Garrett, the Master Thief, steps out of the shadows into the City. In this treacherous place, where the Baron’s Watch spreads a rising tide of fear and oppression, his skills are the only things he can trust. Even the most cautious citizens and their best-guarded possessions are not safe from his reach.
As an uprising emerges, Garrett finds himself entangled in growing layers of conflict. Lead by Orion, the voice of the people, the tyrannized citizens will do everything they can to claim back the City from the Baron’s grasp. The revolution is inevitable. If Garrett doesn’t get involved, the streets will run red with blood and the City will tear itself apart.

This is actually the most interactive of the Eurogamer dev chats so far, not only did we get a full on play through of the game, but the dev on stage actually took the time to speak to people there and asked their names for the Q&A, much respect to him on that one

Ok, onto the actual gameplay. The new Thief game is paying a LOT of homage to the original, while at the same time, making it more “realistic” and more technical, compared to games that have gone before (hopefully no undead this time)

First thing you notice, the game is polished, VERY polished, it looks smooth and beautiful, however it was mentioned the next gen versions will have better textures, quicker loading times, etc, but where the PC version will sit is unknown right now.

In a nutshell though, you play as Garret again, this time as a “silent partner” to Orion in his revolution against the Baron.

During the Demo-

Arrows aren’t just for killing, the examples shown were the water arrow for snuffing out torches and fire to remove light sources to stay in the dark, and obviously the rope/grappler arrow to make escapes
Lock picking and frame checking (running your hands round a painting frame for secret switches) is now a quicktime event, not only using the on screen indicator, but also the controllers rumble function for feedback (love that idea, very clever use of force feedback)
Maps are a clear reference tot eh original aswell and the map usage is smooth and simple UI improvement

It was asked in the Q&A if you could Ghost the game (basically doing as much as possible of the game without doing any kills or enemy takedowns and it was confirmed it is possible. Hopefully that will be a super hard, but worth getting achievement
Gameplay will change depending on how gun ho you play the game, if guards are after you, running into the dark won’t make them lose you, the AI will follow you (although this may also used as a fun trap, drag a guard into the dark for a take down)

Thief is out 25th feb 2014, but its already available to preorder on STEAM

Ubisoft Montreal’s trailer for Watch_Dogs, which has been viewed countless times in the last many months – indeed, even at the Eurogamer Developers Presentation today they admitted they’d “seen it way too many times now” (not seen it yourself? YouTube to the rescue!) – makes a big deal of how technology has evolved in ten years, talking about how in 2003, a computer virus blacked out a whole district for a day and led to four people dying; and now ten years later, everything is computerised and a whole town could be hacked by just one individual. Indeed, technology HAS moved fast, even in just half that time. Watch_Dogs is a game that’s been in development for over five years, originally under the codename “Nexus”. Even part of the game’s original logo appears on protagonist Aiden Pearce’s face covering.

However, speaking at Eurogamer, Ubisoft explain that despite the futuristic undertones, Watch_Dogs isn’t as made up as it seems, explaining that in five years technology has evolved from traditional computers to smartphones. “What was the next step up from Smartphones? Smart Cities. It sounds futuristic, but it’s already happening”, citing examples of certain Asian cities investing in city-wide computer networks ahead of the Olympics and other major events. But Watch_Dogs doesn’t take place in Asia – rather, it’s based in modern-day Chicago. Ubisoft cite the reason for this as because Chicago is a large town that’s always evolving; indeed, the Chicago that rose after the Great Fire of Chicago hardly resembles its predecessor. “Every time Chicago has rebuilt, they bring in something new that evolves the town. That was one part of choosing Chicago as the setting. … Another aspect is the density. You need to build chaos. Chicago has complete second layers on the ground, for example intersections where roads go under worlds. No flat world.”

Watch_Dogs tells the story of Aiden Pearce, a vigilante who fears the evolution of a city-wide computer network threatens him and his family. He finds ways to hack the computer network; and using his phone or computer terminals to control it, makes it work for him; uses it to get out of trouble; or gets information about criminals and bad activity around him. Described in Concept Art as “a hero by any means necessary”, Ubisoft explain they take “vigilante” to have a different meaning to the standard assumptions, explaining that when people think of vigilantes, there’s extremes: Many people think of characters like Batman, caped crusaders who deal justice alone; but it’s also true of less “good” characters like Dexter from the TV drama – a serial killer who targets the guilty, thus helping the law but not being part of the law and breaking the law himself with murder. “Aiden is in the middle between Dexter and Batman – Aiden is neither a good guy, nor a bad guy; he’s just taking justice into his own hands to protect him and his family.”

Essentially, Watch_Dogs makes a game of dynamic events and always thinking on your toes. Aiden is constantly aware of his surroundings. For example he always tries to keep his gun concealed; and walks in a relaxed manner, so he doesn’t draw attention. “There’s a lot of different ways to handle a situation. For example, say you have a reputation; and you walk into a shop and while you’re there, a police notice flashes up on screen with your face. One NPC who sees you might try to call the cops. You could shoot him, but then you might attract attention and suddenly there’s two other people calling the cops – then it’s four other people. You can ignore it, but then the cops know where you are and others might call in too as they notice. But if you jam the communications, no-one can make a call. And if you just flash your gun, you might intimidate the first person into thinking twice about making the call himself.”

“Everything is about dynamism. If you’re in an open world and you plan to give people control, everything has to be connected. … A living city has to be heavily pushed. You need to see people interacting, living. … You’re going to escalate matters based on the choices you make; and there’s nothing more satisfying than barely surviving a situation you create because of good, or sometimes bad, choices. So an emphasis is always on choices and consequences … meanings to things.” Later, Ubisoft added: “Nothing is separate elements. Everything is connected.”

This connected focus extends to the game’s multiplayer. Even when playing solo, you are never really alone. Others can potentially join your own games; and just like anyone on the street, you can hack them to get information on and connections from them; but they can do the same to you. As the crowd brought up concerns of griefing, however, Ubisoft explained this has been thought about and will be solved by a Firewall mechanic. All your technology will be protected by a firewall; but if you hack another player, you let down your own defences. When YOU get hacked, however, the firewall goes back on and you can’t be ganged up on by others. Ubisoft plan to adjust the Firewall mechanic based on player feedback. The people who enjoy the challenge may find themselves hacked more often, those who can’t cope will get stronger protection. You can turn it off completely too; but then you’re missing out on what they describe as “a cool additional gameplay experience.”

We’ll leave it to Ubisoft Montreal to have the final words (though these may be somewhat paraphrased):

“It’s absolutely possible to act all the time as you play; so you can think every two seconds. As you play more you’ll think more, and the game will feel fresher. You’ll start thinking more about escape routes as you’re just moving around; avoiding cops if you draw attention etc. – and the game will always feel like something new. That’s what makes our game something truly new.”

Watch_Dogs will hit Windows PCs, PlayStation 3 & 4, Xbox 360, Xbox One and Wii U, with release dates ranging from November 15 to November 29, 2013 depending on platform and region. Here in the UK, all releases except PS4 will be on November 22, 2013; with the PS4 a week later.

Kicking off the third day of Eurogamer action, CD Projekt Red took to the stage first to unveil some design facts about The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt, the third game in its Witcher series of Role-playing video games loosely based on Polish books of the same name, which is planned to hit the PC, PS4 and XBox One next year.

In a break from the usual style of Eurogamer, CD Projekt Red decided to not to send any of their design or programming team to conduct the presentation. Instead, Mateusz Tomaszkiewicz – Lead Quest Designer – came all the way from Poland to discuss it; and during the Q&A made obvious his unusual position by stating that many questions being asked would have been better answered had a member of the Design Team accompanied him or he had more details on the technical side of things.

Still, the show must go on. Witcher 3, he explains, builds upon the high level of storytelling and detail kept up on previous titles in the series: “We always put a lot of effort into our storylines in our games to make them mature, to make them interesting and to make the characters interesting. And we focus on properly introducing characters to make good connections and to make them convincing. But we felt something was missing.”

That missing thing is described best in one word: “Immersion”. With Witcher 3, the aim of the game is to get the players more hooked into the game world and the events going on around them. “We really felt the need to allow players explore more and immerse themselves in the game world. We feel open-world game play does this best”, explained Mateusz.

What this means is Witcher 3 is the first title in the series to use a large-scale, open-world which players will be able to explore at their will, giving them total freedom to explore the land. “[However,] we’ve tried to avoid sending you a different side of the map or different landscape just for a single dialogue or task.” Instead, Witcher 3 utilises the concept of Quest Clusters: Quest chains will be kept in a small area. So while in a town or village, for example, you will find a chain of events to do there; when you move further out to another part of the game world like another town, forest or whatever, they will have their own cluster of quests. As you travel between clusters however, you will find side-games and wider-area quests to allow you to continue to perform tasks and keep you interested as you travel from cluster to cluster.

Another focus of Witcher 3 is accessibility. “We are working hard to introduce the story to new players as well, so if you haven’t played Witcher 1 and Witcher 2, you will still understand Witcher 3. It was actually an issue reported of Witcher 2 that people who hadn’t played Witcher 1 weren’t catching up with previous events; which we realised was a problem and we’re working to fix in Witcher 3.” Mateusz went on to explain that the team recognises that those who’ve played previous games – and/or read the books Witcher is based on – will always have a heads-up; the aim with Witcher 3 is to ensure the new players don’t feel disadvantaged by not knowing what veterans will and keep the game fun for both camps.

Not that Veterans will find the game easy, since enemies will become smarter just like they have. “We aim to have more opponent types and have the opponents interacting with each other, so [they will work together] in battle – fighting will feel more natural than our previous games.” Also, while many enemies will stay within their own quest clusters or defined territory, this is not guaranteed. “Some enemies, if you try to run, will chase you even going outside of their own area. It’s very divided.”

Opening the floor to a Q&A session, Mateusz finished with a final note to those worried that a game hitting three platforms at the same time will play differently on each. “We are working hard right now to work on keeping the game even on all three platforms and our developers are working hard to create a like experience for all of them.” They added that while the team were looking into achievement structures and taking advantage of specific console-exclusive features, it was important for them that the game plays and feels as similar as possible regardless of your choice of platform – which is good news for everyone.

The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt will launch in 2014.

The next instalment of the long-running FIFA football simulator series was shown off today in a developers session at Eurogamer Expo.

EA talked about the new game, FIFA 14: Next-Gen, which is being released at the end of November for both the Xbox One and the Playstation 4, as well as a touchscreen controlled f2p version for mobile phones. The big thing EA seem to be aiming for with FIFA 14 is for their next gen game to be even more realistic in as many different ways as possible, with the tagline for the game shown in the trailer even being ‘it just got real’. Built upon the EA Sports Ignite engine and with ‘three pillars’ of how the game should feel in mind (human intelligence, true player motion and living worlds), the presentation talked a lot about the ‘massive gameplay changes’ to make the new FIFA game feel as ‘alive’ as possible, including smarter AI for more human-like reactions to situations, different playstyles (so faster players have more trouble keeping the ball close while dribbling compared to the slower players now for example) and what was described as ‘real biomechanics’. There have also been changes made to the ‘broadcast’ system of the game which replays shots and incidents from the virtual match from many different camera angles to give the illusion of a television-broadcast match. Even the crowd is now 3D and animated.

FIFA 14 is to contain 13 different play modes including skill games, co-op seasons, match day play, EA sports football club, career mode and ultimate team as well as containing many new leagues and teams. Each stadium within the game now also has an exterior rendered in 3D to resemble the real-life counterparts they are based on as well, again to add to the game’s real feel.

FIFA 14 is also able to take data from the previous FIFA game and transfer it over, allowing the player to bring over their teams, trophies and more from FIFA 13 and keep them (although it is a one-time transfer and possibly one-way too). Also discussed was the Xbox One exclusive content for the ultimate team part of the game: Legends. This additional part of gameplay allows players to put together a team of players from around 40 legendary players and play matches with them, choosing from players from many of the recent decades as well as modern champions.

FIFA 14 is out for the Xbox One on November 21st and for the Playstation 4 on November 29th.

When a Eurogamer Developer’s Conference starts with a member of Eurogamer staff addressing the floor prior to the presentation starting, and says we’re about to see a “sizeable chunk” of a game, you take an interest. When the speaker tells you the preview constitutes “the first ever live public presentation of the live gameplay”, even more so.

That’s just the opening of the presentation for Dying Light, an Action Survival Zombie Game by Polish game developer Techland – famous for the two Dead Island games. But this description isn’t enough to fully explain the game, says host Tymon Smektała. Asked to describe the game, Tymon starts with a high-impact 30-second trailer as the “short answer”. The long answer? “Dying Light is a First Person, Open World, Action Survival Horror Game. It’s a long description, but all of these words are important.”

What this means is Dying Light is not your everyday zombie survival game. Here, you’ll be interacting with a large game world in order to complete missions and escape being turned into a zombie yourself. Utilising a natural movement system, players will be jumping on crates and ledges, zip-lining down angled wires; and pulling themselves over gates to reach different areas, in a form of zombie apocalypse parkour; and there’s no need to look for doors if the wall is low enough to pull yourself over. When you have to come face to face with zombies, you can always kill them of course, but unlike many other zombie survival games, Tymon is quick to point out that isn’t the only option available here. You can run, you can escape, you can lay traps, you can use what you just built to defend yourself, or you can make use of the environment – it’s all about your approach to the situation. This is crucial, because not even higher ground makes you automatically safe. “Zombies can climb just as well as you can”, says Tymon.

To help you out, many missions will see you laying traps to kill zombies or provide distractions that will let you pass them safely. Some of these include car bombs and electrical boxes with exposed live wires. All traps will be triggered remotely, so until you make them live, you can run through at any time and wait for the zombies to follow – and sometimes you’ll come across traps set by other survivors, which you can trigger too. Another example of a trap is powerful lighting – useful at night, overhead lights can flood an area when triggered to not only make them more visible, but also disorient zombies by essentially blinding them with light.

Dying Light’s whole gameplay rests on a continuous day/night cycle mechanic. In the daytime, zombies are less active, giving you a chance to build up defences and prepare for the night ahead. Once night falls, the real challenge begins, as zombies spawn more frequently and become aggressive. For 95% of Story Missions and 100% of Side Missions, so claims Tymon, you can start a mission at any time of the day, giving you as much or as little time as you desire to complete tasks before the zombies get serious. Hints were dropped that night-time action will lead to greater rewards, leading to a serious risk/reward mechanic – do you start a mission in the day to stay safer for longer; or wait to later in the evening and potentially get more value out of difficult situations? Between one and four players can play at any time, dropping in or out at will. But even though co-op players will share a game world, there’s no requirement for them to perform the same missions – the choice is up to them.

Dying Light also makes use of a dynamic encounter system, making every playthrough different. You may never know when a survivor needing help; or a super-tough zombie that’s harder to defeat will appear. Helping others can lead to rewards as well, but at night-time saving others might be risking your own life. Additional help comes in the form of air drops sent from outside to provide survivors with extra resources, but do you take the time and risk to go pick them up? Your actions in the game will develop your character differently, letting you build yourself up the way you want to play and customise your character the way you like.

Dying Light hits PlayStation 3, PlayStation 4, Xbox One, Xbox 360 and Microsoft Windows next year.