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X-COM 2 was released last year, but gamers are still clamoring for more. While Firaxis Games has yet to announce another X-COM game, the creator of the original 1994 X-COM: Enemy Unknown, Julian Gollop, has pitched his idea for a spiritual successor, Phoenix Point, on the crowdfunding site Fig.

Phoenix Point treads familiar waters, pun intended, with its premise: In 2022, scientists discovered an alien virus hidden in permafrost that started to melt. Called the Pandoravirus, it decimated the ecosystem, twisting humans and animals into absolutely horrific abominations. The Pandoravirus creatures mostly stayed in the dark ocean waters, but then they started to invade the land with the help of an airborne microbial mist. By 2057 — present day in the game — the monsters overwhelmed humankind and reduced it to several sparse havens, each controlled by a different faction. One of these factions is The Phoenix Project, and the player is in command of one of its cells. However, none of the other cells seem to be active, so it is up to the player to find out what happened to the other cells, make as many allies as possible, and fight back the invading Pandoravirus monsters.

Part of what makes Phoenix Point such an ambitious title is that Gollop promises to combine classic X-COM character customization and turn-based, tactical combat with a procedurally generated and fully destructible world — and I don’t just mean levels. The Pandoravirus monsters come in a wide variety of shapes the game can mix and match for deadly efficiency. It’s not too different from the way people customize their Warhammer/Warhammer 40K miniatures.

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Pandoravirus monsters are not the only problems players have to contend with in Phoenix Point. The game includes several human factions (aside from the player-controlled Phoenix Project), including militaristic New Jericho, the technologically advanced Synedrion, and the cultish Disciples of Anu who worship aliens. Each of these factions has its own unique weapons and technology, and to obtain these items, players either have to trade with or conquer these factions. Furthermore, each faction occasionally requests help from the player, be it to defend a base or assassinate someone from another faction. The player must decide which factions make the best allies.

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If Phoenix Point sounds like a game you would enjoy, you can back the game on Fig right now. The crowdfunding campaign only lasts until June 7th, but it’s already 88% funded so it’s obviously popular. Backer rewards start at pledges as low as $10, but in order to get the finished game, you need to pledge at least $30. If you feel extra generous, you can spend a whopping $1,500 (plus shipping and handling) to have your likeness placed in the game as a key NPC, in addition to all the rewards in the previous pledge levels. I for one am tempted to help back this game.

All you have to do to get my attention is talk about video games, technology, anime, and/or Dungeons & Dragons - also people in spandex fighting rubber suited monsters.

Gaming

Ubisoft says that future Assassin’s Creed games will need more time to be made

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As Assassin’s Creed Shadows is about to sneak up on people in November, Ubisoft says that the time between developing games needs to be longer to find the “right balance.” Shadows has been in development for four years, longer than any other game in the series up to this point. That includes the huge open-world epics Assassin’s Creed Odyssey and Assassin’s Creed Valhalla.

Shadows lead producer Karl Onnée (thanks, GamesIndustry.biz) says that the latest AC game took 25% longer to make than Valhalla. He says this is necessary to keep the quality of the series that it is known for: “It’s always a balance between time and costs, but the more time you have, the more you can iterate.” You can speed up a project by adding more people to it, but that doesn’t give you more time to make changes.

Onnée says this has as much to do with immersion and aesthetics as it does with fixing bugs and smoothing out pixels. This is because the development team needs time to learn about each new historical setting: “We are trying to make a game that is as real as possible.” We’re proud of it, and the process took a long time. In feudal Japan, building a house is very different from building a house in France or England in the Middle Ages. As an artist, you need to learn where to put things in a feudal Japanese home. For example, food might not belong there. Get all the information you need and learn it. That process takes a long time.”

You’ll have to wait a little longer for Ubisoft to work on each game. Are you okay with that? In what part of Shadows are you now? Is it interesting to you? Leave a comment below and let us know.

 

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You can now pre-order Lollipop Chainsaw RePOP on PS5

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You can now pre-order Lollipop Chainsaw RePOP, a remaster that Dragami Games and Capcom both created. You can now pre-order the PS5 game on the PS Store for $44.99 or £39.99. If you have PS Plus, you can get an extra 10% off the price.

The company put out a new trailer with about three minutes of gameplay to mark the start of the pre-order period. Lollipop Chainsaw RePOP is a remaster of Grasshopper Manufacture’s crazy action game from 2012. You play as Juliet, a high school student who fights off waves of zombies.

The remaster adds RePOP mode, an alternative mode that swaps out the blood and gore for fun visual effects. It also adds a bunch of other features and improvements that make the game better overall. You can expect the graphics and sound to be better as well.

The game will now come out on September 12, 2024, instead of September 12, 2024. Are you excited to get back to this? Please cheer us on in the section below.

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Gaming

This Call of Duty: Black Ops 6 zombies trailer is way too expensive

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Is there really anyone who is following the story of Call of Duty’s zombie mode? We’ve known about the story in a vague way for a while, but we couldn’t tell you anything about it. It looks like the “Dark Aether” story will continue in Black Ops 6, but we don’t really know what that means.

For those of you who care, here is the official blurb with some background: “Requiem, led by the CIA, finally closed the last-dimensional portal, sending its inhabitants back to the nightmare world known as the Dark Aether, after two years of fighting zombie outbreaks around the world during the Call of Duty: Black Ops Cold War timeline.”

Wait, there’s more! “Agent Samantha Maxis gave her life to seal this weird dimension from the inside out.” Even worse things were to come: senior staff members of Requiem were arrested without a reason by the Project Director, who turned out to be Edward Richtofen.

Black Ops 6 will take place about five years later, and it looks like it will show more about Richtofen’s goals and motivations. The most important thing is that you will probably be shooting an unimaginable number of zombies in the head. This week, on August 8, there will be a full reveal of the gameplay, so keep an eye out for that.

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