The free-to-play section of Steam is getting crowded, particularly with competitive shooting games. Yet despite not being part of our general gaming conversation the way the other competitive shooters are, Warframe, which originally released in 2013, has found an audience alongside Team Fortress 2 and the other residents of Steam’s most-played lists. We spoke to Digital Extremes about how they’ve managed to keep their fans happy for three years and counting.

PC Gamer: You guys are a regular fixture in the Steam most-played games list, but being free-to-play is no guarantee of a continuously engaged audience. After three years, why do you think people are still playing Warframe? 

Rebecca Ford, live operations and community producer: If you compare Warframe from three years ago and Warframe now, you’d see a lot has changed along the way. That’s the key for us to keep players interested: an unabashed fearlessness to mix things up if we feel like it’s needed. Warframe is an ever-evolving experience, so there’s always something new to try or do. We as devs have our hands on the game every single day, so we’re constantly aware that if we’re getting bored of something, players are too. 

Even looking at this past year, two major parts of the game have gotten a rework, with other facelifts along the way. It’s a balance between adding the really alluring parts through quests and new content, while ensuring that the basic aspects of gameplay are rock solid and addicting enough to keep players coming back between updates. 

PCG: You guys debuted Star Chart 3.0 for Warframe in July—what was the reaction to that? 

RF: Whenever we make a change, people will always react in a multitude of ways. It’s pretty jarring to be playing with one system for six months, or a year, or more, and to log-in one day and feel like you have to relearn everything again. But I think we accomplished what we set out to do: to create a more streamlined, easy to navigate, and visually stunning experience for players. After the expected “WHAT DID YOU DO?!” reactions died down, I think that players agree with us on that part as well.

PCG: You’re obviously aware that when you revamp something in the game, it won’t please those players who prefer things the way they are. Do you find these players eventually adapt in any case? 

RF: There will always be those “oh God why” responses to change. It’s going to happen, there’s no helping it. Saying that all players adapt well, or that they all adapt poorly is too much of a blanket statement. Some will like it, some won’t. Them adjusting to it depends on how well we can do our job at making something better but still making it feel like Warframe—while also ensuring it addresses the wants and needs of our fans. I feel like we’ve succeeded in this regard, from day one of these updates, but also in every day after where we are constantly listening and improving these systems to make sure they deliver on what they are supposed to do: make Warframe better. 

PCG: You’ve talked to us before about the difficulties new players might face playing the game, because you’re focused on keeping your existing players interested with updates. Do you have plans to look at that in future? 

RF: Improving new player experience was a large motivator behind the recent Star Chart and Fusion System reworks, and is something that will drive future changes as well. The goal here is to make things easier to understand and to introduce transparency into the game, not to make the game easier as a whole. There are so many facets to Warframe that can be overwhelming to new players, and we want to ensure that whatever we implement in the future will be easier to digest, but still as challenging and engaging as things we’ve done before.

PCG: Longer term, what are your larger plans to evolve or change Warframe? 

RF: Last year we released a cinematic quest (The Second Dream) that evolved and changed the meaning of Warframe’s lore. Just under a year later, the War Within aims to repeat that shift in meaning. As for what’s next, it really depends on player reaction. We invest a lot of time into these cinematic moments. This is the second year we’re aiming to deliver an evolution of lore. Player response to this will determine our next large move. Which means at this time, we don’t know. 

PCG: TennoCon seems to have been a big success for you guys—do you find that super-dedicated audience who wants to talk with you directly growing each year? 

RF: Our community team was just talking about the sheer amount of personal messages we receive on our official forums the other day, and I think that’s a perfect example of how much our player-base has grown. I remember being able to take the time to answer each and every single one, but now that task has grown to astronomical proportions. 

I’m a bit melancholy for the early days, because I do miss being able to reach out and talk to each fan personally, but there’s also something really amazing about how many people we’ve impacted now over three years. Hosting our very first TennoCon was a result of how large our dedicated player-base has grown and while we were nervous that we might be throwing a party no one would attend (with it taking place in our hometown of London, Ontario), we were overwhelmed by the attendance at the Con and now realise there’s no limits to the extent Warframe could grow in years to come.

Tom Marks caught up with Rebecca Ford back in September to discuss the game's future, you can watch that interview here.

Of the three Max Payne games released so far, Max Payne 3 is the odd one out. But that’s only because Remedy is so good at imprinting its games with its own idiosyncratic personality. The third game may share a lot of the same DNA, and may also feature a metaphor-loving ex-cop killing gangsters in slow-motion, but it’s a very different experience. Over the years I’ve developed a greater appreciation for the risks Rockstar took in breaking Remedy’s established, and beloved, mould. 

It’s a Rockstar game through and through, with lavish production values, gorgeous world-building, and confident, cinematic direction. Max is still depressed, still haunted by the death of his family, and still selfmedicating with painkillers and booze. But after a deadly run-in with the hot-headed son of a local mob boss, he leaves the mean streets of New York behind and moves to São Paulo—the largest city in Brazil—to work as private security for the wealthy Branco family. It’s a bold change of scenery. 

The dark, snowbound streets of New York and New Jersey are a big part of Max Payne’s visual identity. And although there are a few flashback chapters in Max Payne 3 that take us back there, replacing that iconic setting with Brazil’s sunshine and palm trees was a brave move. The first two games are set entirely at night, while much of this game takes place during the day, giving it a very different atmosphere. São Paulo is as rough, violent, and run-down as New York in places—particularly the Nova Esperança favela—but the overall tone is much less gloomy. 

It’s a radical departure, but it works. It’s always interesting to see a familiar character thrust into an unfamiliar situation, and Max is hilariously out of place in Brazil. As if being a white American in a favela didn’t draw enough unwanted attention, he makes his life even more difficult by wearing the loudest Hawaiian shirt imaginable. He was comfortable in New York, but here he’s an outsider, and the game plays up to it brilliantly. “Here I was,” he grumbles in one of his monologues. “Some hopped-up gringo a long way from home, causing trouble the only way I know how.”

That way, of course, being balletic slow-motion combat. Max Payne 3 is an incredibly simple, pared-down shooter. All you can do is jump and shoot, using bullet-time to slow the action down for a limited period. Kill the last guy in a group and the camera will zoom-in on his bloody, bullet-peppered body, and you can keep firing you if like, you sicko. It’s an extremely limited toolset for a ten-hour game, but the good variety of locations and situations manages to keep things varied and interesting. 

Highlights include a rooftop nightclub where throbbing music and flashing lights provide an intense backdrop for a firefight. Nova Esperança is a narrow, twisting meat-grinder with gunmen emerging suddenly from blind spots and firing at you from rooftops. And the airport is host to a series of brilliantly frenetic, challenging battles with a small army of heavily-armed, and heavily-armoured, corrupt cops. The set-pieces are all wonderfully constructed and choreographed, but occasionally you do wish there was more variation and depth.

The pace is breakneck, and I love the way it transitions seamlessly between locations and times of day by artfully hiding the loading screens with stylish, hyperactive cutscenes. There are far too many of them, though. Approach a door and instead of just opening it yourself, a shaky, over-stylised cutscene will play showing Max opening it. It wrestles the controls away from you far too often, for stuff you could easily have done yourself. 

Much of the game’s power lies in its soundtrack. In a genius move, Rockstar hired Los Angeles noiserock band Health to write the score. It’s an unusual and inspired choice that sets the music apart from pretty much every other game. It’s all pounding percussion, distorted, reverby guitars, and icy synths, and nothing else sounds like it. It’s dynamic too, with musical elements fading in and out to mirror the action. I get goosebumps every time I play the airport level and “Tears” starts thundering on the soundtrack. More developers should recruit bands to compose their scores.

Flashback chapters give us a taste of what happened before. These are set in Hoboken, New Jersey, and the wintry streets stand in stark contrast to sun-soaked São Paulo. An altercation in a bar leads to Max and Passos, his contact in Brazil, being chased by an army of camel-coatwearing wiseguy mobsters straight out of Goodfellas. Through the bullet trails of a rooftop gunfight you see the Manhattan skyline in the distance, lit up against the night sky, which is a wonderful moment of scene-setting. These visits to New Jersey are brief, but they feature some of the game’s best shootouts.

One of the strongest pieces of connective tissue between Max Payne 3 and its predecessors is the presence of James McCaffrey, who’s been the voice of Max since the first game in 2001. His performance is a highlight, delivering the ex-cop’s tortured metaphors and hard-boiled film noir monologues with a likeable weariness. And his face is even in there too. In the first Max Payne it was Remedy’s Sam Lake; in the sequel it was actor Timothy Gibbs; and in the third game it’s McCaffrey. I’m glad Rockstar didn’t recast, because I can’t imagine anyone else playing Max. 

My biggest gripe with Max Payne 3 is its lack of humour. Sam Lake’s writing in the first two games is a lot more colourful and tongue-in-cheek—especially in the heavily selfreferential second game. Rockstar’s writers, however, play it much straighter, and there’s nothing to compare to the surreal Address Unknown theme park or the absurd Dick Justice TV show. It’s a pretty dry revenge story and, for the most part, grimly self-serious. The first two games also had an esoteric, mythical quality, with their references to Norse paganism, and there’s none of that here either. Remedy’s off-key quirkiness is a big part of Max Payne’s success, and I wish Rockstar had gone more in that direction. 

That aside, Max Payne 3 is a worthy, if overly earnest, sequel. I admire Rockstar for taking a chance with a new setting, because while I’d love another Max Payne game set in New York City, it’s been done twice before. It’s a pretty basic third-person shooter, but one constructed with an enormous budget, keen attention to detail, a flair for the cinematic, and a lot of talent. And, honestly, it doesn’t matter where in the world Max is. If he has a gun, a bottle of whisky, and a few dozen metaphors, he can do his thing anywhere, the only way he knows how.   

A new update has been released for Dark Souls 3 which fixes a long list of bugs, many of which apply to recently released Ashes of Ariandel DLC. You can read the exhaustive patch notes here, which includes a fix for an exploit where players could fall from any height by repeatedly performing the Crow Quills skill with the Silvercat Ring equipped.

And if you've yet to play Dark Souls 3, which we awarded an impressive 94% in our review, there's currently a decent 35% off deal on Steam, reducing the game from £39.99 / $59.99 to £25.99 / $38.99. And if you want Ashes of Ariandel you can pick up the Deluxe Edition for £41.98, down from £59.98.

For more cheap games this weekend, check out our round-up of the best Black Friday games deals.

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Announced in mid-2015, Endless Space 2 entered Steam's Early Access initiative last month to wide user-review acclaim. A few weeks later, developer Amplitude Studios outlined a development roadmap that promised three substantial updates prior to full release the first of which is out now.

While Amplitude doesn't go into the greatest of detail via this Steam Community post, the latest update adds a new major faction by way of the United Empire, as well as three minor ones: the returning Pilgrims and Amoebas, and the new Z valis. Players can now assimilate minor factions too, courtesy of new minor faction quests; while a new turn limit, 200 turns, means players have the option to continue their games even if they've achieved victory at 100.

Other prominent additions are the Marketplace a hub which lets players swap Dust for resources and 'Era 4' of the existing Tech Tree, which creates additional research paths, unlocks and buildings.

"In addition to the features listed above, Amplitude Studios has once again listened to its community and revamped the truce and weapons systems," adds the Steam update post. "With the reworked truce system, a truce will no longer be forced, but will instead be based on civil unrest. With the reworked ship design system, players no longer have any restrictions on weapons, as all hulls can use kinetics, beams, lasers and missiles."

The update also adds a pretty exhaustive list of bug fixes and tweaks the sum of which can be viewed this way. For more Endless Space 2 reading, Phil recently discovered how Amplitude Studios is creating a 4X with personality, politics, and peril in the wake of Endless Legend.

Riot has continually struggled to make supports appealing to the League of Legends community. While patch 6.13 improved the overall player experience and quality of life, it failed to deliver the community appeal the role has severely lacked. Significantly fewer players want to play support, and it s an area Riot is keen to fix. Last week Riot WizardCrab announced that 10 support champions would be added to the free rotation for four weeks. This was done to give players access to a broader pool of supports and improve queue times. However, this is only a temporary fix and Riot is looking to make some big changes to the role in 2017.

Gold income

One of the key areas being investigated is how much gold income supports should receive. Supports currently earn the least gold in the game and Riot need to decide whether they want to more closely match their income with other roles. Choosing to up their wages would give support champions a lot more influence over the course of the game, while allowing them to hit their power spikes that much earlier. However, you can t just increase the passive gold gained by support items as you ll end up giving solo laners opportunities to create new strategies that could potentially upset the balance of the game.

If supports scaled off something entirely different than AP and AD this could potentially allow the role to feel more refined, while avoiding the potential pitfalls that come with increasing gold income. Supports should scale in utility not damage, and the items could reflect this by offering stronger tank stats, CDR, movement speed, gold per second and HP/mana regen.

Breaking away from AP and AD would give support champions better shields, heals and CC, but they would still not be able to 1v1 enemy champions. A support's job is to look after the team by providing defensive shields, health top ups, vision and lockdown. A change to supportive items could add further opportunities for supports to shine, while also making the role unique. Players may even be drawn toward the role if these items are only usable when playing support.

Recognition of success

The next thing Riot wants to work on is the amount of recognition supports get. Their impact on the game isn t celebrated as obviously as a killstreak, for example. However, it should be made clear when a support makes a good play. Damage dealers get recognition from their killing sprees/multi-kills, KDAs/CS numbers, tracking of damage dealt and so on. Supports don t have this luxury. Their achievements have lower visibility and offer little satisfaction to the player.

Making an awesome clutch save, countering an ultimate or stunning an entire enemy team with a Sona ult can feel great, but it offers little in terms of recognition. Some might argue that ally recognition is all that matters when playing any role, but this doesn t help supports track their overall performance in-game. Additional post-game statistics would greatly solve this problem.

It would be great to keep track of how much damage was shielded, number of wards placed/cleared and the percentage of healing done throughout the game. Even knowing how many kills you denied would make for a satisfactory addition. It may not provide the same instant recognition as the booming pentakill announcement, but it puts their plays firmly in the sights of both teams.

Itemisation

Riot started to address support itemisation in the preseason, but in the future they want to make sure the items are compelling enough that players want to pick support items for specific situations, instead of limiting their build paths. Support players also need to feel that they re getting stronger as they purchase new items. When an AD-Carry or an assassin purchases their third item there is a big spike in performance. When a support purchases their third item it s really hard to see a noticeable difference. Sure, you gain a little boost to your stats and you may even get an active to help out your team, but the overall leap between items could be improved.

Sightstone is another area that Riot wants to consider looking into. If you re playing support your first purchase is commonly going to be a Sightstone. Purchasing this item instantly puts your build behind for the entire game and greatly limits your choices as a support player. In order to fix this there would likely need to be another overhaul to the vision system. However, this could be solved by giving supports more starting items that provide different options without punishing players for not picking one item over the other. Being forced into purchasing a Sightstone can feel rather unfair and does not help to create meaningful choices.

Pre-game

Many players feel that the experience and gold per 10 runes don t provide enough benefits when compared to damage dealer runes. Supports should have their own set of runes that are only available to their role which focus on providing them with what they need. The introduction of healing and shielding runes would help supports excel in their individual areas and create more strategy within the position.

Laning patterns

Lastly, Riot is looking at how they can improve the in-game decisions made by players in the support role. Many players pick mage champions when they go support as it gives them a more engaging playstyle that allows them to harass the enemy, push lanes and even transition into an AP carry if they get ahead. It s really not hard to see why people go down this route, but it s sad to see so many dedicated support champs dropped in favour of mage champions.

Many complain that the role offers little outside of healing, blocking damage and warding. Whether you like the role or not, supports are an integral part of League of Legends. While their playstyle isn t going to suit the majority of players, they do offer rewarding experiences that are often overshadowed by their bloodthirsty allies. The more that Riot can do to make them more rewarding to play, the better.

This article was originally published in PC Gamer issue 298. For more quality articles about all things PC gaming, you can subscribe now in the UK and the US.

There s never been anything quite like Garry s Mod, and I d hazard a guess at there never being anything like it ever again. It s a mod of the Source engine, made to enable just about anyone to build, pose or simply mess around with its tools and tricks. It s a freeform sandbox designed to let you do whatever you want.

At least, that s it at the base level. On top of making it easy for players to toy around, it also gives modders a framework to work on new, often absurd ideas. Entirely original game modes have been created in Garry s Mod, short films have been made with it using players as actors, or utilising complex stop-motion techniques. And it s one of the most popular games on Steam. It celebrates its 10th birthday this month, and, as of January this year, has sold 10 million copies.

Since its release in 2006, Garry s Mod has grown into a hub for a host of other games and weird concepts, primarily developed by fans and small teams. There s one, though, that really took the cake in its size and ambition: GMod Tower. First publicly available in July 2009, GMod Tower had one primary aim: to create a large social space within Garry s Mod where people could chat, play together, and generally create a community that would accommodate and welcome anyone. A hotel-style lobby for people to meet and chat, with the capability for the infinite rooms of an endless hotel tower.

It was developed by PixelTail Games, a group based in Washington, but brought together contributors from around the globe.

A team of four, working under the names MacDGuy, Mr Sunabouzu, Nican, and AzuiSleet, were the ones that worked on the first public release of GMod Tower, after some years of people dropping in and out of the project. It was one of the most ambitious things ever made in Garry s Mod, and was greeted with the success that sort of ambition often warrants. Mere hours after release, GMod Tower s website hit two million views. It was far too popular so much so that Garry s Mod s server limit was upped by its developers just to cope.

Featuring at launch a couple of minigames, a mode akin to Half-Life Deathmatch: Source and another not dissimilar to Super Monkey Ball, the mod was already fleshed out. There were even movie nights: players could get together and watch streamed videos while hanging out in the tower s lobby.

Its popularity was perhaps one of GMod Tower s many downfalls: it was a mod of a mod, made by a few fans that wanted to create something new. It didn t have the support of a regular income through sales, nor the power of a massive development team. As 2011 rolled into 2012, GMod Tower shut down, closing its doors without any clear intention to return.

As with any social space that is shut down, closed, or built over, those who had enjoyed inhabiting it were left disappointed. In the Steam group for GMod Tower, users asked where it had gone. The development team were pretty quiet. One Steam user summed up the prevailing mood, saying simply, I want to play again in gmod tower :( .

Then, in April 2012, GMod Tower returned almost out of nowhere, with a host of updates. Almost like a version 2.0, it arrived to a fanfare from those who missed their hub, their place to talk. It did come with a caveat, however: it had not been profitable or sustainable for some months. Hosting the servers was costly, and the team didn t want to rely upon microtransactions or adverts to fund it.

And yet, GMod Tower came back with a bang. New features, a new and improved lobby map, and more. Over time, the game grew to having seven individual modes wrapped inside the tower. From minigolf to a game inspired by Mother 3, PixelTail Games remained committed, and the players recognised that, rewarding it with their love and support.

With its re-release, the initial core ethos was reinforced: this was to be a social hub. Be nice, friendly, and kind, and you were welcomed with open arms into GMod Tower.

What distinguished GMod Tower from many other projects with similar ambitions to be welcoming to all, regardless of who they were, was that it worked, and it worked tremendously. The vast majority of stories from players are of a positive community.

For the game s fifth anniversary, in 2014, the developers held a small raffle. There was one requirement for entering: you had to tell a story of your experience in GMod Tower. Some of these stories were short and over in just a couple of sentences, but many were filled with emotion and love. Over a hundred people told lengthy stories of their experiences, archived on the game s forums.

People were naming the many friends they had made, even partners they met through it. GhostDj told of how an admin changed everyone s player models to dogs for an evening, and they ran around barking like one big pack. Boltaction17 said they managed to get over 20 people to dance to The Safety Dance by Men Without Hats, and it just made them happy to see everyone coming together for something so fun and silly. One user, Davem322, simply ended their story with We are a group. We are brothers and sisters. We are the Gmod Tower.

Over the years, PixelTail Games finished off a couple other projects in Garry s Mod, from a horror map called Gm_Apartment to Elevator: Source, the one true elevator simulator. But behind the scenes, they were working on something new. Something beyond GMod Tower: Tower Unite.

A standalone release, Tower Unite would move the concept on from Garry s Mod, and onto its own two feet, the idea being to create an entire game that encapsulated the ideals upon which GMod Tower had been built.

Once Tower Unite was released on Steam in Early Access, however, GMod Tower had to go down. PixelTail Games couldn t host both games, and Tower Unite was now their sole project. There were no official tools ever released for hosting your own tower the only way to play was through the official server. That meant that once PixelTail Games took their server down, that was it for the original GMod Tower.

I spoke to Macklin Guy, the founder of PixelTail Games, about GMod Tower, and moving on. As for why the company had to do so, the Source engine and Garry s Mod itself limited us our creations and ideas, Guy told me.

It was a constant battle for us. We knew we had to expand past being a mod when we had to take advantage of undocumented features of Source s level format just to get it running. A good chunk of the things we have done (and continue to do) in Tower Unite would never have been possible in Garry s Mod.

On top of being a force for good in the community, GMod Tower meant a lot to the development team working on it, too.

The project fostered countless connections made by the community across the world. This had a massive effect on the lives of all of us. People would log on daily just to hang out with their friends.

Guy even met his wife on GMod Tower. They ve been happily married for a year and a half.

Tower brought a lot of people together. Just being a small part of that has had a huge impact on all of us and is one of the catalysts that drives Tower Unite forward.

The tower closed down in April 2016, after just under seven years serving as Garry s Mod s largest social space. The PixelTails Games team said their goodbyes too, through a video reminiscing about everything that had gone on in the tower. There is no longer a way to play GMod Tower. While all the relevant files are available on the Steam Workshop, without the server it s impossible to play as intended. The customisation systems are gone, game modes no longer function, and, most importantly, there s no one around.

Every map is now a ghost town, a set of what once was in GMod Tower, a relic of the stories told by those who were there. Without the chatter of people having conversations around the place, the lounge is eerily quiet.

Many people who played GMod Tower have moved on to Tower Unite it picked up over $73,000 in an Indiegogo campaign, and has received regular updates since entering Early Access. It s distinctly similar to its predecessor, but Tower Unite also has its differences: it s not a part of Garry s Mod, and so lacks that infinitely wide variety of players to join in on the fun.

Because of that, those previous stories are being left behind, but that s so that others can create their own so that a social space like this can flourish on its own. GMod Tower, like Garry s Mod itself, might well be a flashpoint in games, never to be recreated in the same way again. While other social games have found success, the broad and absurd appeal of Garry s Mod meant millions of players could be introduced to a hub that would welcome them.

It s still fun to walk around that ghost town, and find the places where those stories took place. The roof where someone was going on a wild goose chase for an item, the cinema where people gathered to watch funny videos, or the fountain where players waved goodbye to the tower.

I don t think anyone will ever recreate GMod Tower; the stars aligned to make it such a welcoming place. But it s heartwarming to look around the place that made so many people of all creeds, cultures, and types happy. You can t call GMod Tower abandoned: it simply moved on. But the patch of virtual ground it was built on will remain special.

Watch Dogs 2 hits PC on November 29, but the console version has been out for over a week and sales are much lower than the original. According to Eurogamer, launch sales were just 80k compared to the first game's 380k. A huge drop, and way more than expected. However, Ubisoft seems positive that the game will fare better in the long-term.

"We're incredibly happy with critics' and players' very positive reception of Watch Dogs 2, which should bolster support for the long-term success of the game," a Ubisoft spokesperson told Eurogamer. "It is true that first-day and first-week sales for a number of big games, including Watch Dogs 2 and titles from our competitors, are comparatively lower than previous versions in previous years."

"However, we expect both week-two and week-three sales to be above traditional sales patterns. There is a trend toward games, especially high-quality games, having stronger and longer 'tails' as favourable reviews and word of mouth spread. Watch Dogs 2 is already considered a tremendous addition to the open-world action adventure series and we're confident that millions of players are going to love it."

Let's hope the forthcoming PC version of the game, which most critics seem to agree is pretty damn good, isn't plagued by performance issues like a lot of other high-profile releases this year.

Hello, neighbor! It's not just a friendly greeting, it's also the title of a creepy, spying-on-your-neighbor stealth game that was revealed to the world in September. Today, publisher tinyBuild announced that the second alpha build is now live, and also put out a pair of new videos: One a story trailer that provides a look at the game's introduction, and the other a brief snippet of gameplay demonstrating how to keep the unfriendly neighbor off your tail, at least for a little while.

Everything shown so far has been "throw-away, used for testing and evaluating the direction for the full game," tinyBuild said. And while the house in the new alpha release isn't final, it "is a glimpse into what the final game looks, feels, sounds, and plays like."

The new build includes a "small tutorial house," a finalized art style, improved Neighbor AI and speed, and new and/or improved mechanics, like peeking through keyholes and throwing things. Because of all the new content and changes to AI and physics, "we expect the Alpha 2 to break in horrible and funny ways," tinyBuild warned in a blog post. "So as always, play at your own risk."

A good stealth game isn't easy to pull off, even with a big budget, but I'm hopeful for Hello Neighbor: A "dodge the psycho" sim in the relatively tiny environment of a single house, without all the usual horror game trappings as far as I can tell, you're literally up against the guy who lives next door sounds like it could be a lot of fun. The pre-alpha demo that we played in October is available at helloneighborgame.com, and and the early access release is available through the Humble Store.

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We ve just gotten used to the assassin rework that changed up classic champions like Katarina, Talon, and Rengar, and now a new champion is swinging in to say hello. Camille, the Steel Shadow, is League of Legends new champion, and the developers have mentioned that in some ways she operates as an anti-assassin. She s very interesting, design wise, in both terms of lore (including voicework, visual design, and what she means for other champions) and in-game abilities and capabilities.

While her kit is, at first glance, incredibly simple (especially compared to some recent releases) there s a lot of room for maneuvering and outthinking an enemy. With the assassin class changes complete, Camille is here to lock them down and provide a counter. She s classified as a fighter, but she may end up thriving as a deliberate counterpick. Let s take a look at this champion and how she s taking League one bold, knife-footed step forward.

The assassin quandary

When Riot took a look at assassins across the board, they realized that there was no way to feasibly allow them to continue to blow up targets with no ability to fight back. Assassins have had that one-shot potential lowered across the board. In return, they now have access to more tools. LeBlanc can fake out enemies by spawning a global clone, Talon can leap over walls to set up ambushes or escape sticky situations, Katarina has more sustained damage with tons of mobility, and so on.

Camille is a response to that. Talen wants to vault over walls? Well, he ll have a rough time doing that if trapped in Camille s ult. Katarina s hopping around and throwing down sustained damage? Camille can shield against her. Rengar s leaping away? She can pursue with her hookshot. In the lore, she s an assassin herself, but in-game she seems almost like a more versatile, less focused Fiora. The end result is a champion that s big on relentless pursuit with a high skill ceiling. Camille herself is a perfectionist, and each ability has an optimal and suboptimal use. Players will need to be patient, and try, try, again.

Swordlegs, shields, and static fields

You can find video example of Camille s kit at the official reveal page, but I d like to take a look at those abilities and how they tie into her overall theme.

Her passive is Adaptive Defenses. When Camille attacks an enemy, she gets a shield based on her HP that defends against their primary damage type. If she kicks a mage, she s defended against magic damage. If she kicks a fighter, she gets a shield for physical damage. Here s the catch: the shield holds for a few seconds, expires, and then allows her to reset it again. This means that she s good in one on one fights, but in a team fight, she needs to figure out who s going to blow her up and shield against it. If she fails, she loses a huge chunk of her survivability for the few seconds it takes to reset, and she ll likely fall as a result.

Camille s Q is Precision Protocol. She gets to buff up her next auto attack and gets a short burst of movement speed. She can re-activate Q for a second amped up attack, but if she waits for a second period of time, the second attack does extra damage and partial true damage. Going too trigger happy on Q can end up sacrificing a chunk of damage,

Tactical Sweep is Camille s W. She takes a moment and then fires energy in a short cone. Everyone in the cone is hit, but the outer edge of the cone is the sweet spot. If Camille can land a hit in the cone s outside radius, the enemy is slowed, takes extra damage based off maximum percentage health points, and Camille heals.

Camille s E was heavily previewed in her reveal comic. Hookshot is a series of two skill shots. The first skill shot, if it connects with a wall, pulls Camille to it. The second one activates after that. Wall Dive launches Camille forward. If she hits an enemy, she stuns everyone around them. She can also use Wall Dive to escape, but the range and her launch speed is lower. The possibility for failure here is clear: first of all, there s always a risk with skillshots. Anyone who s ever placed a ward outside a bush in lane knows how even simple shots can betray us. Secondly, Camille s escape potential with E is deliberately suboptimal. She s rewarded for chasing, and if she has to use Wall Dive to get out, she s already in trouble.

Finally, there s her ultimate. Hextech Ultimatum locks one character down, putting them in an inescapable zone and knocking away their allies. While Camille is inside the Ultimatum, her attacks do bonus damage to the poor sucker caught inside. If she leaves the zone, it cancels. You can t blink out, Flash out, tumble out, or escape by any other means. Camille will have to choose the right target, and the right time to lock them down. If she blows it too early, the fight can move on without them. If she traps them too late, it s a wasted cooldown.

Camille s entire kit is based around doing the right thing, at the right time, under a great deal of pressure. It s fitting, considering her role in the lore. She serves a mysterious force. She has to make decisions as to the good of the city. On the Rift, she fills a similar role. Who do you eliminate? Who is your greatest threat? The assassins may have risen up, but Camille is there to meet them and stop their charge. While she s not the strongest one on one duelist in the game, her sustained damage throughout fights and mobility make up for it. Will you be giving Camille or a shot, or will the pressure prove too much as she steps onto the Rift?

There s something about trying to wrestle a monitor from your desk with the express intention of hurling it out of a window, only to find said window has long been painted shut, that really makes you stop and think: what am I doing? Mirror s Edge inspires many such moments. Moments of pure rage. But in among them, there s something else. Something special that keeps you from drowning this game in acid.

In a game of (often literal) highs and lows, Jacknife, Mirror s Edge s second chapter and its longest, remains a flawed gem for me. It has made me angrier than any level bar the last, but when I sit back and regard the game in its entirety, it s always Jacknife that I come back to as the standout.

While a good slice of the action of this game takes place on rooftops, Jacknife offers a blistering run through some truly memorable alternate locations. From the streets and the depths of the storm drains back up to the heights again, diversity is shovelled at you like coal into a fire.

I think that s what appeals to me the most. As beautiful as the rooftops are, some breathing room is always a good thing. And what better way to contrast the sharp, primary look of the roofs and pristine offices than going down to the streets and underworld. Alleyways and cement trenches lead to grimy maintenance rooms, there s a brief taste of the clean outside world, then you plunge into the maw of the storm drains.

The chore of getting down there while a helicopter vomits bullets at you is infuriating when you re exploring and pathfinding for the first time. If you re masochistic enough to be speed-running the level it s ten times worse. And that helicopter seriously? Can those guys spell waste of public resources ?

At first I was appalled at where I found myself. What the hell am I supposed to do here? Where are the rooftops? Where are the brilliant dashes of colour against the sea of white? What have they done? I despised it. I hated struggling to navigate the perilous gantries of the imposing underground chamber, with its glistening columns stretching to infinity, let alone avoiding the searching beams of the snipers on the upper levels.

Struggling and feeling lost here feeds your resentment. But then, slowly, as muscle memory developed and my pathfinding improved (often thanks to some useful YouTube speed-run videos) I started to appreciate the location. Despite it being such a dank, lonely place, in which you re made to feel so small, I began to enjoy the little touches. The lighting, the water, the scuffling and squeaking of my shoes as I wall-ran and short-cutted, and occasionally managed to double jump beams.

Gliding down a slope in a sheet of water cast in a Halloweeny green was one moment that became a favourite. Right up until I realised I d have to scramble back out of another drain, amid platforms and pipes. And then, bliss, I was back up to the rooftops with their jumble of air-con units and architectural bric-a-brac.

It isn t just the paying out of such contrasting places that stands out. It s the pace. Had I the chance to indulge my usual gaming habits and lollygag, meander, and generally faff about, the level may well have lost some of its charm. But taken as it is, at near breakneck pace, it transcends the string of locations to become a fluid, urgent tour, doused in panic.

The level practically drags you along before suddenly thrusting you into the role of pursuer as you set off across the rooftops after the titular Jacknife. This switch from hunted to hunter is masterful and exhilarating, used again later in the boat chapter, but to lesser effect.

The more I examined this chapter, and the more I allowed myself to become immersed (largely through self-imposed repetition) the more the negativity fell away, leaving only a deep appreciation and respect for the level design. A design that undulates beautifully through changing locales, playing with pace and testing your abilities at every turn.

Like the game itself, Jacknife isn t for everyone, and it will stretch your patience to breaking point, especially with the numerous glitches. But love it or loathe it, it remains the most memorable chapter in a flawed but brilliant and original game.