Everyone has a fighting chance
Everyone is talking about the end of Game of Thrones today. Many websites, especially game websites are covering it as their top story, if not top five stories. This marks a shift in journalism which has been going on in a while. When pop culture news shifts away from games to entertainment, things can get different for hardcore audiences. Are we in a short phase of entertainment out performing games on the pop culture stage?
There’s a new tabletop miniatures game coming soon called The Elder Scrolls: Call to Arms. It’s being created by Modiphius Entertainment that also made the Fallout: Wasteland Warfare miniatures game from 2018. Eventually, the series will cover the breadth of the game universe, but this first game will be set in Skyrim. Minis are being created for General Tullius, Galmar Stone-Fist, Ulfric Stormcloak and several others.
The latest Destiny’s Sword developer blog has gone live on the game’s official site. This time devs turn their attention to one of the most frequently asked questions: Why explore psychological effects on characters in an MMO? It began when creative director Ken Hall was interviewing British WWII veterans about the trauma they endured both during the war and in their lives afterward.
Ready to head to the lands of the Khajiit in Elder Scrolls Online and to see dragons make their return to Tamriel? If so, today’s early access of Elsweyr is right up your alley. Both PC and Mac players who preordered the content expansion can get started today. Elsweyr will land in full retail launch for PlayStation 4, Xbox One and PC/Mac on June 4th.
This past week we not only found out WoW Classic will be live worldwide August 27th, but the Beta test for it has also officially started. There’s no NDA or streaming restriction on this Beta test, as is generally the case with Blizzard, but I’m hopeful this will function as a real Beta where issues which arise can be dealt with before the game goes live instead of Beta being treated more like marketing for their upcoming thing.
The Ship of Heroes team has taken to the game’s forum in response to a query from a poster wondering when the next “invite test” for the Character Creator Beta would be held. Though the hope is for the July 4th weekend, it may be too much of a stretch for that, but should come sometime shortly after. The team is hard at work on a number of features before the next test, hence the ambiguous date.
From May 23rd through June 28th, Magic: The Gathering Arena players will be able to take part in weekly events as part of the War of the Spark Chronicles. The event is designed to introduce players to key moments in the Magic: The Gathering lore with each week featuring a different play format. Winning matches will see players “unlock beautiful, exclusive stained-glas card” versions of Plainswalkers from War of the Spark.
Nvizzio Creations has announced that Eden Rising, its hybrid “open world action tower defense” game, has launched on Steam after a year in early access. Players can choose from the free to play “Explorer Edition” or the buy to play Ascendant Edition. The latter features four additional areas to explore, more sieges, armor dyes, and much more. The Ascendant Edition is $24.99.
Starting May 21st, Overwatch players will be able to take part in the third annual anniversary event. While we don’t yet have any details, the event should bring a host of new cosmetic items to players including sprays, skins, emotes, and much more. The event will last through June 10th for PC, PlayStation 4 and XBox One.
Apparently a lot of the current World of Warcraft Classic closed beta testers are reporting things as bug that, well, simply aren’t. There are enough of them, in fact, that Kalvax, the Classic community manager, posted a lengthy “Not a Bug” list on the forums. Some of the things that are actual features in the game include Tauren melee reach and hitboxes are larger than other races, Warrior health regen is working as intended and creature respawn rates are “much slower”.