thus making the entire situation exponentially worse.

LDLC are world champions

The French came into DreamHack Winter as the world s second-best team, and were seemingly doomed as they drew their kryptonite Fnatic, who were upset by HellRaisers in the group stage, in the quarter-finals.

Once past the Swedes, LDLC took down Natus Vincere 2-0 in the semi-finals. In the grand final the former VeryGames trio of NBK, shox and SmithZz drew their long-time nemesis NiP, but this time they could not be stopped. LDLC split the first two maps, but came back from a 13-15 deficit on the final map (Overpass, appropriately) to win in overtime with in-game leader and  HLTV.org MVP Happy leading the way.

LDLC are now the official CS:GO world champions and arguably also the best team in the world, given the importance of the major, and their long track record of second place finishes.

It s a shame some will place an asterisk next to their win due to the Fnatic controversy, but LDLC can sleep knowing they had the game in the bag by then, if not for Fnatic s shenanigans. 

Fnatic are no longer invincible

Since their loss at DreamHack Stockholm, Fnatic have been seemingly invincible. In J nk ping last weekend that aura was seemingly gone from the get-go, with HellRaisers coming back from a 4-11 deficit in their match to top group A ahead of them.

Though their 5-8 ^th place finish only comes due to withdrawing from the tournament following the previously covered controversy in LDLC decider, it s hard to make a case for Fnatic standing a chance anymore at the 3-13 deficit they faced on Overpass.

The kings of CS:GO for the past three months have been slain, and with the drama surrounding the team anything but done, it remains to be seen what happens with one of the most dominant teams of all-time.

NiP return to the top

NiP were the defending champions from the previous major in August, but had not made the top four in any tournament since then, or qualified for any online league s finals. Following their roster change that in early November saw Fifflaren retire and Maikelele join on a trial basis, it was unclear what shape NiP would show up in.

The best team in CS:GO history delivered once again, making their fourth consecutive major grand final. Along the way they lost to LDLC in the groups, defeated HellRaisers easily in the quarter-finals, and survived a thriller of a series, including a double overtime game on de_nuke, against their long-time rivals Virtus.pro.

Despite falling just short in the grand final, it s safe to say NiP has returned to the very top of professional Counter-Strike. They have found a way to fit Maikelele in their system—or adjust the system around him—and will only get better as the team has more time to gel.

You can expect an official announcement of Maikelele becoming a permanent fixture in NiP any day now.

What s next?

Coming up next will be  ESEA Invite Season 17 Global Finals this coming weekend in Dallas. The event features eight teams in Fnatic, Virtus.pro, Titan, mousesports, Cloud9, iBUYPOWER and two North American underdogs, but three of those six are using a stand-in.

For Titan, their coach ioRekan, ESWC champion from a year ago—is replacing  VAC-banned KQLY. mousesports star player allu can t make the trip due to school commitments, and former ALTERNATE member and mouz legend from CS 1.6, gob b, is stepping in. Finally, iBUYPOWER s new member desi is not allowed to play, and ex-member adreN will take his spot temporarily in Dallas.

Although it pales in comparison to DreamHack Winter, ESEA Finals will provide three days of solid action, including an all-star match on Friday, and should keep fans entertained for a little longer before the holiday season.

In 2015 the first big tournament will be MLG Aspen, scheduled to take place at X Games on January 23-25, with eight of the world s best teams attending. NiP, Fnatic and Cloud9 have been invited, and online qualifiers for both Europe and North America are set to begin soon.

You can find Tomi on Twitter at @lurppis. For more competitive CS:GO coverage, go to www.HLTV.org.

Have you ever taken a moment to wonder why four fragile, squishy humans would choose to go head-to-head with a fire-breathing, electricity-chucking, 40-foot-high armored monstrosity? The new Evolve story trailer reveals the secret: You've got to rescue the colonists!

That "rescue the colonists" angle reminded me immediately of Aliens, as did all the talk about how these huge, deadly monsters are ravaging the most valuable colony in the Far Arm, which no doubt has a substantial dollar value attached to it. But instead of sending in the Marines, the relevant authorities have put together "the greatest team of hunters ever assembled," and they're going to clean house while the colonists are evacuated.

It's not the most intricate plot ever devised, but it's enough to hang a multiplayer shooter on, and it's also not a bad way to show off the variety of hunters and monsters that will appear in the game. And let's be honest: Nobody's buying this thing for the story.

Evolve comes out on February 10.

Eric Best, Lead Programmer of Orcs Must Die! Unchained at Robot Entertainment, has a setup that might drive a weaker man crazy. With his computer in the middle of his family's living room, Eric is never gaming alone, which I imagine can be a blessing and a curse. Eric was kind enough to show off his still powerful setup, as well as his adorable dog, Spots. Spots may not be a gargantuan cat, but just look at that face. How can you resist a face like that?

What's in your PC?

• CPU - Intel i5-3570 at 3.80 GHz
• Motherboard - Gigabyte Z77-DS3H
• Memory - 16 GB in 2x Crucial Ballistix DD3 at 1600 MHz
• Video - Gigabyte Radeon HD 7870 2 GB
• Power Supply - Corsair CX750M
• Case - Thermaltake Chaser MK-1
• SSD - Corsair 128 GB SSD SATA3
• Hard drive - 2x Western Digital 1 TB SATA3
• Display - Vizio E390
• Mouse - Logitech MX 518
• Keyboard - Microsoft Ergonomic 4000

This rig is almost two years old but it has been performing so well (and it s so stable) that I've just not been drawn to updating it yet. I use the SSD for my "now playing drive. " It kinda forces me to clean up the machine a couple times a year. I also keep one of the 1 TB drives only for video capture. I use OBS to bulk capture; at the end of the night I pick out what I want and then can just dump the entire drive. I've tried a bunch of other (fancier) mice over the years and I always end up coming back to the 510 (or whatever its current variant is).

What is the most interesting/unique part of your setup?

It is in the middle of my living room. Playing games (video games and board games) together and hanging out is a big part of my family life. When I was first married and had a "proper computer room, " we rarely saw each other. So now we always put all the computers, TVs, consoles, and board games in the same room. Sometimes you have to headphone up to be able to hear yourself think but we are always all together.

What's always within arm's reach on your desk?

Spots and Maker s Mark.

The dog is always around hoping someone will drop something to eat. The drink is there because... my entire family is always in the same room together.

What are you playing right now?

I skipped Pandaria but with the Warlords of Draenor release I've gotten back in playing a lot of World of Warcraft. For my shooter fix, I have put a ton of hours in over the years in APB:Reloaded, but more recently been scratching that itch with Payday 2. In the evenings (if I get home in time) it s always fun to jump in the Orcs Must Die:Unchained matchmaker and see if I get on one of Nananea's twitch streams.

What is your favorite game and why?

The game I probably have the most hours in over the most years is Dwarf Fortress. I can't resist open-ended gameplay with such a massively detailed sim. It does have a steep learning curve but there is help! The Lazy Newb Pack packages up the latest release with external tools and graphic sets. To learn the game, Captain Duck has a GREAT series of tutorials.

Peter Molyneux pulled in $820,000 in the Kickstarter for Godus a couple of years ago, but if he had to do it all over again, he'd do things differently. Crowdfunding can be "very destructive to the final quality of a game," he said in a recent interview, because it encourages developers to make wild promises that they ultimately can't deliver.

The irony, of course, is that Molyneux has earned a reputation over the past several years for doing just that. Curiosity: What's Inside the Cube?, for instance, promised a "life-changing" secret inside the center of a cube, which actually turned out to be temporary "godhood" in his next game, Godus. Godus may or may not be the final, "defining game" of his career, but it wasn't received particularly well, and comments on the most recent Kickstarter update, promoting the Steam Early Access release, have not been universally kind.

Much of Godus' troubles, Molyneux told Digital Spy, arise from the fact that its development didn't follow the path that backers expected. To avoid that in future (and entirely hypothetical) Kickstarters, he said he'd seek crowdfunding support near the end of development rather than at the beginning, so that potential backers could see and even play what they were getting into before throwing any money at it. But he also noted that the all-or-nothing nature of Kickstarter itself creates an existential pressure for developers that can force them to commit to things they can't actually deliver.

"There's this overwhelming urge to over-promise because it's such a harsh rule: If you're one penny short of your target then you don't get it," he said. "And of course in this instance, the behavior is incredibly destructive, which is, 'Christ, we've only got 10 days to go and we've got to make 100,000, for f*ck's sake, let's just say anything'. So I'm not sure I would do that again."

He's certainly not wrong, but he might be the wrong person to be making the point.

A new bit of Alien: Isolation DLC has just released. Trauma is a three-map Survivor Mode pack staring a new character, Chief Medical Officer Lingard, in a set of missions set before the main game. How different an experience it will be is debatable. Lingard, like Ripley, is well versed at hiding in lockers and being brutally murdered by an extra-terrestrial being.

"Racked with guilt and feeling responsible for bringing the creature on board, she holds herself liable for the death and destruction that ravages the station as the Alien is unleashed," explains the press release.

"Wanting to ensure that her research on the creature can never fall into the wrong hands, Lingard sets out to destroy all the data and do as much as she can to help the remaining survivors."

This is one of five add-on packs planned for Isolation. Corporate Lockdown is already out, and  Safe Haven , Lost Contact and The Trigger are all forthcoming.

I didn t expect to laugh out loud within a few seconds of revisiting Alien versus Predator. I remember this game being too scary to play. I remember the beeping of the motion tracker, the dingy corridors of Hadley s Hope, the terror of meeting a facehugger in the dark. I remember the cathartic thrill of becoming a xenomorph and the rush of terrorising marines as the predator. This was, in my head, one of the great atmospheric shooters, and I revisited it in the hope of rediscovering those strengths on the eve of Alien: Isolation s release. That bubble burst the moment the first in-game video flickered to life.

The original version of Alien versus Predator had alright-for-the- 90s FMV sequences that played on in-game screens to usher you from one objective to the next. I d forgotten about them entirely, and in their initial form they are entirely forgettable. No longer. For the Aliens versus Predator Gold re-release of the game—as well as the Aliens versus Predator Classic 2000 version available on Steam—these were replaced with higher-quality videos produced by the development team. Think Command & Conquer with British game developers adopting the roles normally reserved for F-list American actors. They are hilariously, lovably shit, and they sunder the game s atmosphere entirely.

In the initial missions of the marine campaign you re handed instructions by a slightly doughy sergeant who holds a cigar like a marker pen and bobs his head about like he s sitting in a deflating bouncy castle. He s supposedly American but says entire sentences with a light Welsh accent; the notable exception being a single missive where he decides, inexplicably, to be from New York. It s delightfully camp, and utterly dashes any hope the game might have had of holding on to the tone of the movies. I m not sure why Rebellion decided to re-record the FMV in this way. The production values are slightly higher, but the acting is so silly that I want to give them the benefit of the doubt and say that it was a deliberate act of sabotage. They knew the game s atmosphere wouldn t stand the test of time, so they turned AvP Gold into a comedy. That s the charitable interpretation, anyway.

This was a hugely technically accomplished game when it was released, and it s important not to lose sight of work that went into realising three diverse player characters, large maps with extensive dynamic lighting, and an AI system that was just about capable of supporting a linear campaign as well as a freeform skirmish mode. I dare say it earned its 90% from PC Gamer at the time. Today, however, those novelties have worn off.

Structurally, this is still a first-person shooter about defeating enemies on the way to finding the switches you need to open the next door. Even as the alien, levels are fundamentally mazes to be unpicked piece by piece, with difficulty enforced by the limited number of saves you are given. The biggest problem is that these mazes are not particularly good. Between bouts of action there s a lot of fussy busywork finding the next path or completing objectives exactly as the game expects—whether that s destroying one more pipe to trigger the next section of an alien level or zipping about a xeno-infested colony to find that one switch you missed as a marine.

The fact that the AI is capable of surprising you is still a positive, but it s inconsistent in a bad way: aliens run into walls, civilians drop firebombs on themselves and burn to death, some marines will barely get a shot off if you run them through with your predator claws while others will stand and fire, seemingly invulnerable, until you lose the war of attrition. The alien campaign actually holds up fairly well because of this, as you dismember people so fast you ve hardly got time to consider the flaws.

This was the era before the developers of first-person games started to seriously consider how to embody the player in the character they controlled. Aliens versus Predator s atmospheric ambitions are built on the movement and combat structures of Quake, and coming back to it in the modern day is deeply jarring. As an alien, your incredible velocity makes some sense although it can be disorientating in narrow spaces. You re faster than the creature in the films ever was, but there s a sense of power in shooting through the innards of a ship like an F-22 that eats people s faces. As a marine, your extreme freedom of movement contributes to the game s lack of tension. You re basically playing a man with a gun on a go-kart who is occasionally inconvenienced by a geriatric-looking alien. Given that you can strafe and backpedal as fast as you can shoot, combat lacks impact.

None of this takes away the effect that AvP had on players when it was released, nor does it detract from the tremendous impact that the game subsequently had. It hasn t aged well, and that has made me realise just how reliant certain types of horror game are on the technology of their time. Games like Aliens versus Predator that set out to immerse the player in familiar settings depend tremendously on your ability to believe in those settings. AvP s movement and combat model, visuals and map design have all been exceeded so many times that they no longer feel like they used to.

Humour, as it happens, does survive the march of technology—any classic point-and—click is a testament to that, as are AvP s FMV sequences. You may no longer find very much to scare you in those early Marine missions, but I can guarantee that they ll make you laugh.

By Ian Dransfield.

A double-comeback of sorts, Geometry Wars 3: Dimensions sees the return of the twin-stick shooter series after six years away. It's also the very first game released under the returning Sierra Entertainment banner. Oh, and it's really good. Merry Christmas!

Dimensions is, on the surface, as simple as it gets: fly around, shoot shapes of differing types and behavioural patterns, don't die. That's the basic, brilliant game that will end up eating into your time like you really wouldn't expect it to—unless you've already played Geometry Wars on another format, in which case you know damn well what you're getting yourself into.

Dimensions is elevated above its twin-stick siblings by clever design choices, most of which return from the previous two games in the series. Every enemy you blast leaves behind 'geoms' which must be collected to build your score multiplier. You can't get a high score without them, but collecting them means placing yourself on the frontlines, on the attack at all times. Geometry Wars' balance of risk and reward approaches perfection.

What initially seems like a bewildering difficulty curve becomes more manageable as Dimensions' basic mechanics become second nature. This process repeats as you get better at the game: odds that seem insurmountable one minute becoming another minor hurdle as you progress in your quest to bag another million on the scoreboard. A quick tap of X (heaven forbid you play Dimensions with anything other than a gamepad) and you instantly restart, ready to start the climb again.

The basic modes involve familiar concepts—get the highest score in a set amount of time, get the highest score in one life, get the highest score without being able to shoot, and so on. In this sense, not much has changed for Dimensions. The most notable change affects the levels themselves, which are no longer flat planes. Some stages are now fully three-dimensional objects, which introduces an element of strategy: enemies can sneak up on you by looping around the play area, Asteroids-style.

As well as a mild strategic element, these levels also up the visual flair in Dimensions. One minute you're making your way around an explosion-riddled pill shape, the next you're avoiding encroaching Red Walls of Death on an explosion-riddled zoetrope. This change actually caused a bit of motion sickness, personally, particularly as I span around an explosion-riddled cube while chasing a boss.

Enemies can sneak up on you by looping around the play area, Asteroids-style.

Yes, Dimensions features a campaign mode with boss fights—something that provides structure in a series renowned for its simplicity. This is backed up by a star system, with each of the 50 levels rewarding your performance with one to three shinies. These stars are essential to progress, making the repetition of levels a requirement rather than an option—there's no cruising through, but it's still fun to go back over the short, sharp levels and try to better yourself.

At least until you reach those boss fights. They're beatable, but rely on cheap tricks like overwhelming you quickly rather than any kind of design nuance. It's a shame, because Geometry Wars' basic shooty-blastyness suits a more formal framework. The game isn't ruined by these dodgy battles, but they do stink up the place pretty bad—it's one of the few times I felt reticent about replaying a level, whereas before I couldn't hit restart quickly enough.

Thankfully, you can ignore all of the new newness, including extra features like helpful AI-controlled drones and secondary special abilities (homing missiles, black holes and so on.) If you like, you can stick Dimensions into classic mode and play the game pretty much as it was ten years ago on Xbox 360. The original Geometry Wars was strong enough that this sequel would score a bit lower without the option to disable everything that has been added since.

That's not to say these new elements are bad—it's just a case of the added extras only being there because they have to be. The core game—what Geometry Wars is—is close to pure arcade gaming perfection. Played alone against the ever-changing leaderboards it's captivating and exciting, while played against friends in the same room it's an exercise in hooting and trying your hardest to put the other person off their game. To make them blink. It's just pure, unabashed fun.

But it is still a surprise that Geometry Wars 3: Dimensions has turned out as well as it has—this is an unexpected sequel from a relatively-unknown studio, published by a company that has been dead for a decade. If you'd asked anyone at the beginning of the year what sequel they'd want to see on PC, nobody would have sad this. But a formula this potent can survive anything, and comes very much recommended. Just try not to blink.