Microsoft and Blizzard have slapped a release date on Diablo 4's forthcoming content-o-season Vessel Of Hatred. It's out 8th October 2024, and sees you hooting and hollering down the road to the new region of Nahantu in search of Neyrelle, a character "who is both suffering the fate of her choice to imprison the Prime Evil Mephisto, and seeking a means to destroy him". In the process, you may choose to become "the apex predator of the jungle as the all-new Spiritborn class". You can also recruit mercenaries to help you, fight alongside other players in a new PvE co-op activity, "and more".

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S.T.A.L.K.E.R. 2: Heart of Chornobyl, the long-awaited sequel to the FPS that perhaps emanates the most shame in my backlog, has a new combat-focused trailer showing off the many dangers of the enigmatic Zone. You’ll also be pleased to know that the release date remains the same as the previous announcement: September 5th 2024, where it will be coming to Game Pass day one. Here’s the tray-tray:

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Microsoft have released a new trailer for South Of Midnight, a third-person action adventure from Compulsion Games, who created dystopian Britpop survival game We Happy Few. I thought We Happy Few had some wonderful ideas and presentation - it's sort of Fable by way of Clockwork Orange and Bioshock - but found its mixture of pill-popping satire and survival game mechanisms self-defeating. South Of Midnight seems no less vivid, but a lot more assured in its God Of War-style action... and it's perhaps a bit less intriguing, as a consequence. Still, don't just sit there reading my opinions. Watch the trailer.

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I love me a Flight Simulator, but never more when there's some dramatic structure to my flight. That's why I've long been looking forward to Microsoft Flight Simulator 2024. It takes the staggeringly detailed world and flight model of Asobo's Flight Sim revival, and adds a job system on top. And now it has a release date: November 19th.

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Microsoft and Playground's genuinely long-awaited Fable reboot will launch in 2025, and they've released a new trailer which... seems... good? And is also quite informative about the moment-to-moment of the game. The video is framed as the memoir of a paunchy retired champion, Humphry, who once mentored a young heroine I presume will be the game's main character, though it's ambiguous. She could also be the villain. Then again, Fable is a series in which you can be the villain. Egad, such shenanigans!

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I never played the original Perfect Dark, but the trailer for the reboot shown during this evening's Xbox Games Showcase instantly made it the most exciting game I've seen during not-E3. It's first-person, it's got stealth, it's got parkour, it's got hand-to-hand melee combat including slidekicks. It looks like a mashup of Mirror's Edge and something more immersive sim-y? What's not to like.

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Age Of Mythology: Retold, the remaster of the classic strategy beast-em-up, is due to release this year, 4th September 2024 on PC and Game Pass. This will be the 2002 game’s second remaster following its Extended Addition re-release in 2014, and aims to thoroughly spiff up the original with a 3D visual overhaul, new animations and texture, plus UI and QOL improvements. Prevent yourself being seduced by the suspiciously thunder-imbued swan that’s currently chatting you up, and have a gander at the trailer below:

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Microsoft have published the very first trailer for EA and BioWare's Dragon Age: The Veilguard, formerly known as Dragon Age: Dreadwolf, at their summer Xbox Game Showcase. It accompanies the first details of this "immersive single player RPG" - pause for ecstatic applause from Anthem haters - "where you become the leader others believe in". Not miles from the premise of Dragon Age: Inquisition, then. That footage, tho? Not entirely Inquisitiony.

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We've known for a while that Starfield was getting its first expansion later this year, but tonight's Xbox Games Showcase gave us its first trailer. My main takeaway? That Bethesda are leaning into cosmic horror, as the trailer features landscapes that look like they're on the other side of an Oblivion gate than anything I saw during my time with Starfield.

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DOOM: The Dark Ages is the next Bethesda Doom game, following DOOM 2016 and Doom: Eternal. It takes the FPS series back to a more civilised medieval age, where men and demon solved their disputes with throwable chainsaw shields, massive dragons, and guns that grind skulls at silly speeds then fire out the bone chips. Feast your face on the trailer below.

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Those undead just keep on coming back from the grave as Microsoft screen a new trailer for State Of Decay 3, your latest helping of sorrowful yet bloodthirsty zombie-bopping survivalism. I reviewed State Of Decay the first and thought it was a cool scrappy underdog next to larger zombie-botherers such as Left 4 Dead or DayZ. State Of Decay 2, on the other hand, I found to be disappointing - the same game with more money behind it in a way that seemed to magnify its faults. The threequel? I have tempered expectations, but I do want it to be good.

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Call of Duty: Black Ops 6 will release this October, including a day one launch on Game Pass, with an open beta on the way - and it’s certainly looking like a Call of Duty game.

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