Blizzard has joined Riot (League of Legends) and Perfect World (Dota 2) in making its loot box drop rates available to the public in China. An “epic” quality item will be awarded, on average, once every 5.5 loot boxes, while “legendary” items will appear once in every 13.5 boxes. The law forcing game publishers to reveal their loot box drop rates was announced late last year, and came into effect on May 1. They’re also required to publicly track the actual “random draw results,” so people can se

Last month, EA revealed Nivelle Nights as the next map heading to Battlefield 1—a nighttime-set arena that’ll be made available to Premium Pass holders in June. The publisher has now unveiled a second map, named Prise de Tahure, that’s set to enter the game’s Community Test Environment “shortly”. Taking place in the aftermath of the Nivelle Offensive, the latest autumnal warzone sees troops “desperately holding onto recaptured heights in the Butte-de-Tahure region”. Billed as a “war of attrition

The wings and rockets let you explore another huge addition that arrived toward the end of last year: End Cities. To reach them, go The End and use an ender pearl on the gateway portal that spawns after you defeat the Ender Dragon. Sometimes, a floating End Ship will spawn at the end of a pier which lets you ender pearl across if you don’t have yet have wings. These ships are usually my first target, because they contain the best loot, and popping their two chests rarely disappoints. You can use

With a screaming deathmask, a spear and a spinning blade that she can throw like a boomerang, Jain Zar would normally be the most ostentatious unit on an RTS battlefield. Jain Zar has quickly become one of my favourite RTS units because she’s fast, looks amazing, and only excels in very specific situations. Jain Zar is fragile and tough to use, but utterly devoted to her cause. Jain Zar leaps off the first enemy unit she hits, and slams down some distance ahead with an explosion of white fire an

Image credit: Captain Eggcellent (YouTube)Prey has barely landed, but that’s not stopped intuitive early birds uncovering a handy resource exploit. With a little perseverance, and a little lack of conscience, the following three-step trick involves using the sci-fi shooter’s Recycler machines to generate unlimited Materials—the supplies used to craft ammo, health kits and more. Bethesda and Arkane will undoubtedly roll out a patch ASAP, however if you’d like to get in on this action beforehand d

The phrase ‘it’s a tough job, but somebody has to do it’, is fitting when it comes to Lesser Evil Games’ The Executioner. By mixing choose own adventure-styled narrative with choose your own murder scene set pieces, The Executioner sees players balancing the protagonist’s sanity with his vocational obligation. Against a gorgeous art style, here’s how some of that looks in motion:And here’s the developers with what it’s all about:”Throughout The Executioner, players must make a variety of decisio

Meanwhile, the winner of Saturday’s match will advance to the MSI Group Stage, so both teams will need to be at their best. The top two teams from NA and EU will also get guaranteed spots next season, which puts even more pressure on the teams this weekend. The action kicks off in North America this Saturday at 12:00 PDT / 21:00 CEST, while Europe closes out the weekend this Sunday at 09:00 PDT / 18:00 CEST. Team KongDoo Uncia will face X-6 Gaming at 03:00 PDT / 12:00 CEST, while Rogue will clas

Unless you’ve been living under a tesla cannon for the last 12 months or so, I’m sure you’ve noticed the staggering popularity of Blizzard’s Overwatch. But perhaps more impressive still is how much cash its generated in that time: over $1 billion, so suggests parent company Activision Blizzard’s latest earnings report. This, according to Activision Blizzard, makes Overwatch the company’s “eighth billion dollar franchise”, rubbing shoulders with the likes of Call of Duty and Skylanders. The repor

Blessed’s latest videogame appearance comes courtesy of Kingdom Come: Deliverance, where the actor voices real life German military engineer Lord Konrad Kyeser. The actor goes on to describe his relationship with videogames and what he gets out of voice acting, before circling back to underscore his excitement for Kingdom Come: Deliverance itself. I see every [adventure] as Mount Everest. And I see this project as Mount Everest.” Kingdom Come: Deliverance is without a hard launch date, however i

Valve has just launched the Battle Pass for Dota 2’s The International 2017, and if you’ve got the game installed it should be available right now or after an update. As the general theme over on the Battle Pass page suggests, it’ll have a subaquatic theme. Siltbreaker will boast two acts, with the first due “later this month” and the second in July. This year’s Team Quests will usher in a new type of mission, where players complete single- and multi-game goals together. As usual, 25 percent of

Oculus VR has announced it is “winding down” its Story Studio, an interactive storytelling team which produced titles such as Lost, Henry [pictured above] and Dear Angelica. The news comes via former Naughty Dog veteran Jason Rubin, who made the announcement on the Oculus website. “After careful consideration, we’ve decided to shift our focus away from internal content creation to support more external production.” In other words, Oculus will go on to “fund and support” external production, whil

It’s May the fourth, commonly known as Star Wars Day, and here’s a nice little surprise for you. In today’s episode of Around The Verse, the weekly webcast for Cloud Imperium Games’ upcoming Star Citizen, viewers are treated to some new footage of Mark Hamill’s character. In Star Citizen’s planned campaign Squadron 42, Hamill portrays Lieutenant Commander Steve ‘Old Man’ Colton, a legendary if cantankerous UEE Navy pilot. We spoke with Hamill back in 2015 about Star Wars, Star Citizen, and Wing

Such is Rocket League’s ubiquity nowadays that it’s hard to imagine a world without it. Vehicular future soccer is an unambiguously excellent thing after all, a necessity we didn’t know we needed until it released. Rocket League is currently free to play on Steam, and will be until Sunday morning (I assume this is PT time – that’s roughly early Monday morning in Australia). Plus, if you’re a newcomer and like what you play, the game is also 30% off until that time. Which suggests to me that mayb

I hope every news story about every questionably translated interview is a golden signal light, because Dark Souls needs to die. Lore YouTubers will pick over the rubble for years, I’m certain, but all they’ll ever find is another plausible theory, because nearly every Dark Souls theory is plausible. Emperor’s new soulsWhen Dark Souls came out in 2011, the only other game like it was Demon’s Souls. But the best signs of Dark Souls’ influence are a bit more subtle, showing up in smaller ways than

Rogue Trooper: Redux, “an HD remaster of the cult shooter game based on the 2000 AD comic series,” was revealed to the world back in March. But while he’s kind of a big deal on the UK side of the ocean, over here, well, let’s just say he’s about as much of a household name as Strontium Dog. Rogue Trooper (the guy, not the game) is a “genetic infantryman”—a GI—who is literally bred for war. (My own experience with Rogue Trooper actually came by way of the Friday continuity, which I learned only y

Unless the Final Fantasy Tactics get’s announced for PC, this is a drum we plan to keep banging. The PC can be the platform that can play every Final Fantasy gameThere are now only a few mainline Final Fantasy games missing from Steam: the original I and II, and last year’s Final Fantasy XV. There’s almost no competition for a Japanese tactics RPGOne thing every PC strategy game has in common: it’s no Final Fantasy Tactics. The point is, there aren’t really any RPGs or strategy games on PC that

The good news is that the PC version of Prey runs better at launch than Dishonored 2 did. The less good news, as Bethesda revealed a little earlier today on Steam, is that it will not have an FOV slider at launch—but there is a workaround available for those of you who want to adjust it. “Prey will support CrossFire and SLI, as well as offer ultra-widescreen support at 21:9 at launch for PC players. “FOV can be adjusted via a config file and will be accessible via the Options menu in a coming up

When I talked with eight of Hearthstone’s best players at DreamHack Austin about Un’Goro and the rising cost of the game, I also asked them to take a look back on their own card predictions. Many of the cards people weren’t expecting to be good have found comfortable homes in powerful decks, while some cards that the pros expected to be strong have turned out less than amazing, like most of Un’Goro’s Quests . Watch the video above to see pros like Reynad, Trump, and Chakki pick their sleeper hit

New features and expansions to Flight Sim World will be rolled out as part of the Early Access program and beyond, reinforcing our absolute commitment to the hobby.” Flight Sim World will give players “full control over weather, location, and time of day,” and also enables the inclusion of random events for an extra layer of challenge. Quality flight simulation, without the distractions of combat or a “save-the-world” storyline, is all about realism. It has to be accurately portrayed in Flight S

But given Dishonored 2’s significant launch issues, it’s worth digging into how the Prey PC version runs. SettingsPrey’s graphics settings are pretty lackluster compared to many recent PC releases, although that’s more down to the scope of the game. Finally, you get to set the resolution of screen space directional occlusion and screen space reflections—ie, tweak the lighting and reflection quality. PerformanceHere’s what you need to know: Prey runs smoothly based on the two PCs I’ve tested. The