Soundweaver Introduces a New Way to Play Skyforge on Xbox One
When we create an update for Skyforge, we always look at the bigger picture and the ways you can interact with the world. We want players to find new ways to play the game and make each class that we create a fun and fresh experience. With Distant Frequencies, we might have achieved just that.
The Soundweaver is a new spin of the Bard class from classic RPGs. Many of our colleagues are fans of tabletop games, and some of them were actively pushing for a musician class in Skyforge. However, we didn’t want to just make a musician that plays tunes at the press of a button. We wanted to make it interactive, almost like a rhythm game.
When the first concepts started to make their rounds in our studio, we knew we had something really unique coming up. In the end, we just needed a fitting theme for our new class – and this is where it got tricky, to say the least.
In Skyforge, we explore many different universes, ranging from mythological creatures, gods and demons, to machines and virtual worlds. Therefore, when pinpointing a new style for a music-themed player class, we had many different goals and ideas in mind. Should it be like a flute player from a forest? Or maybe a Viking class blowing a huge horn? But with the influence of our recent Battle Royale mode, we were in the mood for a more tech-oriented class and sketched out concepts for an 80s synthwave-guitarist. That’s when things started to click, and how we got our very own Soundweaver!
As mentioned before, we wanted to make this class play more like a rhythmic game, which means that if you press the base attacks in the right timing, the Soundweaver will get different types of bonuses. On top of that, the Soundweaver uses three different auras created with a subwoofer with various effects depending on if they are used against enemies, in a party or as a solo player.
We hope you’ll enjoy playing as the Soundweaver on Skyforge’s newest update, Distant Frequencies! Let us know your comments on social media!
If you haven’t played Skyforge recently, we’re sending out small in-game gifts to all inactive players that will help you catch up with the rest of the community! Please note that those gifts are sent out in waves and it may take a few days for them to arrive in your in-game inbox.
The Steam Community has spoken, and we are proud to announce the finalists for The Steam Awards 2018 — but we still need your help choosing the winners!
Voting will open on December 20th, at the start of the 12th annual Steam Winter Sale. Vote in each of our 8 categories to share your top Steam games and developers from 2018 and obtain this year’s set of trading cards.
Voting closes January 3rd and winners will be announced early February 2019. Good luck to all of our nominees!
Nominees for Game of the Year
PLAYERUNKNOWN’S BATTLEGROUNDS
MONSTER HUNTER: WORLD
Kingdom Come: Deliverance
HITMAN™ 2
Assassin’s Creed Odyssey
Nominees for VR Game of the Year
The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim VR
VRChat
Beat Saber
Fallout 4 VR
SUPERHOT VR
Nominees for Labor of Love
Dota 2
Grand Theft Auto V
No Man’s Sky
Path of Exile
Stardew Valley
Nominees for Best Environment
The Witcher® 3: Wild Hunt
Subnautica
Shadow of the Tomb Raider
Far Cry 5
DARK SOULS™ III
Nominees for Better with Friends
Counter-Strike: Global Offensive
Tom Clancy’s Rainbow Six® Siege
PAYDAY 2
Dead by Daylight
Overcooked! 2
Nominees for Best Alternate History
Wolfeinstein II: The New Colossus
Assassin’s Creed® Odyssey
Hearts of Iron IV
Sid Meier’s Civilization® VI
Fallout 4
Nominees for Most Fun with a Machine
Euro Truck Simulator 2
Rocket League
NieR:Automata
Factorio
Space Engineers
Nominees for Best Developer
CD PROJEKT RED
Ubisoft
Bethesda
Rockstar Games
Digital Extremes Ltd.
Square Enix
Capcom
Paradox Interactive
BANDAI NAMCO Entertainment
Klei
Notes on Best Developer category:
“Best Developer” proved to be a highly-contested category with a lot of close calls among the top nominees. As a result, we expanded the set of nominees to 10. In addition, we’ve excluded ourselves from this category. We appreciate the love you’ve shown us, but we want to honor the other awesome developers on Steam, so we have excluded Valve from the final tally.
Tekken 7 For Switch Depends On Fan Demand According To Katsuhiro Harada
The last time a Nintendo platform hosted a Tekken game was at the beginning of the Wii U era when Tag Tournament 2 released on the system. The game was generally well-received and has left Nintendo fans wondering when they’ll eventually be blessed with another entry in Bandai Namco’s established fighting series.
Over the past few years, Tekken 7 director and producer Katsuhiro Harada – also responsible for Pokkén Tournament on the Wii U and Switch – has remained tight-lipped when asked if the seventh entry would make its way across to Nintendo’s newest system. So, what’s the latest update? During an end of year Tekken Twitch live stream, Harada was asked yet again about bringing Tekken 7 to the Switch. He said it’s all dependant on how much the fans would like it, and to let the development team know if they would like to see the game on Nintendo’s hybrid platform.
Since the launch of the Switch in 2017, fighting games on the device have become increasingly popular. Next year is already shaping up to be quite special with Mortal Kombat 11 releasing in the first half of the year. Some of the previously released fighters on the platform include Dragon Ball FighterZ, BlazBlue: Cross Tag Battle and SNK Heroines: Tag Team Frenzy.
Would you like to see Tekken 7 or perhaps a future entry on the Switch? Show your support in the comments.
When any fighting game series is announced nowadays, a leak inevitably follows, often revealing information about the character roster or a surprise the developer intended to reveal later down the line. A lot of the time, these leaks can also turn out to be completely fake.
On the Mortal Kombat front, it’s no different. Series co-creator Ed Boon has been dealing with this sort of stuff for years now. According to GoNintendo, there’s a rumour the character roster for the recently revealed Mortal Kombat 11 has already been leaked. Sure, some of the characters on the list might show up in the game, but at this point in time there’s no substantial evidence. To combat this, Ed called out the rumour and told the individual who informed him about it to bring up the same tweet after the real roster was revealed:
In a way, it’s refreshing to see a response like this. Boon has basically knocked the wind out of this apparent leak and is having a laugh about it at the same time. Good job, Ed.
What do you think about all these character leaks that seem to surface whenever a fighting game is announced? Tell us below.
Pocket Tactics Presents: The Year in Mobile Board Games 2018
By Matt Skidmore24 Dec 2018
As 2018 draws to a close, it’s time for us to look back and reflect on another year in the land of mobile gaming. Specifically, we’re going to focus on board games – the past couple of years has seen a growing wave of ‘born digital’ and digital ports of board/card games, and these are proving a popular replacement for premium experiences as other genres seek their riches elsewhere.
Board games and card games are intertwined with the identity of Pocket Tactics’ readership, so we’d be remiss if we didn’t spend some time looking at how 2018 has treated one of our favourite genres…
A Slow Start
It was a real sluggish start to the year. In fact, it wasn’t until May that the first really impressive release blasted onto our screens. Among the Stars is a card drafting game that shares many similarities with the multi-award winning 7 Wonders. With engrossing gameplay, a neat spatial element and an interesting, if rather short campaign mode, this space station building game is well worth trying.
June got off to a blazing start with the release of One Deck Dungeon; a game that manages to condense traditional pen and paper role playing games down to their very essence. Two heroes venture into the dungeon, overcoming the various challenges with just their wits and a fistful of virtual dice for company. Tackling the dungeon with a mix of different characters ensures longevity, with the only downside being the rather steep learning curve. Overall, an app that our reviewer concluded made the actual physical game obsolete.
Holiday in the Sun
July gave us the chance to jet off to Istanbul to indulge in some wheeler-dealing at the Grand Bazaar. The game turned out to be both captivating and intense, as the players raced from store to store, trying to collect enough rubies to claim victory. Istanbul can be a very tight game that feels quite ruthless, with a single ill-thought-out move costing you victory. However, the seamless interface alongside the tried and tested gameplay make this a winner.
No summer holiday would be complete without a good book. Word game Hardback is the sequel to Paperback. It is a deck-building word game that takes its core ideas from the original game whilst adding a little more flexibility to help you build even more impressive words. It may be more of a matter of refinement rather than revolution, but for fans of word games, this is another bestseller.
All the Leaves are Brown
Moving into the autumn, and the chance to take a bracing ramble through a New England forest in Indian Summer. Uwe Rosenberg is one of the biggest names in board game design. Although Indian Summer is very much at the lighter end of his impressive canon, it makes for a great mobile game. The game shares the same tile-laying, grid-filling gameplay of both Patchwork and Cottage Garden, however this time, the action is geared towards more experienced players.
With no points to worry about, this is a race to fill your board as quickly as possible. The result is that in spite of the mellow theme this game still manages to be both tense and captivating. It is my personal favourite board game conversion of the year and I eagerly await an announcement that the final part of the trilogy, Spring Meadow, will appear on touchscreen at some point next year. If you fancy even more autumnal exercise then recent release Morels is also worth foraging for. It may be a straightforward game of set collection, but the quirky illustrations and well-balanced gameplay make for a mouth-watering snack.
Hopes for the Future
Throughout 2018 the behemoth publisher Asmodee has continued to gobble up large chunks of the boardgame publishing market. Consequently, they also have an ever-growing presence in the digital arena. Asmodee has acquired and released a diverse array of apps, although their approach has been a scattergun one. Not all of the games selected for conversion have been a good fit for mobile. Love Letter springs to mind as an experience that sorely misses the face-to-face interplay between players.
Personally, I would really love to see more games that make the effort to develop single player campaigns around the core boardgame rules. Let’s face it, we don’t always have the time or the patience to play asynchronous online games. Furthermore, the extended period of playing time takes away from the immediacy; the final outcome is an experience that hardly ever feels entirely satisfying. In the past, Galaxy Trucker did a brilliant job of building an engaging campaign around the basic rules and Splendor also added some very enjoyable single player challenges. This year, Among The Stars added a fun if rather short-lived campaign, which hinted at greater things but never really delivered. Of course, some games are already perfectly suited to the digital format. One Deck Dungeon, which is a quick playing solo game managed to make a seamless leap to digital formats.
An interesting trend has seen independent game developers recognising that boardgames can provide a rich source of ideas and inspiration. A game doesn’t have to be a straight conversion to succeed; indeed without the constraints of a cardboard counterpart, these games are free to be more adventurous and bolder in their design choices. Critical hits such as Antihero and Meteorfall show how the creation of born-digital games can scratch the boardgame itch in a way tailored to fit mobile formats.
On The Horizon
Having said all of that, there are still shelf-loads of boardgame’s poised to hit the mobile market. Let’s take quick looks at a few that have caught my eye.
Proving that Brexit isn’t the only long-running saga, we still wait with bated breath to see if Asmodee will finally confirm whether or not Scythe will finally be making its way to mobile. This 4X board game, set in an alternative 1920’s Europe, has earned loads of acclaim. Maybe Teresa May’s negotiations would be more fruitful if she strapped herself into a mech before heading off to Europe.
Another classic board game that we should be seeing soon is Castles of Burgundy. The game has you building settlements by manipulating a clever dice allocation system. A more recent classic that will have many players licking their lips is Terraforming Mars in which players compete to build settlements on the red planet. The snag is that the players must also improve the environmental conditions by raising the temperature, improving the atmosphere and creating oceans.
Fans of the deckbuilding card game Ascension will be pleased to see that Shards of Infinity is being ported to mobile devices. It may be from the same designers but this time there is much more direct confrontation, plus the ability to level up your cards.
Finally, one of the best apps of recent years, Through The Ages, should be getting a new expansion that throws even more leaders and wonders into the mix – Definitely looking forward to this one.
What have been your top moments in digital board gaming in 2018? Let us know in the comments!
The stop-at-nothing pushing prince is back and ready to reroll. When the King of All Cosmos accidentally destroys all the stars in the sky, he orders you, his pint-sized princely son, to put the twinkle back in the heavens above. Join the King and Prince of Cosmos on their wacky adventure to restore the stars at home or on the go ? now in full HD.
Jagged Alliance is back ? With a new take on turn-based tactics, adventure elements and the well-known quirky mercenaries! Set 20 years after the first Jagged Alliance, this spin-off lets you experience a road trip into a jungle hell to test your mind and body to the limits!
Posted by: xSicKxBot - 12-24-2018, 11:43 AM - Forum: Lounge
- No Replies
Should You Play Borderlands 2 In VR?
For all its mechanical issues, there is one very crucial reason why Skyrim, another major game that got an after-the-fact VR port, worked so well: It was breathtaking to be in that world. There were dragons and dangers and perils, naturally, but there was also peace, serenity, beauty, and an undeniable sense of grandiosity. These are all things that, unless you're specifically making a horror game, make a virtual experience worthwhile. The biggest problem, then, with porting Borderlands 2 to VR is that right from its first minutes, Pandora is such an ugly, cruel, obnoxious place that immersion works against it.
That's the tip of the iceberg as far as Borderlands 2 VR goes, however. By and large, it's still the same game, with all the problems it's always had. Story-wise, every aspect of the game either actively insulting you or trying to kill you at every turn with little to no respite can get grating. Gameplay-wise, it is still very much the old MMO-inspired shooter it's always been, where the goal is more about increasing your stats and collecting better loot than the sheer thrill of killing maniacal wastelanders ad nauseum. Even still, the game has its charms: the sheer variety of weaponry and enemies, the wild comic cel-shaded art style, and a sense of humor that, when it lands, lands big. These are the things that Borderlands 2 VR maintains.
Having said that, Gearbox giveth and Gearbox taketh away for this port. The big loss here is that co-op is entirely gone, which is the one thing that made the grind of Borderlands 2 tolerable. Borderlands 2 solo is a frustrating experience the deeper you go, and this exacerbates that problem. On top of that, Borderlands 2 VR is just Borderlands 2--as in, the Pre-Sequel and the DLC are nowhere to be found. Combine all that with the fact that the game's cutscenes haven't been rendered in VR, meaning frequent and jarring shifts to Theater Mode, which makes this feel more like a protracted experiment rather than a well-curated, definitive experience meant to stand on its own.
The feeling that the game is just throwing ideas about how Borderlands should operate in VR at the wall to see what sticks extends to the way it controls. There's only two ways to control the game: the DualShock 4 or the PS Move controllers, which means yes, once again, the often-neglected PS Aim controller has gone ignored in a game that could have been better for its inclusion. Between the two, weirdly enough, the advantage goes to the DualShock, which is mostly using the same control scheme as The Handsome Collection, save for jump and crouch. The PS Move, on the other hand, is a convoluted mess of commands where the only button that adheres to logic is the trigger to fire your guns.
Movement is handled by holding down the Move button and tilting the left controller whichever way you want to move, which is fine for simple traversal, but Borderlands' enemies are hectic and know how to use cover; a weapon's accuracy has never been more crucial, and it's the stat you find at acceptable levels in new guns the least. The DualShock scheme is superior here as well, with aiming handled entirely with the PSVR headset by itself instead of the controller, which surprisingly feels far more intuitive than aiming with your hand. Much of that has to do with how wonderfully comprehensive the options are in terms of customizing your VR experience to scale with your personal level of VR sea legs. If there's any one thing Borderlands 2 VR gets 100% right, it's this.
The one other major change to the game is a rather fundamental one: the addition of a slo-mo mechanic called BAMF Time that allows you to slow time to a crawl for a brief period. It's balanced just well enough so that it doesn't break the game, and it does make up for VR's shortcomings, especially in the early, clumsy stage. More than this, it turns out to be just the tool the doctor ordered to deal with some of the more frustrating areas--read: any place where there's Threshers involved--without having a rage-induced heart attack.
Thing is, even with the net positives, Borderlands 2 isn’t necessarily better with the PSVR involved. The things that make Borderlands appealing mostly boil down to the humor and the meticulous management of your arsenal, neither of which are easier or prettier in VR--Borderlands is still best experienced with the Handsome Collection, which also includes co-op and and hours hours more of Tiny Tina. The things Borderlands 2 in VR brings to the table are all things we've seen better executed elsewhere. Pandora ain't no place for a hero. Even with slo-mo, and the ability to point and shoot with your own eyes and hands, it still isn't.
New Super Dragon Ball Heroes: World Mission Trailer Shown At Jump Festa 2019
For a game about digital card battles, Super Dragon Ball Heroes: World Mission looks rather dramatic based on the new six-minute trailer Bandai Namco released at Jump Festa 2019. This second official clip about the Dimps developed title runs through the basics of the game in Japanese while showcasing plenty of new footage.
If you missed the original announcement, the game described as a “super card battle adventure” includes more than 1,160 cards and 350 Dragon Ball characters from the long-running series. There’s also a glimpse of the new villain Cirrus, the game’s story mode, seven-verse-seven battles and the creation mode. The game appears to be filled with plenty of customisation options as well. As previously noted, this iteration is based on the existing arcade version.
Super Dragon Ball Heroes: World Mission will launch in Japan on 4th April and is expected to make its way across to the west after the title was rated by the Australian Classification Board in November. According to a recent Play-Asia tweet, the Asia release will include English subtitles, meaning local fans can consider importing a copy of the game.
Take a look at the trailer above and tell us if you’re interested in playing a Dragon Ball themed card game on the Switch.
New ‘Life Is Destroy’ Trailer Showcases Another Game In Travis Strikes Again
The No More Heroes spin-off Travis Strikes Again is one of the first titles arriving on the Switch in 2019. The Grasshopper Manufacture release is essentially a bunch of mini-games starring Travis and Badman, who find themselves trapped inside the Death Drive Mark II – a phantom console from the ’90s.
In the previous trailer, we got a look at the “Electric Thunder Tiger II” video game and the latest clip shows off the “Life Is Destroy” game, set in suburbia. It will include more high-tempo hack-and-slash gameplay and requires Travis Touchdown and Badman to take down Mr. Doppelganger.
Take a look at the new trailer above, and in case you missed it, view the trailer for the first in-game game below:
In addition to all of these different games, there will be a season pass for two DLC packs. For more details about this, check out our previous post.
Are you excited about this game after viewing the latest trailer? Tell us below.
