Rock, Paper, Shotgun - contact@rockpapershotgun.com (Ollie Toms)

Watch Dogs: Legion kicked off Ubisoft’s portion of E3 2019 with a huge bang, as we were treated to an extended look at a London gone wrong, a growing Resistance group fighting against an authoritarian surveillance state, and a 78-year-old hacker named Helen Dashwood who’s likely tasered more security guards than you’ve had hot dinners. Our Watch Dogs: Legion guide will break down everything we know so far about this extremely ambitious open-world title, from the game’s expected release date to trailer breakdowns, story and setting info, and much more.

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Monster Hunter: World - contact@rockpapershotgun.com (Dave Irwin)

At E3 2019, some more of Monster Hunter World: Iceborne was revealed to us in the form of several live streams, including our first look at Tigrex, a new version of Legiana, and a tease at another returning monster – the Glavenus. We’ll be going over all the details revealed at E3, as well as previously known information about the release date for PC and the trailers for the upcoming expansion.

In order to prepare for the new expansion that will be coming at some point, check out our extensive [cms-block] to get up to speed with the basics, as well as all the more in-depth strategies for item crafting and individual monster fights. While the free updates are still happening for the base game, we should probably begin with the hottest news and show everything we know about .

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Rock, Paper, Shotgun - contact@rockpapershotgun.com (Matt Cox)

We’ve looked at the current state of the world” says the Watch Dogs: Legion developer giving my E3 presentation. “We ve looked at politics”. (A man behind me hisses, vehemently.) “We ve looked at how people are reacting to each other, and asked ‘what if these tracks took us in a very particular direction?'”

After my hands-on with Watch Dogs the third, I can confirm that direction is facist street. Oh, hissy man in the back row. Let me take you by hand, and lead you through the drone-infested streets of London. I’ll show you something that will make you change your mind.

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Rock, Paper, Shotgun - contact@rockpapershotgun.com (Brendan Caldwell)

We all remember A-day. The infamous day in US history when San Francisco came under attack by skull-faced bad dudes, and the Avengers showed up to stop them. The superheroes flew in to display their skills at bash n dash combat (almost as if this was a demonstration for the press). There was Thor, Iron Man, and Black Widow, all fighting goons. It was exciting and explosive. But something was off about the Avengers that fateful day. They just didn t seem… themselves.

I m talking about the fairground ride faces of the recently revealed Marvel’s Avengers. I asked creative director Mark Hughes of Crystal Dynamics if he thought people would be happy enough to see a Hulk that doesn t look a jot like Mark Ruffalo. He said inspiration comes from a breadth of Marvel content , not just the movies.

We re always pursuing the truth of the subject matter, he said.

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Per Aspera - contact@rockpapershotgun.com (Nic Reuben)

There’s a metaphysical thought experiment I like called The Ship of Theseus, which I’m not going to explain to you because a.) I’m sure you already know it and b.) It’s casual Friday, not played-out philosophy Friday. That is next week. Anyway, this concept seems to have a legacy in Per Aspera, a story-stuffed strategy offering from Tl n Industries and Raw Fury, about terraforming the planet Mars as an artificial consciousness. In the trailer below, you can hear a fuzzy speech-giver talk about consciousness-bots succeeding where mankind have failed. Turn your soon-to-be-obsolescent jelly orbs toward the teaser:

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Garry's Mod - contact@rockpapershotgun.com (Matt Cox)

I’m going to make Have You Played history, and do a game wot we’ve already done. I know! But this is roughly the 1054th entry (going by our terrifying spreadsheet), and Brendy said we’re allowed to revisit games if we’ve got a good reason to [I’ll let this one slide. But never again – Brendan]>. He’s already asked if you’ve played Garry’s Mod. I’m asking if you’ve played Garry’s Mod on Fretta servers.

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Dota 2 - contact@rockpapershotgun.com (Dominic Tarason)

Defying all we thought we knew about Valve Time, the studio have just simultaneously titled and launched Dota Underlords. It’s Valve’s take on ultra-popular Dota 2 mod Auto Chess, which they had been teasing for a while now. While the game will eventually be free-to-play, with an open beta due in approximately a week, they’ve just opened the floodgates to anyone with a Dota 2 2019 Battle Pass. It supports eight players online and has AI bots to play against too. Below, a video from YouTuber “Kripparrian” giving it a quick peek.

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Rock, Paper, Shotgun - contact@rockpapershotgun.com (Dominic Tarason)

Forza Horizon 4, Playground Games’s sandbox race-a-thon has always had a shaky grasp on reality, but it’s entirely lost it with today’s LEGO Speed Champions expansion. The last major part of its expansion pass, it adds a blocky LEGO map to explore, with its own set of challenges and some up-scaled plastic versions of real cars. The driving is a little bit less realistic here, of course, with roads often terminating in motorised boost pads for some huge jumps. I’ve not played enough to confirm if everything is awesome> yet, but it seems pretty neat so far. See the launch trailer below.

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Rock, Paper, Shotgun - contact@rockpapershotgun.com (Dominic Tarason)

The increasingly great roguelite dungeon crawl Hades has just rolled out another early access update. The High Speed Update is focused on Hermes, messenger of the gods. He’s fast, but developers Supergiant want you to slow down and ruminate a little on their efforts, so they got voice-of-gold Logan Cunningham to read the entire patch notes in character as The Storyteller. Personally I’d have asked for him to bring back Rucks from Bastion or the Sword Boyfriend from Transistor, but the video below is still an enjoyable twelve minutes of raspy ASMR-adjacent tech talk.

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Trials of Mana - contact@rockpapershotgun.com (Dominic Tarason)

Square Enix have been digging deep into their vaults the past few years, including several more restored gems announced at E3. They aim to make their whole back catalogue available digitally, but there’s one big obstacle. As CEO Yosuke Matsuda admitted when talking to Game Informer “I’m embarrassed to admit it, but in some cases, we don’t know where the code is anymore”. It’s a common story in the games industry, and one of the biggest obstacles to properly preserving games. When recovery efforts fail, some studios have had to cleverly work around their missing code.

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