Recently it was announced that Sega and Creative Assembly were teaming up with Wargaming for a collaboration on Total War Arena, one of their upcoming games. Now an image has been released on the official Facebook which along with e-mails sent out, confirm the date of closed Alpha tests for the game.

The image is of Roman soldier’s pauldron with the roman numerals  XXVI.XI.MMXVI. visible on it. For those of you who get confused with Roman Numerals or just can’t be bothered to decipher it, in numbers we’d recognise more easily it reads 27.11.2016. You might be reading this and realise that it happens to be tomorrow’s date. So we won’t have to wait long for news.

We know that it’s closed alpha as well because the subreddit for Total War Arena is currently filled with players saying that they’ve received alpha keys, and a number of people have screencapped and posted the e-mail that came with the key. Said e-mail suggests that the tests will start from 8am tomorrow, so as long as NDA isn’t put in place you may see the game popping up on Twitch and Youtube Gaming tomorrow.

Of course, the partnership with Wargaming means that the game is not available on Steam and must instead be played through Wargaming Game Center, along with a wipe of any previous tests’ progress. So everyone’s starting from square one which is probably a good thing.

A new post about the next game from Failbetter has just gone up at their site, giving us some insight into what we can expect in the way of locations from Sunless Skies, the follow-up to their popular Sunless Seas game. Basically, unlike the last game there will be more than one major port to visit.

It’s hoped that this will break up the journey of floating about space for long periods of time, and Failbetter have said that they want to make the journeys “shorter and more varied” this time around.

“We want to keep this core loop, but reduce the amount of time spent traversing explored territories. The tension created by having to struggle back to a major port will still be there, and the threat of overreaching and dying in the cold, uncaring vastness of space will be just as present as it was in Sunless Sea.” wrote Liam Weston, director of game development on the website.

Just like Sunless Seas you can expect those major ports to stay in their fixed positions across subsequent playthroughs, but the minor ports and settlements will move around between playthroughs and will shift around which will add some mystery to your trips into the High Wilderness.

Sunless Skies is currently in pre-production after it was announced at EGX this year. It’s currently set for a Steam Early Access release next year, provided nothing happens between now and then to delay it.

There’s no disputing that The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim was a massive hit. Those of us that played it when it originally released can swap stories about quests, random NPC stupidity or the odd dragon crash landing on you out of nowhere in the middle of the mountains. The game was epic, the world amazingly realized and the gameplay was just absurdly fun. With Bethesda bringing the game back to the fore of our minds with the release of Skyrim Special Edition for PC, PS4 and Xbox One, I thought it was time to see how the new version stacked up against the original in one very important regard: modding.

Modding is a huge part of PC gaming in general, and Skyrim in particular. Don’t believe me? Thats my current list of mods, and there are at least 40 more I’m still trying to find Special Edition compatible versions of.

While there are a few mods that don’t work right now, I have faith that they will be updated soon. But, some of you may be confused. So, for the uninitiated, lets talk Skyrim mods, shall we?

Many of the most popular mods for the game are centered on improving the graphics. Adding dynamic lighting, dust effects, depth of field, lens flare, more grass, better trees, insanely high resolution textures. You name it, and you can add it to Skyrim. As an example, lets take a look at these two screenshots. 

The shot on the left is from the vanilla remastered version, running with no mods. The one on the right is running a variety of graphics enhancing mods. Of course, upping the texture resolution isn’t the only thing you can do. Lighting also plays a huge part in making a game more immersive, as seen below.

Again, the shot on the left is from the vanilla version. Among the other mods that are quite popular are weather mods that improve fog and weather effects, more realistic water and enhanced blood textures. Just in case the gore was too unrealistic for you…

And of course, lets not forget about the plethora of other mods, most of which I won’t post shots of here. There’s the mod that turns all of the dragons into the engines from Thomas The Tank Engine. There’s the giant rabbit mod, the skimpy anime style battle armor mod. There are mods that put in more realistic armor, add helpful roadsigns to the main routes in Skyrim. There’s even a mod that adds BIRDS to the game, just for the sake of immersion. Basically, if you can dream it, theres probably a mod for it. On PC at least.

Having tested the in game mod manager that Bethesda has bundled with the game, I have to say it’s pretty anemic. The interface is fiddly, obtuse and generally an utter pain in the ass to use. In fact, it reminds me strongly of the menus system in the game and in Fallout 4. Someone should really fire whatever alien makes the GUI on Bethesda games and hire a real human. Or at least do some focus testing. (Hint: When the test subjects gouge out their own eyes, it’s a bad design.) But I digress. The in game system is serviceable at best. If you want to add a few mods here and there just to try out, it will get the job done. Just don’t expect navigating to the mods you want, downloading and then activating them to be a pleasant or hassle free process.

The PC on the other hand, has multiple ways to install and use mods. Most people will opt for the Nexus Mod Manager, at least until someone updates the Skyrim Script Extender to be compatible with the Special Edition of the game. Until then, NMM works just fine, allowing you to download, install and activate or deactivate mods in a simple window, as seen at the top of this article. And while the process may be frustrating sometimes, at least console owners finally have access to mods. And there are a lot of them in the Bethesda curated offerings. Still, the only way to get some of the more interesting ones remains the PC. 

Whatever your platform of choice though, MOD AWAY! Oh…and just because it’s remastered, doesn’t mean the bugs have been totally squashed…

Playdead’s Inside is mostly known as a spiritual sequel to Limbo. It’s a really strange game, and the imagery in it will probably make you ask questions about the society it depicts and how it could relate to our current real-life one. Some people love it greatly, other people don’t. Standard for a game really.

If you’ve heard things about it and are curious, but not enough to take the plunge and buy it there’s some good news – there’s now a demo available for the game on Steam. The demo starts you right at the start, as you are chased through some dark and foreboding woods by mysterious men and their dogs.

Just head over to Inside’s Steam page if you want to try before you buy and decide once and for all if this is a game you want to buy and play. It gets really strange at the end though, don’t say I didn’t warn you.

No Man’s Sky did not have a great reception on launch. It has fans who love the game, but the criticism against it has been loud and actually pretty on point. I’m of the opinion that the game was never going to live up to the hype but that’s just me, I’ve learned to wait and see and not expect too much.

Anyway, after launch the developers Hello Games have been very quiet – so quiet in fact a lot of people weren’t very happy. In fact, the only bit of communication from the ‘developers’ was the time Hello Games’ Twitter was hacked to say that NMS was a ‘mistake’ so it doesn’t really count. However, Hello Games have now broken their silence with a blog post, in which they explain why they’ve been so quiet. Basically, they’ve been working on a new update for the game which will be released soon.

The Foundation Update will be adding the groundwork for the base building which is expected to arrive in a later update. Detailed patch notes aren’t out yet, but surely improvements to the game are a good thing right?

During the ‘quiet’ period Hello Games say that they’ve been working hard on the update, as well as testing it and certification for the patch. This will also signal the start of the ongoing support many people have been asking for and worried that Hello wouldn’t be providing due to their silence and the game’s lackluster reception.

Speaking about the criticism leveled against the game, Hello Games wrote: “The discussion around No Man’s Sky since release has been intense and dramatic. We have been quiet, but we are listening and focusing on improving the game that our team loves and feels so passionately about. Positive or negative feedback, you have been heard and that will truly help to make this a better game for everyone. This update will be the first small step in a longer journey. We hope you can join us.”

Once more details on the Foundation Update are released we will update you.