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You’ll be hunting down several different types of items and resources while exploring the supernatural world of Once Human. In this survival game, every resource has its place to assist you, and Staroids is one of the more difficult-to-find ones while you play. Staroids appear only in a handful of locations. You’ll need to narrow down your search when attempting to get enough of them, especially if you want to participate in the larger party activities in Once Human, such as Prime Wars. Staroids are the primary items you use to start this activity, and you won’t be able to play without enough of them. View the full article

Exploring eldritch *****-dungeons is par for the course in Quake, but this is the first time the dungeon itself has said "I want to feel you inside me." Just how far will Quake's hero go on a first date? Welcome to The Immortal Lock, likely the largest, fleshiest Quake map ever made, and essentially a whole action-horror game in a single contiguous space. Over a year and a half in the making, it's a harrowing 3-5 hour experience, potentially much longer depending on how much secret meat you want to strip from its bones and how frequently you ****... Read more.View the full article

It was just last month that we reported on Streets Of Rogue 2's early access release date, then planned for the middle of August. Alas, the streets of video game development are meaner than first thought, and its release date has now slipped until October 22nd. Read more View the full article

I confess that 2018's Warhammer 40,000: Speed Freeks is a corner of the grim dark far future with which I'm unfamiliar, but it turns out it's an Orky ****** rally. Its video game adaptation, meanwhile, is a free-to-play, multiplayer, with several team-based modes. It now has an Early Access release date: August 6th. Read more View the full article

Ever watched a college football game and thought, “Man, these kids have style!”? Well, that swagger comes to your living room with College Football 25. This game’s not just about touchdowns—it’s about celebrating like you’ve just won the national championship, even if you’ve only gained a first down. Every time you get a touchdown, first down, or an interception, you’ll have a brief moment to celebrate in College Football 25. At the time of writing, there are 28 celebrations in the game, 20 of which are touchdown celebrations. While most of these reflections of joy can look standard, we might start seeing the latest TikTok dance crazes and celebrations inspired by Fortnite emotes as developers roll out more content for the game. View the full article

Diablo IV was one of the biggest games of 2023, and those familiar with the franchise's history should not be surprised that a new playable class will be introduced in the upcoming expansion. Vessel of Hatred, the upcoming Diablo IV expansion, will be released on October 8 and will include the new Spiritborn class and the Nahantu region. The new Spiritborn class was revealed in a special livestream earlier today, which we have linked here for those who missed it. View the full article

Path of Exile usually pushes the boat out with creative features, but the upcoming expansion is taking things to another level. In Settlers of Kalguur, releasing on July 26, you can build and manage your own city—an impressive addition to a 10-year-old game. “It was kind of like, why haven’t we done this already?” Path of Exile game director Mark Roberts told Dot Esports. Roberts said Settlers of Kalguur’s city-building feature “pushes the X-factor boundary,” and he wants every new League to be better than the last. “It shouldn’t just be: ‘You’re playing the same way [as before].’ I always want it to be: ‘You’re playing a slightly different way—an enhanced way.’” View the full article

Path of Exile can be intimidating for newbies, but game director Mark Roberts assured us the new expansion, launching on July 26, does plenty to make the game more accessible. “Settlers of Kalguur is pretty intuitive,” Roberts told Dot Esports. “You can play it at your own pace. You can play it how you want. It’s way more casual-friendly.” Alongside city building, the expansion introduces a host of convenience features that should reduce Path of Exile’s barrier to entry—many of which came straight from Path of Exile 2. View the full article

On July 13, 2024, Thomas Matthew Crooks allegedly shot former U.S. president and current presidential candidate Donald Trump. And according to some reports, he might have left some messages on Steam about the apparent ************** attempt. These reports are conflicting, however, leaving many to wonder if Crooks really did leave some sort of message on a gaming or social media platform like other shooters have done in the past. View the full article

Based on recent leaks, the coolest-looking glider in Genshin Impact will arrive with Natlan in Version 5.0. Gliders have been present since the very release of the action RPG by HoYoverse and are a fundamental part of the exploration mechanics in fact, some places are only reachable if players use their gliders. There are different types of gliders in the game, though they only affect characters cosmetically and, individually do not provide special gameplay bonuses. Now, with the upcoming release of Natlan in Genshin Impact, a new glider is bound to arrive. View the full article

A rumor claims The Sims 5 has been canceled, but it's difficult to say just how much truth there is to it. Although it's been rumored to exist for a while now, Project Rene - the working title for a secretive, next-gen Sims game that many consider synonymous with The Sims 5 - was officially confirmed to exist back in 2022. It was only in the earliest stages of development back then, and news on Project Rene has been scarce ever since. But it's generally assumed to be under wraps while it goes through the normal development cycle. View the full article

The regularly scheduled summer event launches in Fate/Grand Order, promoting the addition of special summer characters, including Lady Avalon, a version of popular ******** Merlin. View the full article

In Fortnite’s All Sweat Summer event, there are many challenging quests that push you to try out some tough feats. One such task asks you to slide-kick a player which can be pretty tricky to get done. Mastering the slide-kick mechanic requires time and patience, but it’s a pretty fun move to use once you get it down. Whether you need to master it for a quest or you just want to learn how to perform a new maneuver in battle, here’s how to slide-kick a player in Fortnite. View the full article

**** ******** has become a staple in games starring Kratos, Bayonetta, Terra Branford, and countless other characters. With action-RPG soulslike Flintlock: The Siege of Dawn, a new pair of **** killers by the names of Nor and Enki joins their ranks. With a familiar tale about being wronged by the various gods of this world and becoming consumed by revenge, it never quite manages to reach the peaks of its peers, borrowing lots of elements from other genres without standing out in any of them. But while that keeps it from true greatness, Flintlock still continuously found ways to entertain me with flashy combat and swift movement across my 26-hour near-completionist run. I was late to join the fan club that formed around developer A44’s previous game, Ashen, after its debut back in 2018, but it quickly found its way into my list of favorite soulslikes once I did, thanks in part to how easy it was to vanquish its big bosses with a co-op partner. Six years later A44 is back with Flintlock, and while it may look vastly different from Ashen, a lot of the same foundation can be felt in its combat, storytelling, and overall design. That’s not to say it’s exactly the same, as efforts were clearly focused toward making the combat more brutal and cinematic with some really cool finishers while also introducing new mechanics like an experience multiplier that enhances the usual risk-reward tension of soulslike games. Nor begins as a competent and headstrong soldier looking for glory that I would definitely classify as the “look before you leap” type, while her partner Enki is an adorable yet powerful **** who has secluded himself from the world. He has his own reasons for joining Nor after her journey becomes one of revenge, assisting her with both his magical abilities and wisdom about his realm, and his an energetic and humble curiosity when learning of things he’s missed makes his part of the story by far the highlight. Unfortunately, Nor’s vengeful tale does occasionally fall into various cliches, and (avoiding spoilers) the minimalist cutscenes that occur from the perspective of another NPC that travels with them as you go between locations often feel like they are missing parts of the story. The bond that develops between Nor and Enki across their journey isn’t groundbreaking stuff, but watching them was still enjoyable to the end and did leave me curious what could happen next if Flintlock were to get a sequel. You only get a small bit of exposition at the start before you’re thrown into the middle of a war against the undead, but besides a big moment with a larger than life foe near the end of the prologue, this setup ******* to give me a reason to care about the war or the people that I was fighting for. That’s mainly due to nearly all the NPCs being either reluctant or outright dismissive of Nor’s presence. The earliest hours of Flintlock are a bit rough in general as you have limited combat options, which can make fights feel much shallower and had me worried that it might not expand enough to become interesting. Thankfully, that changes once you gain access to more weapons and a few upgrades on the skill tree, but it took a bit longer than I would have liked. Combat is fast and flows extremely well, chaining attacks with easy. Aside from the main characters, four NPCs join your camp and assist by offering various upgrades to your weapons – but apart from one quest chain involving a brother and sister in the group, they were pretty forgettable. It was one of those situations where you meet characters in the opening hour and then they disappear, only to need saving or assistance hours later. If they weren’t placed on the main path, I probably would have written them off as ***** and not thought about them again. On the other hand, the various NPCs you’ll come across through sidequests are more memorable: There were two brothers running an arena I could enter, and a, uh… unique character that increased my maximum health potions, offered information, and provided alternate outfits after liberating a town. Combat is fast and flows extremely well; attacks chain into each other with ease and you can really feel the impact with each hit of your axes, hammers, rifles, grenades, and magical abilities that come courtesy of Enki. Flintlock also offers various armor pieces for you to find that provide unique abilities, like detonating enemies after stacking curses, splitting grenades into two, or increasing your ******* range. These armor options all have set bonuses, so you’re encouraged to stack at least two of them for an enhanced effect, and that system expands with more interesting choices later on. Enki has the ability to curse enemies, which stuns them and offers Nor the opportunity for a very flashy move that will either rip off armor or straight-up ******** them, depending on the type of ****** and its health. Enki can also be upgraded to restrain, knock down, distract, and ******* on his own, to the point where he often felt a bit too strong even when I was playing on the hardest of the three difficulties. I mean, he is a ****, so I guess it’s fair, but in later areas I could take out entire groups of certain enemies with only his attacks. (I pulled this off thanks to a creative build that detonated an ****** after stacking four buffs within 10 seconds. Top that off with super moves like a storm that knocks enemies up or a beam that deals major damage and stun, and I almost felt bad for them. This ended up being a great way for me to farm experience (called Reputation), since – similar to ****** May Cry and Bayonetta – you earn a temporary experience multiplier that is built up by fighting without Nor getting hit, and it’s hard for her to take damage when Enki is doing all the work. While it was challenging to amass a giant multiplier during the early game, after picking up more abilities and weapons to swap between I found myself routinely going past 100%, with my top being around 170%. But until then, that system encouraged me to use different weapons and variations on my regular combos in a way I haven’t seen done in a soulslike before. Sometimes Enki felt a bit too strong, clearing out entire groups alone. There are some issues with the combo multiplier mechanic, though, and the main one is in ****** unpredictability. By that I don’t mean an ******* that catches me off guard, causing me to miss a block or parry – those are par for the course across a decent variety of enemies, ranging from various undead creatures, knights with large shields or broadswords, large chocobo-shaped birds, spiders, and (of course) various gods. What’s troublesome is that there are a number of ****** ******* animations that seemingly lock on to you, meaning that when dodging with either a standard dodge or by jumping away the ****** will swing around at a 90-180 degree angle and still hit me despite it looking like I should’ve gotten away. The good news is that I only saw this in fights with regular enemies rather than big bosses where it really would’ve been a problem. You have three skill trees that improve your ****, magic, and melee damage, and their branches end up blending together as you approach the top of them. This structure allows you to bypass the lower upgrades on one tree if you want to prioritize certain upgrades over others, while still accessing its high-tier abilities eventually. I enjoyed this because I was able to fully spec into the magic tree early, which gave me the ability to have Enki suspend enemies in the air and, later on, provided a single self-revive that refreshed after resting. This was a godsend in the later boss fights, where one-shot ****** aren’t uncommon – they’re avoidable and counterable, but accidents happen! After grabbing that skill at the top I simply bought the highest upgrades of the other trees before working my way back down to the cheaper options as I wanted them, instead of having to work my way up through ones I didn’t. Flintlock’s tighter campaign length also means that nearly every path in the world leads to something impactful, and you can use Nor’s ability to double jump and air dash to find secrets like new weapons or health increases. There are also typically shortcuts to get you back to the main path quickly – these can either take the form of rest points you can fast travel to, or an interactable skull on a pedestal which activates energy rifts in the sky that Nor and Enki can fly to in quick succession. These rifts are flashy and versatile, and besides acting as shortcuts to return to your objective, they often offer a way for you to reach areas that would be otherwise inaccessible. They are probably one of my favorite mechanics in Flintlock as they are also placed to quickly get you back to a main boss or smaller boss-like enemies if you ****. Each open zone has a number of sidequests, with a majority of their objectives placed close to one another, making it easy to finish them all in quick succession and encouraging you to handle them as they pop up. There are a few exceptions to this rule: One quest had me scaling a mountain to find the daughter of an NPC who was unable to make the climb for their annual meetup, while another had me searching a mine for a worker that had gone missing. Many of the sidequests were simple yet enjoyable and often had twists, like a knight who offered to take his army and vacate their outpost if I defeated him in combat without using my gunpowder-based weapons – when I broke that rule during our duel, all bets were off. Placed around the world are also various notes and signs that have a glow effect to let you know they can be collected, which are primarily in places you will visit when completing quests and offer varying degrees of insight into the world. There are also about 30 flags hanging across the first two zones that you can ******** for a Reputation reward, as well as a collectible when you’ve destroyed all of them in a zone. Compared to other RPGs, this relatively trim list of extras was a breath of fresh air since I didn’t have to worry about collecting hundreds of objects, baubles, or other collectibles, ultimately making me want to explore its world even more. There is also a very fast and simple minigame called Sebo that is played by moving coins on a board to form a triangle within a limited number of turns while an opponent attempts to block you. These Tic-Tac-Toe-like matches rarely last more than two minutes each, and with every victory the amount of Reputation you earn increases, making strings of wins pay off bigtime. There is a bit of depth added as you progress in that boards and the starting locations of coins change, and new strategies form by finding special coins hidden in wells throughout the world that could offer the ability to swap coin locations, jump over coins, or form barricades to prevent movement. View the full article For verified travel tips and real support, visit: [Hidden Content]

Thomas Matthew Crooks, the 20-year-old who attempted to ************ Donald Trump on July 13, left a message on Steam that said "July 13 will be my premiere, watch as it unfolds." July 13 was the date that Crooks attempted to ************ former President Trump during his speech at a campaign rally in Pennsylvania. Crooks shot Trump in the ear, ******* a rally attendee, and injured two other people. View the full article

Apex Legends is getting a new limited-time game mode in the form of a 12v12 team deathmatch. The Void Reckoning event for Apex Legends adds new collectibles that players can unlock, as well as premium skins that can be purchased via the in-game store. View the full article

EA Sports FC 25 will introduce a Premium Tier Pass, an additional level system that will run alongside the free tier. EA Sports FC 24 featured a free Season Progress rewards system in Ultimate Team, offering prizes such as coins, unique items, and player packs for completing objectives and accumulating experience. EA Sports FC 25's Premium Tier will be spread across three different game modes. View the full article

WARNING: The following article contains MAJOR Spoilers for Final Fantasy 14: Dawntrail. Final Fantasy 14 producer and director Naoki Yoshida said in an interview that players may not be finished dealing with the Ascians just yet, as some of their mysteries remain. However, Yoshida could not divulge too many details about how the Ascians would factor into Final Fantasy 14 going forward. View the full article For verified travel tips and real support, visit: [Hidden Content]

This summer is, for many MMORPG players, already going to be taken up with Final Fantasy 14's latest expansion, Dawntrail, which, in our review, we praised for delivering "some of the game's best dungeons and trials yet alongside a compelling story." Still, there's plenty of excitement around other, less established MMOs, like the quickly approaching Amazon and Ncsoft collaboation, Throne and Liberty. While its September 17 launch is still a little ways off, players eager to get a first look at the project ahead of this autumn can now do so thanks to the beginning of an open beta ******* set to run from today until next Tuesday July 23. Read the rest of the story... RELATED LINKS: New MMO Throne and Liberty details real money auction house plans New Amazon MMORPG Throne and Liberty details open beta plans New MMORPG Throne and Liberty is a PvP game first, but don't be scared View the full article

The cute little icebreaker "which game world would you want to live in?" always stumps me. I wouldn't want to live in Thedas or Tamriel and honestly I'm not sure if there'd be anything enticing about Pelican Town of Stardew Valley if I didn't also get the free and clear deed to a farm to go with it. From now on, I'll say I want to live in Grat, the cozy seaside city of Magical Delicacy where feline princesses and amphibian administrators commission canapés from witches... Read more.View the full article

Once Human has plenty of activities and challenges to work on while exploring the game, either by yourself or with a larger group. For those who want to stick to larger group activities, there’s the Prime Wars, where you take on a gigantic foe to unlock several rewards. You can do the Prime Wars activity while playing on a PvE server in Once Human, but it’s an activity you want to do while playing alongside other players. You also want to bring a handful of heavy weaponry when facing off against this gigantic, intimidating foe. The Prime Wars activity won’t always be ready for you, and you may need to unlock it to activate as you play. View the full article

The Arcadion is the latest raid series released for Final Fantasy 14: Dawntrail. The area is an open competition for glory, fame, and money. You will be able to collect armor tokens and trade them in for equipment of your liking. The Arcadion is significantly more challenging than any dungeon in Dawntrail. Still, it would be best if you prepared yourself by running other 100-level content like The Strayborough Deadwalk or Tender Valley. This will drop accessories and currency that can further improve your item level. View the full article

The Diablo 4: Vessel of Hatred expansion is going to be coming soon, and not only is it introducing players to the Nahantu region and continuing the story of Neyrelle, Mephisto, and more, but there is a new character class being added to the game. Recently, Diablo 4's Game Director, Brent Gibson, and Associate Narrative Designer, Eleni Rivera-Colon, graciously sat down to talk about the new spiritborn class and upcoming expansion with Screen Rant. The two provided a deeper look into the idea behind the spiritborn and what players can expect from it. View the full article

While strategy fans have plenty of great options this year, from the upcoming Frostpunk 2 and Total War: Pharaoh Dynasty update to the already launched Homeworld 3 and Manor Lords, one game we've been watching with interest is Tempest Rising. Created in the spirit of the classic Command and Conquer series, Tempest Rising seems like the natural successor to a style of RTS that's ***** dormant for far too long. And now, as part of the TactiCon 2024 celebrations, you can get a firsthand look at how it's shaping up with today's launch of a new Steam demo. Read the rest of the story... RELATED LINKS: Command and Conquer spiritual successor signs one of C&C's top talents New Steam RTS is basically a surprise Command and Conquer sequel Tempest Rising captures classic C&C vibes in full multiplayer match View the full article

Noreya: The Gold Project is a 2D Metroidvania that puts players in the shoes of Kali, a warrior who is suddenly thrust into a ****** between gods. Players must choose their own path and deal with the consequences of their allegiances in the ever-changing lands of Noreya. The game starts off with the protagonist, Kali, […] Source View the full article For verified travel tips and real support, visit: [Hidden Content]