Cities: Skylines is a pretty comprehensive city builder, but it looks like we've been ignoring our citizens' brains and they've been turning to mush thanks to our lack of attention. Not to worry, there's an expansion coming for that, too. The upcoming Campus DLC, due out later this month, will let you design your own university, activate new education policies and nurture eggheads with research grants.
A trio of campuses can be plonked down, including trade schools, liberal arts colleges and universities. These bastions of braininess can then be expanded by increasing the reputation of your academic institutions, unlocking a bunch of new buildings that will help you better chisel the minds of tomorrow.
You can take care of their physical well being, too, thanks to college sports. Football, basketball, baseball, running and stuff—all the classic sweaty activities. These teams will need looking after, as well, hiring coaches and cheerleaders, selling tickets to the games and designing their uniforms.
Expect five new maps, seven policies, graduation ceremonies and, of course, new hats for the the incessant blue bird. And while you'll need to shell out for this, the expansion will also come with a free update that includes two library buildings, a school bus, job titles in the info panel and more industrial policies.
The Campus expansion is due out on May 25 for $13, along with a $5 content creator pack with new university buildings and a pair of $4 radio stations.
Outward is both a hardcore fantasy RPG and a game where you can never die. When you fall, the story carries on. Maybe the outlaw who knocked you down captures you and you have to escape from a bandit camp, maybe a hunter finds you bleeding on the ground and drags you back to town. It's an unusual combination of fiddly and forgiving, and it's proven a hit with players.
Guillaume Boucher-Vidal, CEO of the indie studio responsible for it, Nine Dots, recently gave an interview to Gamasutra about how Outward was made, explaining how a small team was able to create an open-world RPG without needing to crunch.
For starters, they reigned in the scope. Early in development they discovered environments were taking longer to craft than expected, but monsters were coming much faster. He explained that, "as we advanced in development we realized that we were able to make a much higher number of enemies, but we had to slim down the number of environments. We could sort of shape the game according to our own abilities while we were developing. It was more effective, and it was also a matter of maintaining the velocity."
Boucher-Vidal also suggested that a reliance on iteration and prototyping to "find the fun" were wasteful, and that sticking to a pre-production design document rather than experimenting during production helped them stick to a schedule. "I see the game design job as being closer to an architect or director," he said, "like you would see on movies where you actually have a plan laid out and try to execute it."
Austrian cosplayer Evelyn Blackwater put a lot of effort into this Tali outfit, even to the point of handprinting the fabric and putting a light connected to a microphone inside the helmet. There's a cable running from them around the back of the helmet to a battery, and you can see it in action on her Instagram. Here's a look inside.
This outfit won the first prize at ComicsCon Austria, and well-deserved too. For more pictures, including some behind-the-scenes pics of the sculpting and casting of the helmet and the work it took to get Tali's three-toed feet right, check out the Instagram she shares with her partner and fellow cosplayer Vincent Blackwater. It also features some shared cosplay, like this adorable Willow and Wilson from Don't Starve.
Space exploration game Outer Wilds will launch on the Epic Games Store and not Steam, developer Mobius Digital has confirmed.
We knew that the game would be on the Epic Games Store, but it wasn't clear whether its Steam release would be simultaneous. Now we know it will be on Epic's store first—Mobius Digital said that "additional platforms [are] coming later", although it didn't specify a time frame for the exclusivity.
"Rest assured that we read all of your comments and our goal is to bring the game to your preferred platform as quickly as possible," it said in an update to its Fig crowdfunding backers. Its partnership with Epic has "enabled us to make the game better and more accessible for everyone who will play it," it added.
Some backers are less than pleased: in the comments below the Fig update, one called the decision "deeply disappointing", adding that they would request a refund if the Steam release was delayed by more than a few months. Another commenter said that "deciding to deliberately give the middle finger to all backers by colluding with Epic is disgusting".
In the Outer Wilds, you explore a mysterious solar system, unraveling its secrets until you die, perhaps from a lack of oxygen, or perhaps at the hands of a strange monster. With each death, you return to your starting village, ready to do it all over again, and the world will change over time to ensure you have reason to return to areas you've already visited. Basically, "it's Groundhog Day, but with cool space shit", said Phil after his hands-on.
Outer Wilds—not to be confused with Obsidian's RPG The Outer Worlds, another Epic Games Store exclusive—doesn't yet have a release date, but it's due out this year. It was initially expected in 2018, but was delayed in December.
Barotrauma, which is a bit like FTL with giant sea monsters, will enter Early Access on June 5, developers FakeFish and Undertow Games have announced.
You control one member of a submarine crew exploring the depths of Europa, a moon of Jupiter. You'll be mining resources, battling off hideous monsters and trying to repair your ship when it inevitably breaks. You can play it singleplayer with bots filling the other crew roles, but the meat of the game will be in multiplayer, where you'll work with friends or online strangers to survive.
Andy's preview from earlier this week is a good place to start if you want to know more: as he says, it could create some amazing stories if the devs get it right, and the creation tools—which let you create ships, missions and monsters—look robust.
The Early Access release date was accompanied by a new trailer, at the top of this pose, which runs through the game's features in detail. Some of the footage looks choppy, which is worrying, but hopefully the devs can sort out the frame rate before release.
Since the last time we updated our list of the best Skyrim Special Edition mods the Skyrim Script Extender has been made compatible with it. You can download it here (it'll be labelled "Current SE build"). Turn off automatic updates for Skyrim Special Edition once it's installed, as the creation club still receives patches which routinely break the Script Extender until modders update it.
With the Script Extender modders can now alter this version of Bethesda's RPG as drastically as Oldrim. Near-essentials like SkyUI are now available in this slightly prettier (it does have nicer shadows), and more stable (you can alt-tab as much as you like) version of Skyrim. To be fair, there were other changes as well, like these.
If you're playing the Skyrim Special Edition and looking for the best mods available, look no further. Some of these Skyrim Special Edition mods can be found on Bethesda's site and downloaded while in-game, but the links we'll post all point to the repository at Nexus Mods. Mods added in the latest update of this list have been marked with a ⭐. And if you're looking to have even more fun in Skyrim, check out our list of Skyrim console commands.
For downloading, installing, and managing these Skyrim Special Edition mods and others, we recommend Vortex. It's an extremely useful utility, and it works with a number of other games like Fallout 3 and 4, The Witcher series, the Darks Souls games, XCOM 2, and lots more.
The heavens parted, golden saints sang, and SkyUI was finally supported by Skyrim Special Edition. This interface replacer makes Skyrim feel like it was designed for mouse controls, and lets you filter and sort inventory based on weight, value, damage and the like. Also adds an in-game mod configuration menu several other mods rely on.
Skyrim's map is functional but boring. A Quality World Map offers multiple ways to fix it. It can replace the map with a much more detailed world texture, with colors that help delineate the separate areas much more obviously, but there's also an option to have a paper map, with a more Oblivion look, if that's your thing.
Adds a gallery you can fill with unique items, a museum to your achievements that is also a library, a storage facility, a questline of its own, and a place to learn archaeology complete with its own perks. While there is a version of Legacy of the Dragonborn for Oldrim, the v5 update specifically for Special Edition remaps the building to make it larger and more like a real museum.
There are player home mods to suit all tastes, but the Asteria is a particularly nice one—a flying ship with all mod cons, by which I mean storage space and crafting tables. It's permanently docked, however, and can't be moved around, though it does have a teleporter for a more immersive alternative to fast-travel. Flyable skyship mods still haven't made the jump over from vanilla Skyrim, unfortunately.
Maybe you don't think a blue Khajiit who follows you around commenting on everything and being sarcastic about Lydia is what Skyrim needs, but trust us on this. Inigo is a follower with tons of dialogue, some tied to his own questline and more that crops up at appropriate times depending on the location you're at. He can be told where to go and what to do by whistling, and will follow you even if you've got an existing companion, chatting away with them thanks to skilfully repurposed voice lines.
This mod is a compendium of hundreds of fixes for bugs, text, objects, items, quests, and gameplay elements assembled by prolific modder Arthmoor. The patch is designed to be as compatible as possible with other mods. If you've got a few hours, you can read through the patch notes.
This mod, by elderscrolliangamer, changes and enhances Skyrim's opening sequence by restoring dialogue that Bethesda chose to cut, but which is still present in the game files. With that content restored, you'll learn more about the world you're preparing to inhabit by listening in on additional conversations and seeing full sequences that were snipped before release. Best of all, if you choose to side with the Stormcloaks, you'll actually be able to escape Helgen with Ulfric himself at your side.
It's more than a little immersion-breaking in Skyrim to enter a city through a gate and encounter a loading screen. Open Cities, by Arthmoor, aims for more of a Morrowind feel: the cities aren't instances, they're part of the larger world. Stroll right in—or ride in on horseback—without a break in your experience, and these cities will feel more like real places than loaded-in maps.
This impressively robust magic mod adds new locations like The School of Witchcraft and Wizardry, the magical town of Manantis, and even a new magical dimension to explore. It also adds hundreds of new spells from all schools of magic, plus lots of magic weapons, over a dozen new followers, and a quest to get you started.
If you're playing Special Edition, you're starting from scratch whether you're a newcomer to Skyrim or a veteran. Why not start your new game as someone other than the Dragonborn? Alternate Start—again, by Arthmoor—is a roleplaying mod that gives you choices on how you'd like to begin your next playthrough. Are you a patron at in inn, a visitor arriving by boat, a prisoner in a jail cell, or the member of a guild? You can start as a soldier, an outlaw, a hunter, or even a vampire. It's a great way to re-experience Skyrim from a different perspective.
This mod by cloudedtruth adds thousands of lines of voiced dialogue for NPCs, directed at making you feel as if you have a closer and more personal relationship with followers and friends. Your spouse, if you have one, will no longer sound like a random follower, but address you in a more personal manner, and those you've angered will have a host of new insults to hurl your way.
Despite the Special Edition's visual overhaul, its dragons are still a bit ho-hum. This mod, contributed to by a large collection of modders, adds 28 new and unique dragons with different models and textures, and capable of over a dozen new breath attacks and abilities. The dragons come in different ranks as well, to ensure you have a challenge no matter what your level.
Just because you're modding doesn't mean you're cheating (necessarily). So why does the SSE disable achievements if you've got mods running? Stick it to 'em by using this plugin from xSHADOWMANx that allows you to earn achievements even while using mods.
While the SSE adds plenty of enhanced visuals, it doesn't do a thing to improve the original game's low-poly meshes. This mod edits hundreds of 3D models placed in thousands of different locations for items like furniture, clutter, architectural elements, and landscape objects to make them look nicer and more realistic.
Skyrim's NPCs already looked dated when the game was first released, and they certainly haven't aged well. The SSE might improve the looks of the world, but it doesn't touch its citizens, so this mod from Scaria should be on your list. It gives everyone in the game (including your avatar) a facelift with more detailed textures that won't kneecap your framerate, and without making characters look out of place.
"This mod enables true 3D sound for Skyrim SE by using a so called HRTF to simulate binaural hearing using normal stereo headphones. You will hear exactly from which direction a sound is coming from." I don't know exactly what that first sentence means, but I understand the second one. Make the SSE more realistic for your ears with this mod from CptYouaredead.
Looking to turn SSE into a survival experience? Then bundle up and look no further. These mods from Chesko make the frosty world of Skyrim more dangerous yet more immersive and enjoyable with a system that makes you manage your temperature in the cold climate. Hypothermia is an issue, especially if you swim through icy water, so you'll have to dress warmly, and camping elements include craftable tents, torches, and other gear. There's even a crafting skill system.
Also, check out Wet and Cold, which adds weather-dependent visual effects and sounds.
Another big mod from Arthmoor restores loads of content that exists in SSE's data files but wasn't implemented in the game. Numerous locations, NPCs, dialogue, quests, and items have been brought into the light, and the game is richer for it.
Skyrim's got lots of adventure, but here's about 10 hours more courtesy of writer and developer Nick Pearce. Play detective and solve a murder mystery while exploring a massive, ancient city. It's got excellent, award-winning writing, a non-linear story, fantastic voice acting by a large cast, an enjoyable original soundtrack, and even a touch of time travel. Here's our write-up of the Forgotten City Skyrim mod.
Unless you're playing as a metal-plated tank who swings an enormous two-handed sword around, there's not a lot of use for smithing. Archers, thieves, and other stealthy characters have no issues finding light armor on their adventures, so there's never been much reason to make it themselves. This mod by Arthmoor gives slippery sorts reasons to learn smithing, by letting them forge arrows, lockpicks, and guild-specific armor, as well as melt down bulkier armor they'd never actually wear into ingots.
Microsoft's Major Nelson has accidentally announced the next DLC character coming to Dragon Ball FighterZ will be Janemba from Dragon Ball Z: Fusion Reborn.
With Kid Goku GT released earlier this week, thoughts had turned to who the fourth and final DLC character might be. But while Bandai Namco had yet to confirm any details, Xbox's Director of Programming, Larry Hryb, seemingly let the secret slip during the latest installment of his This Week on Xbox show (jump to 3.10).
As EventHubs (thanks, Eurogamer) notes, nowhere had Bandai nor developer Arc System Works confirmed that the antagonist from Dragon Ball Z: Fusion Reborn was coming to the game, so a casual mention of a Janemba "skin" immediately caught the attention of the Dragon Ball FighterZ community.
After the gaff, the video description of the video was amended to clarify that "the latest update pack will include: Goku GT (playable character), one new Lobby Avatar, and one new Z Stamp", and even the official Xbox Twitter account poked a little fun.
"Apparently Xbox just leaked Janemba for Dragon Ball FighterZ," teased a comment on Twitter, to which Xbox replied (emphasis ours): "Apparently Xbox just announced Janemba for Dragon Ball FighterZ. FTFY."
In our Dragon Ball FighterZ review we gave it 83, stating that "not only is Dragon Ball FighterZ comfortably the best game this licence has ever produced, it’s a cracking fighting game, too."
Euro Truck Simulator 2 is one of those very niche games that's really only possible on PC, but it's also a genuine hit. Years after its release, thousands of people still play it daily—nearly 19,000 are big-rigging it right now, according to SteamDB—and so developer SCS Software continues to expand its map with more roads to run, places to go, and things to see.
The next addition, Road to the Black Sea, will let players haul their loads through the Transylvanian forests and Carpathian mountains of Romania, the Black Sea coastline of Bulgaria, and the Trakya region of Turkey, the gateway to Istanbul.
"From large cities to small humble villages in the countrysides, truckers will also be able to drive on roads which lead to scenic coastlines alongside the Black Sea," SCS said. "These regions also offer a large variety of industries for players to deliver to and from; including farms, logging companies and the mining industry."
The commitment to games like Euro Truck Simulator 2 can seem odd or amusing on the surface, but it's no joke. Andy Kelly examined the game's appeal in a three-hour Odense-to-Bergen road trip in 2015, and four years later he's still truckin': "Not once in my life have I ever thought about being a truck driver, or really had an interest in them as vehicles," he wrote in an interview with SCS Software earlier this year. "Yet I find the game utterly captivating."
Road to the Black Sea is listed on Steam, but there's currently no release date. The hope, "if everything goes according to plan," is to have it out near the end of 2019.
I didn't expect to like The Evil Within 2, but since finishing it nearly two years after it was released, it's become one of my favorite horror games of all time. Yes, even in the year of the Resident Evil 2 remake, The Evil Within 2's schlock and gore and nonsensical plot far outshine Mr. X's big boots, much as I love 'em.
The Evil Within 2 is a modern cult classic, an erratic and strange horror game that deserved far more praise than it received back in 2017. And I will explain why by making fun of it's incredibly stupid premise and an even stupider boss fight.
Spoiler warning: I'll be openly describing the penultimate chapter of The Evil Within 2, even though I still don't understand it.
Some context, and if you feel lost just know I'm right there with you: You're in the evil Matrix where everything is made of digi-milk. The lead character's wife is made of milk too, and she can wield the digi-milk like a milk sorcerer, a milkromancer, if you will. At one point you must fight the milk-wife, and it's one of the most ridiculous scenes in a videogame ever contrived. It's dumb and it rules, but we'll get to that.
Where do I begin...
Getting around in The Evil Within 2 requires navigating a series of tunnels that are really just computer networks. Recalling how Steve of the popular children's show Blues Clues would leap into a painting, you get sucked into computers (while already in the Dairy Matrix) as a means of transit. There are monsters there and the hero's daughter, Lily, is the child core that powers the cream realm, or something, I think.
It doesn't make any sense, and I revel in that brand of unrestrained camp. The Evil Within 2 operates on laughable dream logic that Sebastian, the dour protagonist, and everyone within wholeheartedly accept with little more than a huh, or, what's going on?
Like Resident Evil's Umbrella, an evil corporate entity wants to use this particular toddler to make bad guy weapons or something for some reason. It doesn't matter. What does matter is that the evil guys are all men in suits that cackle and smirk and say stupid shit like this:
Many bad psychological metaphors stand between Sebastian and his daughter, including his strained relationship with his wife, Myra, who wants to keep their daughter tucked away in the frothy void. Myra can control the milk, you see, and she's built a milk house on a milk hill in a milk desert to protect Lily. That isn't gonna fly with Sebastian.
After taking out a fiery cult leader producing magma men inside the milk dimension as a means of ruling it (don't worry about it), Sebastian finally reaches the milk house and begs Myra to pack Lily's things and leave with them.
She doesn't abide and threatens Sebastian, clearly conflicted over whether to kill him or not, flickering between a sinewy armored version of herself and her 'authentic' self, dressed in the latest from Nordstrom's Rack.
VIDEO: The milk-wife monster in all her glory.
So Myra charges and Sebastian shoots her in the head, which cracks like an egg and exposes a bundle of orange eyeballs just kinda rolling around in that carapace. Naturally, she becomes milk, bubbles up, and emerges as a large, fleshy torso monster.
The tone swings between horror and humor like a jackhammer in The Evil Within 2.
At this point, I'm laughing so hard I can barely breathe. There are long stretches of The Evil Within 2 that are as tense and terrifying as any great survival horror game, but I live for the whiplash that good camp provides.
The two go at it in boss fight format, Sebastian with his guns and Myra with her massive blistered limbs and spider babies. You see, the milky white substance making up 'reality' is a metaphor for the deep state and corporate control over culture. Myra only wants to protect her daughter because she, wielder of metaphor milk, has been indoctrinated by the milk. Sebastian wants to break free, so he shoots the milk to make it go away.
And when he shoots the milk enough to bust a big arm off, the arm, of its own will, scuttles toward Sebastian and picks him up. So stupid. So good. This continues until the milk-wife is little more than a spine sticking out of the ground. But she melts back down and the two reconcile their differences like it's a daytime soap.
I recommend marriage counseling.
The themes are all tangled up, but so earnest and transparent that I can't stuff down my affection. It's this spilling over of emotion and grotesque aesthetic and subtext that makes up the best campy horror, and The Evil Within 2 never holds back.
The tone swings between horror and humor like a jackhammer in The Evil Within 2, between the moments where you're sneaking by a monster you can hear but can't see and those where you're shooting your wife's towering, blistered Milk Matrix torso in the weak spot as you scream at one another about what's best for your daughter. These blinding contrasts sharpen the intended pathos, whether the desired result is a chuckle or scream.
The Evil Within 2 is packed with milk-wife moments: the fight with a goth Dragon Ball Z-looking guy in a gallery suspended beneath the gargantuan tentacled eye of a camera, or when Sebastian shoots a bed-ridden clone of himself to escape a nightmare in a nightmare. The Evil Within 2 is consistently buckwild. Milk-wife simply sealed the deal.
The Resident Evil 2 remake and Resident Evil 7 are largely credited with reviving the beloved puzzles and intricate level design of survival horror classics, but The Evil Within 2 is a celebration of that old low-poly, otherworldly spirit. It's a convoluted mess with terrible writing, but it's more spirited, surprising, and self-aware than any horror game I've played. Don't miss it.
Preorders for the upcoming psychological horror-adventure Pathologic 2 are now live on Steam, with a ten percent discount on the regular price and another ten percent on top of that for owners of Pathologic Classic HD. Which is good news, but not really why we're here. No, we're here because publisher Tinybuild has also released a "Theater of Gorkhon" story trailer and I really think you should see it.
We like to have a little fun with Pathologic when we talk about it, because it's such a ridiculous mess and by all rights, nobody should go near it—and yet, we do. Phil said it "wasn't goodin any of the ways you would traditionally associate the word" but unforgettable nonetheless, while Joe described it as "deeply flawed," slow, lacking direction, entirely incomprehensible in spots, but then added that "somehow none of this mattered because when it worked, boy did it work well."
This new trailer really serves to highlight the truth of all that. Pathologic is weird as hell and nobody knows what's going on, but it's also intriguing and kind of cool looking, and you have to be at least a little curious, right? And I do wish I could help you with that, but all I've really got are the broad-strikes breakdown of the plot: A mysterious plague strikes a small, remote town in the Steppe, and you'll play as one of three people sent to discover the source and come up with a cure. You've got 12 days to get the job done, while dealing with other not-necessarily-friendly characters including an Inquisitor sent to assess the true nature of the catastrophe, and the Commander, tasked with containing the situation one way or the other.
Some of that may have changed for Pathologic 2, however—it began as a remake of the original but then the original got an actual remake so developer Ice-Pick Lodge decided to "reconstruct" it instead, which led to the new name. Because nothing about Pathologic can be simple and easy to parse, I guess.
A demo for Pathologic 2 remains available from Tinybuild.
