Last Epoch is an incredible ARPG, one of the best in the genre, directly competing with the likes of Diablo 4 and Path of Exile....
The post Last Epoch Cycle vs Legacy Explained appeared first on ISK Mogul Adventures. Written by .
Elden Ring has been a long time coming, but who would have thought that the hype would be this big?
It’s official: it’s in the papers. Elden Ring is FromSoft’s biggest and most hyped launch to date. The latest game from the iconic studio that brought us the Soulslike, Soulsborne, Soulbornkiro, whatever you’d like to call it, genre has attracted over 750,000 concurrent Steam players. There’s been a spate of negative user reviews generating thanks to its inconsistent PC performance; this success can be even seen in gaming marketplaces that specialize in selling game accounts and other types of services. Publisher Bandai Namco has yet to announce the game’s official launch sales, but we’ve seen massive success just from Steam alone, so it’s easy to assume that the numbers are above 1,000,000 at launch if the PC numbers alone are anything to go by.
On launch day, Elden Ring hit a peak concurrent player count on Steam of 764,835 players. When you compare that to Dark Souls 3 which had 129,975 players and Sekiro: Shadows Die Twice which had an all-time peak of 125,315 players, you can see just how huge these numbers are on PC. If we crunch the numbers, we can see that Elden Ring had nearly six times more concurrent players than Dark Souls 3’s highest ever peak. The player numbers will constantly change on Steam – no game sits at the top forever, after all.
It’s not all good news for Elden Ring despite hitting such high numbers. The game has attracted a swathe of negative reviews on Steam thanks to its dubious performance on PC. Digital Foundry’s statement of Elden Ring’s performance being a mixed bag right now is putting it lightly, to say the least. Even with the 1.02 available to download now, PC users can see stutters of up to 250 milliseconds in length when new areas, effects, and enemies appear on the screen. At its worst, Elden Ring players experience “tumbling frame-time issues” that drop the frame rate from 60 to 40. A look at the Steam reviews shows that over 7,000 of them consist of negatives shows that these performance issues are not lost on PC players despite the patch update.
A big part of the hype surrounding Elden Ring is the great track record that Hidetaka Miyazaki (the game’s director) and FromSoftware have had over the best decade. This has built a trusting relationship between fans of the games and the developers, as each new mechanic added to the game before its official launch was received positively.
Another reason why fans are hyped about Elden Ring even after its release is that it’s the spiritual successor to the Dark Souls series due to its graphics, story, and overall medieval setting being the perfect fit for the franchise. Especially since the last FromSoftware title, Sekiro: Shadows Die Twice, was set in Sengoku Era Japan, players were itching for a more Gothic experience featuring magic and greatswords than samurais and katanas.
Lastly, the story is more intricate this time around, as fans will experience a mythos built from the ground up by George R. R. Martin, writer of the novels that the Game of Thrones series was based on.
Due to FromSoftware’s attempt at making the game accessible to as many computers as possible, they’ve essentially taken on a situation more difficult than if they were to just leave these PC players behind. Elden Ring is facing serious performance issues on PC to the point that they aren’t just minor inconveniences anymore, leading to a lot of players from that platform selling their game accounts on gaming marketplaces. Almost all GPUs – yes, even the super expensive ones – struggle when going outside into the beautiful horizon but run fine indoors. This is likely due to the game using DirectX 12, a software developed by Microsoft that has been known to produce fluctuations and aggressive stutters in modern games since it takes a different approach to memory management. Variable refresh rate technologies like FreeSync and G-Sync alleviate the issues to some degree, but that’s now how it should be as not everyone has access to those.
It remains to be seen what Bandai Namco does about this situation as the day-one patch didn’t address these issues one bit. This is even more strange if you consider that FromSoftware’s last two games, Sekiro and Dark Souls 3, had no problems across all platforms. In the meantime, there are still a lot of players actively grinding through Elden Ring, even if it currently faces a lot of problems.
Diablo 4's fourth season got a hearty month-long delay, owing to the fact that it's spring-boarding a complete overhaul to the game's itemization, crafting systems, and endgame. Plenty of folks, myself included, are more than a little excited for a new start to Blizzard's powerhouse IP, but we're stuck waiting until May 14. So rather than sit on our clicking hands, I have a few suggestions to help pass the time:
Grim Dawn is my absolute favoritest-favorite action RPG. Not only is it an absolute beast in terms of its content (if you cop the expansions on one of the game's regular sales, you're looking at 100+ hours of content at least), it's unmatched in class fantasy and build customization.
Sure, it's not the flashiest action RPG in the world, but its gruff, high contrast aesthetic is a bit reminiscent of the gold-box RPG glory days, isn't it? The oversaturated hue of the spell effects mixed with the pitch black shadows gives it some real character.
Grim Dawn is a fair bit more complex than Diablo, but not nearly the impenetrable fortress that is Path of Exile. Think of it as sitting somewhere in the middle-complexity sweet spot that games like Last Epoch occupy. You can blitz through the campaign on the breezy Normal difficulty or crank things up a few notches and see if your build can stand up to Ultimate.
If you're worried about this game's age meaning it isn't receiving updates or content, you may be pleasantly surprised to hear that that's decidedly not the case. The latest mega-patch, 1.2, saw a whole slew of changes, including difficulty scaling, loot tables, and the addition of an evade button. There's even a whole new expansion on its way, and a second game in early development. So, if you're looking for something with a little grit, it's never too late to become a fan of Grim Dawn.
V Rising is, unlike Grim Dawn, markedly not old. In fact, it's not even fully released yet. 1.0 is hitting just a bit shy of Diablo 4's new season, on May 8, but you can explore plenty of the game's content right now in Early Access.
The elevator pitch for V Rising probably went something like, "What if Diablo, survival crafting games like Valheim, and old-school MMO's got thrown in a blender?" You'll hunt down treacherous bosses and collect bear asses both, all in service to your ever-growing castle. The game has the same sticky mechanics that all the great survival games do: you'll craft increasingly impressive and useful tools using workbenches, but you'll only find the blueprints after defeating some of the world's many, many big-bads.
By day, you'll likely be cooped up in your castle, rearranging furniture, stocking the furnace with ore, that sort of thing. But come nightfall, when the sun's rays won't cremate you, you'll be pushing further and further into the wilds, collecting resources and slaying foes.
If you've got a knack for building houses in The Sims or seeing how big you can make your Minecraft fortress, V Rising has a fantastic base-building system that's sure to satiate your lust for interior design. If you also enjoy skill-shotting folks in MOBAs, the game so happens to use WASD movement such that its combat plays like a frenetic mix of League of Legends and Lost Ark. It'll take some getting used to, but this weird combination of cozy homebuilding and action is surprisingly harmonious.
And at last, we have Moon Studio's (makers of Ori) very left-field foray into the action RPG space: No Rest for the Wicked. I was embarrassingly excited for this game, which launched last Thursday, April 18 into Early Access.
My recommendation of No Rest for the Wicked comes with two caveats: first, you'll need a pretty juicy rig to run it. With a "recommended" GPU equivalent to an RTX 3070, it isn't particularly optimized in these early days. Second, it barely qualifies as an "action RPG" in the traditional, Diablo-esque sense of the phrase. Its combat is slow, methodical, and heavy.
Those caveats out of the way, what's here is very good so far. The first act of the game is available to play, which should run you anywhere from 10 to 15 hours depending on your propensity for exploration and upgrading the capital city of Sacrament using resources found along your journey.
One of the more progressive features of No Rest for the Wicked is its ever-changing landscapes that are a joy to revisit. Starter zones level up alongside your progress through the campaign, and trekking back through previously explored lands may reveal new enemies, bosses, and loot. Loot rarity has had the script flipped a bit too - "common" items are the most customizable, while higher rarities may come with hefty drawbacks in exchange for their affixed bonuses.
It's early days for the game, but after two quick and beefy hotfixes (which went live over the weekend, no less), I think it's worth keeping an eye on at the very least. Jumping in early is always a bit of a leap of faith, but I haven't regretted a moment spent with the game.
The post Three games to scratch that action RPG itch during the wait for Diablo 4 Season 4 appeared first on Destructoid.
What just might be one of the greatest action RPGs of all time gets a next-gen overhaul, and brings the game back to consoles and PC in style.
How long has it been since The Witcher 3: The Wild Hunt was released? Well, it might be hard to believe, but CD Projekt Red’s masterpiece was first unleashed upon the world in 2015. Yep, a decidedly-eventful 8 long years ago.
When the title first dropped, it was immediately met with a good deal of fanfare. Both critics and fans ate it up, heaping acclaim on the title for its fantastic gameplay, deep and complex story, and awesome delivery.
Of course, that was then. And since it launched, The Witcher 3 has been the recipient of some major expansions, a semi-miraculous Switch edition, and now a full updating. Just released last month, the game’s ‘next-gen’ update boosted the game’s looks and brought it back for the modern Xbox and PlayStation consoles, as well as the PC.
And while I unfortunately can’t compare this new version to the original, I can tell you it’s really, really good.
If you’re a Witcher fan, then you’re probably going to want to skip this section. That’s because I’m a complete neophyte when it comes to writer Andrej Sapkowski’s Geralt of Rivea and the world that he inhabits. So my retelling of his adventures, and set up of the Northern Kingdoms might be somewhat lacking in nuance.
I haven’t played any of Assassins of Kings (the second game in the series), and have only limited experience with the original. And as for the books and TV show, well I haven’t read or seen any of them. But be that as it may, the world of The Witcher has always intrigued me, so I was particularly happy to get to dig in.
Still with me? Okay, I’ll just assume you’re in the same boat I am then, and do some filling in. Witchers, for lack of a better term, are bounty-hunters that slay monsters. Of course it’s a lot deeper than that, with Witchers being highly-skilled and trained warriors, who’ve received special mutations that gift them with abilities that standard humans don’t have.
Main character Geralt is one of those, and when The Witcher 3 opens, we find him on the hunt for his lover Yennifer. Yenn is no damsel in distress though, and is a powerful sorceress who we quickly learn is in league with an invading army. When Geralt and his companion, an elder Witcher, catch up to her the story really starts, kicking into high gear with the return of his ward Ciri, who’s being hunted by a relentless group of supernatural killers called… The Wild Hunt.
The story is excellent, and filled with great characters and well-realized plot lines. All of it takes place against a high-fantasy world that has seen better days, with war and strife encroaching from all angles.
The Complete Edition, which we’re talking about here, also includes both the Hearts of Stone and Blood & Wine expansion packs. I haven’t even touched either of those yet, as I’m still plenty lost in the base game’s quests.
With all of that content though, plus an additional 16 pieces of “extra content” (including stuff based on the Netflix show), there’s an ungodly amount of stuff to see and do in this game.
There’s a lot going on in The Witcher 3, and that extends to the controls. But whereas I’ve gotten a little lost at times in some games that offer a glut of options, that’s not the case here. Part of that comes with the next-gen revamp, as CD Projekt Red added in a new mechanic for casting “signs”.
While Witchers aren’t mages, they do have access to a limited selection of simple spells. These are called signs, and the game assigns them to what’s basically a weapon-wheel kind of thing. Players can simply call up the menu, which slows time in the game, pick a spell, and equip it. It’s easy and as un-cumbersome as it gets.
Geralt is also loaded up with both a standard and silver sword, each of which has its use. The silver is strictly for monsters, while the more average blade is for everything else. Drawing each is as simple as a press on the d-pad. Not that there aren’t other weapons in the game though, as you’ll have the opportunity to use additional hardware, armor, and items.
As far as other improvements, CD Projekt Red has also tweaked the map, and made some user interface overhauls. Exactly what those are, I’m not sure though. Again, I haven’t played the previous version of the game.
But even though I haven’t played the last-gen edition of The Wild Hunt, I can definitely tell you that this one looks as ‘current’ as anything else out there. The Witcher 3 got acclaim for its looks before, but man if it isn’t a beautiful game now too.
The newt-gen edition beefs up the already great looks quite a bit, with ray tracing across all versions. The PC edition does go one step further though, with real-time RT, as well as DLSS support. PS5 and Xbox Series X|S versions won’t be too bad off though, since both have AMD FidelityFX Super Resolution, as well as faster load times.
So basically, if you thought The Witcher 3 looked great already, it looks even better now. And if you haven’t played it on last generation’s hardware, you’ll probably think it looks pretty great even without the comparison.
Along with that too, is some stellar sound in just about every way. The game not only has a beautiful selection of music, but the vocal work from the cast is top shelf. And I should mention that there is a great script backing it up. That doesn’t hurt.
It’s hard to say if The Witcher 3: The Wild Hunt – Complete Edition is worth playing for those who’ve already indulged in the original release. Yes, it should look better than ever before, but it’s essentially the same game, even with the additional content. And if you’ve poured dozens of hours into it already, it’s probably not worth replaying if you’re doing so just for the graphical bump.
On the other hand, if you haven’t played The Witcher 3 in any form, as I hadn’t, then it’s more than worth your time. The game is a legitimate gem, and one of the best action RPG’s I’ve ever had the pleasure of playing. Speaking of, it’s also massive, so “playing” this game is something that I’ll be doing for a good long time.
A copy of The Witcher 3 was provided by CD Projekt Red for this review
The Witcher 3: The Wild Hunt – Complete Edition
Release Date: December 14th, 2022
Platforms: PC (reviewed), Xbox Series X|S, PS5
Publisher: CD Projekt Red
Developer: CD Projekt Red
MSRP: $59.99 USD
The post The Witcher 3: The Wild Hunt – Complete Edition (PC) Review appeared first on BrutalGamer.
Přihlásit se