Archives March 2024

The studio released a brief teaser of their yet-to-be-titled first game. A press release states that this mysterious project is a fantasy action-adventure title targeting a 2025 release. We won’t find out more until April 2, when IGN will reveal the game as an IGN First. 

The studio also included two pieces of concept art, which you can view in the gallery below.

Yellow Brick Games was founded by Thomas Giroux (co-founder/CEO), Jeff Skalski (co-founder/COO), Frédéric St-Laurent B (game director), and Mike Laidlaw (chief creative officer). The team has offices in both Montreal and Quebec City and currently consists of 68 employees. The studio was founded to foster a “people first” work culture where employees’ wellness takes priority while also focusing on developing titles featuring, according to their website, “deeply interactive spaces where player creativity can shine.”

“We are thrilled to share this exciting news with our community. Self-publishing is a leap of faith, especially in the current turbulent industry climate, but it’s also an opportunity to take our destiny into our own hands and reach out directly to players and the wider gaming community during this release.” says Mike Laidlaw, in a press release”Our team has been hard at work for years, and we can’t wait to showcase our debut project to the world. It’s a huge milestone for us, and we see it as just the first step on what we hope will be a long and rewarding journey for the company, charting our own path, and growing our talents and products brick by brick.”  

Here on the website, we offer much of our content for free, including game reviews, daily news, videos, event coverage, and more – all with minimal ads.

We do so with a small editorial team, alongside contributing paid writers from around the world – over 65 individuals from 9 countries around the world, just in the last couple of years.

It’s not possible without support.

In a time when game makers and games coverage have faced hard struggles and layoffs, the future of this 30+ year magazine and community is at risk. Our new standalone magazine subscription is the number one way you can keep us alive – and we believe you’ll get a pretty fantastic gaming magazine in your mailbox every few weeks for your trouble.

Thank you.

The Marvel Universe is expansive and chockful of some of pop culture’s greatest heroes. NetEase Games is taking the word “hero” literally and placing the characters from Marvel in a free-to-play 6v6 hero shooter. Marvel Rivals promises to bring the most popular and iconic superheroes and supervillains to the arena with destructible environments, unique Team-Up skills, and more.

Marvel Rivals offers 6v6 PVP action featuring arenas from across the Marvel Multiverse, including Asgard and Tokyo 2099. The title touts a deep roster of heroes and villains to choose from, including members of the Avengers, Guardians of the Galaxy, X-Men, and more, all with unique Team-Up skills that play off various synergies between heroes. The closed alpha in May will feature more than a dozen characters, while the announce trailer (below) features 18 characters that represent the current roster.

In case you found yourself scrubbing through the footage in the reveal trailer to see how many characters you could spot, we’ve listed all 18 of the characters that appear in the initial Marvel Rivals footage right here.

If your favorite Marvel hero or villain isn’t on that initial roster, NetEase promises a “robust” post-launch roadmap. According to the company, each seasonal drop will introduce new playable characters and maps. “Marvel Rivals is one of our most ambitious development projects,” Haluk Mentes, head of Marvel Games, said in a press release. “Since the conceptualization of the game and throughout our collaboration, our Marvel team has poured our hearts and souls into this project, and we are thrilled to work with the incredible team at NetEase Games to help deliver the ultimate Super Hero team-based PVP shooter.”

The story of Marvel Rivals features Doctor Doom and his 2099 counterpart forcing universes to collide in the Timestream Entanglement, creating new worlds. Superheroes and supervillains from the multiverse must band together and fight other groups of multiversal characters to defeat the two Dooms and save the multiverse.

NetEase Games touts its team members who worked on franchises like Battlefield and Call of Duty as being instrumental in the development of Marvel Rivals, but the studio operates with a global team of developers. Marvel Rivals is currently in development for PC, with a closed alpha kicking off in May. To sign up for the upcoming tests, you can visit MarvelRivals.com.

How does Marvel Rivals look and sound to you? Are you excited about a Marvel hero shooter? Could this fill a potential Overwatch-shaped hole in your gaming life? Does the free-to-play format affect your impression? Sound off in the comments section below!

Here on the website, we offer much of our content for free, including game reviews, daily news, videos, event coverage, and more – all with minimal ads.

We do so with a small editorial team, alongside contributing paid writers from around the world – over 65 individuals from 9 countries around the world, just in the last couple of years.

It’s not possible without support.

In a time when game makers and games coverage have faced hard struggles and layoffs, the future of this 30+ year magazine and community is at risk. Our new standalone magazine subscription is the number one way you can keep us alive – and we believe you’ll get a pretty fantastic gaming magazine in your mailbox every few weeks for your trouble.

Thank you.

Thirty years ago, The Elder Scrolls series began with The Elder Scrolls: Arena, so Bethesda put together a little celebratory post touring through each game in the franchise. The post, which you can read in its entirety below, ends with a small section about the highly anticipated next entry.

The relevant section says, “Last but not least, yes, we are in development on the next chapter – The Elder Scrolls VI. Even now, returning to Tamriel and playing early builds has us filled with the same joy, excitement, and promise of adventure.”

Here on the website, we offer much of our content for free, including game reviews, daily news, videos, event coverage, and more – all with minimal ads.

We do so with a small editorial team, alongside contributing paid writers from around the world – over 65 individuals from 9 countries around the world, just in the last couple of years.

It’s not possible without support.

In a time when game makers and games coverage have faced hard struggles and layoffs, the future of this 30+ year magazine and community is at risk. Our new standalone magazine subscription is the number one way you can keep us alive – and we believe you’ll get a pretty fantastic gaming magazine in your mailbox every few weeks for your trouble.

Thank you.

In addition to general text and bus fixes, there are a few significant quality-of-life improvements. For starters, the Pawn Guild now sells a lot more “Art of Metamorphosis” items, which is how you can change the appearance of a character or pawn after they’ve already been created. If you’re dissatisfied with their appearance mid-game or want to add some changes for role-playing reasons, like a scar or tattoo, this will make that much easier. The Pawn Guild previously only sold two at a time – now, there will be 99.

It also makes it easier to obtain a house, which has significant implications for the flow of the game. The longer you go without staying at an inn or campsite, the more your maximum health deteriorates when taking damage. It’s also how you gain the items your pawn might have obtained while adventuring with other players. Early in the game, the main hurdle here is the cost – sleeping in an inn requires 1500 to 2000 gold, while staying at a campsite requires camping kits. However, once you have a permanent dwelling, you can rest and fully heal for free. Making it available earlier in the game will make that early struggle a little easier.

Other than that, consoles will get some graphics adjustment settings (though these are what Capcom says won’t significantly impact frame rates), while Steam users get improved quality when DLSS Super Resolution is on, along with a fix for certain low-quality models. 

Have you run into performance issues in Dragon’s Dogma 2? Let us know in the comments!

Dawntrail, the fifth expansion for Final Fantasy XIV, is coming on July 2. The game is also getting a collector’s edition.  

During PAX East this past weekend, FFXIV director/producer Naoki Yoshida unveiled the Dawntrail Digital Collector’s Edition and the goodies-filled physical Collector’s Box. Here’s what comes in each package: 

While the Digital Collector’s Edition and Collector’s Box must be purchased separately, a bundle containing both is called the Dawntrail Collector’s Edition and runs for $214.99. However, it only contains a game code for the Windows/Mac version of Dawntrail. 

Pre-orders for the standard and collector’s edition items begin Tuesday, March 26, at 9 a.m. PT. Doing so at certain retailers grants the bonus in-game items: Wind-up Zidane Minion and Azeyma’s Earrings.