The holidays at Guild Wars 2 have historically been a period of a whole pile of fun and excitement for the community, with big updates, seasonal activities and changes to the world. In recent history, the holidays have seen even more than just holiday updates, with 2015’s Halloween paired with the launch of Heart of Thorns, 2015 Wintersday seeing the Fractal update and addition of Encryptions and liquid rewards, 2016 Lunar New Year seeing the addition of Central Tyria Gliding.
Star Citizen – Chris Roberts Clarifies Switch to Amazon’s Lumberyard
Chris Robert took to the Star Citizen forums to add a bit of clarification to last week’s announcement that the game had been switched over to Amazon’s Lumberyard engine for the duration of its development. He begins with the simple statement that Lumberyard and the Star Citizen engine up to last week’s announcedment are “both forks from exactly the SAME build of CryEngine”.
Chronicles of Elyria – Exposited Unknowns
This week Tim Eisen addresses the latest delay and delves into some inevitable (and unpleasant) consequences of game development.
Escape from Tarkov – Developer’s 2016 Report
BattleState Games has released a brand new developer update video to show off progress made on Escape from Tarkov over the preceding year. The video sports nearly twenty minutes of game play and commentary by the head of BattleState Games, Nikita Buyanov who also gives background on the story itself and much more. Check it out!
Guardians of Ember – Act 3 Opens with 10 New Zones, 20 New Dungeons & More
The Guardians of Ember Steam page has been updated with a newsy post to let players know that Act 3 has officially opened and with it ten new zones, 20 new dungeons (including four story dungeons) and an increased level cap to 40. Players can also take part in mining and crafting once the ability to do so opens up at level 40.
Shards Online – Year in Review Details Progress, Alpha to Launch Jan 13th!
The latest Shards Online newsletter has been released that takes a retrospective look back at 2016 and the progress made on the game since the release of Pre-Alpha 3 in December 2015.To show how much progress has been made, a brief overview image was also released to give a thumbnail sketch of how far Shards has come.
– Project Re-Fantasy Announced as Atlus’s New Fantasy RPG
Atlus has announced that a new RPG is in development by the team behind Shin Megami Tensei and the Persona series. To better facilitate development, a new internal studio called Studio Zero has been formed with work already underway. According to press information, the game will be “a return to the roots of where the Japanese games industry began with fantasy role-playing games”.
Gigantic – Hero Spotlight – Lord Knossos
Gigantic players who like to head straight into the middle of the fight will definitely want to check out Lord Knossos and his new game play video. Nothing says front line fighter like a big side of beef in the form of a Minotaur hurtling across the battlefield. See what he’s all about!
Final Fantasy XIV – Stormblood Expansion to be Released on June 20th
Final Fantasy XIV players will be pleased to know that the game’s next expansion, Stormblood, will be released on June 20, 2017. Pre-orders for Stormblood will start on January 24th with the Collector’s Edition featuring a Syldra mount, a Barts minion from Final Fantasy XV and the Chicken Knight for Red Mages. The announcements came during this weekend’s Fanfest currently ongoing in Japan.
Star Citizen – Now Built with Lumberyard & 2.6 with Star Marine Launches
Star Citizen is now being built using the Amazon Lumberyard engine after several years in development. Lumberyard is a free AAA cross-platform 3D engine. Both Star Citizen and Squadron 42 will use the engine from now forward.