Prison Architect escapes Early Access

Prison Architect has finally tunneled its way out of Early Access, after 3 long years of additions and improvements.

Prison Architect has finally tunneled its way out of Early Access, after 3 long years of additions and improvements. Check out the trailer above for the pitch, plus some stylish country scat.

With the now widespread popularity of the Early Access model, for many people this may well be one of those 'oh I thought that was out already' releases. If you're the type who likes to wait until devs tell you their game is 'done', however, this is your cue to start building some prisons.

There's been all sorts of excited chatter about Prison Architect since before the alpha was even available, Introversion blending free-form construction and personality into a compelling management sim. Look, like this:

I'm still waiting for the (sadly non-existent) Democracy 3tie in that lets you choose whether to give prisoners the right to vote.

Scrolls beta release date announced, launch trailer released by Mojang

Mojang , the Swedish developer behind indie superhit Minecraft , has been teasing us with glimpses of its next game, Scrolls , for quite some time.

, for quite some time. After two years of development, a long periodof alpha testingand a protracted legal battlewith Bethesda, Scrolls is finally set for a beta release next Monday, June 3.

In the new launch trailer, the blocky voxels of Minecraft have been replaced with cartoony animations, Battle Chess-style turn-based carnage, and Magic: The Gathering-inspired deck building and card collection. It's a very different kind of game, but Mojang is hoping to deploy the same addictive gameplay and vocal online community that marked their first release.

Players can expect to use their customized decks to battle computer enemies in single player or take to the online servers for human opponents and potential trading partners. For a complete recounting of the game's systems and rules, check out the brief Scrolls guideand prepare yourself for next week's open beta release.

Scrolls's beta phase will be open to customers who buy in for $20 or £13, according to the official Scrolls blog.

Esports aren't a ticket to mainstream acceptance of gaming

SKT T1 at MSI, photo by LoLesports.

There are hundreds of TV stations in Seoul and one of them is devoted entirely to fishing, but it’s still strange to flick through them and come across two channels of esports. You thumb past a K-pop video and an episode of Vampire Prosecutorand suddenly your TV screen is full of League of Legends or StarCraft II or FIFA. It’s especially odd watching FIFA since more recent games in the series have become so similar to actual televised soccer that there’s a second of confusion where you think the new season’s players have even more terrible haircuts than usual before you realize they’re digital.

The steps that lead South Korea to have this level of acceptance for competitive gaming read like something out of an alternate history novel. While early consoles were widely available there, sometimes thanks to local manufacturers creating clones of them, in the 1990s the games themselves became more restricted. While violent PC games were sometimes censored—even StarCraft had to be modified and sold in two different versions, one rated Teen and the other Adult—console games were hit harder. Not because they were more violent, but because they were more Japanese. In 1994 the Korean government banned mass media from using the Japanese language, and the delay caused by localizing massive JRPGs meant they were beaten to the market by pirate copies and illegal imports. They were the most popular genre of console game in South Korea, and yet it wasn’t worthwhile selling them there.

Where consoles struggled, PCs caught up the slack. They were helped by the South Korean government’s massive investment in telecommunications and internet infrastructure. The country now has some of the fastest internet in the world, making online gaming an attractive lag-free proposition even in its infancy. And those esports channels wouldn’t exist if it weren’t so cheap to get a TV station up and running in Seoul. Now Korea has esports arenas and prizes valued in the millions, but even so the audience is still mostly casual, switching loyalties from team to team as their fortunes change. It’s a large niche, but it’s still a niche, and nothing compared to the audience for mukbang, for instance—videos of people eating, which are massively popular on streaming service AfreecaTV and earn a living for some of the people making them.

Competitive gaming is a large niche, but it’s still a niche, and nothing compared to the audience for mukbang.

While esports is a bigger deal in South Korea than it is in the west, it hasn’t resulted in the paradise of mainstream acceptance for video games outsiders assume it has. Education is incredibly important in Korean culture—another reason the PC is so prominent, as you can pretend it’s totally being used for homework, Dad—and gaming is seen as an impediment to young people’s study habits. The Youth Protection Revision bill, passed in 2011, bans players under 16 from online games between midnight and 6.00am. It’s colloquially known as the Cinderella law, and its purpose is to prevent kids from neglecting schoolwork because they’re up all night playing MapleStory or World of Warcraft. Even though the Ministry of Culture, Sports and Tourism created an organizational body called KeSPA, the Korean e-Sports Association, gaming remains as mistrusted by the government and media as it is anywhere else.

On Twitch, where the audience is made of people who are already video game fans, League of Legends is the most-watched game. But on YouTube, with its much a broader audience, League of Legends is number five. Number one by a gigantic margin is Minecraft. According to Octoly’s figuresthere were 3,900 million views of Minecraft videos on YouTube in April. Number two on the list, Grand Theft Auto, had 1,390 million monthly views. It’s not hard to see why the YouTube audience watches Minecraft in overwhelming preference to other video games. They don’t watch it for competition, but it to see people playing the same way they do, experimenting with mods and co-operating to build amazing, extravagant things. The feats of exceptionalism they’re interested in are when someone builds Minas Tirithor the Starship Enterpriseor all of Westeros.

'Video games are like sports' can be a useful analogy for explaining our hobby to people who don’t play games, but in the long run it does a poor job demonstrating why games matter. It’s the games you can’t really compare to something that already exists that can convince people to take them seriously. When parents worry about what their kids are playing, when governments change their mind about censoring games again, when the media ham-fistedly covers the latest controversy, the competitive side of games won’t convince them to take a more serious look. Showing them the cooperation required to work together with a group of friends to make castles in the sky is both more honest to the average person’s experience of games and more likely to win them over.

Personally I’d rather be watching the K-pop channel than Minecraft, though. At least until someone uses that game to create mermaids being turned into sushior post-apocalyptic warlords in outfits this fabulous.

1It’s about a prosecutor who is a vampire, not a human who prosecutes vampires. That would just be silly.

2In the Yongsan Electronics Market there’s a place called Video Game Alley where I found a Samsung Gam*Boy for sale, Korea’s equivalent of the Sega Master System. Samsung followed the Gam*Boy with the Super Gam*Boy, which ran Genesis games, though it was later renamed the Alladin Boy after the popular game based on the movie.

3This was exacerbated by worries about the potential for games to cause epileptic fits in children. Remember the mass hysteria over ‘Pokemon Shock’ when an episode of the anime was blamed for Japanese children suffering fits? A similar outcry occurred in South Korea when a boy experienced a fit while playing Street Fighter II, and again it was primarily Japanese games and consoles that lost sales because of parental concern.

4Mukbangs or “eating broadcasts” are livestreams in which someone eats a large meal in front of a camera while interacting with viewers via chat. Mukbangs are incredibly popular and their hosts, or Broadcast Jockeys (yes, BJs for short), receive fan donations that can add up to a lot. In Korean culture meals are traditionally a social activity and it’s often difficult to order food for one in a restaurant because everything is served with the expectation of communal eating. Modern lifestyles and work habits results in a lot more people eating at home alone and so the mukbangs restore a sense of the social to dinnertime.

5To sign up for online games in South Korea you need to provide a Korean Social Identity Number and phone number so that your age can be verified. Punishments for getting around the system, say by using your parents’ ID without permission or buying one from the thriving black market, can result in up to two years’ imprisonment and a $9,000 fine.

2011 Canadian Videogame Award finalists announced

One misconception about Canadians is that we spend our lives obsessing over hockey, guzzling superior beer and adding extra vowels to our words. This is simply not true %26ndash; we do all that, and also make and play a ton of videogames. In honour (that's honour with a 'u') of this, the Canadian Videogame Awards are returning to Vancouver this May for a second year, and today its producers released

Scrolls' public beta due for release next month

Scrolls , Mojang's turn-based card collecting strategy, is finally set for a public release.

, Mojang's turn-based card collecting strategy, is finally set for a public release. You'll be able to tear open the game from the shiny foil wrapper of the internet next month - with the launch planned for some point around the end of April. Initially releasing in beta, Mojang are planning a discounted version for early adopters. It makes sense: they did the same for Minecraft, and that's now made about 25% of all the money in the world. Probably.

Speaking to Polygon, Mojang's Jakob Porser talked about sales expectations in the wake of Minecraft's roaring success. "That's hard, Minecraft is doing so well," he said. "People have asked, do you feel like this is a difficult second album and it's a valid question."

"The way we approach it is this is the game we wanted to make. We realize it's a narrow genre compared to what Minecraft has become. I have no expectation that Scrolls is going to sell way beyond Minecraft, absolutely not. What I would like is for the game to find a core, a bunch of players that actively love the game. The beautiful thing with Mojang and the success of Minecraft is that we really don't have that pressure, that every game has to sell x amount of copies or we're going to go bankrupt. So we're in a good position that we can experiment and try some of the stuff that we want to do and we are going to do that."

"We don't want to screw people over by saying, 'Here is Minecraft 2, it's exactly like Minecraft 1, but give us more money."

In the interview, Pilsner also reaffirms support for free updates to Scrolls, saying the developers see the game more as a "service". He also talks about monetization, saying that Mojang are considering purchases for avatar customisation or deeper stat-tracking, but reassuring that, "we want to keep [the core game experience] as far away from monetization as possible."

Thanks, The Verge.

Aqua League is a StarCraft 2 mod reminiscent of Rocket League

You know a game has "made it" when it starts to appear in other games.

You know a game has "made it" when it starts to appear in other games. As the video above demonstrates, modder Bounty4321has managed to build something very similar to Rocket Leaguein StarCraft 2, using WarCraft assets. It's only in alpha and isn't available on Battle.net as yet, but all you need to know is that it exists. That's enough for me.

You'll notice a few obvious differences: as the name suggests, Aqua League is set in a shallow pool ("I've always wanted to do a game that had something to do with water" the modder says on his YouTube page). Meanwhile, instead of rocket-powered cars you're controlling bipedal creatures. Doesn't matter in the end, because the objective is still to get a giant ball into your opponent's net.

"Its Nagas Vs Revenants in a battle to see who can please their God the most by scoring," Bounty4321 writes in the YouTube description. He says he started working on the concept before Rocket League, but conceded that he "won't deny that the game does take inspiration from it". I'm looking forward to checking the final build out, or at least watching other people play it.

Thanks, Reddit.

Is Wii U doomed? A little context shows a brighter future

Nintendo has released its financial results for the fiscal year of 2013. In case you didn’t go to business school, that accounts for all the company’s commerce from April 1, 2012 to March 31, 2013. There’s a lot of information to parse out, including the N being technically profitable thanks to a weakening Yen and 3DS sales outpacing DS sales from the same time period, but likely the biggest takeaway

Scrolls release date announced, launch trailer shows tactical battling and sacrificial bunnies

About a minute and ten seconds into this launch trailer for Scrolls , Mojang's strategy card game, you can clearly see a player firing a catapult at a little group of bunnies.

, Mojang's strategy card game, you can clearly see a player firing a catapult at a little group of bunnies. Now I know morality can be a tricky thing, but come on! What harm have bunnies ever done? Lynched lagomorphs aside, the trailer also reveals the date of the open beta, due next week on June 3rd.

For more on the game, you can peruse Mojang's mini-guide. At least, you can when the site stops being trampled under the weight of the studio's excited fans. And if that's not enough, we took a look at the game's deck system last year.

Scrolls will be available for £13/€15/$20.

StarCraft 2 American and Korean WCS Season 1 finals this weekend

We're coming up on the biggest weekend for StarCraft II eSports in 2013 so far, with both the Korean and American WCS Season 1 finals concluding the first round of Blizzard's new, worldwide tournament format.

We're coming up on the biggest weekend for StarCraft II eSports in 2013 so far, with both the Korean and American WCS Season 1 finals concluding the first round of Blizzard's new, worldwide tournament format. The Korean finals between INnoVation and Soulkey will have already started by the time you read this, but you should be able to check out the WCS archivesshortly after the broadcast. The American finals, beginning with the Round of 8, will run throughout the weekend.

Remaining players in the American premier league are South Koreans HerO, Alicia, Ryung, CranK, aLive, and Revival, as well as Australia's mOOnGLaDe, and Norway's Snute. You'll be able to tune in on the WCS Twitch channelfor the live stream from MLG's studio in New York starting tomorrow, June 1, at 10:00 a.m. PDT. The finals broadcast is the same time Sunday. The champions of both the American and Korean Premier Leagues will take home $20,000, and 1500 WCS points—the most that can be earned in any one tournament.

Blizzard has provided an official bracketfor you to fill out, and score yourself against your friends. You can read more about the event on the StarCraft II eSports hub.

GR+Deals: Grab Assassin's Creed Unity for $20

Assassin's Creed Unity is the first new-gen game in the series, and it's packed with French assassination action that the revolutionaries crave. Maybe you've been hesitant to pick up the latest entry, or maybe you were waiting for a sale. Good news! Right now, you can grab Assassin's Creed Unity for just $19.99 - that's 67% off regular price - for PS4, Xbox One, and PC. Requiescat in pace. GamesRadar+ receives a portion of the revenue from each unit sold.

Scrolls alpha: Mojang explain how the decks shake down

By now you've almost certainly picked up the latest copy of PC Gamer and swiped the free code for Scrolls tucked within.

and swiped the free code for Scrolls tucked within. Plug it into your Mojang.comaccount and you'll have free access not just to the alpha of card-battler Scrolls, but to every subsequent revision of the game . Which is nice - particularly if you want to join the devs for a game tomorrow night.

And you should, because it's a clever thing, this Scrolls - it takes the deck-building of something like Magic: The Gathering and grafts it onto a digital boardgame, in which the positioning of your units is critical. There's a handy beginners guide over on the Scrolls' website, but below we talk to Scrolls' developers Jakob Porsér and Måns Olson to find out about the interplay between its different decks.

The principle of the game will be familiar to those who've played Magic: each turn you spend points from a resource pool to play cards in your hand. In Magic, resources are particular colours of mana, which you gather during the course of the game as you draw cards from your deck into your hand, and can only be spent to play cards of the same colour. In Scrolls the resources are, uh, resources: Energy, Growth and Order, with a soon-to-launch fourth resource detailed below.

The difference is that you can only add points to your resource pool by sacrificing one of the cards (known here as scrolls) from your hand, leading to a tense trade-off: do you axe the expensive cards and keep the weaker ones that are immediately useful to you, or do you bin the basic troops and hope to hold out until you can unleash a behemoth?

There's also another dynamic to contend with: the board itself. When you play a card, you get to physically deposit the creature it represents on a grid. The units then count down a certain number of turns until they attack (in a manner vaguely reminiscent of the excellent Capybara game, Clash of Heroes), ploughing forward to deliver a blow to whatever lies before them: enemy troops, fortifications, or - if there are no defences in place - the idol that sits at the end of each row. Destroy three enemy idols and the game is over, so positioning becomes very important.

“Taking control of the board, not letting your opponent get a foot in the door, is so important in Scrolls,” says Jakob. “There are ways someone can turn this around, but you want to have control for as long as possible. So if you can choose whether to attack and kill one of his units, or attack and kill one of his idols, which is the game's ultimate goal focus, you probably want to go for the units most of the time just to keep him at bay.”

Meanwhile, as in Magic, the resources and the cards associated with them offer very different styles of play. How do they stack up?

“If you want to go play a one-coloured deck then you're probably going to be exposed to certain weaknesses,” says Jakob. “If you build a multi-resource deck then you can patch up the holes better, but you will have a harder time with the resource management in the game.”

“With Growth the idea is to have lots of weak creatures initially,” says Måns. “Some of them will grow over time, using enchantments to make them stronger.”

“There's a real ramp up,” says Jakob. “You start out really slow but, as your units grow, you can get board control. The idea is to dominate the board and just keep building up your units and become overbuilt in the end. If you get the right scrolls, that is.”

“Energy has stronger creatures from the beginning but it's a little more expensive,” says Måns.

Jakob cites Energy as his favourite single-resource deck: “I like where that is right now, because it's just mean and powerful and packs a punch. It's not very subtle, it's not very intelligent, it's just super mean. It's very aggressive. But with regards to board control, you get behind the race at the beginning. So it's kind of hard, you need to turn it around. But you can, because the units you get after a while are really big, can pack a punch.”

“Order is a slightly more manipulative resource,” says Måns. “There's various trickery you can perform with movement spells to teleport you or your enemies round the board. Order also has army traits - there's a general who will reset the countdown of units next to him to make them attack on the same turn as him.”

“I think currently the Order is one of the trickier ones,” says Jakob. “It has a lot of manipulation spells tied to it. Doesn't have a lot of big units, but it has a lot of glass cannons and tricky spells. So you'll do some damage, but it's easy to get overrun all of a sudden if you don't keep your wits about you."

It's early days yet with much balancing to be done, and one of the proper tests of this is in how well the resources work in combination with one another. Måns has been experimenting with a Growth/Order deck. I ask him if he's found a winning strategy.

“It's a very new deck, so I'm not sure I've found the best use for it,” he says, “but we have a creature which costs five Growth, called the Kinfolk Veteran. He has haste, which means he attacks the moment he comes onto the playing field and also a relatively high attack value, and you can combine that with a relatively cheap Order spell called focus - and then that spell gives him a temporary buff to his attack power. So for a relatively low mana value get a unit on the board which attacks for six damage the same turn, and basically kills any unit that's in front of him, and then stay on the board as a strong unit. But it's such a specific combination it's not something you can count on.”

And what about that mysterious fourth resource?

“We're actually working on it right now,” says Jakob. “I don't know how much we are talking about it, but it's going to be very mean in its own way. It's going to be very evil, it's going to be very dark - oriented around death and the death of your units. The decay of your own board can actually help you. So I think it's going to introduce a new way of playing the game.”

Let us know in the comments how you get on with the alpha, and any cool strategies you discover.

DreamHack Stockholm is underway: StarCraft 2 eSports live from Sweden

The first major event of Dreamhack's 2013 season is up and running from Stockholm, Sweden.

is up and running from Stockholm, Sweden. 96 top StarCraft II players have gathered to compete for $27,000 in prizes and up to 750 WCS points. Two group stages have already concluded, but there are plenty more matches to catch leading up to and including the overall finals on the 27th.

While DreamHack is not an official part of the Blizzard's World Championship Series, it is one of a set of tournaments that has been given permission to hand out WCS points, which will affect player rankings just the same as placing in a WCS event. In addition, the top four players from Stockholm will be seeded directly into the Grand Finals at DreamHack Winter in November, one of the most prestigious tournaments in all of StarCraft II.

Some notable competitors include Germany's XlorD and Empire's Happy, from Russia, who have both maintained 6-0 records in pool play thus far—being the only foreigners to do so, along with South Koreans ForGG and Leenock. The third group stage is just getting started as we're publishing this story—tune in live on DreamHack's official stream.

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Scrolls enters alpha stage

Mojang's tactical collectable card battler, Scrolls, has just entered its alpha stage.

Mojang's tactical collectable card battler, Scrolls, has just entered its alpha stage. A random selection of testers will be chosen from those who've previously signed up. More players will be added over time.

A post on the Scrollswebsite explains what you can expect from the build. Deck building and multiplayer features are intact, but single player is limited to AI skirmishes rather than the full campaign which will come with boss battles and more. An official community site and forum, scrollsfans.com, has also been unfurled.

Have you got your hands on an alpha code? Let us know how you get on in the comments.

Evil Geniuses remove IdrA from their Starcraft 2 roster after the pro-player insulted fans

Esports team Evil Geniuses have "released" Starcraft 2 pro Greg "IdrA" Fields from their roster, after he insulted the SC2 community in a forum post earlier in the week.

Esports team Evil Geniuses have "released" Starcraft 2 pro Greg "IdrA" Fields from their roster, after he insulted the SC2 community in a forum post earlier in the week. The often contentious Zerg player posted in the Team Liquid forum's " The IdrA Fanclub" thread Wednesday morning, calling fans "a bunch of fucks" after one poster jokingly suggested he was "crying inside" because of "enforced facade."

"Nope you're all a bunch of fucks," IdrA said in his now deleted reply. "It just so happens I get paid to treat you like it. It's fucking awesome."

Ultimately, Evil Geniuses decided he wasn't paid to treat eSports fans like that, and yesterday released a statementannouncing his departure.

"To state the obvious, this was a very difficult decision for us," wrote EG CEO Alexander Garfield. "Over the past several years, we as an organization have grown close to Greg, and we have developed a deep appreciation and respect for him as a person. We consider him a member of our family, and parting ways with him leaves us all with a very heavy feeling in our stomachs."

Garfield notes EG's philosophy of letting players be themsleves, noting that, "This is why it was never really an issue for us that Greg can be rude to his opponents in games, or that he usually speaks his mind very bluntly and directly." But he carefully makes the distinction between opponents and community of people that directly support the eSports scene.

"The eSports industry, and companies like Evil Geniuses, would not be possible without the passion and support of our community. We, as a company, cannot and will not be supportive of anyone who does not show due respect and appreciation for the community that makes everything we do possible."

It must be a difficult balance for a largely vitriolic public persona to strike. IdrA's BM behaviour was a big part of his love-to-hate appeal. But EG has been on the frontlines of promoting professionalism among its pros, previously suspending player Ilyes "Stephano" Satouri after he was caught joking about sexual abuse during a stream.

Do you think IdrA went too far, or was he just giving fans more of what they'd come to expect?

Thanks, PCGamesN.

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Scrolls closed beta incoming, new trailer and screenshots appear

The Scrolls site has been relaunched with a new trailer, screenshots, and news of an incoming closed alpha that'll give select applicants an early taste of Mojang's collectible card battling game.

has been relaunched with a new trailer, screenshots, and news of an incoming closed alpha that'll give select applicants an early taste of Mojang's collectible card battling game. That's phase one. "As we get closer to a stable build, we will stop the closed alpha, and move to an open beta, where you will be able to buy the game at a reduced price and with some added benefits" says Scrolls dev Jakob Porser.

There's no mention of what these "added benefits" will be just yet, but the open beta will operate in a similar way to Minecraft. Extra features like a scrolls auction house and single player missions will be added as the beta progresses.

"If you're wondering why we would release a game that's obviously not finished, the reason is simple: We want your feedback in good time to help us shape Scrolls to be the next big online Collectible Card Game," Porser adds.

So here it is, our first glimpse of Scrolls. It's hard to make a trailer for card battles exciting. What do you think?

Starcraft 2: WCS Europe Season 1 group play kicks off tonight

With the qualifiers now finished, the 32 players competing in the first season of the European leg of Starcraft 2's World Championship Series have been announced.

World Championship Series have been announced. The pros have been split into eight groups, with each group battling on a different night over the next three weeks. The first group - featuring SaSe, ForGG, sLivko and Bunny - kick things off tonight, from 6pm CEST/5pm BST.

Each group will fight five best-of-three matches, using the following format:

Player #1 vs. Player #4 Player #2 vs. Player #3 Winners of these matches will then face each other The losers of the initial matches face each other The loser of the 3rd match and the winner of the 4th match will face each other

The two players to win two games overall will move forward to the 16-player second stage, with the losers dropping to the Challenger League.

Play will continue tomorrow, with the Group B battles, then resume next week with Groups C-E fighting from Tuesday to Thursday. See the full timetable and player list below:

You can watch the WCS, for free, at the official WCS Europe stream. Do any of the upcoming match-ups take your fancy?

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Hearthstone will get alternate paid heroes for the current classes

Well, that didn’t take long.

Yesterday’s teasefrom Blizzardabout something new coming to Hearthstonehas already been unveiled. And, as the masses predicted, we’re going to see alternate heroes for the current classes. Whether or not you’ll get to do more than just see them—like actually play as them—is between you and your wallet, as the new heroes will only be unlockable through a real money transaction.

Magni Bronzebeard, the king of the Ironforge dwarves in Warcraft lore, is the first new hero to be revealed and will cost $10/£7, allowing you to use him as an alternate hero for the Warrior class. To be perfectly clear, purchasing and using Magni instead of the regular Warrior hero, Garrosh Hellscream, will have absolutely no effect on gameplay, only making cosmetic changes—similar in practice and pricing to skins in MOBAs like League of Legendsor Dota 2. Magni will have an animated hero portrait, change the look of a small area of the board around him, have unique emotes, a new animation for his hero power—though the hero power’s effect is the same—and also comes with a unique card back.

It’s also worth noting the language Blizzard has used in their announcement doesn’t explicitly state that every class will be getting an alternate hero, and leaves the door open for a class to have more than two options, saying Magni is “the first new Warrior Hero for Hearthstone.” There’s no word on when Magni will be available to purchase, only that he is “coming soon,” but it has been confirmedthat Blizzard won’t be waiting until they have nine new heroes.

Starcraft 2: WCS Europe Season 1 group play kicks off tonight

With the qualifiers now finished, the 32 players competing in the first season of the European leg of Starcraft 2's World Championship Series have been announced.

World Championship Series have been announced. The pros have been split into eight groups, with each group battling on a different night over the next three weeks. The first group - featuring SaSe, ForGG, sLivko and Bunny - kick things off tonight, from 6pm CEST/5pm BST.

Each group will fight five best-of-three matches, using the following format:

Player #1 vs. Player #4 Player #2 vs. Player #3 Winners of these matches will then face each other The losers of the initial matches face each other The loser of the 3rd match and the winner of the 4th match will face each other

The two players to win two games overall will move forward to the 16-player second stage, with the losers dropping to the Challenger League.

Play will continue tomorrow, with the Group B battles, then resume next week with Groups C-E fighting from Tuesday to Thursday. See the full timetable and player list below:

You can watch the WCS, for free, at the official WCS Europe stream. Do any of the upcoming match-ups take your fancy?

Assassin's Creed Unity season pass owners get free game this week

Unless you haven't been paying attention to the internet for the last month, you already know why Ubisoft discontinued Assassin's Creed Unity 's season passes and pledged to give its biggest piece of DLC away for free to all owners of the game. For those who bought the pass unaware of the glitchy troubles awaiting them, it's nearly time to claim your compensation. Unity season pass owners can choose

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Humble Bundle launches monthly subscription program

Humble Bundle has been going strong for a few years, and now it's launching something new.

has been going strong for a few years, and now it's launching something new. The Humble Monthly Bundleis a subscription service that delivers bundles to customers for $12 a month. Humble is pitching this service as a bit of an adventure, an opportunity for gamers to get games they might not have picked up otherwise. See the video below, which has a mysterious woods and everything.

"PC games delivered digitally to you in a monthly subscription bundle," the announcement page reads. "Join for a new slate of games every month. Every bundle you get is yours to keep." Humble is promising both "hidden gems" and "timeless classics."

The spirit of this announcement seems genuine and adventurous, but I'm not convinced I need an exciting new way to grow my Pile of Shame any bigger than it already is. The first monthly bundle won't unlock until November 6, but subscribing now earns you a copy of the very good Legends of Grimrock 2.

Indie Intermission – Looking At The World From A Different ‘Perspective’

Apparently this week is turning into a week largely focusing on puzzle games following up yesterdays game with Perspective .

Perspective has been created for a student project by a group of students at Digipen.

Perspective is a very unique and highly creative puzzle game as you must move around the chamber, altering your perspective and allowing you to complete the level. It truly is a novel idea and one I have never quite came across before but the execution here is just superb.

Perspective offers a great challenge to anyone who enjoys puzzle games whilst offering something a little different yet highly innovative and just awesome. The difficulty gain feels adequate with the first few rooms starting out very easy slowly introducing more and more complex puzzles for you to complete.

Average play time – Less than an hour

Perspective is full of style and offers a suitable difficulty level throughout allow a diligent player to learn the subtle intricacies on offer. For a free game developed by students Perspective feels full and rounded, just feeling like a very quality game all round.

Be sure to download Perspective and give it a go for yourself from the official site.

If you are a developer with A fun indie game that can be played over a coffee break, we want to hear from you! Private message us on twitter @IndieGameMag or shoot us an email at editors@indiegamemag.com with the subject “Indie Intermission” and you could be our indie intermission pick of the day!

Naughty Dog's Lemarchand Defines Uncharted 's Heritage

Our BlizzCon 2015 predictions

BlizzCon begins tomorrow, so Tim and I took a crack at the ol' prediction game.

begins tomorrow, so Tim and I took a crack at the ol' prediction game. We spent a few minutes discussing what we expect to see announced for each of Blizzard's games. While StarCraft 2and World of Warcraftseem like they'll have pretty predictable announcements, what's coming for Hearthstoneand Overwatchare much more up in the air—though rumors are already starting to flyabout Overwatch's pricing model. Watch the full video above to hear what we think Blizzard will announce at tomorrow's opening ceremony, and be sure to check back for all our BlizzCon coverage in the coming days.

Also, we sort of forgot to talk about Diablo. But if we can forget an entire game series, it probably doesn't speak highly of the likelihood of major news for that franchise. Blizzard has said it will be discussing what's next for Reaper of Souls and updates to the game, but I doubt we'll see any sort of big expansion announcement—though we do know it has some interest in revisiting the originals.

NetEase Profits Up As Company Eyes Call of Duty License

Interview: Building A Brand New Pokemon Universe With Black And White

Six amazing Hearthstone games from the ATLC finals

This weekend saw the conclusion of the Archon Team League Championship finals, in which Cloud9, Tempo Storm, Value Town and Nihilum battled for a slice of the $250,000 prize pool.

finals, in which Cloud9, Tempo Storm, Value Town and Nihilum battled for a slice of the $250,000 prize pool. On Sunday the number of concurrent viewers reached over 120,000, making this the most-watched Hearthstone tournament to date, ahead of last year’s BlizzCon finals.

The eventual winner—spoiler incoming, apply protective goggles now—was Nihilum, which had to do things the hard way after losing its initial seeding series. Nihilum’s team of Lifecoach, RDU and Thijs had to play an astonishing 56 games over the course of three days on their way to beating Cloud9.

Perhaps battle-hardened by the extra matches, the final series was something of a stomp, but there were tons of great games over the course of the weekend. Here I’ve picked six of the most interesting and exciting matches. There are some incredibly tense finishes, some unfavourable match-ups won against the odds, and of course the odd big RNG swing, which is where we start...

1. Dog’s Patron Warrior vs StrifeCro’s Midrange Paladin (Value Town vs Cloud9)

This was a ridiculous game. Patron Warrior was, as expected, one of the most played decks at ATLC, but despite its undeniable power it’s still capable of some rough draws. Dog began here, as he did in many of his games over the first couple of days, with an absolutely dreadful hand, and soon found himself under pressure from StrifeCro’s pally. His first wave of Patrons gets dealt with, but a double tick of Emperor Thaurissan’s effect helps him climb back and leave StrifeCro hanging by a thread.

There’s a potential missed lethal in there from Dog before StriefeCro draws a string of life-saving top decks which includes a punishing Equality to complete the Consecrate combo, a clutch Sludge Belcher, and, most ludicrously, pulling Old Murk-Eye from a Murloc Knight—a 1-in-12 roll—at which point Forsen, who was casting, simply shouts “motherfucker!” When you’re at one life against Patron the game is usually long gone. Here StrifeCro holds out for multiple turns, before eventually running Dog out of damage.

2. Hyped’s Midrange Druid vs Rdu’s Secret Paladin (Tempo Storm vs Nihilum)

On the subject of pulling unlikely minions from other minions, this was a game ultimately won by what the Piloted Shredder spat out. Hyped starts with something close to the dream Druid hand, full of lovely mana ramp and useful removal spells. However, Rdu is able to stall until his Mysterious Challenger turn thanks to a Haunted Creeper, Blessing of Kings buff and a Coghammer. Despite using double Wrath to deal with the Challenger, Hyped finds himself struggling to play around all the secrets, but still looks to be just about ahead until Lorewalker Cho—which gives your opponent a copy of whatever spells you play—pops from Rdu’s Shredder. Rdu is then able to refill his hand via the unlikely route of giving Hyped free secrets via Cho, and then using Divine Favor. From there Hyped is left in the impossible position of needing to use Savage Roar to clear, but thereby dooming himself in the process. The Cho giveth, and the Cho taketh away.

3. Gaara’s Dragon Priest vs Thijs’s Freeze Mage (Tempo Storm vs Nihilum)

The lack of burst in Dragon Priest meant that Gaara was always unfavoured against Thijs’s Freeze Mage, which relies on stalling the game until it can do a barrage of spell damage. Gaara’s clunky early draws, which included expensive late-game cards like Ysera and Confessor Paletress, do little to help. Nor does the fact he ends up having to use Cabal Shadow Priest to suicidally steal a Doomsayer. Nonetheless, Hearthstone is a cruel tease, and for a while it looks like Gaara’s steadily growing board of buffed creatures might be able to exert enough pressure, especially when a Nightmare spell from Ysera helps pop Thijs’s first protective Ice Block. But as will be familiar to those of you who’ve lost similar games on ladder, the combination of freeze effects, plus a second Ice Block and a top-decked burn spell, enable Thijs to carry the game. Despite losing, Gaara piloted the match superbly and deserves huge credit for turning such a one-sided matchup into a nail biter.

4. Eloise’s Zoo Warlock vs Lifecoach’s Demon Handlock (Tempo Storm vs Nihilum)

This Warlock on Warlock slugfest was easily the game of the tournament, with multiple insane swings. As expected, Eloise’s Zoo grabs early board control, and she makes a brilliant read that there isn’t another demon lurking behind Lifecoach’s Voidwalker. However, her Imp-losion spell whiffs twice by only rolling two imps, which proves particularly costly on the second occasion as Lifecoach is able to clean up much of her board. I don’t want to spoil the rest as it’s so nuts, but prepare yourself for multiple Mal’Ganis plays, the inevitable arrival of the good Dr Boom (plural), plus perfect knife juggles and… just watch it. Pay particular attention to the gamut of agonised emotion displayed on both player’s faces, particularly Lifecoach who seems to be giving birth to a porcupine on most turns. As the end gets near the crowd goes wild. Then wilder. And when Frodan gasps “That was exact lethal” it feels like pretty much the perfect Hearthstone tournament moment so far.

5. Dog’s Oil Rogue vs Thijs's Freeze Mage (Value Town vs Nihilum)

Another victory for Thijs’s freeze mage (along with Forsen, he considers himself the best exponent of the deck in the world), but I wanted to include this one to illustrate a different point: the rough spot Rogue is in. Plenty of top pros, including Dog, swear blind that Oil Rogue remains an incredibly powerful archetype, but very few players brought it to ATLC and it’s easy to see why. It’s not a strong choice against the field of other top meta decks. Here Dog manages to blow through both Blade Flurries, Tinker’s Sharpsword Oils, Eviscerates and Deadly Poisons without being able to finish Thijs off. In the end he’s pretty much tapping away with his hero power slightly tragically.

6. Strifecro’s Midrange Paladin vs Rdu's Hybrid Hunter (Cloud9 vs Nihilum)

StrifeCro went into this game in the final series with Cloud9 already 4-0 down against Nihilum, and facing a brutal onslaught from Rdu’s aggressive hybrid Hunter deck which curves from one-mana Leper Gnome up to six-mana Savannah Highmane. It’s a scenario that anyone who’s set foot on the ladder, well, ever, will be familiar with: Can you stay alive to long enough to stabilise and turn the tables? The game is super tense throughout, but it mostly looks like the answer is going to be no as StrifeCro keeps soaking damage on every turn. Swings with his Truesilver Champion sword enable him to heal a little back, and Rdu’s decision to make a couple of trades rather than go for the face relentlessly take the game to the wire. In the end both players face tough decisions with the potential to set up lethal, but StrifeCro doesn’t blink and begins the comeback for Cloud9. Which turns out to be short lived.

Assassin's Creed Unity Nostradamus Enigma Guide

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Lineage Creator Working On 2K Games MMO

Starcraft 2 community solves ARG, gets rewards for everyone

Starcraft’s community has come together to solve a series of puzzles in an ARG promoting the upcoming Nova Missions pack — and unlocked some bonuses for its hard work.

There’s a huge, complex, hard-to-read explanation of every step of the ARG over on Team Liquid, and after all the hard work the community has been rewarded with a portrait and decal:

Congrats to the community on solving the mystery behind Nova's actions! You've earned a reward available March 29! pic.twitter.com/cqIBv80lH0

It’s some committed work to solve all of those puzzles – and it’s all been done in just two days, which is pretty darn impressive.

The Nova Missions— releasing from March 30 and available just with the free Starcraft 2 starter pack, if you haven’t bought the full thing ( which you should) — are a series of nine new missions across three episodes in short, self-contained form.

They can be pre-ordered right herefor $14.99 (£10.60).

Europa Universalis IV gets free Women in History DLC on March 8

"Would Tenochtitlan have fallen without the language skills of Malinche guiding Cortez?" the Paradox website asks .

March 8 is International Women's Day, and to mark the event the good folks at Paradox Interactive are adding 100 great women from history to Europa Universalis IVby way of free Women in History DLC.

. "Had the reign of Edward IV not been cut short by illness, would England have still ruled the seas, deprived of the strong hand of Elizabeth I?"

Hey, I don't know. That's not my area of expertise. But videogames are, and I don't think it's unfair to say that women have been a wee little bit underrepresented over the years. Paradox Development Studio head Thomas Johansson thinks so, too. "Europa Universalis, admittedly, hasn't done a lot to foreground their contributions," he said. "We thought that International Women's Day was the best time to do a little bit to help balance the scales and introduce our audience to some very interesting people."

The DLC will add 100 new events centering on important women in history, like Queen Elizabeth I, Caterina Sforza, and Sophie Germain, as well as female portraits for all 22 adviser types. Each of the new characters can be generated by event triggers, which will then give players choices about how to use them: Some can assume roles as court advisers, taking the place of their male counterparts, while others can assume leadership roles elsewhere.

The Women in History DLC will go live on March 8 and, as mentioned, will be free. I think that calls for a hearty, "Well done all." And if you're not familiar with Europa Universalis IV, have a look at our review right here. (The short version: It's really good.)

Monaco 's Schatz On Building An IGF Grand Prize Winner In One Month

The next Assassin's Creed game will be set in Victorian London

As announced by Ubisoft over the summer , development of Victory will be led by Ubisoft Quebec.

The 2015 edition of Assassin's Creedwill be set in the city of London during the Victorian era, according to a Kotakusource, and will be called Assassin's Creed: Victory.

, development of Victory will be led by Ubisoft Quebec. It's expected that it will be the only "main" Assassin's Creed game released in 2015, and is currently planned to come out in the fall.

Kotaku described the seven-minute-long "target gameplay footage" video its staffers viewed as "slick" and said it could pass as an E3 presentation. The mission in the video once again pitted the Assassins against the Templars, and featured a grappling hook that allowed the assassin to go vertical.

Several stills from the video are up at Kotaku and they certainly look good, very Victorian and all that, but there is something irksome about seeing the next Assassin's Creed—even by way of leaked footage—while the current game is still such a mess. At the time of writing, Ubisoft had not commented on the video.

Update: Moments after this article was published, Ubisoft replied to our request for a statement:

" It is always unfortunate when internal assets, not intended for public consumption, are leaked. And, while we certainly welcome anticipation for all of our upcoming titles, we're disappointed for our fans, and our development team, that this conceptual asset is now public. The team in our Quebec studio has been hard at work on the particular game in question for the past few years, and we're excited to officially unveil what the studio has been working on at a later date. In the meantime, our number one priority is enhancing the experience of Assassin's Creed Unity for players."

Europa Universalis 4 gets big update alongside Wealth of Nations DLC release

Calling all magnates, tycoons and financiers, Europa Universalis 4 has a business deal for you.

Calling all magnates, tycoons and financiers, Europa Universalis 4 has a business deal for you. Wealth of Nations, the game's second major expansion pack, is out now and offering trade-focused improvements and additions... for a price. For those more frugal in nature, Paradox are also releasing a new update, introducing major changes for owners of the base game.

The new trailer is short and mostly pointless, but I'm yet to embed a video today so what the hell...

The salient points are that Wealth of Nations adds the ability to start trade conflicts, create a trade capital, hire privateers and use peace treaties to gain trade power.

As for the 1.6 patch, you can see the scope of its changes below.

Wealth of Nations:

- Privateers

* You can now send Light Ships on privateering missions to trade nodes

* A fleet on a privateering mission will hoist the Jolly Roger flag

* Privateers will generated 1.5 times their trade power for the Pirate (PIR) nation.

* The Pirate nation will act as a collecting merchant in the node, the sending nation receives 40%

* Nations with over 20% of trade power in a Trade Node receives a Pirate Hunt CB aginst the privateering nations

* Several Privateer specific events added

* With privateers in, the old Pirates are removed.

- Trade Companies

* Now possible to form Trade Companies by assigning provinces to the Trade Company

* Only provinces within a Trade Company Area can be assigned to a Trade Company

* A province in a Trade Company gives +50% tradepower, +0.5 Naval Force Limit, -100% Manpower, -50% Tax

* Every province in a Trade Company Area gains a bonus to Goods Produced proportional to how much of the trade the company controls

* If a single Trade Company controls >50% of the province Trade Power in an Area, the owning nation gets an extra merchant.

* Each Trade Company gets a generated name and is listed in the Subject View.

* Several new events for Trade Companies

* No longer possible to westernize if you only neighbour western provinces that are in trade companies

- Buildable Canals.

* Now possible to build the Kiel Canal, the Suez Canal and the Panama Canal.

* Building a Canal requires Administrative Tech 20, 50k gold and ownership of specific provinces, the project takes around 10 years.

* The project can be affected by a number of events

* Having a Canal will boost trade power in the province, allow the transit of ships and affects naval distance.

* The Canals are visible on the map

- Justify Trade Conflict-action

A trade conflict can be justified against another nation where there is a node where you have at least 10% of the trade power and they have at least 20% of the trade power.

Gives a Trade Conflict CB

- Implemented the "Fervor"-feature for reformed religion.

* Each month a Reformed country gets an amount of Fervor points

* In the religion view there are 3 Fervor bonuses Military, Diplomatic and Trade. None to all can be activated at any one time.

* Having a bonus active costs 5 Fervor point per month

* Up to 100 Fervor points can be stored

* fervor = yes activates the mechanic for a religion (there can only be one religion specific mechanic per religion).

- Added personal dieties

* Hindu rulers can now select their own personal diety out of 6 possible

* Each Diety gives a specific bonus

* A diety pick stays until the monarch dies or its removed via event

* Added several new diety specific events

* Added 50 unique hindu events and 41 unique event pictures

- Request Trade Power

* Now possible to Request Trade Power from another nation

* You can request 0-100% of their trade power wich if accepted will be counted as yours.

* Until the Transfer is canceled, the party recieving tradepower can not declare war on the giving party.

- Designate Trade Port

* You main trade collection point is now your Main Trading Port instead of your capital.

* Main Trading Port is located in your capital by default

* Main Trading Port can be moved for a cost of 300 Diplomatic Points

- Inland Trading

* Several trade nodes in the game are designated as inland trading nodes where trading nations can use their influence to gain direct power even without provinces or ships.

* When having a merchant in inland tradenodes, you now get direct bonues from your trade efficiency as well as some ideas.

* When having a merchant steering towards an inland Trade Node merchant republics as well as nations with Plutocratic and Trade ideas get direct bonuses.

- New peace treaties

* Now possible to enforce Military Access

* Now possible to enforce Fleet Basing Rights

- Enhanced Merchant republics

* Merchant republics now give a bonus to Goods Produced in provinces that they do not own, proportional to how much fo the trade in the area that they control.

- Dynamic Province Names

* Names can now be scripted to be unique for either the province owner, the province culture or the province culture group (in that priority).

* Activating Dynamic Province Names is now a gameplay setting

- New Ship Models for Great Frigate, War Galley, Galiot, Brig and Trabakul

Major Free features:

- Rivals

* Countries now pick rivals from a list of nearby nations that aren't too strong or too weak compared to that country. Larger nations can pick rivals further away. Picking a rival gives all the previous benefits of having a rival and also unlocks the Power Projection system.

* You gain Power Projection by having longtime rivals and acting aggressively against those rivals by for example declaring war on them, taking provinces from them, subsiding their enemies and sending privateers against them. You lose Power Projection from having too few rivals picked and losing provinces to your rivals.

* Power Projection gives bonuses to Trade Power, Fort Defense, Land Morale, Naval Morale, Legitimacy and Republican Tradition. Additionally, at 25 Power Projection a nation gets +1 Leader without Upkeep and at 50 Power Projection it gets +1 to monthly Administrative, Diplomatic and Military Power.

- Policies

* New Policy Interface under Missions and Decisions Tab

* Completing two full Idea Groups unlocks several Policies

* Activating a policy gives bonuses but costs 1 monarch point, type depend

* Several old decisions now converted to policies

- 10 New Achievments

- New Trade Conflict CB

* Given by Justify Trade Conflict

* Ticking warscore from blockades

- New Colonial Region Australia

- Detach obsolete ships

* Now possible to easly detach obsolete ships with one button

- Improved Macro Build

* Updated look of Macro Build Interface

* Now possible to Build cores, Change Culture and do Harsh Treatment from Macro Build Interface

- Change Role of Trade - Now possible to change role of trader without travel time

- Added New ships, Great Frigate, War Galley, Galiot, Brig and Trabakul

- Added the religouns Coptic and Ibadi Sikh. Coptic and Ibadi in from the start, Sikh will appear later.

- Modifiers such as Estuary now shown on map in Trade Mapmode.

- Now possible to form the nations Egypt and Bukhara and Courland.

* New country wide bonus that is unlocked at administrative technology level 23 and increases at 26 and 29, up to a total of 75%. Administrative Efficiency directly reduces the impact of province base tax on overextension and warscore cost, allowing for much larger territories to be conquered at once.

* The scaling of core time from country size has been removed - all nations now core provinces at the same speed regardless of size (but it is still affected by factors such as culture, religion, having a claim and so on).

- New Launcher

* Supports all platforms.

* Steamworks support, subscribe to the mods in steam and the launcher will update accordingly.

- Papal Automation

* You can now prioritise which cardinal to vote for and then let the game do the work.

Conquest of Paradise:

- Added new siege strip + assault and breach overlays for Native Americans

- Added several new events for Native Americans

(There are also quite a few major rebalances, see http://forum.paradoxplaza.com/forum/...alance-Changes)

Road To The IGF: Monobanda's Bohm

Heroes of the Storm is out now

I'm all for open betas, but they can make the language of a game's launch somewhat underwhelming.

I'm all for open betas, but they can make the language of a game's launch somewhat underwhelming. Compare "Heroes of the Storm is out now!" to "Heroes of the Storm has been out and publicly available for weeks, but now, for whatever reason, Blizzard is saying it's out. Like, y'know, out of beta out. Proper out."

It's just not the same.

As of today, though, Blizzard's free-to-play lane-pusher is proper out. You can go and download it, for free, right now, and be safe in the knowledge that this is the release version as the developers intended it and not the release version of two weeks before that.

Okay, in order to add some pomp and circumstance to this, the official launch, Blizzard has prepared a couple of rewards for those who log in over the next week. Play the game before Saturday, June 9 and you'll receive an exclusive player portrait and a 25% XP boost.

That XP boost is set to rise over the next three weeks. After June 9, players will get a 50% boost until June 16, and then a 100% boost until June 24. That's a chuff of a lot of XP.

Also, to mark the game's release, Blizzard has added another hero: Johanna, Crusader of Zakarum. You can see what she's all about via the trailer below.

Europa Universalis 4 targets trade and governance in Res Publica mini-expansion

At any moment, your average PC gamer is on the verge of potentially life-threatening excitement.

At any moment, your average PC gamer is on the verge of potentially life-threatening excitement. We're constantly in danger of an over-stimulation overdose made of explosions, guns, speed, spaceships and other, bigger explosions. That's why, every now and then, it's important to slow things down. And so, we should take a moment to thank Paradox, who today announced a trade-focused mini-expansion for Europa Universalis IV.

Res Publica is the name of this third expansion, and, in addition to additional trade options, it will also introduce new methods of governance. Paradox'sexplains exactly what players can expect:

"Republic Affairs: Grow your influence with the Merchant Republic faction to create new trade posts and reap bonuses, or exploit the inner power struggles of the Dutch Republic and their unique election events "Meet the New Boss: Try the all-new Republican Dictatorship government type, and decide between increases in power or Republic Tradition in new in-game opportunities and events "Don't Fight the Power: Retain power for the ruling family by backing heirs in Elective Monarchies; boost your growth with the National Focus bonus and spend your points on Administrative, Diplomatic, or Military Power"

Dammit, Paradox! With all this talk of power-struggle exploitation, we're straight back into over-excitement territory.

Res Publica is due out this Summer.

John Romero’s new FPS puts you in an insane, moddable holodeck inspired by '90s shooters

Last week id Software co-founders John Romero and Adrian Carmack announced they were making a first-person shooter .

. Today they’ve launched a Kickstarterfor that project, Blackroom, and unveiled the first hard details.

Blackroom is pitched in part as a return to ‘90s FPSes, described as “a visceral, varied and violent shooter … with a mixture of exploration, speed, and intense, weaponized combat.” The Kickstarter page plays up “skillful” FPS movement techniques like circle-strafing and rocket-jumping and mentions levels with “secret rooms and twisted hidden passageways.” More generally, it’ll be a multiplayer and single-player game for PC and Mac that we’ll see in Winter 2018.

Interestingly, Romero and Carmack don’t seem to intend to rehash Doom or Quake’s satanic themes. Blackroom’s premise is unique and ambitious: fight through a wide variety of settings rendered by an advanced, Holodeck-like technology gone awry (is there any other kind of Holodeck, really?) created by a company called HOXAR. The 10+ hour single-player campaign casts you as an HOXAR engineer, sent in to investigate and debug “troubling anomalies” in Blackroom, chiefly its recent propensity for blending reality and virtual reality as it scans users’ happy and unhappy memories to create simulations.

Blackroom also doesn’t seem to be solely focused on violence and exploration. Your character carries a HOXAR device called the “Boxel,” which “allows you to control the simulation—stop time, see through walls, remove obstacles, activate various types of UI in the world, and other functions,” according to Romero. It’s unclear exactly how the Boxel will operate—whether it’ll only be able to interact with specific objects, for example.

“There is much about Blackroom that is new and different than past shooters,” John Romero told us via email. “The gameplay itself is going to feel classic, but it will be in an entirely new design wrapper. It will be using a brand-new engine [Unreal 4] with physically-based materials and shaders. This gives us a tremendous amount of design and creative freedom.”

On the surface, Blackroom sounds a bit like Doom thrown into a Holodeck, perhaps also influenced by The Magic Circle. What’s most exciting to me about the project is the way its premise folds neatly into the promised moddability of the game. Blackroom vows to transport players to “ruined Victorian mansions to wild-west ghost towns to swashbuckling pirate galleons and beyond,” but the notion of holographic worlds means that user-created maps could essentially exist as canon. “The initial idea behind the holotech was to look into the future at what a real virtual simulation technology would be like that would enable a game to be extremely varied and control the player’s environment second-to-second,” says Romero. “My goal was to create a fiction that matched or exceeded Half-Life’s ability to materialize Vortigaunts right in front of you, or F.E.A.R.’s ability to make ghosts appear anywhere at any time. With Blackroom’s fiction, Adrian and I have the ability to do anything, and we plan to take advantage of that.”

A few pieces of concept art hint at the projects primordial state, for which Romero, Carmack, and the rest of Night Work Games are asking $700,000 on Kickstarter. Tune into Romero's Twitch channellater today from 12 p.m. to 2 p.m. EDT for more details.

Titanfall 2 teaser promises sword-wielding mechs

It's not much, but it has a mech with an electrified sword, so it'll do for now.

It's not much, but it has a mech with an electrified sword, so it'll do for now. EA has let out the briefest of teasers for Titanfall 2ahead of a full reveal on June 12—the opening day of its not-E3 conference. Like its predecessor, it's coming to PC.

We knew Titanfall 2 was on the cards, of course. Respawn confirmed itthis time last year, references kept popping up in financial reports, and a press release from McFarlane Toysannounced that Titanfall 2 figurines would be coming winter 2016. No one said anything about swordplay, however.

Europa Universalis 4's Wealth of Nations expansion detailed by Paradox

Last week, Miami was subjected to an unlikely Scandinavian invasion, as Paradox - along with their horde of strategy fanatics - descended for the annual Paradox Conference.

Last week, Miami was subjected to an unlikely Scandinavian invasion, as Paradox - along with their horde of strategy fanatics - descended for the annual Paradox Conference. It was the new games - Hearts of Iron 4 and Runemaster - that made the biggest impact during announcement day, but expansion packs for the studio's two big strategy games were also announced. One of them, Europa Universalis 4's upcoming Wealth of Nations DLC, has now been explained in more detail.

"Wealth of Nations will bring several new features to the game, focusing on trade," Paradox explain in a press release, "including the ability to secretly provoke trade conflicts, hire pirates to steal goods from your competitors, establish the East India Company and create a bustling trade capital for your nation. With several new possible ways to direct the wealth of the world into an empire's coffers, Wealth of Nations will serve the needs of every gamer's inner plutocrat."

Wealth of Nations will heavily expand the game's trade systems, adding privateers, trade conflicts and trading companies. The full feature list goes into more detail on the DLC's promised improvements:

"The Invisible Hand of the Market: You can act covertly to instigate trade conflicts among the competition, stifling income and leaving yourself atop the economic heap. "Seize the Seas: Hiring privateers can damage enemy shipments and cripple their trade, but risks retaliation in the form of open warfare if you are caught. "Capitalize: Empires can designate a specific port as their trade capital, separate from their national capital, and strengthen local trade routes through the use of inland trade nodes. "Monopolize and Mobilize: Form an East India Company and reach faraway trade partners with an unstoppable shipping concern."

Wealth of Nations is due out in "Q2" 2014, which in human speak is somewhere between April and June.

An analysis of the three-second Doom teaser

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Titanfall 2 will release later this year, according to toy company

It feels like barely a week goes by without some strong evidence pointing to Titanfall 2's release date.

It feels like barely a week goes by without some strong evidence pointing to Titanfall 2's release date. Electronic Arts CFO Blake Jorgensen said last yearthat the sequel would release some time during EA's 2016 fiscal year, which starts April 2016 and ends March 2017. Now, that time has been whittled down even further – by toy company McFarlane Toys.

In a press release seen by Polygon, McFarlane Toys announces its forthcoming Titanfall 2 figurines, before announcing they'll be available alongside the game's release in "winter 2016" (summer in Australia). CEO Todd McMarlane writes that the partnership "is a perfect fit. McFarlane [Toys] was created so I could make cool stuff just like this. Without saying too much about the new game... You're not going to believe where we can take this."

As we learnt earlier this week, Titanfall 2 will feature a single player campaignand maybe even a television series. According to writer Jesse Stern, it will "deliver a vision of grand global colonial warfare". All I need is robots shooting other robots while pilots run amok on the side of walls, but frame it however you please.

Paradox Con round-up: Hearts of Iron 4, Runemaster, and expansions for CK2 and EU4

Paradox have blown their conference's announcement horn, summoning a horde of new games and expansions to the sweltering shores of Miami.

Paradox have blown their conference's announcement horn, summoning a horde of new games and expansions to the sweltering shores of Miami. But have those games arrived by longboat, frigate or submarine? Actually, it's all of the above, with their upcoming catalogue covering the full breadth of their internal Development Studio titles. As well as the expected expansions for Crusader Kings 2 and Europa Universalis 4, they've revealed the existence of the long-awaited Hearts of Iron 4. If that weren't enough, they've also announced a brand new Norse-inspired RPG called Runemaster.

A Hearts of Iron 4 announcement, you say? Best bring out the Churchill.

Hearts of Iron IV challenges players to face the brutal conflict of World War II in a multifaceted grand strategy game, where history can be fully relived or rewritten from the perspective of a global superpower attempting to change the world, or a small nation simply trying to survive.

Not much is known right now, except to say that Paradox want HoI4 to be " better than EU4", and that it won't be released this year.

On to the new new thing. Runemaster is an RPG from PDS, making it a pretty big departure from their grand-strategy comfort zone. It's also a fantasy title, making it a really big departure from their historical comfort zone. Here's the teaser:

"Runemaster is an RPG set in a fantasy realm based in the rich, majestic traditions of Norse mythology, casting each player in the role of a unique champion in a time of chaotic upheaval. Procedural maps and quests will ensure that no two playthroughs are identical, allowing players to tell a saga that is uniquely their own. Explore vast vistas through the six worlds of Norse myth, command troops in tactical combat, and define your champion through the choices they make."

As for the expansions, Crusader Kings 2 is getting Rajas of India, which, as you might expect, expands the map. With India included, the game's map becomes 50% bigger, incorporating an extra 300+ provinces. And Europa Universalis 4? That expansion will be called Wealth of Nations, and it'll focus on improving and expanding trade.

Why Blizzard invited the world's best StarCraft: Brood War players to Blizzcon 2011

But why were they there?

Jaedong, Fantasy, Bisu, and Jangbiare some of the world's premier StarCraft: Brood War players. This year, these four StarCrafting superstars were invited to Blizzcon.

But why were they there? Sites like Teamliquidswirled with rumours prior to the event: they were there to perform show matches, playing 1998's Brood War on the big screen to foreign fans. They were there to test out the next StarCraft II expansion, Heart of the Swarm. They were there to mark their transition from professional Brood War – still the majority esports share in Korean viewing schedules – to StarCraft II. But Blizzcon came and went, and the four players were absent from headlines outside of citizen-papparazzi snaps and videos. Why were they there, flown out to Anaheim from their Korean home? The answer is simpler than you might expect. Read on to find out why.

They were there to see how StarCraft II – and esports in general – is consumed in the west. Confirmed by a Blizzard representative, Jaedong, Bisu, Fantasy and Jangbi (along with a representative from the Korean e-Sports Association that runs the league they play in) sat in on the StarCraft II tournaments taking place at the show – the GSL finalsand the Blizzcon Invitational- to see first-hand the changes that have taken place in international pro-gaming during 2011, after hearing of a widening fan-base in the west. The players were reportedly blown away by the noise and spectacle of the events.

The crowd for Blizzcon's GSL finals was humongous, dwarfing the groups found at the tournament's regular season Code S and A games. They even outstripped previous finals – not only in size, but also in noise. Korean crowds are, by all accounts, more reserved and respectful. Exposing players raised on those experiences to the full-force of an American sports crowd must've been an impressive experience.

The Blizzcon GSL finals may become something of a turning point for esports. Not only was the event orders of magnitude larger than Korean GSL finals, but according to veteran esportsers like Major League Gaming's Slasher, the games played between SlayerS`MMA and IMMVP were watched by the largest crowd ever seen in North American esports. The cheer for the winning player (spoiler-free for you VOD-watchers) was so loud from the front row that I felt the floor of the hall shaking under my feet.

The reasoning behind Jaedong and co's visit might disappoint those hoping for an imminent switch of the world's best macro/micro masters to a more recent game, but contractual wrangles are likely to hold a potential shift up. The four players were being chaperoned by a KeSPA representative (as I ascertained by peeking at a branded clipboard during a fortuitous lift ride with them during the show). GomTV (the creators of the GSL) still hold exclusive rightsto broadcast StarCraft II in South Korea: meaning that there would either need to be a shift in that thinking to allow KeSPA to show SCII; or they would lose the rights to some of the best players ever seen.

Time will tell what the visit means for esports. But from an outside perspective, the players couldn't have picked a better event to attend. The games in both the GSL finals and the Blizzcon Invitational were of a ridiculously high standard, and the crowd heaped so much audible love onto the stage that GSL co-casters Artosis and Tasteless cracked their steely nerd-baller exteriors and had tears in their eyes.

We'll be contacting both Blizzard and KeSPA to get a response to this information, and will let you know if there is any more information.

Titanfall is heading EA's Origin Access, and soon

Origin Access is like the Xbox One's EA Access service but on a PC, meaning you can fork out £3.99 a month to get access to a select library of EA-published games, along with a few other benefits .

. Is it a good deal? That's for you and your wallet to decide, although the decision gets a little more complicated with the addition of another game: Titanfall. Titanfall is coming to Origin Access "soon", as announced via the following tweet and also this link.

Prepare for Titanfall, Origin Access Members. Coming soon to the Vault: https://t.co/jrq0ubyeMI pic.twitter.com/lHu0mYrlZ0 March 10, 2016

This is almost certainly a good thing, if you're a current owner of Titanfall and you've been lamenting the relative paucity of players in recent months. It should hopefully mean an influx of new soldiers for you to stomp all over in a giant mech.

Origin Access' current libraryincludes the Dragon Ages, some Battlefields, the Dead Space games, This War of Mine, and Torchlight 2. That library will soon be embiggened with Titanfall, as per the headline.

The week's highs and lows in PC gaming

Each week PC Gamer's poets in residence gather their thoughts on the previous seven days.

Each week PC Gamer's poets in residence gather their thoughts on the previous seven days. Weirdly, it never seems to rhyme.

THE HIGHS

Samuel Roberts: Resi remake on PC

A game I had assumed was trapped at the bottom of the ocean as part of the Nintendo/Capcom Five deal from over a decade ago, this week Capcom surprised everyone by announcing that Resident Evil's stunning 2002 GameCube remake is being remastered on PC. This is a real get. Between this and the excellent Resi 4 HD port from earlier this year, we're getting closer to having the full set on Steam (just 2, 3 and Code Veronica to go – RE2's port was pretty decent back in the day). Resident Evil's remake is the pinnacle of what the survival horror series was in its previous incarnation, before Resi 4 revamped it as a groundbreaking third-person shooter and 5 proved to be a divisive extension of those ideas. It's all scary audiovisual design, tricky puzzles and haunted houses, with some memorably messed up enemies—notably, the scariest shark that's ever appeared in a game. What a treat to have this on PC in 2015, not long after The Evil Within and Alien Isolation attempt to reawaken big budget survival horror.

Tyler Wilde: Pre-orders are declining

Pre-orders, or pre-purchases, are really useful for publishers. Uncertainty is a business' worst enemy (especially if it's publicly traded), and pre-order numbers equal sweet, sweet data. But they don't benefit consumers of PC games, except with pre-order bonuses, which only exist because they want us to pre-order. It's good news, then, that Activision says pre-orders are declining industry-wide. I expect it's mostly a console thing—more downloadable games means fewer people in line for midnight launches—but a decline in pre-orders would be good for all consumers. It would force publishers to, as Activision states it will, find other ways to predict sales figures, and maybe one day unburden us of the outdated practice. One day being a long ways off, to be sure. Until then, I never recommend buying something that no one has had an independent critical thought about, whether it's us, or a friend, or a Steam user reviewer, or your sister, or Jaden Smith, or whoever.

Tom Senior: Time to get back into Source modding

As someone who spent far too many hours in Valve's Hammer level editor trying to build Left 4 Dead maps, I was delighted by the new toolsshipped with this week's Dota 2 update. In the dark days of old, you'd build levels by tweaking a forest of wireframes on a three-part grid view. Now you can raise and lower terrain by painting it into a pane that renders the level in real-time. It's designed to create maps that operate using Dota's top-down perspective for now, but the new Hammer will hopefully be adapted for use with the rest of Valve's catalogue.

On top of all that, the raft of Source 2 referencesthat accompanied the Dota 2 workshop update this week serve as a reminder that Valve are still making things that aren't Dota 2. I know! We'll likely have to wait until next year to see what they're cooking, unless they suddenly pop up to steal Gamescom next week.

Wes Fenlon: Cooperative Divinity

My post-work life for the past two weeks has been dominated by Divinity: Original Sin. I've been playing co-op with a friend who lives on the US east coast, and the three hour time difference means we don't have much time to jump into Cyseal in the evening. The deeper into the game we get, the happier I am that it's on our list of the best RPGs of all time.Divinity may only be a month old, but it's the kind of challenging RPG I didn't realize I was missing. Playing it with a co-op partner makes it even better: we talk about puzzles instead of fumbling around, win fights more quickly by specializing our heroes, and laugh when we run into characters like Alfie. If you haven't met Alfie yet, well, trust me: you've got another reason to play Divinity.

Andy Kelly: The Expendabros

Movie tie-ins and spin-offs are almost always rubbish, but adding ludicrous action film The Expendables to ludicrous action shooter Broforce was a stroke of genius. The free DLC is an example of how to do a marketing tie-in that doesn't feel cynical or clumsily tacked-on. The beefcake stars of The Expendables feel right at home in the excellent run-and-gun action game, and although I'll never, ever watch the films, I'll happily blow pixely holes in things as Stallone, Lundgren, and co.

Cory Banks: Delays and corgis

I'm trying to be professional, so I'll tell you that my High this week is that Turtle Rock and 2K's delay for Evolveis a good thing. I want Evolve to be as fantastic as my PAX East experience was, and if that means I have to wait a few months for it, so be it. Polish is good, even if it means we have fewer games this holiday season. Take your time and get it right, guys.

Telling you all of that is a lie, though. The only thing that really matters this week in videogames is that we're getting corgis in World of Warcraft. That's it. Will I grind through endgame raids, play the revised Molten Core, and PVP through Southshore for a vanity pet that looks like an adorable dog? Bet your ass I will. But I won't even have to, because anyone who logs in during WoW's anniversary event will get one. Corgis. In videogames. This is the future. Slap an Oculus Rift on that puppy's face and let's do this.

AI War developer announces Skyward Collapse, a turn-based 4X god game

Arcen Games, creators of AI War and A Valley Without Wind, have announced their next game, Skyward Collapse.

Arcen Games, creators of AI War and A Valley Without Wind, have announced their next game, Skyward Collapse. It's a strategy collision, incorporating elements of turn-based 4X, god games and simulation. Rather than a vengeful deity of elemental destruction, you play a hovering peacekeeper, attempting to persuade the inhabitants of the floating island you watch over to stop smacking each other with sticks.

"Set high in the sky atop a floating landmass that you are actively constructing as the game progresses, you oversee two warring factions (Greeks and Norse)," writes Arcen's Chris Park. "Via solo play or co-op, you play as "The Creator," helping both sides of the conflict -- granting each side buildings, resources, and even new citizens."

Which creates an interesting problem: left to their own devices, each village has its own goals, and one of them is destroying everybody else. "Given the resources and appropriate buildings, your villagers will gear up for war without your direct interaction, and will fight it out to the best of their abilities."

Your job upon this floating island of death and war is to balance the conflict in such a way that no side is wiped out. It's not simply a matter of confiscating their weapons - the island is also home to bands of bandits, meaning each village needs some way to defend itself.

Essentially, you're a disembodied UN, desperately trying to stop everyone from bloodily killing each other. You can build embassies and assign diplomats, but doing so will only affect the two villages participating in the peace process - everyone else remains as bloodthirsty as ever.

It's a fascinating concept, and Park goes into much more detail as to how each game will play out on his blog.

Arcen are also working on Exodus of the Machine, a "strategic journey" game set in the universe of AI War: Fleet Command.

"Vicious predators, clashing armies, and political intrigue stand in your way. None can stand before your modern weapons, but where do you use your limited ammunition? Do you resort to diplomacy, or native weapons? Will you fall to disease or run out of food stores? Can you get to the end in time?"

Both games are due out this year, with Skyward Collapse expected to release as a beta before the end of the month.

2014 Personal Pick — Titanfall

Shaun's 2014 personal pick
Every time I publish a news story about Titanfall at least one guru pipes up in the comments to say “this game is dead”.

Along with our group-selected 2014 Game of the Year Awards, each member of the PC Gamer staff has independently chosen another game to commend as one of 2014's best.

Every time I publish a news story about Titanfall at least one guru pipes up in the comments to say “this game is dead”. Quite why the tide of public opinion turned against Titanfall so quickly I’ll never understand, because it’s dizzyingly fun. It’s the best multiplayer shooter I played this year, chiefly because it let me run along walls.

I played this game for hundreds of hours and I have no idea what the ‘lore’ is or why I’m shooting other people and riding inside of robots. I would boot up Titanfall of an evening for the same reason I might boot up an arcade racer, or go for a ride on my bicycle. I longed for the speed and control, the freedom to pull off tricky moves, the acrobatics. As someone who played a lot of Quake and Doom as a teenager I hate the plodding movement in most modern shooters. I hate their obsession with authenticity, their macho military bravado. Just let me double jump around in space while shooting mechs please, video games.

Thankfully Titanfall let me do that. It felt really good to play on a second-to-second basis. Even if I was not winning, even if I could not pull off a single kill, I was still having fun just getting around. Titanfall let me perform: I could feel special gliding through the levels gracefully. I fell in love the first time I rocketed into the air from a burning titan, only to land on an enemy titan on the other side of the map, all the while dispatching AI grunts from the skies. Unlike a lot of multiplayer shooters, Titanfall felt like a series of encounters rather than a roulette wheel of deaths and kills. The parkour mechanics offered the potential for a quick escape if an enemy happened to see me first. Enough time to equip a satchel charge and send them to their doom.

Since Titanfall released it feels like I’ll never play a shooter that doesn’t let me double jump again, or at the very least run very quickly. Making the switch from Titanfall’s silky, graceful, beautiful movement to, say, Wolfenstein: The New Order (also good!) was as jarring as tasting eggnog when you expect beer.

It’s definitely true that Titanfall’s community shrank a lot quicker than you would hope for a purely multiplayer experience, thanks to a longevity problem our Chris Thursten identified in his review. It was impossible to get a game of Capture the Flag last time I checked (the best vanilla mode for sure) and standard team deathmatch (Attrition in Titanfall) is a dreary, directionless experience. The modes which required you to get from point A to point B as quickly as possible (Capture the Flag, Marked For Death, Hardpoint) were the best, as they forced you to hone your traversal skills.

And that’s where the game shines: as a more violent Mirror’s Edge. It took Respawn over 6 months to release a parkour-centric game mode (Deadly Ground, a ‘the floor is lava’ mode) but it should have been there at launch. With Titanfall 2 a dead certainty, I feel like we’ll remember Titanfall as a mere promise compared to its inevitably much better and more feature complete sequel, but even as a promise it kept me and my friends occupied for months.

It's Christmas. Would you like a free game? Of course you would! Thanks to our friends at Playfire, you can get a free Steam keyright now . Follow the link for full details.