The latest DLC pack has been released for Bethesda’s MMO the Elder Scrolls Online, bringing with it a new area and missions centralised mainly around the rebuilding of the Orcism homeland Orsinium.

The King of the Orcs Kurog and his mother are the ones who have put out the request for all available adventurers to come aid them with the rebuilding to keep away enemies who have an interest in making sure the work does not get finished and the capital is not secured for the Orcs. The DLC should involve arou8nd 20 hours worth of new content for players, with both solo and group content available for play.

Also with the DLc comes the solo-focused Maelstrom Arena where you can do battle with the strongest monsters the game has for prizes and features “nine combat rings and two different difficulty levels”. The group side has two new public dungeons in Old Orsinium and Rkindaleft and there are also six new world bosses dotted around the map for you to take on.

This content is free if you’re a ESO Plus sub, otherwise it’ll set you back 3000 Crowns which is the equivalent of £14.99 / $24.99 in real world cash.

A few months back, Unknown Artifacts began popping up in various systems throughout the galaxy of Elite:Dangerous.  Some transmitted in morse code, others just seemed to sit there. The collective player base scratched their heads and set out to find out what, exactly, these artifacts were all about. The forum thread detailing commander’s efforts to decipher these artifacts is long, impressive and worth a read if you have some spare time.

To make a long story short however, it was revealed that while some were in fact morse code scans of nearby objects others retained there secrets. Until recently when a player by the name of Mike Juliett Kilo fed a pre-recorded unknown artefact signal into a scanner in his cargo and got back the following image:

To those not in the know, this is a wireframe depiction of the Vulture spacecraft, the ship which Kilo happened to be flying at the time. As he said to the official Elite Community site at the time: “I was prepared to see an alien face or Thargoid warship. I certainly didn’t expect to see a Vulture, especially as I was flying one at the time! It sent shivers down my spine.”

Thargoids are the alien race that has featured in some previous Elite games, notable for being insectoid and thouroughly in love with blowing things up.

Frontier, of course has remained coy on the entire matter, stating that the artifacts are only the beginning. Of what, we don’t know.

The Old Republic is going to be slightly revised in time for the launch of its upcoming expansion Knights of the Fallen Empire.

Previously if you were a higher level than your friends you might have been separated from them in-game because of the level mismatch. Now BioWare are introducing a system that will let you re-visit lower level planets by scaling down your level temporarily while you are there.

Called Level Sync it kicks in automatically if you land on a planet with a target level lower than your currently held one, matching you to the missions you tackle. It also scales down your stats, weapon damage and armour as well to the appropriate levels, but abilities and passive effects stay in place. You also receive “scaled experience” which BioWare feel will see players “rewarded appropriately for [the] time investment”.

There have also been changes to XP assignment in grouping as well. Experience is no longer split between members of a group – but rather is based on the level difference between your most experienced comrade, post-level sync, and the mob you’re fighting.

It all sounds pretty sensible. And is probably a relief to those players who managed to level out of the range of their friend group (there’s always one person who seems to level faster than anyone else).

The Elder Scrolls Online is due to get a new DLC that revolves around its Orc race. In the upcoming Orsinium DLC we get to see the Orcs’ ancestral home during a period of time when it was going through a time of rebuilding and adventurers are being invited along to help and of course fight.

Orsinium hasn’t been in an Elder Scrolls game since Dragonfall, and it will probably look a bit different to how it did then, graphical updates not withstanding. It’ll be cold and full of Orcs as well as people and monsters attempting to stop the rebuilding. The city will be situated in the mountains of Wrothgar, a new zone being added for the DLC and provides ample space for more exploration.

A whole bunch of new missions will be made available to fill up in your Quest Log and there will also be a solo arena challenge – the Maelstrom Arena.

The Orsinium DLC will be launching on November 2nd, and it’ll be free for ESO Plus members while being 3,000 crowns for everyone else.

David Braben and members of Frontier Developments took to the EGX stage today to talk about the future of Elite. They started off by showing the Horizons trailer and talking in detail about everything coming to the game.

For starters, Horizons will allow players to land on planets, with rocky planets being sized at up to seven times the size of Earth. Players will be able to enter an orbital cruise mode to allow them to move around the planet quickly, and from there will be able to drop down into the atmosphere and cruise about. Once they decide to land, they will be able to deploy an armed exploration rover. Mining and exploring human settlements are just a few of the things Frontier hinted at as activities once on a planet. In addition, they also confirmed that Season 2 of Elite will finally bring us multicrew ships and fighter bays for the larger vessels. This means that you can deploy a small parasite fighter from a larger ship and use it to escort a fellow crew member as they explore in their rover. Or, you could leave your ship on autopilot and deploy in a fast, powerful fighter to take on those nasty pirates sneaking up on your flank.

They also discussed the inclusion of looting and crafting. Mining and looting from wrecks and other sources will allow players to craft unique weapons and items for their ships. This could range from changing the color of your lasers to creating a weapon that causes system malfunctions on an enemy ship. They then revealed….BOBBLEHEADS. Thats right, bobbleheads are coming back. Those of us who played the original beta grew quite fond of our bobbleheads, and I for one am glad to see them making a comeback. For a limited time, a David Braben bobblehead is available in the Frontier Store.

The final bit of information worth touching on is the inclusion of the Cobra Mk 4 and the Viper Mk 4. The new Cobra was revealed in the Horizons trailer, while the new Viper was just revealed today. It trades some speed and manueverability for better internals, making the ship much tougher.

Elite Horizons and Season 2 are due out this Holiday season.