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“The Climb” is a VR game for oculus rift from Crytek that looks little better than a tech demo for what the oculus can do, as opposed to a fully-fledged title.
From what was shown the one of the challenges in the game is that certain hand holds in the game might be “dirty” at which point you will need to brush them off to clean them before being able to continue the climb or possibly having to climb in the dark. As it stands the game doesn’t seem massively appealing and the inclusion of “99 achievements” seems more of an afterthought as a bullet point for talking of the game, a very interesting addition would be doing a climb race versus friends.
You can check out the trailer from this years GamesCom here…
Among the games shown off today was Ubisoft’s combat simulator For Honor, one of many games that caught people’s attention just through the use of a brilliant looking trailer.
Among the things we discovered today is that the game is due to have a public alpha test next month. It’ll be starting on September 15th, and in order to be eligible for invites you need to sign-up at the site for the game at forhonorgame.com and then hope that you are chosen as one of the lucky people chosen for entrance into the alpha testing period.
About the game itself it is said that already they’ve been working on trying to make the game suit all types of playstyles to draw in the most players they can. There will be a campaign singleplayer as well as multiplayer and characters you play can learn new skills and tricks as you progress more. There will also be offered bonuses for people who pre-order, including some access to game before release.
The last big thing about the game was that it was revealed that For Honor would be coming out for Playstation 4, Xbox One and PC in the first few months of the next year. It’s due for release on February 14th 2017.
As part of Gamescom’s first set of livestreams, EA showed off a number of their properties and talked about some of the things we could expect to see from some of their biggest upcoming games.
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Among the games shown was the much anticipated followup to the Titanfall game, Titanfall 2. Through trailers and talk, we found out that Titanfall 2’s beta will take place over two weekends with the first taking place this very weekend. The betas will be deemed technical tests, in which Respawn will be trying to get as many people in as possible to stress and probably break the game so they can know what to fix. The beta will only be including people in both consoles though as we covered yesterday, unfortunately PC players will not be included in these tests.
The beta will only show off a small slice of the game, with two maps and two game modes – Bounty Hunt and Pilot vs Pilot – being available for the first beta; the second beta also adding on another game mode – Amped Hardpoint which is a slightly changed up version of the old Hardpoint game mode from the first game. There will also be two new titans available, Ion with a vortex shield and Scorch with the fire weapon.
If you’re looking to play in one of the betas, they’ll be taking place from August 19th to 21st and then the weekend after that, August 26th to 28th. Then the full game will be coming later on in the year in October.
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The other big game presented was of course Battlefield 1, set in the First World War and with battle taking place over land, sea and air. Again we had a trailer but a lot of the talk was around the different modes of battle (horses, tanks, planes are all useable vehicles) and a game play demonstration of four matches (that last one being unplanned to resolve the draw) showed off the chaos of a battlefield in a fairly destructible environment.
Talked up were two other points, the armoured train behemoth that one side can call in during the battle based on which side is losing at the time it is made available and the specialised ‘Elite Classes’ of soldiers which spawn as pick ups on the field that can be acquired by a player and then transform them into a soldier with a particular speciality but weaknesses in all other areas.
A beta was also mentioned for Battlefield, with the beta opening up for PS4, Xbox One and PC on August 31st. At first only people who have signed up at battlefield.com as Battlefield Insiders will be able to play in the beta but it will eventually be opened up to all players a little further down the line.
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The last thing that caught our attention during EA’s stream was little more than an announcement of something that will be releasing at the end of the year.
EA have been working in partnership with Lucasfilms to make a Star Wars game based off the upcoming Rogue One film – a VR game at that. Titlled Star Wars Battlefront: Rogue One X-Wing VR Mission you will take to space as one of a wing of Rebel-aligned X-Wing pilots in fights with TIE Fighters and possibly a Star Destroyer too was hinted at. However, there was not a lot of information as they had to keep most details under wraps for now.
However, the game will be available to owners of the Star Wars Battlefront game on PS4 for free when it launches during the holiday season at the end of the year.
Twitch has changed a lot in the past few years, and it seems like things will be changing even more. Today the company announced that they are acquiring Curse.
“Please join us in welcoming Curse, a leading global multimedia and technology company focused on content and products specifically for gamers, to the Twitch family.”
Curse, of course is a prominent company involved in voice communications, chat and gaming mods as well as wikis and guides. The release from Twitch goes on to say “This acquisition will help provide gamers with the tools and resources they need to achieve the ultimate gaming experience, a mission shared by both Twitch and Curse. Together Curse and Twitch will help gamers connect, interact, and share information with one another.”
From a business perspective, this is a huge acquisition for Twitch. Curse has more than 30 million unique users per month. There is a huge opportunity here for Twitch to extend their community and content offerings through this acquisition. In addition, Twitch already has strong options in place to monetise content and subscribers on it’s own platform. The acquisition of Twitch could potentially open up other avenues for Twitch to gain additional revenue, as well as incorporate Curse’s voice chat technology into the platform. While no definite plans have been stated, the Twitch announcement did say they are excited for the many possibilities ahead. It will be interesting to see what comes of this merger in the next few months.
If you enjoyed your time with Sunless Sea, you’ll be glad to know that its first expansion, Zubmariner, has finally been given a release date. That and it’s not all that far in the future either. It’s also gotten a new trailer:
So October the 11th will be when the expansion is released which will take you from your boat and the port towns of Fallen London and the Unterzee into the dark depths of its surface. It promises to be as much of a decision making and encounter filled game as the base game was, with terrifying looking ‘zee-beasts’, management of oxygen reserves, and the all surrounding darkness meaning you’re reliant on your sonar to pinpoint anything down there.
Narrative director Chris Gardiner says of the expansion: “Beneath the Unterzee it’s dark, hostile, littered with plunderable wrecks and haunted by the worst horrors of the Neath… The ports on the zee bed are a level weirder than those on the surface, and their inhabitants have been changed by the deeps.Some are hiding, some are hateful, some are mad. Some are all three, and have very big ambitions.”
Those who purchased the base game through Early Access will be getting the expansion for free. Otherwise it’ll be available for £7.99/$10.99 on GOG, The Humble Store and Steam come October 11th.
