I really liked X2: The Threat, Egosoft's 2003 open-world space sim. I never made much headway in it, because it's such a huge, sprawling game (and generally speaking, when left to my own devices I will screw around endlessly), but it was beautiful and serene, and the soundtrack was magnificent. The sequel didn't do much for me, though—most of what it added, I wasn't interested in—and X: Rebirth, which arrived in 2013, was a straight-up disaster—enough to earn it a spot in our "Worst Launches in PC Gaming History" list. 

But Egosoft didn't give up, and today it's trying again with the release of X4: Foundations, its "most sophisticated universe simulation ever." Like previous games in the series, it enables players to fly everything from single-seat fighters to massive freighters and capital ships, engage in piracy, build bases and trade empires, command fleets, and take part in small and large-scale battles.   

"In X4, you can start your journey from a number of different gamestarts and as a number of different characters, each with their own role, set of relationships and different ships and technologies to start with," Egosoft said. "No matter how you start, you are always free to develop in any other direction. Focus on exploration, make money with illegal trading and theft, command large battle fleets or become the greatest entrepreneur ever. It's all up to you to decide." 

Is it less of a mess than its predecessor? I haven't played it yet so I can't speak from personal experience, but it's got "mixed" user reviews on Steam—67 percent positive—and while that's not the sort of thing you usually see plastered across the back of the box in bold letters, it's a hell of a lot better than X: Rebirth. That's a start. 

X4: Foundations is available on Steam, GOG, and the Humble Store.   

Valve’s Dota-themed collectible card game Artifact has received both praise and criticism during its first days, and is currently sitting on ‘mixed’ review status on Steam. It is a clash of two worlds. Long-time card game players are enthusiastic about how ‘cheap’ it is to build a large card collection and competitive decks in Artifact compared to Magic and even Hearthstone, but players used to computer game pricing are appalled at the number of purchases needed after paying $20 for the game and the absence of even limited free progression.

This was predictable. We took an in-depth look at the cost of the game shortly before Artifact's release and the comments on that article closely mirror the reviews of the game: some people emphasizing how they can easily put together competitive decks and others absolutely aghast at the cost.

How you view Artifact's pricing depends on your perspective, then, and these early days may not be the best introduction for those who are new to collectible card games. The marketplace has been a volatile place in its first 48 hours—even more volatile than I expected—and there is more market speculation going on than in a typical new set release in Magic.

The main spotlight is on Axe, a powerful rare Red hero that was expected to become the most expensive card in the game, as Red is a popular color and Axe is a staple in every Red deck. When the market opened, Axe was fetching a Magic mythic rare price at $40—for a single card! The prices quickly began to fall and for almost a day, you could buy Axe for $14. However, this story has more chapters to it: prices began to rise again on Thursday and Axe hit a high of $28, doubling in value from its low point. This price again proved to be unsustainable, and it's currently at $21.

This changing market provides opportunities to make some money, or at least some Steam bucks, and indeed, even as I was writing this, someone posted a buy order for four copies of Axe on the Steam market—even though it is a Hero card that you can only ever use one copy of in your decks. It will take a while for the market to settle down, so keep that in mind if you’re interested in buying or selling cards.

What does it really cost to play Artifact right now? You can always play draft at no additional cost, but if you want to play constructed matches with your own decks, you need to have some cards. You get 10 packs with your initial purchase, and if you manage to pick up some good cards from those, all the better. If you don’t, you can buy the deck you want to play from the Steam market.

The very first constructed tournament, WePlay! Artifact Mighty Triad: Strength, is currently underway, and the first groups have been played. In Group A, Strifecro took the win with a Blue/Green combo deck that costs $64, and Lifecoach came in second with a Red/Green ramp deck that costs $81. In Group B, Xixo won with a Red/Black Oath deck that costs $40, while StanCifka took the second place with his version of Red/Black that costs $53.

If you compare these deck prices to competitive Magic decks, you can see where the card game players are coming from. At Grand Prix Milwaukee, the cheapest deck in the top 10 was Jacob Tilk’s Mono-White Aggro, which costs $70 in Magic Online and $251 in physical form. The winner, Adrian Sullivan, played a Jeskai Control deck that costs $170 in Magic Online and $534 in paper. From this perspective, Artifact does not look expensive at all.

In fact, you can pick up all the cards in Artifact for the price of a single physical Magic deck. A full set of Artifact—one of each Hero and three copies of all other cards—currently costs $275 on the Steam market. The price has been volatile over the first two days, opening at $350 and going down to just $200 for a few moments before jumping back up to over $300, and then coming back down again. Our pre-release prediction of $200 to $300 for a full set still looks fine.

From the perspective of a computer gamer, however, Artifact looks very, very expensive. First you pay the price of a game and then you get to pay the price of two more games just to have a good deck? The market jumping up and down and people speculating on the prices does not improve the early impression of those who come to the game from outside the collectible card game world. That said, it is also unlikely that it matters much to them whether the price is $100, $200, or $300—all of them are expensive.

Valve chose evolution over revolution, and given the high expectations for Valve as a publisher, the disappointment from computer gamers is understandable. I come from a card game background, though, so maybe I’m just used to being robbed. I like Artifact for its contributions to the collectible card game genre, both in its design and the comparatively reasonable pricing. But I'm comparing it to Magic, and that narrative may not be the one that wins out with PC gamers. We'll keep an eye on the market fluctuations as we work toward our final review.

Steven didn't mince words about CCP's in-the-works FPS Project Nova, calling it "boring and unambitious" after he got some hands-on time with it last month. The message was apparently received, as CCP announced today that plans for a closed alpha (which was supposed to begin this month) have been put on hold. 

"Over the course of Project Nova’s development, we conducted a number of player research sessions with external partners, tirelessly playtested the game internally and brought community stalwarts in to help us evaluate the project. Now, after taking all this research and feedback into account, we see that the gameplay experience in its current form does not live up to our original vision and would not achieve our ambitious goals for this project," CCP wrote. "As a result, we will not be moving forward with the upcoming invite-only Alpha until further notice."

"We hope you understand that we need to take a step back and return to the drawing board, where we will spend more time figuring out how all this hard work can translate into something better and more meaningful for the EVE Universe. Remaining true to our vision of Project Nova’s future in connection with EVE is essential. That is the only way we will be able to continue creating memorable experiences that ensure you—our ineffable players—are satisfied and make us proud as developers." 

Project Nova was announced in 2016, and it sounds technically competent. "The shooting was responsive and satisfying," Steven wrote in his preview, and "when enemies die, they don't just ragdoll but float off into the abyss of space."

But that's apparently all it is: "Project Nova is going to need a lot more interesting enemy types if it hopes to achieve that goal. Right now, it all just feels mundane."

It's not the end, as CCP said it remains committed to the game and integrating it with EVE Online. But it added that it "is in no rush to release Project Nova until we're satisfied it provides a rock-solid gameplay experience and visuals to match." 

Footsteps in the dark. Mutterings under breath. The sound of a bowstring, pulled taut and released. To think of Thief is to think of its sound design, from the simplest combat effect to the gravelly narration of Stephen Russell’s Garrett as he hides in the dark, observing a city so corrupt that a man like him can be its unsung hero. It’s to remember that city, nameless and broken, where the cold steel and hot fires of the Metal Age sit atop the weeds and lost secrets of ancient pagan culture and zombie boneyards. The quiet moments. The frenzies as a plan goes wrong and shouts of “Taffer!” fill the night sky. The perfect getaways and the desperate escapes.

Despite all this, if there’s one thing that defines Thief, it’s in the title. Many games, including successors like Deus Ex and Dishonored, are fundamentally built on playing things your way. You get the tools to sneak around if you want, but you also get a sack of guns and explosives, super-powers to break the rules of the world, and levels and enemies built to allow you to explore them. Thief instead strikes a deal. It gives you the tools and experience of a master criminal, but only so long as you’re willing to play the role.

Garrett may be godlike in the shadows, but he’s a mediocre swordsman. A blackjack to the back of a guard’s head is a guaranteed takedown, but alert, they’ll call in backup and easily take you down. On higher difficulty levels, you even face Garrett’s pride as a bonus challenge—he won’t kill, not out of squeamishness, but professionalism. He is, after all, a thief rather than a murderer, and good enough at it never to need such a crutch.

Stepping into his boots back in 1998 was a whole new experience. There had been stealth games before, but little that took things to this degree—to make the shadows your armour and patience your best friend. Your tools, ranging from water arrows to extinguish torches to rope arrows for climbing, were tools in the truest sense, with each mission taking place in an open plan location designed to let you pick your own path and decide your own tactics.

Even the very first encounter, Lord Bafford’s Manor, is a multi-levelled building with multiple approaches, floors and secrets, with your only guide being a hand-scribbled map of what Garrett thinks is inside. The second, Cragscleft Prison, features a whole mine complex you barely even need to enter.

If Thief has a problem, it’s that occasionally it loses confidence in itself, with fantasy elements like the undead and giant spiders sitting awkwardly next to the more steampunk city up top, and with a plot involving magic and paganism that quickly veers away from the pure satisfaction of breaking and entering. Thief II: The Metal Age didn’t remove the fantasy elements entirely, but it did wisely double-down on the other side, with Garrett now facing the steam-powered horrors of a genocidal Mechanist and generally sticking to the civilised parts of the city—raiding a party, robbing a bank, kidnapping and eavesdropping, and sabotaging the villain at every turn.

The sequel's maps took the series to a whole new level, with new tools like a clockwork eye that could be used to scout terrain, and maps designed around concepts rather than story first (the story then largely written around them, not that it mattered). Those maps were were built to be even more non-linear and open than the first game's. Now we really got to experience the City firsthand, with guards and other overheard characters now regularly piping up with their stories, and the original game’s approach to difficulty—not just additional enemies, but challenges like stealing a certain amount of treasure and the previously mentioned no killing rule—making for incredibly replayable missions.

Again though, so much of this rested on Thief developer Looking Glass Studios being able to focus on specifics. Garrett’s trusty bow for instance was unlike any other weapon at the time—its feel, its sounds, the thunk of its arrows all carefully and lovingly made to feel both satisfying to use, and a worthy weapon of choice for a master thief. The blackjack as a tactical weapon. The sword, designed to be good enough to let you handle the occasional screw-up, but not go in swinging. Every tool had its purpose and its limits, with success coming from mastering them all and escaping.

By being able to focus their AI on handling a stealthy character, rather than a jack-of-all-trades, Looking Glass could make even a basic guard feel like part of the world, rather than just another enemy. Their banter as you hid in the shadows gave them a sense of history that we now take for granted in games like Dishonored (did that guy ever get his own squad after what happened last night?). In 1998, it was a huge step forward.

Even basic footsteps contributed to the feel, with different materials underfoot echoing with different sounds. Admittedly, it did make Garrett sound a bit like he’d gone thieving in metal clogs, and his ‘moss arrows’ should probably have been replaced with a nice pair of slippers or something, but that’s easily forgotten when you’re fleeing from guards, shooting a rope arrow out of a crypt, clambering up and belting for the exit before they can get back upstairs.

It’s that kind of moment, emergent yet natural, that really defines Thief as an experience more than simply a series of missions in an FPS. While the original occasionally suffers from a lack of confidence, Thief II strides into the night with an absolute cocksure certainty that what it’s doing is right. It’s tough not to get swept away by that. Even now it remains the master of the shadows, and the Thief that stole and kept our sneaky black hearts.

Abbey Games quietly makes very clever, playful strategy outings, like unconventional god sim Reus and tactical exploration game Renowned Explorers, and now it's back on religion, showing off the first footage of Godhood. It puts you in the divine shoes of a newborn deity who has to nurture their tribe of believers while taking on other gods. 

It seems to be taking a different direction from Reus, which was more about using your powers to transform the environment, shaping the world for their human followers. While you can’t control them directly, Godhood tasks you with manipulating your followers through religion. As their god, you can tell them what’s important—what vices they should avoid and virtues they should try to emulate—as well as getting them to worship cats or carry out some human sacrifice. 

You’re not the only god, however, and you’ll have to compete with others by pitting your poor humans against their tribe of adversaries in ritual combat. These rituals are called ‘Sacraments’ and it looks like they’re turn-based tactical fights, a bit like Renowned Explorers. Humans have free will, though, so maybe they won't all be interested in dying in your holy war. Smart. 

Godhood is due out next year. 

I first wrote about Mage’s Initiation for a preview five long years ago, and now the adventure-RPG hybrid finally has a release date. It’s taken the team around ten years to make and will be released into the wilds on January 30. 

There aren’t many adventure romps in the style of Quest for Glory kicking around these days (which is disgraceful). In Mage’s Initiation, you’re a teen wizard about to be unleashed upon the world to put your skills to the test via three quests. Also, the kingdom needs to be saved, so I guess you could help out with that, too? 

Magic can help you solve puzzles, but it can also fry any goblins trying to start a fight with you. One of four elemental specialisations can be picked at the start, conferring unique spells for use in and out of combat. You can try to avoid fights, however, and play Mage’s Initiation more like a traditional point and click adventure, though one with branching paths and some light RPG character progression.

I jumped back in after five years away and, while I’m not sure how much has changed since 2013, it still has a nostalgic hold over me, calling to mind adventures in not just Quest for Glory, but games like King’s Quest, too. And it boasts some cracking background art, though the higher resolution pixel art used for the character models looks a bit out of place. 

Mage’s Initiation uses three different adventure game interfaces, which you get to pick at the start but can switch between whenever you want. Lamentably, there’s no parser for the masochists, so you’ll have to settle for either a verb coin, a compact interface that brings up a menu when you click on an object or the traditional Sierra icon bar. 

Himalaya Studios, previously Anonymous Game Developers Interactive, has plenty of experience working with Sierra-style games. Before Mage’s Initiation, it made free remakes of Sierra games, as well as a Leisure Suit Larry-inspired adventure about a pathetic, middle-aged fella trying to find love.   

Even though their fights level cities, there’s something good and pure about gigantic robots battering the oil out of each other. Override: Mech City Brawl promises nothing but that, with 12 behemoths duking it out across cities all over the world and, from the looks of it, the moon. The mech-smashing will commence next week, and you can watch the launch trailer above. 

Along with a single-player campaign, you’ll be able to smack around other players in multiplayer brawls, but it’s the party co-op that’s piqued my interest. Up to four players can team up to pilot one mech, with each responsible for a different part, just like Megazord or Voltron. If the TV shows and movies have taught us anything, however, it’s that learning how to pilot a mech with your mates is really tricky, and we won’t have the benefit of a training montage where we can face our fears and, with the support of our friends, overcome them. How will it even be possible? 

Lamentably, that mode wasn’t available when T.J. Hafer played for his Override: Mech City Brawl preview, but he did punch a lot of mechs in the regular PvP modes. It’s a bit simple and slow, he said, but he was fond of the giant scrappers. 

The stars of Override are its dozen robotic contenders, each sporting a very distinct style and silhouette, tons of personality, and a suite of unique special moves. I especially liked Shifu, a spindly, metallic kung fu master who kind of reminds me of Phong from the classic '90s CGI cartoon Reboot and dishes out lightning-quick strikes with far greater force than his slender chassis would suggest. There’s also Metageckon, a lumbering reptilian bot who can roll up into a ball and wreak havoc across the map, and Setesh, an Egyptian-inspired giant who hits like a jetliner.

Mechs can be customised, too. Between brawls, you can tinker with them in the garage. You can change accessories and skins to create new styles, so it sounds largely cosmetic. Obviously, you want your mechs to look their best when they’re rolling around Tokyo, stomping all over San Francisco and punching pyramids in Egypt.

Override: Mech City Brawl is due out on December 4.

If you want to buy one of Artifact’s best cards, it will cost you more than the game itself at the moment of writing. Valve’s card game collaboration with Magic: The Gathering creator Richard Garfield launched on Steam this week to a mixed reception, and one of the most common criticisms was aimed at Artifact’s monetisation. Along with the initial cost of the game, cards can be purchased for real money on the Steam Market. The most expensive one right now is Axe, and it will set you back around £17/$21. 

The price of cards constantly fluctuates and can be set by the sellers, but with Axe being an extremely sought-after card, it’s the priciest. It’s a rare hero card with 7 attack, 2 armour and a sizeable 11 health. Artifact currently costs £16/$20, making the card more expensive than the game. 

Last week, Ville Kilkku estimated that it would take between $200 and $300 to build a full Artifact collection. If you want to play, you’re going to need to pay, but you can also make some of that money back.  

Artifact is going to cost money to play. That’s a fact. You can play all of its digital competitors for free, and typically you can also grind your way to a top tier deck or two (even though it takes quite a bit of time). When you want to play a new deck immediately, or when you crave variety, that’s when money comes in. If you’ve already given up on being free-to-play (by the way), and moved on to spending actual cash, then Artifact is not especially expensive in comparison to other card games. In fact, with a working secondary market, you can recover much of the money you spend on it should you eventually decide to move on.

It's also worth noting that Axe isn't representative of most cards. You buy plenty of them for pennies. There are plenty of ways to play competitively without Axe, but his great stat line and accompanying card are explicitly powerful, it's not surprising people want to use him as a go-to in red decks. Theoretically as more Axes appear in the card pool over time the price should come down, but it goes to show how expensive Artifact cards can get. 

Keep your eye on Will Bindloss’s Artifact review-in-progress to see if it’s worth splashing out on.

I know I'm not the only one who thought the placement of bonfires—Dark Souls 3's take on checkpoints—was a little wonky, and now we might have an idea why. Dark Souls YouTuber Lance McDonald has built his reputation on uncovering all sorts of fascinating bosses, enemies, and systems that were removed from Dark Souls games prior to release. And in his latest video, Lance shows off a bizarre system he found hidden in an alpha version of Dark Souls 3 that allows him to sacrifice enemies and create bonfires just about anywhere he wants.

You should first watch the video above to see it all in action, but what Lance discovered is a massive insight into how Dark Souls 3 might've worked at one point in time. The idea is that sometimes slain enemies would emit an ominous glow the moment they died, indicating that these enemies suffered what's oddly called a "cult death." In the video, Lance can use the alpha version's debug menu to assign this parameter freely to enemies for the purposes of demonstrating what it can do. When enemies die a cult death, the player can then pick up their body and drag it anywhere in the world.

This system ties into another scrapped concept wherein players could "join a cult"—though Lance admits he doesn't know what that means or how to do it. Using a debug menu Lance can join one automatically, and there's seven to choose from that closely mirror the options players have when resting at a bonfire. When in a cult, like the one that allows you to level up, players can perform a "ceremony" on cult death bodies, which triggers an animation that essentially transforms the corpse into a bonfire.

The idea, I think, was that players could join a cult that would allow them to turn slain enemies into bonfires with limited usage. You might join a cult so that you can create your own bonfires to level up, or one that'll let you summon an NPC for aid.

But wait, there's more.

In the second half of the video, Lance demonstrates how these cult death enemies were also a key ingredient in a new way of invading other players. In the inventory menu, Lance discovered two "ceremony swords" that served an interesting purpose. One sword would let you invade another player's world, while the second sword eclipsed your world in darkness and opened you up to invasion from other players. PVP is obviously a big part of Darks Souls 3, and this system looks like one way players could've guaranteed themselves some PVP action.

Sadly, the system never made it into the game. But as Polygon rightly points out, it was obviously intended to be a proper feature considering a Dark Souls 3 statue first displayed at E3 2015 depicted the ceremony necessary to trigger the invasion. Oh well. You can see a video of the statue below.

Thanks, Polygon.

The first episode of Life is Strange 2 came out around the end of September, which means, based on the release tempo of the original five-part adventure, that we could reasonably expect part two to show up any day now. What has arrived instead is a message from developer Dontnod Entertainment pegging it to a January 2019 release, an extended stretch of development the studio said will enable it to "meet the benchmark of quality and emotional impact that you, our players, deserve." 

"We understand that there are certain expectations that episodes will be released at a similar cadence as previous Life is Strange games have. The ambition of Life is Strange 2, however, means that the previous frameworks no longer apply if we are to meet the quality of play and storytelling that our vision for a game like this demands and that you deserve," Dontnod said. 

"With this in mind, we can now officially say that Episode 2 will be released in January 2019, but more will be unveiled in mid December, this year. We can't wait to reveal more about ‘Episode 2: Rules’ to you soon! We're truly very excited to show you what we've been working on and what's in store for Sean and Daniel." 

Life is Strange 2 follows the adventures of brothers Sean and Daniel Diaz, who are forced to flee their home—and deal with the sudden manifestation of a supernatural power—following a "tragic incident." Pip said in September that the first episode is "confident" and delivers "a strongly sympathetic portrayal of the boys at the centre of the drama"—but she really didn't like that sketching minigame.