Around 30 employees reportedly affected by cuts

Firaxis Games, the studio behind strategy titles such as Civilization, Marvel's Midnight Suns, and XCOM, has lai??d off employees in the latest in a series of cuts made at Take-Two subsidiaries.

A report by Axios claims that around 30 employees we??re affected but the cuts, which the developer's publisher, 2K Games has said were made due to a "sharpening of focus, enhancements of efficiencies, and an alignment of our talent against our highest priorities [...] The studio remains focused on developing critically acclaimed video games."

Firaxis' most recent release was the strategic comic-book title Marvel's Midnight Suns, which launched on PC and Gen9 console platforms in December of last year. While the release was praised for its quality gameplay and usage of the Marvel license, this, unfortunately, did not equate to sales, with the game being considered an unsuccessful commercial release by parent company Take-Two Interactive. Much like another comic-book release, Marvel's Avengers, Midnight Suns was a title that w?as designed to have a relatively long life in the gaming market.

The layoffs at Firaxis continue a miserable trend of cuts across the entire industry. Since January, roles have been lost at various high-profile developers and publishers including Microsoft, Riot Games, Sega, Twitch, and Ubisoft. Just last month, it was announced that Cyberpunk 2077 developer CD Projekt RED had also laid off members of studio The Molasses Flood, following a restart of the upcoming Witcher spin-off Project Sirius.

Fir??axis is latest video game studio hit by layoffs [Axios Gaming]

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'All Gratitude'

In a surprising piece of news, developer Firaxis has announced the departure of two of its veteran players: game director Jake Soloman and studio lead Steve Martin. Both individuals have been with the studio for over 20 years, overseeing the development and release of acclaimed strategy titles including XCOM, XCOM 2, and, most recently, Marvel's Midnight Suns.

"I’m embarking on a new chapter; however, I am incredibly grateful to have had the opportunity to fulfill my dreams at Firaxis Games,�said Solomon in an official press statement. "I’m thankful to everyone who enjoyed XCOM and Marvel’s Midnight Suns, and to my development and publishing partners who helped b?ring those games to life?."

In a separate message posted to Twitter, Soloman teas??ed that his "Brain was on fire with a new dream" and that it was "Time to go chase it". Soloman has worked with Firaxis for the best part of 23 years.

//t??witter.com/SolomonJake/status/1626582096440598533?s?=20

Steve Martin also expressed his gratitude toward Firaxis in a statement posted to the company's official Twitter account: "I am tremendously grateful f?or the opportunity to have championed and led the work of such a talented group of people for the past couple decades at the greatest studio in the world," wrote Martin. "I am proud of the legacy of games Firaxis has created and its reputation in the industry."

"I look forward to cheering on Firaxi?s in its next chapter. Stay civilized!"

//twitter.com/FiraxisGames/s?tatus/1626582244881207299?s=20

Martin will be placed by Fira??xis Chief Operati?ng Officer Heather Hazen.

"I’m thrilled to have this opportunity to carry on the studio’s storied legacy, beginning with the announcement that Firaxis is in development on the next iteration of the legendary Civilization franchise,�said Hazen of the new role. “I’m lucky to be working with some of the best developers in our industry, and we have plans to take the Civilization franchise to exciting new heights for our millions of players around the world. In addition, we will continue to support Marvel’s Midnight Suns with post-launch content, and explore new creative projects for our tea??ms."

Marvel's Midnight Suns is available now on PS5, PC, and Xbox Series X.

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The story behind a genre-defining classic

[Update: The Monsters in the Dark Kickstarter has hit its target goal of $12,000. The crowdfunding campaign will remain open until April 8, at which point the book will go throug??h its final proofing and publishing process. It will launch in digital format s??????????????????????????oon thereafter, with a physical paperback to follow in summer 2021.]

A Kickstarter campaign has been launched for a new book that will tell the story behind the development of 1994's X-COM: Enemy Unknown, (released in North America as X-COM: UFO Defense and also as UFO: Enemy Unknown in Europe), the first release in the genre-defining strategy series that is still zapp?ing aliens and fend??ing off intergalactic invasions to this day.

Monsters in the Dark: The Making of X-COM: UFO Defense is an independently produced book by author David L. Craddock, who previously penned the excellent Stay Awhile and Listen series, recounting the formation of Blizzard Entertainment and Blizzard North, as well as the development and launch of the legendary Diablo series

"I read David Craddock's book, Stay Awhile and Listen, and I thought it was quite an intricate, deep-dive into the inner workings of Blizzard Entertainment," said X-COM co-creator Julian Gollop. "I would like to see the X-COM book as kind of a historical record of a game th?at was influential. Hopefully, it can provide some inspiration, and also some fascination for how things were done in the early days of the games industry- and in some cases, how badly things were done as well."

Monsters in the Dark will trace Gollop's career from his formative years creating pen-and-paper adventures, to his work on ZX Spectrum games - such as 1985's Chaos: The Battle of Wizards and 1988's Laser Squad - to the ultimate conception, design, and development of X-COM: UFO Defense. Despite X-COM's now invaluable contribution to the strategy genre, Monsters in the Dark will recount the title's torrid d?evelopment, and how the legendary release came within a hair's breadth of being consigned to the cancellation pile.

While Monsters in the Dark is already written and edited, Craddock is looking for $12,000 in crowdfunding capital in order to pay for third-party proofing & editing, as well as printing and publishing costs. Should the Kickstarter reach its goal, then Monsters in the Dark is expected to see publishing in a relatively short space of tim??e, with digital copies tentatively scheduled to release within weeks of the campaign's closure. This will then be followed by the release of a physical paperback, which is expected t?o arrive late-June.

For more details on Monsters in the Dark: The Making of X-COM: UFO Defense, check out the official Kickstarter campaign right here.

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Remember, Remember...

Feral Interactive has announced that excellent sci-fi sequel XCOM 2 Collection will be making its debut on iOS in November 2020. The iOS port of the 2018 Firaxis strategy release will include the War of the Chosen expansion and multiple add-on packs.

XCOM 2 Collection will support the iPhone 7 Plus, the iPhone 8 Plus, and all model?s released following the iPhone X. For iPad users, you can enjoy turn-based alien warfare on all post-2017 iPad Pros, and all standard iPads released afte??r 2019. You can download the title from the App Store from November 5, priced at around $25.

Of course, for regular PC and console folk, XCOM 2 Collection is already available on PS4, PC, Xbo?x One, and Nintendo Switch.

XCOM 2 Collection coming to iOS on November 5 [Gematsu]

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XCOM with a twist

XCOM: Chimera Squad is the perfect ??name for this new franchise entry.

Like the mythological beast, Chimera Squad walks confidently but completely owns its Frankensteined heritage. Chimera Squad isn't for everyone, maybe not even a certain subsect of XCOM fans, but it has enough charm to win people over regardless of their history with XCOM, or strategy games in general.

XCOM: Chimera Squad (PC)
Developer: Firaxis Games
Publisher: 2K
Released: April 24, 2020
MSRP: $19.99 ($9.99 sale until May 1)

Despite the out-of-nowhere release and the budget price, this is not a knockoff, but a legit new entry by developer Firaxis Games. The core DNA of XCOM (at least, the newly revived incarnation of it) is still very much present, and all of your fixins like Ironman mode (single save), hardcore (a single failure deletes your save) and four difficulty settings are in. You'll want to jack a few of those up if you've played an XCOM game before.

That said, Chimera Squad's uniqueness is evident mere moments after booting up a campaign. The story is told through quasi-static animated cutscenes, and the stakes are decidedly much lower than the globe-trotting planet-saving tales of yore. Instead, you're tasked with wrangling a small-time police force of sorts — the titular Chimera Squad — who diffuse Cops-esque situations in a post-XCOM: Enemy Within future where aliens are living with humans.

This shift has the potential to deliver a more intimate tale, and it mostly succeeds. I say "mostly," because in some regards the presentation (especially the voice acting) doesn't quite rise to the occasion. Plus, the actual audio quality feels muddled at points and some of the performances don't fit the characters. Chimera Squad also clashes with itself t?onally, featuring fairly bloody action sequences with viscera flowing after shotgun blasts before launching into a cute "oh you!" conversation between its pally squadmates. The cacophony takes some getting used to!

The same principle applies to the narrative. It all has a very Overwatch air to it, with the deat?h of an alien mayor (who was supposed to serve as a beacon of race relations) serving as the catalyst for uncertainty in a powder keg civilization. The story is often background noise around the squadmate banter and ?combat, but it's at least a coherent framework.

Twists lack gravitas when it's jus??t quick text box chatter, but it puts the focus on pointed prepwork and the action at hand without getting in the way; it all makes for a more digestible game. The gist is that you need to?? corral three main vigilante factions one by one while maintaining order in the city, in any order you choose. A full run through all three storylines and the finale took me roughly 22 hours.

Chimera Squad also makes an effort to differentiate itself mechanically. The "breach" phase is a new strategic layer of combat that allows players to plan a mission before-the-fact by setting up their units where they see fit. For instance, you can send certain units (like a defensive-minded shield-toting riot u?nit) through a well-guarded door that buffs enemy damage during the breach, or safely assign light recon party members to another side door.

It's not the first strategy game to think of this base concept (Final Fantasy Tactics anyone?) but it brilliantly fits the lower-key "squad" theme and adds some depth to how you approach each stage, even if it's easy to optimize your choices. Plus, it sets up the idea of clearing individual and more intimate rooms (like smaller offices) instead of always fighting in giant sprawling cities or warehouses like the previous XCOM games. The act of breaching also triggers slow-mo scenes not unlike Call of Duty, allowing players to choose who to shoot in the moment of the breach before moving on to the proper strategy action: with the option to buy items or skills to enhance the act's efficacy or even create new entry points. Some hardcore strategy enthusiasts may wag their finger at it, and I don't necessarily want to see it in every XCOM game, but like it here.

Standard strategic combat, mind, is very in line with past Firaxis entries. You get action points to move, shoot or trigger an ability. You can dash to take up your whole turn if you need to move further. Or, units can use the classic "overwatch" power that lights up moving enemies in a subsequent turn if you can't get a good shot. It all still works, even if Chimera Squad can waltz into the realm of tedium with excessive reinforcements from time to time. I haven't gotten to the wild par??t yet though. Are you ready folks? Aliens.

Yep, Chimera Squad has an enhanced focus on adding more aliens into the mix, and the end res?ult is more wacky antics. Some members are able to emotionally manipulate enemies to force them to attack their allies or mentally incapacitate them, which also has the added benefit of adding them to the neural network (which buffs said aliens). Others are actual snakes that can slither around and constrict enemies to pr?event them from acting. It's very fluffy and fun to play, and as an added bonus, every new squad member feels impactful.

You'll recruit anything from humans, to humanoid aliens, to snake-people for your squad, all with pre-built names (like Terminal and Torque), roles, sta??ts and abilities. In some cases I never even looked at any numbers, I just clicked "yes" to having a snake person join my team. ??It's a finite crew pool, but large enough to warrant variation (you periodically get to choose one of three recruits from a rotating list), especially within the same playthrough.

Things can get really intense, too, even without all of the aforementioned hardcore toggles on. An "anarchy system" forces you to pick and choose what districts get out of control, which influences mission difficulty in specifi?c areas. Of course it can be gamed later on as your squad rises in power, but the illus??ion of it creates some tension.

I'm mostly on board with what Chimera Squad is selling, but it could have used a bit more polish. I experienced two hard crashes when playing the game on PC, which wasn't the end of the world as Chimera Squad allows you to instantly revert back to the last round of combat ?;(I lost around 30 ?seconds each time). There's also some light UI typos littered about and funky bugs like out of control camera angles. The UI is also very often unclear as to what you're actually selecting, especially when using a controller. It's nothing critically gamebreaking (even the crashes to a degree), just annoying.

While not all of the wild departures fire on all cylinders, XCOM: Chimera Squad's open-ended difficulty settings allow everyone to bend the strong combat groundwork to their will. Chimera Squad embraces the strange, and is predominately be?tter for it.

_{[This review is based on a retail build of the game provided b???y the publisher.]}

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Chimera Squad

Hello, month of April!

While things have been relatively calm for the past several weeks since multiple publishers have entered lockdown mode, 2K Games is firing on all cylinders with a new XCOM game reveal. Don't get too excited though: there's caveats! It's called XCOM: Chimera Squad, and it's set to debut on the PC?? platform on April 24. 2K says that it will arrive with an "introductory limited-time price" of $9.99. On May 1, it'll revert to its MSRP of $19.99.

The premise? It's set five years after the events of XCOM 2, with a very '90s Saturday morning cartoon setup of humans and aliens (as well as hybrids) working with one another to take on "mysterious groups" who threaten the delicate balance of peace in this new world. You play as the titular Chimera Squad in a bid to t??ake down these ??baddies.

There's some gameplay changes. Chimera Squad features 11 agents with "distinct personalities and unique abilities," which hints toward the pared-down nature of the previous "create your own army" feel. Missions a??re also now "discrete, expl??osive encounters" and feature a new phase of combat called "breach mode."

The below animated intro and gameplay video will pretty much tell you all you need to know. I'm getting extreme spinoff vibes from this, but ??I'll give it a shot.

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Would you kindly wait a couple of months?

As part of today's super-duper surprise Nintendo Direct, it was revealed that a selec??tion of the finest titles from the 2K Games cata??logue will be launching on Switch on May 29.

First up is nihilistic shooter compendium Borderlands Legendary Collection, which will contain the original Borderlands, its sequel Borderlands 2, and finally Borderlands: The Pre-Sequel. (It should be noted that this package will not include Borderlands 2's Commander Lilith and Fight for Sanctuary DLC expansions.)

Also on the way is the critically acclaimed BioShock series. The 2017 remasters of BioShock and BioShock 2 will launch alongside BioShock Infinite: The Complete Edition. All three titles can be purchased individually, or compiled as BioShock: The Collection.

Finally, 2K's excellent sci-fi strategy release XCOM 2: The Collection is also headed Switch-ward. This release contains the original XCOM2, along with all of its DLC, and the War of the Chosen expansion pack.

Borderlands Legendary Collection, BioShock: The Collection, and XCOM 2: The Collection all launch on Nintendo Switch May 29. Physical releases will consist of a hybrid of cartridge and mul?tiple downloads.

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95% chance, but this is XCOM, so...

The Game Rating and Administration Committee of Korea has recently added two new entries, suggesting that Nintendo Switch ports are en route for Atlus' Catherine: Full Body and 2K Games' XCOM 2 Collection.

As spotted by YouTuber GameXplain, the two titles quietly appeared as part of a list of games newly-rated by the Korean body. While this is no o?fficial statement of release, it has become increasingly rare that tit??les listed by game rating boards do not eventually see the light of day.

Catherine: Full Body is the 2019 revamp of 2011's bizarre platform-puzzler, Catherine. Full Body includes overhauled gameplay, an online battle mode, new story elements and a selection of difficulty levels. The Japanese release also included Persona 5 crossover DLC.

XCOM 2 is the latest entry in the famous sci-fi strategy series, and sees players attempt to overthrow Earth's alien oppressors through adaptation, smart decision-making, careful planning, and even budget management. XCOM 2 Collection launched in 2018 and includes the original game plus four DLC expansion packs; Resistance Warrior; Anarchy's Children; Alien Hunters

If we hear of an official confirmation of either port, we'll be sure to let you know. In the meantime, Catherine: Full Body is available now on PS4, while XCOM 2 Collection is available now on PS4, PC, and Xbox One.

Catherine: Full Body & XCOM 2 Collection rated for Nintendo Switc?h [Game Xplain]

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Meet Big Khan

A bit of a "good news and bad news" situation with Mutant Year Zero: Road to Eden. First, the bad. The Switch port has been del??ayed. Originally announced for a June 25 launch, it'?s now slated to release on July 30.

But, a spoonful of sugar helps the medicine go down. Today, we also get the first look at the Seed of Evil expansion. The trailer is embedded above. It shows a gruff moose named Big Khan gunning down pod ghouls. I don't have another sentence to logically follow the last one. So, I'll just say it again: It shows a gruff moose named Big Khan gunning down pod ghouls.

The Seed of Evil add-on is going to be priced at $15 for anyone who already owns the base game. The digital deluxe edition -- the base game and expansion -- will sell for $40, which is what the Switch version is priced at. However, there's currently a Steam pre-order sale where you can get all of it for $32.

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Quack quack, here comes the redux

Stop me if you've heard this one before: A pig and a duck walk into a post-apocalyptic wasteland... Oh, you have heard this one? That's right, Mutant Year Zero: Road to Eden launched late last year. Quietly, it was a hidden gem.

Maybe it'll make more noise this summer. Publisher Funcom and developer The Bearded Ladies have announced that Mutant Year Zero: Road to Eden is coming to Switch in three months' time. The turn-based strategy RPG (an XCOM-like, if you will) will be ported to Switch and released on ?June 25.?? It's priced at $40.

This is more than a straight port, though. Bearded Ladies is also creating an add-on expansion that'll come with the Switch version. This is the linchpin to a new $40 physical Deluxe Edition that will also be available on PS4 and Xbox One (and, of course, Switch). The expansion will also be sold separately on PC, PS4, and Xbox One for folks who already own Mutant Year Zero -- although Funcom says pricing will be reve?aled closer to the summer launch.

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Shut the duck up! (please laugh)

If you glance at a screenshot of Mutant Year Zero: Road to Eden, you would rightfully assume it to be a grid-based tactics game like XCOM. While this is an apt and welcome comparison, Mutant Year Zero works to evolve that genre in a pre??tty logical way: by adding stealth and real-time ambush mechanics to the strategy game formula.

The combination of exploring open envir??onments in real time with turn-based skirmishes makes combat move faster while not sacrificing the tension of other tactics games.

Mutant Year Zero: Road to Eden (PC [reviewed], PS4, Xbox One)
Developer: The Bearded Ladies
Publisher: Funcom
Released: December 4, 2018
MSRP: $34.99

While Mutant Year Zero shares a whole lot of DNA with XCOM, it's something all its own. The basics are the same: there's turn-based combat, a tactical grid, a cover system, and characters that can bleed out. Even the unforgiving Ironman mode is present. The most significant difference you'll notice once you're set free in the world of Mutant Year Zero is that you're exploring ??in entirely in real time with a squad of up to three c??haracters.

You explore The Zone, the stereotypical bombed-out post-apocalyptic setting of our game like you're exploring a dungeon in Diablo up until you enter a conflict. At this point, you transition into full-on turn-based combat. The smaller squad size?? means that stealth and ambush tactics are your best friends. Running in guns blazing is a surefire way to get put down real quick. Instead, you'll want to split up your squad and have them all hide fr?om the enemies with a clear line of sight. Once you've isolated one or two foes, that's when you rush to pick them off a few at a time.

Just separating your enemies isn't quite enough to ensure victory either. Loud weapons like machine guns and rifles are sure to attract attention, so before a huge fight breaks out, you'll want to start with silenced weapons like Dux' crossbow. It's also worth noting that if the enemy you're abusing gets a turn, they'll yell for their buddies, so it's unwise to start a fight you can't finish quickly. It's moments like this that make Mutant Year Zero so intense. Your silenced pistol doesn't exactly pack enough power to put down that colossal ghoul quickly, but the sound of your shotgun will definitely alert his bud??dies. 

One wrong move can spell certain doom and I'm n??ot ashamed to admit I was saving early and often. It takes the right amount of prep, positioning, and just plain luck to come out on top here.

It takes a while to learn your squad's strengths. You need to be sure you can hold your ground against the area's remaining foes before making yourself known. Marching into a zone full of hostile ghouls and robots while tossing grenades in t?he air is basically suicide. 

There's only a total of five squad members to choose from, some of which have overlapping abilities that unlock as you raise your overall level. The choice of which characters you take with you doesn't seem to make much of a difference as long as you're willing to play the way the game wants you to. Any combination of the cast will do. It's far more critical to be aware of what abilities you have set on each character before they enter combat and what weapons and armor they have equipped. ??; 

Mutant Year Zero's story isn't breaking any new ground. It's adapted from a Swedish pen-and-paper RPG set in post-apocalypse where most of humanity was wiped out by something called the Red Plague a long time a??go. You take control of a group of Mutant Stalkers, modified humans who explore the ruins to gather supplies for the l?ast human settlement known as the Ark. 

Over its roughly 14-hour campaign, we're treated to a ton of lore about this mysterious world via character banter as well as text and audio logs scattered throughout the world. In the long term, it sets up some cool potential storylines for what exactly these mutants are a?nd where they came from, but fails to deliver. Also, the mutants really like to joke about how much "duck" sounds like "fuck."

Mutant Year Zero seems like the natural evolution for tactics games. The real-time aspects make thin??gs move faster and add a unique layer of tension. On the story end of things, it manages to keep you interested until the linear campaign finishes up. You won't find a groundbreaking narrative but it doesn't overstay its welcome, and the characters are ?just charming enough to keep you invested. 

_{[This review is based on a retail build of the game provided by the publisher.]}

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One of these things is not like the others

Good news, everyone! The Darkness can now be played on Xbox One! The game joins the ever-growing catalog of backward compatible titles that are playable on Microsoft's newer box. The bad news? Duke Nukem Forever and The Bureau: XCOM Declassified are also available. What a way to so??ur some good news.

I mean that in jest, but those other two shooters are some huge disappointments. Duke Nukem Forever was never going to live up to the 13 years of hype it had, but it thoroughly missed the point of what made Duke Nukem 3D so wonderful. XCOM Declassified is also another game that failed to understand what made its original series so pop??ular and stuck to making a boring, drab and pointless shooter in an era do??minated by many of the same things.

If you want to relive those bad memories, you'll have the chance to do so without pulling out the old Xbox 360. At least The Darkness has a chance to? shine because that game is seriously good.

Major Nelson [Twitter]

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Bonus batch of alien blasting action

A huge update is headed toward the PC version of turn-based strategy title XCOM2 :War of the Chosen that will bring new modes and content to the planet-saving adventure. Better yet, the update will be free from October? 9 until December 3.

The Tactical Legacy Pack intends to bridge the gap between XCOM 2 and previous release XCOM: Enemy Unknown. Eschewing the base-management element entirely, the update will allow players to guide Officer Bradford and the resistance through a series of intense firefights, set during the early days on Earth's ??takeover by a daunting extra-terrestrial force.

The update will include 28 maps, some new and some remastered from Enemy Unknown. New armour and weaponry will be added to your arsenal. Over 100 new challenges will be added to War of the Chosen and a new Skirmish mode will allow for the custom building of your own intergalactic firefights. In all, the Tactical Legacy pack is a really meaty upgrade for a game running a couple of years old, and should provide fans with hours more entertainment, gratis. To play the new content, players must own both XCOM 2 and the War of the Chosen expansion.

XCOM 2: War of the Chosen is available now on PS4, PC and Xbox One.

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And some other stuff

The PlayStation Plus lineup for June 2018 has been revealed and it actually has some pretty solid stuff for PS4. On the current-gen front, you'll be getting XCOM 2 and Trials Fusion. PS3, on the other hand, gets only a single title and it isn't even good. Ghost Recon: Future Soldier is certainly better than Wildlands, but it is a very restrictive and scripted "stealth" game with overblown action and asinine set-pieces that throw realism straight out the window. It hardly deserves the "Tom Clancy" moniker and isn't really wort??h much of a look in 2018.

As for Vita, you'll be getting two games that I don't really know much about. Destructoid gave Atomic Ninjas a 5.5, but I've never even heard of Squares. It seems all right, I suppose. You'll be able to nab these titles next Wednesday when the PlayStation store updates. That means you'll have until June 6 to nab this month's lineup.

• XCOM 2 (PS4)
• Trials Fusion (PS4)
• Tom Clancy's Ghost Recon: Future Soldier (PS3)
• Squares (PS Vita)
• Atomic Ninjas (PS Vita)

PlayStation Plus Free Games Lineup for June 2018 [PlayStation Blog]

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The PS3 is dead! Long live the PS3!

_{[We ran this in February, but we loved it so much we bumped it again for those who missed it. Enjoy! -Niero]}

The figures are out, and the PlayStation 4 is already close to catching up with the PlayStation 3 when it comes to lifetimes sales. We're reaching peak PS4 time, with huge releases such as Monster Hunter: World and Wolfenstein II: The New Colossus coming to the console in the past few months. To be frank, we're drowning in good current-gen games, so it's probably time to sell old consoles to buy extra games, send slightly battered models off to the scrap heap, or simply leave them untouched, gathering dust, on the?? shelf. 

Hold it right there, though! Now is absolutely not the time to be even thinking of getting rid of your PS3. I would even argue that now is the perfect time to buy a PS3, if you missed out on that era of games. There's still life in the old gal yet, and what's mo??re, it's becoming a very cheap console to collect for. I play my PlayStation 3 probably about 60% of the time I'm gaming, while 30% goes on my PlayStation 4 and a measly 10% goes on low-res adventure and point-and-click games on my battered old laptop. And I can't s?ay I've got bored yet.

So, why should you rush out and get a second-hand PS3? And how do you make the PS3 an exciting, useful console in 2018, when you have a PS4 already sitting ??in your cabinet? Let me discuss why I think the PS3 still has legs, and what to do to? fall back in love with the console.

Why now?

Right now, we're in that collectors' sweet spot where the PlayStation 3 is distinctly unfashionable. It's not old enough to be attractive to the retro crowd – the PlayStation and even the PlayStation 2 is starting to go that way – while those who want to play the most up-to-date games have tossed it aside. Furthermore, sellers want to get rid of their old PS3 games for something new, and want you to take the games off their hands. And, unless you're going for something quite rare like a Katamari game, they don't tend to want m????uch money for parts of their collection.

Since mid-2016, I will often bid 3 euros each on a bunch of PS2 and PS3 games on eBay, and see what I win. Very often, PS3 game biddi??ng won't go much above that, and through this practice, I've built a 40-strong PS3 boxed disc collection for the cost of two or three Day One PS4 releases. It's been pret??ty horrendous for my backlog, but great for those lazy Saturday mornings where I can browse my collection at leisure and pick something out at random to pop in my console.

Furthermore, the PS3 is not THAT outdated that it is a pain to use. It's composite cable and HDMI friendly, meaning it will work without too much hassle on any TV. This is unlike some retro consoles, where having a 4k HDTV will require a lot of fiddling and adapters. Also, as I'll talk about below, PS3 games were getting pretty polished and?? beautiful towards the end of the console life-cycle, so unless you have a top-notch TV (which I most certainly don't), the games will actually look ?very good, despite being "older" games. There are also a lot of games that are now only playable if you have a PS3, so the console is a must if you want access to as many games as possible that were released over the past 12 years.

OK, Deadly Premonition isn't the best example of the PS3's graphical crispness.

Maybe I've convinced you to dig out your ol??d console, or you're counting your pennies to pic?k up a refurbished model. How should you proceed?

Original PS3 versus Slim versus Super Slim

The PlayStation 3 didn't quite have the massive, systemic problems that early Xbox 360s had, with the "Red Ring of Death". Sure, there was the "Yellow Light of Death" common to original consoles, but levels of outra?ge about faulty hardware were somewhat lower. The age of hardware is still something you'll want to factor in when making a purchase.

Original PS3s have the added benefit that they are PS2 backwards compatible (with some exceptions), but this addition was removed, i??n part because it was expensive, in part because it was an unstable addition to the console. Because these consoles were the first produced, the model you get your hands on is likely to be from an early production cycle and so will need more extensive age-related refurbishment to run properly. 

The Slim model has no PS2 backward?s compatibility but has a plethora of advantages: 1) was released more recently, so you're more likely to get one in good nick, and 2) it's much lighter and much more energy-efficient (but still a pretty big bugger, in my opinion).

A photo from Sam Hughes of his ginormous original PS3.

If you want something you can carry around with you, get the Super Slim, but then upgrading the hard dri??ve will be absolutely necessary if you want to play more than a handful of games. 

[The article previously said that swapping out the hard-drive on non-Slim models was difficult. Apparently this is not the case, and I've been corrected in the comments. Sorry for the misinformation, folks! – CC]

Buying the console

If you're lucky, your local electronics superstore may still be selling off new PS3s cheap.?? I seem to remember that my local Saturn department store was still selling them a year ago, but a year is a long time in games.

However, I didn't get mine new - I got my 120GB Slim PS3 in July 2015 from Rebuy, bundled with Sly Cooper: Thieves in Time and LittleBigPlanet 2, plus one real DS3 an?d one crappy third-party controller, for 115 euros in total. Rebuy tells you exactly how close to new the console is, and puts a 18-month warranty on all consoles, regardless of the state they're in. I would advise looking for something similar wherever you live – 18 months is ?a fairly reasonable amount of time for old hardware to last, so I'd be willing to eat the cost of buying a new console if it broke after then.

The first thing you should do...

...is upgrade that flippin' hard-drive. Unless you already have a 500GB or higher model, then you can probably manage. If you want to play a lot of chunky digital-only games like Yakuza 5 or, say, lots of JP??-only downloads from the PS Store, you're going to need a large hard-drive.

Get your hands on (ideally, a new) 2.5" hard drive. SATA will do; no need for a more expensive SSD, since performance boost seems to be minimal at best. You can find instructions on how to open up your Slim or Super Slim console to swap out the hard-drive here; the?? newer the type, the less fiddly a job it is.

Be warned! Opening up the Slim is a tricky job, and the screws holding the drive to the mounting bracket are extremely fragile. Ma??ke sure you have a very small Phillips head screwdriver to hand, because if you try to batter away at it with a bigger tool, you'll end up stripping the screws to shreds?.

It goes without saying that doing this voids any w?arranty, but any Sony-specific warranties are useless by this point. Whether you want to void any resale warranties or not is entirely at your own discretion; I upgraded my hard-drive after my resale warranty had lapsed. My PS3 is a lot noisier and has freezed a couple of times since I upgraded, but again, I'm willing to eat the cost of getting a new PS3 to Frankenstein by this point.

Optimising the PS3 for modern use

So, let's talk about the things you do not need from your PS3 right now, and that's the apps. Speaking from an EU user perspective, Spotify hasn't worked properly the entire time I've had my console. Netflix worked the last time I tested it but runs much smoother and loads quicker on the PS4. I would say that overall, this is not a console you want to use for streaming TV or any other side-ops; this is what your most modern console, laptop, Amazon ??Fire stick, etc. is for. Delete apps where you can. Of course, some people report using their old consoles as dedicated streaming boxes, but that's not worked out super well for me so far.

What you should have to get the most out of your PS3 is a PS Plus subscription, even if you don't go online much. I can say I've never been disappointed with PS Plus service (well, some months are better than others) because I own all the consoles Sony releases games for on this service, except for the PSVR. Very often, pretty impressive games for the PS3 will come out on the service because people aren't buying them in droves anymore, such as the port of Syberia (the less said about the awful port of Syberia II, the better), Darkstalkers Resurrection, Child of Light and, of course, the aforementioned Yakuza 5. Sure, there's a lot of PS3 shovelware pushed out on the service, but you're more likely to stumble across ?something you reall??y, really like if you have the full breadth of consoles served by the online shop.

[Note: since this article was first published, Sony has announced that ?PS Plus will stop offering PS3 games from March 2019 onwards. Enjoy this extra PS Plus perk while you can! – CC]

And it goes without saying to hook it up to your TV with a HDMI cable. My co??nsole arrived only with composite cables. I don't know about you, but my HDMI cables seem to reproduce with each other, and the cables are che?ap nowadays, so this should be a pretty easy upgrade.

Which PS3 games should I focus on?

There is something there for everybody with the PS3. OK, if you want to play only the most modern fighting games, then you're going to want to eschew older consoles and get good on Tekken 7/Street Fighter V/pick your poison. Same goes for sports games, if having an?? up-to-date roster is important to you. But for al?most everyone else, there is something there.  

(Note: this is where you might be yelling, "but what about PS Now?!", given this ?allows you to stream some PS3 games to your PS4. Well, some regions don't have that service at all – Germany doesn’t – and not all of us have a great internet connection. So that's not? a solution for everyone.)

There is a range of PS1 and PS2 Classics that is for the PS3. Aside from the fact that you can still only play Persona 3: FES on a PS2 or a PS3, there are a handful of other Shin Megami Tensei releases available, if JRPGs are your thing. If you want a hard time of it, see if you get far enough to meet Dante in Shin Megami Tensei: Nocturne. Aside from this, the entire swathe of Final Fantasy PS1 games are there for the taking on the PS Store, if you h??ave?? a PS3.

The same applies for horror fans. Sick of waiting for news on a remake of Resident Evil 2? Why not play the original on your PS3 to tide you over? It's there on the store for dirt cheap, alongside the DualShock version of Resident Evil and Resident Evil 3. If you're no??t a fan of Crimson Heads and Lisa Trevor, then the former might ??be for you; if you're missing your old paramour Nemmie Boy, the latter might be your bag.

So it goes on and on. LittleBigPlanet 1 and 2 still hold up remarkably well; I would never say no to a cheap copy of Borderlands on which to play the single-player campaign; if you never played the Arkham games, then this is your chance. Whatever your tastes, you can find something to entertain you on a snowy Sunday afternoon. Here are my favourite purchases for my ?PS3 that are actual PS3 games:

• L.A. Noire. Yes, it's since come out remastered, but you can get a much cheaper copy for the PS3. While it may not be 4K, the facial animations and detail is still amazing. There are some games where it's worth getting the remastered version, such as Resident Evil 5 and 6 and the Bioshock collection, and some games where you may as well get the cheaper original. This is one where I would advise that the original is still an excellent game.

• Atelier Rorona. A super relaxing JRPG with inventory management and potion-making components. I used to play this with the sound off while listening to podcasts, as my post-work de-stressing ritual. It comes in a three-pack with Atelier Meruru and Atelier Totori, which was well worth the 12 euros I paid for it. An enhanced version is also available for sale on its own, titled Atelier Rorona Plus.

• Tales of Xillia. OK, this game absolutely whooped my ass and I'm currently stuck in a forest area. It's a grindfest, sure, but the story absolutely had its hooks in me until I came unstuck during a boss battle. Worth it if you want a challenge.

• LittleBigPlanet 2. Surprise, surprise, I have a soft spot for the game that came with my console. But it's timeless platforming, and who can say no to a bit of Stephen Fry?

• XCOM: Enemy Unknown. I'm still pissed that I lost half my team during an ill-fated zombie-fighting mission. Word of advice: don't name your teammates after friends or relatives.

• Steins;Gate. If you don't have a PS Vita and fancy playing Steins;Gate on the couch, get it for your PS3. You won't regret it - it's the best VN ever made, in my opinion.

***

Overall, I think there's value in looking backwards, as well as looking forwards, when it comes to games. There are many people who can't afford to keep up with modern gaming, and I was one of these people until just a few months ago. Also, unless you spent every waking moment gaming in the past ten years, y?ou're likely to have missed something. If you want a thorough overview of the development of?? modern gaming, it is completely worth taking a glance back at the previous generation. And what a generation it was.

Do you still have a PS3? What advice would you give to people who want to get into PS3 gaming at this stage? Do you have any similar advice for budding Xbox 360 fans? Let me know in the comments down below!

Want to read some more great stuff from our archives?  This stuff is golden

The post Getting the most out of your PlayStation 3 in 201??8 appeared first on Destructoid.

Relieve that digital stress all over again

Firaxis Games have put out a tweet announcing that intense strategy title XCOM 2 Collection is now available on PC, Mac and Linux, with PS4 and Xbox One editions to f??ollow sometime in the future.

For those less-inclined, XCOM 2 sees the Earth in dire straits after losing control of the planet in an intergalactic invasion. XCOM, the division formerly tasked within preventing such an occurrence, have been driven underground and now operate as a revolutionary force, striving to o?verthrow the occupation of Earth and its rulers, ADVENT.

The turn-based tactical title is well-known for its intense, strategic play and need for precise carefully-planned attack. It's also notorious for its uncomfortable decision making elements, both politically and on the battlefield, which often requires the sacrifice of the few for the many. XCOM 2 Collection features the base game, along with the War of the Chosen expan?sion and four previously-available?? DLC packs, which include new soldier classes, weaponry and cosmetic options.

XCOM 2 Collection? is available now on PC, Mac and Linux formats. A PS4 and Xbox One rel??ease is scheduled, but there is no specific release date as of yet.

The XCOM 2 Collection is now available for PC, Mac, and Linux. Coming soon to #PS4 and #XboxOne.

Good luck, Commander.

➜ //t.co/l6pDWOxmeY pic.twitter.com/Y4ffpmZ6k2

— Firaxis Games (@FiraxisGames) February 1, 2018

The post XCOM 2 Collection out now on PC, comin?g ??to PS4 and Xbox One appeared first on Destructoid.

Maybe you'll like what you see

The black sheep of the XCOM family is The Bureau: XCOM Declassified, at least ever since the series relaunched back in 2012. It's a third-person shooter in a sea of turn-based strategy games, and it was off enough to be largely disregarded. Its troubled development didn't help matters.

All of those sorta-unflattering things aside, you can own The Bureau at no cost right now. Humble's giving it away for free until December 2. All you have to do is add it to your cart, go through the checkou??t process, and t??hen redeem your Steam key. Not a lot of work!

Often, the games criticism cycle sees something get overpraised until a few weeks later when the tempered "Well, actually..." takes start rolling in. Occasionally the opposite happens, though: A game will be mostly snubbed upon release until the consensus turns around. Like Alpha Protocol. These are the Pinkertons of video games. The Bureau shows hints of that. It might not be great, but it also migh??t be better than you expect.

The Bureau: XCOM Declassified [Humble]

The post The Bureau: ?XCOM Declassified is free on Humble right now appeared first on Destructoid.

Profiles in failure and misery

Humanity is doomed. The hammer hasn&r??squo;t fallen quite yet, but from where we’re standing, you can see its rapidly expanding shadow as it comes crashing down. Humanity is finished. The best and brightest of our generation are either dead or driven mad from trauma, and while I don’t know exactly how, I am certain that it is all my fault.

Defeat in XCOM 2: War of the Chosen is a strange and bizarrely beautiful thing. Not only because it is possible, even probable, to lose the game (so long as you’re playing honest), but because it takes its damn time. The game always lets you know exactly how close you are to ??extinction, how much work you have left to do, and graciously allows you to do the mat?h and know there is no hope left.

Defeat is a rare thing in games in general. It’s almost unheard of for one to luxu??riate in it. 

The vast majority of games are very good at conditioning players to expect victory. It wasn’t always this way and there are plenty of examples of merciless games you can point to, but I’m talking about modern, mainstream games. We’re a long ways from the arcade days and early NES titles when Game Over screens were common and gamers could stroke their egos based on how many titles they'd “cleared.” We expect to beat games now, not for them to beat us.

Even “masochistic” games like Dark Souls are designed to be beaten. No matter how much fuss is made over how brutal and unforgiving a game is, death is never the end. No matter how many times you bite the dust, or how spectacularly you’re pulverized by a gigantic dragon, yo?u always have another shot. Victory might be hard won, but it is never out of reach.

Defeat on the other hand is something else entirely. Few mainstream games really present it as a possibility and even fewer bother to make it exciting. XCOM 2 was already a game that wasn’t shy when it came to screwing over its players - the map screen has a literal doomsday clock on the top of it that is constantly counting down. But it’s expansion, War of the Chosen, dives headfirst into that nihilism and splashes around in it. It takes an already difficult game and adds entirely new mechanics that almost universally revolve aro??und making the player’s life harder and defeat more likely. As a product intended for purchase it’s an interesting artifact - you’re essentially paying for the privilege of being tortured in new and interesting ways.

WotC is fickle, it takes as much (or more) as it gives. Sure, it introduces a slew of new troop types with pow?erful new abilities, squad bond abilities for frequent mis??sion-mates, randomized “breakthrough” research projects that buff your troops, and monthly perks in the form of “resistance orders.” These are lovely little bonuses, but for every new toy, there are devious new challenges to match it - and it feels like there is an alien thumb tipping the scales.

With new troop types come new enemies; Specters who are impervious to overwatch shots and freely knock out and clone your troops with “shadow” copies, immediately leave you outgunned and undermanned. There are ADVENT purifiers, stormtrooper thugs who set the map ablaze with huge flamethrow?er attacks that engulf your troops and damage them over multiple turns. The introduction of ??the Zombie-like Lost who, while not particularly dangerous on their own, overwhelm your squad with sheer numbers. Worst of all, you have the Chosen themselves.

The Chosen are a trio of named enemies who constantly hunt and harass the XCOM team, crashing missions and ambushing your squad during the worst possible moments. They are designed to be a menace you repeatedly clash with, spoilers who upset your plans, kidnap your troops??, and complicate your life in the most awful ways.

The Chosen actively gather intelligence on XCOM’s operations, and if they collect enough, they’ll launch a devastating surprise attack on your home turf, something you definitely don’t want to deal with. In WotC, you not only need to keep track of the ever threatening doomsday clock, you also need to keep an eye on how close each Chosen is on your heels. In between the normal battery of guerilla ops, black site invasions, and retaliation st??rikes, you need to manage resistance black ops to gather intel on them in turn. Al?l the while, the Chosen will run raids on your troops, brutalize your allies, and strangle your ability to fight back.

It’s a lot on top of the rest of armageddon.

But as bad as they are, the Chosen and their wicked games are far from the only way WotC tightens the screws. The exp??ansion also introduces the concept of psychological exhaustion and trauma to your weary, dragged out and kicked down group of guerrillas.

Troops who com??e stumbling back from bad missions with KIAs to report or harrowing wounds to recover from, carry their scars with them. Too many ??missions in a row will exhaust a soldier, leaving them vulnerable to psychic attacks or bouts of panic when staring down the barrel of an extraterrestrial’s gun. Particularly traumatic missions can result in psychological breaks that introduce a whole host of issues, reducing your best troops to jittery, nervous wrecks who will refuse orders or turn tail and run when you need them the most.

These afflictions can be treated, but that takes time you don’t have. These issues, combined with the usual post-mission round of triage for anyone who was wounded, and R&R breaks for exhausted units, means your roster of reliable troops can become precariously small, very quickly. Forget cultivating an A and B team, sooner or later you’ll be digging deep into the roster for the D, E, and F teams. There’ll be missions where your tossing lowly squaddies and raw recruits into the fray just to keep your numbers up. Eventually, even those warm bodies won’t be enough and you’ll find yourself sending wounded and broken soldiers to the front lines, miserable sods who only become more fractured and spent in the pro??cess.

This is the beauty of WotC - everything gets worse all the time. From the moment you start the game, you start losing. This is the long defeat, str??ap in and get comfortable.

Defeat comes creeping at you from every direction and at al?l times. It comes in intense, fitful bursts of tragedy on the battlefield, like the loss of a favored operative, or a botched EVAC of a VIP. It comes in the long, slow slog of mismanagement and bankruptcy. When the Avenger lacks the power grid to support a mission critical decryption lab, but you can’t afford either the cost of installing another generator, or another 30 days worth of time digging out a new room. There are moments of micro failure and long unseen stretches of macro failure. In the postmortem, it can be difficult to determine exactly when the patient went critical.

Which brings me back to my current game and humani??ty’s impending doom. “When did it all go wrong?” I wonder.

The obvious answer would ??be a particularly nasty “Code Black” that gutted my roster of senior operatives. A bungled mission that resulted in a cataclysmic loss of advanced units, leaving me to tread water with a long line of semi-expendable second-bananas from then on. Certainly it was a low moment for XCOM and my command, but what led to that loss in the first place?

Was it recklessness? I built my squad around a conc??ealment strategy that let units fan out far and wide to be in position to ambush the aliens. In the rearview mirror, it seems obvious that a misstep was bound to happen, that breaking concealment too early would spell doom for the team. But ca??n all the blame be laid on my sloppy squad composition and the tactics I used in a single mission?

Maybe the real coup de grace occurred when my Grenadier was mind controlled into shooting her squadmates. Things were already breaking bad by that point, but that spot of friendly fire sure didn’t help. If so, what was the answer? Should I have equipped my troops with more mindshields at the expense of grenades and special ammo just on the off chance they were psychically attacked? Should I have paid more attention to the Will stat when choosing which of my soldiers to groom for advancement? Maybe if I prioritized the Psi Lab building earlier and got my own psychic troopers into the field, units who could have countered mind control atta?cks, all of this could have been avoided.

Or did I just fall too far behind the tech curve to keep up? Dr. Tygan kept offering up tempti?ng “breakthrough” research projects that were too good to pass up, and it’s possible I got a little too greedy with the upgrades. At the time I felt like an extra +1 damage for every assault rifle, or the ability to swap those expensive weapon mods between soldiers, was worth delaying the typical rotation of alien autopsies and material break downs that dr?ive XCOM’s arms race. Now, looking at the doomsday clock tick down to its last few seconds, I’m having second thoughts.

And on and on it goes. I could spend forever retracing my missteps, trying to track down the proverbial nail that led to the war being lost, but it’s an impossible task. In XCOM 2: WotC, defeat isn’t some mugger that sneaks up on you and bash??????????????????????????es you over the head, it’s your shadow, your constant companion. A growing presences that is always just behind you, threatening to swallow you?? up. Sometimes you stay ahead of it, sometimes you don’t.

Victory is your buddy in a lot of games, and together you spend a lot of time basking in triumph and cheering over vanquished foes. There is something quietly ?beautiful ??about a game that expects you to rub shoulders with failure though, that dares to remind you that not everything works out all of the time and sometimes you don't always get what you want. A game that invites you to celebrate defeat.

The post Celebrating the lon??g defeat in XCOM 2: War of the Chosen appeared first on Destructoid.

Dragging in some savings

XCOM 2's expansion War of the Chosen is now released. If all the reviews thus far have you nodding your head in approval, we've rounded up the various deals available online for the Steam copy of the game. If you were hoping for deep eye-popping discounts, you may be a bit disappointed as release-week deals on XCOM 2: War of the Chosen have been rather timid. Having said that, at the very least you will have your pi?ck of retail??er.

As of writing, five digital retailers are offering discou??nts from 12% to 16%. If you were hoping for 20% or more, those discounts have disappeared into the void along with the expansion's pre-order status.

Note: For the discount at GMG you'll have to sign-in or create an account, otherwise you'll only see 5% off instead of the 15% off.

XCOM 2: War of the Chosen Release Week Deals

• Green Man Gaming (Steam) — $33.99  (list price $40) <- Login to see discount
• Bundle Stars (Steam) — $33.99  (list price $40) <- US/CA only
• GamersGate (Steam) — $33.75  (list price $40)
• DLGamer (Steam) — $35.19  (list price $40)
• GamesPlanet (Steam) — £29.74  (list price £35) <- UK/EU only

User reviews are very positive on Steam, with 78% in the thumb?s up camp. 

Big fat warning note: many of the incoming negative reviews are from Mac/Linux gamers who have a different release date later this September (similar to console gamers who aren't getting the game?? until September 12). These are of course reasonable negative reviews in our opinion, given Firaxis and F??eral Interactive haven't exactly done a good job communicating this on the Steam page.

Game deals from Dealzon. Sales help support Destructoid.

The post XC??OM 2: War of the Chosen release day deals round??up appeared first on Destructoid.

Five dollars for hobby-grade, genre-blended, meta-growth games

If you have a participating PSN account, then there's currently a very cool 2??K Games bundle available over at the Humble Bundle site, bagging you a lot of great, classic titles, across various Sony platforms, for very little cash.

Currently, just five dollars will get you XCOM: Enemy Unknown and Civilization Revolution II for the PS Vita. Alongside these titles you also get BioShock, The Bureau, Spec Ops: The Line, Mafia II, XCOM: Enemy Within, and Borderlands 1 & 2 for the PS3. If that wasn't enough the $5 deal also includes Battleborn Trial and Evolve for the PS4. That's eleven games in total!

Stepping up a tier to twenty dollars will also add the excellent XCOM 2 for the PS4. That's a hell of a lot of good ??games for a pretty slim amount of cash, the proceeds of which can be donated to the current charity, Covenant House, which helps the hom??eless youth.

As usual the current bundle will be available for the next two weeks. It is required that you have a PSN account registered to one of the countries listed here. Be sure to check the link before you put down your money to avoid disappointment, followed by ??rage, then possibly structural da??mage.

Humble 2K PSN Bundle [Humble Bundle]

The post XCOM, Borderlands and mor??e in 2K Games Humble Bundle for PSN appeared first on Destructoid.

Now the real discount begins

Update: Deals on War of the Chosen has been reduced now that the game is about to come out. Pricing updated below.

Did you pickup a cheap copy of XCOM 2 during the Steam Summer sale and speed run through the game already? Those craving more XCOM get a chance on August 28 with the War of the Chosen expansion going live. Its going rate is $39.99 on Steam, but w??e're not doing our dirty deal hunting job if w?e don't inform you of a cheaper price elsewhere.

Head over to GMG where a rare coupon/voucher code applies at checkout cuts 18% off the $39.99 list price. That's pretty good in itself, but if you have an account or create a new one (a simple email address is all required) you'll get a further 10% off. The two discounts stack for a total of 26% off. That's as good as we can expect the new XCOM 2 expans?ion to drop to before its release later next month.

XCOM 2: War of the Chosen PC Deal

• XCOM 2: War of the Chosen (Steam) — $33.99  (list price $40)
• Use Code: 2017E318OFF

The coupon code has a limited time run at GMG. It officially expires at 12:00pm Eastern on July 19. That gives you about a week to pick up the upcoming XCOM 2 expansion with the 26% off pre-order discount.

The VIP instant savings works on many pre-order games like this, and while it's expected to stay until the game's launch, it can be taken away at any time as we saw last month with Call of Duty: WWII at GMG.

Given we have a little over a month until the official release date, we suspect other 2K/Firaxis supported digital retaile?rs will also have deals of their own prior to release. If new ??deals show up, we will update this post accordingly.

Game deals from Dealzon. Sales help support Destructoid.

The post XCOM 2: War of the Chosen has a 26??% off pre-order deal for PC appeared first on Destructoid.

Never-ending grapples

That debut trailer for the new XCOM 2 expansion had a hell of a lot going on. In the weeks since the full reveal for War of the Chosen, Firaxis has been putting out more focused videos including one on the Assassin, one on the Reaper, and now, today, one on the Skirmisher. ??These are my dudes right here.

They're mobile, grapple-centric characters capable of pulling themselves across the map with ease and yanking foes toward them for ?a clean shot. Skirmishers can also get to a point where, among other abilities, they're able to take an action after each enemy takes theirs. All that, and they look cool.

War of the Chosen isn't due out until August 29, so there's plenty left to ??see, too.

The post XCOM 2: War of the Chosen’s Skirmishers are my kind of faction appeared first on Destructoid.

Deals worth mulling over

Two digital retailers are offering up 2K titles at cheap prices well before summer sales kick off in earnest. At GamersGate, you'll find a giant 2K Games sale with discounts up to 82% off on dozens of popular franchises published by 2K, including XCOM, Civilization, Borderlands, and much more. At Green Man Gaming, you'll find an overlapping Civilization sale with similar discount, so to sort?? through the barrage of deals we've rounded up the best from each retailer below.

The headline for the Civilization series is Civilization VI Deluxe Edition falling to a historic low price of $45. This gets you six additional DLC packs, all of which aren't really worth buying on an individual level. Also noteworthy are historic low prices on both Civilization: Beyond Earth and its expansion pack Civilization: Beyond Earth: Rising Tide (which makes Civ:BE a s??ignificantly better title) at $9 and ?$15, respectively.

Beyond Civilization goodies, the best-selling titles in the sale are the XCOM series, notably XCOM 2. While 65% off isn't quite new low price territory, you are still looking at a much more favorable price than its list?? price of $60.

The GamersGate complete 2K sale is running now through Sunday, May 21 and Green Man Gaming's Civilization sale runs until Tuesday, May 22.

Note: Games in bold below are at their lowest ever price. The discounts on Civilization VI are running a bit longer until May 30.

Civilization

• Civilization VI Digital Deluxe (Steam) — $45.55  (list price $80)
• Civilization VI (Steam) — $34.16  (list price $60)
• Civilization: Beyond Earth - Rising Tide (Steam) — $14.99  (list price $30)
• Civilization: Beyond Earth (Steam) — $8.90  (list price $40)
• Civilization V: Complete Edition (Steam) — $10.49  (list price $50)
• Civilization V: Gods and Kings (Steam) — $7.50  (list price $30)
• Civilization V: Brave New World (Steam) — $6.37  (list price $30)
• Civilization V (Steam) — $6.60  (list price $30)
• Civilization IV: Complete Edition (Steam) — $6.37  (list price $30)
• Civilization III Complete (Steam) — $0.66  (list price $3)

Borderlands

• Borderlands: The Pre-Sequel Season Pass (Steam) — $13.20  (list price $30)
• Borderlands: The Pre-Sequel (Steam) — $10.56  (list price $40)
• Borderlands 2: Game of the Year Edition (Steam) — $8.80  (list price $40)
• Borderlands Game of the Year Edition (Steam) — $6.60  (list price $30)
• Borderlands 2 (Steam) — $4.40  (list price $20)
• Borderlands (Steam) — $4.40  (list price $20)

XCOM

• XCOM 2: Digital Deluxe (Steam) — $26.40  (list price $75)
• XCOM 2 (Steam) — $21.12  (list price $60)
• XCOM: Enemy Unknown The Complete Edition (Steam) — $8.90  (list price $50)
• XCOM: Enemy Unknown (Steam) — $6.67  (list price $30)
• XCOM: Enemy Within (Steam) — $6.67  (list price $30)
• The Bureau: XCOM Declassified (Steam) — $4.25  (list price $20)

NBA

• NBA 2K17 Legend Edition Gold (Steam) — $44  (list price $100)
• NBA 2K17 Legend Edition (Steam) — $39.16  (list price $80)
• NBA 2K17 (Steam) — $32.03  (list price $60)
• NBA 2KVR Experience (Steam) — $4.40  (list price $15)

More 2K Games

• WWE 2K17 Digital Deluxe (Steam) — $37.53  (list price $75)
• Mafia III: Digital Deluxe Edition (Steam) — $26.40  (list price $60)
• Mafia III (Steam) — $17.60  (list price $40)
• Mafia II Digital Deluxe Edition (Steam) — $6.80  (list price $40)
• Mafia II (Steam) — $6.67  (list price $30)
• Spec Ops: The Line (Steam) — $6.67  (list price $30)
• BioShock Infinite (Steam) — $6.60  (list price $30)
• The Darkness 2 (Steam) — $5.34  (list price $30)
• BioShock Infinite: Season Pass (Steam) — $5  (list price $20)
• BioShock (Steam) — $4.60  (list price $20)
• Bioshock 2 (Steam) — $4.40  (list price $20)
• Duke Nukem Forever (Steam) — $3.56  (list price $20)
• Sid Meier's Pirates! (Steam) — $2.50  (list price $10)
• CivCity: Rome (Steam) — $2.50  (list price $10)
• Sid Meier's Railroads! (Steam) — $2.20  (list price $10)

Game deals from Dealzon. Sales help support Destructoid.

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With $500K raised, stretch goals are up next

There's a clear desire for more turn-based tactics games, and when game designer Julian Gollop sets out to "create an entirely new game whose essence lies in the XCOM genre," good things happen. The X-COM creator's new project, Phoenix Point, has passed its $500,000 funding goal on Fig.

You know what that means: stretch goals. The next funding milestone is $650,000, at which point Phoenix Point will see drivable vehicles added to its production schedule. They can transport your tro??ops in, provide heavy weapons support, and help with material gathering and civilian evacuation.

At the next goal, $850,000, there will be "a floating fortress which can travel by sea and conduct air operations inland from coastal areas," which, yes. Heck yes. That'd be g?rand.

If this is your first time hearing about the game and you need context for the setting, in which most human life has been killed o??ff by a nasty virus that's also able to mutate survivors, here it is:

"You play as part of the Phoenix Project, a worldwide organization set in place before the Pandoravirus, and designed to activate in times of world peril. You and your team must find out what has happened to the other Phoenix Project sleeper cells as you race to bring humanity back from the brink of extinction. Along the way, you will encounter constant threats from an ever-increasing variety of alien mutants (procedural generation system) armed with varying tactical abilities and intense boss battles with massive monsters and alien land walkers. Aliens are not your only concern as you will come face t??o face with unpredictable interactions with human factions with their ideologies and rife with internal conflicts ?including kidnappings, assassinations, sabotage, military coups, and base defense missions."

Like Steven, I'm also repulsed by and in love w?ith this game's h?orrible mutated monster people.

Phoenix Point [Fig]

The post X-COM creator’s new strategy title crowdfunded appeared first on Destructoid.

Asking for half a million in crowdfunding

Phoenix Point is a "turn-based tactics and world-based strategy game" from the creator of the original X-COM, Julian Gollop. The project is seeking $500,000 in funding on Fig and meant to release at the end of 2018.

"We are creating Phoenix Point by taking influences from the famed X-COM franchise. We are updating our favorite gameplay features from X-COM titles such as UFO: Enemy Unknown and X-COM Apocalypse that I designed, and mixing them with some of the amazing ideas Firaxis Games executed brilliantly in their franchise reboots, to create an entirely new game whose essence lies in the XCOM genre," Gollop said.

Taking stock in what Firaxis has done well with the series is smart. And I like the Cronenberg'd-up world and monsters; incidentally, I recommend watching the recent practical-effects-filled horror movie The Void.

The post Phoenix Point is a n?ew strategy game from the creator of X-COM appeared first on Destructoid.

Godspeed, commander

The next time you're in the mood for soul-crushing, despair-ridden turn-based tactics, you'll want X-COM handy, and currently, the Humble Store is giving away X-COM: UFO Defense. Done and done!

This 48-hour offer is for a Steam copy, and the deal only went live this mornin??g, so there's plenty of time left to snatch the game. It might look dated, but deep down, it's a keeper.

X-COM: UFO Defense [Humble]

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Need a game changer?

And here I was, about to write up a bit of late news about how Pavonis Interactive (née Long War Studios) planned "Long War 2" mega-mod for XCOM 2 would include some new types of missions, when the damn thing just up and drops onto the ?Steam Workshop, free for all comers.

XCOM 2 owners on PC can pick it up right now, and some are already wallowing happily in the many changes wrought by the mod. New character classes, enhanced difficulty, new tiers of weaponry, and a top-to-bottom refresh of the game's structure are in store for those who opt to take the plunge. I haven't tried the mod yet, but Pavonis' other work with the first Long War mod for XCOM: Enemy Unknown is very well-regarded, even by the folks at Firaxis i?tself. 

Just note that at the moment Long War 2 will break a wh??ole bunch of other mods, s?o Commanders that want in are encouraged to clear their configuration files and try to start as cleanly as possible so as to avoid unsightly compatibility issues. 

The post Oh wow, XCOM 2’s Long War 2 overhaul is out now appeared first on Destructoid.

Perchance to dream

One year ago, before 2016 became a hackneyed punchline ("2016? More like 2000-sucks-teen!!!" the peanut gallery offered when Johnny Depp tragically fell into an active volcano while doing the "Mannequin Challenge" on its rim), we had hope.

Not a lot of it, and we all carry it in individual amounts, some more overburdened with it than others; but, at the very least, there were some video games we were looking forward to playing in 2016. Well, 2016 is over. So how'd that turn out for us, being hopeful for a thing, in the bad joke year of all yea??rs? Let's hold ourselves accountable -- even for our optimism.

Last year I picked then-just-a-month-away XCOM 2 because the prior two years I picked Gravity Rush 2 and Persona 5, ??in that order. Neither of the latter are out yet, still, as of January 9, 2017.

And XCOM 2 ended up being a good "safe" choice, like that actuary from Connecticut who's really into SoulCycle, you know? It was more of the rebooted XCOM, which was good. It ran like dogshit, which was bad. Ultimately it gave me another excuse to drop another 50 hours into XCOM (no, this is a new one!) and d??o it while slicing upright cobra people with cyber katanas. It was great to have the Ranger class automatically turn any reptile that wrapped them up into sashimi (anything for a kill on an enemy turn!). It was also cool to have your Ranger trapped in the "I?'m being constricted by a snake" animation for the remainder of the level.

This was a game where people found out if you press Caps Lock during the agonizing loading screens it would load instantly, but potentially at the risk of your save file/game stability. That's XCOM as hell, baby! Same with the entire conceit: an alternate future where you lose the first game, basically, no matter how many hundreds of hours you devoted to saving the earth from aliens. I love it. I hope XCOM 3 is you play??ing as the occupying force of snake aliens et al, all humans having been ground up into a fine paste years ago, defending your earth colony from a different whole new civilization of space imperialists??.   

Darks Souls III turned out more than fine, though it was clear to me that after multiple runs, it didn't match up to ?its predecessors. While the magic is still there a lot of the surprises of been spent, and outside of just several boss fights I was comparing them t?o existing material.

You'll never be able to fight Wolf Sif again for the first time in the initial Dark Souls, but every time I step up to him, it feels that way. There were very few "I need to tell people about this" moments in III, an?d that goes doubl?e for the DLC that's come out so far.

My most anticipated game for 2015 was The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild, but then it was delayed until 2016. Technically, it was still by most anticipated game by the time 2016 rolled around, but I didn't want to write about it twice, so I wrote about Rhythm Heaven Megamix, my second most anticipated of that year. After seeing Breath of the Wild in action at E3, I'm all the more glad that I made that decision. The game looks great, but after seeing hours and hours of footage of it, I feel like I've already played it, and may wait until my son is at college to actually pick it up. I probably won't have time to play it? until then anyway. 

Speaking of my son, he loves Rhythm Heaven Megamix so much! Every morning at around 6am, he waddles over to my side of the bed, grabs the 3DS and say "Gay!" He's only one year old, so two syllable words aren't generally his thing at the moment, but I know what he means. He wants to watch me play the game, with his favorite for stages being Flock Step, Blue Birds, LumBEARjack and Double Date. He jumps up and down with excitment when the soccer bal??ls bounce, and chuckles hard when the birds make funny sounds.

He's been in this daily Rhythm Heaven watching routine  for about six months now, which has led me to enjoy a game that I already loved in a whole new way. It also led me to get perfects on every stage, which is neat. It will be fun to see if my kid ends up being a Rhythm Heaven fan for life, or if he'll end up thi??nking of them as "games for babies?" once he's a teenager. 

I'll let you know as soon as Jools Watsham finishes making Treasurenauts.

After two years of ticking them on my Most Anticipated lists, I finally got to play Persona 5 and No Man's Sky. And both were pretty dope! Persona 5 puts the lie to the notion I had that Persona needs some kind of sea change in structure to be interesting again, putting a new spin on virtually everything that I thought it had done to death by Persona 4 Golden. That said, I'm not above thinking that some more radical measures are needed to put a potential Persona 6 on my map, especially now that key P-Studio staff are working on Atlus' next big thing. The one thing that sucks, though, is Atlus choosing to pretty much strangle convenient streaming for the game by almost completely locking out the PS4's recording features for the Japanese release. It's a f??rankly medieval attitude that I hope will be corrected when the English version rolls around this summer. 

As for No Man's Sky...what hasn't been said about it at this point? No one deserves the kind of flak Hello Games took in wake of that game's release, but the death threats and subreddit insanity surrounding No Man's Sky is derailing a legitimate conversation about developer transparency, gamer expectations, and the real need to rein in unfettered hype. That's all external to the game, of course, which large?ly delivered on what was promised, in my opinion. I saw planets, got to ?land on them, and it was chill and fun. Every so often I still boot it up and fly to a new planet, trying to check out what weird stuff turns up.

My other runners-up were also wins, as well. Deus Ex: Mankind Divided and XCOM 2 were really cool, though my graphics card starts to run hot when I load them, meaning I haven't been able to play too much of either. Summer Lesson delivered the goods, though it was blurrier than I thought it would be, and Final Fantasy XV was the boy-ban??d road trip we all? need and want.

Prompto is best girl.

Did I make this happen? Did I summon another act of Kentucky Route Zero by putting it on my list last year? Is this website like some kind of reverse Death Note, and can I use that power to make Heat Signature release faster? I would have bet on every other game listed before a new act of Kentucky Route Zero, and yet Act IV -- the most implausible release of the bunch! -- dropped before a new Legend of Zelda or Persona 5. I also hedged my bets on the hypothetical winner of Destructoid's site-wide Game of the Year, which turned out to be Overwatch; ??a game I've spent over a hundred hours playing over the course of the year. That worked out, I suppose!

So, how did Kentucky Route Zero Act IV turn out? I guess you could read my 10/10 review, or my GOTY write-up where the game took my #1 spot. KRZ is a peerless narrative experience, one that seems to be examining itself behind the scenes at all times, constantly upending expectations without losing sight of its thematic core. It makes me want to sit on a country porch with two fingers of bourbon & one piece of ice, peering up at a starless night sky, h?oping the alcohol dulls my senses before I start thinking too much. It is very very very good.

I can't wai??t to give the finished product my GOTY...in 2020, or whenever the final ac?t drops.

So last year my anticipated games were a bunch of Kickstarter games scheduled for 2015 and before that had been delayed into 2016. I half-joked at the end that maybe a couple would actually release in 2016. The thing about half-joking is that it's half-telling-the-truth. I listed eight games I was looking forward to (Ghost Song: a Journey of Hope, Heart Forth Alicia, Hyper Light Drifter, Night in the Woods, Paradise Lost: First Contact, Scale, Timespinner, and Yooka-Laylee) and only one of them (Hyper Light Drifter) actually came out. I'm batting .125.

But news isn't all bad for this list! Yooka-Laylee is close enough to being done it has a solid release date set for April. Night in the Woods should easily make 2017. Paradise Lost just got a demo out to backers. As recent as November 2016, Heart Forth, Alicia was shooting for release by the end of the y??ear, so it can't be too far off now.

As for Hyper Light Drifter, Nic Rowen gave it a 9/10 in our ??review here. It turned out great... or so I'm ?told! I didn't actually play it. I'm terrible.

Shin Megami Tensei IV Apocalypse was my most anticipated game of 2016. I was pretty pleased with it overall, but then, Atlus always has a knack for improving on the games they released and this "w?hat if" sequel's scenario is no different

2013's SMT IV was a fine outing, but not without some rough?? edges. Allied AI characters brought back some the more frustrating aspects of Persona 3 (i.e. here's a spell that won't help), the world map was a chore to navigate and while the method of landing on the Neutral path wasn't unfair the criteria w?as arguably a bit too narrow.

And so Apocalypse posits that Flynn chose the Neutral ending of SMT IV and new protagonist Nanashi ends? up unwittingly interrupting that ending. That and his act??ions bring an unwanted third party threat to muck with the war between Law and Chaos.

It's a bold thing to commit another lengthy RPG to what is a "what if" scenario rather than simply declare all the endings were true like Deus Ex tends to. As a bonus, many of those gameplay warts of its predecessor (like said party AI and maps) were resolved and we got a few more questions answered about the SMT IV saga.

I like to tell people the difference between SMT and Persona is that in Persona you kill time with your friends and with SMT, in time, you kill your friends. While I do take some issue with this iteration edging closer to Persona, the fact I can slay all my besties makes up for it. The critical path also seeks to punish those that make a choice contrary to all that came before. Even when At?lus makes a path easier to obtain, it's not afraid to sucker punch you.

I have very little recollection of wishing for a second season to close out D4: Dark Dreams Must Die, but that sure sounds like something I'd root for above all else in a most-anticipated article??.

Sadly but unsurprisingly, 2016 wasn't the year to wrap up D4's wild cliffhanger, and 2017 won't be either. Writer-director Swery has retired from Access Games. As disappointed as I am that this story will remain unresolved probably forever, I find solace every day in Swery's life-affirming Instagram antics.

The fact that D4 ?exists, even in an unfinished state, still brings me joy.

CORY ARNOLD: Somehow, I really didn't get to play a lot of games this last year. I had so much going on that I could barely touch the two games I've b??een waiting over a decade for. I don't like to?? talk about games I haven't played a significant amount of, but to give my impressions thus far...

Final Fantasy XV has been hard to even get to. Since it started out as Final Fantasy XIII Versus, I kept wondering if any of the mythos or happenings of the XIII series or Agito/Type-0 would be referenced. Since I like to play everything in order and haven't played Lightning Returns nor Type-0, I figured I'd have to wait. Turns out you don't need to. Fair enough, but there were still several oddly-named demos, an anime series that is six, nay, five, nay six episodes, and a CG movie. I watched the anime Brotherhood first and absolutely adored it. The simple plot structure and character focus gave me high hopes, but then I watched the absolute train wreck that was Kingslaive and it put me off for a while. 

Finally around Christmas or so I got to play some, and I got all the way up the first gas station and my first mission. So yeah, I haven't even really s??tarted. It was around this time Square s??tarted making all these announcements about future content and story updates, and I more or less decided to wait.

Meanwhile, I put more time in The Last Guardian though still not a lot. I've gotten just up to the point where you encounter the robots for the first time, and I can't say I've had any emotional connection like the previous games quite yet. So far I'm not super excited, but I didn't care much for Ico a couple hours in either, which this game resembles more than it does Shadow of the Colossus. I'm not a fan of climby platform games like Tomb Raider or Uncharted, and ani??mals in games always feel too contrived and fake to me. In hindsight I don't think I would've minded saving $60 and ??watching this on Youtube, but I'm committed now.

My 2016 most anticipated ??games picks turned out to be some monkey paw bullshit. Both of my picks came out this year and were in many ways excellent games. But, they were also hobbled in some crucial way that prevented either of them from being the bangers they should have been.

XCOM 2 was a fine game. But “fine” seems like a let-down coming on the heels of one of the most successful franchise reboots in recent memory. The added soldier customization options and plethora of new tactical abilities and equipment choices should have made it a slam dunk. But, for every moment of tactical bliss I had with the game, I had an equally soul-shattering moment of frustration or exasperation. I'd just get into a good groove with the game when some bug, glitch, or dubious design choice (marathon sprinting stun-rod soldiers, I'm looking at you) would pop up just to make sure I wasn't enjoying myself too much. The constant ?highs and lows were enough to give me the bends.

My other choice, Street Fighter V, was released in a state I can only describe as ghastly. Can you believe they put out a Street Fighter without an Arcade mode? Missing basic features, suffering from prolonged server issues, and mired in discontent, SFV didn't just trip out of the gate, it snapped both legs and somehow manged to gouge an eye out on one of the bloodied bone fragments. Yes, the core fighting in the game was splendid, but it?'s hard to muster up the enthusiasm a fighting game demands when it seems like you paid full price for half of a game that barely works. Patches and updates would later solve many of the issues that kept it from winning my heart, but I just couldn't be bothered by the time they rolled around.

I never got around to buying a Vita or playing that Gundam game (if it even came out). However, I did watch Gundam: Thunderbolt about a half-doz?en times throughout the year, so there'?s that.

--

And you?

The post How did Destructoid’s most anticipated games of 2016 turn out? appeared first on Destructoid.

You'll get immediate access

Yesterday's news of the Long War 2 mod reminded me that I failed to snag XCOM 2 at launch and, dumber yet, whi?le it was discounted in recent end-of-year sales. But actually, that indecisiveness has paid off -- the a?lien-blastin', bad-luck-cursing strategy title is available for only $12 on PC.

The deal comes from Humble Monthly, a subscription service that gives you immediate access to one known game -- in this case, XCOM 2 -- and six as-yet-unknown titles on February 3, 2017. Even if you literally only want XCOM 2 and don't care about whatever else will be in the bundle, this is a price worth considering (just don't forget to cancel your sub as needed before the next monthly bundle hits)??.

For reference, the last Humble Monthly lineup had Warhammer: End Times - Vermintide, Project Cars, Mother Russia Bleeds, The Legend of Heroes: Trails in the Sky, Neon Chrome, Jotun, HoPiKo, and Kimmy. These things vary, of course, but they can work out very favorably based on your library.

Asid??e from the deal, I think I subconsciously wanted to write this post because I've had snake-people? on the mind. Here are some excerpts from our Slack, a place where work somehow gets done.

"Again, nothing sexual."

The post Dang, XCOM 2 i??s only $12 in this?? Humble Monthly deal appeared first on Destructoid.

Because the original wasn't hard enough, wimps

Long War Studios, the fellers wot brought you the Long War mod for 2012's XCOM reboot, are replicating those actions for the sequel. A rebranding has led to the team calling itself Pavonis Interactive, and its official site mentions both Long War 2 and its Kickstarted original creation, Terra Invicta.

If you're unfamiliar with the Long War mod, here's a primer: bigger squads, more of a focus on fostering an entire roster of soldiers instead of picking favorites (due to fatigue and injury systems), a much longer, grueling campaign, and all sorts of new weapons, classes, and skills. Many of these ideas were picked up by Firaxis for XCOM 2 proper, which Pavonis helped provide mods for at launch.

I quite liked XCOM 2 despite numerous performance issues even on a beefy computer, and it's been long enough that I'll inevitably get sucked back in with this mod. According to the official XCOM site, we'll know more in the coming weeks.

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