برچسب: fresh

  • Diablo 4 and Path of Exile 2 have a fresh rival as pixel-art ARPG soars on Steam

    Diablo 4 and Path of Exile 2 have a fresh rival as pixel-art ARPG soars on Steam


    Diablo 4 Season 8 is perfectly fine, but feels safe and more of the same. Path of Exile 2’s Dawn of the Hunt has improved dramatically since its rocky release, but the early-access ARPG still has a long way to go. Last Epoch Season 2 is strong, but by now you may be looking for something fresh. Enter The Slormancer, a pixel-art indie ARPG from Slormite Studios that was launched out of early access at the start of this week, and has since built up impressive momentum with very positive Steam reviews and an ever-growing player count.

    As either a Mighty Knight, Fierce Huntress, or Mischievous Mage, it’s your job to put a stop to an evil warlock called The Slormancer and his hordes of troublesome minions. It’s got everything that makes the best games like Diablo tick. Fast-paced action that sees you dancing through environments and blowing up dozens of hostile goons in quick succession, pouring damage numbers across the screen. Over 200 abilities, upgrades, and passives to create near-limitless build variations. An endless hunt for perfect loot with 200 legendary affixes, 120 game-changing unique weapons, and the ability to keep boosting your gear’s power as much as you want.

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    Slormite Studios emphasizes its focus on “collection and progression,” meaning you’re able to switch at any point between absolutely anything you’ve unlocked. That includes all skills you’ve gained access to, any items you’ve previously found, and even the very classes themselves. This creates a level of flexibility beyond what you’ll find in most other ARPGs, encouraging and rewarding experimentation.

    Don’t worry about losing all your hard work when you switch builds, either; from loadouts to loot filters, The Slormancer has lots of welcome quality-of-life features. It even boasts a sprawling Ancestral Skill Tree that could give Path of Exile a run for its money, with more than 150 element-related skills and passives available to unlock. Your journey will take you across seven environments with a ton of visual variety, and its brief campaign is just the beginning of a much longer quest for power.

    First launched into early access in 2021, The Slormancer is now out in full, and it’s quickly beginning to snowball as word of mouth spreads. What began as a gradual climb has escalated to a weekend high of 10,989 concurrent Steam players. The user reviews are filled with praise, too, with particular love given to the freedom of experimentation on offer and the ability to create weird and wacky builds on a whim based on just one small starting idea.

    The Slormancer - The indie ARPG's skill screen for the Mischievous Mage class.

    The Slormancer 1.0 is out now on Steam. Developer Slormite Studios is offering a 25% discount until Tuesday May 20, meaning you’ll pay $14.99 / £12.56. If you’re reading this early on and fancy yourself a new adventure, there’s still time to grab it at the lower price, so do so while you can.

    For more stat-based satisfaction, here are the best RPGs on PC right now. Alternatively, take a look through the best indie games in 2025 to make sure you aren’t missing any hidden gems.

    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.



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  • This Oblivion Remastered mod turns Cyrodiil’s infamous goblin wars into dynamic gobbo chaos with a chance of automatically erupting into a fresh cross-map scrap every week

    This Oblivion Remastered mod turns Cyrodiil’s infamous goblin wars into dynamic gobbo chaos with a chance of automatically erupting into a fresh cross-map scrap every week


    OG Oblivion’s AI goblin wars are the stuff of legend. Oh, by the way, someone wrote in an obscure forum post or article you likely read after you thought you’d turned over every interesting stone in Cyrodiil, you can cause full-on goblin wars just by nicking their totems.

    Naturally, it’s not taken Oblivion Remastered modders long to turn their attention to making this cool system with some typical 2006 limitations into something with even more wacky potential that’s less reliant on you deciding to spend hours personally playing puppetmaster.

    Enter modder NaiadGirl’s ‘Enhanced Goblin Wars‘. While it’s not the first mod for the remaster to try its hand at improving the gobbo war mechanics – ImmortanJoel’s ‘Goblin Wars Remastered‘ scored that honour at a glance – it does look like the most detailed and expansive add-on for goblin fight club sickos right now.

    It makes the goblin wars dynamic rather than static. So, instead of there only being two goblin wars that start without your input in the base game, with any additional ones only happening if you personally get involved and trigger them by moving the seven different tribes’ totems around the map, the gobbos will now start fresh conflicts on their own.

    “Every 5 in-game days, a new Goblin War has a 20% chance to trigger,” NaiadGirl wrote, “Surrounded by shadow, sneaky goblin thieves steal a rival’s totem when no one’s watching, and place it in their respective lair. The War Chief of the wronged tribe will embark with a group of Greenskins to the opposition’s lair, and attempt to take back what is theirs! That is, if they’re able to cross Cyrodiil alive…whether they succeed or not, they’ll be causing trouble in the countryside and cities alike.”

    The mod also makes sure the goblins can pursue their totem no matter where in the world it ends up – even if that involves assaulting and breaking into the Imperial City itself, a tweak that’ll be endlessly helping if you still fancy nicking totems yourself to cause chaos.

    Plus, the modder’s included an optional Amulet of Goblin Friendship found near Vilverin, which as its name suggests will make every gobbo refrain from trying to bash your skull in. Very handy if you want to kick back with the popcorn and watch a goblin skirmish unfold from right up close, because the arena’s just too boujee a means of fulfilling your need to watch some NPCs have a bloody barney.

    It’s worth noting that the mod can add some extra complications to the quest Goblin Trouble by moving the totem it involves about, but NaiadGirl reckons it “shouldn’t be game-breaking” so long as the quest marker still points to the totem in its new location.

    Make sure to check out the rest of our cool Oblivion Remastered mod coverage, including our recent interview with the modder who managed to make the first ever tweak to its world just one day after release.





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