Category: PC

Payday 2 is already looking pretty good, but every little tidbit dropped by the developers at Overkill Software shows that they’re going way beyond the call of duty to make this one of the best shooters of the year.

In the latest trailer, Payday 2 director David Goldfarb discusses how they’re going to keep the game fresh so players will return to it time and time again. The key to this is called dynamics, and Goldfarb says that a level will be different every time you play it.

For example, he says that you may see a security guard in an alley on one mission. That same alley in the next mission may then feature two guards, or perhaps no guard but a witness that will call the police if they see you wielding a rifle. He says that players may also find that previously open doors will be closed upon subsequent playthroughs, or that the position of cameras will have been changed.

Another addition to the game this time around is the Escape section of the heist that will see players being transported to a different level, and be given an entirely different objective. In the above video, Goldfarb gives the example of players being trapped in a parking structure while defending their stolen loot from the police.

Payday 2 will be available on August 13 for Xbox 360, PS3 and PC.

Both Sony and Microsoft will be launching their next-gen consoles with a racing game. EA will be joining them with its own racing franchise later this year.

EA announced today that it’s new studio – Ghost Games – is knee-deep in development on the next Need for Speed title. The game – titled Need for Speed: Rivals – will be the first next-gen entry for the series. The game is also coming to current gen systems and the PC. Like other games from EA this year, there was no Wii U version announced.

The above trailer indicates that the footage is all in-game. It’s also revealed that Criterion is helping out with development. With their racing game expertise, Rivals may just be the prettiest, and best playing, racing game this year.

Need for Speed: Rivals will launch on November 19 for all current-gen consoles and PC. It will presumably be a launch title for the PS4 and Xbox One.

Cooperative multiplayer is one of the most cherished modes in Splinter Cell. There’s nothing quite like teaming up with a friend and taking down enemies one-by-one as you sneak through a mission. It’s a good thing then that co-op missions are returning in Splinter Cell Blacklist.

Here’s the official synopsis for the co-op missions:

Head into the field with backup! Play together as Sam and Briggs, through 14 different maps that all feature missions tied to the main storyline. With 4 different mission styles, you and a friend will enjoy extra hours of gameplay.

While we may never see a return of Splinter Cell: Co-Op Theater, the co-op mode in Blacklist may inspire some particularly hilarious Let’s Plays. We can only hope, right?

Splinter Cell Blacklist will be out on August 20 for Xbox 360, PS3, PC and Wii U.

On Friday, Warner Bros. Games revealed a short teaser trailer for Batman: Arkham Origins that showed a small preview of Batman facing off against Deathstroke. Now the full trailer is out, and those looking for nearly five minutes of a pre-rendered Batman fighting a pre-rendered Deathstroke are in for a treat.

Here’s the official synopsis from WB Games:

Batman: Arkham Origins features an expanded Gotham City and introduces an original prequel storyline occurring several years before the events of Batman: Arkham Asylum and Batman: Arkham City. Taking place before the rise of Gotham City’s most dangerous villains and assassins, the game showcases a young, raw, unrefined Batman as he faces a defining moment in his early career as a crime fighter that sets his path to becoming the Dark Knight. As the story unfolds, witness identities being formed and key relationships being forged.

You can argue that prequel stories sometimes don’t work out, but Batman has a pretty good track record when it comes to origin stories. Even if the game does nothing to stand apart from its predecessors, the story told in Arkham Origins has the potential to be pretty good.

Batman: Arkham Origins will be out on October 25 for Xbox 360, PS3 and Wii U. A spin-off title called Arkham Origins Blackgate will launch the same day for the 3DS and Vita.

Valve loves its fans, and fans love Valve right back. This relationship has led to some amazing things, with the latest being Team Fortress 2: Robotic Boogaloo.

Team Fortress 2: Robotic Boogaloo is a new update hitting the popular free-to-play shooter with content that was made entirely by fans for fans.

Here’s the official word from Valve:

This update is 100% created by the TF2 community. And when we say everything, we mean everything—the in-game content, the update hub website, the animated short, the comic, even the splash images in the Steam store. Even better, everything you created avoided the classic trap of using other companies’ intellectual property. (Those of you working on a Darth Vader Pyro mask, we’ve got some bad news for you.) Plus, in a first for the Team Fortress economy, all the creators of the Robotic Boogaloo Update have decided to share the revenue earned from the sale of RoboCrate Keys. That means that everyone involved will be profiting from this update, not just the people making hats.

Those concerned about Valve stepping back from Team Fortress 2 development need not worry. Valve says that its own content will co-exist with fan-developed content from here on out.

Does anybody remember Pac-Man World? The trio of ill-fated 3D platformers never really did much in terms of sales, but Namco still dried its hardest to push its on-and-off again mascot into the third-dimension. After a successful revival of Pac-Man’s core 2D gameplay, it looks like Namco is going to try for a 3D platformer again.

Namco announced that it will release a new 3D platformer later this year called Pac-Man and the Ghostly Adventures this fall. Check out the first trailer below:

Pac-Man and the Ghostly Adventures will be out this fall on Xbox 360, PS3, Wii U, PC and Nintendo 3DS.

Ever since its announcement, we knew that the latest Assassin’s Creed title – Assassin’s Creed IV: Black Flag – would have pirates playing a large role in the narrative. None of the trailers, until now that is, have really played up that fact.

In a new trailer released today, Ubisoft says that its lastest Assassin’s Creed title will present the true stories of the pirates who controlled the Atlantic Ocean in the 18th century. That’s a somewhat dubious claim as past titles in the franchise took great liberties with its historical figures. It’s probably not going to be as true to life as Sid Meier’s Pirates!, but it looks to be a fun romp in a theme that’s underutilized in games.

Assassin’s Creed IV: Black Flag will be out on October 29 for the Xbox 360, PS3, PC and Wii U. It will also launch on the PS4 and next Xbox on or near their respective launch dates.

At PAX East, Gearbox revealed that Borderlands 2 would be getting a new playable character called Krieg the Psycho. He was described as a melee heavy class that isn’t afraid to get a little hurt. The new character pack is now almost upon us, and Gearbox has released a lengthy trailer detailing Krieg’s skill trees.

Unlike the other classes in Borderlands 2, Krieg is a high risk/high reward character. His skills are all about putting yourself in the line of fire in return for big damage. Some players are obviously going to love it while others may not want to take the risk. That’s the beauty of Borderlands 2 though – there’s a class for every play style.

The Psycho Pack will be available on Tuesday, May 14, for $9.99.

Before XCOM: Enemy Unknown rebooted the classic strategy franchise and proved that strategy games can still be mainstream hits, 2K was attempting to reboot the franchise with a first-person shooter that was simply titled XCOM. That game has been scrapped in favor of a tactical third person shooter called The Bureau: XCOM Declassified.

2K has released a new trailer for the title that features some gameplay that shows off the new tactical elements and the new third person perspective. It looks like your basic cover shooter with some tactical elements pulled out of games like Ghost Recon.

It doesn’t look like a BioShock clone anymore, but some fans will undoubtedly feel a little icky about their favorite strategy series being turned into a third-person shooter. It’s a good thing then that strategy fans still have their Enemy Unknown that did well enough to maybe earn a sequel while shooter fans may discover a love for the strategy game after playing The Bureau.

The Bureau: XCOM Declassified launches August 20 for PS3, Xbox 360 and PC.

It was announced last week that Eternal Darkness, the celebrated survival-horror game for the Gamecube, would be getting a spiritual sequel on the Wii U and PC called Shadow of the Eternals. At the time, we only got a short teaser trailer, but now the team at Precursor Games have released a proper (and lengthy) gameplay trailer.

The team at Precursor Games has forgone the likes of Kickstarter in favor of its own crowdfunding campaign. The team is asking for $1.5 million to develop the first episode out of 12 planned episodes, but it’s only been able to raise about $134,000 thus far.

Gamers’ reluctance to put money forward could have something to do with the sordid reputation Silicon Knights and its president, Denis Dyack, have gained over the last few years. Precursor Games is made of many former Silicon Knights staffers, including Dyack. The studio has recently gone on record saying that it understands the skepticism, and says that it’s working “to show everyone that Precursor is a totally new entity.”

If the crowdfunding campaign is successful, you can expect to see Shadow of the Eternals on the Wii U and PC at some point in 2014.

Despite having been announced almost a year ago, we haven’t seen much gameplay from Watch Dogs. Ubisoft prefers to trot out the same gameplay footage we’ve been seeing since February whenever they show it off to the press. That all changed this week with a new gameplay demo.

Official PlayStation Magazine was able to sit down with a new gameplay demo that features a gameplay element that we haven’t seen yet. The demo reveals that players will have to take over local bases before they can hack electronic devices in a district.

The above demo is running on a PC, but it’s said to be running on next-gen specs. In other words, the PlayStation 4 and next Xbox version of Watch Dogs should match what you’re seeing above.

Watch Dogs will launch on November 19 for PC, PS3, Xbox 360 and Wii U. It will also be out on the PS4 and the next Xbox on or near their respective launches.

Going against the recent trend of third-party developers skipping out on the Wii U, Capcom has decided to bring its HD remake of Resident Evil Revelations to Nintendo’s struggling console. The publisher/developer is going above and beyond the call of duty as well with some unique Gamepad and Miiverse integration.

The latest trailer for Resident Evil Revelations shows how players will be using the Wii U Gamepad. As expected, many of the features were ripped straight from original 3DS version of the title with the bottom screen acting as a map and weapon quick select menu.

The Wii U version of Resident Evil Revelations will also include Miiverse integration. Monsters will have speech bubbles above their heads featuring messages from other players. You will also see Miiverse posts from players who have died in the same spot as you.

Resident Evil Revelations will be out on May 21 for the Wii U, Xbox 360, PS3 and PC.

A new report has found that the number of gamers playing games online has continued to increase over the past year. According to NPD Group, 72% of U.S. gamers play online, up from 67% in 2012. Not only are more gamers connecting to the Internet, but they are also spending more time playing games in general. The average amount of time spent each week on gaming has gone up 9%, and for online play, it has increased 6%.

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Ever since Splinter Cell: Chaos Theory, the stealth franchise has been known for stellar multiplayer. There have been a few missteps in subsequent entries, but the latest entry in the franchise looks to bring some fresh ideas to multiplayer.

In a new trailer released by IGN today, Ubisoft revealed Spies vs. Mercs to be the new multiplayer mode in Splinter Cell: Blacklist. As the name implies, the new mode will have players taking on the role of spies trying to steal data while those playing as the mercenaries attempt to take them down. It looks similar to Sneaking Mission, a mode of play in Metal Gear Online, that pit one player as Snake against 12 soldiers.

It will be interesting to see how this multiplayer mode works in the Wii U version of Blacklist. Ubisoft has already revealed that it will have unique Gamepad integration, and a gameplay mode like this could make for rather interesting gameplay when combined with the Gamepad.

Splinter Cell: Blacklist launches August 20 for PS3, Xbox 360, Wii U and PC.

With Skyrim officially wrapped up, players might find themselves yearning for more adventures in Tamriel sooner rather than later. The Elder Scrolls Online might just scratch that particular itch when it launches later this year.

in the latest trailer for the MMO, the game’s producers reveal that the Daedric Lord Molag Bal is the key antagonist throughout the game’s main storyline. In fact, he steals the player’s character’s soul at the beginning, and players must fight to get it back. The quest will see players traveling to Coldharbour – the oblivion plane belonging to Molag Bal.

All of this certainly looks nice, but the real challenge will be convincing fans of Bethesda’s sprawling first-person RPGs to give The Elder Scrolls Online a shot. MMOs, especially those that are subscription based, are not exactly in vogue anymore. Still, Besthesda and Zenimax Online could knock it out of the park by creating an MMO that can last more than a few months before going free-to-play.

We’ll probably get a firm release date at E3, but The Elder Scrolls Online is still set for launch later this year.

Metro 2033 introduced gamers to a large and varied cast of characters when it came out in 2010. Its sequel – Metro: Last Light – will bring back a number of those characters while introducing a new set of companions that series protagonist Artyom will encounter throughout his journey.

Anna, the Spartan Order of Rangers’ top sniper and daughter of their uncompromising leader Miller, talks about the hope of the survivors that rests on Artyom’s shoulders. Will he be able to lead humanity to salvation, and find personal redemption in the tunnels of the Metro?

Metro: Last Light launches across Xbox 360, PS3 and PC on May 14.

Resident Evil has seemingly lost its way. Resident Evil 4 started the move away from true survival horror, but the next two installments pretty much did away with it entirely. A side story in the series got it right, however, and the developers are now discussing why that is.

In a developer diary released today, the developers of Resident Evil: Revelations discuss the horror elements of the title and how the game is thematically similar to the older titles in the franchise. Capcom has said that Revelations’ reception will decide the future of the series, but the team seems confident that it can create a horror experience that will satisfy longtime fans without sacrificing the action set pieces that newer fans want.

It will be interesting to see if Capcom returns to more horror-themed Resident Evil titles, especially after the series creator, Shinji Mikami, has announced that he’s returning to survival horror with Bethesda’s The Evil Within.

Resident Evil: Revelations will launch across the PS3, Xbox 360, Wii U and PC on May 21.

At the beginning of this generation, Capcom was incredibly aggressive with new IPs like Dead Rising and Lost Planet. The former seems to have slowly died out, but the latter will be getting a new installment later this year.

Capcom revealed today that Lost Planet 3 will have four multiplayer modes that challenge players to go toe-to-toe with each other or the giant bug-like Akrid that roam the icy wastes of the planet. Two of the modes – Scenario Mode and Akrid Survival – were detailed today:

Scenario Mode sets each team with a series of either offensive or defensive challenges and mixes them up with the extreme and unpredictable conditions of E.D.N. III. Players can compete in both third-person on-foot action and in first-person combat using Vital Suits, a futuristic staple of the LP series.

Akrid Survival sees two teams of three players compete independently of each other in a series of encounters against waves of hostile Akrid before the teams go head to head in a final PvP elimination round.

It looks decent so far, but developer Spark Unlimited’s past endeavors do not inspire confidence. Remember, these are the guys behind Legendary and Turning Point: Fall of Liberty. I highly recommend them if you’re looking for something worse than Duke Nukem Forever.

Lost Planet 3 launches August 27 on Xbox 360, PS3 and PC.

Since being announced earlier this month, Far Cry 3: Blood Dragon has become one of the most anticipated games of the year. We still have to wait a few weeks for the game’s release, but Ubisoft has released a new walkthrough to tide us over.

Blood Dragon’s creative director walks us through the game with a wonderful narration that’s littered with expletives and buzzwords delivered with sarcasm. Check it out:

Far Cry 3: Blood Dragon releases on Xbox 360, PS3 and PC on May 1. Best of all – players don’t need to own Far Cry 3 to enjoy the mayhem of Blood Dragon.

Metro: Last Light, sequel to Metro 2033, is quickly approaching its mid-May release date. Until then, the developers are equipping players with the knowledge necessary to survive the post-apocalyptic wastelands of Moscow.

The first two ranger survival episodes covered the human factions and the monsters that thrive in the metro and the surface. Now you’ll learn how to put them down with the weaponry available to players. It also delves into one of the most interesting portions of Metro’s universe – the bullet-driven economy.

Metro: Last Light will launch across the PS3, Xbox 360 and PC on May 14.