برچسب: classic

The reboot of classic stealth game Perfect Dark has been scrapped

One of the most beloved stealth shooters of the 2000s, Rare’s Perfect Dark is still remembered fondly to this day. For years, we’ve been patiently waiting for its ambitious reboot to arrive – a tumultuous development cycle means it’s been a long time coming. Last year, we finally got to see gameplay of the new Perfect Dark, and it looked absolutely stunning. However, as part of today’s devastating round of layoffs at Microsoft, which impacts several teams under the Xbox Game Studios banner, the project has been canceled. It also means that The Initiative, the internal studio formed by Xbox to create the Perfect Dark reboot, has been shut down completely.

After watching its gameplay reveal during last year’s Xbox showcase, I genuinely believed that the new Perfect Dark could one day end up on our best stealth games list. Even though the 2000 original was a bit before my time, the reboot’s blend of stealth, urban traversal, and immersive sim elements seemed right up my street. The gunplay also looked excellent, and anything with slow motion bullet time gets a thumbs up from me. Sadly, you and I will never get the chance to play it.

As news of the Xbox layoffs spread throughout the day, Perfect Dark was being touted as one of the projects at risk alongside Rare’s Everwild and an unannounced new IP from the creators of The Elder Scrolls Online.

In a statement sent to employees by Matt Booty, head of Xbox Game Studios, these rumors have been confirmed. Not only is Perfect Dark canceled, but The Initiative is also shutting its doors for good.

“We have made the decision to stop development of Perfect Dark and Everwild as well as wind down several unannounced projects across our portfolio,” Booty writes in the statement, which was obtained by Windows Central. “As part of this, we are closing one of our studios, The Initiative. These decisions, along with other changes across our teams, reflect a broader effort to adjust priorities and focus resources to set up our teams for greater success within a changing industry landscape. We did not make these choices lightly, as each project and team represent years of effort, imagination, and commitment.”

The Initiative was spun up in 2018, with Perfect Dark being its first and only project. The studio was also being assisted by Tomb Raider trilogy developer Crystal Dynamics.

Perfect Dark is one of several major upcoming PC games that have been scrapped this year already. Monolith suffered a similar fate to The Initiative, with its Wonder Woman game getting axed and the studio shut down. A co-op Transformers game from the folks at Splash Damage has also been canceled, and so too has promising platformer Earthblade from the studio that made Celeste.

Source link

02/07/2025
27 years later, super realistic classic milsim game is getting a surprise sequel

Microprose is on a bit of a roll lately. The publisher has reached into a rich back catalog and supported new concepts through work on games like Dagger Directive, Exfil, Battlefall: State of Conflict, B-17 Flying Fortress, and Afterconflict. Now, Microprose has announced another project that returns to its past with Spearhead 2, sequel to a 1998 tank simulator akin to Steel Beasts or War Thunder, now returning with a focus on co-op play and modern military technology.

Nearly three decades since the original simulation game launched, Spearhead 2 looks to pick up where its predecessor left off. Like the first game, the sequel will be a mix of simulation and action, with players heading into battle either alone or in co-op squads of up to 16 other people.

The game’s missions take place across various regions of Europe and the Middle East, featuring vehicles like APCs, IFVs, and, of course, an M1A2 Abrams tank, all modeled closely on their real-world counterparts. Spearhead 2 emphasizes tactics, though its meant to offer immediate action, too, and requires careful thinking to handle objectives like defending bases, killing important targets, surviving or conducting convoy ambushes, and clearing cities.

Though this sequel is the main part of Microprose’s surprise announcement, the publisher also plans to relaunch the original Spearhead on Steam as well.

Spearhead 2 doesn’t have a launch date yet, but you can find more details or wishlist it on Steam right here.

While you’re waiting, you can also find more to play with our picks for the best war games and best co-op games already out on PC.

You can follow us on Google News for daily PC games news, reviews, and guides. We’ve also got a vibrant community Discord server, where you can chat about this story with members of the team and fellow readers.

Source link

12/06/2025
WoW Mists of Pandaria Classic finally gets a launch date, and it’s not far off

World of Warcraft has been around for a long, long time now and, as a result, its players are likely to have different opinions on their favorite eras of the game, that timeline punctuated by the launch of expansions ranging from The Burning Crusade through to The War Within. Most agree, though, that 2012’s Mists of Pandaria marks a high point for the long-running MMO, which has made its addition to WoW Classic eagerly anticipated. Today, Blizzard has announced that it won’t be much longer before the expansion is ready to play in something close to its original form once again.

The revamped, throwback version of World of Warcraft has steadily added in each expansion present in the original MMORPG since its 2019 launch. Now, Mists of Pandaria Classic is nearly here, providing a solid opportunity to return to the expansion or play it for the first time.

As before, the expansion brings players to the previously isolated lands of Pandaria, with the new characters and plotlines the setting contains. In the lead up to its full launch, a pre-expansion patch is set to arrive, bringing with it the ability to create a Pandaren character, use the Monk hero class, and earn the Shaohao’s Sage Serpent Skyriding mount to bring into regular WoW. Players can use the Joyous Journeys experience buff until this pre-patch launches if they’re in a hurry to reach level 85 in time for Mists of Pandaria. There’s also a pet battling minigame, reworked classes and loot gathering, as well as the Theramore’s Fall world event designed to serve as a prologue for the full expansion’s storyline.

World of Warcraft: Mists of Pandaria Classic launches on Monday July 21, 2025. The pre-patch arrives the week of Tuesday July 1, 2025.

In the meantime, you can get more out of your time preparing for Mists of Pandaria through our guide to the best WoW addons, or find something else entirely to check out in our picks for the best free MMOs on PC.

You can follow us on Google News for daily PC games news, reviews, and guides. We’ve also got a vibrant community Discord server, where you can chat about this story with members of the team and fellow readers.

Source link

28/05/2025
New RPG Erenshor looks like classic MMOs, but there’s no grind and you play solo

What if you could play an MMO completely on your schedule? That’s the central thesis of new RPG Erenshor. It takes the style of Old School Runescape and the lived-in feeling of World of Warcraft, but flips these persistent virtual lands completely on their heads. Erenshor certainly looks like a classic MMORPG, with hundreds of ‘players’ questing and battling alongside you, but they’re not real people. Instead, this is a single-player game made to emulate the joys of ’90s MMOs, and it’s out now.

As someone who’s spent hundreds of hours in Final Fantasy 14, Erenshor immediately caught my eye. It looks like OSRS at a glance thanks to the vast open world, dungeons, and ostensible players scurrying about, but it couldn’t be more different. Instead of playing with actual people, you’re accompanied by what developer Burgee Media calls ‘Simplayers.’ These NPCs progress independently, persistently exist in the world, and group up alongside you just as MMO players would – but they’re not actual players.

You hunt monsters, complete quests, and earn mountains of gold just like WoW or Guild Wars, but it’s not in service of the grind. Instead, you’ll build a character just as you would in a single-player RPG.

The first day you start up Erenshor and begin the tutorial (a right of passage in any MMO), that’s when the ‘server’ becomes ‘live.’ The NPCs will progress right alongside you, all in pursuit of growth. So if you find some armor or weapons you don’t need, you can give them to the NPCs to help them become more powerful. When you come to a particularly difficult raid or dungeon, you can then recruit these characters to fight alongside you, that gear still slumped over their shoulders or in their hands.

Becoming part of the world in an MMO also means putting your quest to save the world aside, and Erenshor embraces this with open arms. If you want to simply explore, dig into the world’s history, or hunt for loot, you can do that. Burgee Media wants you to reexperience the feeling of playing a classic MMO, but without that same level of commitment.

Burgee Media has launched Erenshor in Steam Early Access now, with a demo also available. You can get involved right here.

If you’re looking for more, we’ve got all the new MMOs to watch out for, alongside the best multiplayer games to dive into with some friends.

You can follow us on Google News for daily PC games news, reviews, and guides. We’ve also got a vibrant community Discord server, where you can chat about this story with members of the team and fellow readers.

Source link

15/04/2025