After heated debates (opens in new tab) about the role of support in Overwatch 2, particularly the strength of Mercy’s ability to damage boost DPS heroes, Blizzard has taken a stance with an upcoming balance patch.
When Overwatch 2’s third season starts tomorrow, Mercy will lose her prominence in the game’s high-skill meta: the patch effectively reduces how much time she can spend with her staff’s beam connected to a single target by promoting triage above all else.
The Mercy changes :
Guardian Angel cooldown increased from 1.5 to 2.5 seconds
Holding the backwards directional input and canceling the ability with Jump now moves 20% slower
Caduceus Staff healing-per-second reduced from 55 to 45
Healing is increased by 50% for allies under half health
Regeneration Passive removed (she retains the support one though)
New Passive: “Sympathetic Recovery” where she heals herself for 25% of healing done with the Caduceus Staff
While none of the nerfs directly target her ability to damage boost allies, the developer comments in the patch notes say the changes will “empower Mercy even more as a triage healer and enable her to more often save low health allies.”
In a fast-paced game like Overwatch 2, where your health can fluctuate a lot, the Mercy changes incentivize her to stay in orbit of her team instead of partnering with a single DPS hero. The changes double down on healing as Mercy’s primary role, and it’ll be crucial for keeping yourself alive with the new passive.
Other than a slight nerf to the duration of Ana’s healing and anti-healing grenade, supports are on the rise: Lucio, Zen, and Brigitte got slight buffs. Lucio and Moira will have their ults up faster to save their allies more often, Zen will have five more shots to fling at enemies, and Brigitte’s Repair Pack will instantly heal allies for 25 health in addition to its HoT component. Combined with all of the other changes, I expect playing support should be a little easier than before (opens in new tab).
(Image credit: Activision Blizzard)
Season 3 continues to target heroes who can get near-instant kills (opens in new tab). Junkrat’s Concussion Mine has had its damage dropped by 20 to make one-shot combos with his grenade harder to pull off. Reinhardt’s Earthshatter ult has had its damage reduced and stun duration increased. And Widowmaker is back down to 175 health (from 200), which should make the sniper easier to squish.
The amount of ultimate charge you retain when you swap heroes has been reduced from 30% to 25%, and almost every tank will now take longer to charge their ults. This change is a response to high-level tank strategies where players would benefit from changing heroes early in a match, resulting in a convoluted game of rock-paper-scissors. For most players, this will likely result in more battles without fight-winning tank ultimates.
Ramattra, the game’s newest tank, won’t have an unlimited ult anymore. His massive AoE ult will still continue as long as an enemy is within it, but will cap out at 20 seconds. And Wrecking Ball might finally get some use with the addition of permanent, regenerating shields in place of some of his health, as well as a lower cooldown on his Pile Driver to slam into enemies.
Overwatch 2 season 3 will include an Asian mythology-themed battle pass, a dating sim (opens in new tab), and a bunch of quality of life changes when it launches on February 7.
https://gamingarmyunited.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/02/1675712998_Overwatch-2-is-about-to-make-playing-support-easier-except.jpg6751200Carlos Pachecohttps://gamingarmyunited.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/08/Website-Logo-300x74.pngCarlos Pacheco2023-02-06 19:30:402023-02-06 20:40:51Overwatch 2 is about to make playing support easier, except for Mercy
For the first time since it launched in February 2019—that’s right, four years ago—Apex Legends (opens in new tab) is getting a team deathmatch mode. Respawn said team deathmatch “has been our community’s most requested mode,” which might make you wonder why it took so long to happen, but better late than never: The new mode will arrive next week with the kickoff of the next Apex Legends season, called Revelry (opens in new tab).
Team Deathmatch in Apex sounds like a fairly straightforward interpretation of the mode. It will feature 6v6 gameplay with fast respawns, according to Kotaku (opens in new tab): First time to reach 30 kills wins the round, first team to take two rounds wins the match. It will launch as a limited-time mode, meaning it’ll only be available for the first three weeks of the new season, but the good news is that players will continue to have access to it after that through a new “permanent modes playlist” called Mixtape, which will feature a rotation of Team Deathmatch, Gun Run, and Control modes.
Team Deathmatch, and the Mixtape playlist, will take the place of the 3v3 Arenas mode, which was added in 2021. Respawn said Arenas “is not meeting our goals” as far as helping players master the basics of Apex Legends gameplay, and so it’s being dropped.
Somewhat unusually, Apex will not be getting a new character this season. Instead, developers are “remastering”‘ the existing characters and class system. There will be five classes under the reworked system, each with a “meaningful, unique perk”:
Assault
Recon
Skirmisher
Controller
Support
There will also be nerfs and buffs applied to various characters when the next season goes live—full details will be revealed in the patch notes, but Respawn specified that Lifeline, Seer, and Wraith will be among the characters being tweaked.
While there won’t be a new Legend in Revelry, there will be a new energy weapon called the Nemesis, which you can get a glance at (in cinematic form, naturally) at the end of today’s teaser. “We’re hoping to see this potentially unseat favorite standbys like the R-301 and Flatline,” Respawn said.
Full details on Apex Legend’s next season will be revealed ahead of Revelry’s launch on February 14. In the meantime, you can get the crash course version at ea.com (opens in new tab).
While browsing Elden Ring’s Steam listing (opens in new tab) the other day, PCG’s eagle-eyed Ted Litchfield spotted something interesting about the game’s General Grievous-armed snow witch wife. The page includes a breakdown of what percentage of the playerbase has garnered a given achievement, and when it comes to the endgame trophies it turns out we all love a witch.
Ranni’s the name, and introducing endless chill to the world of Elden Ring is the game. I’m not going to get into the deepest lore specifics but Ranni’s questline (opens in new tab) is a long and involved one where it’s easy to miss steps, and takes you to some of the most secret locations in The Lands Between and through some hidden bosses. I’d say it’s one of the game’s best-kept secrets, but clearly I’m wrong.
25.9% of players have The Age of the Stars achievement, which is the ending unlocked by Ranni’s questline, while 19.6% have the Elden Lord achievement. Obviously there are some caveats here as well as the fact this is just Steam players, the main one being that some players will have been through the game twice and achieved both: But given Elden Ring’s absolutely enormous scale, I imagine that a majority of players who’ve beaten the game have only completed it once.
Still, spare a thought for the poor Tarnished who haven’t got the Margit the Fell Omen achievement. This boss is the game’s first real test of player skill and a tough nut to crack, but even so I was surprised that ‘only’ 73.8% of players have the achievement for beating him. Over a quarter of everyone who bought it on Steam has barely seen what Elden Ring has to offer, while we’re all out here merrily running around after witches: Ted tells me that “Ranni is 100% the good ending”, but he’s married to her.
This year should see DLC for Elden Ring, though Bandai Namco knows it won’t have to work very hard to sell it and is keeping mostly quiet (opens in new tab). That hasn’t stopped some engaging in a rather unhinged act of devotion, by which they vow to keep killing FromSoft bosses until the DLC is announced (opens in new tab). They need to relax, kick back, maybe take out Margit with an acoustic guitar for a change (opens in new tab).
https://gamingarmyunited.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/02/1675705664_More-people-saw-the-secret-Elden-Ring-ending-where-you.jpg6751200Carlos Pachecohttps://gamingarmyunited.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/08/Website-Logo-300x74.pngCarlos Pacheco2023-02-06 17:24:342023-02-06 20:59:04More people saw the secret Elden Ring ending where you have to do loads of weird stuff than the ‘normal’ ending
After a year hiding in shadow—that is, in Early Access as an Epic exclusive—Darkest Dungeon 2 is almost ready to emerge to terrorise innocent PC gamers. On May 8th, it’ll be launching its full 1.0 release, and in the meantime a free demo is available now on both Steam (opens in new tab) and Epic (opens in new tab).
The demo is playable for the full length of Steam Next Fest, which is to say from today until February 13th—so jump in quick if you want to check it out. It lets you take the four starting heroes through one region, with a choice of either the Sprawl (a horrible city full of things that want to kill you) or Foetor (a horrible farm full of things that want to kill you). The finished product will have five regions and a dozen heroes, so it sounds like a decent chunk, though you won’t get the complete experience of levelling and upgrading, and your progress won’t carry over from the demo to the full game when it launches.
Much like the original game, Darkest Dungeon is a grim fantasy RPG where you manage parties of hard-bitten adventurers trying to survive against Lovecraftian horrors. But there are some big departures for the sequel—the 2D art is replaced by 3D visuals, and it’s a roguelike based around perilous journeys across the landscape, rather than a continuous series of dungeon crawls.
Until now, the game has been completely exclusive to Epic, which does seem to have resulted in much less community and buzz around it than the previous game enjoyed during its long and active Early Access period. For the 1.0 release, it’ll be available on Steam too, and I’m curious to see if it’ll make a bigger splash there. Either way, it looks rad, with all the grim atmosphere and tactical depth of its predecessor, and we really liked i (opens in new tab)t when it first came out.
So why not go and check out the demo for yourself (opens in new tab) now? Remember, give it a go before February 13, or be lost to the horror forever. Or, you know, just kinda sad that you forgot to play it.
https://gamingarmyunited.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/02/Play-Darkest-Dungeon-2-for-free-with-a-new-limited.png6751200Carlos Pachecohttps://gamingarmyunited.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/08/Website-Logo-300x74.pngCarlos Pacheco2023-02-06 17:00:352023-02-06 17:00:35Play Darkest Dungeon 2 for free with a new limited time demo
Dell announced in a regulatory filing (opens in new tab) Monday that it is cutting the jobs of 6,650 employees. The news comes after PC sales for the Texas-based computer maker saw a massive drop at the end of 2022.
In a memo viewed by Bloomberg (opens in new tab), co-chief operating officer Jeff Clarke said that market conditions “continue to erode with an uncertain future.” IDC, an industry analyst, told Bloomberg that Dell saw a 37% decline in PCs shipped from Q4 2021 to Q4 2022. Over half of the company’s revenue comes from PC sales.
According to Bloomberg, the 5% reduction in the workforce leaves the company with its lowest headcount in six years. Before the layoffs were announced, Dell had already introduced cost-cutting measures such as hiring freezes and reducing travel. Clarke says the layoffs were crucial for the “long-term health” of the company.
Bloomberg analysts claim the layoffs could bring down Dell’s annual expenses by $700 million to $1 billion and expect a “delayed PC rebound in 2023.” A spokesperson said the job reductions are viewed as an “opportunity to drive efficiency.”
Dell is one of many big companies in the tech sector to announce major layoffs recently. HP let go of nearly 6,000 workers back in November. Lenovo suffered an undisclosed amount of layoffs right before Christmas.
In January, Microsoft (opens in new tab), Meta, and Google (opens in new tab) each laid off over 10,000 employees within weeks of each other. Meta has even hinted that there may be more company-wide layoffs (opens in new tab) to come. Amazon let go of 18,000 employees (opens in new tab), the largest mass layoff in the company’s history.
The reason for all the tech downsizing has been a combination of unpredictable economic conditions and pandemic-era overhiring.
Clark ended the note by saying that Dell has “navigated economic downturns before and emerged stronger” and that they “will be ready when the market rebounds.”
https://gamingarmyunited.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/02/1675767896_Dell-to-lay-off-6650-employees-after-underwhelming-PC-sales.jpg6751200Carlos Pachecohttps://gamingarmyunited.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/08/Website-Logo-300x74.pngCarlos Pacheco2023-02-06 16:57:052023-02-06 16:57:05Dell to lay off 6,650 employees after underwhelming PC sales
Hogwarts Legacy Gobstones are one of the many collectibles you’re able to locate around the magical school, but in this case, you’re gathering them for a first-year student called Zenobia Noke. After winning too much, her housemates hid her Gobstones around the school in out-of-the-way places so she couldn’t get them back.
You can find Zenobia Noke after your first Charms and Defence Against the Dark Arts lessons—just look for the “Gobs of Gobstones” quest marker in the same area. With your newly learnt Accio spell, grabbing these stones is a cinch, and you can get some new wand handles for your trouble. That said, here are all of the Hogwarts Legacy Gobstone locations for Zenobia’s quest.
Gobstone one—Transfiguration Courtyard
(Image credit: Portkey Games)
This first Gobstone is nestled on top of the arched cloister in the Transfiguration Courtyard, in the Astronomy Wing area. Head to the Transfiguration Courtyard Floo Flame then immediately look up to your right to see it shining on top of the covered walkway where the owls are perched.
Gobstone two—Divination Classroom
(Image credit: Portkey Games)
The second Gobstone is on a chandelier at the top of Divination Classroom Tower in the Library Annex area. Go to the Divination Classroom Floo Flame, walk up the staircase, and look up to see the chandelier with it resting on top.
Gobstone three—Central Hall rafters
(Image credit: Portkey Games)
Once again, from the Divination Classroom Floo Flame, turn around and head through the archway into the wooden rafters area above the top section of the Central Hall. Go down the walkway and look left to spy the third Gobstone resting on a rafter.
Gobstone four—Ravenclaw Tower
(Image credit: Portkey Games)
The fourth Gobstone is located near the Ravenclaw Tower, in the Grand Staircase area. Head to the Ravenclaw Tower Floo Flame, then immediately turn around and run down the corridor a little way. It’s resting on a ledge by the third pillar along.
Gobstone five—Outer Trophy Room
(Image credit: Portkey Games)
The fifth Gobstone is at the top of the Grand Staircase area, in the Trophy Room. Go to the Trophy Room Floo Flame, then run right a short way to find an alcove with armour and weapons. This one is resting on top of the alcove’s right side pillar.
Gobstone six—Inner Trophy Room
(Image credit: Portkey Games)
Once again, from the Trophy Room Floo Flame, turn around and head inside the Trophy Room itself. Move past the two big cabinets on the left, then look left to the shelf filled with trophy cups to find the sixth Gobstone on the top level in between two big ones.
Now simply take the Gobstones back to Zenobia to complete the quest and earn those wand handles.
https://gamingarmyunited.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/02/1675702042_Hogwarts-Legacy-Gobstone-locations-Where-to-find-each-one.jpg6751200Carlos Pachecohttps://gamingarmyunited.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/08/Website-Logo-300x74.pngCarlos Pacheco2023-02-06 16:33:022023-02-06 20:56:50Hogwarts Legacy Gobstone locations: Where to find each one
The Hogwarts Legacy review embargo has lifted, and it turns out a lot of people like being an open-world wizard. The game has been in development for many years at Avalanche and is Warner Bros’ big attempt to establish the Harry Potter gaming universe. Fans have previously had the movie tie-in games, but this is entirely its own thing and distinct from the ongoing film franchise.
Review code for this one only arrived a few days before embargo, so some sites have not yet posted reviews, but of those that have the reaction is near-universal positivity. Hogwarts Castle comes in for particular praise, with nearly everyone digging the game’s recreation of the iconic wizarding school, but everything from the imaginative missions to the quickfire spell combinations of combat seems to have impressed. PC Gamer’s review is in progress (opens in new tab), and here’s a roundup of what the critics are saying.
“In nearly every way, Hogwarts Legacy is the Harry Potter RPG I’ve always wanted to play.”
“In nearly every way, Hogwarts Legacy is the Harry Potter RPG I’ve always wanted to play. Its open-world adventure captures all the excitement and wonder of the Wizarding World with its memorable new characters, challenging and nuanced combat, and a wonderfully executed Hogwarts student fantasy that kept me glued to my controller for dozens of hours. It’s certainly weighed down by technical issues, a lackluster main story, and some poor enemy variety, but even those couldn’t come close to breaking its enchanting spell over me.”
“The game is bursting at the seams with hobbies to pick up. Have a liking for Potions? Spend hours growing and scavenging ingredients from around the game’s huge world map (comprising a hefty slice of the Scottish Highlands around Hogwarts) to brew new ones. If animals are more your thing, why not tame a Thestral or Hippogriff–or something even more exotic like a Mooncalf? And for the combat-inclined, there are also multiple bandit camps to find and wipe out, and, though it’s really not hard to do, it’s also fun.”
(Image credit: Portkey Games)
“[Has] a spark that’s long been missing from Harry Potter games.”
“That combination of lush scenery and apparently limitless things to do within it, lends proceedings a spark that’s long been missing from Harry Potter games. Freed form the baggage of the original canon, you’ll still bump into Weasleys and various antecedents of modern era Hogwarts, but the story is never beholden to them, which is a refreshing change of pace and something the Star Wars franchise ought to be watching with keen interest.”
(Image credit: Portkey Games, Warner Bros.)
“Avalanche has cultivated a special atmosphere that will leave franchise fans completely engrossed.”
“The developers did a tremendous job bringing Hogwarts castle to life, perfectly capturing the aesthetic of the Harry Potter franchise. Combined with the recognizable Harry Potter musical score, Avalanche has cultivated a special atmosphere that will leave franchise fans completely engrossed. One could spend hours simply walking through the school and taking in the sights.”
“Hogwarts will justify the cost of entry alone for Potter fanatics.”
“If you have any sort of appreciation for the Harry Potter franchise, Hogwarts Legacy is an easy recommendation. It’s very clearly a labor of love from the development team at Avalanche Software, and their respect for the source material shines through. The chance to explore the game’s remarkable recreation of Hogwarts will justify the cost of entry alone for Potter fanatics.”
(Image credit: Warner Bros., Avalanche)
“The deeper you get into the adventure the more vacuous sidequests become.”
“Like a great many modern action role-playing games, Hogwarts Legacy suffers from bloat outside of its core (and often quite imaginative) mission-set. The deeper you get into the adventure the more vacuous sidequests become, the more monotonous the activities (magical lockpicking is not the one), and the more sparse the environments: Hogwarts Legacy introduces an entirely new area called Poidsear Coast, and it’s as barren as it is beautiful. “
“Avalanche Software’s game is to Harry Potter what Middle-Earth Shadow of Mordor was to The Lord of the Rings. While both mega franchises had to wait a few decades, they each deliver a huge, excellent video game adaptation that is almost exactly what fans had been asking for since the early 2000s. It is nostalgic without being nostalgia-bait. It’s reverent to a franchise without having to play the hits. It’s hard to argue against it being the strongest piece of Wizarding World media since the films concluded over a decade ago.”
“It’s the game all of us Harry Potter fans have dreamed of and deserved for so long.”
“It’s the game all of us Harry Potter fans have dreamed of and deserved for so long. You can really dig into so many aspects of the adventure and even play it your way. Perhaps you prefer stealth to action? Then you can level up your character to be better at just that, and if you prefer more of a magical Rambo, the tools for that are included as well.”
(Image credit: Warner Bros., Avalanche)
“Being a wizard is just about as fun as we’d always hoped it would be.”
“Hogwarts Legacy is the closest any of us are ever going to get to actually attending Hogwarts, and what a magical experience it is. It’s clear that it’s been created with love, and the attention to detail here is phenomenal. It’s not without its issues, of course, but there’s few that get in the way of the overall experience. It looks gorgeous, it’s a joy to play, and being a wizard is just about as fun as we’d always hoped it would be.”
“A fun, open-ended tour through a well-constructed fantasy world.”
“For good and for ill alike, Hogwarts Legacy feels like the ultimate chance to explore and tour the Wizarding World from the ground up. In its best moments, it’s reminiscent of something like Elden Ring or The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild, inviting players to just go and explore a larger world, discovering who they want to be and learning more about the setting in the process. Even when the game slows down, it feels like a fun, open-ended tour through a well-constructed fantasy world, where the solid gameplay and impressive overall graphics do wonders to immerse players into the world.”
(Image credit: Warner Bros., Avalanche)
“Even now as I write this, I want to be back at Hogwarts.”
“Hogwarts Legacy does what so few games do these days, leaving me to think about it every second I wasn’t playing. Even now as I write this, I want to be back at Hogwarts solving puzzles and exploring, wondering if there’s still somewhere I might have missed. Exploration is so satisfying, as is the combat, and the way it captured my imagination with its inventiveness, freedom, and characters has been nothing short of remarkable. Avalanche has nailed everything about this game, and I think it’ll be some time before I can get it out of my mind.”
“Hogwarts Legacy has turned the hopes and dreams of Harry Potter fans into reality. Finally there is a proper simulator of the school of witchcraft and wizardry, allowing you to create your own student, attend classes, and explore the vast landscape outside. It’s not without its issues—side quests prove far too basic, the menus are poor, and annoying timers hurt the player experience—but they don’t get in the way of something that so blatantly comes from a place of extensive love for the source text. Almost 26 years after Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone hit bookshelves, video game fans finally have a magical title to be proud of. It’s everything we’ve dreamt of.”
“Will surely go down as comfortably the best game based on the Harry Potter franchise so far.”
“It felt like Hogwarts Legacy was always going to struggle to live up to the hype, but somehow Avalanche Software has managed to deliver an absolutely fantastic open world adventure that will surely go down as comfortably the best game based on the Harry Potter franchise so far.”
Editor’s note: This story represents our review-in-progress of Hogwarts Legacy, a game that has been immersed in controversy (opens in new tab) over the last several years. We believe that no game releases “in a vacuum,” and that the social context that a game exists in is part of its experience and something worth sharing with readers, lest we reduce games to the trivial toys they were once perceived as. We’ll finalize our Hogwarts Legacy review once we finish playing. —Evan Lahti, Global Editor-in-Chief ([email protected])
I was over 20 hours into Hogwarts Legacy before it revealed that, on top of being an expansive RPG with skill trees, wizard combat, crafting, environmental puzzles, and loads of sidequests, it’s also a quaint home decorating game with a splash of zoo management. This is a much larger game than I think anyone was anticipating and I’m continually surprised by how good each individual element is so far.
It certainly suffers from a meandering start and distracting technical issues, but now that I’ve been set free to explore the entirety of Hogwarts and, shockingly, miles of countryside surrounding it, I’m enjoying Hogwarts Legacy in the same ways I did The Witcher 3 or Red Dead Redemption 2: moseying across a convincingly rendered world at my own pace, letting myself disappear into a character I’m increasingly invested in.
Hogwarts Legacy is in many ways a game you’ve played before, but also a rarity: a big-budget RPG attempting to bottle up all of the prestige, splendor, and expectations of a massive media property into a seamless sandbox, and so far, actually nails it. This is Harry Potter’s Arkham Asylum moment—a game telling its own story in an established world, unshackled by the restrictive deadlines and creative boundaries of a movie tie-in, created by a studio that was itself once relegated to obligatory marketing products like Toy Story 3: The Video Game.
Now 30 hours in with no end in sight, Hogwarts Legacy has a firm grasp on my brain. I’m thinking about zapping dark wizards with gratifying blasts of Confringo when I should be preparing dinner. I’m pondering what scarf goes best with my new favorite coat, which plant I should grow to brew invisibility potions quicker, and whether or not the game will ever stop hitching when I move between Hogwarts’ many towers. I’m also, unfortunately, thinking about JK Rowling.
Wizard bowl
Usually it’s an uncomplicated thing when games are good. We like them, they surprise us, I write about it, it’s fun. But the fun of Hogwarts Legacy forms a unique set of conflicted feelings: I’m enjoying a game that’s an extension of JK Rowling, an anti-trans bigot (opens in new tab) who has spent the last few years applying her wealth and fame to promote an ideology that rejects and further marginalizes one of society’s most vulnerable communities.
Avalanche’s dogmatic pursuit of a realistic Hogwarts also means the place is an honest-to-god maze.
Hogwarts Legacy isn’t written by JK Rowling or adapted from any of her stories. In fact, Warner Bros. and Portkey Games (the game publishing arm of Harry Potter properties) go as far as to say that she was “not involved in the creation of the game” (opens in new tab) at all. Still, it’s built upon the world that she created and inherits some of its problems, particularly its portrayal of goblins (opens in new tab) and “house elves” (opens in new tab). Its success is likely to benefit her both culturally and financially.
(Image credit: Warner Bros.)
It will also benefit the talented folks at Avalanche Software, who have built a rich, almost annoyingly detailed world that routinely exceeds its source material in terms of quality and inclusivity. Hogwarts Legacy is full of simple but harmonious systems that keep things fun and accessible:
Wizard duels: A unique take on ranged combat where no aiming is required but spacing, dodging, and countering are key. Think Batman with cooldowns (and more murder).
Exploration: The world is surprisingly large, and gets bigger when you can simply fly anywhere you want, anytime.
Loot: Your clothes, cloaks, scarves, facewears, and hats have Destiny-like offensive/defensive stats, but you can just set your cosmetic look to whatever you want.
Collectibles: There’s a seemingly endless list of things to find across Hogwarts, often concealed behind a micro-puzzle. Not enticing enough to seek out, but fun to grab on the way to bigger things.
Talking: You do a lot of it, often with two or three dialogue choices that express a chosen personality within bounds (but only rarely seem to influence the outcome of interactions).
The Room of Requirement: A personalized living space for your wizard with an almost Animal Crossing-level of decoration options. Eventually, it gets a lot bigger.
Maybe the single most distinctive and impressive aspect of Hogwarts Legacy is Hogwarts itself. Developers love to describe their games as “living, breathing worlds” but it’s hard to think of a better way to characterize the titular castle.
You can’t walk 10 feet without a part of Hogwarts castle coming alive: books reorganize themselves on shelves, suits of armor salute passerbys, hedges trim themselves to perfection, ghosts float around telling jokes, textbooks flutter above passing students, and paintings animate or conversate as if the MOMA switched to the .gif standard. My favorite hallway of Hogwarts is this unassuming corridor near a courtyard where two golden suits of armor slyly antognize each other with a kick everytime I pass by. One time the right armor, after it’d presumably had it up to here with lefty’s shenanigans, donned its mace and beat the everloving crap out of the other guy.
Lost again
Some persistent, but not disruptive, technical issues are also wearing on me here and there.
That grandeur isn’t always a blessing, though. Avalanche’s dogmatic pursuit of a realistic Hogwarts also means the place is an honest-to-god maze. Central Hall alone spokes off in six or seven directions, each spiraling up toward classrooms or down into dungeons. I’ve never climbed more videogame stairs in my life—I’m winded just thinking about it. I usually like to disable navigational markers in open world games and learn the map myself, but since I don’t have three years to spare, I constantly hit the button that conjures a golden trail to my destination.
I still have lingering questions and concerns as the year progresses at Hogwarts (winter has finally arrived). I have no idea how long this main quest is, which is both fun and kind of annoying. My spellbook is nearly full, but since about half of them are optional to learn, mainline combat encounters and puzzles never ask more of me than the basics (bummer). I’ve also mostly checked out on what has so far been a shallow loot pool—clothing with slottable traits has finally begun dropping from enemies, but the effects are minor so I’ve just been equipping whatever has the biggest offense/defense number and then cosmetic swapping to what looks best.
Some persistent, but not disruptive, technical issues are also wearing on me here and there. Most noticeable are the brief, yet frequent pauses at the doors of Hogwarts while the game is loading whatever’s on the other side. Loads have never lasted more than two seconds on my setup (RTX 3060, Ryzen 7 5700, NvME SSD) and only happen on doors leading outside, but it’s a blemish on an otherwise immersive world.
At this pre-release moment before a presumed day one patch, Hogwarts Legacy also has a significant pop-in problem. Arrive at a location via broom slightly faster than the game anticipated and students will fade into existence. Coasting high above the countryside can also confuse the engine as it spawns and despawns entities below you. Render distances and streaming budgets are technical hurdles that most open world games control by keeping players grounded and curating lines of sight, but Hogwarts doesn’t have that luxury.
It’s so rare that we get a licensed, blockbuster game like this. One that so far delivers on a very specific fantasy and then some. Which makes it all the more unfortunate that something this exceptional is haunted by a bigoted creator who stands to profit from it. What could’ve been a moment of celebration for a series that’s overdue for a great videogame is instead destined to be one of the most divisive games in years. Every fan will be faced with the choice of which side to pick in the 2023 Harry Potter Culture War, including those who just want to play the cool new wizard RPG.
https://gamingarmyunited.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/02/1675683702_Hogwarts-Legacy-review-in-progress-Itd-be-a-lot-easier-to-dismiss.jpg6751200Carlos Pachecohttps://gamingarmyunited.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/08/Website-Logo-300x74.pngCarlos Pacheco2023-02-06 11:00:592023-02-06 16:52:37Hogwarts Legacy review-in-progress: It’d be a lot easier to dismiss Hogwarts Legacy if it weren’t so good
The rain-soaked streets and oppressive glow of neon signs make way for the uncaring corridors of an apartment complex. Beyond the distinctive yellow-and-black police tape and an open doorway, a grisly yet familiar scene awaits you, a private investigator in the procedurally generated cities of Shadows of Doubt.
Solid square pixels of blood fleck the walls, a body lies face-down on the ground; there’s nothing you can do for them, other than get out your notepad and camera, and get to work. How you go about this work though, is entirely up to you.
From LA Noire to Disco Elysium, via Return of the Obra Dinn, there have been plenty of great detective games in recent years. What makes Shadows of Doubt different from its peers in the snoopy, stealth deductive-detective genre (yes, that’s the exact technically correct description), is that it takes place in fully simulated urban sandboxes. It blends the freedom of immersive sims like Deus Ex with the assiduous crime-solving of an episode of CSI. Shadows of Doubt doesn’t direct you towards the right clues, the right suspects, or even any particular cases–you make your own way as a detective in this murky world.
(Image credit: Firesine)
These impressively generated and atmospheric cityscapes move through time irrespective of what you do. People have jobs, daily routines, hobbies, and friendships; they live in a simulation that doesn’t revolve around you. But with a serial killer on the loose, they’ll also die if you’re slow to act, fail to follow up on leads, or if your investigations lead you in the wrong direction.
Lives are at stake in Shadows of Doubt, and if you want to give yourself the best chance of being more of a Benoit Blanc than a Walter Neff (yep, we know our fictional detectives round these parts), you’ll need to maximise the tools at your disposal. On the scene, you’ll be able to use cameras, fingerprint scanners, CCTV footage, and other gadgetry to paint a clear picture of what happened.
But sometimes even the greatest detectives need to rely on more…clandestine methods. So you’ll need to hack computers, pick locks, smash doors (and, on occasion, peoples’ faces). True to its immersive sim lineage, vents are your best friend in Shadows of Doubt, and a great way to flow in and out of buildings undetected, before merging back into the metropolitan crowds of the nocturnal city.
Once you’ve put everything together, it’s time to quite literally hit the drawing board, as you use good old-fashioned drawing pins and threads to visualise the various connections between people, paperwork, and, ultimately, suspects. The thrill of seeing your web of evidence slowly weave into a full-on case is one of the reasons you got into this dangerous, down-and-dirty line of work in the first place.
(Image credit: Fireshine)
Eventually, the cash from each case will start flowing in, giving you the means to do your job better. Upgrade your gadgetry, move through the streets as swiftly and discreetly like the shadow of a rat, and improve your gift of gab to get the right answers out of the right people.
All this investigative freedom comes together in a powerful voxel-block visual style, where cuboid people rush to work beneath umbrellas, huddle around oil drums for warmth, and–in one case, at least–prowl the night for their next victim… until you stop them.
Shadows of Doubt launches in early 2023. You can wishlist it on Steam, and there on the page you’ll see that you can now play the 90-minute demo, setting foot in this city of vice for the first time. You can also keep track of it on Twitter and Discord.
https://gamingarmyunited.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/02/1675676391_A-90-minute-demo-for-immersive-detective-sim-Shadows-of-Doubt.jpg6751200Carlos Pachecohttps://gamingarmyunited.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/08/Website-Logo-300x74.pngCarlos Pacheco2023-02-06 09:00:442023-02-06 16:49:40A 90-minute demo for immersive detective sim Shadows of Doubt has just landed
Solve today’s Wordle (opens in new tab) your way with our extensive range of helpful hints and daily clues, or improve your game in general with our guides and archives. Don’t worry if you’re one guess away from Wordle oblivion and just need the answer in a hurry—the answer to the February 6 (597) puzzle is just below.
Well, that was different. It turns out I had the right letters in the right order… the only problem was they were in exactly the wrong place. I should’ve taken a step back and really thought about the options I had, but I chose to waste a few guesses blundering about instead.
Wordle hint
A Wordle hint for Monday, February 6
The answer to today’s Wordle is nice and simple, so try not to overthink it. If you finished a race behind eighth place and in front of tenth you’d be in…?
Is there a double letter in today’s Wordle?
Yes, a letter is used twice in today’s puzzle.
Wordle help: 3 tips for beating Wordle every day
If you’ve decided to play Wordle but you’re not sure where to start, I’ll help set you on the path to your first winning streak. Make all your guesses count and become a Wordle winner with these quick tips:
A good opener has a mix of common vowels and consonants.
The answer could contain the same letter, repeated.
Avoid words that include letters you’ve already eliminated.
You’re not racing against the clock so there’s no reason to rush. In fact, it’s not a bad idea to treat the game like a casual newspaper crossword and come back to it later if you’re coming up blank. Sometimes stepping away for a while means you can come back with a fresh perspective.
Today’s Wordle answer
(Image credit: Josh Wardle)
What is the Wordle 597 answer?
All the greens you need are right here. The answer to the February 6 (597) Wordle is NINTH.
Previous answers
The last 10 Wordle answers
Previous Wordle solutions can help to eliminate guesses for today’s Wordle, as the answer isn’t likely to be repeated. They can also give you some solid ideas for starting words that keep your daily puzzle-solving fresh.
Here are some recent Wordle answers:
February 5: DANCE
February 4: UNLIT
February 3: TASTY
February 2: SHIRK
February 1: SCOLD
January 31: CROSS
January 30: CRAVE
January 29: FISHY
January 28: FLIRT
January 27: WORRY
Learn more about Wordle
There are six rows of five boxes presented to you by Wordle each day, and you’ll need to work out which five-letter word is hiding among them to win the daily puzzle.
Start with a strong word (opens in new tab) like ALIVE—or any other word with a good mix of common consonants and multiple vowels. You should also avoid starting words with repeating letters, so you don’t waste the chance to confirm or eliminate an extra letter. Once you’ve typed your guess and hit Enter, you’ll see which letters you’ve got right or wrong. If a box turns ⬛️, it means that letter isn’t in the secret word at all. 🟨 means the letter is in the word, but not in that position. 🟩 means you’ve got the right letter in the right spot.
Your second guess should compliment the first, using another “good” word to cover any common letters you might have missed on the first row—just don’t forget to avoid any letter you now know for a fact isn’t present in today’s answer. After that, it’s just a case of using what you’ve learned to narrow your guesses down to the correct word. You have six tries in total and can only use real words and don’t forget letters can repeat too (eg: BOOKS).
If you need any further advice feel free to check out our Wordle tips (opens in new tab), and if you’d like to find out which words have already been used you can scroll to the relevant section above.
Originally, Wordle was dreamed up by software engineer Josh Wardle (opens in new tab), as a surprise for his partner who loves word games. From there it spread to his family, and finally got released to the public. The word puzzle game has since inspired tons of games like Wordle (opens in new tab), refocusing the daily gimmick around music or math or geography. It wasn’t long before Wordle became so popular it was sold to the New York Times for seven figures (opens in new tab). Surely it’s only a matter of time before we all solely communicate in tricolor boxes.
https://gamingarmyunited.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/02/1675672718_Wordle-hint-and-answer-today-Lets-solve-597-February-6.jpg6751200Carlos Pachecohttps://gamingarmyunited.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/08/Website-Logo-300x74.pngCarlos Pacheco2023-02-06 08:05:442023-02-06 08:05:44Wordle hint and answer today: Let’s solve #597, February 6
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