Temtem, the PC MMO from developer Crema, has drawn a lot of comparisons to Nintendo’s Pokemon series. Adorable monsters, trainers, anime influence, etc. The game has now launched in early access on Steam, letting you train to be the very finest, like nobody has been before. And the launch comes alongside an animated trailer that pays homage to its inspirations like Saturday morning cartoons.
The Early Access version promises a 20+ hour campaign with four boss dojos, 76 Temtem, a breeding system, Luma (shiny) versions of Temtem, co-op and PvP, and three different islands. Long-term, Crema is planning to introduce more story content, a full roster of 161+ Temtem, three more islands, ranked PvP, mythical monsters, player housing, and special events.
It may scratch the itch for eager Pokemon trainers who have been asking Nintendo to make a proper MMO for years, but it looks to be more than just its inspirations. GameSpot editor Kallie Plagge noted in hands-on impressions that it twists the Pokemon formula in unique ways, and even Nintendo may even be wise to take notice.
Temtem is now available for $35. Crema says that Early Access players will pay less ultimately than others, as the price will gradually rise as more features are added. The game has also suffered some launch server hiccups, and the official Twitter account has been keeping fans regularly updated on those issues.
Okay, we’ve pushed a quick server config and everything is looking good right now.
If it stays like this we will be opening more slots for the queue!
Voyager’s Seven of Nine will make her triumphant return in Star Trek: Picard.
Star Trek: Voyager was the final series in a Trek television trilogy that began with Star Trek: The Next Generation and continued with Star Trek: Deep Space Nine. Between all three series, Star Trek was a staple of primetime television for an unbroken 15-year run.
After so much Trekking, Voyager was faced with a dilemma: How could the show explore strange new worlds and civilizations when the Alpha Quadrant had been so thoroughly explored? Thus, the producers made the decision to strand Captain Kathryn Janeway’s ship in the Delta Quadrant, a largely unexplored part of space that was 70,000 light years from Earth. The series was about Voyager’s attempts to get home–a journey that, without shortcuts, would take 75 years.
If you’re itching to know more about the upcoming year of Rainbow Six Siege content, Ubisoft has confirmed where and when to watch. The company announced that details for Year 5 of the online shooter will be shared at the 2020 Six Invitational, which is set for February 7-16 in Montreal.
Announcements will include details of the next Operation, along with dedicated panels for a deep-dive into both Siege and the game’s related esports scene. The company didn’t pinpoint exactly when in the festivities it will be going into detail about Year 5, but did share a basic schedule of events. The group stage starts on February 7, followed by playoffs on February 11. All of those preliminary events are not open to the public, but will be broadcast. The final days of the playoffs and the finals begin February 14, so any big announcements are likely to occur that weekend.
The championship is offering a $3 million prize pool, including a portion of the proceeds from the Road to SI 2020 Battle Pass. That in-game event includes a special map, unique sportswear for Operators, and other unique cosmetics. It costs 1200 credits (about $10) or you can jump ahead with a premium unlock for 2400 ($20).
Siege is one of Ubisoft’s most successful live games, a model it has tried to imitate to varying degrees of success in its other franchises. Last year the studio announced disappointing financial results and postponed several games, and has now begun a management restructuring–including bringing back the creative director for Rainbow Six: Vegas.
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If Doom Eternal‘s first three hours are anything to go by, the sequel to 2016’s Doom is shaping up to be one of the best games of 2020–or at least the most metal. Doom Eternal is set to launch on March 20 for PlayStation 4, Xbox One, and PC, with the Nintendo Switch version due out later this year, but it was originally scheduled to release last November before being delayed.
In an interview with VG247, executive producer Marty Stratton said that the team at id Software were working long hours in the leadup to the delay. “We were crunching pretty hard most of last year,” he explained. “It goes in phases. We’ll have one group of people crunching so the next group of people are teed up properly. As they get done, they may need to crunch a little bit.”
Developer crunch has been a hot button issue in the video game industry over the past couple of years, with criticism aimed at many developers for creating a culture of expected, and sometimes mandatory, overtime at the expense of employee wellbeing. Rockstar co-founder Dan Houser previously claimed that some employees were working 100-hour weeks on Red Dead Redemption 2, as an example. The closure of Telltale Games unearthed some painful truths, too, while it was recently revealed that Cyberpunk 2077’s delay won’t reduce crunch.
“We really truly do try and be very respectful of peoples’ time and lives,” Stratton said. “We have very dedicated people that just choose to work a lot in many cases. It was nice because we want the game to be perfect. We want it to live up to our expectations and consumer expectations.
“We work very hard and we’ll put in extra time to do that. Sometimes when we just get the extra time we do it anyways because we want it to be that much better. [A delay] takes a little bit of the steam and pressure out but it’s almost one of those things where we’ll push it even harder to get even more just as tight as it possibly can be.”
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The latest major update for Supergiant Games’ Early Access title Hades is now available to download on Steam and the Epic Games Store. The Long Winter update includes a host of new additions, introducing a new Olympian, a new weapon variant, new activities, more story, and numerous other improvements.
Demeter, the Goddess of Seasons, has brought winter to the Underworld along with some powerful new boons. You can now go for a spot of fishing to capture and sell fish using a new House Contractor item. There’s also a new Legendary Keepsake, new Daedalus Hammer upgrades, and new story events with over 1,000 new voice lines to go along with general gameplay improvements, bug fixes, and more.
• Demeter: the Goddess of Seasons brings winter to the Underworld! Seek out her powerful Boons
• Rod of Fishing: capture (& sell!!) Underworld river denizens with this new House Contractor item
• Aspect of Guan Yu: earn this unique new Aspect of the Eternal Spear, and vanquish your foes!
• Underworld Decor Galore: scores of new items are available at the newly renovated House Contractor!
• New Legendary Keepsake: forge an unbreakable bond with Dusa, and summon her to petrify your foes
• Boon Info & Victory Screen Update: pin multiple Boons onscreen for easy reference and sharing
• New Daedalus Hammer Upgrades: look for multiple new upgrades for each weapon
• New Story Events: uncover new secrets in hours of added narrative (with more than 1,000 new voice lines)
General Gameplay
• Increased prices of Boons sold by Charon
• Increased price of Daedalus Hammer sold by Charon
• Increased price of augmented Boons and Poms sold by Charon in the Temple of Styx
• Slightly reduced healing from tasty-looking Health Drops
• Reduced healing from Fountain Chambers; however, new House Contractor upgrades can increase it
• You may now encounter fishing points in various chambers, once you have the Rod of Fishing. Deliver your stock to the Head Chef in the House (who will take very good care of them)
Infernal Arms, Aspects, & Abilities
• Stygian Blade (Zagreus): now also increases Dash distance
• Eternal Spear (Guan Yu): newly added! Seek Achilles to learn more (once you have several Aspects)
• Eternal Spear (Zagreus): now increases Attack damage and Dash-Strike damage
• Shield of Chaos: slightly increased Bull Rush charge up time; slightly reduced Bull Rush damage
• Shield of Chaos (Zagreus): reduced damage resistance
• Shield of Chaos (Zeus): increased damage of Throw special
• Shield of Chaos (Chaos): now throws additional Shields in a radial pattern
• Adamant Rail: no longer briefly slows foes on-hit
Boons & Blessings
• Demeter: newly added! Seek out 11 new Boons and 4 new Duo Boons
• Billowing Strength (Zeus): reduced power level; increased effect duration
• Zeus’ Aid: reduced power scaling from improved rarity
• Scintillating Feast (Zeus x Dionysus): reduced damage
• Nasty Dash (Dionysus): now deals several instances of damage and Hangover (formerly called Poison)
• Second Wind (Hermes): increased effect duration; increased power scaling from improved rarity
• Passing Through (Hermes): cut from game (Demeter is the new curator of slowing effects)
• Relative Speed (Hermes): cut from game, same reason
• Quick Reload (Hermes): now offered by Hermes (donated by Artemis, who felt sorry for him)
• Slothful (Chaos): reduced how badly this curse can impair your move speed
• Defiance (Chaos): increased appearance rate
• Reduced power level of Chaos blessing effects at higher rarity
Daedalus Hammer Upgrades
• Cursed Slash (Blade): newly added! Restores health on-hit, but your life total is heavily reduced
• Shadow Slash (Blade): newly added! Deals bonus damage when striking foes in the back
• Serrated Edge (Spear): newly added! Your Dash-Strike hits multiple times but your Dash is shorter
• Charged Skewer (Spear): newly added! Press and hold to power up your Skewer special
• Quick Spin (Spear): no longer quite as quick
• Charged Throw (Shield): newly added! Press and hold to power up your Throw special
• World Smasher (Shield): newly added! Your Bull Rush is replaced with a powerful up-close strike
• Chain Shot (Bow): newly added! Your attack bounces between targets, dealing bonus damage
• Charged Volley (Bow): newly added! Press and hold to power up your Volley special
• Cluster Bomb (Rail): newly added! Your Bombard special fires a spread of 5 smaller bombs
• Hazard Bomb (Rail): newly added! Your Bombard special fires a big bomb that blasts the area around you, but can damage you (“Have you tried not standing there when it blows up?” –Hypnos)
• Delta Chamber (Rail): formerly Infinity Chamber ; now also fires in a 3-round burst
• Explosive Fire (Rail): cut from game
Foes & Encounters
• Introduction to Olympian Aid now gives you some God Gauge to use Poseidon’s Call
• Thanatos: should show up more frequently (once you encounter him for the first time in Elysium)
• After the other Fury Sisters show up, it is no longer possible to randomly avoid one indefinitely
• Alecto: reworked her Rage Gauge (you can knock her out of her rage-building move, but watch out)
• Skullomat: Elite is more powerful; reduced appearance rate in Asphodel
• Burn-Flinger: Elite attack pattern adjusted
• Wave-Fist: non-Elite throws one wave at a time (rather than two); adjusted Elite attack
• Reduced number of foes on the Asphodel Barge of Death under Middle Management (Pact)
• Bone Hydra: reworked aspects of this encounter to be faster though deadlier to compensate; one fewer phase; removed urns containing health (the Hydra finally realized they were there and ate them)
• Elysian Arrow Trap: attack now dissipates as soon as combat is over
• Flame Wheels: reduced health and Elite armor
• Nemean Chariot: no longer can hit multiple times in one charge
• Exalted Greatshield: appearance rate reduced; non-Elite no longer has a spin attack; reduced rotation and increased vulnerability times
• Soul Catcher (Elite): now more aggressive under the effects of Middle Management (Pact)
• The Minotaur: no longer gains brief invulnerability when low on health in the battle with Theseus
• Increased damage rate of Poison effects in the Temple of Styx
• Final Boss: various changes to attack patterns; resolved issues where cover sometimes did not work reliably against ranged attacks
Keepsakes & Items
• Companion Fidi (Dusa): newly added Legendary Keepsake! Summons Dusa to petrify your foes
• Companion Mort (Thanatos): increased effect radius; increased damage; reduced pre-attack time
• Companion Shady (Sisyphus): dropped goodies no longer block foes’ movement
• Companion Battie (Megaera): increased damage
• Frostbitten Horn (Demeter): newly added! Raises chance to find Demeter Boons with improved rarity
• Broken Spearpoint (Patroclus): now has a cooldown between uses; slightly increased effect duration
• Evergreen Acorn (Eurydice): reduced instances of damage absorption
• Myrmidon Bracer (Achilles): reduced damage reduction at higher ranks
The Lunar New Year is nearly upon us, and many retailers are starting to hold special events to commemorate the day. That latest Lunar New Year Sale is from digital PC games retailer Fanatical, which has discounted dozens of great titles for the holiday, including Red Dead Redemption 2, Monster Hunter World: Iceborne, and Star Wars Jedi: Fallen Order.
In addition to the regular Lunar New Year discounts, Fanatical is also holding special Star Deals, which are only available for a limited time or until keys stay in stock. The current Star Deal is the Metro Redux bundle for only $4.49. The Metro series is one of my favourites, so if you haven’t played these story-focused shooters, then I definitely recommend them–though please note that the deal ends on January 22 and keys are starting to dwindle.
Aside from discounting over 1,000 games, Fanatical is also holding a contest for $500 of store credit. To enter the contest, you have to agree to receive emails from Fanatical. After that, you can get more entries by doing various things, such as visiting Fanatical’s social media pages, following the store on Twitter and Twitch, or joining its Discord server and Steam group. You can enter the contest on Fanatical’s blog.
We’ve picked out some of the best games on sale below, but be sure to check out the full sale on Fanatical. There are plenty of deals not listed here that are definitely worth checking out.
Best PC game deals at Fanatical
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Hulu’s Marvel slate may have lost Ghost Rider, but it’s other, slightly more eccentric projects are proceeding as planned, including what may be the weirdest of the bunch: The animated M.O.D.O.K TV show. The full cast list (complete with character bios) has been announced and, unsurprisingly, it’s packed with some very, very funny people. Here’s who will be providing a voice for the show.
Patton Oswalt as M.O.D.O.K, a former supervillain in the throes of a midlife crisis.
Aimee Garcia as Jodie, M.O.D.O.K’s wife, a mommy-blogger turned lifestyle brand guru.
Ben Schwartz as Lou, M.O.D.O.K’s 12-year-old son who “isn’t smart enough to be a nerd” but “isn’t athletic enough to be a jock.”
Melissa Fumero as Melissa, M.O.D.O.K’s 17-year-old daughter and “Heathers-like queen bee.”
Wendi McLendon-Covey as Monica Rappaccini, a brilliant A.I.M scientist and M.O.D.O.K’s work rival.
Beck Bennet as Austin Van Der Sleet, a silicon valley tech giant who buys A.I.M.
Jon Daly as Super Adaptoid, M.O.D.O.K’s ambitious (but frustrated) android lacky.
Sam Richardson as Gary, a loyal A.I.M henchman.
For the uninitiated, M.O.D.O.K stands for Mental Organism Designed Only for Killing, and even if you’re not deeply embroiled in the weirder parts of Marvel comics, you’ve probably stumbled across him at some point or another. As a giant floating head, complete with tiny, vestigial arms and legs and a permanent scowl, M.O.D.O.K is kind of hard to forget. Introduced back in the late 1960s as a very, very serious villain and genuine threat to Marvel’s heroes (specifically, for Captain America, who he resented for being such a perfect physical specimen–no, really), M.O.D.O.K has since become something of a meme for comics fans.
Obviously, this Hulu show is planning on pushing those meme-levels to the absolute max. The premise, if you couldn’t already tell by those cast bios, revolves around M.O.D.O.K running his beloved supervillain organization, A.I.M (Advanced Idea Mechanics) into the ground while his personal life–including his human-looking son and, uh, M.O.D.O.K-shaped daughter, and his mommy-blogging wife–spiral out of control. It has all the trappings of a classic slice-of-life sitcom if classic slice-of-life sitcoms were about mutant megalomaniacs trying to navigate love and parenthood.
11 bit studios has released a new trailer for The Last Autumn, the latest expansion for Frostpunk. The Last Autumn is out now, available for purchase on its own or as part of Frostpunk’s season pass.
The Last Autumn acts as a prequel to the events of Frostpunk’s story, occurring during the years leading up to the endless winter seen in the game’s main campaign. In the expansion, you’ll witness how the never-ending frost began to blanket the landscape and also build the massive generator that your Frostpunk society will one day use to keep their city warm. The expansion also adds a new Endless Mode variant, Builders, which provides different set-ups you’ll have to face.
As The Last Autumn takes place prior to the events of Frostpunk, the expansion offers new features, which are outlined below.
New Features Available In The Last Autumn
Two new Books of Laws allowing players to shape their society in previously unknown ways
New threats and issues to deal with, such as toxic gases and workers going on strike
Influence society in creative new ways, from establishing labor unions to outright manipulation
New technology tree to unlock, inventions to discover, and resources to obtain
25 new buildings to construct, such as docks, a telegraph station, and a labor union building
New social classes, including Convicts–a cheap and obedient workforce.
Though Frostpunk can be a fairly depressing experience, it’s one of GameSpot’s must-play PC games of 2018 for how well it balances the satisfaction of city management building with the risk vs. reward of its consequence-driven storytelling. Frostpunk is now included in Xbox Game Pass, so you can try the game “for free” if you already have a subscription before considering whether you want to buy The Last Autumn.
In GameSpot’s Frostpunk review, Daniel Starkey gave the game a 9/10, writing, “Frostpunk is among the best overall takes on the survival city builder to date. Its theming and consistency create a powerful narrative through-line that binds your actions around the struggle to hold onto humanity in uncertain times. Hope is a qualified good, but you may not always be strong enough (or clever enough) to shelter that flame from the cold.”
Marvel’s X-Men renaissance is continuing with a brand new title, scheduled for release this April. Children Of The Atom, by Vita Ayala and Bernard Chang, will focus on a brand new team of teenage mutants who are directly inspired by some of the most famous X-Men in history.
“The initial seed of the idea actually came from [Editor] Chris Robinson: What if the X-Men had sidekicks?” explained Ayala in a press release. “My take on it became, what would actual kids from our current time be like if they were X-Men sidekicks? What would Gen Z X-Men be like?”
Children of the Atom #1 cover by R.B. Silva and Jesus Aburtov
Of course, this won’t be the first time Marvel has introduced a “next generation” style X-Men spin-off populated by new characters. Titles like New X-Men back in the early 2000s dealt with the reinvention and resurgence of teenage students at the Xavier Institute Of Higher Learning–and provided readers with up close and personal looks at some of the coolest new mutants around (Icarus, Blindfold, Surge, we’re talking about you). Though only a handful of these heroes would go on to be more than flashes in the proverbial pan, the precedent for new teenage mutants coming out of the woodwork to be taught by those who came before them has long since been set.
Children of the Atom #1 cover by R.B. Silva and Jesus Aburtov
It does seem, however, that this book will be taking a page out of a more recent Marvel playbook and taking a more meta-fictional look at the impact of mutants on the greater in-universe society. “What makes the new cast special to me is that they are reflective of a lot of people I know who look up to what the X-Men stand for, and have taken it upon themselves to further those ideals. These kids are exactly the kids who, in real life, have posters of Storm and Wolverine in their rooms, who grew up seeing them as heroes and want to live up to that,” Ayala said. Think something along the lines of Kamala Khan, aka Ms. Marvel, and her adoration of Carol Danvers–except, you know, with mutants. Obviously, the similarities between these new characters and some of the most immediately recognizable X-Men on the planet are no accident.
Destiny 2‘s community banded together to solve a secret quest and discover the mysteries of the Corridors of Time last week, eventually uncovering the quest for Bastion, the Season of Dawn’s latest Exotic. As of the weekly reset on January 21, you no longer need to complete the final run of the Corridors of Time to access the Exotic quest–but that doesn’t mean there’s nothing else to do in the Vex’s strange interdimensional domain.
The Corridors of Time still hold a few additional rewards. There are 19 paths through the maze that unlock lore items, allowing you to get a deeper look at the story of Saint-14. Another path rewards you with a secret emblem, the “Savior of the Past,” for your trouble. And finally, completing the 30-doorway solution path for the maze offers some Saint-14 dialogue that advances the story of the season. The thing is, if you haven’t unlocked those things, you’re now on the clock to do so: the Corridors of Time will only be in the game for another week. According to Bungie, the Corridors will collapse on Tuesday, January 28, and you won’t be able to get any of the stuff from inside once that happens.
In order to earn rewards from the Corridors of Time, you need to take specific pathways through it. Each room of the maze includes several different exits, each marked with a signpost and a symbol. For the lore book titled “The Pigeon and the Phoenix,” you need to follow the pathways made up of seven different symbols; for the emblem, the pathway is 11 symbols long; and for the maze solution, you need to complete a pathway of 30 symbols.
That sounds like a lot, but navigating the maze is actually pretty easy. It’s filled with Vex enemies but they can almost always be safely ignored. Completing a run takes only 5-10 minutes. For a full rundown of the pathways, check out our complete Corridors of Time guide.
If wandering the Corridors doesn’t sound interesting to you, you can safely skip it and still get Bastion. Use our Bastion guide to complete the quest for the Exotic fusion rifle quickly.
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