MechWarrior 5: Mercenaries Reveals 2019 Release Date and Extended Gameplay Trailer at Mech_Con 2018
Battle Trailer Offers Fresh Perspective of Exhilarating Mech Warfare Awaiting Pilots
VANCOUVER – Dec. 3, 2018 – MechWarrior 5: Mercenaries, the series’ first dedicated single-player entry in the classic PC gaming series in more than 15 years, has locked onto a Sept. 10, 2019 launch on PC, developer Piranha Games announced tonight at Mech_Con 2018.
Revealed live on stage in front of some of the world’s most dedicated MechWarrior fans at the fourth annual Mech_Con, MechWarrior 5: Mercenaries’ release date was announced with a new gameplay trailer showing off the explosive high-stakes battles and decisions pilots will face when they take control of their own mercenary unit on launch day.
MechWarrior 5: Mercenaries will allow pilots to build, manage and guide their own mercenary unit through a multi-year campaign during the sprawling Third and Fourth Succession Wars. Whether braving missions alone, alongside AI-controlled pilots, or with the help of up to three friends via co-op play, players will face complicated situations with no perfect solution as they choose which contracts to accept, where in the galaxy to direct their attention, and how to balance repairs or upgrades with maintaining their unit’s precious resources.
Mech_Con is an annual celebration of the MechWarrior universe, as well as the world of BattleTech, which gathers the MechWarrior community’s most dedicated pilots in Vancouver. Now a two-day event as of Mech_Con 2018, attendees are treated to a full schedule of live presentations, developer Q&As, and hands-on demo opportunities for the latest MechWarrior titles, as well as front-row seats for the final matches of the 2018 MechWarrior Online World Championships.
“Getting to meet with MechWarrior’s most diehard fans and see them react to the team’s hard work at Mech_Con has become an incredible tradition for us,” said Russ Bullock, president of Piranha Games. “The team has put so much work and passion into our mission to bring MechWarrior back into the spotlight, and seeing our excitement for what’s still to come for this classic series reverberate with the community in the room tonight was incredible.”
DICE and EA are taking Battlefield V back to World War II where the franchise first started. While the setting is the same, Battlefield V is taking a decidedly more modern approach to World War II, carrying over a lot of features from Battlefield 1 and adding some new features to encourage teamplay. The game ships with three singleplayer War Stories and eight multiplayer maps.
Story
There’s a good reason why the video game industry moved on from World War 2 in the early 2000s. It was overdone, and games were quickly boiling down to the same rehashed tale about Normandy with a few stories about the eastern front thrown in for good measure. Battlefield V’s writers are opting to explore stories mainstream pop culture passed over, those of criminals, resistance fighters, and colonial armies. Whether you want to call it mining the dusty corners of history for fresh content or some social justice agenda, the topics are a lot more interesting than reliving D-Day for the thirtieth time.
War Stories ships with three short stories following the Special Boat Service during Operation Albumen, the Norwegian resistance looking to sabotage the German nuclear weapons program, and the Senegalese Tirailleurs during Operation Dragoon. Each story can be completed in about an hour, so there isn’t much time for deep storytelling. It’s hard to develop strong characters in that period, so each War Story feels more like a sample bite at the local grocery store in hopes you’ll look into the full product on your own time. While a fourth War Story is scheduled to launch on December 4th, Battlefield V is still woefully short of a full singleplayer campaign.
Grand Operations are multi-stage multiplayer maps that follows major battles. I like the fact they offer a little bit of history and context to the map. While the match outcomes don’t change history, it’s nice to see each round’s briefing react to the outcome of the previous round.
Gameplay
Battlefield V launches with the singleplayer War Stories and the normal multiplayer modes. The singleplayer campaign is showing its age. The mechanics feel like they have not changed much since Battlefield: Hardline. The stealth system is basic and feels clunky compared to modern systems. The AI is spotty and unpredictable. At times they know exactly where a supressed shot is coming from and swarm the player like angry hornets, other times they seem to be deaf to a shot ricocheting off a metal surface a few meters away. Considering there is only three to five hours of content right now, Battlefield V is definitely not worth the purchase for those interested only in singleplayer content.
Multiplayer is traditionally the main event for Battlefield titles, and even more so in the case for Battlefield V with its anemic singleplayer offerings. The game ships with the classic multiplayer modes we have become familiar with over the years, such as conquest and domination. These modes have aged well and continue to be a solid mainstay for players.
DICE is still tinkering with the much younger operations mode. This year brings a mode that is less vehicle focused than conquest but not a pure infantry experience like team deathmatch. Instead, DICE has taken some inspiration from last year’s Star Wars Battlefront II where vehicles and support abilities are summoned with points earned through the course of the match. The mode is a lot of fun, especially for players who are interested in strong teamplay.
I like the rejigged class system. DICE sticks with four classes but offers subspecialties for players who are looking to play the class with an emphasis on assault or support. While it’s impossible to force all players to stay with their squad and work as a team, giving all classes a chance to slowly revive squad members seems help. I really like the capped health regeneration as it gives medics a bigger role in the fight.
Balancing is still a work in progress. While the struggles of balancing air power have been ongoing since the birth of the Battlefield franchise, Battlefield V still hasn’t hit the sweet spot. December 4th is bringing a patch to nerf the KE7 and buff SMGs, which are steps in the right direction.
There has been controversy about Battlefield V, historical accuracy, and realism; especially in relation to the game’s cosmetics and marketing strategy. DICE has opted to fund the development of free gameplay content through cosmetics. A post-launch DLC plan that doesn’t split the player base makes the game’s cosmetic heavy strategy an easier pill to swallow. Personally, the some of cosmetics would feel out of place in a hyper-realistic shooter, but I don’t really consider Battlefield V a realistic World War II shooter in the first place. The game is very liberal with the use of unrealistic weapon mods like reflex sights and fully automatic weapons. Practically speaking, Battlefield V is a modern shooter with a World War II skin.
I think the pitfall of Battlefield V is the fact it feels rushed out the door. Considering the game isn’t a huge change from Battlefield 1, Battlefield V is a bit short on content. I get that Battlefield V is part of the new trend of video games as a service and that more free content is coming in the months ahead, but the game didn’t ship with the much-needed practice range, there is only three short War Stories, and Grand Operations is only an ad in the menus. On the server front, there’s no server rentals available for communities at launch and DICE’s servers have poor player balancing. I’ve seen entire teams empty out without switching solo-queued players over to the other side to balance out the teams. I expect better from DICE and their vaunted years of experience with multiplayer titles.
Visuals
Battlefield V is an excellent looking game. The game uses the aging Frostbite 3 engine, but the developers have done a good job updating the engine, so it can keep up with the latest and greatest. The engine is paired with excellent art direction to create a gorgeous and realistic looking game. The more focused nature of the War Stories offers some stunning moments amidst the bloodshed.
Audio
Battlefield V offers a solid audio experience. The soundtrack has great orchestral scores that sets the mood for the War Stories. The sound effects are solid. The voice acting is good, though some of the multiplayer lines could use some more variety. I really appreciate the fact that the voice acting in War Stories are in the character’s native language and subtitled as necessary. While I can’t comment on the quality of the non-English voice acting, I appreciate the sense of immersion.
Overall
Battlefield V is still an excellent large-scale shooter. The improvements to the teamplay experience are very good. Singleplayer is starting to show its age but has always been a bit of an afterthought for the mainline titles in the franchise. Mechanically speaking, I haven’t enjoyed a Battlefield game this much since Battlefield 3. The real problem is Battlefield V is short on content and features on launch. I suspect the game would have benefited from another delay to January 2019, after the Grand Operations mode, the fourth War Story, and battle royale mode are scheduled to launch. While a second review of Battlefield V in a few months time would technically be a review of a more complete game, the current state of Battlefield V feels like a no man’s land between an early access and full release.
Capsule Computers review guidelines can be found here.
MechWarrior 5: Mercenaries Reveals 2019 Release Date and Extended Gameplay Trailer at Mech_Con 2018
Battle Trailer Offers Fresh Perspective of Exhilarating Mech Warfare Awaiting Pilots
VANCOUVER – Dec. 1, 2018 – MechWarrior 5: Mercenaries, the series’ first dedicated single-player entry in the classic PC gaming series in more than 15 years, has locked onto a Sept. 10, 2019 launch on PC, developer Piranha Games announced tonight at Mech_Con 2018.
Revealed live on stage in front of some of the world’s most dedicated MechWarrior fans at the fourth annual Mech_Con, MechWarrior 5: Mercenaries’ release date was announced with a new gameplay trailer showing off the explosive high-stakes battles and decisions pilots will face when they take control of their own mercenary unit on launch day: https://youtu.be/vCXcFJBb6BM
MechWarrior 5: Mercenaries will allow pilots to build, manage and guide their own mercenary unit through a multi-year campaign during the sprawling Third and Fourth Succession Wars. Whether braving missions alone, alongside AI-controlled pilots, or with the help of up to three friends via co-op play, players will face complicated situations with no perfect solution as they choose which contracts to accept, where in the galaxy to direct their attention, and how to balance repairs or upgrades with maintaining their unit’s precious resources.
Mech_Con is an annual celebration of the MechWarrior universe, as well as the world of BattleTech, which gathers the MechWarrior community’s most dedicated pilots in Vancouver. Now a two-day event as of Mech_Con 2018, attendees are treated to a full schedule of live presentations, developer Q&As, and hands-on demo opportunities for the latest MechWarrior titles, as well as front-row seats for the final matches of the 2018 MechWarrior Online World Championships.
“Getting to meet with MechWarrior’s most diehard fans and see them react to the team’s hard work at Mech_Con has become an incredible tradition for us,” said Russ Bullock, president of Piranha Games. “The team has put so much work and passion into our mission to bring MechWarrior back into the spotlight, and seeing our excitement for what’s still to come for this classic series reverberate with the community in the room tonight was incredible.”
LEGO® DC Super-Villains Aquaman Movie DLC Revealed
Players Embark on Daring Missions in the Underwater Kingdom of Atlantis to Prevent the Seven Kingdoms from Uniting Against the Surface World
Warner Bros. Interactive Entertainment revealed content and characters in two upcoming Aquaman movie packs for LEGO® DC Super-Villains available on PlayStation® 4, Xbox One, Nintendo Switch™, and Windows PC. The downloadable packs add levels and DC characters inspired by the much-anticipated Warner Bros. Pictures film, Aquaman, in cinemas nationwide on December 21.
For Season Pass holders, Aquaman Movie Part 1 will be available on December 4 and Aquaman Movie Part 2 will be available on January 8, 2019. The Season Pass, which adds six level packs and four character packs, is included in the LEGO® DC Super-Villains Deluxe Edition or can be purchased separately for $22.95 RRP. For players that want to purchase the Aquaman movie packs à la carte, they can be purchased together in a bundle for $8.95 RRP on January 8, 2019.
The action-packed Aquaman movie packs offer players the chance to control DC’s legendary pair, Aquaman and Mera, in the underwater kingdom of Atlantis. It’s up to them to lead their people against Aquaman’s brother, Orm, who seeks to unite the seven kingdoms against the surface world. The packs expand the main game’s already large roster of over 150 iconic DC characters. The first pack adds new playable characters Aquaman (Gladiator), Black Manta (Movie), Mera, Orm (Gladiator), King Nereus and Queen Atlanna. The second pack adds new playable characters Aquaman (Movie), Vulko, Trench Creature, Murk, Brine King and Orm (Movie).
In LEGO® DC Super-Villains, the Justice League has disappeared, leaving Earth’s protection to a newcomer group of heroes from a parallel universe, proclaiming themselves as the ‘Justice Syndicate’. Renowned DC Super-Villains from the ‘Legion Of Doom’ discover Earth’s newest heroes may not be the heroes they claim to be. With each player’s completely customizable Super-Villain character in command, this team of misfit lawbreakers must join forces to discover and foil the evil plans the incognito strangers have in store.
At the beginning of the campaign, players can create their own unique villain and main character throughout, while also teaming up with a variety of DC Super-Villains throughout the story mode. As players progress, they will unlock new abilities, powers and can continue to customize their character to take on the evil threat. Friends and family can join story mode at any time with the fun, two-player, local co-op experiences where players can team up in epic boss fights.
About TT Games TT Games, an affiliate of Warner Bros. Entertainment, Inc., is the developer behind numerous hit LEGO videogame franchises such as LEGO® Batman™, LEGO® Star Wars™, LEGO® Harry Potter™, LEGO® Marvel Super Heroes and LEGO® Indiana Jones™, as well as popular titles LEGO® Marvel’s Avengers, LEGO® Jurassic World™, LEGO® Worlds and many others, which combined have sold over 180 million units worldwide to date. Incorporating UK developers Traveller’s Tales, TT Fusion, TT Games Brighton and Playdemic, TT Games has a distinctive focus on console, handheld, mobile and PC games of the highest quality, aimed at young gamers and their families. Additional information about TT Games can be found at www.ttgames.com.
About DC Entertainment DC Entertainment, home to iconic brands DC (Superman, Batman, Green Lantern, Wonder Woman, The Flash, etc.), Vertigo (Sandman, Fables, etc.) and MAD, is the creative division charged with strategically integrating across Warner Bros. and Time Warner. DC Entertainment works in concert with many key Warner Bros. divisions to unleash its stories and characters across all media, including but not limited to film, television, consumer products, home entertainment, and interactive games. Publishing thousands of comic books, graphic novels and magazines each year, DC Entertainment is one of the largest English-language publishers of comics in the world.
About Warner Bros. Interactive Entertainment Warner Bros. Interactive Entertainment, a division of Warner Bros. Home Entertainment, Inc., is a premier worldwide publisher, developer, licensor and distributor of entertainment content for the interactive space across all platforms, including console, handheld, mobile and PC-based gaming for both internal and third-party game titles.
About The LEGO Group The LEGO Group is a privately held, family-owned company with headquarters in Billund, Denmark, and main offices in Enfield, USA, London, UK., Shanghai, China, and Singapore. Founded in 1932 by Ole Kirk Kristiansen, and based on the iconic LEGO® brick, it is one of the world’s leading manufacturers of play materials. Guided by the company spirit: “Only the best is good enough”, the company is committed to the development of children and aims to inspire and develop the builders of tomorrow through creative play and learning. LEGO® products are sold worldwide and can be virtually explored at www.LEGO.com.
OVERKILL’S THE WALKING DEAD KICKS OFF SEASON TWO ON STEAM
“No Sanctuary,” the first episode of the next big season of content, adds a new full-length mission, improved tutorial onboarding, in-game voice chat and more
New Starter Edition, featuring full first season of content, now available for $29.99
STOCKHOLM – Nov. 29, 2018 – Starbreeze, Skybound Entertainment and 505 Games have announced the start of season two of OVERKILL’S The Walking Dead on Windows PC via Steam. Included for all players who own the standard and deluxe editions of the co-op multiplayer action game, this first major content update introduces a new full-length story mission, improved tutorial support for newcomers and the highly requested addition of in-game voice chat.
Season two picks up with the main group of survivors facing new challenges in the aftermath of season one’s finale, including a powerful new enemy fortified on Washington, D.C.’s historic Capitol Hill. The first episode – “No Sanctuary” – sees players stage a daring raid on a Georgetown church to rescue a potentially life-saving informant. Season two will feature nine episodes from November 2018 to June 2019, containing new missions, playable characters, weapons, mods and other surprises along the way.
OVERKILL’s The Walking Dead has also been updated with new features driven by player feedback since the game’s launch earlier this month. In-game voice chat is now supported within Steam, enabling players to better communicate and coordinate with each other. A new video tutorial available in game – “The Survival Guide” – offers first-time players a more robust introduction to the game’s core mechanics with helpful advice for staying alive. Finally, restructured files will help the development team continue updating the game with new content and improvements at a quick and reliable pace.
Inspired by Robert Kirkman’s original graphic novels and developed by OVERKILL – A Starbreeze Studio, OVERKILL’s The Walking Dead is a four-player co-op shooter where players must band together on a variety of missions to find survivors, secure supplies and survive. Use stealth to evade enemies tactically, or dismember walkers limb from limb with brute force and firepower. Each of the game’s playable characters has their own special abilities, skill trees, squad roles, play styles and background stories.
Both OVERKILL’s The Walking Dead standard edition and OVERKILL’S The Walking Dead Deluxe Edition, containing the full game, its first and second seasons of content, the Night Raid Collection cosmetic DLC, a digital artbook, and the game’s digital soundtrack, are available now via Steam. The newly added OVERKILL’S The Walking Dead Starter Edition is available now for $29.99 and features the game’s full first season, with season two and onward content available for purchase via Steam. OVERKILL’s The Walking Dead will arrive on the PlayStation®4 computer entertainment system and Xbox One around the world in February 2019. Console pre-orders are available now digitally and at most major retailers.
Starbreeze is an independent creator, publisher and distributor of high-quality entertainment products. With studios in Stockholm, Paris, Los Angeles, Barcelona and Brussels, the company creates games and other virtual reality entertainment products, based on proprietary design and licensed content. Starbreeze is behind the hit IP PAYDAY: The Heist®, PAYDAY 2®, and the survival co-op FPS OVERKILL’s The Walking Dead.
Starbreeze has set out to develop truly immersive virtual reality experiences, by integrating software and hardware in its StarVR® head mounted display, which is produced together with Acer.
Founded in 2010, Skybound Entertainment is a multiplatform entertainment company managed by partners Robert Kirkman, David Alpert and Jon Goldman. Skybound houses projects ranging from television, film, emerging platforms, comics, interactive gaming, live events, and more. In 2016, the company expanded to Vancouver with the opening of their Skybound North office, working to expand Skybound’s footprint into the animation and children’s space with top Canadian talent. In 2018, Skybound opened GammaRay, a video-content brand focused on pop culture, and expanded Skybound Games into a venture focused on publishing independently developed games.
Skybound Entertainment is responsible for television hits including The Walking Dead, Fear the Walking Dead, Outcast, Robert Kirkman’s Secret History of Comics, and currently holds a first-look television deal with Amazon Studios. On the film side, Skybound has a first-look deal with Universal. Robert Kirkman’s second-longest running comic series Invincible will be developed for film at Universal and as an animated series for Amazon.
The interactive gaming slate includes partnerships with Starbreeze, Skydance, Scopely, and more. Skybound is currently publishing comic book titles The Walking Dead, Oblivion Song, Die!Die!Die!, Outcast, Redneck, Gasolina, Crude, and more.
About 505 Games
505 Games is a global video game publisher focused on offering a broad selection of titles for players of all ages and levels. The company publishes and distributes premium and free-to-play games on leading console, PC and handheld platforms as well as for mobile devices and social networks.
Publishing highlights in premium games include Underworld Ascendant, No Man’s Sky,Last Day of June, PAYDAY 2, Terraria, Portal Knights, Assetto Corsa, ABZÛ, Virginia, Brothers – A Tale of Two Sons and How to Survive. Free-to-play publishing highlights include Battle Islands, Gems of War and Hawken. Distribution highlights include Stardew Valley, Dead by Daylight and Inside/Limbo. Upcoming titles include Remedy’s CONTROL, OVERKILL’S The Walking Dead, Indivisible (from the development team behind Skullgirls) and Koji Igarashi’s next project, Bloodstained: Ritual of the Night.
505 Games has offices in California, United Kingdom, France, Germany, Italy, Spain and China. It works with a network of distribution and sub-licensing partners in all other markets. For more information on 505 Games and its products please visit www.505games.com.
NETMARBLE RELEASES LINEAGE 2: REVOLUTION INFOGRAPHIC VIDEO IN CELEBRATION OF ONE YEAR ANNIVERSARY
With 30 Million Players Worldwide, Lineage 2: Revolution is One of the Year’s Most Popular MMORPG Games
LOS ANGELES – November 29, 2018 – Today, Netmarble Corp. has released an infographic video celebrating the one year anniversary of Lineage 2: Revolution – the popular mobile massive multiplayer online role-playing game (MMORPG) that has accumulated more than 30 million registered players around the world. Since the game’s global launch in November 2017, Lineage 2: Revolution has enjoyed tremendous success and huge updates including an all new “Orc” race introduced to the game last month.
The infographic video, which can be viewed here, includes the following fun facts and figures (as of November 2018):
Since launch, over 17,500,000 characters have joined the fight – that’s more than twice the population of New York City! The character races ranked in popularity are:
Dark Elf: 6,478,000
Human: 5,658,000
Elf: 3,396,000
Dwarf: 1,695,000
Orc: 309,000
There are now over 348,000 clans and the clan with the highest combat power across all servers is Yangire (as of November 5th, 2018)
Ramog has been defeated in the Temporal Rift 16,640,500 times. Clearly, he’s made the players very angry!
63,000,000 World Bosses have been defeated
The Honorable Battlefield has hosted nearly 16,000,000 arena battles
The most popular mounts are Silver Saint, Steam Beatle and Kukurin
Over 100,000 players have taken the battlefield in a Fortress Siege (50vs50 PvP mode)
Since the introduction of Castle Siege (a 200-player PvP mode), over 25,000 elite players have battled to reign supreme
To celebrate the first year anniversary, Lineage 2: Revolution is giving out surprise gifts to all players of the game. From November 30th to December 26th (PST), players will receive special in-game items involving the game’s recently updated collaboration features.
Following the game’s incredible success in South Korea and Asian territories, Lineage 2: Revolution launched globally across North America, Europe, Oceania and the Middle East in November 2017, becoming the top grossing game on Google Play worldwide in 2017 (source: IDC & App Annie, 2017). Since then, the game has also expanded to Latin American countries. One year later, Lineage 2: Revolution continues to be one of the most popular mobile MMORPGs due to its groundbreaking fantasy elements that bring a massive open-world, countless new characters, large-scale PvP battles and dazzling graphics – powered by the Unreal 4 Engine – to life.
Netmarble Corp. strives to entertain audiences of all ages around the world by providing great mobile gaming experiences. Established in Korea in 2000, Netmarble is the fastest-growing mobile game company and consistently ranks as a top mobile developer and publisher worldwide. With more than 5,000 employees, Netmarble has been producing and servicing some of the most successful mobile games including Lineage 2: Revolution, MARVEL Future Fight, Everybody’s Marble, and Seven Knights. As a parent company to Kabam, a top mobile game developer in massively multiplayer free-to-play games, and the largest shareholder to Jam City, a leading casual social game developer, Netmarble has a strategic partnership with CJ ENM Corporation, Asia’s largest entertainment company, Tencent Holdings, Asia’s largest internet company, and NCsoft, a prominent MMORPG company. More information can be found at http://company.netmarble.com.
Paramount Pictures released a new featurette for Bumblebeetoday. The video stars the cast and production crew of Bumblebee talking about the film’s Generation 1 style. Bumblebee returns to the standard format of Transformers turning into cars and Autobots turning into planes. The art team also dug into the old cartoons for design cues, opting for a boxier design in a nod to the toys.
Bumblebee stars Hailee Steinfeld, Pamela Adlon, John Cena, Stephen Schneider, Jorge Lendeborg Jr., Jason Drucker, Kenneth Choi, Ricardo Hoyos, Abby Quinn, Rachel Crow, and Grace Dzienny. The film follows Charlie (Steinfeld), a young woman on the cusp of adulthood. As an 18th birthday present, she buys a yellow VW Beetle to restore. She soon discovers her junkyard find may be the key to saving the world.
Paramount Pictures (Instant Family) released a brand new trailer for their comedy What Men Want. The trailer introduces Ali Davis (Taraji P. Henson), a sports agent who has been passed over for a promotion to partner at her firm. Depressed about her work life and her inability to connect with men, Davis decides to visit a psychic with her friends. After a wild night involving tea dosed with drugs and a solid hit to the head, Davis wakes up wit the ability hear men’s thoughts. Now Davis is hoping to put her career back on track with her new found powers, but she will soon discover her new found abilities and her work life come at a cost.
What Men Want is scheduled to hit cinemas on February 14, 2019.
For many years now fans of Bethesda’s open world RPGs have asked for a game that would allow them to explore one of these worlds with their friends. Earlier this year Bethesda revealed that Fallout 76 would allow them to do just that but there is a saying that you should be careful what you wish for. With odd design decisions leading to worry before launch, has Fallout 76 managed to pull itself together and deliver something unique or does it simply fall apart? After facing down seemingly everything that Appalachia has to offer, let’s find out.
Story
In many ways Fallout 76 starts out in a fairly similar fashion to other entries in the series as players wake up as the last resident of Vault 76 on “Reclamation Day,” a self imposed holiday that sees the vault door opening and sending its residents out into the world in an effort to rebuild the world twenty five years after the nuclear apocalypse. After customizing the look of your chosen character (which can be adjusted at any point in the game) players are given a fairly simple intro to the world through a handful of Mr. Handys and signposts left around the vault hallways as you make your way out of the area.
In fact the only real path comes in the form of a message left by the Overseer who left the vault a bit earlier than everyone else as a scout of sorts. Once you actually leave the vault forever, since it is no longer accessible once you leave, there is really no direct objective pointing the players where they should go or what they should do. This sets up the main difference in Fallout 76 that finds players in the land of Appalachia with only a vague mission of following the Overseers journey and listening to the holotapes that she has left behind as a sort of guide. These holotape locations tend to fall into a partially recommended path that players can follow in an attempt to learn more about how to use the C.A.M.P. system and learning useful blueprints for it while also leading them to other more story based quests involving the new Scorched enemy types and mutations that have been found throughout Appalachia.
This idea of giving players the chance to have a truly open ended style of exploration may seem appealing at first but this unfortunately fades rather quickly primarily thanks to the design choice of making sure that outside of some robots and a certain friendly super mutant, the only other living beings that won’t attack you on sight happen to be other players. This means that while it may be enjoyable to explore the huge amount of ruined pieces of civilization, larger buildings, monuments to history, city-scapes, and even cave structures as well as mining areas, you will never really find a complete story to most of these areas. There are a large number of unique pieces of storyline that come from many of these areas that are revealed in the form of notes (that often desperately need a text pop-out function to be legible) or holotapes and occasionally a quest that will see you tracking down various things. The problem is, with every other human being and non-hostile ghoul dead, there is no happy ending or most of the time even an ending to these stories other than the fact that everyone died somehow.
This vague style of storytelling only holds its shine for so long before it begins to lose its luster. It also doesn’t help the fact that while a number of areas may have at least some visual element to give players a hint as to what happened there, there are a large number of areas that are simply devoid of explanation or even a single note about the past making the enjoyment of exploration drop incredibly. This also doesn’t help when you consider how buggy certain aspects of the game can be when it comes to quests in a multiplayer world such as this.
Since many tasks tend to rely on players following objectives that boil down to finding a thing or slaying an enemy in a certain location, there is a real issue with spawns in this game. Multiple quests have resulted in having to log out of a world (game session) and join a different one in the hopes that no one in this world has happened to explore that area yet or killed the creature tied to the quest. Or flat out having to restart the game because your main and side quests failed to load in properly and leave you with only daily missions listed. Combine this with the fact that there is basically no roleplaying element to this game as player choice boils down to ignoring quests or completing them as written, and you have many questlines that feel like they simply go nowhere worthwhile other than providing a small sampling of reward and, if you’re lucky, a bit of story. It used to be that finding a new location would be a sign that a plethora of new interactions would await the player with potential new NPCs and quests to undertake but that has almost entirely been stripped away here.
That being said, as mentioned before, the Overseer’s journey does lead players into more information about the world and eventually into the more “end-game” style of gameplay and storyline that reveals a larger secret about the Appalachian region and the robots that inhabit it but don’t expect anything to really come from these missions once they are completed other than the ability to access the nuclear missile silos and perhaps trigger some of the bigger boss battles all while the Overseer vaguely keeps herself off-screen but knowledgeable about what you may be doing. This leaves players with brief shining moments of story that give them hints about the lives of survivors and how the world tried to stay together after the bombs fell but these moments are far too short to hold their shine long.
Gameplay
Whenever a player joins a world in Fallout 76 they will find themselves joining an open world with roughly twenty or so players and once you set foot outside the vault the game opens itself up to you almost immediately with every option available outside of PVP which is locked behind reaching level 5. Exploration and combat work in the same exact fashion as Fallout 4 with players being able to run using AP (Action Points), jump, shoot weaponry, swing melee weapons, and simply gather everything in sight like a hoarder before running the risk of over encumbering yourself. Even fast travel is available when you find locations though using this system does cost Caps with the price increasing the further away you are from the destination It is worth noting that the V.A.T.S. system has been reworked a bit to work with the always online and moving nature of Fallout 76.
Rather than freeze time V.A.T.S. now works more like a lock on system that allows the player to focus on a single enemy with their percentage to hit being displayed with every gunshot or attack using a certain amount of AP and it is also worth noting that until players unlock a specific perk V.A.T.S. will only target the general body and not allow for specific limbs to be targeted, but even then targeting specific limbs really never feels necessary outside of a specific flying enemy type that really only comes into play in the end-game.
Speaking of perks, players still have SPECIAL stats to work with in the game with every level up rewarding the player with the chance to place one stat point into a specific SPECIAL stat. The unique way that Fallout 76 handles this system comes in the form of perk cards with players gaining access to higher ability perks as they level up. This means of course that you cannot access things such as level three lockpicking until you happen to reach level forty, but you will also need to be careful of how you select these cards.
While players do unlock a randomized card pack every five levels, the main way you can choose to unlock a specific perk is by choosing it when you level up that specific SPECIAL stat. This means that you will actually need to keep an eye on how you are building your character as it is entirely possible to end up with a poorly balanced character if you happen to place points only depending on the perk cards you want to access. Each SPECIAL stat does cap out at 15 with players only gaining these points up until level 50, meaning that you can either choose to be the master of a couple stats or a jack-of-all trades if you so wish. After level 50 players will still unlock cards through standard level ups and card packs but they will no longer gain SPECIAL points. This is where balancing your perk cards comes into play as each SPECIAL point determines how many perks can be applied to that stat. It is worth noting that, despite certain pieces of equipment providing boosts to SPECIAL stats, they do not allow players to equip additional perk cards which is unfortunate.
Having ten points in intelligence can allow for you to have perks such as level 5 gunsmithing, level two science, and then three single point perks though the good thing is that these perk cards can be changed at literally any time in the game. This means that should you not need to pick a level 3 lock, you can remove all of your lockpicking cards from perception and instead pop in a level three perk in its place, giving players the ability to actually keep their builds fairly fluid especially since so many perks provide different weapon types additional damage boosts or help out only in specific situations but prove incredibly useful when needed. Because of this Fallout 76 actually does end up allowing for players to become incredibly strong in nature, though you’ll likely be wanting at least a few of the perks that lower the weight of some items due to the way other systems play out.
As with any Bethesda RPG, taking everything that isn’t nailed down seems like second nature to a player but this will quickly begin to punish you in Fallout 76. Being over-encumbered slows you down and forces you to use AP to move and prevents fast traveling but there is only one other place to actually place things in the game outside of the robotic vendors who will buy your random loot at a pittance of what it is actually worth with their daily limit of caps, your stash box which has a paltry storage space of only four hundred pounds though Bethesda has stated that they are working to increase the space to an unspecified amount sometime in the future.
Going out on an adventure and finding as much loot as possible from the world and from killing enemies is still an enjoyable gameplay loop but the fact that carrying junk to scrap, medicine to keep your health up, food and water to prevent yourself from starving or being dehydrated, ammo for weapons, and of course the weapons themselves means that you will be needing to limit yourself on how much you actually want to loot at times thanks to this issue. Finding special legendary gear from an enemy, or earning it from a unique quest, or a fancy weapon you like the look of used to mean at least storing it for later use or showing off in some form but now, between the junk needed for crafting and the previously mentioned elements, scrapping or flat out dropping some items ends up being the reality in Fallout 76‘s case. Reaching the limit of what you can hold is a huge drawback for exploration and while scrapping unneeded weapons and pieces of armor can unlock new mods for that type of gear sometimes, it rarely feels like it was worthwhile when all you’ve come back home to your C.A.M.P. with simply ends up as scrap that can be used to repair your damaged gear.
The C.A.M.P. system itself is filled with potential as well as numerous bugs and flaws that often feel more punishing than not. C.A.M.P.s are areas that players choose to build a base for themselves and they can either function as incredibly simplistic forward bases that you choose to move around while progressing deeper into various areas or as steadfast structures that you’ve grown fond of and built and designed to your liking. Fast traveling to your base or the bases of people in your party or friends list is always free, making it a great way to travel across the map and access the necessary work benches to fix gear, craft ammo and meds, or drop off items in a stash box rather than finding workbenches and stash boxes in the wild.
The problems come in the form of how unintuitive building structures in C.A.M.P.s happens to be as the game uses the same building set-up of the settlements in Fallout 4. Often objects will state that they are floating in mid-air or not being supported when they clearly are and even if you get it settled into place, you may even be told that no item is even selected. There also is a “C.A.M.P. budget” that limits how many things you can have at your home base and while it is very understandable from a server stability point to make sure that players cannot build mansions, the limit of what you can actually build is shocking at times. Moving a C.A.M.P. does cost the player caps unless you rather unfortunately happen to find yourself moving into a world where a player already has a C.A.M.P. placed down.
In these instances Bethesda has made it so players will have the ability to move their C.A.M.P. for free but the problem here happens to be the fact that your building will either be saved in piecemeal blueprints that have to be setup again or in one gigantic blueprint that you’ll most likely never be able to properly place, meaning it will need to get broken down and built from the ground up. The bigger issue here also happens to be the fact that, unless you end up really lucky, at least a few of your structures will be lost in transition. This means any crops, power generators, water purifiers, defense turrets, and other things can often vanish with no refund in place meaning you will need to use occasionally precious resources to rebuild them once again. The fact that Bethesda has not allowed a check system to prevent players from losing their bases, provided the option to find another world with a clear location, or prioritized full blown bases with actual structures has left me and other team members more frustrated than anything else, especially when you visit your previous camp location to find a barren location or a simple stash box has replaced your elaborately designed structure. Though beware, taking out your frustration on their small object will net you a bounty.
There is a system in place where players can choose to PVP one another if they so please though various adjustments have been made to try and balance the field unless you happen to have a bounty on your head. Other players can, generally, only do small chunks of damage to someone else until they are engaged by the other player. This is done in an attempt to prevent griefing but it still allows determined griefers to become a real nuisance at times, especially once you happen to reach a higher level as the game’s balancing features then begin to flip to the other side where high level players, such as those in the 60s, can almost instantly be killed by low level players in what is currently a glitched system that can be rather annoying. Thankfully all inter-player damage is negated when taking part in a public event so players can freely attack enemies without worrying about hitting random players that join midway.
As far as end-game content goes, players generally are only really offered a few options at the moment and these really do require the player to be playing with a team of at least one other if not traveling around as a group of four to best enjoy the content. The end-game content comes in the form of tracking down nuclear launch codes and then infiltrating a silo to launch said nuke. These silos spawn an endless number of robotic enemies that are designed to thwart you at every step of the way as you progress to nuking an area of the map in what can become a true drain on resources if you aren’t careful. Once you’ve managed to actually launch a nuke the blast zone will generally spawn higher level foes that can drop unique items and change various pieces of fauna into rare crafting materials though the true end game comes from hitting a specific spot on the map and triggering a large scale boss battle that pits players against a dangerous flying foe that is far stronger than the other flying beast in the game. These encounters are rather exhilarating to take part in and playing with a party does help make the game shine at times but currently this being designed as the only real end-game style content, that can often drop some paltry rewards that feel like a waste of time, makes it feel a bit lacking once you’ve reached far beyond the soft level cap.
To make things worse, Fallout 76 remains as buggy and crash happy as it was during the initial B.E.T.A. versions of the game. Numerous times while playing the game we’ve found objects that would never load in properly, incredibly drastic drops in frame rate as well as freezes that make it seem like the game has crashed before snapping back into place after thirty seconds, quests that only trigger for some party members and not others, C.A.M.P.s glitching out in often spectacular fashion, and an incredibly high frequency of server disconnects that have seen my entire party forced back to the main menu far too many times to count. These disconnects then can run the gambit of losing quest progress or a side quest entirely making it have to go be reacquired to making a player lose their base because they loaded into a world where someone else had only a grill placed down and nothing else.
Visuals & Audio
Exploring the land of Appalachia will find players traveling through forested areas, burned out environments, mutated lands and much more in what may be the most varied map in the series’ history, only making it all the more disappointing that exploration is often not rewarded well enough because most locations do truly stand out from a visual perspective. There are even a number of unique foes only found in this game as well since there are creatures based off of myths mixed in with a large number of new mutated animals such as squirrels, beavers, and opossum, and of course all of the different foes that have been mainstays of the series so far.
That being said, visual glitches do abound in this game with many of them being mentioned already such as objects not loading in properly or textures turning into static fuzz, random floating pieces of debris, and character models glitching out when exiting power armor. More than a few times the games collision detection has forced me to fast travel to an area or party member due to being trapped in the environment and enemies can even find themselves spawning below the ground or inside of walls, occasionally ruining specific quests that involve taking down all enemies in an area forcing either a restart or an abandonment of these pop-up events.
One thing that Fallout 76 does tend to handle well is its soundtrack. Pulling from tracks found in Fallout 3 and 4 as well as a large number of new music listening to the standard radio has never sounded better while classical music is still an option if you are feeling fancy while slaying scorched and super mutants. It also feels like a bit of a missed opportunity at times that there are no living NPCs to interact with in this game because the holotapes you do find have some great sounding voice work accompanying them.
Overall
Fallout 76 often feels like it has the makings of being a great game that can be enjoyed both solo and as a member of a team as the world itself is thriving with new creatures to take down and so many places to explore. However poor design choices such as removing all NPCs and a core storyline without any actual payoff let alone sense of satisfaction puts a real damper on the experience. Put that together with an increasingly frustrating number of glitches and server crashes as well as limitations placed on the game’s storage and item spawning systems to try and get it to a stable pace and you have a game that you can still sink countless hours into exploring but only while suffering through an incredibly buggy experience that has so many flaws and missing story elements that even the best gameplay loops cannot overcome.
Capsule Computers review guidelines can be found here.
When I first heard about Overlord, I was excited at the prospect of a proper genre film getting a mainstream release. Originally, there was speculation that the film would fit into JJ Abram’s wider Cloverfield cinematic mythos (which is apparently a thing) but I am happy to report that Abrams confirmed the film would not be connected to the series… a fact which saved me from having to watch Cloverfield again. The basic premise of World War II war movie with weird/occult science horror and buckets of gore was an exciting prospect and I went into the theatre with proper excitement for the absolute schlock that was about to shown me.
Story
The film’s story picks up in World War 2 during operation Overlord and the immediate lead-up to the Allied invasion of France and D-day. Pvt. Boyce and his airborne unit get dropped into German occupied France. Following a disastrous landing in which most of his unit gets killed, Boyce rendezvous with the remnants of his unit including the stern Sgt Ford (Wyatt Russell), a wide-eyed army journo (Iain De Caestecker), and a sarcastic wise guy (John Magaro). They decide to continue with the mission and attempt to bring down a Nazi radar jamming facility with only their reduced numbers. As they move into the area of their mission site, they find themselves dealing with forces far stronger and horrific than the already monstrous Third Reich.
Abrams, as a writer, espouses a particular philosophy of screenwriting where he vaunts the use of “mystery box” storytelling. At its most basic, a mystery box holds the attention of an audience by the question of “what is inside the box?”. If you chart the career of Abrams, you can see his philosophy in action with the television series Lost, which maintained significant audience interest across its many seasons by only ever giving more and questions to its audience. His deployment of this philosophy makes him accomplished at set-up and building tension right at the outset of a film. Unfortunately, his skill with set-up does not translate into a successful delivery of denouement; the answer to “what’s in the box” never really lives up to excitement of the mystery.
I came out of the cinema feeling a distinct disappointment in the film’s final showdown with the monstrosities of Nazi experiments. The final act is, without a doubt, a complete anti-climax following its intriguing first half. I was honestly impressed by the creative and ingenious cinematic storytelling and I soaked in the little details which the film generously fed to me with, I assumed, the promise of a satisfying narrative delivery further down the line. You see little things like the prominent use of a flamethrower or changes in characterisation which you instinctively hold on to because the film draws it to your attention. I was correct on some of my assumptions as these tidbits occasionally end up with a payoff in the final act that doesn’t really land in a way that almost feels like it’s more interested in tying up a loose end rather than actually providing a satisfying conclusion.
I think the film’s narrative suffers from a loss of nerve halfway through the story. In my immediate post-screening analysis, I could see the building blocks of an exceptional story about how war turns men into monsters. There were the inklings of visual motifs and narrative themes which could have paid off if the film had just had the confidence to stick to its guns for a slow and more effective burn. You can see that there was some talent in this script by the strong established characterisation of each member of the squad in the film’s opening act. The problem is that all of this falls apart about halfway through the film when it decides to defer story in favour of body horror CGI. This fails to deliver on the film’s opening potential and I yearn to turn back time and have a place in the film’s production so that things might turn out differently.
In terms of non-writing related elements of the film, it has a fairly solid ensemble cast who are only really held back by the material they’re working with. In particular I wanted to highlight the performance of Magaro as the snarky comic relief trooper. His sarcasm and comic timing helped provide a foil to the grim seriousness of Russell’s Ford and the wide-eyed naivety of Adepo’s Boyce. Ultimately, everyone’s character appears to lose all sense of their own desires or reason in favour of going along with the movie’s logic in the second half… the cast do the best they can with what they’ve got and I hope to see them again with roles with a bit more meat to them.
Visuals
The film’s CGI and special effects aren’t really anything to write home about. They’re competently made and I’m sure are technically advanced but there’s limited visual direction which really makes use of it in a way that’s interesting to watch or really unsettling. There were a couple of moments during action sequences where the actors weren’t reacting to the environment around them but most of the time you won’t have your suspension of disbelief broken. There’s just no inspiration behind any of the gore and monstrosities that really ends up unsettling you or making much of an impression at all. The film relies on jump scares to surprise its audience but ultimately can’t really frighten them; there’s just not too much that’s horrifying in this film about Nazis using occult science to experiment on human beings…
Audio
The film’s soundtrack doesn’t particularly stand out for me; it’s an orchestral score which punctuates the film’s emotional beats as necessary and it accomplishes this without leaving an impression for good or ill. There is one audioscape which impressed me in the film’s opening on a transport plane followed by the silence of the night operations of the paratroopers. I quite liked how the film decided to give us an opening scene where you could barely hear any of the characters followed by scenes of quiet paranoia where every rustle and crack could herald danger. It’s audio juxtaposition at its finest and I felt strongly enough about it to spend a couple of sentences gushing about it.
Overall
I am in two minds about this film as although I thought it opened strong, I became less enamoured with it the longer it ran. The film’s narrative has glimmerings of something greater occasionally shining through but it loses its nerve and tries to go for an immediate payoff through CGI action horror. The film’s visual direction and special effects fail due to a lack of creative vision with there being little to awe or horrify on the screen. The film occasionally has flashes of inspiration for how to use its soundscapes in an interesting way but is otherwise simply competent. I honestly did not expect to have such complex thoughts on a film which looked like it was going to a shlock film version of Woflenstein but here we are… the first half of it is great but fails to live up to its promise with a satisfying climax. Buy a ticket to see it and then sneak into a different film halfway through. Capsule Computers review guidelines can be found here.
Gameplay
