Month: September 2020

Path of Exile’s next expansion has been announced, and it’s coming very soon. The “Heist” expansion for Grinding Gear’s action-RPG will launch September 18 on PC before coming to PlayStation 4 and Xbox One for its console release on September 23.

Path of Exile: Heist allows players to hire thieves to help them steal artifacts that will help fund your crew as you plan an even more elaborate “Grand Heist.” So basically, it’s Ocean’s 11 meets an isometric RPG.

The expansion adds the Heist challenge league and nine more skills and support gems, while curses, steel skills, and spells have been revamped. The Grand Heists, as they’re called, give players the ability to earn special weapon and body armor enchantments, trinkets, new gems, and other items.

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After about seven hours with Marvel’s Avengers, I have one big observation: The beta really should have started with Kamala Khan.

Ms. Marvel is the heart and soul of Crystal Dynamics’ take on Earth’s Mightiest Heroes, and the introductory level that kicks off the game’s story establishes her as the nerdy, hilarious, over-the-top fangirl that anchors the entire experience. The Avengers end up disbanded after a huge accident that remakes the world, but it’s Kamala’s experiences–finding her identity, searching for community, struggling with adults in her life letting her down or failing to understand her–that are grounding Marvel’s Avengers.

It all starts with an opening mission that focuses less on punching bad guys and more on what makes the Avengers heroic as people. A number of times now, we’ve seen the A-Day mission, in which you play as each Avenger as they fight an army of bad guys who want to do terrorism. It’s a quick snapshot of how each character handles before the game moves into its real story, in which you play Kamala trying to find and reassemble the Avengers to fight off the totalitarian threat of the villainous organization AIM. But it’s Kamala’s introduction with her father, wandering around the pre-attack A-Day celebration, that centers Marvel’s Avengers. She’s a kid who meets her heroes, who finds them caring (if awkward), and who takes from them all the best lessons to grow, after a five-year time skip, into a hero in her own right.

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Marvel’s Avengers has found its way into the hands of players who have early access, and many are now working their way through the campaign. The game is coming to PS5 and Xbox Series X, but PC players can already get a massively improved visual performance out of the game–as long as they download the high-resolution texture pack, which is tucked away in the game’s Steam properties tab.

As TheGamer notes, to access this resolution pack, which weighs in at 26.7 GB, you’ll need to right-click on the game from your Steam library and select “properties”. From here, navigate to the DLC tab in the top-right, and click the “install” box.

Of course, you’ll need a more powerful PC (and a 4K monitor) to make the most of these textures. Check out the game’s recommended specs, which you’ll need to make the high-resolution pack worthwhile.

TheGamer reports that these textures “make a huge difference,” so if your computer can handle them it’s worth the download. If you’re interested in a new PC to play Avengers check out this deal, which comes with a copy of the game.

GameSpot is currently working on its review of Marvel’s Avengers. The game’s first DLC character has been revealed, and it’s Kate Bishop.

Greg and Meg break down the plot and references in Episode 3, “Holy Ghost”.

Learn about Adam Smasher, the feared Arasaka Cyborg responsible for the death of Johnny Silverhand, who will be making an appearance in Cyberpunk 2077.

There are some game developers who can make news happen with a single cryptic sentence, tweeted out to a huge follower base, designed to rile up the imagination. One such developer is Ed Boon, the co-creator of Mortal Kombat and Injustice, who runs fighting game developer NetherRealm Studios.

Following the success of Mortal Kombat 11 and Injustice 2, Boon has promised a tease for something is on the horizon. You can see his tweet below, and start speculating.

Could the studio be gearing up to tease new Mortal Kombat 11 DLC? PS5 and Xbox Series X versions? Perhaps Injustice 3? It’s unclear. But the Mortal Kombat Twitter account responded, and with Mortal Kombat 11 proving so popular (and still selling incredibly well) we’re leaning more towards one of the first two options.

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(Presented by Hyper Scape) You’ve mastered the early-game and now it’s time to venture forth, survive the closing sectors, and become victorious. Learn mid-game tactics and sector strategies from Holo in this episode of The Pod!

Disney’s next big movie is its live-action Mulan, which comes to select theatres alongside a paid-for release on Disney Plus this Friday, September 4. The movie features actress Liu Yifei in the lead role, and it’s a role she won amid a massive audition process.

Producer Jason Reed told Deadline that the search to cast Mulan was “unprecedented.” Reed estimated that “tens of thousands” of people tried out for the part before Disney choose Yifei for the role.

“We did this unprecedented global search for an actress to play the role. Tens of thousands, I believe, auditioned around the world. We had scouts going to martial arts schools, dance schools, and performance schools all throughout China,” Reed said. “We had casting offices open in all of the major cities that had significant Chinese populations of working artists, and ultimately Yifei was working on a project in China and she wasn’t initially available. We actually flew over to meet with her and we were smitten.”

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