Team Liquid at the 2017 InternationalEarlier this month, pro Dota 2 player Peter “PPD” Dager announced a surprising new venture: he’s forming a Dota league. Dubbed North American Dota Challengers League , the organization shifts the focus away from the upcoming International Dota 2 Championships, if only for a moment. The Dota Pro Circuit (DPC) is the main, Valve-sponsored professional league for Dota 2. “I’m hoping we will create and sustain a healthy league for Dota players, which will give th

The outgoing CEO of Paradox Interactive Fred Wester has said the publisher will “probably” make a sequel to sprawling grand strategy game Crusader Kings 2, which he feels is becoming too “crowded” for more expansions. Paradox has released regular expansions for Crusader Kings 2 since it came out in 2012, and the next, Holy Fury, is due later this year. “The reason for that is the technical depth that we have in Crusader Kings 2. “People ask us why it’s taking such a long time to do anything with

Hello Games just added a bunch of new features to its space sandbox with No Man’s Sky Next, and here I come to ask for one more. I made a video above (also here on YouTube) of a planet I visited that had some of the most constantly terrible weather I’ve seen, but it’s a planet I still wound up exploring for days and not wanting to leave. When it comes to No Man’s Sky, I’m not a base-builder. That’s why I was a little surprised to get so attached to a planet named Obosthom Gaur. A lot of planets

Start learning those strafe jumping routes, because Quake Champions is about to add a long-awaited capture the flag mode, developer id Software has announced. It will arrive on the public test server “soon” alongside two other game modes: Slipgate and Arcade. You won’t be able to use your champion’s abilities while carrying the flag, so make sure you’ve got someone to protect you. New rule sets will be added to the arcade regularly. AI” team deathmatch mode where you and three other players can

EA wants to take a leaf from Fortnite’s book and open up its “key franchises” to cross-platform play, its vice president of investor relations Chris Evenden has said. “The ability to bring PC to mobile or mobile to console can bring family and friends together, and we think that’s an important part of our future development profile. Sony could well be the roadblock: Todd Howard spoke recently about how the company wasn’t keen to support cross-platform play in Fallout 76. To its credit, Sony has

Not everyone will, of course, but it’s an interesting case study for a game staging a comeback, as it were. Which game deserves a No Man’s Sky-style comeback? It can be any singleplayer or online game that didn’t quite reach its potential, or the audience it deserved. Joe Donnelly: GTA singleplayer DLCOkay, I’m cheating a wee bit here given this isn’t a game, but I would love to see GTA single-player DLC making a comeback. Andy Chalk: Deus Ex: Invisible WarI’ve said many times before, and will n

Roughly 145 singers from a California choir group called the Angel City Chorale performed “Baba Yetu,” the main theme of Civilization 4, on a recent episode of America’s Got Talent. Composed by Christopher Tin and originally performed by South Africa’s Soweto Gospel Choir, “Baba Yetu” was the first piece of video game music to win a Grammy award. It topped the category of Best Instrumental Arrangement Accompanying Vocalists in 2011. For my money it’s also one of Civilization’s better themes, and

Rebellion has revealed its post-launch plans for the co-op supernatural shooter Strange Brigade, which will include a three-part “mini-campaign” available in a season pass and free monthly updates that the studio promised will “escalate the escapades.” Strange Brigade follows four adventurers, each with unique weapons and abilities, as they roam through an pulp fiction-styled 1930s Egypt and battle the forces of the undead Witch Queen Seteki. And yes, that’s right, all future Strange Brigade con

Electronic Arts said during a financial call yesterday that Origin Access Premier, an upgraded version of its subscription-based Origin Access service that will provide full, unlimited access to EA games, will go live next week. More quietly, it also pulled the plug on Origin’s “On the House” program, which provided free games to everyone—including non-Access subscribers—on an intermittent, time-limited basis. The games generally weren’t EA’s latest and greatest but free is free, and dated or no

THE HIGHSSteven Messner: Patience, HunterMonster Hunter: World is out on PC is just under two weeks and the wait had been killing me. But, barring a few hiccups, Monster Hunter: World is looking like a rock solid PC port. As long as there’s no unforeseen disasters between now and its launch on August 9, I think Monster Hunter: World will be a hit. As I write this, 2777 players are playing MGS5 according to Steam Charts , versus just 81 for Survive. Tale of Us enter the fold on Tuesday, followed

You only launch your first game once, but right now, they tell me that it feels like they’re going toe-to-toe with an algorithm. “The 30 minutes leading up to the launch felt like days,” he says, “It felt like we stared at 7:59pm for hours.” This is the one of the crucial things I learned about launching an indie game from Cukia and Ben. There’s a distinct low period in the hours after your game hits Steam where you don’t really know what to do with yourself. The programmers and designers behind

In a statement posted this morning, Unity explained what happened:”This email was part of a new effort to help developers succeed with Unity. Recently, a small batch of EULA emails were sent in error to developers using Personal and Plus. Our intention was to offer developers help as we want more developers to succeed in launching games. We are always trying out new ways to enable success and solve hard problems for Unity developers. This means we are always trying out new ideas, new solutions,

Fortnite’s guided missile was a lot of fun, but it was also a little too powerful, and so in spite of all the surfin’ safari parties, Epic pulled the plug in mid-April in order to give it a redesign. This week we’re talking recent SMG changes, Remote Explosives, and a returning item! pic.twitter.com/k947V9TA6LJuly 27, 2018″When the guided missile first made its way to battle royale, we loved all the fun and crazy moments it provided. But after its release we shared the same concerns as the Fortn

Today it posted an update on that situation, saying that roughly 1,300 boosted players were suspended for 15 days this week, and promising harsher penalties to come. Suspended players will be returned to action before the end of the current season, but their ill-gotten gains will not. “We are currently assessing how we will be delivering this from a technical side, but all players sanctioned for this will have their rank and rewards removed prior to the launch of Season 3,” Ubisoft wrote. It’s a

One of them is Zotac’s GeForce GTX 1080 Ti Mini. It’s physically smaller than most other GeForce GTX 1080 Ti cards, and it can be had for $649.99 today. Newegg has Zotac’s miniaturized card on sale for $699.99, but if you use promo code EMCPWRW77 at checkout, it will knock $50 off the price, making this one of the cheapest GeForce GTX 1080 Ti cards out there right now. The GeForce GTX 1080 Ti Mini measures just 211mm (8.3 inches) long. Interestingly, they’re different sizes—one measures 90mm wit

(Image: © Intel)Intel offered up some clarification on where things stand with its 10-nanometer ‘Cannon Lake’ processors, and specifically when we will finally see them in volume. As it stands, consumer systems with 10nm chips inside will hit store shelves during the holiday season next year. Intel has reportedly struggled with its yields, hence why it has taken so long for Cannon Lake to reach mass shipment status. Renduchintala also said that Intel continues to make progress on 10nm and that ”

The Fortnite limited-time mode Solo Showdown has sprung back to life, giving players the opportunity to compete for bragging rights, V-Bucks, and—if you’re good enough—an invite to upcoming Summer Skirmish events. Fortnite’s core rules don’t change in a Solo Showdown. Instead, it’s a ranked ladder against other “self-selected competitors,” with points awarded based on placement: 100 points for a Victory Royale, down to 25 points for coming in between 76-100. Points will be awarded for the first

CCP Games, the studio behind space ’em up EVE Online (which you may have spied our Stephen writing about on occasion), has agreed a deal with Epic Games. The latter’s Unreal Engine 4 has been named “the exclusive development tool for all of CCP Games’ currently unannounced projects.” That’s according to James Dobrowski, the executive producer on the as-yet unrevealed project that’s in-development at CCP London. “Working with Epic Games using their engine source code, which is open to all Unreal

Monster Hunter: World is out on PC on August 9, but we’ve been playing with some near-complete builds and assessing the game’s performance on PC. Monster Hunter can be a menu-heavy game at times and the experience of clicking around the menus with a mouse is superior to pad play. There are two main flaws with Monster Hunter: World’s mouse and keyboard scheme. If you don’t own a pad, I wouldn’t rush out to buy one just for Monster Hunter: World. Monster Hunter: World is out in just a couple of we

Roserosenbergfr’s work-in-progress Fallout: New York mod imagines the damage. At present, Fallout New York is set exclusively in and around Manhattan’s Central Park—which includes the exterior of the Natural History museum. Similar to the metro system featured in Fallout 3’s post-war Washington, Roserosenbergfr also plans to add the NYC subway system down the line. Roserosenbergfr stresses their Fallout: New York mod for Fallout 4 is a long-term, in-development project. Likewise here are some eq