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After many years of on-and-off development, MTG Arena's much-anticipated Pioneer Masters set has now arrived. As you might imagine by the name, the Pioneer Masters set bring with it an avalanche of competitive Pioneer staples, as well as some fun bits of jank for every Arena format besides Standard and Alchemy.
The goal behind the set is to make Explorer as close to competitive Pioneer as possible, so that it could eventually ditch its temporary name and become 'true' Pioneer. When exactly this will happen, nobody outside of Wizards of the Coast currently knows, but I can't imagine it'll take long considering that the vast, vast majority of relevant Pioneer cards are now available on Arena.
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If you've been paying any attention to Overwatch 2 throughout the past year, you're probably well aware of how prevalent 6v6 has been as a topic of conversation. And it's really no surprise since it was one of the more controversial parts of Overwatch 2's launch, and one that required the most drastic changes in order to facilitate - changes that, depending on who you ask, made the gameplay worse.
So in order to check if this is just people looking at Overwatch 1 through rose-tinted glasses, or if 6v6 is actually something that would benefit the game, Blizzard will be running two different experimental 'formats' throughout Season 14. Here's a brief rundown of what to expect:
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The 2002 video game based on The Thing was a squad based survival-horror that tried to emulate the movie's constant sense of paranoia by letting your teammates, some of which could've been by your side for a very long time, get infected and transform into monsters at the least opportune time. However, while it was quite an exciting and unique concept, the actual execution left a lot to be desired, at this is without even mentioning all of the various bugs that plagued the game.
As such, I'm delighted to say that Nightdive Studios are now working on a remastered version! The appropriately titled The Thing: Remastered will come with a visual overhaul including improved models and textures, new dynamic lighting, support for 4k resolution and 144 FPS, and the part that excites me the most, an assortment of gameplay improvements.
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[Update]: MTG Arena will be getting the entirety of competitive Pioneer on December 10th, 2024!
In what is quite possibly going to be remembered as one of Magic: The Gathering's biggest and boldest steps, whether that be for good or bad, Wizards of the Coast have announced that all future cross-over sets will be legal in every single format. And yes, this does mean that 'Universes Beyond' sets like Final Fantasy or the various Marvel ones will be fully legal in Standard in both paper and on MTG Arena.
The reason for the change, besides the fact that this is going to print an obscene amount of money, is to help onboard new players into 60-card formats, which is a genuine issue. As it stands right now new players are all funneled into MTG Arena or into the four-player Commander format, thus leaving paper formats like Standard or Pioneer without the new blood they need to function.
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[Update]: MTG Arena's Pioneer Masters set has arrived with an avalanche of competitive staples.
Quite a few years have gone by since Pioneer Masters was first announced, but it looks like the long wait will soon be over. According to a recent announcement, MTG Arena will be getting the entirety of competitive Pioneer on December 10th, 2024 thanks to the Pioneer Masters set.
What this means is that MTG Arena will not have every single card that's currently legal in Pioneer, but rather any card that has seen even fringe competitive play. And if any random card ever becomes popular and successful enough to reach top 8 in a major tournament, Wizards of the Coast have said they'll make sure to add that as well.
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A fair bit of time has gone by since the last major, gameplay-focused update, so unsurprisingly Dota 2 is currently in a bit of a stale place given that everyone knows which heroes are the best at which role and why. In order to get everyone out of this routine the game will need a little shakeup, which is exactly what the freshly released Patch 7.37e is hoping to achieve.
With that in mind, it's worth noting that Patch 7.37e doesn't bring with it any sort of massive changes, but rather a variety of minor buffs and nerfs that will nudge a hero's winrate only by a percentage or two. This way the meta will hopefully get its much-needed shake up while Valve will get a bit more time to work on the traditionally chunky update that tends to launch a few months after The International tournament.
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A decade has gone by since Dragon Age Inquisition first arrived, so if you were patiently waiting to see where to story will go next, rejoice as Dragon Age: The Veilguard is nearly upon us! You can expect to see it land onto PC, PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X|S this October 31st at a 60€ price tag.
As you would expect from the series at this point, Veilguard is all about chatting up unique characters and getting way too involved in their personal business, making all sorts of hard choices, and naturally, exploring a massive world while slicing and dicing your way through hordes of enemies. In other words, it may have a new coat of paint, but it's still good ol' Dragon Age!
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In an announcement that came seemingly out of nowhere, the resurrected Argonaut Games studio have revealed that they are working on a remastered version of an ancient PlayStation platformer - Croc: Legend of the Gobbos! As you might expect, the new version will come with improved visuals, smoother controls, a variety of bonus features like concept art, and perhaps most importantly of all, a better camera.
What these improved visuals look like in action, however, that you can check out through the freshly posted trailer. Have a gander:
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While the patch did get slightly overshadowed by Blizzard dropping a $90 mount onto the in-game store, World of Warcraft is currently celebrating its 20th anniversary. The definite highlight of the update is the refreshed version of Blackrock Depths. What once was the biggest and most elaborate dungeon in World of Warcraft has now been transformed into a nostalgic yet surprisingly challenging raid... as long as the scaling doesn't bug out anyway! The loot also isn't all that amazing so it's probably not something I'd recommend running all the time, but definitely give it a visit for nostalgia's sake as the city really is a sight to behold.
Speaking of nostalgia, the free update has also revamped the highly iconic Tier 2 sets. And if you're playing one of the classes that didn't exist back then, worry not as Blizzard hasn't forgotten about you. Instead of an updated version of an old set, you'll get a completely new set based on the same sort of design principles. And I have to say they do look pretty sweet, especially the monk one!
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It would appear that Capcom is extremely confident about the upcoming Monster Hunter Wilds because they have just announced a free Open Beta that's going to be available on all platforms! PlayStation Plus subscribers will be getting a slight head start on October 29th, while PC, Xbox and other PlayStation players will be able to dive in on November 1st at 3am GMT. The whole playtest will last until November 4th, so everyone should have plenty of time to mull over whether Monster Hunter Wilds is their kind of game or not.
Speaking of which, the Open Beta will contain three 'parts'. The first is the complete character customization tool, with the important bit here being that you can bring over your finely tuned monstrosity creation to the full version of the game.