We got 10 Hero-U Steam Keys from Michael Cole. The RPGWatch team wants to give them to RPGWatch veterans:

To take part you have to meet at least one of these two requirements (with your current account):

1. You have more than 500 posts
2. You registered as forum member before 2011

• Post something nice in this thread

The latest update for Soul Saga announces that the game will be releasing for Steam Early Access this July.

Soul Saga - Our 5th Anniversary

5 years ago. from this exact day, I came to Kickstarter as a young developer with a dream: to make a fun game inspired by the classics I loved from my childhood.  At first I just planned to find a way to fund Soul Saga's development, but through Kickstarter I found much more.  I found support, I found friends, and most importantly: I found a reason to live.  Without you, I wouldn't have had the motivation to continue.

In a previous post I covered some of what I've had to sacrifice to keep working on Soul Saga.  Since then, I left my entire life behind to return to the exact place I started Soul Saga: my parent's basement.  I haven't left the farm since I got here half a year ago, because every waking moment has been dedicated to working on Soul Saga.  It's been a long journey with a lot of pain and heartbreak... and if I had the chance to start over, I'd do it all again.

I set out to make a love letter to JRPG classics and ended up making a love letter to you, my friends.  From the first moment I wake up, to the last moment I fall asleep, my only goal is to one day see you proud of the game you and I have created together.  This is why I've been gathering your feedback and applying it to Soul Saga.  I'm making this game for you, and it's you that has pushed Soul Saga to be the best game it can be.

Earlier this year I had hoped to have Soul Saga finished by July.  Since then I have done nearly nothing but work on Soul Saga. While I haven't been able to completely finish it yet, I've gotten a lot done.  However, after a lifetime of combating mental health diseases and the past 5 years pushing me beyond limits, it's become very obvious that toiling away alone will not be a feasible way to handle the remainder of Soul Saga's development.  It's time that we try something new.

Early Access in July

Lately I've been looking back on the past 5 years of Soul Saga's development cycle and analyzing my own personal strengths and weaknesses to plan a realistic route to Soul Saga's completion.  What I've found is that the most valuable strength I have isn't from within myself... it's you.  Soul Saga could never have been as polished as it is today without your feedback and support.  And the only way I can complete Soul Saga is if you can help me figure out the best way to utilize what its world has to offer.  And we'll do that through early access.

In July I will be releasing Soul Saga in an early access state.  At the moment it's not nearly the game it can be or the game that you truly deserve, but with you and I working together, one day it will be.

[...]

Warhammer 40,000: Inquisitor - Martyr has been reviewed by Techraptor.

Inquisitor relishes in sending waves upon waves of units towards the player, some of which are alarmingly powerful. As a Psyker, I battled while utilizing the Warp, an otherworldly power that seeks the corrupt all that use it. Using the Warp, I would teleport around the room, killing everything that I encountered while judiciously using my spells and hiding behind my cover when needed.

Sometimes I got my butt kicked, sending me back a few rooms and letting me ponder what exactly I did wrong. Inquisitor is great in that way, as it doesn’t punish the player unless they make a mistake. If you become surrounded and later massacred by screeching enemies, there was a sequence of mistakes that led to that moment. Usually, it was along the lines of deciding to run in there guns (or in this case staff) blazing instead of moving forward cautiously. This is a game that demands focus and not an insignificant amount of skill, which only serves to elevate Inquisitor’s combat above most of its contemporaries.

[...]

Gamerpros compared Warhammer 40,000: Inquisitor - Martyr to Diablo 3.

Level Design

First thing that really differentiate Martyr from Diablo III is the level structure. Diablo III is known for huge, open, maze-like levels, which change each time you play. Levels are littered with enemies, meaning there is plenty for you to do, but backtracking caused by the randomized nature of the levels (as well as sheer scale of each area), makes it feel bit dreary at times. This also means that a single mission can take a significant time investment to complete. Since you cannot save your progress mid-level, you need to have at least an hour to spare to even considering starting a game session.

Martyr completely eliminates that issue. Each level in Martyr is quite a small, confined experience that could take as little as ten minutes to complete. This is all thanks to the decision to have smaller separate areas for every mission, instead of having many missions in a one single map. This makes the game much more approachable, and means you can get your ARPG fix in short bursts.

[...]

Thanks Farflame!

PCGamesN writes what they think The Elder Scrolls VI should learn from The Witcher 3.

Proper relationships

One of the highlights of The Witcher 3 is the intimate relationships you form with its cast. The combination of terrific dialogue and expressive gestures, discussion of complicated emotions, and the drastic consequences of your decisions make the characters feel alive. It helps that you carry a history with Yennefer, Dandelion, and Triss over all three Witcher games, their personalities fully developed into independent people recognisable by their passions, talents, and the mistakes they make.

Characters in Skyrim, however are often voiced by the same few actors, and those you get closest to are your followers. This includes the likes of Lydia, Uthgerd, and Farkas, who mostly serve as an extra blade or bow at your side, and repeat the same voice lines as if they’re on a timer.

[...]

Thanks Farflame!

Xenonauts 2 has three days left until the crowdfunding campaign raps up. The latest update talks about the remaining stretch goals.

One Week Left: MARS / Sentry Gun Achieved!

With one week left of the Xenonauts-2 Kickstarter, we've just blown past 300% funding and hit our fourth stretch goal! Huge thanks to all of you! 

This means the MARS Support Platform & Sentry Gun single-tile vehicles will now both be included in the final game for everyone.

MARS & Sentry Guns:

The MARS is a small robotic tank manufactured in the workshop that can accompany the Xenonaut soldiers on a ground missions. It has relatively high TU and HP, making it good for scouting and crushing fences / other obstacles to make a path for the rest of your team - but it has a relatively low Accuracy. It is smaller than the 3x3 armoured vehicles in Xenonauts 1 and therefore can enter buildings and UFOs, but can only carry infantry weapons (by default it carries the machinegun).

The Sentry Gun is a defensive unit that can only be deployed on Xenonaut Base Defence missions and can be manufactured relatively cheaply in the Workshop. These immobile units are placed during the deployment phase, but have limited rotation range - making them a good way of defending choke points but leaving them very vulnerable to flanking if left unprotected!

We've now started work on both of these units, and if all goes well we might be able to show off some early progress with them next week. 

Final Week & Upcoming Stretch Goals!

It's difficult to know how well the final week will go for us, but Kickstarters often finish strongly and it's definitely possible that we hit one or both of remaining stretch goals.

The next stretch goal is arriving at £200,000 - the Additional Community Edition / Modding Support. Of course, we'll do our best to leave the game open to modding (just as we did in X1) but it'd be great if we could afford to take some extra time to add additional features / tools that will allow modders to make things that fundamentally change the game. I know this is something many of you feel very strongly about; with your help we can get there!

We'll be doing more PR work after the weekend - hitting up our mailing list, journalists, Twitter, Reddit, etc. It'd be great if you could help us spread the word in any way you feel you can, as everything helps! To help things along, we'll be unlocking two extra £500 and ten extra £200 rewards with 48 hours left to go.

Finally, we're working on some more additions to the Portrait Editor to give you guys even more options for your custom soldiers. There's a bugfix and a few new hair variants in the most recent update, and the portrait artist also thinks he's figured out a way to support greying hair for any hair color (something a lot of people have been requesting). That'll all arrive next week.

Have a great weekend everyone - and let's hope next week brings more stretch goals! :)

Thanks Farflame!

Techquila compared The Witcher 3 to Skyrim in a number of categories.

The Witcher 3 vs Skyrim: Exploration

Ah exploring! Something RPG’rs absolutely love. Both Skyrim and The Witcher 3 have massive open worlds, but this is Bethesda’s territory. There’s nothing like exploring the dungeons and caves of Skyrm infested with deranged falmers and leaden with rare and legendary equipment.

The Witcher 3 is no push-over though. You’ll always find something in every nook and cranny of the map, and not just some measly quest written in a hurry, but a memorable experience that’ll make you want to explore every inch of the world. In the end though, CD Projekt just couldn’t get to that level of atmospheric goodness Todd Howard and his beloved Elder Scrolls games are known for.

Winner: Skyrim

[...]

Thanks Farflame!

Gameinformer shared their impressions of The Bard's Tale IV: Barrows Deep.

3. There Are Some Cool Exploration Elements

I had fun with the game’s systems. As you gain party members, you gain access to Songs of Exploration, spells that can be used to open secret doors and solve puzzles. In the opening hours, it was obvious which song I was supposed to use. For example, an ability called “Hidey-Bide” reveals hidden item caches, and “Jarnel’s Eyes” reveals hidden corruption in the environment, such as shadowy figures disguised as villagers, as well as a large area of the map. These abilities made me feel a little more connected to the fantasy of being a bard.

[...]

A new update for Consortium: The Tower brings it to Alpha 1.5.

Early Access Alpha 1.5 is here: Combat re-balanced + Demo updated + 212121

Greetings Seekers,

We have just made v1.5 live for you all. We've also updated the demo to include all of the latest fixes and polish. Click HERE to see a complete list of all the updates and fixes we've made to the game for you.

The biggest change/improvement revolves around combat balance - the early game is now much easier, giving new players more time and space to understand the game's mechanics and systems. We aren't declaring that the game is completely free of issues, but it is now quite stable and we're continuing to fix and polish things as quickly as we're able to.

Here is a complete list of the things iDGi is working on right now:

-Continued polish, fixing and improving all Act 1 content (i.e the game you all have access to now).
-Act 2 content development ongoing, screenshots coming soon!
-A secret partnership centered around a brand new feature for The Tower that no-one is expecting. Fig Backers will be learning about this first, but watch for a big official announcement in the coming weeks!
-A FREE Consortium choose-your-own-adventure digital prequel story is coming to Android and iOS devices! We haven't truly announced it yet, but we're quite close to a first release to our Fig Backers. A PC version will be coming to Steam sometime afterwards...

We have largely been silent over the past few months, and we apologize for any misconceptions that may be floating around out there as to WHY. Please always remember, this is a pure passion project for us, and we will never stop working on it until it's done... even if it kills us, and we have to reincarnate ourselves!

That being fact, in true indie developer fashion, we are all juggling various life responsibilities and contracts along with working on The Tower, so we need to maximize the use of our time. There's still a lot of game to get done here, and creatively we very much need to be able to work on the game in our own way, without any time pressure or outside influences.

So, we deeply appreciate all of your continued patience and understanding, even if we appear to go dark for long periods of time.

We hope you like the latest, more to come soon!

Sincerely,

Gregory and the iDGi team
212121

A new update for Ghost of a Tale brings improved lighting and shadows due to an upgraded Unity engine.

Patch Release 7.26 (upgraded engine + better shadows!)
Hello everyone! Here's a new patch release which brings us to version 7.26. It's mostly a maintenance patch, although behind the scenes we've upgraded the game's engine itself (from Unity 5.5 to 2017.4). As a consequence, performance and visual quality have gotten a boost.

Most notably the lighting quality has been greatly improved. The sun's light and shadows now progress smoothly throughout the duration of the day. If you remember before it was advancing abruptly and remained static for 10 seconds, then quickly advanced again and stopped, etc...

Enjoy! :)

Fixed:

• A couple of holes in the sets geometry.
• Some set sectioning issues on the shore.
• Tilo's hood can sometimes go through the top of his head.

Changed:

• Major upgrade of the engine.
• Optimization pass in preparation of console release.
• Added a new visual option for bloom.
• Light and shadows from the sun now move smoothly throughout the day.
• Sunsets and sunrises as well as the game's overall shadows quality have been improved.

Version 28 of Vigilantes adds more content and balance, and also brings the game closer to it estimated release of October 2018.

Like the past few updates, version 28 focuses on adding content, improving balance, but also on completing work which is required for final release. The expectation is that there will be two more updates, and that release will occur in the first 2 weeks of October 2018.

We hope you enjoy the latest update and as always, your comments, questions and observations are welcome. Have a good weekend!

Summary

• You can choose the deploy close to enemies or further away
• Patrols on city tiles now link to combat on the correct map type
• Additional tile types added to city map
• Crafting system and crafting UI improved
• Several 1000 additional words of dialogue (3 non combat, 5 post combat encounter)
• Final two maps added
• 7 perks added
• 2 new utility items
• Balance and quality of life improvements.

@Celestial Heavens Rodril has merged Might and Magic 6, 7 and 8 into one game. A new version of this mod has been uploaded recently.

Hello.

Here is thing i did for past time: merge of mm6, mm7, and mm8 on base of mm8 using MMExtension.

Download link (MMExtension, patch and Editor are included, game is not included): https://www.dropbox.com/sh/cu6tlpkh99pw ... jMWfa?dl=0
Update 23.06.2018, use it if you've downloaded main files before: https://www.dropbox.com/sh/v6bsucr1m5ck ... uQOfa?dl=0
Note: first launch after this update will take longer than usual.

How to install:
1. Install GOG version of Might and Magic VIII.
2. Install GrayFace's patch for MM8.
3. Unpack MMExtension and MMEditor files into MM8 folder.
4. Copy files from "Game files" folder to MM8 folder, replacing existing.
5. First launch can take up to 15 mins, keep patience.

I did test only main stories and partially promotion quests, those should work right, other stuff can be buggy and requries feedback for fixing.
Known unfixed bugs/issues:
1. Win7 x64: some cutscenes can not be played in full screen mode, watch them in windowed mode. Did not notice it in Win XP x64 and Win 10 x64.
2. Some MM6 dungeons are glitchy in hardware game mode, use software mode for it (possible crashes while moving through doors).
3. One half of double-leaf doors in MM6 dungeons sometimes stays impassable, second part usually works fine.
4. Immediate interrupt of food-consuming party rest may lead to interface glitch.
---
5. Win 10: in some builds Grayface's Mouse look does not work, in that case find file "MouseLookTmp.lua.off" inside "...Scripts\General" folder, rename it to "MouseLookTmp.lua", use backspace button to toggle it. Also, it may be useful if you experiencing problems with original mouselook, during usage of dgVoodoo.

Possible contributions if someone would:
1. Testing.
2. Repainting mm6/7 armors to fit mm8 dolls.
(video-example at 1:18 : https://youtu.be/lipriutf3SI (video a bit outdated, use dump(*table*) function to find new fields of structures)).
---
3. Write artistic and grammatically true text for win-game postcard.

Current contributions:
- Two elf females and woman from MM7 by J.M.Sower.
- Two elf males and man from MM7 by Albahr.
- MM7 and all MM6 characters by Jamesx.
- Two connective cross-continent questlines by Echo.

Localization:
This is english version based on GOG releases. I did external database to not get confused with all game files, i think, i can use it to automatically replace current files with other localization, send me your *.lod archives from game folder, so i can try to do it.

Existing localizations:
German: https://www.dropbox.com/sh/takm1tpdq5ur ... DX3va?dl=0
- Texts and mm6/mm7/mm8 audio.

Polish: https://www.dropbox.com/sh/579jr8x0gk6b ... WQQDa?dl=0
- Texts and mm7/mm8 audio. If mm6 sound localization eixist, send it to me, please.

Russian: https://www.dropbox.com/sh/pqnrlq4h6gso ... MXo6a?dl=0
- Texts and mm6/mm7/mm8 audio.

- copy files in you "...\Data" folder to apply localization.

Note:
These localizations were made mostly automaticly, and have not been tested enough yet. English texts were manually reviewed by Phobos, misspells and some quest descriptions were corrected, which stays in localizations, texts for new quests does not have existing translation, if you'll resolve some of this issues, please, share new texts here.

Tips:
1. At certain points of stories you will receive instructions about traveling to other continents and explanation of it's purpose.
2. Party can be filled up at start or durning gameplay by hiring random followers.
3. Game have weather effects (snow and rain), these are toggleable by new button in "Controls" menu.
4. Simple way to achieve high resolution (provided by China community): https://www.celestialheavens.com/forum/10/16658
5. I've used Marcon Phoenix's world map for new game menu.
6. Game bolstering monsters to match them with high levelled parties, who have already finished one of continents, if this became gamebreaking or annoying - disable or adjust bolster in "Controls" menu.
7. Use "f4" button to switch windowed and fullscreen mode in game.
8. Music is disabled by default, to enable it: open file "mm8.ini" via notepad, find line "PlayMP3=0", change it to "PlayMP3=1".

Last edited by Rodril on Jun 23 2018, 13:13, edited 58 times in total.

Thanks Skullguise!

Crying Suns has been funded on Kickstarter and is now onto stretch goals.

Crying Suns is funded!

Greetings indie games supporters!

We did it! Thanks to your crucial help, we will be able to realize the project of our dreams, and maybe even more!

Indeed, with 18 more days to go on the campaign, we have the opportunity to go further into the depth, the quality and the uniqueness of Crying Suns experience.

Here is a reminder of the first stretch goals we planed, mainly focused on new contents such as new factions, alternate endings, the kind of extras we had to cut from our initial plans to fit into the budget:

Stretch Goals

Join the Crying Suns community

Besides Kickstarter, Crying Suns is active on several social networks where we post regularly exclusive contents, sometimes experimental, but most of the time coming directly from the game progress. We also post shoutout about other indie projects that we really like. Don’t hesitate to come to talk to us for any reason, we answer :)

Especially on Twitter, but also on Facebook, Reddit and Steam.

Gamerant reports that resurrection will be a feature of the gameplay in Sekiro: Shadows Die Twice. In addition the game will not feature multiplayer.

In Sekiro: Shadows Die Twice, players will be able to resurrect. This will impact the game in terms of its gameplay as well as the story, which, according to director Hidetaka Miyazaki, will center around the concept of resurrection. From a gameplay perspective, players will be able to resurrect in creative ways to actually gain an advantage over their opponents in some cases, though Miyazaki stopped short of providing any specific examples.

[...]

The Garden of Delights goal has been reached for Black Geyser: Couriers of Darkness.

The Garden of Delights is reached!

You did it! The Garden of Delights will become a reality thanks to your support!

It is a hub of unknown pleasures, where the rich and powerful meet to try the most exotic experiences offered by the Rillow's most veteran hedonists. While it may seem like a paradise, beyond the swaying courtesans and heady incense lie corruption and intrigue. Players who visit may discover secret plots or perhaps just fall prey to sweet sensation. Can you resist the lovely facade of the Garden of Delights long enough to delve deeper?

We have raised more than $145,000, reaching our final stretch goal. Even though this was the last stretch goal, late backing is still available via PayPal and BackerKit as well. Every additional dollar will be used to enhance Black Geyser: Couriers of Darkness.

Completed surveys were locked down in BackerKit. Backers who haven't filled out their survey yet should choose any add-ons and complete their survey as soon as possible. We will process these orders manually.

Gamingbolt reviewed the Mooncrash DLC for Prey and have a favourable impression.

It’s important to note that Mooncrash for PS4 and Xbox One is not standalone content, so in order to play it you must own a physical or digital copy of Prey. And if you haven’t played it yet, you’re missing out on a lot. The game doesn’t have much for tutorials. It will assume that you’ve played the main game and expects you to understand the basics of the controls as you move forward. So, keep that in mind if you decide to buy this without having played the main game. Also, Mooncrash is really a continuation of the Prey game shortly thereafter, and you will see some characters from the main story within it. So, yes, you need to play the base game till the end before you begin the DLC.

[...]

A modder called Kaldaien has uncovered a way to dramatically improve the performance of Pillars of Eternity II: Deadfire.

[Special K] Fix for Inverse CPU Performance Scaling

Intro

I have determined one cause of extreme performance problems for systems with higher-end CPUs.

The game spawns one worker thread per-CPU core (logical, not physical), and does not assign thread priority. This causes starvation and the result can be a very substantial decrease in framerate.

•  
  My system goes from 24 FPS to over 100 at 4K after artificially decreasing my CPU's core count from 16 down to 3.

Download and Install

Grab a specially prepared version of Special K from here[github.com]

•  
  Extract the DLL and PDB (optional debug info) to your Pillars of Eternity 2 install directory

Configuration

1. Press Ctrl + Shift + Backspace in-game, then expand the "Advanced" section of the Framerate Limiter settings.
2. Enable "CPU Core Spoofing" and cut the number of CPU cores in half.
3. Restart the game and test framerate

•  
  • You may try reducing the number of cores even farther if framerate is stable.
  • Hitching may occur while panning the camera if core count is reduced too far.

Misc. Performance Advice

If you are having GPU performance issues, Ambient Occlusion is the most poorly optimized graphical effect in the game. Dynamic Lights also have a modest impact on performance.

These are the first things you should try turning off if using a lower-end GPU.

[...]

PC Games says that there are many interesting horror universes worth to be to explored in computer games:

Screw Lovecraft, let's talk about other horror universes games could explore

Enough H.P. already. Our tentacles have gone limp.

H.P. Lovecraft told some great stories, sure. His ability to push readers to attempt to grasp ‘unknowable truths’ and ‘unspeakable horrors’ and to build stupefying worlds out of impossible geometries was largely unmatched in the public eye upon discovery of his work. But despite his widespread posthumous fame and contributions to horror, we’re tired of videogames’ love affair with Lovecraft. 

There have been some great Lovecraft inspired games throughout the years, but the bulk throw in some tentacles, weird shapes, the occasional penis statue, and call it a day. The horror genre is infinitely deeper and wider than one (undeniably xenophobic and racist) man’s work. We believe games can do better. Here’s just a few horror universes set forth by our favorite creators that future games could pull from.

[...]

Thanks henriquejr!

Gamewatcher reports that Endless Legend will get a new expansion called Inferno.

Amplitude Studios have just announced that they'll be closing shop for the next 10 days, as they head early into their annual summer break. This, however, they decided to do with a little more pizzaz than most would choose to, as they not only noted that they've got two unannounced projects being tested in closed beta (both coming along nicely), but that there's also yet another Endless Legend expansion in the works!

Titled Endless Legend: Inferno, there is literally nothing known about this expansion at all, but it's exciting news to be sure!

[...]

A new update for Thea 2: The Shattering announces Steam early access release for November 2018.

Progress report and release dates

Where are we at with release dates.

We’ve been having a lot of team meetings and progress reviews (sounds all formal, but we’ve just been assessing realistic goals and targets that still need hitting) and we have a few announcements to make this month.  

So firstly, as you know, our policy has always been to only release our game into early access once it is feature complete and fully playable. Not only do you not get a second chance at a first impression, but more importantly, we’d hate for our fans to pay for something they cannot fully enjoy yet.  

With that in mind, we set the date for the Steam early access release for November 2018. We then hope to fully release the game in the first quarter of 2019.  

But, because we hate moving dates and we are aware you’ve been waiting patiently for a good while already, we plan to have a playable beta/demo version ready in September and available for our Kickstarter backers to test (that will be everyone who pledged £15 or more). The plan is to have a beta available on steam, but if for any reason this fails, we will prep a demo build for you to enjoy. 

Rewards and other news.

We are also hoping to show the game at Gamescom this summer, and if that happens, I will make another one of those great play-through vids for you 😉 As for other rewards, we’ve been putting everything together as we go along, but truth be told, we have been focused on getting the game into early access first, and then we can get onto the rewards and have it ready for you for the full release (or before, if things go smoothly).

And we're working through a final batch (I hope it is final this time ;) ) of portraits and characters, so look out for those in the coming weeks.

And now, before we leave, here’s a look at one of our artists hard at work on one of the backer characters. Enjoy!

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 All the best,

MuHa Team

The July update for System Shock delivers a lot of screenshots.

Hello backers! It’s Stephen from Nightdive with this month’s update.

We’re busy reaching our September milestone which we’ve dubbed the, “Adventure Alpha” as it will be reminiscent of the original game with the difficulty set to zero. You’ll be able to freely traverse Citadel Station without the presence of enemies, pick up items, listen to audio logs, read emails and complete the game’s objectives from start to finish.

We were expecting to have all the levels blocked out by September, but with no other details...however, Jonathan has been able to apply the textures from System Shock to Daniel’s BSP giving us an insightful look into the original game. The textures have been modified to take advantage of PBR rendering and lighting placed to mimic the original. Here’s a first look…

This is what we were expecting to deliver in September:

[...]

System Shock: Enhanced Edition Update!

We’re anticipating the release of the System Shock Source port to be at the end of the month!  

If you still haven’t checked it out you can still opt in to the Beta on Steam!

We wanted to give a BIG THANK YOU to everyone who has been playing and reporting bugs and making suggestions!

You can opt-in to product betas by right clicking the System Shock: Enhanced Edition in your Steam Library and choosing "Properties".

Next, from the properties window select the tab titled "Betas". From this page select the “SOURCE PORT” beta from the drop-down menu.  

The password is: saltthosefries

Join the System Shock: Enhanced Edition Discord channel to discuss changes, bugs, and anything else you encounter!

[...]

PC Gamer reports that The Council: Episode 3 will release July 24th.

The third episode of neoclassical narrative adventure The Council will arrive on July 24, Focus Home Interactive has announced.

Titled “Ripples”, the third episode will continue the story of Louis de Richet, who belongs to an 18th Century secret society whose members include George Washington and Napoleon Bonaparte. Its heavy emphasis on dialogue and player-choice is similar to DontNod’s Life is Strange, only with less teenage angst and more powdered wigs.

[...]

Eurogamer checked out the tactical RPG Iron Danger:

What happens when Superhot meets XCOM?

Meet Iron Danger, a new take on a Finnish legend. 

Finland has provided its fair share of classics over the years - from Resogun to Trials through Alan Wake and Angry Birds - but here's one of a different vintage; a game that draws upon a Finnish classic from the 19th century. Kalevala is an epic that's informed much of Finland's national identity, drawing upon Finnish folklore (and proving influential to Tolkien as he built his own mythology) - and all this without a voxel in sight.

It's ripe for returning to, really, which is exactly what upstart Helsinki developer Action Squad - a team who draws experience from seemingly every studio in the area, with Remedy, Rovio, Supercell and RedLynx all making appearances on the various CVs - is doing with Iron Danger, a tactical turn-based adventure with a few neat twists of its own. You're Kipuna, an everyday villager who is granted superpowers that place her in the middle of an epic battle for the city of Kalevala.

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[...]

@Gamingbolt Shenmue 1&2 used many real life locations which is explored and compared in this video. The game itself is releasing August 21st.

This trailer actually highlights one of the strengths of the Shenmue games- their almost discomfitting faithfulness to real life. For instance, this trailer compares locations of the real world Yokosuka with their analogs in game, and it is fascinating to see just what extent Yu Suzuki and his team went to to keep things as accurate as possible.

[...]

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Pillars of Eternity II is getting a new DLC called Beast of Winter, which has been previewed by PCGamesN. The DLC will release August 2nd.

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Beast of Winter, the first of three planned paid DLC packs for Deadfire, flips the formula once again. The idyllic, Polynesian white sand and blue seas have been covered by snow and ice. A new vein of dark comedy has opened up in the writing. And you, the heroic Watcher, are being celebrated once again - but this time by some pretty unpalatable types.

“One of the real rewarding things about working on DLC is that the groundwork is done,” Beast of Winter narrative designer Alex Scokel tells us. “We don’t have to worry about making sure that every weapon has an animation associated with it - we can just make new stuff.

[...]

InXile have announced a September 18th release date for The Bard's Tale IV: Barrows Deep. In addition IGN had a go at beta.

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Take a look at the early part of gameplay in the beta/demo for The Bard's Tale IV.

James Ohlen has left Bioware to develop modules for Dungeons and Dragons. His new passion is a publishing venture called Arcanum Worlds. The first project is a hardcover sourcebook for fifth edition called Odyssey of the Dragon Lords.

Our first project is a hardcover sourcebook for the fifth edition of the world's greatest roleplaying game. This epic adventure is set in a fantasy world inspired by Ancient Greek mythology.

Even the gods are bound by oaths and prophecies...

At the dawn of time, a war between gods and titans left the landscape of Thylea forever changed. Thousands of years later, the first mortals arrived by ship and by dragon.

The Dragonlords were the champions who threw down the titans 500 years ago and forged the Oath of Peace. But the power of the oath has waned, and the titans seek vengeance.

You are one of the heroes called by prophecy to end this conflict once and for all. Poets will sing of your exploits for centuries to come... if you survive to tell the tale.

The first book I'm working on is called Odyssey of the Dragonlords. I'm working on it with another former Creative Director from BioWare - Jesse Sky. Plus a mystery writer that I've worked with before 😉 https://t.co/uhUqy4Y6rf

— James Ohlen (@JamesOhlen) July 12, 2018

The Surge 2 features have been explained in an interview by Gamereactor. Video is at the link provided.

"So the city itself, it's called Jericho City and it's a sort of North American city in the near future where we say 'okay, we can show what happened, what we talked about a lot in the first game, what happened to society, to the environment, everything like that.' Now you can experience that. How did the world evolve? [...] You can witness that, and in terms of level design, like you said, it's a huge difference, because if you think of an urban environment you have always in your mind [that] you can go anywhere at the beginning [...] it's not all open but it's interconnected, and like you said verticality - you can go underground, you'll be at street level, you'll be inside buildings."

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Thanks Farflame!

PCGamesN reports that Vampyr has sold close to half a million in a month.

Vampyr, the gothic action-RPG from Life is Strange developer Dontnod, has sold 450,000 copies since its release on June 4. That figure is across all formats - so Xbox One, PS4, and PC via Steam - but it's still pretty good going for a mid-sized game from a studio whose biggest hit until now was a quirky episodic adventure.

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Thanks Farflame!