Creative Assembly canceled extraction shooter Hyenas official key art

In an announcement that is probably not going to come as too much of a surprise given the extremely low levels of excitement surrounding the game, Total War studio Creative Assembly have now revealed that their extraction shooter Hyenas has been canceled. Additionally, some of the upcoming unannounced games have been canceled as well, though unsurprisingly no details have been given about them.

The truly unfortunate news it that these cancellations will be followed by a restructuring within Creative Assembly, which is a polite way of saying that some of the staff is going to be losing their jobs. On the positive side, Creative Assembly has announced that they'll be working on reallocating as many people as possible to new roles within the company, so with a bit of luck, the human impact will be minimal.

Dota 2 stained glass artwork for heroes for the International 2023 Compendium

[Update #2]: Dota 2 will be getting the rather megalomaniacal Ringmaster hero in 2024.

[Update]: Dota 2's Patch 7.34d has now arrived with some last-minute balance changes before The International.

A little while back Valve announced that they will be stepping away from the usual Battle Pass system in favor of dishing out new cosmetics and sizable updates all throughout the year. They certainly weren't joking about that latter part as Dota 2's been receiving some stellar updates over the past few months - both in terms of new content and general improvements.

Naturally, Valve haven't gotten rid of the Battle Pass system entirely, though the freshly released International 2023 Compendium is certainly a lot different than those that came before. First and foremost, there are absolutely no hero cosmetics to be found in the Compendium. Not even a single one! The whole thing has been created as a way to support Dota 2's esports scene, and so all of the challenges, mini-games and rewards are focused around the competitive scene and its various teams.

Counter-Strike 2 official key art for the updated competitive shooter

After spending a fair bit of time in testing, it looks like Valve has decided that Counter-Strike 2 is now finally ready for its big debut. And so, without any prior warning and without much fanfare, Counter-Strike 2 has now been unleashed as a free update to CS:GO!

The Source 2 powered Counter-Strike 2 brings with it greatly improved visuals and audio, smoother online play, enhanced Workshop modding tools, updated ranked play, as well as a whole bunch of gameplay tweaks. The most important of these are the new smoke grenades as they no longer produce simple spheres, but rather dynamically fill the environment with smoke which can be affected by shooting or using HE grenades. Needless to say, it's an incredible change, and one that's bound to shake things up on even the most classic of maps.

The Talos Principle 2 official key art for the philosophical puzzle game

Nearly a decade has gone by since the original The Talos Principle, but I'm happy to say that the fancy new sequel is nearly upon us! According to the latest announcement, The Talos Principle 2 will be heading over to PC (via Steam and the Epic Games Store), PlayStation and Xbox on November 2nd, 2023!

Much like its predecessor, The Talos Principle 2 will bring with it a combination of challenging yet somewhat strange puzzles, relaxing music and a highly philosophical storyline that might just give you a bit of an existential crisis! That might not sound all that appealing on paper, but if The Talos Principle 2 is anything like the original, it's almost certainly going to be a unique and compelling experience.

Payday 3 official artwork and logo for the co-op focused shooter

Quite a few years have gone by since the original announcement, but Starbreeze's co-op shooter Payday 3 has now finally been released. Unfortunately, it has done so alongside some serious server problems and an impressively tedious progression system that have mostly overshadowed the otherwise entertaining gameplay.

While the servers are likely to get fixed up in the next few weeks, getting the progression system into shape is going to take some serious effort as the current iteration is both grindy and unsatisfying. Basically, instead of getting experience by playing the game normally, the only way to gain experience and further your character is to complete challenges which are often very specific and also don't scale based on difficulty.

Baldur's Gate 3 official artwork showing off the characters and logo

Larian Studios sure are industrious, I'll give them that. It hasn't even been two months since Baldur's Gate 3 launched out of Steam Early Access, and already they've managed to release three massive updates!

The freshly released Patch #3 might end up being the most important one out of the bunch as it not only brings with it a large assortment of bug fixes and quality of life improvements, but also the often-requested ability to change your appearance, and even full Mac support. Do be warned, however, that saves made in previous versions of Baldur's Gate 3 on Mac will not be compatible with the full release. Furthermore, in order to minimize any potential compatibility issues, it's highly recommended you fully uninstall the game and remove any mods before installing the latest Mac version.

Darktide artwork showing off the Psyker using kinetic shards

[Update #2]: Darktide's Patch #13 has now arrived, and I'm happy to say it's already looking quite amazing!

[Update]: All of Darktide's upcoming Patch #13 abilities, grenades and major talents have now been revealed.

After half a year of mostly bug fixes and general improvements, Darktide will be getting an absolutely massive content update this October 4th. The definite highlight is the addition of RPG-like talent trees for all four classes, which includes a plethora of new abilities, effects and playstyles to explore.

For example, Psykers will be able to deploy a massive shield to protect their team, blast lightning out of their hands without having to use the surge staff, or even just replace their brain burst ability with homing physic shards. Best of all, this is just the tip of the iceberg!

Overwatch Anniversary party update

[Update #2]: Overwatch 2's next hero, the dual chaingun wielding Mauga, is fully playable until November 5th. After that, he'll be launching alongside Season 8 on December 5th.

[Update]: Overwatch 2's Season 7 is launching October 10th with a new Control map, Sombra rework and mythic Hanzo skin.

Overwatch 2's first anniversary is nearly upon us, so in order to get everyone into a festive mood Blizzard has now released the annual Anniversary update. As you would expect, it brings with it reruns of popular events like Lúcioball or Catch-A-Mari, as well as some fancy cosmetics that can be acquired without cracking open your wallet.

First things first, in order to make sure the various event game modes end up having a healthy playerbase, Blizzard has split them up into three weeks. Here's a quick rundown of what to expect during each one:

Lies of P Bloodborne inspired action-RPG artwork and logo

Instead of going with the usual medieval fantasy themes like knights, dragons and wizards, the freshly released and Bloodborne inspired action-RPG Lies of P has instead decided to give you control of Pinocchio (yes, seriously!) and set you against an assortment of mechanical monstrosities! While the premise seems incredibly silly, I'm delighted to say that the game itself is by no means a joke. In fact, from what I've seen it's actually quite good!

The combat flows well, the difficulty is nicely tuned, there's a real sense of atmosphere to the places you explore, and most importantly of all, there don't appear to be any major glitches or performance issues. So is Lies of P better than Bloodborne then? Almost certainly not, but very few games are able to reach that level of excellence. That said, there's a lot of potential here and I'll definitely be keeping an eye on the Neowiz team moving forward as I'm curious to see what else they're capable of.

Dune: Spice Wars official artwork and logo

After spending a little over a year in Early Access, Northgard studio Shiro Games' real-time strategy Dune: Spice Wars has now finally been unleashed alongside a sizable update. Version 1.0 brings with it House Ecaz as a brand new faction, numerous mechanical reworks, the often-requested ability to scale the UI, and naturally, a whole bunch of bug fixes and balance tweaks to help tie everything together.

What all of this looks like in action, as well as what Dune: Spice Wars is even trying to do, that you can check out through the freshly posted launch trailer. Have a gander, it's a fairly short one: