In addition to regular channels, the Seattle Police Department has a unique approach to communicating with the public. On Twitch, they play Destiny and talk about everything from graffiti to protests to their own investigation processes. Recently, however, they used it to give an update on the controversial shooting of Charleena Lyles. Lyles, a black…
Loot boxes are bullshit. Overwatch’s are about to become a bit less bullshit. In a new video, Jeff “JKap” Kaplan revealed his sweet new D.Va jersey—flaunted it, really—and also talked about some stuff. The most interesting detail is a long-requested change to how likely players are to get duplicate items in loot boxes. “One of…
Back when Middle-Earth: Shadow of Mordor first came out in 2014, people pretty much immediately started asking, “When will other games get Nemesis Systems?” Flash forward three years, and the most prominent game to do it is… Shadow of War, the sequel to Shadow of Mordor. But soon you’ll be able to add XCOM 2…
I played 20 minutes of Paradox’s new city builder, Surviving Mars, at E3. The demo showed off different phases of planet colonization, from early moments establishing a livable area to later on, when I had multiple inhabited domes to work with. The game draws on real-world science and seems complex. If, however, you want more…
Bethesda’s Creation Club is a new program that’ll allow select development teams and modders to develop, polish, and release Fallout 4 and Skyrim content alongside Todd Howard’s magical toy factory. Modder CDante’s “Creation Club” is a different kind of club entirely. A golf club. CDante’s new Fallout 4 mod The Creation Club adds a golf…
Since 2015, Elite Dangerous players have felt some kind of alien presence hovering on the periphery of their space trucking adventures. Recently, things came to a head, with players making direct contact with Thargoid ships on multiple occasions. Where is this all going? I spoke with senior designer Sandy Sammarco during E3 to find out.…
Overwatch’s new map, Horizon Lunar Colony, is now live. After a few weeks on the PTR, the loony getaway is out alongside a patch that makes changes to McCree, Reaper, and Roadhog. Check out Cecilia’s impressions of the map here
In celebration of its anniversary, Pokemon Go is undergoing some major changes. Before you get too excited, no, player-vs-player battles aren’t among them. Gyms, though, are about to get more accessible, and you’ll soon be able to team up with friends to go on raids against mega-powerful Pokemon. The gym overhaul should launch at some…
E3 is over. It’s time to vote on the stuff that matters most.
It’s the first day of E3. I’m walking the show floor—or more accurately, oozing across it, slug-like, followed by a trail of my own sweat. I’m shoulder-to-shoulder with swathes of people. Across the way, crowds of people whoop and holler, each of them hoping to win swag they can stuff in their floor-length swag bags.…
Competitive first-person shooters operate on all sorts of sets of unspoken rules. Teams should be, more or less, evenly powered. Opponents should die occasionally. Everyone should be visible—at least, most of the time. Aftercharge aims to break those rules. I got to play a few rounds of an early PC build of Aftercharge during “The…
“Yes, they do make me feel like a walking billboard, but I think about how easy it will be to carry my laundry later,” an E3 attendee told of the body-length bags companies hand out at conventions. She also offered a convention bag pro strat: hide them in bushes outside instead of lugging them around.…
Near the end of the Detroit: Become Human demo I saw during E3, renegade android Markus and his partner North incite a riot among recently freed androids. If you choose to set things on fire, North triumphantly declares, “Now the humans will have no choice but to listen to us.” Main character Markus, staring into…
“It’s certainly the most memorable game here.” Overheard at E3’s Senran Kagura booth. The comically pervy series has now moved into third-person shooter territory. Let me tell you, it is something else to watch a whole crowd stare in confusion as anime girls shoot each others’ swimsuits off.
This year’s Sony E3 conference closed on an impressive demo of Insomniac’s upcoming open-world Spider-Man game. I checked out an alternate playthrough and on the show floor, and while creative director Bryan Intihar was tight-lipped when it came to specifics, he did give me a handful of interesting tidbits. Spider-Man will never kill anybody You…
There are many important roles one can occupy aboard a pirate ship. You can steer, or keep the cannons loaded, or manage sails, or navigate. Me? I was the guy who rang the bell. In peace and at war, I held my post. Until I launched myself out of a cannon and into a shark,…
Kratos is back (again), and yes, he’s still half-god, half-beard, all-dad. In a new trailer that debuted during Sony’s E3 conference, Kratos had a brief quiet moment with his son (“You say I’m cursed,” said his son. “You think I’m weak because I’m not like you”) before bisecting half the population of the Norse myth…
“Oh shit that’s a lot of zombies” game Days Gone caused a stir last year, but made like days and became gone shortly after. Today’s Sony E3 press conference showed off its quieter side. After getting unceremoniously torn from his motorcycle by dudes who were not zombies, but rather regular dudes who wanted a) a…
Remember paid mods and the fiasco that ensued after they launched? Well, Bethesda wants you to know that Creation Club—coming this summer to Skyrim and Fallout 4—isn’t that. But it does sound kinda similar. The basic idea is that developers within Bethesda as well as “some with external partners who have worked on our games,…
As part of its E3 2017 press conference, Microsoft announced a sequel to painterly platformer Ori And The Blind Forest. It’s called Ori And The Will Of The Wisps. It looks extremely pretty! I feel bad for the blind forest, which presumably cannot see itself. The game doesn’t have a release date yet, unfortunately.
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