We can make some educated guesses about the trajectory of Grand Theft Auto 6's story, but we won't know anything for certain until after Nov. 19. At least, you'd think that would be the case. According to some hyper-observant GTA 6 fans, a major spoiler has been hiding under our noses for weeks now — and its source isn't a leak.
World of Warcraft: Forever is the third mainline World of Warcraft MMO Blizzard's bringing to the table to stand alongside retail and Classic – but the developers aren't trying to cause a rift in their community with yet another version of the game.
In fact, they actually want to draw more players into Azeroth's welcoming hands, as game director Ion Hazzikostas tells PC Gamer in a new magazine interview.
"Our belief is that Forever will offer something that appeals to a lot of folks who maybe aren't currently well-served by what they see from WoW," he explains – and that lines up nicely with what Blizzard's been saying, honestly. World of Warcraft: Forever is for fresh faces and old fans.
"Maybe modern Wow isn't quite their speed, and when they look at Classic, they played that game already, or it's a little bit too janky and too 2004," he continues. World builder Matthew Armstrong said similar before, that WoW: Forever is "for the millions of people who have had their accounts lapse" in Classic – that plus newcomers, of course.
Blizzard wants to reach more fans across the board, and Hazzikostas assures the community of this. "Our hope is to grow the audience, not to fracture it," he states. And "it's not something we take lightly."
This isn't the devs' first go at revamping World of Warcraft, after all, considering Classic. "For years now we've had two distinct flavors of the game, with different paces to them, and they've appealed to large but distinct audiences," as the lead puts it.
We've got retail and, of course, Classic. Soon, we'll have three.
Much like with Classic, WoW: Forever will hopefully bring people who've never touched a WoW game in their life to the MMO universe, Hazzikostas says – and, you know what, I'd argue it already has.
I'd never been willing to dive into World of Warcraft prior to the new Beta myself, having suffered from some serious FOMO. Now, I'm all in, and I doubt I'll be any sort of exception to the standard.
Considering only eight minutes of it were shown at Gamescom's Opening Night Live, I went on a real journey with Warlock: Dungeons & Dragons. At first, I was nonplussed by it. While the production values were impressive, it also looked like every Sony game released in the last ten years, right down to the specific angle of the camera and the quippy NPC companion.
Yet as the reveal unfurled, I found myself growing intrigued by Warlock's invocation-based puzzle-solving and combat. Levitating objects to create platforms, using teleportation spells to swap places with enemies, conjuring a whole-ass storm to make electrical attacks more viable. It's rare to see a game of this scope encourage guile and cleverness from the player, to set its mechanical ambitions slightly beyond timed dodges and grisly executions.
(Image credit: Wizards of the Coast)
And then, just as I thought I was sold on Warlock, the main character pulled out a sword.
Well, to be specific, Warlock's magical protagonist Kaatri conjured a sword. After all, why bother lugging around several pounds of sharpened steel when you can just make one appear out of thin air any time you like? It's silly to carry around a sword that you don't need. Which is precisely why I was dismayed to see one appear in Warlock at all.
Now, to be clear, I like swords—to the point where I spent several years training to use one. I also like games about swords, and appreciate how difficult it is to create interesting and authentic swordplay in a videogame context. Despite being simpler weapons, swords are way harder to depict in videogames for a whole bunch of reasons, from the technical demands of animating convincing swordplay to the many nuances associated with different kinds of swordfighting.
But there was something about seeing hack 'n' slash combat crop up in Warlock that really punctured my enthusiasm for it. Admittedly, it probably didn't help that Opening Night Live had already delivered a torrent of Dark Souls knockoffs and identikit Chinese action adventures up to that point. You'd be forgiven for thinking that swords were the only thing holding the games industry up.
(Image credit: Wizards of the Coast)
But the more I thought about it, the more I realised it wasn't swords per-se that I had a problem with. Instead, what bothered me was the fact that we don't really see games that are about being a Warlock. Or a wizard, or a mage, or a sorcerer, or whichever brand of berobed spell-slinger floats your boat.
It's far rarer to see games that are purpose-built around wielding the arcane arts.
Now don't worry, I've not been struck in the head by a magic missile. I'm aware that there are loads of games that feature mages (which is the umbrella term I'm going to use henceforth). They appear in virtually every fantasy roleplaying game ever made. But mages nearly always appear as an option, one of innumerable roles that players can assume. It's far rarer to see games that are purpose-built around wielding the arcane arts.
I don't know why this is. Perhaps it's a lingering perception that mages are weedy and wet, which goes against what was until recently a very masculine gaming culture. Or perhaps mages simply represent a sterner game design challenge. Certainly, what few mage games exist tend to be first-person shooters that replace the guns with spells. Examples include Lichdom: Battlemage, the potential of which was squandered by aching repetition. More recently, we saw Immortals of Aveum, which offers some decent action if you can get past its infuriating writing, but remains a reductive interpretation of wielding arcane power.
(Image credit: Wizards of the Coast)
There is one exception, however, and that's Magicka, Arrowhead's debut title about cooking up chaos as a bunch of mages. Magicka is probably the best demonstration of what you can do when you ditch all the other bits of fantasy RPGs and focus squarely on the spellcasting. Its spell-customisation mechanic is a great encapsulation of being a wizard, in how it encourages ingenuity from the player which often results in reckless, destructive experimentation. Magicka understands that being an all-powerful wizard is accidentally burning down half a city because you slightly mispronounced a spell.
15 years since Magicka was released, there isn't really another game like it (apart from its sequel). And I think that tells us something quite important. If you drill down on a specific kind of experience, and ask "What would it be like to be X?" you'll probably end up building something more interesting than if you try to make your game cater to absolutely everyone—which is the approach adopted by most big-budget titles.
And that's why I felt bummed out when that sword appeared in Kaatri's hand. It made the game seem less distinctive, and more like every third-person action adventure that I've played in the last 10-15 years. I should point out here that I'm coming at this as a fan of videogames rather than a fan of Dungeons & Dragons, which I like well enough but do not possess any deep knowledge of. Maybe Warlocks use swords all the time in D&D [They do indeed like flailing around with swords - ed.], in which case I understand developer Invoke Studios featuring them. But thinking about Warlocks as a general concept, "whacking stuff with melee weapons" is not what I immediately associate them with, and not the reason I would choose to play as one.
(Image credit: Paradox Studios)
In fairness to Invoke, the showcase does prioritise invocations, and I am still keen to play with all the magical abilities it offers. But every time that blade appeared on screen and Kaatri began hacking away, I got the sense that it's a crutch for a developer concerned not enough people will buy into just being a magic wielder, that's anxious about catering to unimaginative players who simply want to wallop enemies with a big metal stick.
Maybe I'll be proved utterly wrong on this, and Warlock's swordplay will turn out to be the best bit of the game. Either way, watching Warlock's reveal has made me realise how much I want a game that goes all-in on being a physically feeble but magically almighty wizard. Maybe for its next game, Arrowhead will give Magicka the Helldivers 2 treatment, in which case I will be there on day one.
ARC Raiders executive producer Alesander Grøndal thinks that it is very possible the game’s PvE-only mode will split the game into two games. The test is running now until October 20th, and he acknowledges that the split might become permanent. But equally important is the fact that he also states outright that the game is already […]
It’s time for yet another big beefy update for Lineage II, and as with other such times this has happened in the MMORPG, that means every single one of its five server variants has seen something added or updated. And that also means we’re just going to summarize things instead of get too into the weeds […]
Unlike PC Gamer's UK editorial staff, Ben Affleck knows ball. Metaphorically, I mean. Though he probably also knows what the Miami Heat is. Speaking on the October 12 episode of the Happy Sad Confused podcast, Affleck reflected—with a touch of regret—on the time Starcraft swallowed his entire life.
"There was a game called Starcraft that probably took the most life out of me for a period of time. I had just gotten famous, and all I did was stay home for three years and play Starcraft."
The celebs, folks—they're just like us. More so than usual in Affleck's case, I suppose, since the actor's videogame career doesn't only encompass a brief dalliance with Blizzard's RTS series. "Valorant's a great game. It's a great game," he continued, "The problem with that game is that—the kids that have been raised playing, I just get fuckin' rocked. I'm like, 'Are you mother fuckers cheating?' And I get mad. And they're like 11, they're like, 'Fuck you loser!' It's very humiliating, but that's a great game."
Which is pretty much my experience playing anything with anyone. But do you think Affleck—one whole Batman and one half of Good Will Hunting—stopped there? More fool you. "I love 2K, I love Madden. The early Doom—which then gave rise to Quake and gave rise to all that—we played that endlessly," he recalled.
"We were doing Good Will Hunting, we were playing Doom… I remember writing and taking these long breaks to play Doom. I can't believe it's been out that long." Doom, for our younger readers, released in 1993, which was the same year I was released also.
Also on the big Affleck list of videogames: Myst, Donkey Kong, Tetris, and Miss Pac-Man, though I don't know that those last three count as elite ball-knower knowledge.
Anyway, it sounds like RTSes were Affleck's big love, and he laments that they've "sort of gone out of style." You and me both, Ben. At least we got those Command and Conquer remasters.
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