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Following the closing of the ELEAGUE Major, Valve has announced in a post that fan-favourite map Dust2 will be seeing a little break from Active Duty in CS:GO for the foreseeable future. Instead, Inferno which has been recently reworked will be taking its place in the competitive rotation and will appear at the next CS:GO Major.
This means that for a while Dust2 will no longer be seen or used at future CS:GO tournaments. However, this doesn’t mean it’s gone – it is still accessible in both casual and deathmatch games. Heck, it even has its own category on the Competitive Matchmaking screen, it’s that popular of a map. So this is just a little retirement from competitive play, nothing else.
Inferno is the second map that has been reworked to rejoin Active Duty, following on from Nuke’s rework and readdition during 2016. This could mean that Dust2 could be the next up for a re-work, as the map is now 16 years old at this point. It’s not been confirmed, but as it’s such a favourite Valve are hardly going to be dropping it or leaving it out of competitive play for good.
You might have heard that ZeniMax and Oculus have been in court recently. ZeniMax was alleging that id Software founder John Carmack used some data that belonged to ZeniMax to help develop the Oculus Rift, and it does seem that there was some wrongdoing involved because a judge awarded the lawsuit in ZeniMax’s favour to the tune of half a billion dollars over a breach of NDA. Now ZeniMax have said they might go a step further
In a statement provided to Polygon, ZeniMax said they may seek an injunction to temporarily stop the sale of Oculus Rift headsets. If they’re successful, this could put a real spanner in the works of Oculus’ plans as they attempt to keep control in a growing VR market that right now they’re no longer the only player doing well in.
“We will consider what further steps we need to take to ensure there will be no ongoing use of our misappropriated technology, including by seeking an injunction to restrain Oculus and Facebook from their ongoing use of computer code that the jury found infringed ZeniMax’s copyrights.
“While we regret we had to litigate in order to vindicate our rights, it was necessary to take a stand against companies that engage in illegal activity in their desire to get control of new, valuable technology.”
Oculus themselves are planning an appeal against the case they just lost, and Carmack has come out since the result denying that he destroyed data when leaving ZeniMax – another point of contention brought up during the lawsuit.
One of the most popular mobile games in recent years was Bethesda Game Studio’s Fallout Shelter, released in the run-up to Fallout 4. The game later came to other platforms, such as the PC through a launcher of Bethesda’s own and now it’s due to be listed on both the Xbox and Windows Store.
If you somehow missed out on it, Fallout Shelter puts you in control of your own Vault shelter, building rooms to supply needs, putting your Vault Dwellers to work, earning caps and taking in new Dwellers as they arrive, as well as making an entire new generation. There’s also the option to arm your Dwellers against attacks from Raiders, Radroaches as well as to send them out on expeditions to gather supplies. Since its release other things have been added to the game such as Crafting, Pets, Scrapping and many more, including iconic characters from Fallout games as special Dwellers.
The game will be made available on both Stores from February 7th as a free download, as well as being an Xbox Play Anywhere title which means if you have it on your Xbox One you should also have it on your Windows 10 PC as well.
Before you watch the video below, please note this footage represents a game that is in beta and not final, and there are audio syncing issues due to the game crashing repeatedly. We have done our best to align the audio of the conversations between Digmbot and Movian, but this has resulted in some game sounds being out of place. The purpose of this video is to demonstrate gameplay, not serve as a first impression. Large portions of the raw footage were unusable, and this video represents a small slice of a multi-hour play session with the game.
In a livestream a short while ago, Bethesda streamed out the announcement of the ‘next chapter’ of The Elder Scrolls Online – The Elder Scrolls Online: Morrowind.
Set in the same area of Morrowind as the game of The Elder Scrolls III: Morrowind (the Isle of Vvardenfell) and recreated in the modern era using the original game’s height map, this new content will see players questing through locations they remember from the old game – only 700 years before any of The Elder Scrolls III ever happened. This new area will be one of the largest added to the game so far, and will include areas such as the docks of Seyda Neen, to the volcanic Ashlands, to dense, mushroom-filled forests, and through the glory of Vivec City which is still under construction in this time period.
The new update to the game will also bring with it a new class for players to choose – the Warden. As noted in the stream the Warden is a class that is more tied to natural magics and can specialise in one of three different ways; the ice magic/defensive path, the nature magic/healing patch, or the one that was featured heavily in the trailer – the animal companion path. The war bear was called the ‘ultimate’ of that last line, with talk around morphing abilities to give the bear a boost in power or automatically resummon it when it falls in combat. The animal companion will also persist until death, even across zones and can be healed or buffed.
The main questline of the Morrowind addition involves the legendary warrior-poet and Guardian of Vvardenfell Vivec, who has begun to lose power thanks to a mysterious illness and needs your help to solve the source of the illness, restore him to full strength and fight off threats against the world. There will also be a new trial for end-game players, as well as a new PvP mode called Battlegrounds that will be focused on team play. On launch there will be 3 maps and 3 gamemodes to choose from, and all will be 4 v 4 v 4 types, for small, fast-paced team battles and events.
As you might expect, there will be a few different versions of this being released. The Standard Edition will retail at £39.99 and will include the base game of The Elder Scrolls Online: Tamriel Unlimited, as well as the new Morrowind content. If you already own the base game, there will be an Upgrade Edition for £29.99 to upgrade existing players. A Digital Collector’s Edition will also be released for £64.99, containing the base game, new content as well as a bunch of digital in-game rewards that include a special grey War Bear for Warden players to use, a Dwarven Spider Pet, an Armoured War Horse and a converter for Morag Tong-themed gear. These digital rewards can also be acquired through the Digital Collector’s Upgrade at £49.99. Finally there will be a physical Collector’s Edition of the game sold at £89.99, which will include a bunch of physical items such as Naryu’s Journal – an artbook with lore added, a 12′ tall Dwarven Colossus Statue and an exclusive game case.
There is also a pre-order ‘Discovery Pack’ which will contain experience scrolls to allow for greater in-game experience gain for around two hours at a time, an exclusive Warden appearance, Treasure Maps of where the best secrets are hidden, a Dwarven War Dog Pet and a Dwarven Crown Crate which comes with a chance to contain Dwarven-themed mounts, pets, costumes, and more.
The Elder Scrolls Online: Morrowind will be releasing globally for PC, Playstation 4 and Xbox One on June 6th, 2017.