Did you miss it? Artifact‘s back, and it’s not quite how you remember it. After a year of tinkering following that disastrous 2018 debut, Valve are ready to re-introduce the Dota 2 card game to the world. This week’s brief demonstration runs through some of the promising changes arriving with Artifact 2.0 – and if you’re lucky, you may be able to try the beta yourself starting next week.
As in real life, there is nothing more desirable in Final Fantasy XIV than owning your own home. The plots for houses in the long-running MMO are limited and it can be a struggle to nab a space before other players, and housing is therefore an FFXIV player’s measure of in-game status.
There’s another step beyond owning a house if you really want to show off, however: how you decorate that house. From bars, to modern living rooms, and even someone who managed to create a night sky in their basement, FFXIV’s relatively basic housing tools can be bent or broken to create seemingly anything if you’re patient and skilled. Or, if you’ve got the in-game currency to pay someone else to do it for you.
When I first spoke to Luthien, a teacher from the Netherlands during the day and an interior designer for hire in game, she was in the middle of making Hogwarts castle inside someone’s house.
If you’ve been eyeing up AMD’s excellent Ryzen 3 3300X CPUs recently, then you’ll be pleased to hear that AMD’s new mid-range B550 motherboards have finally arrived to buy alongside them. The long-awaited successor to AMD’s popular B450 chipset, the main advantage of buying a new B550 board is that it’s got built-in support for AMD’s next CPU architecture, currently code-named Zen 3, giving you plenty of future-proofing for your next upgrade.
After an uncertain period in which it seemed System Shock 3 might be dead in the spacewater, it’s apparently now saved. Developers OtherSide Entertainment have announced that megahuge publishers Tencent “will be taking the System Shock franchise forward,” which is… vague and slightly ominous, but promising? It’s not yet clear what exactly this arrangement means and who’s doing what, but it seems the odds are good that yes, you will again get to enjoy Shodan berating you for the weakness and imperfection of your flesh.
Unfortunately, yet another game is being delayed due to the Covid-19 pandemic. This time it’s space flight sim Kerbal Space Program 2 that’s been grounded – now we’ll be waiting until autumn next year to launch those little green men into the great beyond.
“With everything going on in the world today due to the Covid-19 outbreak, we’re facing many unique challenges that require more time to safely iterate, create, test, and make KSP2 as great as it can be,” yesterday’s statement said.
Bandai Namco has returned for a fourth Humble Bundle this week with nine games up for grabs at £20 / $25 for the job lot. And while you may suspect that it’s getting a bit ‘Queen Greatest Hits III’ at this point, there’s still enough in there to justify putting your hand into your pocket – especially as it’s all for charity.
As I said last time, my favourite thing about Red Dead Redemption 2 is the fact you can treat the game as an extremely perilous wildlife-spotting sim, with new creatures to behold every time you enter a new corner of the Cowboy’s grotty, whiskey-stained world. Some 234 creatures, in fact. And as a mark of respect, largely to the concept of animals but also to the Cowboy, I’m writing short reviews of all of them. Last time I managed twenty, so there’s only 214 left to go! Beast mode engaged.
Supply chain disruption thanks to social distancing and coronavirus means that’s still not exactly a great time for gaming monitor deals, but that doesn’t mean we’ve stopped looking for the [cms-block]s at the best prices. Good gaming monitor deals are still in reasonably short supply, but we’ve done our best to find all the top gaming monitor deals that are worth shouting about. Whether you’re looking for the best G-Sync monitor deals or the best cheap ultrawide monitor deals, here are the top gaming monitor deals of the week.
Firaxis today kicked off a year of new DLC for Civilization VI, with the first of six packs coming as part of their New Frontier Pass. Seems a smattering new civs and modes will be the focus for the next while, rather than a big ol’ expansion. The first of these adds two new civs, Maya and Gran Colombia, along with a few bits and pieces like a new ‘Apocalypse’ mode riddled with comet strikes, solar flares, and volcanic sacrifices.
Update: Jesus, now the base game is free on the Epic Games Store. Big day for Civ.>
Loba, newly introduced with Season 5 of Apex Legends, looks to be one of the most powerful and intriguing characters we’ve seen so far. This so-called Translocating Thief thrives on careful use of her abilities to gain the upper hand before a fight. There’s a high skill ceiling here, but our Apex Legends Loba guide will help you reach the top in record time, with in-depth tips and explanations of each of her potent abilities.