Ubisoft and Epic have announced a semi-exclusive partnership for PC game releases.
Epic Games scored a big one today with the announcement of a partnership with Ubisoft that will see at least some of its future PC releases come to the Epic Games Store, and not to Steam. As reported by Polygon, the semi-exclusive deal will begin in March with the launch of The Division 2.
"We have no plans currently on releasing Tom Clancy’s The Division 2 on Steam," a Ubisoft rep said. Ubisoft and Epic will "also partner on additional select titles [coming to the Epic Games Store] to be announced during the coming year."
"We entrust Epic to deliver a smooth journey for our fans, from pre-ordering the game and enjoying our Beta to the launch of Tom Clancy’s The Division 2 on March 15," Ubisoft vice president of partnerships Chris Early said in the announcement. "Epic continues to disrupt the video game [sic] industry, and their third party digital distribution model is the latest example, and something Ubisoft wants to support."
The Division 2 had been listed on Steam, and can still be seen in the Steam Database, but the product page has been removed. It will also be available for purchase through Ubisoft's own storefront.
Our favorite gaming mouse of 2018 is 43% off on Amazon US and 36% off at Amazon UK right now.
Our favorite gaming mouse, Razer’s DeathAdder Elite remains on offer at Amazon, maintaining a deliciously low price of $39.99, and is also reduced in the UK as well - down to £44.99, giving you a whole £25 off. And still, even at this late, stage, you can squeak it in before Christmas. This is in conjunction with other Amazon UK discounts on a bunch of Razer products, where you can get money off a whole host of other mice, mouse pads, controllers and headsets. In the US, Amazon’s money off Razer products extend to one of our favourite gaming mousepads, the Razer Firefly and Mamba Hyperflux, which we rated the best wireless charging gaming mouse pad, which has a healthy 12% off at $220.29. Look alive: you can get 43% off the Razer DeathAdder Elite (our best gaming mouse of 2018) on Amazon right now. Available for $39.99/£41.99, this is the lowest price it’s ever been on the website. And it’s worth noting that if you buy now, it’ll arrive with you well before Christmas. With flawless tracking and a simple design that’ll suit almost everyone, the DeathAdder Elite comes highly recommended. As we said in our guide to the top gaming mice, it’s “simple where it should be with two perfectly placed, generously sized thumb buttons, a great optical mouse sensor that will work on both hard and cloth pads, and the ultimate body shape for a claw or hybrid claw/palm grip”. Although high-end alternatives like the Logitech G903 Lightspeed outdo it in terms of features, this is arguably the best value for money nonetheless.
Speaking of which, Amazon are also selling the Logitech G903 Lightspeed (our best wireless gaming mouse) for $114.28/£99. That’s a saving of around 20-35%. Not to be left out, Corsair are doing a sale on their mice too. source: pcgamer
Saturday, 17 November 2018
Brutal city builder Frostpunk is one of the best games of the year so far, and next week it will add a long-awaited endless mode that lets you grow your city for as long as you can stop your citizens freezing to death.
The team at 11 Bit Studios says the new mode took longer than planned because it's bigger than they first intended—it was initially designed as a grueling challenge, but now it will get both hard and easy variants. It will arrive "within a couple of days", the studio said in the dev diary above.
On Serenity, the easier version, players will get more resources and face less challenging weather conditions, giving them more time to concentrate on building their city the way they like. Endurance, however, promises to be even nastier than the base game, with new randomised events that will turn off parts of your city for a few days, leaving your citizens unprotected against the unending cold. You can tweak the difficulty in each variant, making your citizens more or less demanding, for example.
You'll be able to play both variants on four different maps, and their layout will determine how you can grow your city. The Frostlands—the name for area in the zoomed out map—will still be explorable, and every so often a huge snow storm will cover it, blocking off old locations and opening up new, randomised sites to visit.
Sometimes, you'll find "mementos" at those sites, and you'll be able to store them in an Archives building, which is one of a few new building types the endless mode adds. 11 Bit says these mementos will answer some of the questions the community has about the lore of the Frostpunk universe.
It sounds like the perfect excuse to jump back into what is a brilliant city builder—you can check out Chris's full review here.
