Thr first of E3’s big panels for 2017 has concluded, and despite my fears, it wasn’t all mostly devoted to EA Sports and what we could expect from this year’s FIFA game.

To give a quick summary, it started off with a drumline for Madden 18 along with a trailer, but we actually started with some Battlefield 1. There were also trailers for the expected EA Sports games – FIFA, more info on Madden and NBA Live (which also accidentally made a cameo during a later part), along with the announcement of two more games. One of those, A Way Out is a co-op game that looks very interesting, and the other was Project Dylan which was finally given a name – Anthem. Unfortunately it only got a teaser of less than a minute, so we’ll have to wait until Xbox’s panel to see more. Need For Speed’s latest game Payback looks to have some interesting narrative to it as well. The most time though was taken up by Stars Wars Battlefront II.

The followup game to the first Battlefront aims to address the concerns raised during the first game through feedback that was described as “constructive” on stage. This means that this time the game will be coming with a singleplayer Story Mode, as well as seeing the return of the Skirmish game mode. There will also be ‘seasons’ of post-release additional game content, and from the sounds of it every single one of them will be free for people who own the game. There was also a big multiplayer match played live on stream, with some impressive looking vehicles and fighting going on. Obviously this was all being played on very good machines, so hopefully it will still look just as good on lower-tier machines. More details can be found on EA’s press release for the game located here.

Need for Speed Payback was also pretty good looking, with footage of part of a mission being shown off called Highway Heist. The game sets you playing as three characters as they take on ‘The House’ – a criminal group who holds all the cards. So a plucky underdog story, and from the gameplay we saw which depicted a lot of car road battling action (complete with cinematic slow-motion crashes as enemies were totalled) as well as scenes that wouldn’t look out of place in an action movie – seems Payback might be one to keep an eye on.

Battlefield 1 was announced to be getting eight new maps this year, two of the night maps with the other six being part of the upcoming expansion In The Name of the Tsar, which will take the game to World War I’s eastern front in September. The Russian army will becoming in the expansion, along with the women’s battalion of death. Lastly they teased a new small-squad competitive gamemode which they said they will give more details on at Gamescon in August.

A Way Out was one of the standouts for me this year, with the co-op experience that follows two men as they escape prison together then go on the run looking amazing. It was deliberately planned out as a splitscreen couch co-op game, and the idea of being able to see both men’s POV is cool. We also saw that one player can be in the middle of a cutscene while the other one is still playing.

As for the sports games, we got the standard fare. FIFA 18’s story mode will be following their protagonist of last year’s game Alex Hunter, as he continues his journey so that could be interesting to watch. Madden is also going to be getting a Story Mode called the Long Shot on a man who witnessed traumatic events and must recover from them through the sport. Finally NBA Live 18 will be using both tournament and street court play to round out your character’s stats, with both sets of play effecting the development of them as a player.

Of course, the big reveal everyone was watching for was the promised teaser for Bioware’s ‘Project Dylan’ and we got it. The teaser was short and only showed off what looked to be a very sci-fi game with lush jungle environments, a large wall and power armour suits. We’ll see more details in tomorrow’s panels though, so stay tuned.

Another week has passed in WoW and I’ve progressed slightly more with both my alts. This week we found a place for Bodeclaw to feel very much like they belonged, and honour the noble sacrifice of a farm animal to a piratey cause.

I’m Pretty Sure This Is Racism…

Sorting out the final bits of the quest for Princess Poobah was pretty easy truth be told. Run round the back of the island, find the biggest ape there (again) and kick Mukla’s ass with the help of my ever trusty boar. The quest completed and the quest marker removed from my list and map (which is quickly becoming one of my favourite things to do), I mounted my Swift Springstrider (which again, is becoming one of my favourite mounts) and swam across back to the mainland coast to run up the beach and hand in more quests.

All I had to do now was try to find that cave entrance. I prepared myself for a long search…

Oh. Well that was easy. Should have listened to Lone when he said “Follow the main path.”

Back in Booty Bay, I set about handing in various quests and learning my way around the levels a little bit better than I had the previous week. This involved a lot of running in and out of buildings and I had to go by paw, as atop my Springstrider I was too tall to fit in some doorways.

I encountered the cow in the second level of a building. At first I was very confused as to why it was here… then realised that downstairs was a leatherworkers. I very quickly left, eyes a little wider for that poor beast’s future. (Yes I know, I’ve murdered many an animal over the last few months – they were quests okay?)

Eventually I found my way up to the top of the tavern and those in charge of Booty Bay. Thanks to my investigations in other questlines, it seems I was to help uncover a plot from the Bloodsails to attack and take over Booty Bay. I accepted the mission to abduct some documents from their encampment. But first I had to take a really good photo for video game confusion’s sake…

I’m so going to find as many Assassin’s Creed spots as I can now. With both alts. Look forward to that in the future.

Anyway, I went along and stole the plans with a little elimination of pirates along the way. Well, they were attacking me and i had to defend myself. And my boar, who as we all know really adores me.

The questline then took me to the enemy crew’s recruiter in an attempt to get an agent on the inside (why is it always me?)

Unfortunately it wouldn’t be that easy. He demanded I bring him the head of the Sailsmaster in Booty Bay to prove my loyalty, as he’d heard rumours of a ‘pandaren hunter’ killing the Bloodsail’s crew members. I returned to Booty Bay and spoke with the Tauren Sailsmaster. And he proposed a plan to pass a cow’s head off as his own by jamming a large pirate’s hat on it.

… Wait, a cow’s head?

Brave farm animal, you gave your life willingly. I will not let you down and let the Bay be taken…

Wait, How Many Worgen Are Here?!

Bodeclaw found themselves on a journey down to a former druidic place to combat the corruption that had taken hold of it by releasing the souls of those taken over the the darkness. Oh, and to collect a sketchbook left behind.

Fortunately there were a lot of other guardians around, attempting to fight back the corruption but it’d taken a fairly firm grasp on the land around me. It was still natural looking, but so much darker and moodier… giant tentacles and flails writhed from the ground, slimes oozed around and fae dragons found buried in the ground…

(Don’t you love glitches?)

The quests I had to do here were fortunately over very quickly. I ducked in, defeated and claimed what I needed and raced back to hand in those quests. Neither one of the quest givers required me to go back in, and thus I continued on my way to Farwatcher’s Glen. It wasn’t that far away and sticking to the paths I got there pretty quickly. And discovered that for once I was not one of a few of my kind…

Farwatcher’s had so many Worgens, with only a few of other races around. I immediately went and set my hearthstone to teleport me back to the inn here and set about collecting up the questlines in the area. I then went upstairs to sleep and discovered that I really needed to relearn pillow.

After a sleep I ventured down to the area a number of my quests required me to visit, the Charred Vale. I had been told there were Black Whelps in the area, and set about hunting them for one of the questlines given to me by a houndsmaster. I also saw Black Drakes but avoided them for the most part. I also had a jetpack to leap up the Vale and upon getting to the right area decided to use it…

I should have known. Where there’s Whelps and Drakes, there be dragons too. And I know enough lore to know that the black dragonflight aren’t exactly friendly, even without having to complete the next part of the quest which is to smash the black dragonflight eggs scattered around me…

Oh boy.

Hello there! I am CyberGoblin and I have recently joined the team to cover Final Fantasy 14. In this first post I shall be covering the major changes in the impending second expansion: Stormblood.

First and foremost there are the new areas: Gyr Abania which is the region surrounding Ala Mhigo and for the first time the game will take us outside of Eorzea and into Orthard, the far eastern continent. There are six new zones, a new city, a new hamlet (basically Revenant’s Toll or Idyllshire) and a new housing district.

Each of the new zones will be fairly large – about the size of those in Heavensward but they all have two aetherytes so no repeats of the Dravanian Hinterlands which had none so you had to teleport into the extreme busy end game hub and walk out.

Another big addition is swimming and diving both on foot and with a mount. The former will also be retroactive to some of the old zones (the Costa Del Sol part of East La Noscea have been shown) but diving will not.

There will not be any underwater combat, indeed taking any damage underwater has been confirmed to be a one-hit kill. The development team has publicly mooted the idea of incorporating this into content such as dungeons where you have to evade defences however nothing has been confirmed or shown of this.

The next major new content are the dungeons and trials. At launch there will be nine new dungeons and at least two new trials. Locations seen have included a haunted ship graveyard, some sort of heavy artillery installation and a ruined temple of some sort as well as the underwater palace in the screenshot below.

The two primals in the confirmed trials are Laksmi the Lady of Bliss, a summon from Final Fantasy VI which focused on party healing and this time around is the goddess of the all female lamia beast tribe the Ananta. The other new god on the chopping block is original to Final Fantasy XIV like Ravana was in Heavensward. Susano, also known as Lord of the Revel is in fact one of many deities worshiped by the mercantile turtle beast tribe the Kojin.

To fight these new encounters players will have access to two new jobs – Samurai and the long requested Red mage – both of which are DPS. In addition there are several brand new abilities and mechanics added to the existing ones

Samurai is a lightly armoured melee DPS which will trade utility for extremely high single target damage and will focus around building up to unleash a single devastating attack.

Red Mage on the other hand is a ranged caster, using their rapier and crystal in tandem to combine the two major schools of magic: black and white magics. Red Mage gameplay will focus largely on building up black and white mana before diving into melee range to unleash a powerful burst combo and then diving back out to cast a finisher.

Additionally the cross class system has been reworked. Instead of the current system of having to level certain classes for specific abilities such as levelling Thaumaturge to level 26 to get Swiftcast you instead have a pool of abilities shared by role: Tank, Healer, melee physical DPS, ranged physical DPS and caster. As with before there are 5 slots and a number of existing abilities – some of which were not cross classes before – and some new ones can be picked depending on the instance.

In addition to the dungeons and trials we are also getting two new raid series. The eight man raid will be the Interdimensional Rift which will focus on Shinryu and Omega and will have a normal difficulty and a harder mode which like Alexander will be called Savage. The twenty four man raid series is called “Return to Ivalice” and is being guest written by Ivalice creator Yasumi Matsuno. Aside from the name very little has been confirmed however Game Director Naoki Yoshida has commented that playing Final Fantasy Tactics is probably the best way to prepare.

Project Dylan, Pokemon Go and Hitman – your news update!

The official logo for the Pokémon franchise internationally

As is customary for Nintendo, overnight fans of Pokémon were surprised by the sudden announcement of a Pokémon Direct scheduled for 3pm British time today, with the promise of news of “future entries in the franchise”. Lasting just 8 minutes, the Pokémon Direct was a short and sweet affair, making three major announcements without going into detail about any of them – but here’s a summary of what we DID see.

Pokkén Tournament DX

As many people likely expected, Nintendo is bringing a Pokémon game to the Switch, although it’s not a main series RPG as many had hoped. Following in the footsteps of Mario Kart 8 Deluxe, another of the most popular games on the Wii U, Pokkén Tournament, is coming to the Switch in an upgraded form. Pokkén Tournament DX will be bringing the popular Tekken-inspired Pokémon beat-em-up to the Switch on September 22, 2017, augmenting the original 14-Pokémon cast (and two additional alternative forms) with additional characters such as Darkrai, Scizor, Empoleon, Croagunk, and Decidueye. Three-on-three team battles are also being introduced to the DX release, alongside online ranked matches and friend-only group fights.

Gold and Silver on Virtual Console

On the same day, Nintendo will also be re-releasing the second generation of Pokémon games, Pokémon Gold and Silver, to the 3DS Virtual Console. The last Pokémon games before the modern GBA and DS era, Gold and Silver allowed players to traverse both Kanto and Johto on their hunt to catch all 251 Pokémon across both regions and beat the 16 gyms. Famously remade for the DS as HeartGold and SoulSilver with many enhancements, the original games will now be re-introduced to the modern generation as eShop exclusives on September 22, 2017; and like the Red, Blue and Yellow Virtual Console releases, will also support Pokémon Bank, allowing you to import your Pokémon into Sun and Moon to bring them to the latest Generation. Check out the announcement trailer below:

Unlike the original games, there is no word yet as to whether transfers between the Red/Blue/Yellow VC releases and that of Gold and Silver will be possible – but we wouldn’t put it past Nintendo to have thought of this too, so watch this space for updates.

Ultra Sun and Moon

Perhaps the biggest announcement of all though is the reveal of the next main series titles. On November 17, 2017 Nintendo will release to Pokémon fans worldwide Pokémon Ultra Sun and Moon, promising new monsters not found in the original releases and a different story, along with new features that, according to the video, “will allow you to enjoy your adventure even more, making this truly an ‘ultra’ title”. Details were scarce, with only ten seconds of footage shown, but there is a strong suggestion that the new titles will be a sequel/upgrade to the current generation Sun and Moon games, in a similar fashion to how Pokémon Black and White were later followed up by Pokémon Black Version 2 and Pokémon White Version 2 (commonly referred to by fans as Black 2 and White 2).

No doubt by now you’ll be wanting to watch these other announcements yourself as well, so enjoy the official announcement trailer below; and don’t forget to check back here for all your latest Pokémon and other gaming news!

This article first appeared on Technically Motivated.