Category: Video Games

Warhammer 40,000: Darktide has seen a big boost in players after launching its first new class, but complaints over monetization have continued especially after developer Fatshark released a version of the Arbitrator’s default helmet with its visor up for $5.

This week’s Battle for Tertium update, which arrived alongside the new Adeptus Arbites class DLC, reworked the core player experience to provide a new, clearer narrative focus for the co-op first-person melee / shooter hybrid.

Players now experience a linear campaign with new mission debriefs and embedded cinematics. It’s designed to “ease in new players and gradually unlock features that were previously gated by character level,” Fatshark has said.

But the big draw for veteran players was the release of the Adeptus Arbites class, and it appears to have done the trick. This $11.99 DLC looks like it’s sparked the interest of players who have stuck with the game since its troubled launch, as well as convinced lapsed players to dip back in.

Following the launch, Darktide hit a peak concurrent player count of just over 43,000 on Steam, the highest it’s been on Valve’s platform for over two years. And this doesn’t even paint the whole picture of the game’s success, given it’s also out on console.

In a statement provided to IGN, Product Marketing Manager Rodrigue Delrue said Fatshark had noticed the uptick, but failed to say exactly how many were playing Darktide across PC and console.

“We’ve seen a high level of engagement across all platforms, even if we don’t have exact numbers to share at this time,” Delrue said. “What’s important is that the community remains active and passionate, and we’re incredibly thankful for that.”

Funcom is updating Dune: Awakening almost faster than we can write about it. No sooner had we introduced you to its Public Test Client and news that the studio was trialling extending the PvE zone of the Deep Desert from about 10% of the map to 50%, Funcom has dropped an update to confirm that the change will be rolling out for all players from today, June 26.

“The PvE area has been adjusted to encompass the entire southern half of the Deep Desert map,” Funcom confirmed in its latest patch notes, below. “This means that players who have no interest in PvP should be able to find what they want without engaging in PvP. Imperial Testing Stations, caves, and so forth found in this area are thus now PvE.”

“Rest assured that we will continue to listen to your feedback and make adjustments in the future,” the team said.

It follows an AMA in which the studio told players frustrated by the endgame experience that it was “formulating a plan” to improve PvP in the Deep Desert. Previously, players branded the endgame as “toxic” due to griefing even after patching out the ability for players to squish other people with their Ornithopter

“We want PvE players to be able to play the endgame and have access to the content of the endgame,” said creative director Joel Bylos. “Our goal is not to force PvE players to interact with a PvP system that they may have no interest in.

“We still believe in the core concept of the Deep Desert — an endlessly renewing location that resets every week and creates an activity loop for great rewards. The tension of heading out there, head on a swivel, eyes peeled for foes as you enter the most dangerous part of the most dangerous planet in the universe. Our wish was that players would embrace this loop, forming guilds to work together to overcome the bleakness of the Deep Desert.”

For those wondering, yes, Control Points and Shipwrecks will continue to be PvP “throughout the entire map,” which means you will find “localized pockets of PvP within the PvE section still. Similar to how Shipwrecks are PvP in Hagga Basin.” Work has also begun on changing the Ornithopters; equipping a rocket launcher module will now decrease the top speed of your Scout Orni by 20%, and Assault Ornis by 10%.

After the patch has been applied, players will also be able to report other players’ messages from the text chat or report them by using the Inspect menu.

Dune: Awakening Patch Notes 1.1.0.17

Deep Desert

As outlined in A message from the Creative Director on PvE and PVP » Dune: Awakening, this hotfix will see the first iteration of the changes to the balance between PvE and PvP in the Deep Desert. Rest assured that we will continue to listen to your feedback and make adjustments in the future.

• The PvE area has been adjusted to encompass the entire southern half of the Deep Desert map.
  • This means that players who have no interest in PvP should be able to find what they want without engaging in PvP. Imperial Testing Stations, caves, and so forth found in this area are thus now PvE.
  • Control Points and Shipwrecks will, however, continue to be PvP throughout the entire map, which means you will find localized pockets of PvP within the PvE section still. Similar to how Shipwrecks are PvP in Hagga Basin.
• To retain the Risk vs Reward setup for the Deep Desert:
  • The density of resources increases the further north you go. This includes high-density clusters of valuable resources.
  • The largest spice fields will also spawn in the north.
  • The majority of Control Points will exist in the northern part.
• As part of these changes, we have made some balancing adjustments in the Deep Desert:
  • The lower half of the Deep Desert now offers PvE loot that is balanced toward shared loot and PvE activities. You may find better loot in the more dangerous PvP area located further north on the map. In the PvE area, for example, each player gets their own loot and can expect to receive one schematic. In the PvP area, loot is distributed on a “first come, first served” basis, with higher quantities of everything. Players can expect to find 2–6 schematics there, which are among the rarest.
  • Plasteel plates can only be found in PvP zones.
  • The amount of active medium spice fields has been reduced from 8 to 5.
  • The number of active small spice fields has increased from 20 to 22.
  • The spawn rate of Titanium and Stravidium has been reduced in the PvE areas so that large quantities only spawn in the far-out PvP areas.
  • The number of nodes in resource hotspots in the PvE part of the map has been reduced.
  • The respawn time of Titanium and Stravidium has increased from 30 to 45 minutes.
• Some Imperial Testing Stations are still in the PvP region, and players who want all schematics available each week will want to visit both the PvP and PvE Imperial Testing Stations. Keep in mind the loot in them rotates each week, so even if you’re not interested in PvP, you could obtain it at a later date if you’re not able to trade for it or buy it off the Exchange.

Vehicles

• We have begun work on the outlined changes to the Scout Ornithopters.
  • Equipping a Rocket Launcher Module will now decrease the top speed of your Ornithopter.
    • For Scout Ornithopters, the reduction is 20%.
    • For Assault Ornithopters, the reduction is 10%.
  • Infocards for the modules now reflect this change.
• Exiting ornithopters mid-air will now cause them to drop straight down instead of gliding away. This should decrease the chance that you lose your ornithopter upon disconnecting from the game or exiting by accident your ornithopter mid-air (yes, we have seen the videos).
  • Known issue: There is an edge case that if your vehicle ends up in the quicksand you might not be able to interact with it if you are in the quicksand. The workaround is to try to get on top of the vehicle to interact with it. This will be fixed in the very next patch.

Visiting

• We removed the restrictions when visiting other sietches. Before this change, players had their “home” sietches, and could visit other sietches in their world but couldn’t claim land. Now, any player can go to any sietch in their world and claim land wherever they want.

Technical and stability

• Increased game stability.
• The latest NVIDIA driver was added to the GPU driver check at the game launch.

Other

• We have introduced Player Reporting, allowing players to now report other players’ messages from the text chat or report players from the Inspect menu on players.

FIXES

Technical and stability

• As a continuous effort, we have closed several exploit vulnerabilities.
• Fixed an issue where a specific type of network issue would cause players to be stuck in an infinite loading screen.
• Fixed an issue where some players could experience a client freeze when traveling between Deep Desert servers.

Combat

• Fixed an issue where players performing a melee attack could get obstructed by corpses lying on the ground.

User Interface

• Fixed an issue where the guild faction alignment was not localized on the Guild Overview tab.
• Fixed an issue where players could encounter a black screen if they skipped the cinematic at “The Wreck of the Hephaestus”.
• Fixed an issue where several Sandbike research schematics failed to mention the Imperial Testing Stations as the primary source.

Travel

• Fixed an issue where players could use an ornithopter pilot service to fly from the cities to Hagga Basin if they had arrived in a city with their ornithopter.

Miscellaneous

• You will no longer lose learned emotes when respec’ing your skill tree.

Dune: Awakening has enjoyed a superb launch, with a ‘very positive’ user review rating on Steam. Within hours of going live on June 10, Funcom’s survival MMO had clocked up over 142,000 concurrent players on Valve’s platform, and hit a new high earlier this month of 189,333 players. And it’s already clocked up over 1 million players, too, making it Funcom’s fastest-selling game ever, and securing a Great 8/10 in our review.

If all that’s got you interested but you’re not sure where to start, make sure to check out all the Dune: Awakening classes you can choose from, and keep an eye on our Dune: Awakening walkthrough for a step-by-step guide to the story. We’ve also got Dune: Awakening resource guides that’ll help you find iron, steel, aluminium, and a Dune: Awakening Trainers locations guide to help you survive on Arrakis.

Vikki Blake is a reporter for IGN, as well as a critic, columnist, and consultant with 15+ years experience working with some of the world’s biggest gaming sites and publications. She’s also a Guardian, Spartan, Silent Hillian, Legend, and perpetually High Chaos. Find her at BlueSky.

S.T.A.L.K.E.R. 2: Heart of Chornobyl‘s 1.5 Patch is here, introducing various tweaks and fixes, but it’s the first phase of GSC Game World’s modding tool that’s dominating our interest… and our hard drives.

“Shape the Zone in Your Way with the Stalker 2 Zone Kit,” GSC Game World said. “Modify existing content or create new experiences — animations, weapons, mechanics, and even wonders of the Zone.”

Sounds great, right? Which it is, if you happen to have 700GB of space free… on top of the 160GB you need to run the base game itself.

The reason, GSC said, is because as part of its partnership with the modding community, the team is sharing a slew of uncompressed files so modders are using original assets in the development of their mods, which is better for everyone, of course.

“The size of the mod kit is a result of the in-game assets being uncompressed for the mod makers,” GSC told PC Gamer. “It’s a big game, and the assets are many, resulting in a considerable size of the download. The Zone Kit is currently in phase one, so we’ll explore the opportunities to optimize its size (if possible) in the future.”

“Yeah, we launched the Zone Kit as Phase 1, because we want to develop it together with Mod Makers,” a community representative explained on Reddit. “It already has a lot of features, but still this is Phase 1. On Phase 2 there will be even more things to do with the Zone via the Zone Kit.”

“Underneath the technical problems that plague STALKER 2: Heart of Chornobyl is a unique greatness,” we wrote in our S.T.A.L.K.E.R. 2: Heart of Chornobyl review, giving it 8/10. “It emerges as a refreshingly brutal shooter that strives to hook you with its incredible atmosphere and leave you invested by the end of this long, arduous journey.” Read more on how S.T.A.L.K.E.R. 2 has changed everything for the studio amid the full-scale invasion of Ukraine here.

Vikki Blake is a reporter for IGN, as well as a critic, columnist, and consultant with 15+ years experience working with some of the world’s biggest gaming sites and publications. She’s also a Guardian, Spartan, Silent Hillian, Legend, and perpetually High Chaos. Find her at BlueSky.