Dune: Awakening, the massively-multiplayer take on Frank Herbert’s sandy sci-fi universe from dong-loving devs Funcom, has shown off some more of its online, open-world Arrakis in a lengthy developer direct. We’ve also learnt more about what we will – and won’t – be able to do during our time exploring the planet.
In a video game industry that often feels like it’s bloating into a monolithic, unsustainable beast propped up by annual staples and once every generation blockbusters, a small silver lining is that it’s still big enough for games like The Thaumaturge to exist. This mid-size RPG may not match the jaw-dropping scale of a game like Baldur’s Gate 3, but it’s still packed with atmosphere and good ideas that are mostly well executed. Aside from some buggy movement and odd voices, the turn-based combat is full of interesting strategic choices, and its great writing and story manage to punch up tried and true point-and-click clue finding and lore gathering.
You play as the eponymous Thaumaturge, a sort of Witcher/John Constantine mash up of a supernaturally gifted human and an extraplanar detective named Wiktor. His journey to uncover the circumstances of his father’s death often finds him plying his esoteric trade both in service of this goal, and as a distraction from it. The various intertwining stories of a Poland at the brink of revolution, as well as Wiktor discovering all the ways things have changed at home in his fifteen year absence, tie a compelling narrative knot across its 20 hour run time.
Though I found a lot of its main and side stories to be interesting, the slow pace does mean you’ll spend long stretches of time reading and listening before being given a chance to act. When you do, usually through dialogue options that can vary based on past choices or your own abilities, sometimes The Thaumaturge asked me to make assumptions about Wiktor’s life and old relationships that I had no context for. For instance, it regularly asks you to either be nice or a jerk to people who apparently know him, but doesn’t give you adequate reason to decide one way or the other. The voice acting can also be a bit shaky, with accents that are all over the place – more than one person that is supposed to be a native to the region sounded like I could have met them in a Wawa here in the great state of New Jersey.
That said, I did like that dialogue options regularly felt risky, and limitations imposed by previous encounters or Wiktor’s current stats made chatting people up feel like a challenge. I can’t speak to how differently any of these exchanges would go if I chose some other option, or how long it would take to reach the consequences of those choices, but The Thaumaturge at least puts on a convincing show of giving you meaningful control over its events.
Quests involve a lot of snooping around, investigating objects both mundane and magical in private and in public, all to earn “observations,” which are clues you can draw about the people who interacted with them based on any lingering emotional residue. The lingering lust on bedsheets or wily chaos on a stray bullet stuck in a wall can help you draw conclusions about the people who were involved with these things. Even though this largely means using your perception to investigate glowing objects in a more mystical version of Batman’s detective mode, the particularly good writing that accompanies the clues does add some heightened drama as you work to put all the pieces together in your head before The Thaumaturge puts a giant neon sign on the right answers for you.
Turn of the 20th century Europe is a comfortable setting for all this political drama and magical intrigue. The Russian imperial expansion into Poland, and the latter’s revolution against the intruders, is thick with the kind of tension only a ghost skeleton with a Cavalry saber can cut. The constant push and pull between the occupiers and the increasingly more disgruntled citizens is something Wiktor’s supernatural adventure is constantly butting up against, and it really helps keep this story grounded and relatable even when things get dense with lore and macguffins, which is a hallmark of good science fiction.
I’m not an expert in the period, so when I say everything looks the part – from the hairstyles to the clothing to the architecture – just know it’s coming from a guy who’s seen Doctor Zhivago once and thought it was fine. It’s not groundbreaking in its fidelity, but colors, textures, and lighting are pretty good looking at their best. Moving around Poland is sometimes a little glitchy , but it’s a city that is dense with people to speak to and stuff to find that I was excited to explore.
Warsaw is filled to the brim with folk who’d rather you and your brethren be dead or maimed than in their business, and luckily when combat does break out, you aren’t alone. Salutors, the spiritual beings that haunt the people and places of the world, can be tamed to assist you. Each has their own strengths and types, which can be used against certain kinds of enemy weaknesses, Pokemon-style. Among my go-tos were Bukavac, a snarling beast who is great at applying negative states to enemies, or Lelek, a chaotic bird demon who can drive enemies mad.
Weaving Wiktor and your chosen salutor’s attacks together to most optimally synergize your offense never felt boring, though it’s not particularly challenging, either – even on the highest difficulty, it wasn’t until the very end of my adventure that the fights truly tested my brain. This is partially because all of your currently captured Salutors are available at any time to switch back and forth between, so you always have access to your enemy’s vulnerabilities, but also because you get so much information about the goings on of every turn. You’ll be able to plan around who’s up next, what kind of attack they are going to use, and how close to death everyone is when queuing up your attacks, and while getting near perfect information in battle is a great thing, the enemies don’t seem to have the same ability to make good decisions with it that I did.
Enemies are 90% regular guys reskinned in different clothing or uniforms, wielding knives, clubs, guns, or even their fists. They may not be visually compelling, but most of their attacks do things more than straight damage, like adding detrimental status effects or draining your focus to open you up to big damage. Wiktor, combined with all of the potential spirits he can wrestle under his control, have quite a menu of offensive options themselves. Though many fights with these random goons seem to happen out of nowhere and for what should be easily avoidable reasons, it doesn’t hurt to gain as many opportunities as possible to practice all of your potential options, as well as gain points to level up your thaumaturgy skills, which boost your stats, give you access to even more attacks, and potentially unlocks new discovery and dialogue opportunities.
The other 10% of the enemies are salutors or other thaumaturges. Besides usually being more visually striking fights, with the added twist of having an untargetable character afflicting the battle in some way, they play out largely the same as other encounters. They do tend to be more challenging and provide satisfying punctuations to some of the campaign’s more interesting side missions, but I also wish they got a little spicier, tactically, considering the enemies you get to face off against.
When we first meet The Thaumaturge‘s hero Wiktor Szulski, we’re told he’s a man cursed by the vice of pride. It’s a trait that sits at the heart of his personality, and in this particular alt-history telling of Polish turmoil in Warsaw at the turn of the twentieth century, such ‘Flaws’ can also attract the attention of otherworldly beings called Salutors – vicious creatures of myth and folklore who follow their quarry around like dark and gloomy shadows, amplifying their worst qualities and, in many cases, driving them to emotional, and often violent, extremes. It’s these outbursts that Wiktor will be investigating over the course of this curious detective RPG from the makers of Seven: The Days Long Gone and the upcoming The Witcher 1 Remake, as fortunately for him, Wiktor comes from a long line of storied Salutor tamers, his thaumaturgic know-how allowing him to see these monsters made flesh, exorcise them from their human host, and use them for his own gains.
He’s a man that’s ultimately made peace with his own arrogance, then, but considering everything he goes through during The Thaumaturge’s 25 hour-odd run-time, I reckon his pride is pretty justified. Not only is he able to brush off multiple stab and gunshot wounds and clubs to the face when he gets in a fight, but he also achieves several feats of thaumaturgy that we’re repeatedly told are thought to be nigh on impossible. Indeed, at the start of this game, his connection with his original Salutor Upyr is hanging by a thread, his worst instincts having got the best of him in a recent attempt to tame and capture a second beast from the ether. By the end, however, I had six Salutors at my beck and call, out of a total of eight. Wiktor is very much a force to be reckoned with, and he makes for a highly compelling lead as you navigate the branching storylines in Warsaw’s political hotbed.
Cloud watching.
The latest UK charts are in and it is no surprise who’s sitting at the top spot this week.
We predicted it, you predicted it, of course, this week’s champ is Final Fantasy VII Rebirth on the PS5. Square Enix’s latest managed to beat both EA Sports FC 24 and Hogwarts Legacy this time around (which is no mean feat) and it means that last week’s bronze medalist, Mario vs. Donkey Kong, has been pushed down the ladder once again.
Read the full article on nintendolife.com
The post Call of Duty: Modern Warfare III and Warzone Season 2 Reloaded: What You Need to Know appeared first on Xbox Wire.
February had no shortage of options to choose from, no matter your gaming preference. Did you spend endless hours in multiplayer or take on a solo quest? Do your part and let us know in the poll below.
How does it work? At the end of every month, PlayStation.Blog will open a poll where you can vote for the best new game released that month. After the polls close we will tally your votes, and announce the winner on our social channels and PlayStation.Blog. PlayStation Store will also showcase some top Players’ Choice winners throughout the year.
What is the voting criteria? That’s up to you! If you were only able to recommend one new release to a friend that month, which would it be? Note: re-released games don’t qualify, while remakes are reserved for ambitious, larger-scale rebuilds such as Resident Evil 4 (2023) and Final Fantasy VII Remake.
How are nominees decided? The PlayStation.Blog and PlayStation Store editorial teams will gather a list of that month’s most noteworthy releases and use it to seed the poll. Write-in votes will be accepted.
We already knew that Norwegian game developer Funcom is working on an open-world survival MMO game set in the Dune universe. And today, the developer has provided a new look at Dune: Awakening, including a glimpse into Arrakis along with some gameplay footage.
As part of Dune Direct, a nearly 25-minute digital showcase to provide new details on Dune: Awakening, Funcom concluded the presentation with a new gameplay trailer subtitled “Survive Arrakis.” The trailer, which you can check out below, is visually stunning.
Powered by Epic’s Unreal Engine 5, the latest trailer for Dune: Awakening shows the extreme conditions on planet Arrakis, from the harsh climate to gigantic sandworms emerging from the sand and evading hostile enemies. The gameplay trailer also leans into the survival aspects of Awakening, showing snippets of your playable character gathering materials and finding various ways of traversing the massive open world.
In addition to the trailer, IGN can exclusively reveal two new screenshots. The first shows some of the game’s particle effects in action.
The second shows off its lighting and other aspects of Dune: Awakening’s character design.
Funcom also released a host of other screenshots showing off Dune: Awakening’s world as well as a featurette titled Creating Worlds, which chronicles its journey from “book to movie to game.” It includes interviews with its development team interspersed with the movie that reveals how Funcom brought the forbidding world of Arrakis to life.
The rest of the Dune Direct details Dune: Awakening’s survival mechanics and other elements, with creative director Joel Bylos explaining how it takes the base-building from Conan Exiles and builds on it, with a special emphasis on sharing blueprints between different players. He also discusses the ways in which players will be able to learn abilities from the “great schools of the universe,” including becoming a Bene Gesserit and being able to “compel enemies to come closer so you can stab them with a knife.” As for sandworms, Bylos says they are more of a “tension mechanic.” There’s no way to kill them; they can only be avoided. However, you can lure them into your enemies (or friends), or simply avoid them with an ornithopter.
Bylos says that Funcom has been running betas for Dune: Awakening for several months now, with the intention of bringing in more players over time. However, he says that Funcom has no intention of “rushing it out the door,” saying that it “takes as long as it takes.” Players hoping to sign up for one of the closed betas can do so at the game’s official website.
Dune: Awakening was first announced in 2022 at The Game Awards. Set on the sandworm-filled planet Arrakis, Dune: Awakening “is set on Arrakis and takes inspiration from both Frank Herbert’s novels and Denis Villeneuve’s Academy Award-winning film while exploring exciting new possibilities in the franchise.”
While no release date was announced for Dune: Awakening, we previously learned that it will be available on PC, PS5, and Xbox Series X/S.
The announcement comes following the release of Dune: Part 2, which hit theatres last Friday. In our review of Dune: Part 2, my colleague Tom Jorgenson wrote: “Featuring absolutely staggering visuals, Dune: Part Two is an arresting, transportive middle entry in Denis Villeneuve’s tricky sci-fi saga.”
Taylor is a Reporter at IGN. You can follow her on Twitter @TayNixster.
The final nail in the coffin for Oculus branding is coming, as Meta announced today that those who fail to migrate their Oculus account to a Meta account will lose access to all their games and in-app purchases at the end of the month.
In an email sent out to some Quest users (spotted by The Verge), Meta warned that if you do not integrate your Oculus account into a Meta account by March 29, not only will it delete your account, but you will lose access to anything from the account, including games, DLC, achievements and store credit.
The move comes as no surprise; in 2021, when Facebook rebranded itself to Meta, the tech giant revealed plans to retire the Oculus brand to simplify its “brand architecture.” This included renaming the Oculus Quest to the Meta Quest line of standalone VR headsets. In June 2022, Meta announced the ability to create a Meta account, a more approachable alternative for Quest owners to log into their headset without creating or logging into their Facebook account, something that was at the time a major drawback for Quest 2 owners.
Users can seamlessly migrate their Oculus account to a Meta account by heading to Meta’s official website and signing up for a Meta account. However, users must use the same email address associated with their Oculus account for their games, store credits, and other user data in their newly-created Meta account.
Taylor is a Reporter at IGN. You can follow her on Twitter @TayNixster.
Every weekend, indie devs show off current work on Twitter’s #screenshotsaturday tag. And every Monday, I bring you a selection of these snaps and clips. This week, despite Twitter throwing a wobbly and doing its best to keep me from taking a good look at the tag, I still found plenty of interesting and attractive indie games to admire. Check ’em out!
Roger Clark, who plays Arthur Morgan in Red Dead Redemption 2, is set to narrate an audiobook that looks at American history through the lens of Rockstar’s Red Dead Redemption games.
Clark narrates historian Tore Olsson’s ‘Red Dead’s History’ in character as Arthur Morgan, protagonist of Rockstar’s critically acclaimed open-world epic.
Red Dead’s History explores the “wildly dramatic and gritty world” of America from 1870 to 1920. 2010’s Red Dead Redemption and its prequel, 2018’s Red Dead Redemption 2, set in 1911 and 1899 respectively, were praised for their authentic portrayal of life during the decline of the American frontier. In the book, Olsson digs into the detail presented in the games and adds context from real-world American history.
Here’s the official blurb:
“Weaving together the fictional characters and plot of the Red Dead Redemption games with real-life historical vignettes, Olsson reveals that the action-packed violence of the Red Dead universe isn’t just spawned from Hollywood westerns but rooted in real sociopolitical issues from turn-of-the-century America.”
IGN spoke with college history professor Tore Olsson, who as well as writing books teaches the world’s first Red Dead Redemption history class at the University of Tennessee, to discuss the work. (Check out the interview in full for a fascinating look into the Red Dead Redemption games and their historical “thoughtfulness”, as Olsson puts it.) Here’s a snippet:
“It came as an epiphany when I sat down in the midst of the pandemic in 2020, and played Red Dead Redemption 2 for the first time. I was only about 10 hours in, and all these historical nodes in my brain are firing left and right. I can’t turn off my historian identity when I’m playing. And I’m really genuinely surprised at how historically thoughtful the games were. I’m not so much obsessed with this question of accuracy that gets bandied around a lot, when you talk about historical video games. I’m more interested in thoughtfulness and the ways a game tries to capture the mood and the feeling and the range of options and the realities of a time period. And I thought the game did a surprisingly good job at that.”
IGN also spoke to Roger Clark himself, who revealed why he wanted to be involved with the project, discussed the making of Red Dead Redemption 2, and teased what’s next.
The audiobook edition of Red Dead’s History will be published by Macmillan Audio on August 6, 2024 and will be available at Audible, Apple Books, or wherever audiobooks are sold.
Wesley is the UK News Editor for IGN. Find him on Twitter at @wyp100. You can reach Wesley at wesley_yinpoole@ign.com or confidentially at wyp100@proton.me.
