Tower of Time, now on Steam Early Access, is an RPG tale of a once-beautiful land left broken by a mysterious cataclysm. 1000 years later, a great tower is uncovered by a massive earthquake, and the power within its walls compels a  young boy (because it always is!) to lead a group of champions on a quest to discover its secrets. That's not necessarily the most original story setup ever, but it looks very pretty, and promises a "new take on classic RPGs" by combining isometric, party-based exploration with "small scale" RTS-style combat. 

Tower of Time offers five difficulty levels, accommodating players who want a story-focused adventure without all the crushing combat. But it seems clear that battles are meant to be central to the experience: Rather than the "real-time with pause" style common in other RPGs, Tower of Time has a "slow-time feature" that demands on-the-fly attention and puts a priority on pre-fight preparation. And in case there was any doubt, the "Epic" difficulty level, where "one mistake will likely wipe out your party," is promoted as a feature rather than just a bad idea. 

Maybe it's because I'm getting old, but it's actually the less hack-and-slashy elements of the game that sound more interesting to me. The titular tower features "hand-crafted levels" filled with secrets and puzzles, while the history of the world of Artara, "where technology met magic with devastating consequences," will be related through "hundreds of lore books and scattered pieces of information. " Character progression is actually connected to that story, as instead if earning experience in combat—there is actually no "experience" in the conventional RPG sense at all—new skills are unlocked through the discovery of ancient knowledge.   

The initial Early Access release of the game will include four of the tower's 13 levels, which Krzysztof Monkiewicz, CEO of developer Event Horizon, described as "Book One" of the story. Book Two, which will add four more levels to Tower of Time, is expected to be out in roughly three months, while Book Three, slated for the end of this year or early 2018, will complete the tower and the game. 

"The current content offers approximately 15 hours of gameplay time with a rich story, which is self-contained in a way," he explained. "When we enter the tower, we know very little about what happened in the past and why the land is destroyed. As we explore this ancient realm we find the answers to some of the questions, but new ones arise in their place. A relatively simple, black and white picture of the world suddenly develops shades of grey. There are also the first cracks in our party unity, as some of our champions do not fully agree with the decisions we make." 

Tower of Time is available for $15/£11/€15 on Steam. A handful of screens can be seen down below, and you can find out more at evehor.com. 

My favorite cyberpunk stories are usually the ones about criminals and outsiders in situations way out of their league, and my least favorite are about badasses with future-guns shooting a bunch of cyborgs or robots or whatever. In between there's the third kind of classic cyberpunk story, in which an investigator gets too involved in a case and uncovers something they shouldn't while also confronting a bunch of philosophical questions about what it means to be human. It sounds specific, but that's genre for you. Observer tells that third kind of cyberpunk story, and is about as pure a version as you can imagine.

Developed by Polish studio Bloober Team and launching August 15, Observer is set in Krakow in the year 2084. You play Daniel Lazarski, voiced by Rutger Hauer—presumably cast on the strength of his performance in an iconic cyberpunk detective movie, by which I mean Split Second of course—who has been cybernetically enhanced to perform neural interrogations, plugging himself into people's brainchips. It's as if he's walking around inside their subconscious, observing their memories and secrets. Observers are basically cops that can climb into your head. Yeah. 

Third eye

These hallways of the mind are represented as literal hallways. Bloober's previous game was Layers of Fear, a first-person horror experience full of mindfuck trickery, and that lineage is obvious when you perform a neural interrogation and find out it's actually super claustrophobic in someone else's head. In the part of Observer I've played—the opening 10 hours or so, most of which takes place in an apartment building with a bad case of the murders—everyone I plug into is either dying or dead, and their mental landscapes are surreal.

One victim works for the same corporation funding the Observer task force, and has been stealing data from them. Plugged in, I experience their fading consciousness as an Orwellian computerized job interview and a stealth sequence in an open-plan office, but also through more metaphorical scenes. In one, I have to cross a field where data cables grow like corn, while eye-in-the-sky camera drones patrol overhead. 

Sometimes things from outside their brain leak through, in such forms as memories of Dan's missing son suddenly overlaying the scene or a mysterious figure pursuing me through the dreamscapes. At its best, the hide-and-seek pursuit stuff is reminiscent of Alien: Isolation, and at its worst it's every instafail stealth sequence shoehorned into a genre where it doesn't belong. Two of the neural interrogations I’ve played so far have involved sneaking. By the second I was hoping there wouldn’t be more.

And wow does it get weird. Rooms repeat, I get trapped in mazes. Chairs and buckets hang in the air. Shadowy people-shapes, abstracted fuzzing representations of humanity, hurry past or block doorways. Sometimes lumps of flesh grow on things. I follow a floating screen and a glowing deer, walls explode into pigeons, and everything goes fish-eyed or wobbly like a Wayne's World dissolve. It's like being trapped in a Tool video. When the walls are breaking into shards that hang in the air or screens are flashing images of Polish dumplings at you, it’s trippy enough to invoke a full-on Keanu “Woah!”

Mostly though, it's hallways. It feels a lot like P.T., and after a while I start to develop a kind of psychedelic fatigue. More floating chairs? More old-timey black and white TV footage? Cool, cool. I'm glad to get back to the real world, even though it's a dystopian future Poland controlled by a corporation. Here, it's less horror and more adventure game, all investigating crime scenes and quizzing witnesses. 

For the investigation scenes,  Dan's cybernetic eyes kick in and I start scanning everything like I'm Batman with the detective vision, trying to piece together clues and find a way out of this apartment complex. It's under lockdown due to a disease called the nanophage because of course there's a cyberplague, and automatic security has trapped us all here together.

Eulogy

It's a long time to explore the one slum (and attached tattoo parlor), but worth it to get to know so many inhabitants. Their faces are obscured by crusty vidscreens because most of the tech in 2084 Poland looks like it comes from 100 years earlier (they even play a pixelated puzzle dungeon game straight off a Commodore 64), and through those screens I talk to a bunch of scared people hiding in their rooms, trapped in here with me. 

They all have their stories, whether it's the guy going through holographic projector withdrawals or the widow who lost her wife to the nanophage. Cyberpunk is at its best when it's engaging with characters who usually get ignored in favor of people who fly spaceships. And even though Dan is a fancy cybered-up future cop, he spends a lot of time observing ordinary folks. There's even a confused guy knocked out of an extended VR session by the lockdown who’s convinced he's a starship captain.

My favourite character in Observer so far is another ordinary person, a janitor. At first, my Dan is rude to him, a scrappy guy outfitted with junk cyber-parts, but then I get onto the janitor's computer and read his emails—because of course a cyberpunk game is about reading everyone's email. Turns out he's a war veteran whose current job excludes him from the veteran's group that used to pay for upkeep of his prosthetics. It's a common, relatable story: the people who most need help are ineligible for it due to bureaucratic nonsense they’re helpless against.

I see the janitor again later and choose a friendlier line of dialogue, and mumbly Rutger Hauer warms up to him. We stand in the courtyard while it rains, Krakow's skyscrapers and hologram ads on the other side of a wall we can't cross while we're stuck with the pigeons and glitching augmented reality data overlays that coat the walls like digital glaze. It's a moment, you know?

When Observer isn't being David Lynch's Blade Runner it's a detective game where you don't have a gun and can't fall back on violence, an adventure game that's all about talking to people, guessing codes, hacking computers, and opening doors. Like all mystery stories, a lot will depend on its finale and whether it ties up the loose ends in a satisfactory way. I'm not allowed to tell you what happens after you make it out of the apartments, so I stopped playing there to write this, but I'm itching to go back and hunt around for more near future philosophy, or at the very least, I hope to have more honest conversations with lonely cyborgs.

Hinterland Studio's The Long Dark is a wonderful open world survival game that's spent the last three years scavenging the depths of Steam's Early Access initiative. As you may've spied back in May, its long-awaited Story Mode and subsequent full release are both due on August 1 which, you may also have noticed, is next week.

Changes to the game's PEGI (Pan European Game Information) rating in Europe have thrown that out slightly for console owners, but don't worry: Steam, therefore PC, isn't affected by this. 

"For PEGI, which covers all of Europe, and also Russia, we have been issued a '16' rating, which means you have to be 16 or older to purchase and play the game," explains the developer via a news post on the game's site. "This PEGI-16 rating was an unexpected surprise to us, as we had a PEGI-12 rating going into our Certification process with Microsoft and Sony. Unfortunately, we just received this rating earlier this week and we are now forced to re-submit the game to Sony Europe for approval. #

"As a result, our launch in Europe on PS4 is being delayed until August 8th… for Steam, we will launch worldwide on August 1st. There is no ratings requirement or certification process on Steam."

Hinterland goes on to stress its disappointment with the situation however underscores the decision is outwith its control. 

In any event, consider this a PSA. The Long Dark is due on PC this coming Tuesday, August 1. Here's another gander at its Story Mode announcement trailer:

The Long Dark's Early Access variation out now on the Humble Store for £14.99/$19.99. Its Story Mode is due August 1, which is when the game will also release in full. 

Some online stores give us a small cut if you buy something through one of our links. Read our affiliate policy for more info. 

Call of Duty: Modern Warfare has long been due a good remaster, so when Activision announced one last year there was elation. Or at least, there was until the details emerged: you'd need to pre-order Infinite Warfare to get access to it. People, naturally, were not happy.

Fast forward about eight months, and Modern Warfare Remastered is now finally available as a standalone purchase on Steam. But people aren't happy still, if the "mostly negative" rating its attracted is anything to go by. The poor reviews are many and varied, though most seem to target poor performance and hackers in multiplayer, or else the difficulty in getting a multiplayer match at all.

Still, there's no doubt a bunch of people out there keen to play it anyway, so it's available now for $39.99 if that's you. Interestingly, the Call of Duty: Infinite Warfare Digital Legacy Edition – which bundles Infinite Warfare with Modern Warfare Remastered – is only $49.59 at the moment, so if you want to drop an extra $10 for that newer game, it seems like a decent enough deal, if you can accept the $40 price tag on the remaster to begin with.

After one month of being on sale in Early Access, House Party has been removed from Steam pending a 'watered down' version of the game, as stated by the developers at Eek! Games in a blog post on the take down. 

The devs don't have beef with Steam though, shifting the blame to aggressive, targeted complaints from groups bothered by House Party from day one:

"House Party was temporarily removed as a result of a number of complaints that were sent to Steam about the game. The game has been a target for a certain group of people since the day it launched, and said people were posting very aggressive, distasteful and hateful comments directed toward the game and its community of players."

But without a clear idea of what the offending content is, Eek! Games aren't exactly sure what to cut and what to keep.

"I asked Valve for clarification on the offending content, and they haven’t replied yet, but they’ve been very nice up this point and simply told me that they would re-enable the game after testing the modifications requested (forcefully enabling an in-game censor during certain scenes regardless of the user’s preference setting) to ensure there is no more offending content. I know there are many games with nudity, and there are also games with sex scenes as well, including really popular titles, so it’s all rather confusing and I don’t know exactly where the line is or what in particular I should be censoring."

House Party's depiction of nudity and sex is far from tasteful, but the sudden removal after weeks of being on sale points to flaws in Steam's verification process. If Steam has a rule about explicit content, why wasn't the content flagged before House Party was allowed on the store in the first place? And does its sudden removal mean simulated sex is a no-go, period? 

The removal runs counter to what we saw earlier this year, when the "explicit visual novel" Ladykiller in a Bind was released on Steam "uncensored and unedited." And it too pulls no punches, promising players "six nights worth of explicit, consensual, kinky lesbian sex," plus four bonus sex scenes for people who like to "live dangerously." So why is one uncensored sex game acceptable, while another is not?   

Even though the reasons aren't clear, the studio said it "understands" Valve's position. "They are responding to an alarming societal perception of sex and nudity as something evil, even more so than murder, genocide, torture, and gore which is widely accepted and prevalent in most other video games that are offered up on Steam and many other gaming platforms," the post says. "I don’t agree with Steam’s decision, but I respect it." 

House Party remains available to anyone who bought it, and Eek! said that Valve is now testing a new version of the game, which will be put back online if it meets the necessary requirements—whatever they might be. We've reached out to Valve for more information about why the game was removed, and will update if and when I receive a reply. 

I played the first 20 minutes of House Party, and the overriding impression it left was one of horror rather than humor. Later, I learned you could get your dick out and put it on things, like a table or charcoal barbecue (don't do this). I won't miss it, but some consistency and clarification from Steam would be nice.  

And at the least, House Party does bring out the best in YouTube thumbnail faces.

Thanks, Eurogamer. 

Gambit recently took home the $500,000 prize pool after beating Immortals 2-1 at the PGL Major in Poland. It’s a slightly quieter weekend in the world of digital sports, but there’s still plenty of events for you to feast your eyes on. Fans of Overwatch can look forward to the intense team fights of the Apex Season 3 finals, while the StarCraft II: Intel Extreme Masters kicks off its main event in Shanghai. We even have the Rocket League: 2017 World Cup to look forward to. All the details on this weekend’s events can be found below. Have a great weekend!

League of Legends: LCS

There are only two weeks left in the LCS Summer Split and both the NA and EU teams will be fighting hard to claim a seat at the playoffs. The top North American teams remain in deadlock as Counter Logic Gaming and TSM are both one win away from dethroning Immortals. These three teams are the best in the league at the moment and if they can maintain their dominance on the Rift, we could see an extremely tense semi-final match up. Meanwhile, in Europe Fnatic continues to dominate the Group A standings with eight wins and only one loss, but H2K, Splyce and Unicorns of Love are close behind them in Group B. We shall have to see whether Splyce have what it takes to land a critical blow to H2K today. Both schedules and streams for the EU and NA LCS can be found by heading over to lolesports.com.

CS:GO: Gfinity Elite Series

Week four of the Gfinity Elite Series will see teams from around the world battle it for the chance to make it to the playoffs. EnVyUs Academy came out on top during the group stage and they will be aiming to maintain their performance today at 10:30 PDT / 19:30 CEST when they take on Method. Meanwhile, Epsilon and Infused will duke it out at 13:30 PDT / 22:30 CEST to see who has what it takes to rival EnvyUs Academy. The full schedule and stream can be found over on gfinityesports.com.

StarCraft II: Intel Extreme Masters Shanghai 2017  

The Intel Extreme Masters kick off this weekend as China’s finest battle it out for their chance to win the $25,200 prize pool and the IEM title. These matches are extremely important to both veteran and rookie players looking to kickstart and maintain their StarCraft II careers, so expect plenty of drama this weekend. Group C’s matches concluded yesterday for US viewers, but those of you in Europe can catch the action today at 07:00 CEST. The quarterfinals will continue tomorrow and will be followed by the semifinals and finals on Sunday. The full weekend’s schedule and stream can be found by heading over to wcs.starcraft2.com.

Overwatch: Apex Season 3

Overwatch APEX Season 3 wraps up this weekend, with the conclusion of the monthly series and a $177,000 prize pool being awarded to the victor. The finals are taking place this Saturday and many fans will be eager to see whether KongDoo Panthera has what it takes to beat Lunatic-Hai. Both teams have looked extremely strong this season and the match could go either way. The previous match in the tournament saw AF.Blue obliterate Team EnVyUs to secure third place, but the long-awaited finals are just around the corner. The action will kick off at 03:00 PDT / 12:00 CEST, so be sure to check out the full stream over on Twitch.

Hearthstone: SEA Majors 2017

The Hearthstone Championship Tour may have concluded, but the card slinging action doesn’t stop there as we head to Thailand where players will test their mettle to see who is top dog. Hearthstone’s Thailand Major begins its three day tournament today at Pataya Beach where 256 participants from across the world will battle it out. The Thailand Major will award points towards the Summer season of the 2017 Hearthstone Championship Tour, while also granting the victor the lion’s share of $5,000 prize pool. Make sure you head over to battle.net to see the full tournament schedule, while the English stream can be found on Twitch.   

Rocket League: 2017 World Cup

The high speed action is far from over and there’s still plenty to enjoy ahead of Rocket League’s Season 4 tournament. This weekend the world's best Rocket League players will battle it out to represent their homeland and compete for the title of World Champion. There will be a $5,000 prize pool for the top three teams who make it through the high-octane matches. The event will be streamed live from The League of Rockets Twitch channel, so make sure you head over to badpanda.gg to see the full tournament breakdown and schedule. 

Street Fighter V: Defend the North & Abuget Cup 2017

Defend the North returns this weekend where top players from all over the world will come together to beat the virtual snot out of one another. The tournament begins today in White Plains, New York and is one of two exciting Ranking Events taking place this weekend. Top players include PG|Punk, who took 2nd place at EVO 2017, RISE|Smug and EG|NYChrisG. The Abuget Cup 2017 is also taking place in Jakarta, Indonesia this weekend, with notable appearances from CYG BST|Snake Eyes, Daigo Umehara and ZOWIE|Oil King. Be sure to head over to capcomprotour.com to find the full schedule and stream for both tournaments.

"The PC needs a new skateboarding game," we said back in May, and that remains the situation because, sorry to say, we're still not getting one. But we are getting something that might just scratch the sports on wheels itch: Descenders, an "extreme downhill freeriding" game that new indie publisher No More Robots described as "essentially Skate on bikes." 

Descenders makes use of procedurally generated maps and a "fully-fledged physics systems" that enables players to string together extreme combos on unique downhill runs. Make it to the bottom of the moutain without eating a tree, a rock, or other such unyielding bone-breakers, and you'll earn "Rep points" for you and your community-based team: Enemy, Arboreal, or Kinetic. Each has its own colors and gear, and they'll be in constant competition for top spot on the monthly leaderboards—and the prizes that come with it. 

Teams will also have leaderboards of their own, and members will have access to exclusive practice and social areas in the "Descenders Overworld." 

And it looks awfully fast. I haven't played it, like you I've only watched the trailer, but seeing the two-wheeled warrior get smoked by a hill, a ramp, and a tree made me wince a little on the inside. Always wear your helmet, kids. 

Descenders doesn't have a release date yet, but you can sign up for the upcoming beta by choosing your team at descendersgame.com. 

Wolfenstein 2: The New Colossus is now just three months away, which makes this a fine time indeed for Bethesda to reveal the details of the season pass, entitled Wolfenstein 2: The Freedom Chronicles, and the introductory chapter preorder bonus.   

The Freedom Chronicles is actually a trilogy of entirely separate adventure tales featuring three new characters doing battle against the Nazis in other parts of the United States. The first, The Adventures of Gunslinger Joe, features former pro quarterback Joseph Stallion putting the boots to the bad guys "from the ruins of Chicago to the vastness of space." 

Next comes The Diaries of Agent Silent Death, the story of former OSS assassin Jessica Valiant, who must infiltrate Nazi bunkers in California to discover the secret of Operation San Andreas. And finally, part three, The Amazing Deeds of Captain Wilkins, recounting the heroic mission of US Army Captain Gerald Wilkins, who leads a mission to Alaska to disrupt Operation Black Sun. 

The season pass will be available for purchase for $25/£18, or can be had for a little bit cheaper with the Wolf 2 Digital Deluxe Edition, which sells for $80/£55/€80, compared to $60/£40/€60 for the standard release. Preordering either edition will also net you The Freedom Chronicles: Episode Zero, a separate mission that introduces all three new characters. Episode Zero will also be included with the season pass, so you can still pick it up even if preordering isn't your bag. 

Wolfenstein 2: The New Colossus is set to come out on October 27. For now, we have not just one but two separate hands-on impressions of the game, one here and the other here. They both make the game sound very promising.   

Rocky Stoutenburgh was unlucky. 11 years ago, when he was 19, he caught a nasty fall and landed in just the wrong way, severely dislocating two of his thoracic vertebrae and severing his spinal cord. The incident left him paralyzed from the neck down. Today, Rocky can hardly roll his shoulders. But remarkably, he continues to game despite his quadriplegia and streams regularly on Twitch. He racks up headshots and chicken dinners in PlayerUnknown’s Battlegrounds on a weekly basis and also enjoys games like For Honor and Rocket League. But getting back to the point where he could play comfortably and confidently wasn’t easy.

Relearning to play

Although Rocky was only hospitalized for a short time, he didn’t return to gaming for several years after his injury. He was preoccupied with adjusting to his condition, and there weren’t a lot of great options available for disabled gamers at the time. Then he heard about a controller designed for quadriplegics.

“My brother found a website for a gaming controller. And I kept telling him no, but then after a while we bought it and tried it out,” Rocky says. “I think I played Call of Duty and Halo Wars with it, and then I just started playing other games. The first model wasn’t a great model. It would fall apart a lot and break. After about five years, I just quit playing video games because they all broke. But then a new model came out and I started playing again.” 

Rocky games on a mouth-operated device called a QuadStick. Originally prototyped by Ken Yankelevitz under the name QuadControl, the controller was later picked up by designer Fred Davison. Davison rebranded the controller and, after a successful KickStarter, launched production in 2014. 

“There’s three holes on it that you can sip on or puff into,” Rocky explains. “Or you can sip on two holes at the same time, or all three at the same time. There’s all kinds of different combinations; you just have to pick what button you want at that particular time. And then there’s a button underneath that you can press with your lips.”

Rocky plays on the FPS QuadStick model, which boasts additional sensors and a stiffer joystick compared to the basic model, designed for less twitch-based gaming. Critically, the FPS model also comes with remapping software which allows users to create universal controller layouts—one for first-person shooters, one for RPGs, one for card games and so on—and then tweak them to each game. For instance, puffing on the right nozzle might be ‘melee’ for Doom but ‘health potion’ for Dishonored.

Slow-paced genres like adventure games and turn-based RPGs “where you can take your time” are easiest to play with a QuadStick, Rocky says. In fact, many QuadStick players rarely touch shooters and multiplayer games due to how demanding they can be. It’s a wonder, then, that Rocky is able to play a game like PUBG so well.

“PUBG was probably the hardest game,” he says. “It took me about three days to make a layout. I use literally every button you have, and there’s some stuff I can’t even do. I can’t switch car seats. With stuff like that, I ran out of options. 

“In order to crouch, I sip on the left and middle hole. There’s a tube on the side of it that I rarely use for anything, and I puff on that to go prone. To shoot, I just blow into the center hole. That’s the quickest button to use so I use that for shooting. To run, I have it so it’s one analog—move and aim at the same time. That’s how I run around. If I sip, I can switch it to where my analog becomes a mouse, and if I sip again, it moves like strafing. And I [can aim] because it swivels on a camera mount.

“I would say that using it’s not difficult, it’s just memorizing and adapting to every game. It’s easy to use once you know how to use it. It’s almost like any other game: you start, you look at the controls, you keep pausing it and looking. You just have to do that a lot more than normal.” 

A no-armed contender

Rocky was a diehard Xbox gamer for years and only recently made the jump to PC, which he finds to be a much easier platform for disabled gamers. Playing on PC lets him skip the USB plug-in required to use a QuadStick on Xbox One and PS4, for one, and also makes input remapping much easier. Even so, he sees room for improvement. Native QuadStick recognition would be a great start, he says, as opposed to programs which emulate conventional controllers. 

In January of this year, Rocky started streaming on Twitch under the name RockyNoHands. He also uploads his stream highlights to YouTube. For him, it’s not only a great way to socialize, but also a way to show that disabled gamers can play competitively. 

“I’ve had a couple people come in my stream that have been unpleasant, but most people are nice,” he says. “It gives me something to do everyday. It gives me a way to meet people and make new friends over the Internet. Some people live close by and I’ll go meet them and hang out. There’s actually a lot more disabled gamers than I thought that stream or are on YouTube. Some of them have different types of devices, a couple use the same thing I use. I’m just the best in the world at it!"

After watching Rocky play live, I have a hard time arguing with him being the world’s best QuadStick player. It’s always incredible and inspiring to hear stories of disabled gamers finding new and innovative ways to play, but on the high-stakes stage of a game like PUBG, it’s especially striking. 

“A lot of them don’t play games like PUBG, games where you have to play against other people. For people trying to play really competitive games, I would say, be patient with it," Rocky advised. "You’ve got to know your limitations. You can’t just run in there like you’re going to win every battle. You have to understand that you’re playing with a little bit of a handicap compared to other people. But practice makes perfect.”

Rocky’s streams are all the more impressive considering his ongoing treatment. His weeks are filled with physical therapy and treatment for his blood disorder. He has another surgery coming up to have his gallbladder removed. But he always makes time to stream, whooping and hollering "got 'em" as he racks up kills. 

“People don’t really know much about gaming with a disability,” Rocky says. “People don’t even think that it’s possible that I play with my mouth, so they’re really amazed with how well I do. I think that’s why a lot of people watch me. I play the competitive games but I also do well.”

Nubia joins Civilization 6's cast today, along with a scenario which pits the ancient Nile civilization against its neighbor to the north, Egypt. That DLC will set you back five bucks (or £4.50) if you don't have the Deluxe Edition, and will appeal to fans of slinging missiles: Nubia is graced with +50% Production toward ranged units, which also earn promotions at double the normal rate, and the Pitati Archer, a stronger, faster (harder and better) unit to replace the normal archer.

The complete civ description is available on the DLC's Steam page. For those uninterested in high-quality ancient arrows, there's more news: Nubia's release joins a patch that adds, finally, a restart button which regenerates the map, and a function that saves game configs so they can be reused. At least one mod can be unchecked now.

The update also brings a bunch of balance changes, such as a +10 price increase for archers (Nubia-related inflation?) and a 25 percent decrease to the cost for spies, as well as UI and AI tweaks. There might be another mod or two to untick, especially if the trade route chooser has actually improved. It now auto selects the last completed route, which is a start.

The full patch notes are on Steam. Though its base price hasn't yet dropped from $60, Civ 6 is currently 33% off.