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37 CommentsIntroducing Tanaan Jungle: six things to know about World of Warcraft's newest zone
By Philip Kollar on May 22, 2015 05.22.15
World of Warcraft's patch 6.2 has been on test servers for a while now. When it goes live in the coming weeks, it will bring a number of major new features to those playing the popular MMO, most notably a whole new zone called Tanaan Jungle. We spoke with World of Warcraft lead designer Ion Hazzikostas to find out what players should be looking forward to with the new zone.
1. You've seen Tanaan Jungle before
When the Warlords of Draenor expansion first launched on Nov 13, 2014, Tanaan Jungle was actually the first glimpse players got of the new/old (time travel!) world of Draenor. But after a series of quick quests, players were whisked away to elsewhere on the planet, unable to return to that starting area.
"We knew this was coming pretty much from the start," Hazzikostas says....
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41 CommentsMartial arts MMO Blade & Soul coming to North America, here's your first look
By Philip Kollar on May 20, 2015 05.20.15
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Blade & Soul has been out in Korea since 2012, but eager MMO fans in the West have been left wondering if or when publisher NCSoft would decide to bring the game to their shores. Wonder no longer: NCsoft has announced today that Blade & Soul will come to North America and Europe this winter.
Setting itself apart from most massively multiplayer games, Blade & Soul is based around martial arts, specifically drawing from the "wushu" style of Chinese kung fu stories. Think Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon but with a bunch of friends online.
With that inspiration comes a focus on narrative that's also fairly unique to Blade & Soul. NCSoft community director Omeed Dariani recently told Polygon that the game's lengthy story — which has the...
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13 CommentsDivinity: Original Sin's creator hints at two secret projects and the future of RPGs
By Philip Kollar on May 15, 2015 05.15.15
Larian Studios announced today that it is doing a new Enhanced Edition of its popular Divinity: Original Sin. But that's not the only project the studio has been working on since its popular role-playing game released last summer.In a conversation with Polygon, Larian founder and creative director Swen Vincke revealed that Original Sin Enhanced Edition is only one of three projects that the developer is currently creating.
"We also have two other secret projects going on," he said. "We've been pretty open about the fact that those are big RPGs. They'll be turn-based RPGs."
Though Larian is sticking with the turn-based RPG format, Vincke says the success of Divinity: Original Sin is allowing the developer to take risks it otherwise couldn't have.
"We're doing new things," he said. "O...
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17 CommentsDivinity: Original Sin Enhanced Edition coming to PS4, Xbox One with tons of new content
By Philip Kollar on May 15, 2015 05.15.15
Divinity: Original Sin was a surprise success when it released last year, combining old-school PC role-playing game roots with a brilliant co-op-centric turn-based system. Soon console owners will be able to try it for themselves.Developer Larian Studios has announced Divinity: Original Sin Enhanced Edition, a new version of the RPG that will be released for PlayStation 4, Xbox One, Windows PC, Mac, Linux and SteamOS. The computer versions of Enhanced Edition will be a separate product, which means saved games from the original release won't transfer. However, anyone who has purchased Divinity: Original Sin will get Enhanced Edition free of charge.
Enhanced Edition's many changes include a new controller-friendly user interface, a split-screen local co-op mode, hours of new quests and...
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2 CommentsHow Westerado was inspired by Spaghetti Westerns and the code of the wild frontier
By Colin Campbell on Apr 30, 2015 04.30.15
Westerado: Double Barreled gives PC owners a taste of the American frontier, Spaghetti Western-style. It's a colorful open-world adventure that mixes exploration, investigation, puzzles and, of course, good ol' gunplay.Developer Ostrich Banditos originally created Westerado as an Adult Swim browser title back in 2013, with the PC version hitting Steam earlier this month. Its color palette, music and style is heavily influenced by the work of Sergio Leone.
"The Spaghetti Westerns were a very romantic, stylized version of the west that really inspired us," says game designer John Gottschalk, speaking to Polygon. "The heroism, the heat, the anonymity, the back-stabbing, the tension, the scale of the landcscapes. Serge Leone really captured that with his incredible anamorphic widescreen,...
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113 CommentsFacing extreme abuse, Skyrim modders defend paid work
By Colin Campbell on Apr 27, 2015 04.27.15
These have been a rough few days for Skyrim modder James Ives. "I've received countless death threats, attacks and hateful comments," he tells Polygon. "Just about everything you can think of."Note: Subsequent to this story being posted, Valve announced that it would be ending paid mods for Skyrim.
Ives, aka Jimo, is one of the handful of developers and artists included in a new Steam initiative that allows modders to charge for their work.
The notion of an open market for paid mods has been deeply controversial. A Change.org petition has thus far attracted more than 130,000 supporters, who are keen to keep mods free.
Valve managing director Gabe Newell took to Reddit over the weekend to answer questions about the changes. He said that charging for mods increases quality and value,...
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31 CommentsDeus Machina
Ex Machina is a dazzling, clockwork examination of what makes humanity tick
By Brian Crecente on Apr 24, 2015 04.24.15
On its most evident level, the film Ex Machina is about escaping a glass box.
But packed inside that transparent prison, alongside the stunning, perhaps living, thinking technology of an android wanting to free itself, is a wellspring of important ideas and questions.
While Ex Machina may allure with almost distracting special effects, it captivates with its questions about the human consciousness and sexuality; about freedom of thought and the loss of privacy.
It is, as first-time-director Alex Garland (writer of novel The Beach, movie 28 Days Later and game Enslaved: Odyssey to the West), told me after a screening last month in Austin, a Swiss watch story, a film about ideas carefully constructed to provoke the viewer to thought, but maybe not answers.
"This is supposed to be a...
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16 CommentsThere's more than one way to play D&D with your friends online
By Charlie Hall on Apr 23, 2015 04.23.15
Yesterday we wrote about Fantasy Grounds, one of the leading virtual tabletop solutions, which is now offering officially licensed Dungeons & Dragons content on Steam. While it's a great solution, offering an incredibly deep set of options and customizations, it can also get expensive. Turns out, there's more than one solution for playing D&D; over long distances, and they're much easier to use — and less expensive — than you might think.First the numbers. A single license of Fantasy Grounds is $40, while a four-pack is $120. For the traditional party of five players plus a Dungeon Master, that means spending $200 on the basic software.
Then come the D&D; modules themselves. You're looking at another $20 for your first campaign. Add on another $50 for the class pack and $50 for the...
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20 CommentsHow does Blizzard create Hearthstone's incredible boss encounters?
By Philip Kollar on Apr 23, 2015 04.23.15
Ever since they were first introduced in last summer's Curse of Naxxramas add-on, we've been impressed by the single-player boss encounters in Hearthstone, a traditionally competitive multiplayer-focused game.What's special about Hearthstone's bosses is not only that they're challenging encounters that force players to rethink strategies and often build completely new decks. But on top of functioning within this card game, they also work as clever throwbacks to raid and dungeon encounters from World of Warcraft, the MMO that Hearthstone is based on.
This led us to wonder about Blizzard's approach to these complex fights. How does the developer create encounters that simultaneously fit the needs and balance of a card game and the necessities of lore and nostalgia?
Today, the current H...
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48 CommentsHands-on with Devil May Cry 4 Special Edition's many playable characters
By Philip Kollar on Apr 20, 2015 04.20.15
When most people think of Devil May Cry, they probably think of the series' cocky protagonist, Dante. If you're a hardcore fan, you may also consider his brother Vergil — first made playable in 2006's Devil May Cry 3 Special Edition — or Nero, the Dante look-alike from 2008's Devil May Cry 4. A select few may even think about Trish, a love interest for Dante who's a badass in her own right but was only playable in the much-maligned Devil May Cry 2.
But if you're the team Capcom has working on Devil May Cry 4 Special Edition? If you're that team, you think of every one of those characters, and then some.
Capcom invited Polygon to check out Devil May Cry 4 Special Edition at an event last week, and what we saw there was almost certainly the most content-packed Devil May Cry game ever.
F...
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108 CommentsGuitar Hero Live aims to reshape a beloved rhythm game for a new generation
By Brian Crecente on Apr 14, 2015 04.14.15
Guitar Hero is back, but almost nothing that made the plastic-guitar rhythm game familiar remains untouched.
The trademark plastic guitar has been overhauled, the campaign now takes place in a responsive, first-person-perspective live-action video, and an always-online music video jukebox powers the game's multiplayer.
Perhaps the biggest shift is that while all modern consoles support Guitar Hero Live, it won't require a console or a television.
While the game is coming to PlayStation 3, PlayStation 4, Wii U, Xbox 360 and Xbox One, the full experience (including the same guitar) is also coming to tablets and smartphones. The mobile version of the game can either be played on the device or a television.
Guitar Hero Live doesn't have a firm release date, just this fall, but it does...
Good Game
20 CommentsU.S. Department of Education: The future of education includes video games in classrooms
By Brian Crecente on Apr 13, 2015 04.13.15
A lot of modern students spend as much time playing video games as they do attending school, according to research by University of Indiana.Some may view that as a shocking affirmation that video games are eroding the education of an entire generation, but the U.S. Department of Education sees it as an opportunity; a chance to reinvent education in a way that makes it more relevant to today's student.
"If you look at the life of a student ... a lot of students play on average about 10,000 hours of video games by the time they are graduating high school. That is almost the same amount they are spending in schools," said Erik Martin, the U.S. Department of Education's Games for Learning lead. "You can imagine a lot of the time which of the two activities they might feel more engaged in...
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232 CommentsObsidian's CEO on Pillars of Eternity backer's hateful joke (correction)
By Charlie Hall on Apr 10, 2015 04.10.15
More than 77,000 people contributed money to Pillars of Eternity's Kickstarter campaign in 2012. Some of them — 579 to be exact — gave $500 or more. Their reward, among other things, was the privilege of having a memorial stone mounted in the game world with a custom message on it.About two weeks ago the text of one of those stones turned into a social media firestorm, derailing an otherwise fairly successful game launch. Feargus Urquhart, along with his team at Obsidian Entertainment, had a real crisis on his hands. One of the Kickstarter's backers had used their in-game memorial stone to print what many consider to be a hateful, transphobic joke. By making it part of the final game, Obsidian was seen by many to be supporting the abuse of the trans community.
The memorial...
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27 CommentsThe legal battle for gaming's past
By Philip Kollar on Apr 09, 2015 04.09.15
A feud blew up this week between two major tech organizations: the Entertainment Software Association, a Washington, D.C.-based group that defends game industry interests, and the Electronic Frontier Foundation, a non-profit digital rights group best known for providing legal funds and support in events related to digital freedoms.
The first blow was struck when the EFF reached out to United States Copyright Office asking for "legal protection to game enthusiasts, museums, and academics who preserve older games and keep them playable." The EFF says that the Digital Millennium Copyright Act, a copyright law passed in 1998, specifically "creates legal difficulty" for "those who modify games to keep them working after the servers they need are shut down."
"the primary motivation for...
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47 CommentsIs Exploding Kittens, the most heavily funded game in Kickstarter history, any good?
By Charlie Hall on Apr 07, 2015 04.07.15
It arrived on my doorstep in a plain FedEx envelope. I jiggled the contents to the bottom like a packet of sugar, sliced off the top with my pocket knife, and then upended it on my kitchen table. There, in a little orange box, was the most heavily funded game in Kickstarter's short history — Exploding Kittens, the $8.78 million titan.
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No one is getting rich from Exploding Kittens' $8.7 million Kickstarter
It landed with a small thud. A deck of 50-some cards along with a handful of yellow and orange paper scraps.
"Whelp," I wrote co-creator Elan Lee via email that afternoon, "the confetti was a very nice touch."
"It's fire colored!" he wrote back.
Indeed it was.
But how does his game play?
Lee is himself a game designer, famous in some circles for...
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24 CommentsMaking your own visual novel is becoming so much easier
By Colin Campbell on Apr 07, 2015 04.07.15
From Unity to Twine, tools that allow individuals to create personal games are becoming more accessible and useful. Last week saw the launch on Steam of a simple program that allows just about anyone to create their own visual novels.I have no programming ability and no great desire to make games. But I do enjoy writing novels in my spare time, so the lure of creating a visual novel is easy for me to take. TyranoBuilder costs $14.99 (Windows PC and Mac) and sells itself as a simple click-and-drop user-interface.
Following the program's straightforward tutorial, I was able to create simple scenes in which characters exchanged text dialog, and the player was invited to make choices that led to branching narratives. This is a really easy piece of creative software. The only downside is...
