Earlier today, Bungie tugged back the curtain on Act II of the Revenant episode, which starts on Tuesday 19 November. As had been widely expected, the update will include a reprised version of the Prison Of Elders activity, which has now been made more roguelike—think The Coil and Riven’s Lair, if you’ve played either of those. Interestingly, a new mechanic will enable dialled in fireteams to skip certain sections with the tradeoff being that they’ll face more difficult enemies. Conversely, teams which are struggling will face a longer slog but less punishing opponents. I’m sure that won’t lead to any toxicity in LFG teams.
The mode is now called Tomb of the Elders to reflect that the prison has become derelict, and it does look promising. The enemy races from the old version have been swapped out with fresh ones: Shadow Legion Cabal, Revenant Scorn, Lucent Hive and The Dread. The encounters are a mix of enemy-dense combat and short traversal sections. Each arena also features some manner of challenge to complete. In one example shown on stream, the room was filling with poison gas which needed to be switched off. You’ll also face some of the new negative modifiers that have been popping in Strikes (including ‘Counterfeit’, where ammo bricks will sometimes explode, and everyone hates).
My one worry about Tomb of the Elders is the loot. Bungie promised a rewarding treasure room at the end of the activity, but didn’t show it on stream. In fact, the only new weapons mentioned are an SMG and shotgun from the current seasonal set, plus a reprised version of the Gridskipper pulse rifle. If all Tomb of the Elders has is those plus more copies of the seasonal gear we’ve already been grinding weeks for, it will likely struggle however fun it is. Certainly that’s been my problem with the current iteration of Onslaught, which is great to play but doesn’t feel worth the time investment given that you can earn the same guns from popping a tonic and doing literally anything else.
The livestream also detailed other changes coming as part of Act II. On the cosmetic front, a Street Fighter VI tie-in will include emotes, finishers (including Spinning Bird Kick and Hadouken), and a Blanka helmet ornament that any class of guardian can wear, much like the Tiger one we got with the 30th Anniversary event. For the more kawaii-inclined guardian, Bungie has also lined up a ‘doki-doki’ themed set of armor for each class. Personally, the recent Halloween wizard’s outfit is about as wacky as I’m willing to go, but I support your fashion choices. You can see some of the gear below, via a data mine which JpDeathBlade shared on X.
Image 1 of 5
(Image credit: Bungie)
(Image credit: Bungie)
(Image credit: Bungie)
(Image credit: Bungie)
(Image credit: Bungie)
The other piece of news which stood out was that the mid-season balance patch, which is also launching at next week’s reset, will include a major buff to ‘roaming’ supers. Roaming supers are ones like Stormcaller and Fists of Havoc where you run around doing multiple instances of damage, as opposed to ones where you drop a single nuke like Nova Bomb or Thundercrash which are nicknamed ‘one and done’. The buff that Bungie has landed on is to radically increase the uptime of roaming supers, rather than their damage. Post-patch, you can expect roaming supers to charge three times faster, which ought to make players feel more comfortable popping their super whenever it’s off cool-down, rather than waiting for a boss fight.
Honestly, that’s an elegant solution which I hadn’t seen suggested much before. (One of many reasons why neither I nor most Redditors are game developers.) Trying to buff roaming supers to compete with their one-and-done siblings in raw damage would have only led to a new arms race. What will be interesting to see is whether changes are also made to their damage resistance. Currently, Song of Flame—which is arguably the best roaming super—gets a whopping 90% DR. Unless older options get similar survivability, they may still struggle.
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https://gamingarmyunited.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/11/1731457211_Destiny-2s-next-act-will-bring-Street-Fighter-6-cosmetics.jpg6611175Carlos Pachecohttps://gamingarmyunited.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/08/Website-Logo-300x74.pngCarlos Pacheco2024-11-12 23:36:082024-11-12 23:36:08Destiny 2’s next act will bring Street Fighter 6 cosmetics and a 300% buff to roaming supers
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From now until November 18, Steam is hosting a Cooking Fest to highlight the very best of cooking games. If you’re as hopeless in the kitchen as I am, this is a great opportunity to spice up your library and pretend to be a capable chef. Everything from first-person chef simulators and in-depth restaurant management sims to emotional stories about heritage and cooking are up for grabs. So there’s plenty of variety to season your palette.
One of my favourite narrative-driven cooking games Venba is currently tagged with a 50% discount, meaning you can enjoy what I would call one of the most visually and audibly appealing cooking games for only £6.39/$7.49. Or, if you want something more casual, the dinosaur pizzeria simulator Manitas Kitchen is also half price, costing a mere £5.49/$6.49. What’s not to love about dinosaurs and pizza? It’s a match made in heaven for me, so I recommend picking it up for cheaper while you can.
But if you want to force your friends to take part in the fest as well, and probably create an experience akin to the stress of watching The Bear, both Plate Up! and Overcooked 2 are available with a discount. Plate Up! is available with a generous 66% off (£5.69 /$6.79), but Overcooked 2 takes the cake with a whopping 75% discount (£4.99 /$6.24) letting you experience pure stress and frustration for pocket change. I guess this discount is a reasonable compensation for the friendships you’ll lose along the way, but hey ho it’s worth it.
For a more chilled local co-op session, I’d also thoroughly recommend Pizza Possum, which strays from the hands-on kitchen simulator in favour of an equal parts cute and chaotic arcade game that tasks you with stealing snacks without being caught by patrolling pooches. I adore this game, mostly because its possum and raccoon protagonists are utterly adorable, so for £3.47/$4.19 it’s impossible not to recommend.
It’s not just about discounts, either. The Free Demos and Upcoming tabs also offer a chance to bulk out your wishlist with anticipated cooking and food-adjacent games releasing in the future. I’d recommend Call of Boba, which I’ve been keeping an eye on for a while now. It seems much more comforting than forcing yourself through the hell of another Overcooked round, which is probably a lot more attractive.
Outside of a mass of discounted games and demos, Cooking Fest is also offering a few free point shop items to redeem. You’ll be able to get an animated avatar, an avatar frame, and an animated sticker as part of the festival without having to use any points or own any games, so it’s worth redeeming them as soon as possible.
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https://gamingarmyunited.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/11/1731421150_Steam-Cooking-Fest-makes-some-brilliant-cooking-games-cheaper-than.jpg6751200Carlos Pachecohttps://gamingarmyunited.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/08/Website-Logo-300x74.pngCarlos Pacheco2024-11-12 14:15:032024-11-12 14:15:03Steam Cooking Fest makes some brilliant cooking games cheaper than a snack
If you’re finding Tuesday’s Wordle a little tricky, then you’re in the right place. Our general tips could bring a fresh angle to your guesses, and our hint for the November 12 (1242) puzzle is bound to help. If all else fails, or if you just like the sound of a lightning-fast win, then today’s answer is here too.
You’d think finding a good selection of yellow letters early on would’ve helped me sort today’s Wordle out quickly, but if anything they only added to my confusion. They just wouldn’t turn green, and when they did it was in the “wrong” places, as far as my mind was concerned. This one didn’t start to make sense until I was scraping the bottom of the board.
Today’s Wordle hint
(Image credit: Josh Wardle)
Wordle today: A hint for Tuesday, November 12
Today’s word involves aerial transportation—past tense. This often refers to birds, but people can metaphorically leave nests and coops in this way too.
Is there a double letter in Wordle today?
No, there is not a double letter in today’s Wordle.
Wordle help: 3 tips for beating Wordle every day
Looking to extend your Wordle winning streak? Perhaps you’ve just started playing the popular daily puzzle game and are looking for some pointers. Whatever the reason you’re here, these quick tips can help push you in the right direction:
Start with a word that has a mix of common vowels and consonants.
The answer might repeat the same letter.
Try not to use guesses that include letters you’ve already eliminated.
There’s no racing against the clock with Wordle so you don’t need to rush for the answer. Treating the game like a casual newspaper crossword can be a good tactic; that way, you can come back to it later if you’re coming up blank. Stepping away for a while might mean the difference between a win and a line of grey squares.
Today’s Wordle answer
(Image credit: Future)
What is today’s Wordle answer?
Need a little boost? The answer to the November 12 (1242) Wordle is FLOWN.
Keep up to date with the most important stories and the best deals, as picked by the PC Gamer team.
Previous Wordle answers
The last 10 Wordle answers
Wordle solutions that have already been used can help eliminate answers for today’s Wordle or give you inspiration for guesses to help uncover more of those greens. They can also give you some inspired ideas for starting words that keep your daily puzzle-solving fresh.
Here are some recent Wordle answers:
November 11: STOIC
November 10: INNER
November 9: SWELL
November 8: READY
November 7: EVENT
November 6: TRULY
November 5: OCTET
November 4: VINYL
November 3: BLAZE
November 2: SNOOP
Learn more about Wordle
(Image credit: Nurphoto via Getty)
Wordle gives you six rows of five boxes each day, and it’s up to you to work out which five-letter word is hiding among them to win the popular daily puzzle.
It’s usually a good plan to start with a strong word like ALERT—or any other word with a good mix of common consonants and multiple vowels—and you should be off to a flying start, with a little luck anyway. 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 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 leave out 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, 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, 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, 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. Surely it’s only a matter of time before we all solely communicate in tricolor boxes.
Get your Wordle week off to a perfect start with our tips. Use today’s clue to give your opening guesses a boost, help untangle a tricky knot of yellow letters further down the board, or just make things a little easier. And if you need more, you’ve got it. The answer to the November 11 (1241) puzzle is a quick click away.
Seeing that first slot turn green straight away gave me the confidence to just go for it today, to forge ahead and get this Wordle won. And that’s pretty much what happened—one green letter, two green letters, um, a bit of a stumble that I won’t talk about, done. I enjoyed that one. Same again tomorrow?
Wordle today: A hint
(Image credit: Josh Wardle)
Wordle today: A hint for Monday, November 11
This is a sort of behaviour, especially when faced with grief or hardship. A _____ person would remain calm and collected, even in the face of irritation or adversity.
Is there a double letter in Wordle today?
No, there is not a double letter 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: Future)
What is today’s Wordle answer?
C’mon, let’s get started. The answer to the November 11 (1241) Wordle is STOIC.
Keep up to date with the most important stories and the best deals, as picked by the PC Gamer team.
Previous Wordle 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:
November 10: INNER
November 9: SWELL
November 8: READY
November 7: EVENT
November 6: TRULY
November 5: OCTET
November 4: VINYL
November 3: BLAZE
November 2: SNOOP
November 1: SIXTH
Learn more about Wordle
(Image credit: Nurphoto via Getty)
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 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, 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, 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, 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. Surely it’s only a matter of time before we all solely communicate in tricolor boxes.
If you’re a League of Legends veteran, you probably remember the times when Attack Damage Lulu, Ability Power Master Yi, Ability Power Warwick, and tank Diana wreaked havoc on the Summoner’s Rift. Back then, you could play champions in almost any way you wanted, as long as the scaling made sense.
Today, however, it’s an entirely different story. Picking a champion in an off-meta role, let alone building AD Lulu, will grant you a one-way ticket to report town, and you’ll be labeled a troll or a griefer.
Times have changed
(Image credit: Riot)
It’s no secret that League has changed over the years. Not only did the design of the Summoner’s Rift map get updated, but Baron Nashor, jungle camps, and the Rift Herald got a makeover. On top of that, Riot Games is continuously tinkering with in-game systems such as dragon souls, platings, and bounties.
Since the world around League champions has changed, it’s no wonder they have undergone a handful of changes themselves—in some cases just visual updates and icon upgrades, but others received major reworks. Although reworks in League typically involve quality-of-life changes and upgrades to the champion’s kit, Riot has also been using them to remove different playstyles.
For example, old Master Yi had AP scaling for two of his abilities—Alpha Strike (Q) and Meditate (W). This allowed players to opt for an AP build which would revolve around nuking enemies with Alpha Strike and healing back the damage with Meditate. However, the idea of a wizard Master Yi has been completely gone since Patch 3.10, which removed AP scaling on Alpha Strike.
Patch notes or death notes?
(Image credit: Riot)
Major reworks aren’t the only culprit for the dying build creativity in League. In fact, Riot is gutting unique and creative builds regularly, almost every two weeks. Don’t get me wrong, regular League patch notes are great for the health of the game, as they bring back to relevance long-forgotten champions and nerf dominant picks that are terrorizing players in Solo Queue.
But regular updates have also had negative repercussions on the state of League. In 2020, pro players started building the Death’s Dance legendary item on marksmen as this would grant them 50 attack damage, 30 armor, 30 magic resistance, 10 percent cooldown reduction, and a unique passive which would instantly heal them for 15 percent of all damage dealt. This meta, however, didn’t last long. Riot didn’t like the idea of AD carries building a bruiser item for a bit more sustainability and Patch 10.23 reworked Death Dance. Since then, Death Dance has the Ignore Pain passive, which is tied to the post-mitigation damage taken (the damage you actually receive after magic resistance and armor). And since then, I never saw another AD carry build Death Dance.
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This is one of many examples of exotic builds that have been quickly gutted by Riot’s balancing team. Other victims include Smolder’s W and Doran’s Ring start, Fleet Footwork LeBlanc with Static Shiv rush, and Electrocute Nami. The most common life cycle of new builds in League boils down to this: the build gets discovered, players use (and abuse it), and Riot wacks it with a nerf hammer so that it’s no longer viable.
Can we still flex?
(Image credit: Riot)
Over the years, we’ve seen a drop in flex picks, or champions which can go more than one lane in League. Now, all champions fit into neatly organized boxes, and if there’s any oscillation in that, Riot will, again, nerf it.
Pour one out for support Sett, one of the most egregious victims of Riot’s commitment to balance. Even though Sett was originally designed as a top-lane bruiser and counter to ranged champions due to innate healing, players used to pick him up as a support. The trick was to grab movement speed runes—Phase Rush, Nimbus Cloak, Celerity, and Hextech Flashtraption. Since Sett has a strong early game, you’d be on the lookout for fights and skirmishes, and you’d use your Summoner spells to get a burst of movement speed to run down your enemies.
However, after nerfs to Phase Rush, Turbo Chemtank, and base damage, he is now a niche support pick you’ll rarely see. Sett also used to be a strong jungle pick, until Riot changed the damage dealt to monsters and pushed him back to the top lane. Where once he offered lots of flexibility, now he’s got a singular focus.
Where do we draw the line?
(Image credit: Riot)
You might be thinking that all this creativity that Riot’s trying to stamp out would only result in League teeming with broken champions and builds, making it even harder to balance than it currently is. That’s true, to an extent. Giving free rein to player creativity while allowing every weird, overpowered build to stick around could be a nightmare for League’s balance and become an existential threat to the game’s competitive future—but there’s a middle ground between this chaos and Riot’s current approach.
Riot normally nerfs new, unique builds within a span of two weeks. This doesn’t give the playerbase enough time to find a counterplay or counterpick. Instead, it would be far more interesting what would happen if Riot held off its nerf, at least for a couple more patches. Or if we would see Riot buff champions which are clear-cut counters. For example, let’s say Smolder is beyond broken in front-to-back fights. Riot could nerf Smolder and be done with it. However, what if Riot left Smolder as is and instead buffed assassins, the type of champions that are designed to kill squishy marksmen?
For years, Riot has had the same approach to balance in League—nerfing powerful picks. This results in the meta often feeling stale, as you have to play one and the same champions to increase your odds of winning. Especially in the era of tier lists and guides for best builds, players are inclined to go with the strongest champions in their games. However, if Riot was to leave champions in a strong state and give players tools to counter them, League could become even more energetic and fun to play—especially for casual players.
https://gamingarmyunited.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/11/Riot-has-been-slowly-chipping-away-at-build-creativity-in.jpg7081200Carlos Pachecohttps://gamingarmyunited.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/08/Website-Logo-300x74.pngCarlos Pacheco2024-11-10 16:00:002024-11-10 16:00:00Riot has been slowly chipping away at build creativity in League of Legends, all in the name of balance, but there are better solutions
There’s a clue for today’s Wordle right here if you need it, and you don’t have to worry about it spoiling all of your fun either—you’ll still have to think up Sunday’s winning word all by yourself. If that sounds like a bit too much work on a weekend, we can still help you out: the November 10 (1240) answer’s only a click away, and ready whenever you are.
I felt so clever today. Look at me, carefully piecing together the puzzle and using all the clues to uncover one perfect winning wo-what do you mean I’m still one letter off? The clean-up from that mistake was quick and easy enough, but I do wish I hadn’t made it.
Wordle today: A hint
(Image credit: Josh Wardle)
Wordle today: A hint for Sunday, November 10
You’ll need to look inside to find today’s answer. This word refers to things—physical and otherwise—tucked away within something else.
Is there a double letter in Wordle today?
Yes, there is a double letter in today’s Wordle.
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: Future)
What is today’s Wordle answer?
Five green letters, ready to go. The answer to the November 10 (1240) Wordle is INNER.
Keep up to date with the most important stories and the best deals, as picked by the PC Gamer team.
Previous Wordle 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:
November 9: SWELL
November 8: READY
November 7: EVENT
November 6: TRULY
November 5: OCTET
November 4: VINYL
November 3: BLAZE
November 2: SNOOP
November 1: SIXTH
October 31: WEIRD
Learn more about Wordle
(Image credit: Nurphoto via Getty)
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 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, 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, 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, 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. Surely it’s only a matter of time before we all solely communicate in tricolor boxes.
Actor Tony Todd died at home in Los Angeles on November 6 at the age of 69, Deadline reports. No cause of death was given.
Todd featured in movies like Oliver Stone’s Platoon and several popular horror series, appearing in Night of the Living Dead (1990), Wishmaster, and The Crow (1994) as well as playing Candyman in the Candyman movies and William Bloodworth in the Final Destination series. He also made a string of television appearances in shows like The X-Files and both Star Trek: The Next Generation and Deep Space Nine.
Todd’s career in videogames began with an appearance as Commander Kurn, the role he’d originated on television, in 1998’s Star Trek: The Next Generation – Klingon Honor Guard. He went on to voice the alien vortigaunts in Half-Life 2: Episode 2 and later Half-Life: Alyx, Admiral Tommy Briggs in Call of Duty: Black Ops 2, and Venom in Marvel’s Spider-Man 2. He also appeared in Layers of Fear 2, Artifact, Star Trek Online, Star Trek: Elite Force 2, Back 4 Blood, and Dota: Underlords, as well as portraying a character named Locus in Indiana Jones and the Great Circle, which is due out next year.
Bloober Team, the developer of Layers of Fear 2, memorialized Todd by writing, “We mourn the loss of Tony Todd, the voice that drew us into the shadows of Layers of Fear 2. Rest now, Tony – you are forever entwined with the darkness we braved to face.” He was also remembered by Insomniac, who wrote, “Insomniac Games is heartbroken by the passing of our friend Tony Todd. He brought so much joy to our studio during the production of Marvel’s Spider-Man 2 and to many fans around the world with his inimitable voice and presence.”
Keep up to date with the most important stories and the best deals, as picked by the PC Gamer team.
https://gamingarmyunited.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/11/1731204786_Tony-Todd-the-voice-of-Half-Life-2-Episode-2s-vortigaunts.jpg6751200Carlos Pachecohttps://gamingarmyunited.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/08/Website-Logo-300x74.pngCarlos Pacheco2024-11-10 00:24:312024-11-10 00:24:31Tony Todd, the voice of Half-Life 2: Episode 2’s vortigaunts and Spider-Man 2’s Venom, has died
Videogames are the weirdest of mediums. For lots of reasons, really, but this weekend it’s DLC and expansions that I’ve got in my sights. An opinion piece about DLC, how novel! I know, I know, but lately there have been a few high profile games refusing to go down the DLC and expansion route, and this novelty really reinforces how strange it is that games drawing out their stories for a year or longer has become the expected, done thing.
Anyway! The concept of new storylines and even epilogues being slapped onto our adventures months or years after release is not just normal, it’s a long-running tradition that’s outright expected—especially in RPGs. Over the years, BioWare alone has released 40 DLCs and expansions—and that’s only counting ones that include meaningful story additions, so not shops like Dragon Age’s Black Emporium or packs that just include weapons or skins.
It would seem bonkers almost anywhere else—aside from tabletop games, anyway. If we watched a re-release of Return of the Jedi where it wasn’t just CGI tinkering but an hour-long post-credits scene where Luke flits off to Space France to open up a vineyard, we’d all leave the cinema thinking “Well, that was pretty odd”. Because it really would be pretty odd.
But Geralt hanging out in Toussaint and becoming a grape daddy in The Witcher 3 was not only par for the course, it was a crucial conclusion to what’s considered one of the best videogame stories of all time. You have not properly experienced this essential RPG unless you’ve played Blood and Wine.
So yeah, a bit weird. But equally, one could argue, great. DLC and expansions give developers an opportunity to build on lessons learned from the base game, redirect the spotlight to add new perspectives, or just spin killer yarns that couldn’t originally be included. In some cases, like Cyberpunk 2077’s Phantom Liberty expansion, they can even be redemptive, giving a troubled game a second shot.
(Image credit: CD Projekt RED)
But they also mean you never really know when a game is finished, or when the ideal time to jump in might be. Rarely is it the initial launch. I am deeply tired of finishing an RPG, then revisiting it a year later, reloading my pre-point-of-no-return save, and then hopping off on some side adventure, before returning to the climax. It’s not the way it’s designed to be played, but aside from starting all over again there isn’t another option for those without the—frankly superhuman—willpower to resist buying a game before the dev has officially moved on.
This expectation of post-launch additions means that there’s always something gnawing at me when I’m playing a new RPG.
This expectation of post-launch additions means that there’s always something gnawing at me when I’m playing a new RPG—the terrible knowledge that even after maybe 100 hours, I won’t really finish the game, and I might have to wait a year or more to get the true conclusion. And in RPGs it feels so much more egregious. These are the games where I’m most likely to be properly invested in the structure of a story—games where it feels wrong, somehow, to go back to just so I can go off on some tangent or experience a second ending, undermining the original.
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Lately, though, we’ve seen some pretty major RPGs eschew this tradition. Baldur’s Gate 3 was a prime candidate for an expansion—despite a pretty conclusive ending. We loved these characters, we were obsessed with the game, why wouldn’t Larian milk it for a bit longer? But while it’s given BG3 an incredible amount of support since it launched more than a year ago, the studio decided it had done everything it wanted to do and moved on. And this was after it had previously decided to create an expansion, which then turned into a prototype for Baldur’s Gate 4. But Larian wanted to do something new.
(Image credit: Larian)
“We should be looking at how we can do stuff that we get excited about,” CEO Swen Vincke told me when we were chatting about how Larian nearly made Baldur’s Gate 4. And that meant leaving Baldur’s Gate behind. So, hurray, we don’t need to wait around for the complete edition. It was already there all along. Larian did, it should be noted, add quite a bit to the game across a multitude of updates—but I’d still argue that the full experience was available on day one. At most, the additions augmented what was already there.
We should be looking at how we can do stuff that we get excited about
Swen Vincke, Larian CEO
This really shows the power of this expectation. Larian explicitly said expansions weren’t part of the plan, and it’s an independent developer not beholden to the whims of a publisher. But the massive success of Baldur’s Gate 3 almost put the studio on autopilot, quickly getting to work on more Baldur’s Gate adventures to feed its hungry audience.
Often, you see this narrative of greedy publishers exploiting players with DLC—it’s particularly prevalent in the Steam reviews of games from publishers like Paradox interactive, which supports its strategy games with years and years of DLC—but there’s a massive ecosystem supporting the relentless tide of post-launch diversions, and players are at the heart of it. Of course we are—why wouldn’t we want more of the thing we like? But it’s not always in our best interest, or the game’s.
(Image credit: ZA/UM)
Before BG3, Disco Elysium took a similar approach. ZAUM’s post-launch support gave us a lot more voice acting and some further additions in the form of political vision quests that forced you to wrestle with your worldview, but they didn’t have the FOMO-inducing quality of an expansion. Nor were these updates the kind of things that would inspire you to awkwardly fire up an old pre-finale save so you could slot in a random sidequest before calling it quits. And they didn’t reframe or outright add a new conclusion or epilogue. For those who had already finished, they simply provided an excuse to play through it again. Meanwhile, for those without the time or inclination, you still got a finished game.
Crucially, when Larian and ZAUM added things, they didn’t stick a price on them. All of the updates were free. In a lot of other cases, you are paying to properly finish the game. And in a series—Dragon Age, for instance—the DLC might even have ramifications that go beyond the game you’ve just played, echoing across future games. Dragon Age: Inquisition is almost entirely set up in Dragon Age 2 DLC that I don’t ever remember actually playing. Not that playing the DLC would have made me give a toss about Corypheus, a pantomime villain whose primary motivation is just that he’s a dickhead power-monger.
It’s especially surprising, then, to see BioWare curb its habit and give us the entirety of Dragon Age: The Veilguard in one go. It did this with Andromeda too, to be fair, but in that case it did seem like it was going to get DLC, before the chilly reception. With The Veilguard, it seems like a one-and-done deal was part of the plan. I honestly don’t think I’d be up for more of The Veilguard anyway, but even if I was more of a fan of the game’s direction, knowing I’d seen it all would, I think, be reassuring.
(Image credit: BioWare, EA)
I wouldn’t want to give up The Witcher 3: Blood & Wine, Cyberpunk 2077: Phantom Liberty, Dragon Age: Origins – Awakening, or all the other top tier expansions, but DLC of this quality is the exception rather than the rule, and that should be the same for the DLC model: not the expected thing, but a tool only sometimes deployed in those instances when a developer really has a corker of a story that can’t just wait for a sequel. A rare treat.
I’m not convinced The Veilguard is going to be particularly influential, but BG3 and Disco Elysium undeniably are, and I hope their ability to tell their stories without a flurry of extra bits and bobs dripping into a sink already overflowing with yarns sets a new standard. We’ve already got enough games tugging at our sleeves and pleading with us to return every season thanks to the glut of live service games, and sometimes it’s just nice to finish something.
https://gamingarmyunited.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/11/1731168741_I-desperately-hope-Dragon-Age-The-Veilguard-Baldurs-Gate-3.jpg6751200Carlos Pachecohttps://gamingarmyunited.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/08/Website-Logo-300x74.pngCarlos Pacheco2024-11-09 15:00:202024-11-09 15:00:20I desperately hope Dragon Age: The Veilguard, Baldur’s Gate 3 and Disco Elysium inspire more RPG devs to reject the traditional drip, drip, drip of DLC and expansions
https://gamingarmyunited.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/11/ESCAPE-FROM-TARKOV-2-GROUND-ZERO-GOOD-FIGHT.jpg7201280DecayeD20https://gamingarmyunited.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/08/Website-Logo-300x74.pngDecayeD202024-11-09 15:00:202024-11-09 15:00:20ESCAPE FROM TARKOV #2 | GROUND ZERO GOOD FIGHT
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