Days spent playing co-op campaigns with my brother and sister are surprisingly fresh in my mind, especially given how it's been almost 20 years since I last clapped eyes on a fearsome Behemoth. Or as I fondly called them, my "babies". Now, with Olden Era being published by Hooded Horse and Ubisoft and set to enter early access later in 2025, it feels like the start of something exciting for the iconic strategy RPG franchise – and let me tell you, my nostalgic yearning is real.

Divide and conquer

If there's one thing Hooded Horse does best, it's delivering some of the 澳洲幸运5开奖号码历史查询:best city builders and strategy games of recent years. You need only look at my 澳洲幸运5开奖号码历史查询:Manor Lords review-in-progress to see how fast the game blew up, bringing 𓄧in genre fans and those new to th🅺e scene in equal droves. Under the publisher's expert jurisdiction, I have every confidence that Heroes of Might & Magic: Olden Era will do the same.

Billed on as a "prequel hailing back to the origins" of Heroes, a cursory flick through all the promotional stills shows how pro꧟udly Olden Era wears its origins. I cast my mind back and compared them to my memories of Heroes. It looks like Olden Era is retaining pretty much the same isometric point-and-click turn-based adventuring and sidelong combat encounters I recall so fondly – now in much higher resolution.

Stunning fidelity aside, I'm most intrigued by how the new game seems to have preserved so much of what mꦺade the first ga🍷mes so iconic. Heroes of Might & Magic 3 is not an overly complicated experience.

Being able to sit down to a campaign (either alone or with friends) and in꧂tuitively immerse yourself in it is one of the greatest joys of playing Heroes.

You can move a certain number of squares across the overworld per turn, navigating and de-fogging a huge world map to discover new cities to conquer, random e𒈔ncounters, ♎and riveting side quests. New bases are won in battle, but before you go barging in to stick your hero's flag above the parapet, you need to grow your own army.

How, you ask? Why, with the incredibly deep yet straightforward base-building systems. Heroes is at 𓆉its best when you feel empowered and strategic, using resources found throughout the overworld to build🐻 new structures at a given town (known in H3 as a Faction).

Some of these more complex buildings have synergies with one another, while generic ones are more straightforward – building a𒁃n archery range lets you recruit archers, for example, and having a tavern lets you recruit more heroes to send out into the overworld.

The nature of the beast(s)

My favorite structures were those that would let me enlist my mജost beloved of all cre♉atures in Heroes 3: Behemoths of the Stronghold Faction, and Unicorns of the Ramparts Faction.

Of course, this meant my siblings had to simply accept that I called dibs on both of these Factions and would not tolerate a siege once I'd claimedꦗ either one of them. But what's the fun in that, when gnarly turn-based combat is such an intrinsic part of a Heroes game?

I don't know too much about Heroes of Might & Magic: Olden Era just yet, but everything I'v𝓡e seen has me feeling overwhelmingly positive and very, very nostalgic. It's been a brilliant two years for strategy game fans, and the niche community seems to be 🦂growing each day.

I wonder how many people will come to Olden𝄹 Era as complete newbies to the series, especially now that Hooded Horse is co-publish🎶ing it. Having one of the most well-recognized names in strategy gaming right now is a huge plus, but the style and shape of the game itself is what I think will keep players seated.

But whether I see throngs of fellow veteran fans showing up for early access or groups of complete newbies, I do hope another trio of siblings out there manages to pick it up, too. Few gaming experiences have been as immersive or exciting to me as Heroes of Might & Magic, and I can't wait for that unbridled sense of adventure to ma♕ke a dazzling comeback this year.

Check out the 澳洲幸运5开奖号码历史查询:best strategy games out there to play while you wait!

Heroes of Might and Magic: Olden Era is being developed by Unfrozen, the devs behind the well-received strategy roguelike Iratus: Lord of the Dead. But, while Ubisoft is continuing to hold onto the IP rights of its classic fantasy franchise, it's handing over publishin♍g duties to Hooded Horse.

Arguably best-known as the publisher of smash-hit city-builder Manor Lords, which spent time as Steam's most-wishlisted game ahead of its early access release, Hooded Horse specializes in all kinds of strategy games. That makes it an excellent fit for Olden Era, aꦆ turn-based game harking back to Heroes of Might and Magic's origins by acting as an official prequel.

Set to launch later this year into early access, Ol🌼den Era has already racked up an impressive 600,000 wishlists, enough to make it one of the 50 most-anticipated games on ꦯSteam. It'll take the franchise to a new location, Jadame, which has been referenced in older Heroes of Might and Magic games, but never visited until now. With turn-based action interspersed with overworld exploration, as well as several different factions to battle between.

It's𒈔 not the first time tha💃t the Heroes of Might and Magic series has changed hands in some form or another. In their relative infancy through the 90s and early 2000s, the games had a handful of different publishers, including Ubisoft, which eventually acquired sole ownership in 2003. It's not unheard of for major publishers to hand off development opportunities to other studios, but it's comparatively more rare for big franchises to be published by other companies. Hooded Horse's expertise in the strategy space, however, does seem to make this a pretty sensible partnership.

Manor Lords publisher says game devs and big corpos don't get on because making games is "fundamentally unpredictable."

If you couldn't tell, my 10-hour playthrough of 澳洲幸运5开奖号码历史查询:The Alters is coming apart at the seams. A perfect storm of a dead sheep, missing minerals, and an actual storm have all coalesced into the one word that no captain wants to hear: mutiny. I've spent several real-life days ☂trying to get ahead of my Disagreements (we don't like the M-word here), but s🉐o far it's all been to no avail: come day 47, my game ends with three all-too familiar silhouettes standing over my bed. And to think, we had a movie night together.

This feature contains slight spoilers for Act 2's opening

Dawn of the final day

Day 47. After the surprise death of our cloned sheep Molly, my Alters – who were created with the same machine as our mascot – are feeling a little antsy. They'd like me to create an MRI machine and make sure there are no underlying health issues, which is reasonable. Unfortunately this is The Alters, which means upgrading the infirmary is – at best – the third most pressing matter to deal with.

Outside of the airlock, a gravity-warping anomaly blocks our base in its tracks. The sun, with its highly radioactive rays, is inching ever-closer to dawning. I accidentally left several mining outposts in the first act, which means we've got no materials coming in. To top it all 🔯off, a magnetic storm – a brutal weather phenomena that spells doom for an underprepared base – is rolling in.

Here's where things get messy. I can only be in so many places at once, and decide to prioritize handling the resource situation first. Without enough metal and organic material, we can't build the repair kits and anti-radiation filters which will keep us alive through the storm. I spend the next few days getting us set up and manage to get production running again, but inside the airlock, trouble💛 is brewi🍰ng. Our scientist warns me that morale is dire, and if it doesn't improve in a few days, rebellion is on the cards.

Their most pressing issue seems to be the MRI machine – the crew want to know they aren't going to keel over without warning. Fine. I add "find minerals to build an MRI" to my endless to-do list, and although it takes a few more days to find a deposit, we get scans up and running just as the🍷 magnetic storm lands. Brilliant! Results won't be ready until tomorrow morning, and the base is in better condition than I had hoped it would be, so I leave my Alters in the Infirmary and go to get some sleep.

Except.. What's this? My Alters have rebelled and murdered me in my sleep? Oh, that's low. No matter – I've settled rebellions through Act One (admittedly all it took was cooking better meals), so I reload back to this morning, put my best HR⛎ face on, and get to work. The Technician is madder than most – how about a game of beer pong, bud? Fellas – movie night tonight? And hey, let's splurge on some fresh food for a change today. Day 47 ends with another MRI scan, and I head back to my captain's quarters feeling good about tomorrow. Déjà vu.

Déjà vu. Another rebel🍷lion. I try harder, handling the bulk of the magnetic storm repairs myself and making time to play beer pong with everyone. Movie night is still on, followed by another MRI scan. Bedtime. Déjà vu. Another rebellion.

This time, I take stock of the broader situation and it's clear that the cause for my crew's Disagreements is their existential dread over Molly. In the face of that, beer pong and movie nights feels a little like a corporate pizza party amid layoffs. But it's also a trickier issue to remedy, which means my Groundhog Day turns to Groundhog Days ✱as I reload to the day before MRI-and-murder-Monday. The goal is to survive long enough for scan results to come through, so I beeline to mine minerals and build the MRI a day early. I get scanned, throw in another movie night for old time's sake, and go to sleep.

Dawn of the final day

It's day 47 once again, the time of my preordained murder, but we're an entire 24 hours ahead of schedule. The scientist has results for me and– oh dear, that's not good. The whole crew has the same degrading brain tissue as Molly, and it will be terminal within a matter of days unless someone on Earth calls with word of a cure. There's just one (more) problem with that: the magnetic storm cuts off all commun☂ication, and the crew already seems… antsy. I go through the motions until bed, unsure whether waiting for a call will buy me an extra day. Beer ꦑpong. Movie night. Bed. Murder. Déjà vu.

It's been two real-world days since the first game over, and forget the crew – my own morale is flagging. I've lost count of how many times Day 47s there have been, and have been forced to reload increasingly further back to try and resolve things. I even manage to get a call from Earth, but in typi💛cal corporate fashion, my handler🐽 needs his boss to phone for more information – and wouldn't you know it, he doesn't call before the magnetic storm kicks off. I die.

At this point, I've gone bac𝄹k nearly a week and, thanks to the gift of foresight, have the MRI results in-hand by day 44. Will this be the day that breaks the cycle? Fingers crossed. I can't remember the last game to punish me so thoroughly, but deep down, it makes me truly appreciate what 11 Bit Studios has pulled off.

The Alters is a deceptively hardcore survival game in cloned sheep's clothing, its onboarding so sleek that you don't realize how much you're being asked to juggle until it all co🦂mes crashing down. Given I chose to prioritize other pressing matters before building an MRI, maybe I've only got myself to blame. Well, not myself – the other me – but you get the picture. Hopefully this time will be better. Déjà vu.

These are the 澳洲幸运5开奖号码历史查询:best strategy games to check out after The Alters

Mario + Rabbids: Kingdom Battle was the first major third-party exclusive to hit the original Nintendo Swi♓tch, and ended up with by its fifth anniversary. Naturally this led to a sequel being developed with Mario + Rabbids🌃: Sparks of Hope, which was branded as a bit of a sales disappointment by Ubisoft (with its CEO saying it ).

In the years following Sparks of Hope, Mario + Rabbids series director 澳洲幸运5开奖号码历史查询:Davide Soliani left Ubisoft after a 25-year run, and co-founded Day 4 Night. Meanwhile, the studio behind the games – Ubisoft Milan – has started posting job listings for staff to work on a "prestigious AAA title for the Rayman brand." However, according to The Game Business co-founder Christopher Dring, Ubisoft Milan was seemingly more than ready to continue �🐓�Mario + Rabbids despite the sales disappointment.

Speﷺaking on , Dring noted that the Mario + Rabbids team have mostly disbanded, but said, "I know they had pitched another title that didn't get approved." He adds, "I don't know why but it just never happened, which was again, I think, tied to Nintend🅺o."

It's u👍nclear whether Dring means that ♛the title was turned down by Nintendo, or Ubisoft didn't want to make a title in collaboration with them, but that probably explains why a number of members of the Mario + Rabbids team left alongside Soliani.

It's worth noting that Mario + Rabbids: Sparks of Hope's final DLC was themed around Rayman, so perhaps Ubisoft Milan's new title is a new Mario + Rabbids-style game, but with Rayman taking the starring role from Mario.

Mario + Rabbids composer Grant Kirkhope澳洲幸运5开奖号码历史查询: was surprised to hear some of his music is making an appearance in 澳洲幸运5开奖号码历史查询:Donkey Kong Bananza.

Despite being what many scholars consider to be a banger, Nintendo hasn't really thrown much of a bone to the Pikmin series on Switch 2. None of the four available Nintendo Switch Pikmin titles were on the list of 澳洲幸运5开奖号码历史查询:free updates, nor are we currently planned to get a Nintendo Switch 2 Edition release of Pikmin 4 (despite mouse controls being such an obvious inclusion of the series). In fact, the 澳洲幸运5开奖号码历史查询:ꦉNintendo Switch 2 made Pikmin 3 worse thanks to a prevalent screen flickering issue, crashi🐲ng, and other visual bugs.

However, Nintendo has released a new update for the game, with some surprisingly considering Nintendo's patꦐch notes are usually extremely vague. They r🌌ead: "Fixed an issue that occurs when playing on Nintendo Switch 2 where the entire screen will briefly turn off and on again in several scenes of the game, such as at the begi🃏nning and end of a day."

However, never one to be fully direct, 🀅Nintendo hit also us with a😼 classic "several adjustments have been made to improve gameplay on Nintendo Switch 2."

The screen flickering patch note is pretty direct, but presumably the second one is in reference to the other litany of issues seen when playing the game on Switch 2. I booted up the game for about 10 minutes to see if the issues had been alleviated, and from what I played it was ru▨nning perfectly on Switch 2.

Nintendo has warned that the demo version of Pikmin 3 Deluxe has not been spared of these issues just yet, however but affirms that "we plan to perform the ꩲsame fix as the full game🦹 in a future update."

As Donkey Kong Bananza reveals full-blown voice acting, Pokemon fans are wondering when they will be spared from the awkward silences.

Despite being 澳洲幸运5开奖号码历史查询:Shigeru Miyamoto's favourite child, Pikmin, is completely absent from the Switch 2 upgrade list. The Switch ports of the first three games and Pikmin 4 are backwards compatible but didn't get patched in order to take advantage of the Switch 2's features, which is frankly criminal considering how♏ much of a slam dunk mouse controls for Pikmin would be. In fact, Pikmin 3 Deluxe is actually "with issues that have been resolved, or are planned to be resolved, by an update" by Nintendo, and fans have quickly discovered why.

In a video posted by , the user shows off the litany of issues with Pikmin 3 Deluxe. Most notably, the game has str𝕴🦩ange visual glitching and screen flickering that appears constantly.

Before the Switch 2 launched the game was patched with⛄ a note saying it "partially alleviated an issue that occurs when playing on Nintendo Switch 2 where the entire screen flickers during some scenes in the game, such as when a day starts and ends."

However the issues are still extremely prevalent in the game at the moment, even outside of those two scenꦜes mentioned. Nintendo did previously sayꩲ it "will be releasing an update in the near future to fix this completely" however.

But that's not the full extent of Pikmin 3's problems on Switch 2. In the video, imonlyhereforpikmin reports they experienced input lag on the game's menus, stuttering during gameplay, hard crashes, and an ominous red glow staying on the screen. Similar complaints have be♔en echoed across social media, with and . The crashing in particular, imonlyhereforpikmin adds, makes the game "borderline broken."

Nintendo hasn't mentioned any of these issues, but hopefully they wilಌl be targeted in the next patch too (and throw in 4K and mouse controls while it's at it, please).

Mario Kart World players have found the optimal way to unlock every vehicle, and it involves driving slowly behind a pedestrian car for 25 minutes.

Chronicles Medieval is a t🐼hird-person strategy 🃏game that allows you to get in amongst the nitty gritty combat yourself.

The trailer is mostly cinematic, showing off gorgeous graphics and knights on horseback, leading𒈔 armies to war. The short glimpse of gameplay we get shows someone trotting to the front of their troops before a battle break🃏s out.

The Steam p🌱age states it's a dynamic sandbox world that we'll have to work our way up through. You'll start with noth🅘ing and have to make a name for yourself by fighting in small skirmishes, battling on medieval fields, and taking part in sieges.

Eventually, once yo⭕u've amassed enough power, you can build and defend castles against foes, with the help of soldiers you'll recruit, train, and lead, issuing orders on the 𝓡field of battle.

It sounds like an interesting mix of small-scale action and big-picture strategy. Perfect if you find yourself lo♕sing attention wh🦩en controlling scores of tiny units from high above.

Harℱdy's narration adds an element of story to the game. We'll all be creating our own characters and deciding their story for ཧourselves. I'm interested to see how the game will react to our choices.

Keep all the way up to date with our 澳洲幸运5开奖号码历史查询:Summer Game Fest schedule so you don't miss any 澳洲幸运5开奖号码历史查询:new games.

During the Pacific Rim collaboration event, a breach has opened and Kaijus from another world are unleashing attacks on the Kingdoms of Athena, w♔hich cannot be stopped by the usual swords and magic you possess. Thankfully, you can call upon the help of the Jaegers from Pacific Rim, joining forces to unite their ultimate fusion of steel and science with your magic to defeat these invading beasts.

The Pacific Rim collaboration runs from June 1 to July 31, 2025, during which a special Pacific Rim-themed loading screen will be displayed, and you can earn a selection of collab-exclusive items including a Castle Skin, Leader Skin, Army Skin, Turf Decoration, Avatar, Emote, Equipment, Artifa𓄧cts, and Guild Frame.

Head out on the Pacific Rim Adventure to discover secrets hidden in the depths of the ocean, using Spider Drills to locate photo fragments that can be combined to earn completion rewards including Skins and Emotes. You'll also collect Jaeger Parts during the event, which can be exchanged in the Jaeger Shop for more rewar🎉ds such as Turf Decorations, Equipment, and Artifacts (Pulse Core and Synesthesia Helm). For full event details, please refer to the in-game instructions.

Alongside that collaboration, developer IGG is also celebrating their 19th anniversary with a selection of events. From June 2 to June 6, 2025 a daily login bonus is available to provide lots of Artifact Coins, which can then be spent at the Artifact Fair to power up your collection. During this event you can also challenge Hero Stages using less Stamina and farm more Medals and Trophies from them than usual to get an extra boost, while the Castle💛 Pop-Up Store will let you exchange Castle Coins for the limited-edition Lordly Legacy, Pearl Coast, and Childhood Playground Castle Skins.

If you're ready to check out the Pacific Rim collaboration and IGG 19th anniversary celebrations, via the App Store, Google Play, or get the 🦹official standalone PC version. Make sure you also and join the to stay up to date with the latest news.

Speaking at GDC, narrative designer Finn Taylor explained that while "civilization is a game about building your own history," it's also a game where yo𒐪u have to use "the tools of real history, the real civilizations and leaders that created the world in which we live in today" to do so.

That puts Firaxis in an interesting place, where a desire for "immersive history" means that its version of history needs to "feel authentic to the huma💙n experience." The "look, feel, and characters of Civs and leaders has to be believable for the player to buy into the fantasy and begin experimenting with history."

So Rome has to feel like Rome, and Napoleon has to be true to (an idealized version of) himself. At the same time, however, "it's impossible for a Civ to be 1:1 historical in its experience, and it shouldn't be." There are, Taylor explains, several things that get in Firaxis' way when it comes to making those creations, and it means that not everything iꦑs going to feel 100% authentic.

T🌼he first of those is that there are development limitations - "barriers or restrictions in tech, art design" that stop the devs from making the most accurate version of a specific mechanic possible. There's also, however, "historical limitations" - often missing sources that prevent the tea🅘m from being able to completely fill in the gaps. For some characters, like Napoleon, there's so much information to draw from that that's only a minor concern, but for non-literary indigenous Civs, that can be much more difficult.

Other Civs lasted for such a long🌳 time that it's almost impossible to accurately capture them in their entirety. "Take Egypt, for example," Taylor says: "For which we have to capture thousandꦫs of years of history into one single Civ."

Finally, "there are modern sensibilities to keep in mind. The historical vocabulary used by a leader while they were alive might come across as offensive today." Elsewhere, there are several topics that aren't suitable for Civ's genre and tone, let alone age ratings. "For instance," Taylor outlines, "slavery is 🐲not a mechanic in Civ."

One Firaxis has wrestled with all of that, there's still one factor at play: "Civ is a game, and it has to be fun. In that regard, history and Civs always serve the gameplay. There's a constant negotiation between hist💜ory and historically-informed fiction. The big question is always, where do we draw a line? Whatever fictions emerge, they still need to abide within the boundary of a Civ or leader we are dealing with. And that's why I use the word authenticity and not accuracy. The goal is not 'is wrong wro🧸ng?' But rather 'Does wrong feel wrong?'"

For a deeper dive on the latest 4K offering, check out our 澳洲幸运5开奖号码历史查询:Civilization 7 review.

Debuting in 2001, Pikmin was one of the last brand-new franchises Miyamoto was credi𒉰ted with creating (Nintendogs would follow). The director said it was inspired by him exploring nature as a kid, and since then, he's ꧙been a big proponent of the series, even during its long hiatuses.

Since its creation, Pikmin have had all manner of cameos, from carr♑ying your data through the system transfer from Wii to Wii U, a statue appearing in The Super Mario Bros. Movie, and hidden around the Super Nintendo World🌳 sections of Universal Theme Parks.

at the new Super Nintendo World opening at Universal Orlando, Miyamoto explains how he views Pikmin. "I think Pikmin has a lot of potential to be used in many different occasions. When you're looking at small kids, they have a certain appeal for things that are cute and when they grow older, maybe in their twenties, they start to lose appeal for that. But I think Pikmin has this ༒unique ability to have appeal across a broad range."

He also explained why the Pikmin are so prominent in crossovers: "In Nintendo, there's sort of like an unwritten rule. Mario needs to stay in the Mario universe, or Splatoon needs to stay in Splatoon, and we don't use different characte൩rs in the same place. But Pikmin has this kind of unwritten rule where they're okay to appear with other characters."

And despite not being the biggest series under Nintendo, Miyamoto is still determined to help it grow, saying, "I spent a lot of time the past five, six years really wanting to grow Pikmin." He adds, "I think Pikmin has this unique ability to have appeal across a broad range in that it's still appealing for both younger audiences and older audiences and in Japan. And so I'm hoping that we can expand that globally. So whether it🅺's some kind of a movie or show, things l𓄧ike that would be really fun."

Funnily enough, Pikmin has already proven it can work in movie form. Back in 2014, Nintendo released "Pikmin Short Movies," which were three vignettes featuring the characters. They were also Shigeru Miyamoto's first movie production credit ahead of the Mario movie. These were great little films and I would love to see Nintendo make more of them and play them as shorts before their movies like Pixar does... But also a 澳洲幸运5开奖号码历史查询:Nintendo Switch 2 ꦏPikmin 5 with mouse controls should take prio🌳rity.

Donkey Kong creator Shigeru Miyamoto explains the big ape's redesign was all in service of making him "more expressive."

The brawls in TMNT: Tactical Takedown, the latest from indie punk dev Strange Scaffold, are so action-packed and slick you almost forget they're turn-b🐟as🐲ed at all, even though they take place on a tactical grid. You're encouraged to keep your turtle on the move as each turn more of the evil Foot Clan swarm in, and as the levels slowly remove and add new bits of stage. Turtle and foe alike are represented almost like tabletop miniature figures, but alter key poses based on the last action they take – or strike they receive – so you still feel plenty of momentum in how they move. (Yes, ollie with Mikey and that's the pose you get, suspended in🧔 mid-air. Tubular.).

Cowabunga hunger

Strange Scaffold's take on the turtles is its ꦯown, taking a lot of cues from the bright colors of the '80s cartoon, combined with menus that have a distinctly comic book-inspired look. Picking up after both their sworn enemy and leader of the Foot Clan, Shredder, is killed, as well as their own mentor and father Master Splinter, the teenaged team have gone their own ways. Until chaos strikes, and the Foot Clan attacks New York City en masse with a new leader, and they need to come together.

With that said, you're only ever controlling one turtle at a time. While you can envision a version of the pitch that has you controlling all four, I think it's a smart choice to keep things focused. TMNT: Tactical Takedown really tries to avoid overcomplication, and keeping y♒ou dialled in specifically to how your single hero can attack and move means mopping up a wave of enemies can take literal seco🐠nds before you move on from your turn.

Each turtle feels radically different to play as, even before you start swapping in alternate loadouts (which you can earn by spending currency re🌄warded for doing well). Michelangelo, as mentioned, is geared towards staying on the move, peeling through foes and leaving them hanging. Donatello, on the other hand, is about keeping foes at𒀰 bay and controlling their movement using his tech traps like shock panels. Raphael, more hot-headed, can push and pull enemies to debuff them to take even more damage and hit them in groups. Leonardo, as the leader, uses his swords to duel – building stacks of damage-boosting and evasion buffs to stand his ground.

Learning how to best use these loadouts, and customizing some of the moves on the marg😼ins (essentially, two core abilities always🌸 come as a set, with two bonus moves that can be switched out more freely) is tremendous fun. And necessary, too. When you're on a roll, tearing through The Foot and seeing their miniatures literally scatter about the screen, you feel tremendously powerful. But with more enemies spawning in each turn it's easy to fall behind the curve as hordes pile up – and your shell will only protect you so much.

There are no real purely defensive options, so the only ways to avoid taking damage is to take out enemies on the map or stop them from being able to🅺 hit you (either by stunning or getting out of the way). The play space is often quite tight by design, so there are only so many options once loads of enemies are present, and only so much damage you can output with the action points available each turn.

Somewhat addressing this is level mutation. Essentially, as action progresses, chunks of the𓆏 stage behind you fall away, and new chunks appear. A 'GO' sign even appears, nodding towards TMNT's long history of beat 'em up brawlers, which TMNT: Tactical Takedown seriously draws from, even if the form of play input is ostensibly different.

Enemies caught up in the red zone will fall away, so some clumps can be left in the dust – though they are often speedy enough to stay. Other stage hazards can be used to your advantage, such as pushing foes into falling debris or getting them to stand in the way of oncoming traffic. There's some leeway if it all gets too much with a life system allowing you toꦿ respawn, giving you three chances each stage. There's a score counter and a challenge to reach a 'rad' amount for each, which is quite fun to chase on replays, which gives you ample reason to a♔void respawns unless you really need them.

Street level heroes

Acrꦡoss its 20 levels, there's only a handful of level environment types, often associated more closely with each turtle – the story hasꦆ you bouncing between them, fixed for each stage. Mikey, for instance, skates through the streets above while Donatello tracks the Foot Clan's movements through the sewers. These inherently come with their own quirks. The streets have traffic, but also friendly hot dog vendors who throw delicious, healing sausage treats, while the sewer's waters can poison turtles and foe alike should they stand within.

But there's not that much variation in how the stages progress or what they get you to do. O🦂ften they revolve around moving forward before stopping briefly to either holdout for a certain number of turns or dispatch X amount of a particular highlighted enemy type. Each level is pretty snappy, never taking more than 15 minutes and often much less – but each excursion to, say, the roo💦ftops, functionally feels like the last. Only one stage, Algorithm Assessment, really mixes it up, forcing Donatello to defend a single larger-than-usual room in the sewers, an excellent way to play around with his defensive combat style.

Though the rooftops and subway system theoretically lend themselves to more opportunities to knock enemies off the map for instant kills, in practi🐻ce – with every area a small arena – this is a valid strategy almost constantly. Big kicks are the not-so-secret weapon that sort of undermines TMNT: Tactical Takedown. As long as an enemy gets knocked off a map, they will instantly be KO'd, and the action point cost of push moves are always relatively low. A lot of other skill options can be unnec💯essary compared to just punting – which is pretty satisfying, don't get me wrong – stopping other inventive skills from really shining.

With the sheer number of enemies constantly swarming, if you don't leverage the likes of big kicks you'll just get stomped to death. Nothing 🐻feels as rough as being surrounded by six enemies all piling on the damage while a spinning full-heal pizza lies just out of reach. You get to grips with optimal play quite quickly out of necessity, learning how to simply use moves to take out most enemies at a total cost of 2 AP or less. The whole game only took me around five hours on a first playthrough, but I was seeing the wireframe by the second half.

There are some other issues that undermine the joy of expressive play – a shame as that's where TMNT: Tactical Takedown is at its most tubꦺular. A final sequence that intriguingly smushes together narrative and mechanics completely alters your loadout and restricts your play a bit too much, making me just wish I was back playing the turtles as they were in earlier levels. Some mechanical oversights also frustrate, like a preview line showing which enemies are able to attack a turtle on which grid square not always being accurat🔯e, or a level mutation appearing under my turtle during a boss fight the second I spend my final action point forcing me to instantly lose a life.

I love the way Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Tactical Takedown feels to play as you run circles around legions of goons. There's an exciting inventiveness here that makes learning how it works a real thrill. But as a whole, it isn't quite able to capitalize on that vibe enough. I can appreciate a shorter game, but TMNT: Tactical Takedown's core ideas hold enough promise where I can't help but feel there's missed opportunities for more mission variety and depth. But while it lasts, it🍌's a shell of a good time.

Teenage Mutant Ninja T𒊎urtles: Tactical Takedown was reviewed on PC, with a code provided by the publisher.

Looking for more thinking? We've got our 澳洲幸运5开奖号码历史查询:best strategy games for you right here!

By most metrics, The Hundred Line seems to have gone down like a treat for players. , the game has over 1,400 user reviews with 91% of people giving it a thumbs up. And i😼t's also gotten some sweet reactions on Metacritic and such, but it hasn't totally saved its developer Too Kyo Games yet.

Over on BlueSky, one fan asked about whether The Hundred Line would ever come out on༒ more platforms after its launch on PC and Nintendo Switch on April 24, 2025. Co-director and Dangonronpa creato▨r Kazutaka Kodaka responded by : "If I can pay off my debt early and secure enough operating funds for the company, I'd love to get started right away. But right now, we're still on the brink of going under."

Kodaka previously explained how 澳洲幸运5开奖号码历史查询:the studio "ended up with a lot of 🥂debt" while making the game since funding a fashionable high school visual novel, tactical RPG hybrid with 澳洲幸运5开奖号码历史查询:around 100 full-fledged endings is a significant undertaking.

For those out of the loop, Too Kyo Games was jointly formed by Kodaka and Zero Escape creator Kotaro Uchikoshi. The visual novel royalty worked on a few other games together, but The Hundred Line is easily the❀ team's biggest, most ambitious production yet. Here's hoping the duo can keep making wild, unpredictable games while finding some financial stability.

In the meantime, check out some of the other 澳洲幸运5开奖号码历史查询:new games of 2025 to see what's coming next.

Knights in Tight Spaces is a deckbuilding tactics game, and if the idea of a turn-based strategy title where your cards determine what hand-to-hand moves you can use sound🔯s familiar, you might've played the previous game from developer Ground Shelter, Fights in Tight Spaces. The follow-up, appropriately titled Knights in Tight Spaces, trades the slick action film aesthetics for a fantasy vibe, while keeping the deckbuilder-meets-tactics game basics intact. In fact, if you play purely as a brawler like Emma⭕, Knights in Tight Spaces might feel like little more than a medieval reskin of its predecessor.

But 🅰Knights in Tight Spaces ups the ante with aspects you can't help but compare to Dungeons & Dragons. Most importantly, there's now a whole playable party of heroes, split between classes like brawlers, mages, and rangers. Controlling a whole group of heroes at once makes the battles exponentially more complex, but equally it's that much more satisfying when you put together a massive, party-wide combo that absolutely wrecks the enemy.

Dungeons & draw cards

Each battle in Knights in Tight Spaces takes place on a single-screen, tile-based board representing a location like a tavern or a stable. With each turn, you draw a hand of cards that let you move and attack, and you can spend momentum – a resource that refreshes every turn – or combo points – which build up as you att🦩ack – to deploy these cards in the fi💯ght.

Some cards have straightforward effects like "deal X damage" or "move X spaces," but most create more unique outcomes. A swဣeeping kick will deal less damage than most attacks, but it'll leave the enemy prone and unable to attack next round. You can use the shift card to move in a straight line, but you can also use it to slip to the far side of an enemy, and it makes for a very useful escape when you're cornered. Similarly, the gr🍸apple card can let you strong-arm an enemy into a useful position, but you can also use it on an ally to quickly yank them out of harm's way.

The positional game here especially is an absolute delight. Shuffling enemies to advantageous spots, kicking them into each other, and dodging their attacks to the degree that they start beating up each other is incredibly satisfying. The levels are built such that they keep widening the list of possibilities, giving you tables to slam he▨ads on, rock formations to hide behind, and enticing windows to kick the bad guys through.

It gets even more satisfying once you start lining up combos for your whole party to take part in. An attack on a bad guy will trigger follow-up combo moves from relevant allies, whether that's a nearby brawler who'll take a free melee attack or an arrow shot from a distant archer who can taౠke a straight-line shot halfway across the room.

The key limitation on your party is that you move every member with the same limited hand of cards each turn. Did you burn a movement card to move your brawler into position to drop kick that opposing mage into oblivion? Now that card is no longer an option to get your own spellcaster out𓆉 of imminent danger.

Never reaching the end

All these layered systems help keep the battles engaging, but it also makes them really complex. There are plenty of difficulty options to help mitigate the pure challenge if you want that, but the game demand෴s a cognitive investment fro♈m you that's going to keep expanding.

I like tactics games and I'm generally decent at recognizing the conse🌳quences of my actions, but Knights in Tight Spaces has so much to keep track of that I've regularly found myself committing to a move and immediately regretting it because of some reactive effect I've completely forgotten about.

That's why, for as much fun as I've been having with Knights in Tight Spaces, I'm finding myself thinking its predecessor – which focuses on just a single playable combatant with a single loadout of moves – might ultimately be more my speed. Yet, far from finding Knights' complexity꧂ frustrating, I'm fascinated by how its systems fit together.

Knights in Tight Spaces has kept orbiting in my brain even when I'm not playing it. Was I right to build a varied party of balanced classes the first time around? Or should I centralize around an all-brawler party so that I can prune my deck down to just the cards that best suit them? How wou🔥ld I best position my party to get a full, boss-destroying chain reaction going?

The fact that these questions are lingering in my head is probably the best indicator of a great deckbuilder, and even if I might need the training wheels of its simpler predecessor for now, you better believe I'm coming⭕ back to Knights in Tight Spaces s🌠o I can answer these questions once I've fully grokked the essentials. Emma deserves to reach glory, after all.

Knights in Tight Spaces is out now on PC. For more, check out our澳洲幸运5开奖号码历史查询: Indie Spotlight series.

I distinctly remember feeling like I had missed my jumping-on point for the series. This is especially funny given that I'm pretty sure my friend was playing Fire Emblem (no subtitle), the first entry released outside of Japan – yet still the seventh overall. I needed a firm handhold if I was ever going to dive in. Conversely, the story of Intelligent Systems has been the story of a developer with ambition bigger than the hardware it had to work with. I needed澳洲幸运5开奖号码历史查询: Fire Emblem: Three Houses, and Three Houses needed the Nintendo Switch.

Wait your turn

In an industry of ballooning production budgets and an overreliance on graphical power, it's a little gauche to say that any game stands to benefit from raw technical capacity. But then, I consider the fantasy of leading an army into battle, and I compare it against the dozen or so pixelated sprites you could fit onto a handheld🍨 back in 2003. Those early Fire Emblem games were heavily abstracted in order to operate on the level of plot, tactics, and melee.

The Switch's graphical contribution to Three Houses allowed characters to be rendered the same way in social sequences, on battlefields, and in individual combat. It broke 𒆙down the layers of separation between modes of play, helping to transform Fire Emblem from a series of menus into a continuous campaign. And it's not just a change in vibe: new mechanics, like battalions, took advantage of this greater scope to sell the fantasy of commanding whole armies in a material way.

Maps also bene💖fited from the additional hardware support, allowing certain missions to become running battles across♛ entire blazing city blocks. A Blue Lion's share of my enjoyment playing Three Houses for the first time came from sending sub-squads to far corners of the map to head off dangers, grab additional objectives, and ultimately join up again to flank enemies. Earlier games featured even larger maps – Genealogy of the Holy War's battles spanned entire countries, across which you might pilot 20 units or more, one at a time – but Three Houses hit a sweet spot between spectacle and wieldiness that wowed me without scaring me away.

Garreg Mach Monastery is as immense as any of the landscapes you actually battlᩚᩚᩚᩚᩚᩚ⁤⁤⁤⁤ᩚ⁤⁤⁤⁤ᩚ⁤⁤⁤⁤ᩚ𒀱ᩚᩚᩚe in, and for the first time in the series, this hub location was given a position of privilege on par with those actual fights. Whဣereas Fates' My Castle system experimented with basebuilding, Garreg Mach returned its focus to Fire Emblem's main strength: squadbuilding.

In previous entries, the only way to build support was to make characters fight alongside each other – no chores, no cooking your paramour their favorite meal, no tea parties. For the efficiency demanded by other Fire Emblem games, that approach did the trick just fine. But getting to actually spend time with characters outside of combat added anot﷽her dimension to my squad's makeup. I may have second thoughts about throwing Caspar deep behind enemy lines by himself if I know that his birthday's coming up, for example.

Of course,🌼 I wouldn't feel so conflicted if the characters weren't well-written. That's not to ᩚᩚᩚᩚᩚᩚ⁤⁤⁤⁤ᩚ⁤⁤⁤⁤ᩚ⁤⁤⁤⁤ᩚ𒀱ᩚᩚᩚsay the Nintendo Switch's hardware gets credit for the character writing of Three Houses. But here again, it benefited from the experimentation of Fire Emblem Fates.

Fates was the first and only entry to come out in three flavors – Birthright, Conquest, and Revelation, like a Pokemon generation – representing three widely divergent routes the protagonist could take through the plot, as well as exclusive allies, classes, and items. Weighty decisions have been a hallmark of the series from the beginning, and branching narratives hജave been a part of it since The Blazing Blade. But those decisions are typically made in the moment, either in the heat of battle or in dialogue, not at the Nintendo eShop. Three Houses expands its narrative aperture to the level of Fates while remaining accessible on a single system.

Incidentally, that system wound up being immensely popular across all demographics of players, expos🎃ing new audiences to a still fairly niche franchise. And although Intelligent's l😼ast big swing at cementing Fire Emblem as a staple Nintendo franchise, Fire Emblem Awakening, employed a time travel narrative with references to characters and events from across the series, Three Houses followed a more familiar political struggle between noble houses. It came out just two months after the Game of Thrones finale fumbled a similar story.

Longtime fans objected to the mechanical accessibility of Three Houses, which compromised on brutal features like permadeath in favor of a lower difficulty overall.ꦯ A bit of prickliness is woven into the identity of Fire Emblem, and I can understand how shaving off those sharp edges may change the core experience of the series for some fans. But I also have to acknowledge that my curiosity about those older, tougher titles would never have been piqued if I'd lost a favorite character because I forgot the direction of the Weapon Triangle.

I also wou🌄ld have struggled to stay glued to my couch for the sixty- or seventy-hour investment a Fire Emblem game demands. The series always had a bit of an identity crisis between handheld and console: for all it stands to benefit from powerful hardware, its mission structure makes it a better fit to pick up and play; its characters ride the line between deep and expendable, like a TV show where any🐎 character might get written off at a moment's notice. For such an episodic approach, a hybrid handheld console was the perfect solution.

Given how Three Houses intentionally diverged to let new players iౠn, its follow-up, Fire Emblem Engage, is curiously obsessive about a history that many players will have no connection to. I'm choosing to read this as another attempt to pave the way for new fans, a kind of whirlwind tour of relevant lore (and mechanics) reaching back into the '90s. That should give both rookies and veterans good reason to be excited, as future games are free to reintroduce legacy concepts. Three Houses let us newbies study up on what makes this series great, and in its innovations to tailor the series to the Nintendo Switch, it was a masterclass.

Nintendo's 澳洲幸运5开奖号码历史查询:upcoming Switch 2 games have a Fire Emblem-shaped hole, bu꧂t there are plenty of goodies on there to look forward to

Might and Magic Fates is a fre🅷e-to-play game that'll be arriving on mobile platforms "soon," according to , as well as PC later down the line. It'll allow players to build decks and battle in "fast-paced matches," and include "hundreds of cards to collect."

With "deep strategic gameplay" and "faction-based playstyles," Ubisoft claims that it's "designed to offer a competitive experience where victory is earned thro♔ugh skill, not spending." You might begin to raise an eyebrow when it explains the trading functionality, however, which is "handled through an external marketplace powered by Immutable's technology that will enable and secure these exchanges."

Further expanding on this in a , it's explained tಌhat this is an "optional Web3 layer that unlocks digital ownership for players who want it," allowing playꩵers to "freely trade your cards using the Immutable blockchain."

Both here and in the game announcement post, it's reiterated that the feat𝔉ure is "entirely optional and offers no competitive advantage," with the FAQ noꦜting: "You can enjoy the full experience, grow your collection, and compete at the highest level without ever engaging with the Web3 features. The choice is entirely yours."

Even so, it's hard to imagine that everyone will be thrilled about this. Blockchain technology is widely criticized for its impact on the environment – while some blockchain systems generate less carbon emissions than others, others require a lot of electricity, and therefore loads of energy. It's a large part of the reason why NFTs (non-fungible tokens) are so controversial.

This isn't Ubisoft's first rodeo using blockchain technology. Back in 2021, it announced Ubisoft Quartz, a platform allowing players to get NFTs that are playable in AAA games. Beyond☂ that, last year it released its first blockchain game, a PvP tactical RPG called Champions Tactics: Grimoria Chronicles.

The good news is that if Might and Magic Fates isn't your jam, the franchise was already set to make a comeback in the form of 澳洲幸运5开奖号码历史查询:Heroes of Might and Magic: Olden Era – a turn-based str⛄ategy prequel that's set to launch in early access on PC at some point this year. There's no release date for that just yet, but i🌞ts Steam page says it's eyeing Q2 2025.

Be sure to keep up with our roundup of 澳洲幸运5开奖号码历史查询:upcoming Ubisoft games to see what else the company is working on.

Fire Emblem: The Sacred Stones first released in 2004൲, and while it's the eighth installment in the tactical RPG series, it was only the second one to be released outside of Japan. It's a fan favorite to this day, with a likeable cast of characters including the two blue-haired protagonists, royal twins Eirika and Ephraim, and as one of the more forgiving Fire Emblem titles, it's one of the best games for beginners to the series. However, it's become very difficult to play via official means.

Back in 2011, The Sacred Stones was offered for free as part of the 3DS Ambassador Program, for anyone who bought a 3DS in its first few🐻 months before its price drop, but wasn't made widely available until 2014 (or 2015 outside of Japan) when it arrived on the Wii U as a Virtual Console release.

Any early 3DS owners or those who grabbed the game on Wii U before the 澳洲幸运5开奖号码历史查询:eShop shut down at the end of March 2023 are still able to play it on their respective previous-gen consoles, of course. However, if you missed out, then unless y🔯ou're willing to jump onto eBay to grab a copy (which, as you'd expect, is getting increasingly more expensive, especially when boxed), you're probably out of luck. Orꦜ at least, that was the case before today.

As a Game Boy Advance game, Fire Emblem: The Sacred Stones is only available via the more expensive, eℱxpanded version of Nintendo Switch Online, which also includes Nintendo 64 and Sega Genesis games. Even so, it's a welcome alternative compared to, well, pretty much no other official ways to play.

For more games like Fire Emblem, be sure to check out our roundups of the 澳洲幸运5开奖号码历史查询:best RPGs and 澳洲幸运5开奖号码历史查询:best strategy games.

Star Wars Zero Co🐽mpany is unlike any other Star Wars game, though. Made by Respawn and Bit Reactor (a new studio from former XCOM devs), it's a single-player turn-based tactics game with a bit of Fire Emblem flavor in the sense that you can bond with your crew and build up their interpersonal relation🍌ships to then gain an edge in combat, naturally.

Despite being set during the prequel's Clone Wars, though, Zero Company is pulling from almost every era of the Star Wars universe. Speaking during a Star Wars Celebration Japan panel, Bit Reactor CEO and game director Greg Foertsch said the team is "inspired by the political intrigue of Andor, the gritty battlefield pers🍰pective of Rogue One, and, of course, the mythic pulp adventure of the original trilogy."

"We love how all of those stories respect the intelligence and attention of the Star Wars aud💙ience and we do the same," he continued. "None of th𓃲e characters in Zero Company are flawless or immune to a fatal cast of blaster poisoning."

"You know, we have never shied away from showing how complicated this conflict was, all the shades of gray, but I really think Zero Company is going to be one of the first time that players actually get to go hands-on with that,🦂" Lucasfilm♏ creative executive Kelsey Sharpe added.

Star Wars Celebration also bought news of an animated series starring none other than Darth Maul, while Anakin Skywalker is returning in Ahsoka Season 2.

Lucasfilm Games, Respawn (Titanfall, Star Wars Jedi, Apex Legends), and Bit Reactor (a new developer made up of Firaxis veterans) spilled the beans on their joint 澳洲幸运5开奖号码历史查询:upcoming Star Wars game, set to launch on PC, PS5, and Xbox Series X|S some🌞time in 2026.

The strategy spin-off was 澳洲幸运5开奖号码历史查询:announced slightly early this week with nothing other than key art hinting ꦬthat it's set during the Clone Wars era of the Star Wars ꩲtimeline. We now know that all of those references were leading us the right way: Star Wars Zero Company does, in fact, take place during the twilight of the Clone Wars, meaning you can look forward to lotsa droids, possible Jedi-cide, and hopefully prequel-tinged jokes.

Star Wars๊ Zero Company follows a former Republic officer called Hawks, who commands an "unconventional outfit of professionals for hire hailing from across the galaxy" to take out a mysterious threat that'll "consume the galaxy if left unc🌄hecked," according to a press release.

What that cataclysmic threat could be is anyone's guess, but, honestly, it'♔s the titular gang of misfits that makes Zero Company s🐈uch an attractive proposition.

Our main man's appearance and class can b▨e fully customized, while recruited operatives can be "perso𓆏nalized" somewhat with their own loadouts, abilities, and archetypes, including Star Wars classics, such as Clone Troopers, astromechs, and even endangered Jedi who can join your squad.

What's even more exciting is that Zero Company seems to be letting you dive deeper into your party's relationships tha🐬n most tactics games, with mayb💎e even a little bit of flavor borrowed from Fire Emblem or Marvel's Midnight Suns.

Between campaign missions, you'll be zipping back to yꦛour base of operations to get "to know a cast of newly authored Star Wars characters." And while you're out in the field, your squadmates can "forge bonds between them to unlock powerful combat synergies" - seemingly not too different to how Fire Emblem characters level up their relationship when you pair them up to🦩gether.

Elsewhere at Star Wars Celebration 2025, Lucasfilm announced an animated Star Wars show focused entirely on Darth Maul.

There's not ♋much detail in , which simply includes the title, a piece of art showing six characters, and the promise that this is "a single-player turn-based tactics game."

The artwork shows a clone trooper and a Mandalorian warrior, suggesting that the game will take place during the Clone Wars era of the 澳洲幸运5开奖号码历史查询:Star Wars timeline.

The art also features an astromech droid, a lightsaber-wielding alien Jedi, a human (or human-like) character in a sealed space suit, and a mustached man viewing a hologram image of a battle droid, f🐭urther suggesting a Clone Wars setting.

A "world-exclusive first look" at Zero Company will happen as part of an April 19 panel at Star Wars Celebration, featuring Lucasfilm Games, Respawn, and BitReactor. Celebration will also bring us a reve💞al for the second DLC pack coming to Star Wars Outlaws.

A collaboration on a Star Wars strategy game between Respawꦑn and BitReactor was announced way back in 2022, but it was only in 2024 that it became clear the title would be a turn-based tactics game building on the strength of its developers' experience making XCOM.

These are the 澳洲幸运5开奖号码历史查询:best Star Wars games you can play today.

"There's a long history of successful narrative systems in strategy games, particularly when they're tied pretty closely to the game's mechanics," Civ 7's narrative directoღr Cat Manning explained in a panel at the Game Developer's Conference. "So, games like FTL [Faster Than Light] have experimented with this. That was a huge touch point for us. There's also games like Paradox games, Amplitude, Battletech, and Warhammer Chaos. Warhammer 40k: Chaos Gate was a huge touch point as we were beginning to talk about what the system could look like."

Manning explains that "the way all of Civ's basic systems run is th༺at the game sends signals to other parts of the game" and "it's just kind of this constant back and forth." "If you purchase, say, a unit with gold, you might immediately get a narrative event tied to that unit," she continued. "And that's because the system is just always in the backgro꧋und listening."

But the decision to throw out Civ 6's Gossip System in favor of something totally new was made because Gossip often clutte𓆏red players' screens with redundant information and pop-ups🃏 you could just as easily figure out from the rest of the game.

As mixed Steam reviews pile up, Civilization 7 devs say updates are on the way as they hold themselves "to a high standard and always strive to create the best game possible"

During at GDC 2025 attend🌌ed by GamesRadar+, Whalen admitted that most games hit players "with mechanics like daily quests, progression loops, and deep meta systems" in combination with events and limited-time content in order to "improve engagement frequency and reduce churn," but over time this causes the overall audience to shrink, "coalescing around their most core players."

"But what if we wanted a game that lasted forever?" he posited. "We can't rely solely on acquisitio𓃲n, or we'll run out of players. We have to realistically assume that players are going to churn – there are only so many hours in the day for them to engage. So that only really leaves one option, which naturally leads to the question, what if we went all-in on reacquisition?

"And that's the heart of cyclical reeng꧋agement. It's a strategy around planning 🅺for players to churn, and going all in on creating big moments for them to come back."

Churn it down (and up)

Saying that is fine and dandy, but actually designing around this philosophy isn't particularly simple. There still needs to be big moments, and players need "to have a great time" upon return. It also requires that the team "be in lockstep with publishing" because "it doesn't matter if you've got the best content in the 💫world if nobody knows about it."

Actually accomplishing this "means avoiding the sigh of relief," according to Whalen, because "you need your players to leave happy." He pointed to the kinds of games that prioritized retention, which we’ve all played, that felt like a weight off our chests when they were finally deleted.

"Finally, your players have to have fun when they come back," he added. The game needs to be both familiar and novel – "it's a tricky line to walk, and at least for us, it's something that we think about constantly𒊎."

It needs to feel fair with a level playing field ac🐬ross play skill and progression while avo𝓀iding regret.

"Players can't feel bad about the time that they missed❀," Whalen c꧒ontinued. "It means that their account can't be behind, and there can't be cool, limited-time content that they'll never be able to get."

But there's a reason why so many of these design choices are popular. Retention is good, right? And all ♈of this serves to improv൩e monetization, right? That's all still true, but, at least for Teamfight Tactics, short-term metrics do not appear to be the end all, be all.

"Short battle passes, limited daily quests, all cut into how much you can keep players in your ▨ecosystem in the short term, but it can pay off a lot in the long-term," said Whalen.

"For one, it's just more player-focused, and people notice that. It aligns with your incentives really well – as a dev, 🔯you want people in it for the long haul, and that means making choices that build player trust, rather than spending it."

If you're not currently playing Teamfight Tactics or are simply looking for something similar, be sure to check out our ranking of the 澳洲幸运5开奖号码历史查询:best strategy games.

For context, Square Enix tried to revive its somewhat dormant mecha-strategy series when it announced Front Mission 2089 inꦗ collaboration with developer BlackJack Studios. That project was scrapped that same year, but BlackJack instead made another mech-based strategy game called Mecharashi, which came out in some markets last year and was due to be released worldwide sometime soon.

Square Enix 💝then recently filed a lawsuit against both th𒊎e developer and publisher of Mecharashi, c♐laiming that BlackJack used assets from Front Mission 2089's production in the new game. Essentially, even though BlackJack might have made all the mechs and maps and textures in Mecharashi, Square argued that they're still stolen because they were made under the publisher's contract while working oౠn an IP under its ownership.

Mecharashi publisher HK Ten Tree has now the lawsuit, explaining it wants to "resolve this matter amicably" and is sorry "for any concern and inconveni🌃ence caused to our users." (Good spot, .)

Some , Mecharashi is still lis♓ted as 'Coming Soon' and the developer was promoting it via onliಞne blogs as recently as March 17.

Here are some of the 澳洲幸运5开奖号码历史查询:best strategy games you can play while you wait for the legal kerfuffle to end.

Square Enix had been trying to revive its mech-stuffed series for years when it announced Front Mission 2089: Borderscape in collaboration with BlackJack Studio in 2022, months before cancelling the project for unknown reasons. Years later, in October 2024, that same studio released Mecharashi in China and Japan, a very similar sounding turn-based tactics game featuring - you guessed it - lots of mechs.

Square Enix is now claiming that Mecharashi was developed using copyrighted materials BlackJack Studio had already made for th🐠e now-cancelled Front Mission 2089, while on Square Enix's payroll, in a lawsuit filed earlier this month in the US. The Final Fantasy publisher is now pushing for the courts to stop the game from releasing in the US unt💮il it removes all "protected content" attached to Front Mission, which is allegedly most of it, in addition to $150,000 per copyright infringement. (Good spot, .)

The lawsu🥃it also includes 11 whole pages full of screenshots comparing Front Mis🅘sion 2089's trailer to stills from Mecharashi. Squeenix managed to find similarities in everything from cutscenes and mech designs to generic top-down, grid-based gameplay.

BlackJack itself didn't s🌌hy away from comparisons while hyping up its game, either. "The game adopts a Front Mission-style combat system where you can assemble mechas however you want, equip a wide selection of weapons, and cho💧ose your favorite pilots to engage in battle," boasts, alongside a vague 'Coming Soon' release date.

Mecharashi might not release until all the legal dust settles, so why not check out some other 澳洲幸运5开奖号码历史查询:new games releasing in 2025 and beyond.

Speaking to Edge Magazine in its latest issue, out now, game director Paul Fisch reveals the team "did have a giant cyborg" at one point in development, "like a titan unit" that would "march around and move soldiers out of the way." But after playing around with the idea, "we discovered that was too much. It 𝄹was immersion breaking. Ultimately, it broke the fantasඣy."

At its heart, Kingmakers is actually a strategy game. Sure, you can zoom in and give your medieval enemies a taste of the future first-hand, but you can just as easily zoom out and command the battlefield top-down. "It's l𓆉ike a hybrid strategy game," Fisch explains. "If you give a guy an assault rifle, when he starts fighting thousands of people, he's surrounded and shut down. You actually need to build a town and cultivate an army and have generals."

Interestingly, over time, your foes will begin to recognize 🌺and react to your unfamiliar tech: "The people in the past start counter-balancing. You're this force on the battlefield that they reꦰcognise, and they start fielding things to try to stop you."

Kin🍃gmakers is scheduled to enter early access on sometime this year.

For now, check out some other 澳洲幸运5开奖号码历史查询:upcoming indie games of 2025 and beyond that are worth keeping an eye on.

Version 51.06 went live this week, and among other things, it "decreased 💙prepared food item value." In other words, the meals created by dwarven chefs no longer fetch quite as much money as they used to. "We also apologize for destroying your food-based economies in this update," publisher Kitfox Games, which🧜 helped bring the graphical version of Dwarf Fortress to Steam, . "Didn't realize so many of you were living that way."

There are a few people disappointed with the newly cheapened food in the on the patch notes, but broadly it seems the community thinks this is a good change. The value of a prepared meal is based on the value of the individual ingredients and the quality of its preparation, and these factors can co꧙mpound into some genuꦿinely ridiculous food prices. The Dwarf Fortress subreddit is filled with anecdotes about things like a pile of roasted vegetables accounting for , or a single crocodile egg roast .

Some players have been to meal prices for some time. Many hardcore Dwarf🐠 Fortress fans had sworn off selling meals altogether, considering a game-breaking exploit that ruins the challenge of earning money. The long-term ramifications of this nerf remain to be seen, but hopefully, it'll get entrepreneurial dwarves back where they belong: in the mines, not the k🍸itchens.

These are the 澳洲幸运5开奖号码历史查询:best strategy games you can play in 2025.

Withoutဣ Curran's contributions, the turn-based strategy Civilization games would not be able to offer these kinds of irresistible daydreams – visions of divine justice, i🎐n my case, or just the feeling that you can change the world. It was kismet that Curran got the opportunity to work on Civ, too. He was doing sound design in theater when a friend began working at Firaxis, giving him the opportunity to do a three-month contract for Civilization 3: Conquests – the game's second expansion, released in 2003. After his contract expired, Curran was hired.

"That's how I got in," 🦄Curran says. "I knew a guy."

Rome wasn't built in a day

"The company culture was great," Curran 🍸says about his early days at Firaxis. "We were an independent studio. I think I was the 40th employee." When 2k Games bought the Civ developer and its IP, Curran says the tone of working there "changed a bit," but he was soon able to move to a lead position, allowing him to write "a lot" of music for Civilization 5 and work on its sound design.

When composing for turn-based strategy games, Curran recognizes that "music kind of acts as background," but also t𓆏hat "there's a lot of music required for these games, because people p🌞lay for hours and hours and hours, game after game."

Ultimately, 🔯the goal is to feature enough musical variation that a player doesn't decide to cut the sound and listen to bulldozers outside their window instead. Civilization 5 – which some fans still consider to have soundtracks in the 34-year old franchise's history – uses live orchestra to help captivate their attention. In fact, Civilization 5 is the first Firaxis game to use live orchestra in its soundtrack, a mission Curran spearheaded.

Though Curran "didn't really expect" 2k to allow for a live orchestra, the publisher's AAA budget and experience in recording live music helped make it happen. Now, live recordings are industry standard across both major and indie studios. That musical shift was largely independent of Civi💯lization 5, but the series has ওcontinued to dominate the realm of turn-based strategy. "Everybody's in competition with Civ," Curran says.

"Civilization has such a fan base," h🌸e adds. "There's forums, websites, Civ fanatics, and it's amazing what they will com✤e up with. They're very smart. And I guess they have a lot of time on their hands, because they find out things that you're like… 'God, how do you have time to know all this?'"

Curran eventually left developer F🔯iraxis to join former employees' studio Oxide Games, where he acted as audio director and composed the music for 4x title before being impacted by layoff꧙s under Xbox.

After the fall

Curran knows firsthand that, like any empire, the g🀅aming industry is ﷽"volatile."

"I think more now than🍬 it has been," he says. "I've been in it for like, 23 years, and there are layoffs. They happen pretty frequently. I've only been with three companies since I started in video games, so I consider myself fort𒅌unate."

"It seems like these big budget games are getting harder and harder to make," Curran continues, "especially with new IP." Even Civilization 7, which launched recently to 澳洲幸运5开奖号码历史查询:middling reviews from fans, experienced the knife-twist of the unfriendly, contemporary gaming industry. (We appreciated the game's innovations in our own 澳洲幸运5开奖号码历史查询:Civilization 7 review).

Curran acknowledges Ara's lackluster debut, too, though he hopes the 2024 title will find its own group of passionate fans eventually. Either way, Curran stands by the fact that he tried mak♈ing its music as revolutionary as possible.

"We wanted to be about the player," Curran says about composing for Ara, "so we made themes that supported the player's experience." The p🍰hysicality of a player's experience during a 4x, turn-based strategy game is relatively limited – instead of doing backflips or punching goddesses in the head, you're clicking, zooming in and out, and so on. But that didn't stop Curran from making Ara's music dynamic; as in-game societies inevitably changed, so did their sounds. Different music plays if you're "doing really well," locked in a bitter war, or enjoying peace.

"The thing that made it unique," Curran says, is how "we used the game notification system to apply weights to a particular theme. In turn-based strategy games, you end a turn or start a new turn, and all kinds of things pop up as notifications that [something] happened" Which of the game's 11 themes play rely on what notifications 🍒you receive, for example, and whic𒁃h of 12 music variations you hear depend on what period of history you're in.

"I think we made, for the genre, pretty huge advances," Curran says about Ara. But that's always his goal in composinꦗg for turn-based strategy. "Every time I do a new꧅ one of these games, I'm like, 'Well, what can I do that I haven't done before?'"

This self-assured need to grow – to conquer! – seems to call all the way back to Curran's work on Civ 5, 15 years ago. "We had a lot of faith in what we were doing," Curran recalls. "There was 🍸always a w﷽aiting audience for the next Civilization."

Civilization 7 launched with 3 new Ages, but data miners think we could be getting a fourth.

How to heal units in Civ 7

There are two ways to heal units in Civ 7, and luckily both methods don’t really require you to do anything. If you find any of your military or civilian units are low on health, you can heal them with the Skip Turn or Heal optio⛦ns.

• Skip Turn: This unit does not make any moves during this turn, but replenishes a small portion of their health. You can repeat this in the following turns if you still want them to recover more health
• Heal: This unit will rest until they’re fully healed, making it more passive than Skip Turn as you won’t be prompted to give them a new command until they’re fully healed or you cancel the action. Units who are currently healing will be represented by a few tents on the tile they’re currently placed

Both of these options are ♕found in the toolbar on the bottom-right corner of the screen. Skip Turn is found directly below the unit’s name, but you’ll have to select the arrow to reveal some hidden options to find the Heal option. We’ve found that using Heal will bring them to full HP faster, but Skip Turn gives you a bit of extra awareness since the game wo♓n’t skip over them on each turn.

While both options have their uses, we recommend using Skip Turn to heal iܫf your units are vulnerable. This means you won’t be caught by surprise if an enemy faction rushes you, and you’ll be able to either fend them off or retreat. Basically, using Heal is only preferable if you’re not🍰 expecting to use these units in the next 5 or so turns.

There are also a couple of other factors to consider. Units will heal faster in friendly territory, so be sure to move any units which are low o🍎n health within your borders or the border of a City State you owꦍn, if you’re close enough. You can also increase the rate at which you heal by grabbing the God of Healing Pantheon, which increases healing for units on rural tiles by +5.

© GamesRadar+. Not to be reproduced without permission.

Once you meet another 澳洲幸运5开奖号码历史查询:Civilization 7 leader, you’ll be able to enter the diplomacy screen by selecting the leader portraits in the top right of the screen, which allows you to see everything about your relationship with them. On this pop-up, you’ll find possible actions to take෴ that might improve or damage your relations. You can perform these actions by spending a new type of currency called Influence, so let's take a closer look at diplomacy in Civ 7.

How to use Influence in Civ 7 diplomacy

Influence is a new yield introduced in Civilization 7. Similar to Gold, you gain Influence at the end of each turn, and can use🎶 your policies, production, and research to increase the amount of you gain. Influence can then be spent on certain actions in the diplomacy screen. There are four kinds of diplomacy actions you can take:

• Endeavors: Mutually beneficial actions between both nations, such as providing aid or bolstering their armies with support
• Sanctions: Negative actions against the leader’s empire, like denouncing them or reducing happiness among their population
• Treaties: Agreements between both nations, such as opening borders or improving trade relations
• Espionage: Sabotaging another nation with a chance of being caught. If caught, you’ll suffer a small penalty to Influence and damage your relationship with the targeted nation

You’ll need more than just the right amount of Influence points though, because the other nation must accept it if you want it to go ahead. Action📖ing an Endeavor will give them a chance to respond, either by supporting it, accepting it, or rejecting it. Similarly, Sanctions also have the option to Accept or Reject. Supporting a diplomatic action results in major benefits for both nat🎐ions at the cost of Influence. Choosing Accept is free but results in smaller benefits. If the target nation chooses Reject, they must spend Influence to cancel it.

Because of how dramatically Influence can change your relationships with other nations, we recomm🌠end not using your Influence all at once. You’ll w𒈔ant to keep some banked in case you need it unexpectedly. For example, Influence is incredibly useful for War Support, so you’ll be better off having a lot of Influence saved up just before you go to war.

How to use Espionage in Civ 7 diplomacy

Espionage works a little diff꧂erently to the other diplomatic actions, with the action taking a random number of turns to complete at the cost of Influe🀅nce. At the end, you’ll receive a reward if the mission was completed successfully. Once you’ve initiated an Espionage action, the target nation isn’t informed. However, there is a chance that your Espionage actions can be revealed to them later on. In this case, you’ll receive a penalty to the amount of Influence you receive per turn, and your relationship with this empire will be damaged.

Every player also has the ability to use the Counterspy against another leader. This will cause the average time for their Espionage actions to triple, and decrease how successful the mission is for them. Of course, if engaging in Espionage, keep your eye carefully on your own Influence. If the 🧔number appears to be dropping rapidly, it could mean another player is using Counterspy.

How to befr🍸iend Independent Powers in Civ 7 diplomacy

While each Civ 7 game has you playing diplomacy with other major leaders, there are also several smaller nations for you to befriend or defeat called Independent Powers. These powers typically consist of one City State and several units wandering the map. Independent Powers can either be Frien𒆙dly or Hostile to you, but you can take control of their city regardless of their opinion.

To befriend an Independent Power, approach their city and choose the option to “Befriend Independent”. This will require spending Influence to kickstart the process. Once this process begins, you’ll need to wait a number of turns until you become a Suzerain of that City State and can gain benefits from it. For example, you’ll be able to set up a 澳洲幸运5开奖号码历史查询:Civ 7 trade route between this City State and your empire.

Beware of other civs that may also want tꦅo befriend an Independent Power. A City State can have multiple players claiming suzerain at the same time,🧔 but only one nation can gain the title. You can spend Influence to speed up the process if you want to outpace other leaders.

© GamesRadar+. Not to be reproduced without permission.

How to get merchants in Civ 7

Merchants in Civ 7 can be trained after researching a specific civic or technology. Once you reach a new age, you’ll lose the ability to train merchants aඣnd will need to unlock them again by researching a different bonus. Here is what you need to unlock in order to train merchants:

• Antiquity Age: Research Mysticism and Discipline in the Civic Tree, then research Code of Laws
• Exploration Age: Research Economics in the Civic Tree
• Modern Age: Research Steam Engine in the Tech Tree

Once you have unlocked merchants, you will be able toꦇ train the📖m. Merchants can be trained as part of your city’s production, or bought with gold at any city or town.

How to set up trade routes in Civ 7

We recommend finding another settlement to trade with first, before you train a merchant. You’l🍬l be able to set them up in another leader’s town or city, so take a look around the map and find a suitable place to send them. You can also trade with Independent Powers, however you need to be a suzerain of their city state in order to set up a trade route. Once you’ve discovered a few possible settlements to trade with, select one of your cities or towns and train a merchant.

Once you have a merchant, you’l💝l notice a toolbar pop up on the side of the screen when you select them, showing all the possible settlements you can trade with and the resources you can get from them. This is handy if y💟ou’re unsure where to send them, as you’ll be to click on them to jump to the settlement.

You 💦can’t set up a trade route until the merchant has gone to the city or town, so once you’ve settled on where to send them, move the merchants to the location. It’ll probably take a few turns depending on how far the town or city is from yours. Once they arrive, you’ll get a prompt to allow them to set up a trade route.

How trade works in Civ 7

Once you’ve set up a trade route with another settlement, your merchant will follow a road back to your settlement with a share of🌟 their resources. The other leader will receive gold as a result, and can send their own merchants on the same path to you, ensuring a mutually beneficial agreement.

On the next turn after each successful trade, a screen will pop up showing which resources the settlement is offering up for trade. From this screen, you can allocate the resources for your merchant to take back to one of your towns or cities. Resources come in three types: Empire Resources (they go to your whole empire), City Resources (they can only go to a cit🎃y), and Bonus Resources (they can go to either a City or Town).

The number of trade routes you can have depends heavily on your relationship with the other leader. If you’d like to increase your trading potential, you need to head over to the 澳洲幸运5开奖号码历史查询:Civ 7 diplomacy screen and use the action Improve Trade Relations. Both parties will need to agree to this, so if the other leader doesn’ꦛt like you enough then they may not agree to these terms. So, it’s best to keep on their good side.

While the Civ 7 trade system💧 is designed to be as low maintenance as possible to reduce micromanaging, it’s still worth keeping an eye on your trade r🧜outes. You won’t need to continuously train merchants to keep up the flow, but they can be targeted by enemy forces. Consider moving a few military units along these roads to act as guards, should that happen.

© GamesRadar+. Not to be reproduced without permission.

1. Begin on Scribe difficulty

Civilization 7 dramatically changes up the 4X gameplay formula, to the point that even returning players may not be used to the new systems introduced. As such, we recom𓂃mend turning the difficulty down to Scribe, the lowest of Civ 7’s six difficulty levels.

This will allow you to learn the game from the ground up at a leisurely pace. With the Scribe diffi♏culty active, other leaders are less likely to stomp all ove🍌r you, and you’ll be able to learn each of these new and returning systems without the fear of that looming over your head.

Once you’ve got to grips with how the game works and the best ways to progress through a standard ga♌me, you’ll be better off moving up to higher diꦐfficulties for added challenge.

2. Start by building scouts

As early as the first 10 turns, you should prioritize traininꦇg a few scout units to explore the surrounding terrain. Building a scout will allow them to get the layꩵ of the land and help you find good resource tiles along with other factions while you’re still setting up your main city.

Scouts can move two til🌠es per turn, and have a higher field of view when compared to other units you can create at this point. Therefore, they’re incredibly useful for exploring the world map and finding areas you’ll want to expand into.

The maᩚᩚᩚᩚᩚᩚ⁤⁤⁤⁤ᩚ⁤⁤⁤⁤ᩚ⁤⁤⁤⁤ᩚ𒀱ᩚᩚᩚin thing to beware of is th🌄at scouts aren’t fighters, so if a hostile enemy decides to attack your scout unit, you’ll risk losing them altogether.

3. Be aware of surrounding terrain

When using your scouts to explore the teওrrain around your city, now’s a good time to take note of what resource tiles are available to you and plan accordingly. When it comes to expanding your starting city (or building new towns), it’s important to pick up technologies that take advantage of the resources available to you.

For example, if your first city is loca♎ted near a lot of food tiles, research technologies that will improve your yield from food. This will help your city grow massively in the early game, allowing you to expand quickly.

The same goes for other types of resources. So, if you’re settled near a lot of production tiles, prioritize technoloꦐgies that will take advantage o♑f that.

4. Expand early and quickly

Being aware of nearby resources is important, but you know what else is important? Being aware of what isn’t near your city. If there’s a specific resource you need which isn’t as readily available, yo𝐆u’ll have to expand by creating towns.

The best thing about having towns is that they’re a major boon to resource stockpiles. Ideally, you’ll want to settle at least two additional towns by the time you reach around Turn 50. We recommend placing them on the same continent as your city, but on opposing coasts. This comes in handy during the Exploration Age later on, when you need to vent🥃ure further outside of the starting 🌌area.

There’s no downside to settling more towns, as long as you make sure you stay under 𝄹the settlement limit. If you go over by settling too many towns, you’ll receive a penalty.

5. Choose a Legacy Path early

Civ 7’s Legacy Paths are the conditions you need to follow in order to achieve victory. There💦 are four routes to victory: Economy, Military, Culture, and Science. However, this is not just a case of following one route from the first turn to the final turn, as each age has its own co⛎nditions to achieve.

There are three distinct ages a Civ 7 game will play through: Antiquity, Ex🐓ploration, and Modern. Legacy Paths will give you a set of objectives to achieve in each age, and accomplishing them will influence your play in the following age.

Sometimes it’s best to stick to one Legacy Path throughout all three ages, but depending on your leader and civilization, it may also be beneficial to switch them up mid-game. We recommen♔d experimenting with the best leader anཧd civilization combinations and how they influence the Legacy Paths.

6. Use your Influence points

As you meet other leaders, you’ll gain Influence points which allow you to strengthen or weaken how favorably other civilizations think of you. If you’re aiming for a more diplomatic victory, it’s wise to use your Influence points to keep these leaders happy. We’ve found that using Influence for 澳洲幸运5开奖号码历史查询:Civ 7 diplomacy that’s mutually benef💯icial for both civs is the best route to avoiding confl🐭ict.

Similarly, you’ll also encounter independent factions as your scouts move around th💦e map. Spending influence points will allow you to befriend them and become part of your civili♐zation. This brings new bonuses and will help you grow your empire.

7. Military is important, even for peaceful players

Generally speaking, the AI in Civilization 7 is quite agg🎉ressive in our experience. Even if you’re pursuing a peaceful playthrough, it’s wise to amass a large army if only for self-defence. Particularly in the Antiquity Age, you’ll certainly run into some hostile independent cities that can become a problem for you if you don’t have a strong military presence.

Commanders, a new addition to Civ 7, are also great to have. You can use them ꧒to stack𝔉 multiple units on one tile, allowing them to move as a group. It’ll also make them much stronger when it comes to fighting with a hostile enemy.

8. Be prepared for disasters

It helps to be prepared when faced with a crisis. This could mean an ally potentially turning on you, or a natural disaster destroyinღg a portion of your settlements and units. At any time, your city could be upturned by a blizzard, a volcanic eruption, a flood, or something else entirely. Should this happen, you’ll need to use your resources to rebuild any tiles affect✃ed by the disaster.

On the other hand, once the Age progresses to around 60%, every leader will be hit with a crisis toꦡ deal with. This will appear in the Government screen, where yꦗou’ll be required to pick up a social policy which brings some kind of debuff to your progress. As the age continues to edge towards completion, this crisis will worsen, so make sure you’re prepared to deal with it.

And those are the best Civ 7 tips we can offer tꦯo help you start out.

© GamesRadar+. Not to be reproduced without permission.

In Civilization 7, a new system has replaced the previous Eras of the game. In Civilization 6, there was both a World Era and an Individual Era, with the former being the med﷽ian ♌of all civilizations in play.

Now, instead of everyone progressing at their own pace by researching technology and civics, when one Age is completed, all players and opponents level up to the next one at the same time. Currently, you can play through three Ages: Antiquity, Exploration, and Modern, and then the game ends just before the Cold War properly kicks off. The game currently has澳洲幸运5开奖号码历史查询: mixed reviews on Steam, and the d♔evs have said they'll keep working to improve it.

As spotted by , a supposedly discovered that a fourth age is on the way: Atomic. The devs themselves have also🧔 teased more Ages, so this could be legitimate. In an interview with IGN, Civilization 7 executive producer Dennis Shirk says: "You can imagine the possibilities with this, honestly. The way that the design team set it up so that each age is chockfull of systems, visuals, units, Civs, all specific to that age, and what you could do with that and where you could take it… we can't talk about the specifics. We can just talk about it in ge🍌neralities. We're excited for where this is going to go."

An Atomic age would likely go from the Cold War all the way to the current day, but it could go even further and throw in some sci-fi such as space travel or strange new nucle🔯༒ar weapons. The possibilities are endless, and it opens the game up for future Ages that speculate on what the years to come could hold.

While you wait, check out all the other 澳洲幸运5开奖号码历史查询:best strategy games you can try right now.

Project Arc is now called PUBG: Blindspot, a name which was chosen to reference the shooter's "core gameplay ele꧂ments" as well as design philosophy. Namely, players use "real-time shared vision" with their teammates, so what you can (and can't) see will play a lar🍸ge part in your strategies.

The Steam demo is set to go live on February 20 at 8pm PT (that's 11pm ET, or February 21 at 4am GMT), allowing us to get our hands on 10 different playable characters – each complete with unique weapons and "spe🍃cial tools" at their disposal. In total, there'll be seven different maps to try out – three of those are team deathmatch maps, while the other four are demolition mission maps. You can take a look at a demolition mission in action in the latest trailer below to get a flavor of what's to come.

GamesRadar+'s Andrew Brown had the chance to go hands-on with PUBG: Blindspot last year (when it was still known as Project Arc), and had some very positive things to say about it, although noted that the deathmatch mode was "absolute carnage," and didn't leave quite as good an impression as the 澳洲幸运5开奖号码历史查询:Rainbow Six Siege-like standard mode. "Its top-down perspective emphasizes the strategic thinking that draws me to games like 澳洲幸运5开奖号码历史查询:Counter-Strike in the f💯irst place, with less weight on quick reaction speeds and accuracy," he wrote about the latter.

It🦋's not long now until everyone is able to try PUBG: Blindspot out for themselves, anyway. There's s꧋till no word on the full game's release date, so be sure to make the most of the upcoming demo.

For more games that'll give your brain a workout, be sure to check out our roundup of the 澳洲幸运5开奖号码历史查询:best strategy games.

Acknowledging the game's 澳洲幸运5开奖号码历史查询:mixed feedback on in a new Firaxis says players' voices aren't going unheard. "Over the last few days, the team has been poring over your feedback, including our most recent Steam reviews during 🐼the Early Access period," writes the studio. "As stewards of the Civilization franchise, we hold o🐈urselves to a high standard and always strive to create the best game possible."

The🅰 devs continue, stating that "Civ would not have come this far without you, and your opinions matter greatly to us." In response to fans' recent feedback, Firaxis reveals it has "identified three key areas that we're prioritizing work against as quickly as possible." The team is also working on a roadmap, but the "three key areas" described seem to cover most Steam users' complaints – from the UI to better multiplayer.

UI improvements are Firaxis' "top priority," with the studio assuring fans it's "committed to getting this right." Current fixes addressing UI problems include "making UI interactions more intuitive, im🗹proving map readability, fixing areas of polish like formatting, and more." The devs are also looking into "implementing commun⛦ity-requested features" elsewhere, namely in multiplayer with co-op teams and hotseat support.

Alongside these tweaks, a wider variety of map types, quality-of-life changes, and better customization are coming, with Firaxis saying work is "already well underway on Patch 1.1.0" – an update set to drop sometime in March. Hopefully, updates help see the game's full potential shine through its quirks, as it's certainly there. Our own 澳洲幸运5开奖号码历史查询:Civilization 7 review dubs th𝔍e title "a revolutionary stra💫tegy game that cements the series' legendary status."

Civilization 7 director tweaked diplomacy because the entire design team "ganged up" on him in multiplayer

Yes, there are also complaints about features and gameplay system changes - the exact same kﷺinds of things fans get upset about with every new entry in the Civ series. But I'm not sure I've ever seen a AAA game get beaten down so vociferously and angrily for poor user interface🌱 design.

The issues with the UI won't be immediately apparent if you just spend a few seconds looking at screenshots, but this appears to be a death-by-a-thousand-cuts situation. Necessary information is difficult to access. Menu buttons are placed in awkward locations. There's not enough good feedback when you're making a selection. Crucial readouts sometimes overlap each other. There aren't as many hotkeys as there used to be. Text is sometimes misaligned. The linesꦛ through the tech tree jut out at awkward angles. The list goes on and on and on, so say thousands of players.

, which drew an explanatory response from the devs on Twitter, might be one of the more egregious examples I've seen. "Denounce: accept or reject?" You can certainly draw some context clues from the numbers to guess what this does in-game, but that's a nonsense question that's impossible to parse at a glance. Apparently, in this situation the player is being denounced, but can choose toಌ reject that action. Even in Civ, where the machinations of global politics are being abstracted into a set of numbers, it'd be nice to have a more concrete sense of what's happening.

Civilization 7 currentꦦly has , and even many of the positive reviews note that while the core game might be enjoyable, the interface is a capital-P Problem. The devs at Firaxis have to some of those reviews, noting that "we are aware of and looking ꦛinto feedback on the game's UI."

Here's hoping that if the devs have fixes in mind they come in soon, so we can start judging the game on its strategic merits. In our 澳洲幸运5开奖号码历史查询:Civilization 7 review, Andy notes that "though some tweaks aro💧und diplomacy and Ages fall short, a host of small reinventions – along with Firaxis' biggest gamble in tackling the tedium of long-running campaigns – pays off superbly."

Civilization 7 director tweaked diplomacy because the entire design team "ganged up" on him in multiplayer.

澳洲幸运5开奖号码历史查询:Civilization 7 brings a lot to the table, and not all of it requires abandoning your morality to play with. Fans of the series will find a map thꦉat's livelier than ever, city management that won't overload your brain, and one of the most engaging endgames ever devised. While predecessor Civilization 6 crammed in similar depth without quite managing to convey all of it clearly, Civilization 7 feels like a cohesive next step for the franchise – and when a few quirks are ironed out, this will be the series' best modern iteration to date.

Next turn

Whether you're a returnin𒁏g fan or stepping into Firaxis' iconic 4X (exploration, expansion, exploitation, and extermination) strategy series for the first time, Civilization's core premise remains largely the same. Starting with one settlement, you'll grow your empire across a randomly-generated world with the goal of seizing victory through scientific, cultural, militaristic, or economic means. It's a tried-and-true formula, but Civilization 7 takes a couple of big risks that shake it up creatively.

The first thing you'll notice is that you no longer pick 💜a Civilization and get to work. Instead you choose a leader – who remains with you through an entire campaign – while your Civilization choice changes at several points based on your playstyle and leader's historical background. Rolling with Confuciu🔜s, for example, opens up Ming China as an option, due to his real-world background, but with multiple iron mines in the bag, I could also go Norman.

I was worried this feature would dilute the identity of factions, but that's not the case. Rather than picking a civilization with a unique unit that's obsolete 50 turns in (or one that doesn't turn up for another 2☂00) you now get to pick a total of three civs that are relevant for their entire duration, all with the nifty perks and special units you would expect from past Civ games.

Likewise, I've been dreading how Ages would work since Civilization 7's reveal. Since the '90s, Civilization's whole deal has been unleashing players in a sandbox and letting them do their thing (see: war crimes) uninterrupted. N💞ow, each match is divided into three segments ไ– the opening Antiquity Age, followed by Exploration, and finally Modern.

It's not always a smooth transition, as each Age has a hard stop that resets the board a little. This is particularly frustrating if you're in the middle of something important. In one match, I was cl⛎osing in on the end of a particularly bloody war and within reach of my mortal enemy Amina's capital when the Age shifted from ꩲExploration to Modern, ending our war and warping my soldiers back to my own distant territories. The rancid cherry on top? Some of the no-name civs who were trailing on the leaderboard got a major science boost through the interim, meaning my empire was promptly invaded by landships while its citizens were still marveling at the wonders of the wooden wheel.

That's not an indictment, though. Since then, I've realized that it takes time to learn how Ages work. In previous entries you'd slowly build strength through the course of each game – conquering capital cities, hurtling ꦉtowards space flight,꧋ or hoarding cultural wonders like a well-read toddler – until it all came to a head. In Civilization 7 victory is more measured, and to carry your momentum through to the next Age you need to complete Legacy Paths: a series of win conditions for each individual age, rewarding permanent bonuses. If you want to win through science, for instance, you'll start by rushing to build libraries and academies in Antiquity, prioritize housing specialists in your cities through Exploration, and finally try to be the first civ in space during Modern. Doing so lets you carry powerful perks across Ages, whilst neglecting them is a surefire way to fall behind.

I've got mixed feelings. Legacy Paths and Ages make the early and mid-game feel a lot more dynamic, and freshen up a campaign's later stages. But at times it feels like you're being railroaded into one path – a little jarring, given the freedom of Civ's sandbox approach up to this point. Although I'd like to see more obje💛ctive varieties or pathways through these Legacy Paths, I do think that Ages (even if they're a little heavy-handed) are an improvement to the formula, if only because the💫 endgame is no longer ticking boxes until you reach a surefire win.

I'll stay right here

When all of that clicks, Civilization 7 is a thrill. Outside of the big gambles, the core Civilization experience is lightyears ahead of anything we've seen from the series before. Moving from one turn to the next is near-instantaneous, and besides the world looking sublime with its visual glow-up and warmer palette, it feels livelier than ever. Volcanic ♓eruptions change surrounding tiles, rivers flood, and powerful storms can wreak havoc. I nearly missed out on colonizing a new continent (boo-hoo, I know) because a huge hurricane kicked up as my army was crossing the ocean, gaini🥂ng on their ships as I furiously fear-hammered movement commands to reach the coast.

That liveliness extends to combat's impressive fluidity. Army commanders allow you to stack units and transport them around in-sync, and can order simultaneous attacks that are worth utilizing – having every archer in range fire at once gives each unit involved more combat strength, for example, but you can also command mass pillaging or have everyone construct makeshift fortifications on their tiles.

During my first campaign as Xerxes, a three-way war with my continental neighbors Machiavelli and Himiko drew the attention of meddling outsiders Ben Franklin and Ashoka, World Renouncer. The latter two factions had no settlements in the continent, but decided to wade in anyway, landing masses of tanks and gun-toting infantry on our shores and transforming the countryside into a fiery wreck until I turned the sea into a killing field of my own with a blockade of battleships. I've sunk hundreds of hours into Civilization, but that single conflict is the most fun I've ever had with combat.

All's fair

Commodifying diplomacy is an interesting choice (see Strong Influence). Firaxis꧋ has long tried to play around the fact that AI motivations can be inscrutable, and reducing it to a resource is an inelegant but mostly effective solution. Besides using it to push trade, scientific, and commercial agreements with other civs, Influence can boost your support for a war back home – whichever side of the battle has lower support takes some pretty harsh penalties in combat, so it's important to keep the troops happy. But it's also a step back in some ways, as gold can no longer be used to tantalize other civs into settling wars, and you can't buy or sell settlements.

This is particularly frustrating because razing settlements in war permanently penalizes your war support for every future conflict, which means💯 that since you also can't milk your rival for gold during peace negotiations, you sometimes have to absorb rubbish settlements rather than burn them to the ground. That in itself is another can of worms, as Civilization 7 goes big on expansion. Settlements are now divided into towns and cities, with the former acting as lower-maintenance support hubs for your cities.

All of that, paired simpler iteration of Civilization 6's district system, means juggling your empire is far less of a headache. Because there are fewer penalties to expanding, you (and AI factions) tend to♌ manage significantly more settlements. Finding unclaimed land is now genuinely scrappy, and racing to plant my flag in undeveloped continents has been the highlight of my time in Civilization 7. I've admittedly found myself engaging with the cultural side of Civ less because of it, though, and AI has an irritating habit of squeezing a town right outside of your established borders.

I had no idea what to expect from Civilization 7. Firaxis has a habit of scaring fans by announcing wild choices (hello, 澳洲幸运5开奖号码历史查询:Marvel's Midnight Suns) then pulling them off so slickly you forget there was ever any doubt. Ci✨vilization 7 isn't quite so slick – with its heavy-handed Ages diplomacy rework – but it's certainly a huge stride forward for the legendary strategy series, joining the clarity of Civilization 5 with the added depth of Civi🌳lization 6.

Ages will be more divisive – I personally think t🌟he system does wonders for the usual tedium of late-stage campaigns – while other features, like pairing Leaders with evolving civs, should be a staple going forward. Civilization 7 already feels like the best entry point yet, and with Firaxis' habit of saving the real polish for expansions, I think this is going to become a grand strategy titan. Just keep an eye on that Ben Franklin fella – and don't believe a word he says about any "war crimes".

Civilization 7 was reviewed on PC, with a code provided by the publisher.

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The tidbit comes via PC Gamer Magazine's 405 issue where Civilization 7 director Ed Beach breaks🃏 down some of the sweeping changes coming to the 🥂diplomacy system. In past games, diplomacy between civilizations didn't feel as 'grand' as you might expect - it essentially boiled down to trading resources in exchange for other stuff. In the iconic strategy series' seventh mainline game, things are changing, though. You can sign treaties, join other civs on mutually beneficial initiatives, and spend 'Influence' to move the game in more dynamic ways than before.

"It is a little trickier to stay on the fringes now than it used to be," Beach explains. "And I credit that pretty much to the new mech🌠anical approach and rethink we've had on diplomacy. It used to be diplomacy and multiplayer was sort of a non-event at all. It was just what you could do in terms of inner-talk between the players to try to convince them to help you. But now there's actually levers you can pull using the influence system that actually are actual, true game mechanics that are influencing how a multiplayer game is unfolding."

"I've had multipl꧋ayer games where everyone decided that the war weariness system was overtuned," Beach says about the match that saw his own developers turn on him. "And so as soon as I got into war, my whole design team all ganged up on me and put support to the other player in the way so that I would be crippled by how bad the war weariness was. And yes, I approved some changes to the balance of that afterwa🦋rds." Well, you've gotta make sure that can't happen again, right?

Civilization 7’s director also made some based comments about how each sequel is a massive overhaul because graphical improvements are “not worthy of another chapter.” 

Right now, you can get hold of it for half price, that's just , against the usual $80 for this comprehensive strate🌃gy game. Having released just last year, the game hasn't seen that many drops in price yet. So this is a great opportunity to nab it for a deep discount.

If you're a fellow UK-based caveperson, you can also grab it for just under , so there's no reason for us to miss out on the fun overseas. Appropriately, that's sort of what Doggerland is all about: exploring the the 🌞stretch of land that onceꩲ connected the British Isles to the rest of Europe, back in the days of wooly mammoths and cave paintings.

Should you buy Doggerland?

There's a lot to love about this game that dives deep into the lives of Prehistoric folk, not least the fact that every game of🧸 Doggerland is different. With procedural tile🅘s laid out to be explored, and various goals that change every time you play, there are countless combinations that'll have you pulling Doggerland out of the cupboard time and time again.

The game sees players accumulating points through the seasons by strategising around the limited reso♐urces on the map. You grow your clan, migrate across the m🍃ap hunting wild animals, and uh *checks notes* create megoliths and invoke twin births with the help of your Shaman. Okay, so it's not entirely historically accurate, but a mystical twist never hurt, did it?

As you play, you add to your fresco paintings with great deeds, create tools, as well as statues and necklaces that all add to your point score 🐷depending on the current goals. It's a deep and ever-changing game, Doggerland, and one that I can't wait to get hold of for review myself.

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In a statement over the weekend, Marvel Snap developer Second Dinner acknowledged that the card game had become totally unplayable in the U.S., noting that the outage was "a surprise to us and wasn't planned," but the team was "actively working on getting the game up as s📖oon as possible." While it wasn't confirmed at the time, it seemed likely that the game could have been affected due to the fact that it's published by Nuverse, which is owned by ByteDance – also the parent company of TikTok. Despite the TikTok ban being overturned in a matter of hours, however, Marvel Snap ღremained down for longer, but it's finally back, coming full circle on what feels like a very apt Avengers homage.

"Marvel Snap is back online in the U.S🥀.," a new tweet from Second Dinner reads. "But to make sure this NEVER happens again, we're working to bring more services in-house and partner with a new publisher. This is the start of a new era for Marvel Snap."

The developer acknowledges that "this probably leaves you with even more questions than answers," but promises to "update with more information as soon as possible!" For now, it appears that in-app purchases still aren't working, althougꦰh Second Dinner says, "the team is working on it," and web shop purchases are still fully functional. 

If you're a dedicated Marvel Snap player, the good news is that even before the game came back online, that it was "committed to ensuring that all players are compensated for their lost time" when it comes to the "time-based content, rewards, and Missions" they couldn't access. It's not yet clear how the devs plan to make it up to anyone affected, but rest assured that it's definitely happening in some form or anoth꧅er. 

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By choosing which of Jan's major life choices to alter, these clones bring him face to face with a smorgasbord oꦰf Jans he could have been – the good, the bad, and the ugly. The what if's. He also needs to ensure they cooperate💖. "Our focus was on crafting fully realized characters for players to gradually uncover – learning why each Jan became the person he is. This journey of discovery and relationship-building unfolds throughout the entire game."

Alternate perspectives

The Alters is underpinned by its choice based narrative, feeding directly into its survival and base-building eleme🍷nts. Maintaining these relationships with Jan's Alters won't be a simple affair, with each one carrying their own baggage and idiosyncrasies. "Sometimes, understanding a character means making difficult choices or even going against your instincts. There are moments when you think, 'I know who this guy is,' but as events progress and the bond deepens, you uncover layers you didn't anticipate." You'll encounter roughly "10 unique Alters", but Tomasz teasღes "some surprises" that he doesn't want to spoil just yet. Which Alters you see and how much you learn will also vary between playthroughs. "It was crucial for us to design the game so that [...] players could meet different Alters or gain fresh insights about the ones they thought they already knew."

One of the biggest challenges for 🍨11 Bit Studios was to "uncover the unique 'voice' of each Alter" and "ensuring [they] stood out distinctly, so players could immediately recognize which one they were interacting with, all while keeping the performances subtle and authentic," 🍷Tomasz explains. "After all, these are different versions of the same person [...] we couldn't let their voices blur into one another – but we also wanted to avoid exaggeration or caricature." Working with a single performer for the role, Alex Jordan (Rook, Dragon Age: The Veilguard), and voice directors, Damien Goodwin and Kate Saxon, they dedicated significant time to preparation before recording. "We dove deep into the Alters' backstories, exploring how their lives and experiences diverged and how those differences might shape their voices. For example, could an early move abroad influence one Alter's accent? Could another's years of battling alcoholism leave an imprint on their vocal cords?"

From the creators of Frostpunk, 11 Bit Studios is well versed in exploring sci-fi narratives from fresh angles. "Our vision leans more toward the works of Stanisław Lem than flashy, high-octane sci-fi spectacles. Aesthetically, we found inspiration in films like Interstellar, where alien worlds are compelling due to their rawnes🐓s, mystery, and unfamiliar physicality, rather than explosi🎐ons or intergalactic warfare," explains Tomasz. "Ultimately, this is a deeply personal story, and that human element remains at the heart of our narrative."

There's no shortage of multiversal shenanigans in pop culture, from Marvel to 澳洲幸运5开奖号码历史查询:Everything Everywhere all at Once, but The Alters sets itself apart by honing in on its core high-concept theme of 'What if?' "I think what makes our approach distinct is how these alternate versions of oneself coexist in a single reality. Players are at the center of this experience, choosing which versions of themselves to create and uncover, and deciding how to navigate the consequences. It's this player agency that makes video games the🌳 perfect medium for telling such a story – offering an empirical exploration of these themes."

Aside from confronting one of life's biggest philosophical questions, Jan is always on the move in his roving hamster wheel-like base to escape the pesky sun. "This led to the idea of a base design that can move between locations, making it feel dynamic and alive. There's something thrilling about customizing your base, expanding it, and operating within this enormous, tangible structure. Then stepping outside to witness the massive treads of your col🍷ossal wheel firsthand!"

Switching between third-person exploration and a dollhouse-like view of the base (reminiscent of the perspective in This War of Mine and Fallout Shelter), there's a seamless transiti💦on while maintaining its visual identity. "The key lies in creating a strong sense of scale and ensuring everything feels physical and grounded," says Tomasz. " We didn't want the base to feel like some abstract, disconnected entity where you just teleport in and out. Instead, we envisioned it as an integral part of the world – a portable home rooted in the environment you explore."

The Alters looks set to be another highly stylized game from 11 Bit Studios, with a deep psychological twist. Pulling at the threads of multiple genres, this high-concept sci-fi is certainly ambitious, but is grounded in a very human perspective that has me intrigued. The idea of fighting to survive while managing various aspec🅰ts of yourself is a philosophical can of worms I'm looking forward to opening.

The Alters feels like a perfect mix of sci-fi survival with the multiversal chaos of Everything Everywhere All At Once

Now I'll admit, some of Civilizatio💙n 7's proposed shake-ups scare me. The new Ages system – which will essentially break campaigns into three stages rather than the series' traditionally less-impactful historical eras – could make the empire-bu𝓡ilding experience feel more fragmജented, and I don't know whether the mix-and-match approach to leaders and factions will add unimaginable customization or dull the personality we've had from Civilization 5 and 6's civs.

Yes, change is scary, and I've seen a lot of the series' long-time fans eyeing Civilization 7 with uncertainty. But it's clear that these changes are a shot – and a bold one,🌱 at that – at fixing a problem that's plagued sandbox strategies for a long time: they get really, really boring.

Ancient ruins

Empire management games walk a perilous tightrope. You need to feel the satisfaction of raising a faction from ramshackle town to global superpower, which means campaigns inherently run on the long side. But at a certain point on that journey, the scales tip. Suddenly, rather than fighting for survival as a plucky unde💟rdog, you're the biggest faction on the map. Conquering whoever else is left becomes a checklist to tick through, and even if they're strong enough to put up a fight, at that point any pushback is more of a frustrating setb🐷ack – a delaying of the inevitable – than a serious challenge. You have, effectively, solved the game before it's over.

This isn't an issue squared solely with Civilization – I've spent over 2000🥀 hours in Total War: Warhammer, and the amount of campaigns that have stalled out vastly outweigh those I've finished. Paradox found a pretty neat solution in Stellaris, with end-game crises posing genuine threats capable of wiping your empire out, but even these often boil dow𒊎n to clearing repetitive stacks of enemies once you understand how combat works. Fighting this problem on its own turf is perhaps a hopeless battle. In tru⭕th, there's very little that isn't going to be steamrolled by the sheer amount of time that fans are going to replay these games for.

I get the sense that Firaxis knows this. Rather than spice up Civilization 7's later stages with monstrously-detailed nuclear war mechanics (don't give Gandhi any ideas) or Giant-er Death Robots, the studio has essentially taken the concept of an "endgame" out back and shot it. By breaking campaigns into three distinct Ages, Civilization 7 minimi🦂zes the risk of a playthrough devolving into one long slog or burying players in the chores that accumulate with manaඣging sprawls of cities or moving tens of military units around.

"The number one issue that the Ages system solves for us is it helps you to get towards the end of a game," 澳洲幸运5开奖号码历史查询:Civilization 7 director Ed Beach told Edge, pointing to players who feel "overwhelmed" by the sprawl of decisions that late-game Civilization turns require. But you can't understate just how bold a solution this is. It's a foundational change to the longest-running working formula in the♈ strategy genre, and according to Beach, there were even people within Firaxis who weren't sure if Ages would work.

As a result, Civilization 7 will likely be this year's biggest gamble in gaming. Firaxis is staking the strategy genre's longest winning formula on being able to fix a problem that no other developer has managed to solve, and if that doesn't take courage, I don't know what does. Whichever way the developer's bet swings, one thing is for certain🍨: when Civilization 7 launches on February 11, I'll be first in line to hit that sweet, sweet next turn button.

Adventure Mode essentially turns Dwarf Fortress into an open-world roguelike RPG, letting you explore the same sorts of worlds generated in the main strategic management game - potentially one you've even built a fortress in yourself - as a party of adventurers. You can explore, undertake quests, and delve into dungeons as p𓂃art of a much more traditional, er, ♏adventure. This mode has been part of the game since its initial public launch way back in 2006, but it's only now hitting the Steam version.

After a beta stretching back through 2024, Adventure Mode properly hits𝔍 the Steam version of Dwarf Fortress on January 23. "The mode has come a long way since it first launching in beta, and we couldn't have done it without your help," the devs say in a . "We are excited to shift focus back to Fortress Mode very soon, but this is also not the end of Adventure Mode development. Many updates in the future will be applied to both modes, and there's still more to add to Adventure Mode in the future. As with everything in Dwarf Fortress development, it will all come in due t🦋ime. More details about the next steps soon."

Dwarf Fortress is often referred to as𓄧 a "story generator," and Adventure Mode has much the same appeal - the focus is just on individual ch🤡aracters rather than entire colonies. You might see a in the space of a week, or you might see your quests . The possibilities are genuinely endless.

Dwarf Fortress publisher isn't bothered about the cult classic hitting its 120,000 player peak again: "We're not here to make as much money as possible."

As well as speaking about 澳洲幸运5开奖号码历史查询:TFT's pꦦosition in the g🦹ames industry, Teamfight Tactics game designer 🦹Julien Camaraza described in an interview with GamesRadar+ what it was like to see Arcane season 2 in development as part of developing their own Into the Arcane crossover.

"We got the script for Arcane seaওson 2 around two years ago," he begins, "but I wo♎uld really say the set was entering active development until right after Remix Rumble finished, Set 10. The day that ended, we were like 'great, time to work on Into the Arcane'."

By the time Camaraza and the TFT team got to look, the episodes were already comi🌠ng together but were still far from complete. "We got to watch really🐟 unfinished versions of the episodes, whatever they just had lying around at Fortiche. Some of the shots were just drawings, some of them had no audio. It was really fun. There was a lot of shots that looked almost complete, but the hair hadn't been rendered yet, so all the characters were just bald." he explains.

"And they have us those episodes fairly quickly. They were pretty protect꧂ive, which totally makes sense. They didn't want spoilers to leak. So the first three episodes were fairly easy to get. The second three and the last three, really you had to have a reason to use them."

For Camaraza, the most difficult aspect of the show's development was keeping everything under wraps, explaining "As for how hard it was to keep a secret? Probably the hardest part of the set's development." In a bit to keep everything as hush-hush as possible, codenames were introduced, which unintentionally made things even more difficult. "Every character had a codename internally - we were not allowed to call them by their real 𝄹names out loud when speaking to each other, and that can get pretty confusing."

Thankfully, the entire operation went off without a h🔜itch, and not a spoiler was leaked, something Camaraza is desperately grateful for. "Oh my god, if we spoiled Arcane, it would have been heartbreaking. That's just a line I did not want to cross. And so it was very, very stressful. 🎃But I'm glad we didn't do it."

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In an interview with GamesRadar+, TFT game designer Julien Camaraza spoke about the game's position in the wider gaming landscape and the role of the game for many of its players. "Right now, the last time I've checked, a majority of our player ꦫbase do play both League and TFT," he begins, "We often strive to be everyone's second-favorite game, the game you play when you're not playing your main game. And I think that's a great pl𝔉ace to be. Most people play more than one game."

A major contributor to the game's success, for Camaraza, is how interlinked it is with League of Legends. "League of Legends and TFT share a client, if you have a bad game of League, you can jump to TFT so easily," he explains. "You don&aꦦpos;t even need to open a new .exe, and that's gr🌱eat. That's a really great relationship to have with that team. So I think we're in a really good, healthy place for us right now."

On whether or not the TFT team has hopes of one day overtaking their sister game, Camaraza insists that it isn't something they will ever actively aim for. "I don't think we're ever going to try to be bigger than League of Legends, I don't think tha✱t's one of our aspirations right now. But I think we are doing really well."

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Satisfactory starts like every other survival game. You land on a planet, decide to exploit it mercilessly, and start pulling resources out of the ground. Then it veers in a different direction. An industrial direction. See, while you can technically craft just about everything in Satisfactory with your own two hands, making stuff yourself is ridiculous. Real engineers build machines to do all of that assembling foﷺr 𝔉them.

This feels intimidating, but Satisfactory's onboarding is some of the best out there. From your first miner all the way to installing power lines, setting up a drone fact♊ory or even just straight up adopting nuclear power, Satisfactory slowly guides you through the process.

Thinking with pulleys

20 hours after landing, I'm installing six huge batteries as an off-site power backup just in case the wrong wire is cut and my power fails. These batteries will give me 30 minutes of spare power in case of emergency. After ꧒this, I'm going t✨o start making AI limiters, after that I need to refill my supply of explosive Nobelisk charges.

There's always something big that needs to be done in Satisfactory, and because I'm a fairly chaotic person, my work is imperfect, ready to be tweaked, refined and optimized again and again. Outside of the horrifying spꦑiders, the scariest enemy you'll face in this factory building craft-'em-up is an empty stretch of conveyor belt or an efficiency meter floating around the 50 per cent mark.

This is the real meat of Satisfactory, and in addition to the scores of hours I've spent prodding and pulling at conveyor belts and production lines, I've spent more hours than I can count doodling factory designs down on waste paper in the hope of finally making the perfect factory design. I haven't cracked it yet, so often when something goes wrong I venture down into the conveyor belts to see what's gone ꦅwrong.

But that's not the reason that Satisfactory is my favorite game this year, in a year filled with bombastic AAA games, breakout hit 澳洲幸运5开奖号码历史查询:Helldivers 2, and even interesting indie shooters like I Am⭕ Your Beast, Echo Point Nova and Straftat. No, the reason Satisfactory is my favorite game is how🌄 much joy is infused into every part of the game. Even just moving is wonderful: movement feels similar to Apex Legends, except you're bouncing around the factory you and your friends have built.

The perfect example of this is the slide: there's no reason for Satisfactory to have a slide that feels this good, and despite the fact there's no mechanical purpose, you can feel the craftsmanship. People who have thought a whole lot about first-person kinesthetics are behind this slide. It makes you slightly faster if you time it right, but tꩲhe best part is that if you build your ওconveyor belts at the normal height, when you slide you'll go cleanly under them.

Later, emboldened by Blade Runners – a new pair of shoes that increase your running speed by 50 percent and double your jumping height (while also mitigating a lot of fall damage) – I started to think of my factory as a 3D space rather than a series of buildings. A door here, a wall-mounted conveyor belt there and suddenly I could get from end to end of my factory without touching the ground. Later a♊bilities let me ride my powerlines like a zipline, and then you can even build little sucky transport tubes like in Futurama to get around, but there's an elegance to getting around that meant I always wanted to go manual – whether it's the bodge-job watc🉐htowers chained together to scale a nearby cliff, or the giant gel-filled pad I built to shield myself when I tumbled from the nearby mountain.

As technology gets more and more advanced, stomping around instead of using the technological shortcuts to get about feels more and more like a hipster that bores people at parties by patiently but intensely explaining vinyl is better than listening to people on𒊎 Spotify. But I don't care.

Of course, while J.R.R Tolkien once suggested that not all who wander are lost, there's an important caveat: those who wander around for long enough are sure to get just a tiny bit confused about their location, at least. Which is how I've ended up here. Ostensibly I'm trying🦋 to fix an efficiency problem, but really, I'm just here🦹 for the journey. Considering I like clear structure and defined goals, that seems like Satisfactory's biggest achievement. If I were Coffee Stain, I'd rename the game Exceptional - puns be damned.

See where Satisfactory ranked on our 澳洲幸运5开奖号码历史查询:best games of 2024

Ed Beach has been at Civ developer Firaxis Games for 17 years, working on Civ 5, 6, and now 7. But before helping to develop the legendary strategy franchise, he spent a decade as a contractor at NASA, working on, among other things, the Hubble Space Telescope. In an interview in Edge issue 405, Beach discusses how this influenced his work on Civ 5 and the hoopla he inadvertently caused at NAS♈A.

"When we got to Brave New World in Civilization 5, we needed a wonder that was going to help you towards the science victory", Brea🐻ch explains. "I was like 'let's put the Hubble Spa🐲ce Telescope in the game'." Both the Firaxis studio and Telescope Space Institute, which operates Hubble, are located in Baltimore, Maryland, not too far from one another, making it an ideal local inclusion for the Civ 5 team.

In a rather predictable turn of events, there's quite a big overlap between NASA employees and Civ players, with Breach later learning that the Telescope's꧃ inclusion has proven especially popular. "We connected with them later and found out that the day that they saw that Hubble was going into Civilization, there was a roar across the building because so many of them play it."

Sadly for them, the Hubble Space Telescope did not make its way into Civ𒅌 6. But with Civ 7 just over the horizon, there's hope yet for NASA's iconic bit of kit to reclaim🎃 its place among the game's wonders.

While you wait for Civ 7, be sure to check out the 澳洲幸运5开奖号码历史查询:best strategy games around.

Slavic Magic decided to spread a little holiday joy by sharing a preview of Manor Lords' upcoming and undated update. The biggest new additions are easily the two new playable maps, S🥃wiss Valley and Winding River, which are coming alongside a map selection feature. Swiss Valley seems to be a slightly colder affair with patches of snow littered around, while Winding River has, well, a big ole river running through it.

But I can already hear your cries, dear reader. How are my 澳洲幸运5开奖号码历史查询:drunkard villagers supposed to navigate wat🍌er, of all things? Well, the update is also adding a bridge-building feature to the game. It seemingly works in the same way as the exi☂sting Road Tool, letting you drag bridges and connect them to walking paths. You can see the feature, plus the two new maps, in the developer's most recent .

Other, smaller changes include the ability to reorder unit cards in your hand by dragging and dropping them, just in case the lack of organization was haunting you. Some reworked animations also mean that miners will soon ❀actually mine. Like, you'll be able to zoom in and watch them head into the depths before bringing whatever materials back up, rather than slacking off on the surface until their genre-mandated timer is up.

"To keep supply smoother in larger settlements, workers will now brin꧑g extra resources preemptively—almost as if additional Burgage Plots were consuming them," is the final, handy change we know of. "For example, tavern workers may 'overstock' when they sense a resource like ale is about to run out, ensuring a steady flow and reducing supply disruptions. This change helps minimize fluctuations in resource delivery caused by logistics, particularly in large towns where managing supply chains can become challenging."

After 2.5 million in sales, Manor Lords publisher says it “would almost be arrogant” to not be surprised by its success - but “you cannot count on it to repeat.”

"BREAKING," developer Firaxis . "Prospector hits the Griddy in Sid Meier's Civilization 7." An accompanying clip shows a prospector, capable of improving land resources, triumphantly kicking all around next to his donkey. He could be indeed , like an NFL player, or like a child who dropped t🐬heir Robux gift card into their ice cream cone, but successfully picked it up with their booger finger. 

More likely, though, the prospector is demonstrating his ankle flexibility with the classic . This jig has been around for decades to communicate just guy stuff, like finding gold nuggets in Oregon and other things like that. The romp fits perfectly into Civ 7's aim to communicate the majesty of the way civilizations, in some ways, shapeshift over centuries, and, in other ways, stay the same, like in letting people jig up anꩲd down.

But Ci🍌vilization players – undoubtedly jealous that the Civ 7 prospector seems to have much stronger shins than they do – aren't having it. On Twitter, in response ౠto Firaxis' clip, many fans cry out against the old man and demand he quit his mesmerizing dance. 

"Please permanently remove this ꧋from the game before lꦜaunch, thank you," says one . 

"Remove this," . 

I dream of a c𓂃ivilization where w🍸e can all jig in peace.

Civ 7 director thought the new Ages system might not work, but says it does fix the "number-one issue" - players not getting to the end of their games.

Warh♐ammer 3's latest addition, Omens of Destruction, makes it harder than ever to put down. Ogres now feel like a real mercenary faction, the Greenskins get "tactician" orc Gorbad Ironclaw at the helm, and Khorne fans get Skulltaker – whose goal is to hunt down important characters to take their, er, skulꦇls for a cape he's making. Sigh. Like a stubborn fish, I'm hooked again.

Big thinkin'

It's been a fantastic year for Warhammer 3 – but a year ago, the trilogy was at its lowest-ever point. Its 2023 DLC Shadows of Change was heavily criticized for its pricing and contents – it essentially asked for more while giving less, a rare miss even for me – and there were concerns that core bugs and issues weren't being addressed. The debacle led to an 澳洲幸运5开奖号码历史查询:apology from Creative Assembly, along with promises to shape up going forward.

To the studio's credit, it's spent💎 the entirety of 2024 delivering on that promise. Besides Omens of Destructio𝔍n there have been frequent hotfixes for balance issues and bugs before they have a chance to fester, and its last DLC – Thrones of Decay – remains one of my all-time favorite additions to the game. It's been a fantastic shift, and even parent company Sega praised the game's critical and financial turnaround in its . When I catch up with game director Rich Aldridge ahead of Omens of Destruction's launch, he's open about the progress Creative Assembly has made in 2024.

"We make this game for people to enjoy♒, and we just wanted to go out there and do that," says Aldridge. "It's a continuing journey. We know the job is not done. It's really lovely that people welcomed us back into those conversations, and we're able to do things like blogs and video diaries💖 [...] that's been a really good moment in this year for us."

"But we don't rest on our laurels," he adds. "We know that there's still a lot more to do. There's still a lot more to fix and i🥂mprove upon. There's many fan favorites out there, which we haven't managed to bring to life yet. But, yeah, we're all passionate about the project and about the IP, so we just want to do good, continue this journey, and keep working hard for everyone.

Speaking of fan favorites, the game's largest omission for most players is iconic necromancer Nagash, also known as Bone Daddy. Just look at , who's been drawing fanart for 181 days and counting – with no plans to stop until Nagash is added. "We've seen that," laughs Aldridge. But while the director has found the artwork "really fun," the path to actually adding Nagash – who is considerably stronger in the lore than most existing characters – is still unclear. "We know that he's well-loved, and he's definitely someone that we've considered, but he's on a completely different power level," he explains. "That's something we'll have to thi🥂nk about, if and when we get to that."

On my end, I've dreamed about playing Warhammer's calcium-in-chief since learning of his existence in the second game. But in hisಌ absence, Immortal Empires – a sandbox campaign that stitches all three games' maps into one cohesive whole – has steadily become full-to-bursting with playable factions. It leaves play💮ers spoiled for choice, but makes fitting in new characters a challenge – a problem that Aldridge could never have foreseen when Total War: Warhammer launched in 2016. "Whoever thought the world would become too small?"

Though it speaks to how long Creative Assembly has stuck with its trilogy, it also raises the question of whether there's an end in sight. "I think we've come a long way," says Aldridge. "We🅺 found our feet. We've learned a lot from our players – what works, what doesn't. We've got a big playground in Immortal empires available to us, and I think that'🐷s what we set out to do."

"We know there's lots of characters, lots of creatures and bits and pieces [still m﷽issing]," he continues. "Obviously, if we could 🍸do it all, we would do it all, but realistically, we'll try and do as much as we can. There's some big, interesting things still out there, which hopefully we'll get the opportunity to do at some point in time. But we've been thoroughly enjoying all the content we've been working on in recent times."

Hopefully Nagash (who is both big and interesting) falls into those plans somewhere, if only for the sake of zaneprotoss. Regardless of what comes next, though, Total War: Warhammer's future looks far brighter than it did a year ago. We are, as the kids and Bone Daddy's freshly-raised zombies say, so back.

Here are the 澳洲幸运5开奖号码历史查询:best PC games to keep you busy until Nagash arrives

澳洲幸运5开奖号码历史查询:Tee⭕nage Mutant Ninja Turtl꧅es: Tactical Takedown is a turn-based beat-em-up featuring the titular reptiles being developed by Str🔯ange Scaffold, an indie team behind the release of several recent gems like El Paso, Elsewhere and I Am Your Beast. In a posted to Twitter, the game's creative director Xalavier Nelson Jr. excitedly spoke about the game, and more specifically, about what would happen to Spli♊nter and Shredder.

"Not onওly is Strange Scaffold making a Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles game, not only am I𓆏 the creative director of that TMNT game, but they let me kill Splinter and Shredder," Nelson gleefully explains, "and then tell the story of what might have happened next for one version of the turtles as they go towards adulthood."

Following this, we're treated to some footage of the game—a grꦡid-based strategy game reminiscent of the likes of Into the Breach, but witꦑh a colourful, comic book style to bring a bit of that requisite TMNT flair to the game. Alas, while the game has been announced, there's no news yet on the release date, so if you were hoping for some tactical TMNT action any time soon, you're sadly out of luck.

In the meantime, why not bide your time with some of the 澳洲幸运5开奖号码历史查询:best strategy games you can play right now?

Speaking during the PC Gaming Show Most Wanted, where 澳洲幸运5开奖号码历史查询:Civilization 7 was named the most anticipated game of next year, creative director Ed Beach explained that "for us, it's very important that a new chapter in the Civilization franchise has to be just as epic as the game is. We can't just iterate a teeny little bit in certain🌠 areas, polish up the graphics. That's not worthy of another chapter in the Civilization story."

"If you look back over the whole course of the franchise," he c▨ontinues, "[what] has been a constant is that each major new version does innovate, and does take a few 💙things that maybe were standard and were established, and goes ahead and uproots those in the service of getting to the net major milestone for the series."

In Civilization 7, the greatest overhaul is being made in the service of what Beach says is the number-one issue that the Civ games struggle with - pl🅷ayers not finishing their games. "We had a lot of data that people would play Civilization games, and they would never get all the way to the end," he says. "They just wouldn't finisꩵh them. So we wanted to do whatever we could, whether it was reducing micromanagement, restructuring the game, to really address the problem directly. There are a lot of little systemic refinements that we've gone through, and by and large most of them thoughtfully look at where the player was investing their time, and think  about whether there's a better way to make that a little bit more streamlined."

The biggest change in Civilization 7, of course, is the introduction of Ages, which will encourage you to change up your Civ twice during the course of the game, ensuring that you're always dealing with a Civ at the height of its power during the Antiquity, Exploration, and Modern eras. Beach says that "that Civ, moment to moment, one more turn gameplay, we've made sure we've got plenty of that still baked in there," but it does seem as though Civilizati🌳on 7 will be significantly overhauling the series once it launches in February.

Civilization 7 is "one of the biggest changes" and also "one of the scariest" in the 34-year history of the strategy series.