First person shooter Shadow Warrior 2 is free on Good Old Games for a limited time, and if you don’t own the title (or own it on Good Old Games), it’s in your best interest to pick it up now. Developed by Flying Wild Hog and released in 2016, Shadow Warrior 2 still sells for $39.99, making this a hell of a deal.
As part of GOG’s tenth anniversary promotion, members of the community were asked to pick a game that would be offered for free and Shadow Warrior ultimately won out over Firewatch and Superhot. It holds a 4.4/5 star rating on Good Old Games.
The deal only lasts until roughly 10:15am EST on Saturday, October 6.
Arenanet has confirmed in a statement that a recent change blocking Belgian players from accessing the gem store is indeed a response to local legislation regarding loot boxes. Arenanet staffer Gaile Gray noted that Arenanet is seeking “flexible solutions,” and that for the time being purchases of certain
“We recently disabled Gem purchases for players located in Belgium. This action was in response to the Belgian Gaming Commission’s declaration that paid loot boxes violate Belgium’s gambling restrictions. We have now implemented a more refined system, which only restricts the purchase of loot boxes and related items, such as chest keys, dye kits, and certain packs by players located in Belgium. For players located in Belgium, you will see the following message when viewing these items ‘This item is not available for purchase in your region.’ All other items and purchases are now available.”
Any chests, dye kits, and other restricted items/packs that have already been acquired can still be used. Arenanet noted in their FAQ that Black Lion Keys and chests will still continue to drop in-game and can still be redeemed as long as they were not purchased with real money.
It’s been two months since Rend launched into early access, and this week the folks at Frostkeep Studios laid out their roadmap for the rest of the year and into 2019. Among other updates, the goal for the road ahead includes combat improvements for more impactful gunfights, streamlined features overhauling crafting, inventories, and storage, legendary artifacts based in Norse mythology, dynamic siege content, and refined social mechanics.
The roadmap can be seen here, and the fall developer letter here. The team at Frostkeep also plans on releasing a Trello board for community issues where players can see the status of bug reports, opening up a new avenue of communication between the base and the developers.
Rend is currently in early access on Steam for $29.99.
Dark Eclipse, the first PS VR MOBA title, launches today in North America and Europe from SUNSOFT as a free download on the Playstation store. Developer is looking to shake up the genre by pitting two players against one another in head-to-head matches, each player controlling a team of three leaders, each with unique skills and abilities, along with the power to recruit soldiers who level up during the match. The ultimate goal, as usual with the genre, is to conquer your enemy’s base.
“We created DARK ECLIPSE to capture the MOBA genre’s competitive magic, while restructuring many of its core elements to take advantage of VR’s unique capabilities,” said Shohei Sakakibara, Producer and Project Leader at SUNSOFT. “We’re dedicated to fostering an active community and making DARK ECLIPSE VR’s first competitive gaming phenomenon with a legitimate esports fanbase.”
Leaders can be purchased with in-game currency or through the Playstation Store starter packs. The base game is available for free on the Playstation Store.
Who says Valve doesn’t clean up their trash? Other than everyone.
Back when Valve issued a new directive that the company would no longer be curating titles with the exception of illegal games and troll titles, opting instead to merely allow its algorithm to bury lower quality titles in the furthest depths of the Steam store where nobody will see them anyway. More recently, the company has been on a bit of a ban spree, seemingly taking out developers releasing shovelware and asset flip titles.
According to Steam Tracker, Valve has banned more than 150 titles this month alone. Most of the titles appear to fall into categories of asset flips, obvious troll titles, and low quality flash-looking games. We were unable to ascertain how many developers this list spreads across, but Valve often deletes a developer’s entire catalog when one title is banned. Many of the titles had initially released as far back as January/February, but some others hadn’t even hit the market yet.
Jagex this week announced that an employee has been fired and police have been brought in regarding “gross misuse of moderator privileges.” While the official post doesn’t go into much detail, reports from the Reddit forum indicate that the employee is Jed Sanderson, aka Mod Jed, and involves the now ex-staffer used his moderator status to compromise RuneScape accounts to steal excessive amounts of gold, presumably to either trade to other players or to sell on the open market for real money.
This isn’t the first time Mod Jed has been suspected of malfeasance. As a Jagex employee, Jed has been known to be a member of the Reign of Terror clan, a group notorious for using denial of service attacks against opponents in Jagex’s $10,000 Deadman Mode Tournaments. Jed was investigated last year in regards to these allegations and cleared of all suspicion.
“Following our investigation, we were able to resolve the issue before any significant impact was made to the wider game, or economy. We have also taken steps to return items and GP to any affected accounts. Whilst we generally do not return items or gold, we feel that given this unusual situation, we wanted to ensure no players lost out to the rogue actions of a member of staff. We are actively working with the Police regarding the incident, but given this an ongoing legal matter we are unable to provide further details.”
Given the enormous real world value of the gold stolen (estimates in the tens of thousands), Jagex has noted that it is actively assisting the police in investigating the matter. Players affected by Jed’s actions have reported receiving the items back that were stolen from them, or as close as possible as Jagex can ascertain the damages.
(Editor’s Note: Guild Wars 2 Living Story spoilers ahead)
It’s been a while since we last checked in on the Guild Wars 2 living story, and just in time as Episode 4 launches this week. Coming off the heels of Long Live the Lich, Palawa Joko is no longer a threat to the world of Tyria, and the rebuilding can begin in Elona’s plague-ridden areas. Still, the threat of the crystal dragon Kralkatorrik still looms, and conflict with the powerful beast is inevitable.
Episode 4 contains new content including:
Sun’s Refuge, a personal instance that players will build and upgrade throughout their adventure to unlock new collections, NPCs, lore, and an upgradeable armor set
The new Jahai Bluffs map
The legendary scepter Xiuquatl
A new raid, Mythwright Gambit, in which players will come face to face with the djinn Zommoros
Episode 4 is free for players who own Path of Fire.
Dark Eclipse, the first ever MOBA for Playstation VR, has been announced to launch on the platform on September 25. The title comes to us from Japanese developer SUNSOFT, and is a one-on-one battle where players pick a team of three leaders and supporting soldiers.
“With 40-years in the business, we’ve seen many gaming trends come and go, but few have been as exhilarating as VR’s expansion and mainstream acceptance,” said Shohei Sakakibara, Producer and Project Leader at SUNSOFT. “Everyone at SUNSOFT is enamored with this type of quick, strategic, multiplayer gameplay, so we brought our passion for the genre and combined the best characteristics of VR, MOBAs and RTS games into DARK ECLIPSE, a game that’s both familiar and eye-catchingly innovative.”
Dark Eclipse will be free to play on launch. SUNSOFT plans for free updates including new heroes as the game progresses.
Loot boxes in 2018 are a multi-million dollar business, and Electronic Arts loves loot boxes so much that it is willing to potentially perform criminal acts in order to keep that sweet cash flowing. Such is the case in Belgium, where the Brussel’s public prosecutor’s office has officially opened a criminal investigation into Electronic Arts over allegations that the company is violating the law against gambling.
Earlier this year, Belgium’s Gaming Commission found several games to be in violation of its anti-gambling laws. EA doesn’t agree, and has simply refused to comply with orders to remove the offending purchases.
“We don’t believe that FIFA Ultimate Team or loot boxes are gambling firstly because players always receive a specified number of items in each pack, and secondly we don’t provide or authorize any way to cash out or sell items or virtual currency for real money,” said CEO Andrew Wilson.
As part of today’s announcement that Daybreak Game Company has received a notable investment, the H1Z1 team has announced that the PC version of H1Z1 will be transferred over to the team at NantG Mobile lead by Jace Hall, Chairman of Twin Galaxies. As part of this changeover, H1Z1’s PC version will be renamed Z1 Battle Royale at some point in the future.
“Daybreak still maintains and controls design direction and publishing for H1Z1 on other platforms, and therefore it is likely that over time there will start to be significant differences between what Daybreak does with its versions as compared to what we are doing with ours. Having multiple versions, that are significantly different — with the same name is confusing, so eventually we’ll be formally renaming H1Z1 PC. I wanted to clarify this now so that the community isn’t surprised by this later.”
-Jace Hall
Today’s announcement also revealed that mobile versions of H1Z1 and Everquest are in the works.
MMO Fallout 