Blizzard have announced Diablo 4 at BlizzCon 2019. Marking a return to the series grimdark, gothic horror roots, the publisher debuted both a cinematic trailer and a quick look at gameplay. The game’s look has clearly been inspired by Diablo 2, taking a sincere and “reverent approach” to design. There’s no changes to POV or…
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The next expansion in the long-running World of Warcraft series is World of Warcraft: Shadowlands. Sylvanas has taken the crown of the Lich King, crowning herself the Lich Queen and doubling down on her seemingly endless downward spiral into madness and destruction. With the doorway to afterlife torn wide open, the expansion will allow players…
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Ghostbusters: The Video Game launched in 2009 to great commercial and critical success, a rarity for a licensed game. It boasted an in-canon story following the events of Ghostbusters 2 and the entire original cast — Dan Aykroyd, Bill Murray, Ernie Hudson and the late, great Harold Ramis — reprised their iconic roles. In today’s…
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Biomutant was extremely weird, and the PAX build was rather janky but that didn’t change one important factor: I think I love it. Biomutant is a game about survival as a tiny mammalian mutant that looks a bit like a koala. Surviving on what seems to be a version of Earth that suffered some massive…
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While I don’t necessarily understand Codemasters decision to reboot GRID, their pedigree as a developer of skifully designed, fun as hell racing games means I’m willing to take their word for it. From the stellar Formula 1 series to the gritty tracks of Dirt Rally, I had to bite down on the creeping notion that…
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Right out the gate, Tom Clancy’s Ghost Recon Breakpoint frustrated me. For every step the franchise took forward it in this iteration, it seemed to be taking two steps back. There are things to love in Ghost Recon Breakpoint, such as the vast open world, cinematic story and tight gunplay, but thanks to a largely similar…
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Destiny 2: Shadowkeep is the first major expansion for the popular MMO shooter since developer Bungie’s split from Activision Blizzard in January. Though Bungie has maintained a parade of events and updates for the game throughout 2019, they set themselves a rather high bar to jump over with the new expansion. Here was what Bungie’s…
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Yooka-Laylee and the Impossible Lair gets a lot of things right, and chief among them: it proves that the character platformer genre, the long-dead moneymaker of the 16-bit era, can still engage and excite in 2019. The original Yooka-Laylee was considered by most to be a good if unremarkable 3D platformer. Created by many of the…
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I’ve heard it suggested that the Dark Souls series is a modern take on the Metroidvania genre, and I generally think that’s correct. There are many parallels, from exploration and frequent backtracking, specific save locations, the memorisation of enemy patterns, slow power creep and subtle environmental storytelling. Developers The Game Kitchen have taken this comparison…
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With co-op shooter Tom Clancy’s Ghost Recon Breakpoint right around the corner, we sat down with the game’s writer and military consultant Emil Daubon for a quick chat about narrative, authenticity, and the great Jon Bernthal. Emil, so nice to be talking to you today! I am so excited for Ghost Recon Breakpoint, but before…
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There’s no better herald of the end-of-year video game rush than the arrival of a new FIFA game, and arrive it does with FIFA 20. There is a specific audience for these games — bring up FIFA around a group of gamers and third of them will immediately lose interest, another third remain neutral, and the remaining third…
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In today’s gaming landscape, you might be forgiven for never having heard of Dark Souls, but you would definitely be hard pressed to find someone who hasn’t played a game either directly inspired or affected by it. Enter The Surge 2, a tactical hack- and-slash experience that follows hot off the heels of its predecessor,…
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Dino Verano has a long career in games, working as a producer on numerous Activision titles. He’s also someone who understands the value of community in helping to polish and balance a game ahead of launch thanks to his prior career in quality assurance. Now a producer and team lead on Infinity Ward’s Call of…
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The NBA 2K series has become for many, including myself, the definitive basketball gaming experience. While each iteration tries to evolve in interesting ways, NBA 2K20 remains an evolutionary experience rather than a revolutionary one. In many ways, NBA 2K20 is superior to any of its predecessors, presenting stellar basketball gameplay paired with authentic presentation…
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My relationship with Borderlands might be different from that of other people, I don’t know. What I do know is that, contrary to a lot of other games I tend to like, I don’t come to Borderlands for the story or the characters or the world. I show up because Gearbox Software makes an idiot…
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When most people think of Gears of War, they’re probably not thinking about high fashion. For games about blood and guns with chainsaws attached, jewelry seems like an odd merchandising vertical to explore — but finding an unexpected point of connection and running with it has become Xbox Australia’s signature approach to promoting new games….
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The common thread that runs through the Xbox’s two biggest exclusive franchises is that they are no longer being made by the developers that created them. The Halo series has been under the stewardship of 343 Industries since Halo 4, and the Gears franchise has been with The Coalition since Epic wrapped on Gears of…
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Ideally, a good expansion pack extends the life of a game with something new. That something new could be an addition to the story, a new area to visit, or new moves and mechanics. Monster Hunter World: Iceborne goes all in, throwing a truly staggering amount of fresh content at returning players. Here’s the thing…
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Untitled Goose Game, the goose-based civilian torment simulator by Melbourne developer House House, will finally launch on September 20. In development for nearly three years, the game caught the internet’s attention for its exceedingly irreverent pitch — you are a goose and you mess with the life of a put-upon farmer just trying to go…
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When I first started building my own gaming PC’s in 2002, the monitor was always an afterthought. It was the part of the build where you could reliably save a buck because as long as the refresh rate was high, you were in the clear. That’s not true any longer. Now, the monitor is as…
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I really love the spirit of what Supermassive Games is trying to do with Man of Medan. The first episode in The Dark Pictures Anthology, a compendium of short-form video game horror stories, Man of Medan is cut from the same cloth as Supermassive’s 2015 effort Until Dawn but shrinks its scope and scale to better…
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It’s time to get primal. Unleash your inner Hominoidea and become one with your senses. In Minecraft, you begin by punching trees. In DayZ, if you make it off the beach, you start rummaging for weapons. In Ancestors: The Humankind Odyssey you begin as a scared, lonely ape in a dense forest with nothing but…
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Rad marks another genre turn for developer Double Fine, the studio behind classics like Psychonauts, Grim Fandango and Broken Age. Inkeeping with Double Fine studio lead Tim Schafer‘s abstract sense of humour, Rad is an imaginitive, colourful and wonderfully wacky rogue-like dungeon crawler. Bursting with colour and character, Rad might not be the best game…
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Fans of Gears 5 will treated to a pretty special night in Melbourne next week when Gears Ink kicks off in Docklands. The one night only Gears Ink pop up event will be hitting LA, London, Berlin, Paris, Mexico City and Melbourne throughout September. Melbourne’s turn is on Thursday, September 5 from 7pm-10pm. The event,…
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After suffering something of a false start at its cinematic-only E3 reveal in June, Marvel’s Avengers has finally pulled back the curtain with a lengthy look at gameplay. The trailer clocks in at just shy of 20 minutes, and focuses on what appears to be the early part of the game, beginning with Thor fighting…
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The Coalition has used Gamescom 2019 to lift the curtain on the few remaining details surrounding Gears 5 ahead of its September 10 launch. One of the most vaunted aspects of its Gamescom appearance was the reveal of Horde, the return of a beloved multiplayer mode from earlier Gears of War games. The trailer promised the…
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Microsoft’s Intellimouse brand has been around a really long time. For much of its life, the Intellimouse has been found at the cheaper end of the hardware scale, the kind of mouse your dad would buy when purchasing a $450 laptop on Boxing Day. Knowing that this was likely the target audience for their device,…
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Here’s a video game truism for you: Given a long enough timeline, all games in the Civilization tradition will eventually find their way into a sci-fi setting. The Age of Wonders series is no exception, using its fourth full instalment to trade high fantasy for science fantasy. This is not to suggest that it strays…
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In early May, I was among the first in the world to play Borderlands 3 at the official gameplay reveal event in Los Angeles. That preview gave us access to two of the game’s four classes — the muscular Siren Amara and the cloak-and-dagger Operative Zane. We were promised then that we’d get to spend…
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Monster Hunter World: Iceborne feels like it’s got a lot it wants to do. It has the unenviable task of expanding and refining a game that is known for its high level of technical and mechanical complexity. Fans keep coming back to the series because they love that complexity. Thus a lot of fans are…
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