Gigantic
Motiga’s latest title, Gigantic is going to be released on July 20 on Windows 10, Steam and Xbox One. Gigantic is a free-to-play third person MOBA, published by Perfect World Entertainment (the game will also be available on Arc) that focuses on team action, featuring battles alongside massive guardians.
The game is a fusion between the well-known MOBA genre and third person action combat. In the traditional MOBAs you usually have a certain number of lanes, towers and minions to fight with and against, always powering up and advancing towards the opponent central structure. Dota2, Smite, League of Legends, Heroes of the Storm, they all have the same objectives and similar gameplay with only a few variations. Gigantic on the other side, has no towers, no minions and you also can’t attack the central structure, represented by the opponent guardian, whenever you want.
Each team needs to build up the guardian power by killing enemy heroes, destroying enemy creatures or by gathering power orbs than spawn around creature building locations. Each map has a three location per team where creatures can be summoned, while some maps will also add neutral creature locations. These creatures play an important role during the match, and you will have to decide what creature you should summon, where should you place it, when to upgrade it and when to defend or push towards your enemy creatures. There a few different creatures available at the moment, each with their own abilities, like healing nearby units, highlighting enemies on the minimap, building walls, etc.
Once your team manages to gather 100 power, your guardian will engage the enemy guardian and the entire team will be able to strike and wound it, while the defending team will try to protect it. The first team that manages to wound the opposing guardian 3 times, wins the match.
I really liked that Motiga took the time to develop unique heroes that you can’t find in other similar action games like Paladins or Overwatch. Each char comes with a main attack, 3 abilities and an ultimate. As you level up during the game you get to specialize a chosen ability by picking one of the 2 level branches available. Besides these upgrades you will also have to up your passive abilities such as higher speed, higher armor, faster health regeneration, etc.
Inside the lobby, Gigantic also brings a quest system, somehow similar with the one available in Heroes of the Storm. Here the quests comes as cards, each giving you a goal to accomplish during the match. Each day you will get a random draw, basically the daily quest with the option to spend ingame currency for more draws. Completing a card goal will add that card to your collection and award gold and account experience. When you finish a set of cards you will also be awarded with premium currency.
Gold and premium currency can be spent in the shop to purchase new creatures, new heroes, new skins and various boosts.
If you are bored with the MOBA genre and would like to try a whole new experience, be sure to check Gigantic’s
official site.
Destiny 2
Destiny 2 will launch on September 6 on consoles and October 24 for PC, but if you preorder the standard or limited edition versions you will get the chance to try the game during the open beta phase that will be available on July 18 for PlayStation 4 and July 19 for Xbox One. The PC open beta will start in August.
The game is currently on sale as preorder for $59 the standard version and $99 for the limited edition.
We talked a little about
Destiny 2 prior to E3, so let’s take a look of what’s new and what should you expect in the open beta phase.
Bungie already confirmed that players will get the chance to try the opening campaign mission called Homecoming, the three player co-op strike mission called The Inverted Spire (you will be able to play this with your friends or matchmake with other players), as well as two new competitive multiplayer modes known as Countdownd and Control. The beta version will also include three of Destiny 2 subclasses: Dawnblade Warlock, Arcstrider Hunter and Sentinel Titan.
If you preordered the game you will also get a brief access the the new social space, The Farm. This section will only be available at the end for one hour and most vendors and services will be offline, but as Bungie said, they just want to see how many layers this space can accommodate at once.
As expected, the character progression achieved during the beta phase won’t carry over to the official release, but those of you who take part in this short session, will get a special beta banner when Destiny 2 arrives in September.
If you want to learn more about Destiny 2 check our
In-depth Preview
Neverwinter: Tomb of Anihilation
After celebrating Neverwinter’s 4th anniversary, Perfect World Entertainment is ready to move further, with their twelfth expansion Neverwinter: Tomb of Annihilation, giving old players a lot of reasons to stick around and also appealing to new ones to at least give it a try.
This month, on July 25, PC players (the Xbox One and PS4 version will be available at a later date) will embark on a new adventure to discover a new biom inside the jungle peninsula of Chult, a journey that will uncover the evil behind the curse that is ravaging Faerun.
The jungle-themed expansion will bring a completely new adventure zone called Soshenstar River and a new social hub, Port Nyranzaru, a well-known major trading center for all of Chult.
During the latest streams, we learned that Tomb of Annihilation storyline is a sequel for the Tomb of Horrors that will lead us to a brand new, never before done in a Neverwinter game, end-game dungeon called the Tomb of the Nine Gods. This dungeon will be layered with dozens of traps and puzzles that need to be solved collectively, a feature that will completely change the PVE experience inside a so-called "legendary dungeon".
In order to explore the Tomb of the Nine Gods you will need an item level of at least 12k. Those of you who will manage to finish the dungeon will be rewarded with seal of the brave that can be used to purchase level 500 gear.
Other features that made us excited are the comeback of treasure maps, exotic monster hunts where players will work together to unlock the T-Rex called "The King of Spines", a brand new campaign and of course, dinosaur mounts.
Additional details will be revealed soon so be sure to keep an eye on the
official Neverwinter website.
Kritika Online
En Masse Entertainment’s latest title, Kritika Online, has recently entered the open beta phase. Kritika Online is a free-to-play 3D anime brawler for PC that focuses on dungeons and small scale PvP.
One thing that I want to mention from the start is that Kritika Online is not a PC port for the Kritika Online White Knight mobile game.
In the beginning players will be able to choose one of the 4 classes: Reaper, Warrior, Gunmange or Rogue, with more planned for later (the KR version already have 7 main classes). Each class is unique and there are also various job advancements (subclasses) that will completely change the way you play your character, creating new interesting roles. I hate to ruin this for some of you, but all the classes are gender locked.
Kritika Online encourages party play. Each member in your party will grant you increase experience gain and friend points used to by special items. Being an action combat game, basic attacks are used with left and right mouse buttons, while the skills are activated with 1 to 5 keys and F1 to F5.
The game world is a series of connected instanced towns that act as hubs, each locked by level and progression. The main attraction of this game is the ultra-fast combat system based on creating special combos and dodging the enemy moves, and the arena type of small scale PvP (1 v1, 3v3, Capture the Flag and Droids). The Droid mode combines PvE with PvP as you will have to kill different bosses, but the other team may interfere.
As for the game’s economy, player trading is currently disabled to prevent bots and gold sellers, but you will get to use an auction house.
If you are looking for some short, but intense game sessions, give Kritika Online a try. You can join the open beta phase by downloading the game from the
official site.
Fortnite
Fortnite is an upcoming co-op sandbox survival multiplayer game, developed by People can Fly and Epic Games. The game will enter its early access phase on July 25, and those who pre order the game will get a 4 day headstart.
There are 4 packs currently available ranging from 40 euros for the standard edition to 150 euros for the limited edition.
Fortnite gameplay is all about exploration, scavenging for materials, crafting various items such as weapons, ammos and traps, building fortified structures and fighting against waves of monsters. The latest trailer released does a nice jobs showing off what Fortnite really is.
So what will you actually do in Fortnite? Gathering will be the foundation of your in game experience. The basic gathering materials are wood, stone and metal, but on certain regions and maps you will also be able to get bones, crystals, herbs, etc.
At the beginning the map will be covered with a fog of war, and as you adventure deep into the unknown you will uncover additional objectives and side missions that you can complete on top of the primary mission. Sometimes you will get to rescue survivors, a mission that will reward you with a bunch of loot crates that can award weapons, materials, traps and other useful items, while other times you will get to construct a building based on a specific layout. If you are new to the game, during this building missions you may learn new ways of building fortifications.
Obtaining new weapons will also unlock the schematics that will let you craft that specific weapon if needed. Items have a certain number of durability points, the rarer the item is, the more points it have, so you will need to recraft items from time to time. You can also help your friends by trading them more powerful weapons, as long as you already have the schematic learned.
In order to complete the main objective you will have two options that go hand-in-hand quite well. You can shoot your way through hordes of undead or built up various fortifications filled with custom build traps, crafted of looted. You didn’t gather all that materials for nothing, right?
Your hero (character) will be either a soldier, a constructor, a ninja or an outlander. Heroes come as cards that can be earned from quests, dailies, rewards, etc. Each heroes has different stats plus various abilities that will unlock as you level up and evolve.
There is a lot more to learn about Fortnite, so be sure to check the official site for
further updates.
Albion Online
Sandbox Interactive is finally ready to launch Albion Online. The game is scheduled to be released on July 17, but instead of following the original plan for a free-to-play title, developers decided to make it buy to play. Albion Online is currently available for $30.
Albion Online is an open world cross platform sandbox game that takes place in a medieval fantasy setting, where crafting and PvP is king. This is a niche game that features a full loot system on death and isometric ARPG mechanics.
If you tried the game in the past or if you watch several gameplay videos, you should know that the latest content update/expansion called Galahad brought a lot of new things to the table. The world as you know it has been reworked, a new continent and several outlands were added as well as bioms specific cities. The open world PvE has been completely revamped by adding random camps, massive guardians, home bases, etc. The guardians are giant field bosses that protect Tier 6 resources.
The outlands are regions on the map where PvP is totally unrestricted, and this is where those legendary battles will take place. Guilds will fight for controlling these lands in order to build up their own towns. The world continent will have 6 cities, each with their own identity and custom design.
For those of you complaining about the graphics, Sandbox Interactive also brought a graphic revamp, and if you want to criticize it, first think about the cross platform part and those epic mass PvPs.
Another new feature introduced in Galahad is the short PvE missions that can be completed solo or in a group. These missions are called Expedition and can be accessed by visiting the Expedition Master in the local town. During these missions you will not die, but you need to complete the objectives in a giving set of time.
In general, Sandbox Interactive listened to community feedback and worked hard to develop a PvP niche game that can also cater to solo PvE players, so beside the final switch from free-t-play to buy-to-play model, I can safely say that they did a brilliant job.
If you want to learn more about
Albion, take a look at the official site.