Fallout Miami is an upcoming Fallout 4 mod that creates an entirely new world set on the coast of post-apocalyptic Florida. When finished it's expected to be about twice the size of Fallout 4: Far Harbor and packed with new quests, locations, and factions. The mod isn't complete yet, but in the meantime you can take a look at an early version thanks to modder Mika999, who uploaded it to Nexus Mods yesterday.
Bear in mind this early version isn't reflective of the final version Fallout Miami.
"This early version of Fallout Miami is the first worldspace I made when I started this project," reads Mika999's post on the Nexus Mod page, "and that's why I must emphasize that it won't be present in the final version of Fallout Miami and is not associated with the current project."
Essentially, when the Fallout Miami modding team grew, it was collectively agreed to make a number of changes to the world in order to improve optimization and provide a higher level of detail. A new worldspace was created for the mod and not everything from this original version was carried over. But Mika999 didn't want to see the original version of Miami be lost forever, and decided to release it so players could take a look at it for themselves—sort of like releasing a first draft of a novel.
In order to check it out you'll need Fallout 4 and all official DLC. You can install the mod with Nexus Mod Manager and download the mod (and a hotfix) right here.
RPGs often try to model "morality" as an explicit system through things like NPC reactions, character appearance, or endgame outcomes. It's a tricky thing to get right, and not just because the world is rarely black and white. With no real consequences for their actions, there's nothing stopping players from metagaming for a specific outcome, or murdering every NPC in town when they get bored.
CD Projekt will avoid trying to separate right from wrong as a game mechanic in Cyberpunk 2077 by simply not having a morality system at all. Choices will have consequences (it wouldn't be much of an RPG otherwise) but quest director Mateusz Tomaszkiewicz told GamingBolt that grappling with the big philosophical questions of the universe—"Is it okay to kill people for money?" for instance—will be left entirely to the player and their conscience.
"We don’t have a moral system per se," Tomaszkiewicz said. Instead, he explained, Cyberpunk 2077 opens the door to more or less "moral" behavior, and players can step through or burn the house down as they see fit.
"To complete it non-lethally you have to be very good at stealth," he said. "Invest in points that allow you to stealth better, use weapons that will allow you to incapacitate the enemy instead of killing them, to make the moral choices that will allow you to avoid killing people throughout the game."
I think that sounds like a smart approach. Metagaming for an optimal outcome, whatever it may be, is really just a distraction, and especially so in a game as complex and interconnected as Cyberpunk 2077 promises to be. Better to just get out of the way and let players decide for themselves what they can live with.
Cyberpunk 2077 comes out on April 16, 2020. There may not be morality, but there will be love.
Hitman 2's first major new location, a New York-set bank level, is finally coming tomorrow. The trailer above gives you an idea of what to expect: a heavily-guarded bank, naturally, and an introduction to the deserving target you'll be taking out, director Athena Savalas.
This level will open up for Expansion Pass, Silver Edition and Gold Edition owners on PC at June 25, 6 pm BST / 10 am PT. The bank level has previously been described as a 'sandbox location', so it'll hopefully be comparable to Hitman 2's existing murder puzzles boxes. It'll launch with contracts mode enabled, and feature 15 levels of location mastery.
Here's more on your target, from IO Interactive. "Over the years, Savalas has also developed a refined disdain for the middle class, reducing customers to numbers on sheets of paper with no thought to the things she destroys with her constant 'less is more' approach to small and medium-sized businesses. Rumors of wanton gambling with client money and the bank’s finances are beginning to catch up to her and with the board of directors looking for a new CEO of Milton-Fitzpatrick, Savalas is eagerly covering her tracks, using any means necessary." A nasty banker sounds like a solid pick for a Hitman 2 target in 2019.
If you're interested in more details about how the bank was made, IO Interactive ran a livestream today explaining the bank's creation. I've embedded that below for your convenience. How big is too big, when you're making a bank level? That's among the subjects discussed in detail.
Another Hitman 2 level and location will be added to the game later this year.
CD Projekt Red has said it's working to give players a ton of options when creating their characters in Cyberpunk 2077, including a range of gender expressions, and its lead quest designer has said these choices will mean way more romance options than the strictly heterosexual relationships featured in The Witcher 3.
A redditor who goes by magired1234 shared what appears to be a Twitter DM conversation with Paweł Sasko, a lead quest designer at CDPR. In the snippet shared, Sasko says players can expect to see whole plotlines involving NPCs that might be romantically interested in your character, and that they'll be "similar" in depth and scope to those found in The Witcher 3.
But because Cyberpunk 2077 will give players free reign to define their character, romance options have been expanded to accommodate for this as well.
CD Projekt Red clarified to us further: "Romancing is something heavily present in Cyberpunk, and players will be able to form meaningful connections with other characters as well as go for one night stands."
That'll be true no matter the gender or sexuality of your chosen character, too.
"Since we're not bound by a predefined character like in The Witcher anymore, the game will feature romance options going beyond heterosexual," CDPR said.
These are all promising things to hear, and it will be interesting to see how different characters' romances play out once we get our hands on Cyberpunk 2077 next year.
It's hard to find any straight-up good guys in the Warhammer 40,000 universe, but Chaos are clearly the most evil of the whole bunch. Today, Battlefleet Gothic: Armada 2's Chaos Campaign expansion launches into the inky, war-ravaged blackness of the far future, and alongside it comes a fleet of free updates for the base game.
The expansion adds a brand new story charting the rise of Malos Vrykan, whose job it is to spread the influence and general unpleasantness of the Dark Gods throughout the galaxy. Chaos has its own unique map mechanics, and the new story provides a look at what habitable space would look like if Chaos gets its way. Plus, you get to pilot evil massive space cathedrals.
What's particularly nice, though, are the free upgrades coming to the base game's campaigns. Now you'll be able to field larger fleets, swap ships between them, and pursue secondary objectives. Tindalos has also added in new economy options and given enemy AI the ability to use faction-specific super powers. It's fleshing out an already meaty game, which you can read about in Tom Senior's review.
The expansion is available on Steam for $12.99/€12.99, and will unlock later today.
As Paul and I make our way through Sandy Shores towards the Alamo Sea, I can't shake the thought of Michael's burning corpse. I picture him terrified, trapped and tethered by his seatbelt, the undead mindlessly clawing at the stationary SUV's windows, his backwards maroon cap melting with the car interior around him.
"There were too many of them," I tell Paul in an attempt to both reassure him and appease my conscience. In my head, I relive the fire, the smoke, Michael's futile screams. "It was him or us. And I sure as hell wasn't meeting my maker by one of those monsters."
The rain falls heavily as we start our swim towards Grapeseed. I've never seen San Andreas so sparsely populated, which is grossly unsettling in itself. Then again, with one less mouth to feed, we might just make it out alive. Get to the air drop, then the safe zone and we're grand.
I'm not proud of myself. I mean, my record in Los Santos, city of crime, indulgence and debauchery isn't exactly clean to this point, but I feel like I've really pushed the envelope this time. The world has gone to shit, mercenaries run the streets, the undead stalk the sidewalks… and I'm still the biggest monster in San Andreas.
Housed within Grand Theft Auto 5's community modification FiveM, RottenV is an in-development online server that turns the game's otherwise bustling metropolis into a lawless zombie apocalypse. Members fight to survive the bloodthirsty NPC hordes, and communicate with other human players via voice chat in a world scant in resources and rife with disease.
Those familiar with GTA Online will know mods are a big no-no in its vanilla state, and getting caught using them can result in a permanent ban. FiveM, for those unaware, isn't officially affiliated with Rockstar's enduring crime simulator, but is ostensibly an online mod for GTA 5, that uses the base game solely to verify ownership.
Having surpassed 50,000 concurrent users in May—against Steam's peak of 108,557 for GTA 5 in the same month—the increasingly popular FiveM plays host to a range of servers, including a number of roleplay maps and quirky modded offshoots. RottenV straddles both camps, and, for my money, is one of the most entertaining roleplay playgrounds the Grand Theft Auto 5 RP scene has to offer.
During my previous GTA 5 roleplay adventures, I've uncovered some cracking stories—some thrilling, some twisted, some funny and some that are difficult to categorise. From experience, roleplaying in Rockstar's crime sim can be immensely satisfying, but with such a vast open world to explore, filled to the brim with activities, jobs and distractions, engineering wholesome RP tales isn't always easy.
One thing I love about RottenV, then, is the structure it forces onto each session. You start off by parachuting into the map, similar to modern battle royale games, and then make your way to centralised 'safezone' hubs, which offer refuge, water, food, weapon and item upgrades, as well as missions and quests. The base game's ambient traffic, civilian and emergency services background audio is switched off throughout, the weather is normally terrible, and the only bodies found wandering San Andreas are up to 32 human players and NPC zombies.
After landing on the beach, I wonder at RottenV's familiar but isolated setting, and struggle to get to grips with its unfamiliar format. Zombies stalk me from Vespucci to La Puerta as I make my way to the Legion Square meeting point, and I quickly learn that, like many a zombie movie, these blighters won't go down unless they're struck or shot in the head.
Once at Legion, I strike up a conversation with a young Russian fellow named Michael, who describes himself as a veteran of the apocalypse. As a newbie to this whole end-of-the-world thing, I decide to follow his lead and set about clearing the immediate vicinity of roaming zombies by his order.
I grab a baseball bat and, like Negan from The Walking Dead, start battering the blundering undead upside the head. Michael fights by my side and before long, we're flanked by an English chap named Paul, and a Scotsman named Craig—and the latter nominates himself to take on a swell of baddies that have gathered at the far side of the square, so long as the rest of us can provide cover from above.
Equipped with sniper rifles, Michael, Paul and myself duly climb the apartment block to the west and follow Craig's path. He kills one, two, three zombies, before being floored by a fourth.
"I got this," says Michael, before icing his target with meticulous precision. Paul cheers, but as Craig makes his way back, I notice something is off. He looks light on his feet, his face has changed, his arms are limp.
"He's infected!" cries Michael. "That last one must have got him. But don't worry we've got plenty of antibiotics at the base, let's help him out."
I pause. Don't get me wrong, Craig seems alright, Scottish and all (Editor's note: Joe is Scottish), but if zombie films and telly shows have taught me nothing else, letting this guy back into HQ in this state is not a good idea. This isn't Shaun of the Dead. We can't chain him up and keep him as a pet.
"F*ck that," I reply. BANG! One between the eyes. See you later, Craig.
Michael is not happy. Like, really not happy. That's not how things work here, I'm told. What if that'd been you out there, I'm asked. He would have been fine, I'm advised. If this were a Telltale game, the whole charade would have a ‘Michael will remember this' header attached at the top of the screen, I'm sure of it.
In order to make peace, I volunteer for the next run and insist on going solo. In honour of Craig, I knock it out of the park.
By the time I get back, Paul and Michael are preparing to head north to collect the airdrop that's landed in Grapeseed, just next to Mount Chiliad. I agree to go, and board the base's shared off-road truck alongside the guys. On Michael's advice, we travel down the map's most eastward freeway, US Route 15, because he reckons we'll have a clearer view of encroaching monsters on that stretch.
Sure enough, we soon hit a quarantine roadblock—models and assets purpose-built for this server—and get caught off-guard by a swarm of roving undead. Still determined to get on Michael's good side, I opt to make a dash for the Norinco Type 56-2 assault rifle that's up the hill to our right (in RottenV, item and weapon drops glow white), and ask that Paul provide cover. He obliges, and it's only when we approach the weapon that I fully-appreciate the extent of the horde.
"We're not making it back, are we?" asks Paul rhetorically. He catches on fast, this one. I grab the gun, turn, and rain down on the truck below. Michael bursts into a tidal wave of profanity, and I can hear him furiously clicking his mouse and bashing his keyboard in real life at his end. In his fit of anger, I realise he's forgotten to unbuckle his seat belt (by pressing B) and is trapped.
Eventually, the truck explodes and the flames wipe out more than half of the enemy crowd. That was the plan. Paul and I pair off and start picking off the rest, before traipsing inland towards the curve of the Alamo Sea. Michael is gone, but I assure Paul this is how it had to be.
The sun is up by the time we enter the water, and it's not long before we face another setback.
Paul, God rest him, must have gotten infected during that melee on the hill. Putting him out of his misery was the only thing for it, and, for better or worse, I'm a lone nomad once again.
By the time I make it to the Paleto Bay safezone I'm shattered. I've not encountered a single soul since dispatching poor zombie Paul, floating at the bottom of the Alamo, so I decide to make my way down the Great Ocean Highway in search of supplies and civilians.
I spot a zombie, giving me the stink eye. What the hell is it looking at? By this point, I find myself talking aloud to no one in particular, the isolation making my squirrelly. But, seriously, what is this pale-faced prick looking at? I sort him out with my trusty bat, and, just as I'm about to walk away, I hear the screeching of tires. I look up. A car. Heading for me. BANG. I'm down. Is that? It is! It's Michael. He's alive! Ho-ly shit.
In a flash of panic and excitement, I knock my microphone from my headset in real life, before realising Michael has parked, exited his ride and has stationed himself atop his truck's mobile gun turret. But wait, he's hasn't spotted the zombie gunning for him from his blind side.
The undead mounts the truck's bed and wrestles Michael to the floor. I flank the vehicle and lay the beast down on the tarmac. I turn to Michael, he aims at me, and I take a swipe—in self-defence, I swear—but connect with his bumper. He takes me down with the stock of his rifle, and finishes me off with a blow to the shoulder. We don't speak a word during the fracas. We don't need to. Too much shit has gone down. What more could we say?
I don't remember getting up from that. I don't remember waking up in an abandoned hospital or parachuting in from above. Instead, the next thing I recall is running down the train tracks after sunset. I don't remember leaving Michael. I don't remember it getting dark. I don't remember that skull hovering over my health bar before now. I must find Michael, but my legs are heavy. I'm light on my feet. My arms have gone limp. My face has changed…
I must have been bitten by the zombie behind Michael's truck. I'm losing consciousness.
Here's how it works. You travel to Riverwood's Sleeping Giant Inn, preferably with a brand new character who has skipped past the tutorial thanks to Alternate Start—Live Another Life or your preferred alternative. You track down the ghost lady in the corner of the bar and talk to her, and then you get whisked away to Transylvania, as interpreted by Castlevania 2: Simon's Quest and now recreated as a Skyrim mod.
Yes, you get a chain whip. The vampire killer weapon will be your best friend as you whip through the various skeletons, werewolves, and mermen that you meet on this questline (and who all drop hearts when they die, which you collect with a glorious beeping noise).
It's pretty straightforward. In towns you talk to people and visit the church, hoping to find someone who will let you trade hearts for an upgrade. Then you march out into the spooky wilderness again, preferably in daylight, to whip your way through monsters on your way to the next town and the next objective in your quest to return Dracula to the grave.
Though of course it's not a 2D platformer, the CV2 mod does remain faithful to its inspiration in a lot of ways. Skyrim's regular levelling system is gone, and instead you trade hearts to priests for level-ups. They'll also heal you as well, which is nice because the regeneration over time that's normally part of Skyrim is also gone here.
Another part of the original game preserved in this mod is your inability to swim. Touch the water in Transylvania and you'll die instantly. That makes the section where you have to cross a broken bridge while being shot at by mermen particularly annoying. First-person platforming is the worst, and in Skyrim's third-person mode it's only slightly better. I've drowned a lot more than I've been killed by werewolves.
The CV2 mod's an impressive thing overall, featuring a whole bunch of new music too including remixes of Castlevania tunes. You can download it for Skyrim Special Edition here.
In Frostpunk, you slowly build a city in a frozen world that offers very few resources. It's tough, and miserable at times: you'll contemplate horrific decisions just to make it through the day, such as mixing sawdust into meals to bulk them out, or sending children to work in dangerous factories. Your citizens will often freeze, fall ill or starve, and if they're unhappy enough they can even banish you from your own city.
Chris sung its praises in his 89/100 review, calling it a "stressful, stylish, and addictive survival management game filled with incredibly difficult choices". Once you've started a campaign, its very hard to tear yourself away.
League of Legends has been blocked in Iran and Syria, with players from those countries being told the restrictions are due to "US laws and regulations".
The backdrop for the ban is growing tensions between Iran and the US, which has led President Donald Trump to impose "major" additional sanctions on the country over the past few days. Syria is a key ally of Iran.
League of Legends developer Riot Games is based in the US.
Players trying to log on from Iran or Syria are receiving the following message, as shared by an Iranian player on the game's official forums: "Due to US laws and regulations, players in your country cannot access League of Legends at this time. Such restrictions are subject to change by the US government, so if and when that happens, we will look forward to having you back on the rift."
From browsing the forums and Reddit, it seems like Iran and Syria are the only two countries affected for now. Naturally, players have been using VPNs to get around the ban, but that means they'll be playing with a ping that's much higher than usual.
Riot has not yet put out a statement on the matter. The move isn't wholly unprecedented: Origin is not available in Syria or Iran due to "US embargoes and sanction laws", while the Epic Games website says its store is available everywhere "except where prohibited by US law, such as North Korea and Iran".
Great moments in PC gaming are bite-sized celebrations of some of our favorite gaming memories.
Plenty of videogame villains bother you by rambling over the radio or whatever its fantasy equivalent is. The Guardian in Ultima 7, Sander Cohen in Bioshock, Frank Fontaine in Bioshock, actually just everyone in Bioshock.
Handsome Jack is different. He doesn't pontificate like he's delivering a sermon, he doesn't rant like he's going to be played by Jeremy Irons in the movie. When he shows up on your echonet device in Borderlands 2, he's casual. He's eating, for god's sake. He delivers villain monologues like someone making it up as he goes along, and he does it while audibly chewing.
The monster.
Handsome Jack doesn't act like a villain, but then he doesn't think he is one. He thinks he's the hero. You and your friends are bandits, and he's the one who is going to open the Vault and fix Pandora. (By killing everyone. But not in an evil way.) Your relationship with him seems low stakes at first. It's annoying that he mocks you and tricks you, but it's so casual and he's so charming and funny about it that it's hard to stay mad—even if you found the audio logs that reveal what he did to Helena Pierce from the first game.
Halfway through Borderlands 2, that changes. You strike a significant blow against Jack, and he does the same to you. People die. Now it's personal. His rants stop being funny. Instead of making jokes, he just tells you he's going to kill you, and he's not chewing pretzels or whatever while he does it. The shift is surprising, and in that moment you realize that he hates you and you hate him too.
It's an emotional resonance few other games manage, effective because it's so surprising. Handsome Jack is not just a bag of hit points between you and your goal, he's an actual personality (an oversized and obnoxious one), and you feel like you have a real relationship with him. Which makes it even better when you finally take him down.
