We go to the gun range to test out different legend abilities and interactions with Horizons new tactical ability.In September, Blizzard announced Blizzcon Online for 2021, following the cancellation of this year’s usual convention due to the COVID-19 pandemic. Now, in a new fireside chat, company president J. Allen Brack has revealed that the online version of Blizzcon will be totally free.
PC Gamer reports that the Virtual Ticket system used for previous years will not be in place–instead, everyone who wants to access Blizzcon can do so for free from their homes. The event, which runs from February 19-20, 2021, will not cost you a cent.
This might mean, of course, that some of the rewards usually tied to Blizzcon tickets–like unique character skins–might end up costing some money. We’ll have to wait and see what happens.
Dragon Quest XI: Definitive Edition is coming to PS4, PC, and Xbox One (through Xbox Game Pass) on December 4, and if you’re keen to try the massive JRPG in advance, you can do so now. A huge new demo is available on Steam, and each console’s store.
This demo is the same as the one that released on Switch ahead of the RPG arriving on Nintendo’s hybrid console, and is said to contain about ten hours worth of content. Considering that Dragon Quest XI can take about 90 hours to finish, there’s still plenty of game left after the demo–and thankfully, your progress carries over into the final game.
If you’re on PS4 or PC, and you’ve played the earlier release of Dragon Quest XI, you might want to test out the Definitive Edition’s 2D retro mode, and decide whether you want to double dip. Unfortunately, this is not an option in the demo–it seems you’re only able to experience the modernized version of the game.
The Definitive Edition of Dragon Quest XI scored a 9/10 in GameSpot’s review. Reviewer Heidi Kemps praised the game’s 2D mode: “2D mode offers a fantastic way to explore, grind, and farm efficiently–or just experience a fresh perspective on the game as a whole if you’ve played it before.”
Blizzard’s very popular MMO World of Warcraft celebrates its 16th anniversary this month, and the developer is throwing a party to mark the occasion.
The event was supposed to start later, but Blizzard moved it up due to the release date changed for the Shadowlands expansion. Available now through November 22, the anniversary event adds special rewards, including an Anniversary Gift Package that comes with items that increase reputation and experience gains by 16% to reflect the game’s 16th anniversary. The gift bundle also comes with a special invitation to initiate a quest in Orgrimmar or Stormwind, depending on which faction you’re aligned with.
There is also a new vendor in the world who sells items from previous anniversary events, as well as a new Crafted Clock of War you can buy to use for transmogrification. The Korrak’s Revenge PvP event also come to WoW with the anniversary event, and it allows you to earn new mounts.
The Xbox Series X has been sent out to many press and streamers, and videos of various Xbox One games running much faster are emerging. With the Xbox Series X launch line-up looking pretty thin, much of the appeal for new console owners will come from revisiting older titles and seeing how the new system’s features enhances them.
Now, thanks to one streamer’s video of The Witcher 3 running on a Series X, we can check out the advantages of super-boosted loading times. YouTuber rubhen925 has shared nearly two hours of footage, showing the game running on the new system. While the full video is worth a watch, the most exciting part, funnily enough, comes when fast travel is used.
The GIF from the video below happens just past the 1 hour 14 minute mark in the video, and it shows what happens when you fast travel. There’s no loading screen now–in fact, the environment loads in so fast that it kind of looks like a glitch.
On #Xbox Series X, even without optimization, fast travel in The Witcher 3 is FAST. pic.twitter.com/mc4vEBjVd6
— Xbox News (@_XboxNews) November 2, 2020
It’s a bit uglier than a loading screen, perhaps, but it’s much more convenient.
The Witcher 3 is coming to Xbox Series X and PS5 with an improved next-gen edition. It’ll feature ray tracing for the first time.
Developer CD Projekt Red’s next game is Cyberpunk 2077, which was recently delayed into December thanks to some issues with the PS4/Xbox One builds.
Baldur’s Gate 3 is a bit of a mess, and for now, that’s okay. Baldur’s Gate 3 isn’t done yet. As with developer Larian Studios’ previous release, the acclaimed 2017 RPG Divinity: Original Sin 2, Baldur’s Gate 3 has been released into Early Access on Steam. It contains the first act of the game: a chunk of content encompassing around 25 hours of adventuring for players determined to seek out every last treasure chest or minor side quest.
As a setup it shows promise, introducing you to a cast of half a dozen characters who hint at the potential to become interesting traveling companions. Already on the brink of civil war and now facing a terrifying alien threat, the world itself seems to offer rich pickings for these characters to indulge. And by building on the template forged by the Original Sin series, BG3 already has the foundation of a well-engineered RPG that rewards players willing to engage with its systemic creativity.
Yet such promise is muted by notes of caution. Baldur’s Gate 3 is rough and messy and often feels like it is just barely hanging together. Occasionally it falls apart, collapsing under the weight of scripting bugs and graphical glitches, and even gives up completely with numerous hard crashes to desktop. Technical issues are not unusual in any game, let alone one still in Early Access, and so it is neither a surprise nor much of a criticism to encounter them here.
In Half-Life 2: Episode Two, players can encounter a garden gnome near the game’s opening. If they manage to carry it all the way to the end and place it in the rocket ship before it takes off, players can unlock the Little Rocket Man achievement–an infamously complicated but very fun challenge for Half-Life fans. Now, Valve founder Gabe Newell is recreating this achievement in real life for charity.
Polygon is reporting that Newell is looking to launch a garden gnome into space as part of a Rocket Lab initiative in New Zealand, where he’s currently staying. The gnome, called Gnome Chompski (as it is in several Valve games), will be sent into space during a livestream, and viewers will need to donate to watch.
Money raised from the stream will be sent to the Paediatric Intensive Care Unit at Starship, an Auckland-based children’s hospital.
We tackle enemies on very hard mode in the Age of Calamity demo, and wreak havoc amongst our foes.Control was among the best games of 2019–and one of the most taxing in terms of graphical fidelity. Even on the powerful PlayStation 4 Pro and Xbox One X, Control would sometimes hitch, drop frames, and struggle as protagonist Jesse Faden telekinetically hucked objects at Hiss enemies or smashed through the offices of the Federal Bureau of Control, flinging papers and wood splinters in all directions in her wake.
The high graphical requirements seem like they would preclude Control from ever running on the Nintendo Switch, a less powerful game console than its Sony and Microsoft counterparts. But Nintendo and publisher 505 Games found a workaround: streaming. The release of Control: Ultimate Edition leverages cloud technology to make the game available on Nintendo’s little hybrid console, and the results are surprisingly strong. With a stable internet connection (my Switch said I was getting around 30 mbps down and 8.2 mbps up over WiFi), Control plays very well on the Switch with all its options, and if you haven’t had a chance to check out Remedy Entertainment’s killer title, this is a good way to do so.
If you’re not familiar, Control imbues you with supernatural powers and sets you loose in the Oldest House, a brutalist concrete office building with shifting walls and seemingly impossible scale. It houses the FBC, a government agency dedicated to the study, protection, and containment of “paranatural” objects and entities. If it’s supernatural, weird, or possibly involved with other dimensions, it’s the Bureau’s purview–but the building has been invaded by a spectral force called the Hiss that has possessed many of the Bureau’s employees and turned them against the survivors.