Divinity: Original Sin 2 is the best game ever made! In this article, we’ll discuss why Divinity: Original Sin 2 is actually the Best Game of All Time, and why you should play it, based on my completely unbiased and objective opinion that I am sure 100% of readers will agree with and will generate commentary only telling me how perfectly correct I am.

Divinity: Original Sin 2 is the Best Game Ever Made

In this article we’ll talk about how Divinity: Original Sin 2 changed the dialogue about turn-based RPGs, and how it brought them back into mainstream gaming, picking up where its predecessor left off. Why was it DOS II that accomplished this and not the first game? That’s something we’ll also explore in this article.

This is the third in a series of articles exploring how many games have gotten impressively huge and committed fanbases, and what it’s great about each of them. If you haven’t noticed it yet, the title is not serious!

How Divinity: Original Sin Came to Be

Divinity: Original Sin 1 first launched in June of 2014, having successfully funded a Kickstarter Campaign to the tune of nearly 1 million dollars the previous year. And even though it followed on the heels of the Pillars of Eternity Kickstarter, that raised 4x as much money and was the highest funded game of all time (at the time), it actually launched almost a year before Pillars of Eternity.

And one could even make the argument that the Kickstarter success of DOS 1 was in part thanks to the success of Pillars of Eternity, but one might also say that its initial sales numbers themselves might have suffered from launching before it.

Larian was relatively unknown at that time compared to Obsidian, and it’s likely many people were less excited about the title because of that. Additionally, previous Divinity games Larian had made were in real-time, a design choice that was heavily influenced by their publishers and the lack of turn-based games in the market place. Turn-Based games were few and far between during this time period, which may have also made players unaware that such games existed.

During a talk at GDC in 2015, Swen Vincke revealed that Larian bet everything in the creation of Divinity Original Sin, risking bankruptcy but determined to follow through with his creative vision. Without a large publisher to cushion the investment, they had 1.5 million Euros and ended up spending 4.5 million to make the game due to the addition of voice acting, thousands of bug fixes, and ultimately their commitment to quality.

The irony for those snobby publishers who rejected the project is that after the success of DOS, Divinity: Original Sin 2 would go on to sell more than 7 million copies, out performing Pillars of Eternity 1 and 2 by a huge margin, and moving more copies than all Larian’s previous titles combined. By why is that? Let’s discuss.

What Makes Divinity: Original Sin 2 so Great

Divinity: Original Sin was created by a group of table top players, players who enjoy the creativity that games like Dungeons and Dragons and Pathfinder are known for. And because of this, DOS took a very hands off approach to RPG gaming, allowing players the freedom to explore and tackle quests in the way that best suits their style of play.

There are so many fantastic things about Divinity, but the various ways you can solve quests really showcases the genius of Larian Studios. Can’t get through a locked door? Have you tried killing a party member, resurrecting them on the other side? This is the type of thing you can do in Divinity, that simply had never been done successfully in a game before.

In some ways, DOS shares a lot in common with Elden Ring in giving the player agency over the world, which I discussed in a video about the two games earlier this year. Because you are sort of dropped in and left to your own devices with minimal guidance on where to go and what to do, and maximum freedom on who to kill, which is virtually unheard of in gaming this day and age, unless you are playing a FromSoftware title.

It was so bloody hard to tell the story in the way that we’re doing it—giving the player the freedom that they have, and the ability to kill every single person that you encounter. It’s a very hard game to make when you say: Okay, here’s a protagonist, oops! You killed him. We still have to tell the story.

We had to make sure everything worked together, where all the different permutations made sense to the player. That was very, very hard.

Swen Vincke – talking to PC gamer Oct 2017

But it’s not just the freedom to explore and discover the world of Rivellon at your own pace that makes Divinity such a great game, it is also the insanely good combat that takes elemental interactions to the next level.

Never before had a game successfully created a combat system revolving completely around environmental interactions and reactions, that allows for a variety of different strategies depending on what elements you are focused on, and what enemies you are facing. DOS’s combat system alone is enough to make it an instant classic, but again this is just one aspect of its brilliance.

You throw in things like Cooperative play, including local coop, interesting and fun companions, and a subtle humor that permeates the game, and DOS is vaulted into a category of its own. And then DOS II took it to the next level.

Divinity: Original Sin 2 Is Even Better!

Divinity: Original Sin 2 was also Kickstarted for over 2 million dollars in 2015, over doubling the first game, and promised to be bigger, better and even more Divinity. And at the same time, the Enhanced Edition of DOS was releasing, which brought even more players to the franchise on console, keeping Divinity on players’ minds while creating new fans. In short, Larian continued to crank out content for players all through out the development of the second game, which went into Early Access in 2016.

The sequel would spend 2 years in Early Access, being polished and tweaked, and eventually Larian produced a sequel that was not only better than the first, but accomplished something few games to date had. Every single dialogue from every single NPC in the DOS II was fully voiced, and fully voiced to the highest standards of gaming. This was a monumental feat for an isometric RPG that meant a delay in publishing and even a complete redo of the already-voiced lines, but it was so successful that it would prompt Josh Sawyer over at Obsidian to push for a fully voiced Pillars of Eternity 2 in order to compete.

It was very clear that people wanted us to voice everything, despite a number of people writing on the community forums that they didn’t care about voiceovers. We looked for opportunities to do so, but there was so much voicing to be done that initially it was not going to possible had we stuck to our original release date.

We actually redid the voices at one point. We started recording and eventually realised that the way that we were doing it was not going to work. We were well into recording at this stage and knew that we didn’t have too much time. But we knew we had to redo it.

Swen Vincke – talking to PC gamer Oct 2017

Divinity: Original Sin 2 also had more Skills, more elemental combinations, including the new Cursed and Blessed effects. Players could also respec more easily, allowing for a lot more freedom to try different Builds. Status effects were changed to be tied to Armour, or a lack thereof instead of an RNG chance to trigger.

And, on top of all that, the DOS II featured 4 player cooperative and competitive play and even ended up adding a Dungeon Master mode that let players create and run their own campaigns, further extending the play time of the game.

The key to the success of the sequel is that Larian didn’t change the fundamental formula of the game, still allowing players to explore Rivellon with freedom in the playstyle of their choosing. Many of the design decisions we see in Baldur’s Gate 3, are based on the same design choices of DOS II, only wrapped inside a DnD container.

The Future of Divinity: Original Sin

Divinity: Original Sin 2 has been such a success that WotC tipped Larian to produce Baldur’s Gate 3, some 20 years after Baldur’s Gate 2, which released earlier this year and is very likely to win Game of the Year. We discussed how fitting it was that Larian would be the one to revive the Baldur’s Gate Series in our 34 years of D&D History video, check it out if you want more details on how we got there.

BG3 was developed in the same engine, and players can see the similarities almost immediately when looking at the games, with the real difference being in the DnD ruleset and the cinematic dialogue interactions, interactions which will hopefully carry over to D:OS III.

Larian also had another spinoff project in the works called Divinity: Fallen Heroes, that was supposed to be a mashup of X-COM and D:OS, but was later cancelled. A board game is also set to release next year, based on Divinity: Original Sin 2, but the big news is of course Larian confirming that there will be a sequel to D:OS II, and that the franchise will continue.

This is music to the ears of all Divinity fans, and one cannot help but wonder when we will be hearing something about this project, and if it’s already in development. Will it be Kickstarted like the two previous games? Does it even need to be at this point? What sorts of changes will be made to the gameplay, and what can we expect from it? Time will tell, and we will of course keep you updated as soon as we hear anything!

If you want more out of Best Games series, check out next Elden Ring is the Best Game of All Time and Dragon’s Dogma is the Best Game Ever.

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In this Pathfinder: Wrath of the Righteous – The Lord of Nothing DLC Impressions article, we’ll be going through our thoughts on the game’s fifth DLC. What’s new in this adventure, who do we meet, and what kind of challenges can we expect to face? Let’s find out here!

Pathfinder: Wrath of the Righteous – Lord of Nothing DLC Impressions

Pathfinder: Wrath of the Righteous Lord of Nothing DLC is an expansion for the CRPG based on the Pathfinder tabletop game. It is also the fifth and final DLC for the game.

Lord of Nothing picks up the unfinished story of Through the Ashes DLC, where you lead a group of Kenabres survivors into the realm of Sithhud. This time, you have a higher level cap (yet still retain the vibe of a small folks’ story), more class archetypes, more powerful weapons, and a charming new companion.

Just like its predecessor, Lord of Nothing features a standalone survivalist adventure, which only connects to the main campaign after you beat it while also potentially adding an extra encounter for your commander in the main campaign. The team of Kenabres survivors (the group you controlled in the previous DLC) continues its focus on a smaller scale, mid-level range adventure compared to the main campaign. You can import your characters from the end of Through the Ashes DLC, or create a group of new ones (in that case, you can choose the ending of Through the Ashes DLC). 

The Lord of Nothing

The DLC is divided into several mini-campaigns (or areas), and you face different enemies and environments in these areas. You must conclude the story in one area in order to advance to the next.

In the Lord of Nothing DLC, there are no endless demon hordes to slaughter, but several smaller yet well-crafted battles and encounters with very limited resources. This forces you to carefully plan, strategize, and calculate your next moves. You need to make your potions, items, and spells count. You will really need to plan your moves beforehand, otherwise, the whole team is doomed. The experience is challenging and entertaining at the same time. 

However, this might require a lot of saving and reloading due to the minimal number of rests and the composition of story companions (1 bard, 1 thief, and 1 sorcerer, with no tanks). Additionally, spell-casting builds feel a bit underwhelming. It’s best to play your main character with a tank or melee-focused build or rely on hirelings. The downside is that hirelings cost gold, and the resource is far more valuable in this DLC than in the main campaign. 

A Different Approach

Another issue is that magic weapons are much rarer in the DLC. If your character or build happens to rely on certain types of equipment, or you prefer certain types of weapons but there’s no good drop, then you will likely have some tough times.

Lord of Nothing encourages you to sneak past enemies to conserve your supplies in certain areas. However, placing a six-member team in these spaces feels frustrating. Luckily, only a part of the new areas have this issue. You can mostly just choose to focus on excellent combat strategies instead. 

Three’s Company, and a Story

The DLC also introduces a lovely new companion – Penta, a charming Android who accompanies you in the realm of Sithhud. Honestly, I wasn’t aware that androids were a thing in medieval high-fantasy settings, but the writers clearly nailed it. She’s really vivid, and detailed, and the voice acting is top-notch. In the end, you wish there could be more of her even in the main campaign.

Lord of Nothing’s story is also overall quite good. The cliffhanger left in Through the Ashes is resolved with a satisfying end. Without delving too deep into spoilers, one extra thing worth mentioning is that although your characters are still capped at medium levels (Level 10-11). 

Depending on how you play the DLC, you can have up to five endings. Some of these endings lead to very satisfying and complex fights for your main game characters in Act 5.

Puzzling Powers in the Lord of Nothing

This time you gain a story-related power called Shard Powers, which adds more flexibility to your character builds, and it does have an impact on the overall narrative. They function like the mythic powers in the main campaign, but each time you pick a shard, you need to decide which team member to take it. Also, absorbing shards brings your character debuffs. The more you take, the more debuffs you get which adds a nice way to balance things if you can really afford to get new powers. 

Also, there is good news for the players who hated the puzzles in the main game. There are still secrets here and there, but only one really difficult puzzle and you can skip it if you’d prefer not to wrack your brain over it. So no more mind-boggling experiences like exploring the Enigma. And there are no game-breaking bugs I encountered in my playthrough, which is a good improvement for Owlcat studio.

The new 15 archetypes (or subclasses) also add an extra layer to the already rich combat systems of the main game. Some of these archetypes come from official Pathfinder materials, while others are homebrew but still interesting to test. Now you can have more builds to explore for the enthusiasts.

Final Thoughts

Overall, the DLC feels satisfying. It provides a good quality of 10 to 20 hours of playtime and lets you experience the fight against demons from a different perspective than the commander. You certainly don’t want to miss this DLC if you are into CRPG games, especially if you have already played Through the Ashes.

Lord of Nothing was released on November 21, 2023, for PC and consoles. It retails for $12.99, and will of course require you to already own the base game. 

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In this Baldur’s Gate 3 Lae’Zel Build Guide, I’ll be showing you how to play Lae’Zel in Baldur’s Gate 3 if you want to make her into a Fighter/Wizard that is extremely hard to kill and has a lot of flexibility. Eldritch Knights combine the martial prowess of Fighters with some Wizard spells anyway, and Wizards have the flexibility to change spells when things aren’t working for them. In this Lae’Zel Build Guide I’ll also cover Ability Scores, Class Features, Equipment, and I will provide tips on how to get the most out of Lae’Zel when played this way.

Best Lae’Zel Build Guide – Baldur’s Gate 3

Eldritch Knights are arguably the strongest Fighter subclass in BG3, because not only do they gain all things regular fighters gain like Extra Attack, an extra Feat, and all the weapon and armour proficiencies, but they can also use several spells that make them even more effective in combat. These include: Shield, Magic Missile, Burning Hands, Acid Splash, Blur and Misty Step.

By taking some levels of Wizard, Lae’Zel can also make use of higher level spells like Haste, Fireball and Lightning Bolt, while also being able to learn spells from Scrolls. If you take the Evocation School you can also cast AoEs without worrying about harming yourself, and if you take Divination you have more battlefield control. In this Guide we’ll discuss why you might select either of these.

Additionally, I’ve added a way for Lae’Zel to gain Arcane Acuity somewhat easily, which makes her Spells more difficult to Save against, allowing her to attack the first turn or two, and follow up with devastating spells afterwards. Since Lae’Zel is a Githyanki, having some spellcasting talent makes sense for her character.

BG3 Lae’Zel Build Guide – Ability Scores

Since Lae’Zel begins BG3 as a Fighter, her Ability Scores are in line with what a typical Fighter might have. However, you will want to respec her eventually to get the most out of her, otherwise she will not be optimized for much of the game.

You can see that we’ve evened out many of her Abilities to provide more benefit. I’ve set DEX to 14 in order to get the most of Medium Armour and to provide some Initiative, and I’ve increased Intelligence to 12 to help with Spell DC and to be able to slot an additional Wizard Spell. You can dump Intelligence early on in the game if you plan to use the Warped Headband of Intellect, but you will eventually need to slot a different helmet, so if you do this you’ll want to respec eventually.

Also note, that you can play this Build as a DEX Fighter if you want, and you can dump STR, increase DEX to 16, and pump up INT to 16. However, if you do this you will limit yourself to Finesse Weapons, which means you essentially need to use Phalar Aluve, since making use of Great Weapon Master is a big part of this Build.

BG3 Lae’Zel Build Guide – Skills

Lae’Zel has Proficiency in Athletics and Intimidation from her Background, so you cannot change these. Athletics is good for pushing and resisting being pushed. What other Skills you choose is not particularly important, since Lae’Zel won’t be handling many dialogue checks, but Acrobatics is a good pickup for even more push resistance, and History because Lae’Zel should have decent Intelligence.

• Intimidation
• Athletics
• Acrobatics
• History

BG3 Lae’Zel Build Guide – 8 Eldritch Knight Fighter

I like to keep my Companions at least the Class they begin the game with, since it feels like that is how Larian intended for them to be played, and it’s no exception with Lae’Zel. Lae’Zel begins the game as a Fighter, but he does not yet have a subclass, and here we’ll be choosing Eldritch Knight. This provides Lae’Zel with some spellcasting, which fits well with her story and race.

Level 1 – Fighter

• Weapon & Armour Proficiencies
• CON Saving Throw Proficiency
• Second Wind
• Fighting Style

The two main benefits of taking Fighter first for this Lae’Zel BG3 Build, is that she gains all Weapon and Armour Proficiencies, and that she gains CON Saving Throw Proficiency. This allows Lae’Zel to use any Weapon or Armour in the game, and also allows her to add her Proficiency Bonus to Concentration Saving Throws, making her more likely to succeed in them. This helps if she plans to use Blur, Haste, or any other spell that requires Concentration.

She will also gain Second Wind at this level, allowing her to heal as a Bonus Action for 1D10 + Fighter Level once per Short Rest, as well as a Fighting Style. For Fighting Style I recommend selecting Great Weapon Fighting, which allows her to get more consistent damage from her two-handed weapon. Defence is also an acceptable choice.

Level 2 – Fighter

• Action Surge

At level 2 of Fighter, Lae’Zel will gain Action Surge, allowing her to take a second Action once ever Short Rest. This really shines later on when Lae’Zel gains Extra Attack, allowing her to attack 4x in a given turn, and 6x if she is using Haste.

Using Action Surge at the beginning of combat is a great way to gain full stacks of Arcane Acuity once Lae’Zel has gotten the proper gear.

Level 3 – Eldritch Knight

• Spellcasting
• Weapon Bond

At level 3 of Fighter, Lae’Zel will get to choose a Fighter Subclass. We’ll be taking Eldritch Knight in order to gain access to some Wizard Spells. I highly recommend selecting Shield and Magic Missile at this point, as well as Acid Splash.

Shield will allow Lae’Zel to use her Reaction and a Spell Slot to increase her AC by +5 for a round, which can make her extremely difficult to hit.

Magic Missile is a great ranged option that can hit multiple targets and doesn’t rely on Intelligence to connect, since it cannot miss its target and cannot be Saved against.

Acid Splash gives Lae’Zel an AoE that can be used even point blank to hit multiple enemies, and once she’s level 7 she will be able to use this when surrounded and then attack with her Bonus Action thanks to War Magic.

She will also gain Weapon Bond at this level, allowing her to throw her weapon and have it return to her, and prevents it from being knocked out of her hand.

Level 4 – Eldritch Knight

• Feat

At level 4 of Eldritch Knight, Lae’Zel will get to choose a Feat. Here we’ll take Great Weapon Master in order to deal more damage with her weapon which will be two-handed, and also give her an option for her Bonus Action to make another attack if she Crits or kills an enemy with a melee attack.

Level 5 – Eldritch Knight

• Extra Attack

At level 5 of Eldritch Knight, Lae’Zel will gain Extra Attack, allowing her to attack a second time each turn if she uses her Action to attack. This is an extremely important level for her, as she will become much more effective in combat, essentially doubling her damage potential.

Level 6 – Eldritch Knight

• Extra Feat

At level 6 of Eldritch Knight, Lae’Zel will gain an extra Feat, one that all Fighters gain at this level. Here she will increase her Strength for more hit chance and damage. The hit chance is the more important of the two, since Great Weapon Master will penalize her hit chance. If you made her a DEX Fighter, then you would select DEX here instead.

Level 7 – Eldritch Knight

• Level 2 Spells
• War Magic

At level 7 of Eldritch Knight, Lae’Zel will gain level 2 Spells and War Magic. Level 2 Spells allow her to use things like Blur and Misty Step. Blur makes her damn near impossible to hit in combat, and Misty Step provides good mobility when she needs it.

War Magic allows Lae’Zel to cast a Cantrip and then attack with a Bonus Action. This is a lot better on paper than it is in practice, since generally you want to attack twice every turn if you can. However, this allows you to use Acid Splash to hit many enemies when they are grouped up, which can often out perform two attacks from a weapon.

Level 8 – Eldritch Knight

• Feat

At level 8 of Eldritch Knight, Lae’Zel will get to select her 3rd Feat. This will allow her to either choose STR (or DEX) for more accuracy, or INT for better spellcasting. Either of these is a good option, and whichever you go with you will want to do the opposite with her fourth Feat at level 12.

BG3 Lae’Zel Build Guide – 4 Evocation or Divination Wizard

Level 9 – Wizard

• Wizard Spells
• Arcane Recovery

At level 1 of Wizard, Lae’Zel will get to select some more Spells. Here I recommend taking several Ritual Spells that don’t consume spell slots when used outside of combat, as well as Thunderwave for its knockback effect. She will also get to learn Spells from Scrolls at this level, so keep that in mind.

Arcane Recovery will allow her to gain 1 level 1 Spell Slot back every Long Rest at this level, so be sure to use it when needed.

Level 10 – Evocation or Divination Wizard

• Subclass Features

At level 2 of Wizard, Lae’Zel will get to select a magic school. I suggest either Divination or Evocation here. Divination will allow Lae’Zel to control some outcomes on the battlefield, while Evocation protects friendlies from her AoEs. She won’t have many AoEs, if any at this point, so it’s better once she gains Fireball or Lightning Bolt than before. You can select either.

Level 11 – Evocation or Divination Wizard

• Level 2 Wizard Spells
• Level 3 Spell Slots

At level 3 of Wizard, Lae’Zel will get to choose level 2 Wizard Spells, but more importantly she will have level 3 Spell Slots. This will allow her to learn level 3 Spells from Scrolls like Fireball, Lightning Bolt and Haste, so make sure you buy these and have her learn them.

Level 12 – Evocation or Divination Wizard

• Feat

At level 4 of Wizard, Lae’Zel will gain her fourth and final feat, which is made possible by 8 level of Fighter. Here she should select INT or STR/DEX depending on what was chosen at level 8. Capping at 14 INT may seem too low for hostile spells, but we do have a way of increasing Spell DC with Arcane Acuity, which I will discuss in the next section.

BG3 Lae’Zel Build Guide – Equipment

Lae’Zel Armour

Since Lae’Zel is a Fighter, she has access to all Armour in the game. You want to look for Armour with the highest possible Armour Class in order to avoid taking damage. Since she should have 14 DEX, either Medium or Heavy Armour is fine. One Armour I can recommend later on is Dark Justiciar Half-Plate, which also provides Advantage on Constitution Saving Throws, which will allow her to maintain Concentration on spells like Haste, Blur or Hold Person more easily.

Lae’Zel Weapon

Lae’Zel will need to use a Heavy or Versatile Weapon for this Build in order to get the most from Great Weapon Fighting and Great Weapon Master. If you got the Everburn Blade at the very beginning of the game this is a great weapon for her, otherwise really any two-handed weapon will work. If she went DEX instead of STR though, you’ll need to get the Phalar Aluve Longsword from the Underdark.

For ranged weapon, she won’t really be using this all that often, but look for Ranged Weapons that benefit her in some other way, like The Deadshot.

Lae’Zel Accessories

One really important accessory for this Build, is the Helmet of Arcane Acuity. This allows Lae’Zel to gain 2 stacks of Arcane Acuity each time she hits an enemy. Arcane Acuity lets her add +1 to Spell Attack Rolls or +1 to Spell DC for each stack. If on turn 1 she attacks twice, then Action Surges and attacks twice again, she will have max stacks of this on her second turn, allowing her to cast a hostile spell with +7 to Spell Attack Roll or DC.

As I mentioned earlier though, you can use the Warped Headband of Intellect early on, but eventually you’ll want to replace it with the Helmet of Arcane Acuity.

Cloak of Protection is a good choice for Cloak, since it provides 1 AC and +1 to Saving Throws, and I like Gloves of the Growling Underdog for Gauntlets because they give Lae’Zel Advantage on Melee Attack Rolls when engaged with 2 or more enemies. This really helps with accuracy, which is needed when using Great Weapon Master’s toggle.

Evasive Shoes are good for boots because they also provide an additional AC, helping to protect Lae’Zel further.

For Rings I like Caustic Band and Ring of Arcane Synergy. Caustic Band simply adds damage to Lae’Zel’s attacks, and Ring of Arcane Synergy increases damage after hitting an enemy with a Cantrip. This is nice for after casting Acid Splash, and following up with a bonus attack thanks to War Caster.

For Necklace, I like Necklace of Elemental Augmentation to increase Cantrip damage, but another good choice is the Physic Spark, which makes Magic Missile fire an extra dart each time you cast it.

Lae’Zel Build Final Tips

The general idea with this Lae’Zel Build is to build up Arcane Acuity by attacking on the first and/or second turn of combat, and then fire off a hostile spell that is unlikely to be Saved against. Spells good for this are Burning Hands, Thunderwave, Fireball, Lightning Bolt or Scorching Rays. Note that none of these spells require Concentration.

Try to save Concentration Spells on Lae’Zel for Blur, Haste, Hold Person or something like Hypnotic Pattern. You won’t always need these, but make sure to use them for harder fights, and make sure not to overwrite them with other Concentration Spells. For instance you cannot use Haste and Hold Person together.

Remember that Acid Splash can be a great spell when Lae’Zel is surrounded if you want to save a Spell Slot or she’s running low. Because of War Caster she can attack again after casting it on the same turn.

You don’t have to play this Build with 8 Fighter and 4 Wizard. You can play with 6 Fighter and 6 Wizard or 7 Fighter and 5 Wizard if you’d prefer. The downside is that you’ll miss out on a fourth Feat, but the upside is that you will gain access to level 4 Spells.

Lastly, hang on to Scrolls you come across that you’ll want to learn with Lae’Zel so that you can do so once she takes a level of Wizard. And consider taking 1 level of Wizard earlier in order to make this happen faster, like after level 5 of Fighter.

That wraps up our Baldur’s Gate 3 Lae’Zel Build Guide! Stay tuned for more Baldur’s Gate 3 content as we update the other Builds, and be sure to drop by our Discord if you have questions about the game. If you need something specific, check out our Baldur’s Gate 3 Wiki which is being worked on night and day, as well as our Baldur’s Gate 3 Guides.

The post Best Lae’Zel Build Guide – Baldur’s Gate 3 appeared first on Fextralife.

The Sparkfire Shotgun is one of the best items that the Remnant 2 Awakened King DLC brought to the table. It caught my interest and fell in love with it the moment I got my hands on it so I decided to make a Remnant 2 Build around this weapon.

The Sparkfire Saboteur can blast through its targets with its insane raw damage per second, and effortlessly inflicts multiple stacks of Negative Status Effects that deal significant amounts of damage over time.

Remnant 2 Build Guide – Sparkfire Saboteur

As mentioned previously, the pillar of this Remnant 2 Build is the Sparkfire Shotgun. A special long gun that fires incendiary shells as normal bullets. With the right gear and Archetype combinations, this build can burst down targets in seconds and can easily inflict stacks of Elemental and Negative Status Effects on its enemies. Not only will your targets will suffer a lot of raw damage during this build’s burst phase, but you will also have boosted and continuous damage dealt over time during this build’s cooldown phase. 

Note that all of the item locations used in this build can be found in our official Remnant 2 Wiki.

Remnant 2 The Sparkfire Saboteur Build – Archetypes

The Ritualist Archetype

Starting with the Sparkfire Saboteur Archetypes, the Prime Archetype for this build is the Ritualist. This Remnant 2 Build is going to play with a lot of Negative Status Effects so we need every helpful perk the Ritualist provides. Its Prime Perk Vile makes targets receive 15% more negative Status Effects Damage. 

For the skill, we are going to use the Miasma Skill to jump-start this build’s rotation by applying Bleeding, Burning, Overloaded, and Corroded to nearby targets.

Each of these status effects mentioned deals damage over time to targets and bolsters our overall DPS. Each of the status effects mentioned can be inflicted or refreshed instantly so the Ritualist’s Damage Perk will do wonders. 

The Damage Perk, Wrath, enhances this build’s damage output by adding 18% Critical Chance and making enemies suffer 20% more damage when affected by Negative Status effects. 

The Challenger Archetype

For the second Archetype, we will be using the Challenger for this build. Choosing this Archetype improves the overall prowess of the Sparkfire Shotgun by utilizing its Rampage Skill. This skill provides an additional bonus of 15% Fire Rate, 25% Reload Speed, and 15% Movement Speed.

Additionally, killing and dealing significant damage to targets allows this Remnant 2 Build to accumulate Rage Stacks which increases Range Damage per stack by 2.5%. Ultimately, 10 Rage Stacks will let the user undergo the Berserk state which doubles Rampage effects for 15 seconds. 

With this build, fulfilling the Berserk requirements is super easy to do, thanks to its augmented Negative Status Effect Damage and high raw damage output. 

On top of that, the Challenger’s Damage Perk adds a 35% increase to All Damage and a 10% Critical Chance, when facing enemies within a 10-meter range. Since we will be using the Sparkfire Shotgun, retaining this Damage Perk’s condition is not difficult.

Remnant 2 The Sparkfire Saboteur Build – Weapons

Long Gun – Sparkfire Shotgun

As mentioned previously, we are going to focus on the raw firepower of the Sparkfire Shotgun. We already discussed how good this Long Gun can be so let’s talk a bit out Mods.

Mod – Corrosive Rounds

We are going to make this gun inflict multiple Status Effects so I decided to use Corrosive Rounds for its Mod. Not only does this Mod increase Ranged Critical Hit Chance by 15%, but it imbues your ammunition with Toxic and inflicts the Corroded Status to targets.

Mutator – Twisting Wounds

For the Sparkfire Shotgun’s Mutator, I decided to use the Twisting Wounds Mutator. This will allow us to inflict Bleed Status and provides an additional 20% Ranged Damage.

The Handgun – MP60-R

Now for the Handgun. We will be using the MP60-R equipped with the Overflow Mod. This Mod imbues ammunitions with Shock and inflicts the Overloaded Status Effect. Additionally, it provides a 15% increase in Fire Rate and Reload Speed.

Since we will be utilizing Elemental Damage and Status Effects, I prefer using the Maelstrom Mutator. This Mutator increases the Overflow Mod’s damage and provides 20% Mod Power Generation. 

With this setup, you can blast through enemies with high damage per second while dealing Corroded, Bleed, Overloaded, and Burn Status Effects that can go up to 2 stacks, thanks to the Miasma Skill.

Melee Weapon – World’s Edge

We are not going to use any melee weapons for this Remnant 2 Build so feel free to use any melee weapon that you prefer. I am using the World’s Edge equipped with Tainted Blade Mutator but it is more for aesthetics purposes only.

Remnant 2 The Sparkfire Saboteur Build Trinkets

Now that the weapons are out of the way, let’s discuss The Sparkfire Saboteur’s Trinkets. Feel free to be creative on this and I will provide alternatives later on.

Amulet – Abrasive Whetstone

For the Amulet, I like using the Abrasive Whetstone which increases Crit Chance by 15% and Crit Damage by 30% when attacking a Bleeding enemy. This condition can easily be fulfilled by taking advantage of the Twisting Wounds Mutator slotted on the Sparkfire Shotgun.

Ring – Zania’a Malice

For Rings, first up is Zania’s Malice. This Ring increases Weakspot Damage by 10% when you hit an enemy’s Weakspot. This ring’s effect stacks up to 3x, giving you a total of 30% additional Weakspot Damage at max stacks.

Ring – Probability Cord

The second ring that I am using is the Probability Cord which Increases Crit Damage by 30%. The Abrasive Whetstone and this Ring provide a total of 60% Crit Damage bonus alone and that’s a huge bonus especially when using the Sparkfire Shotgun.

Ring – Singed Ring

The third ring on the list is a Singed Ring, which increases all damage dealt to Burning enemies by 10%. The additional 10% will always be in effect thanks to the Sparkfire Shotgun incendiary shells.

Ring – Shadow of Misery

The fourth ring that I am using is the Shadow Misery Ring. This Ring increases Status Effect Damage by 15%. Dealing 2 stacks of Multiple Negative Status effects on a target is no joke and this Ring makes these Status Effects even more potent.

Remnant 2 The Sparkfire Saboteur Armor Set

When it comes to the Sparkfire Saboteur’s Armor Set, you can freely use any set you prefer. You will be dodging a lot with this Remnant 2 Build so I suggest sticking with light to medium armor sets. 

Remnant 2 The Sparkfire Saboteur Relics and Traits

For this specific setup, you are free to use any Relic that you prefer. I am using the Tranquil Heart to take advantage of its passive 2 Health Regeneration per second. Just in case I receive damage, my character can heal the damage with the help of Traits, which we will discuss later on.

Moving on to the Relic Fragments, I highly suggest using DPS Fragments which increases Ranged Crit Chance, Ranged Crit Damage, and additional Weakspot Damage to make the Sparkfire Shotgun even stronger.

On the other hand, if you want better weapon handling, I suggest using a Recoil Fragment instead of the additional Weakspot Damage.

Traits

Now that we have covered this Remnant 2 Build’s equipment, it is time for the suggested Traits. Choosing the Ritualist Archetype will grant the build a free level 10 Affliction which increases Status Effects Duration by 100%.

While the free level 10 Strong Back from the Challenger Archetype is more of a bonus. Depending on what you are wearing, this trait reduces the Dodge Weight Threshold by 15. For instance, wearing a full Zealot Set will grant this build Fast Dodge rolls so it is nice to have.

I prefer casting Miasma and Mods quicker in combat so I suggest upgrading Flash Caster to level 10 which increases Mod and Casting Speed by 50%. A level 10 Regrowth Trait is suggested for more health regeneration and this Trait works well with Tranquil Heart’s passive effect.

The next Trait on the list is a level 9 Swiftness Trait for an additional 12% Movement Speed. Useful for general exploration or in combat. I also upgraded Vigor Trait to level 10 which adds more survivability to the build. 

We are relying on Mods to inflict extra Negative Status Effects so I decided to upgrade the Spirit Trait to level 10 and increase my Mod Power Generation by 20%. Following up with a level 10 Expertise to reduce this build’s Skill Cooldown by 20%.

The next Trait on the list is a level 10 Fitness Trait which increases evade distance by 30%. We will be dodging a lot in this Remnant 2 Build, and I find the additional evade distance useful since it allows me to have better positioning in combat.

For the next trait, I suggest picking up a level 10 Footwork Trait which increases movement speed while aiming by 50%. We will be using the Sparkfire Shotgun a lot and this Trait will help you position better as well while dealing damage. 

The last trait on the list is a level 10 Handling Trait to use The Sparkfire Shotgun with ease, especially when dealing with its recoil.

That is already 85 points in total and if you want to focus more on survivability, I suggest playing with a level 10 Untouchable Trait to get an additional 30% Invulnerability Window instead of the Handling Trait. 

Concoction

Now for the Concoction, I am running this build with the Xenoplasm to take advantage of its additional 10% Skill Cooldown Reduction.

Final Tips

A couple of useful suggestions before we wrap this Remnant 2 Build Guide. For rotation, I usually cast Miasma and Rampage first. Then activate the Overflow Mod to inflict Overloaded to my targets. Then I quickly switch to my Sparkfire Shotgun to cast the Corrosive Rounds Mod and deal damage. 

By following this rotation, targets will suffer 2 stacks of multiple Negative Status Effects which inflict a great amount of damage over time and also help you accumulate Rage easily and undergo Berserk to deal even more damage.

If you want to focus on Status Effect Damage, I suggest replacing the Abrasive Whetstone with Sinister Totem. At max stacks, this amulet can give you 50% additional Status Effect Damage. Replace Shadow Misery with a Band of the Fanatic Ring which increases Status Effect Damage by 25% but reduces Status Effect Duration by 65%. 

In this setup, the Sparkfire Shotgun will hit lower numbers and your Status Effect duration will be shorter but it deals stronger damage over time. 

On the other hand, if you want to prioritize the Sparkfire Shotgun’s damage, I suggest swapping Twisting Wounds with a Momentum Mutator¹. This way your Critical Chance and Critical Damage will be higher, leading to more damage. Slot the Twisting Wounds Mutator to your MP60-R instead of the Maelstrom Mutator and you can still inflict Bleed when using it.

If you’re looking for info on weapons, armor, builds, locations and more head to our Remnant 2 wiki for all the latest.

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Dragon’s Dogma is the best game ever made! In this article, we’ll discuss why Dragon’s Dogma is actually the Best Game of All Time, and why you should play it, based on my completely unbiased and objective opinion that I am sure 100% of readers will agree with and will generate commentary only telling me how perfectly correct I am.

Dragon’s Dogma is the Best Game Ever Made

We’ll go over how the game’s director pitched this unique idea and gamestyle long before Souls games became a thing, the game’s unique mashup of western and japanese RPG approaches, it’s delightful Monster Hunter touches. And of course we’ll go through the lukewarm initial reception and sales and how the nascent souls fanbase would make it into a cult classic, passing the test of time thanks to its interesting mechanics and charming stoicism. And in case you didn’t know, Dragon’s Dogma was also in our Best Games of the Decade choices!

This is the second in a series of articles exploring how many games have gotten impressively huge and committed fanbases, and what it’s great about each of them. If you haven’t noticed it yet, the title is not serious!

How Dragon’s Dogma came about BEFORE Souls was a thing

The story of Dragon’s Dogma is both unique and mundane. It begins with one of the most accomplished directors in gaming, Capcom’s Hideaki Itsuno. You have probably heard from him as the man behind the masterpiece that was Devil May Cry 3.

But despite his career focus in Action Games, Itsuno’s real passion was actually in the imagining of a complex RPG with a pawn system, which he had conceptualized since very young, said to be the year 2000. It wasn’t until 2008, after wrapping up production of DMC4, that Itsuno would get to propose that idea to Capcom along several other projects.

The timing of this is very interesting, as Dragon’s Dogma has conceptual overlaps with Demon’s Souls, that had not yet been revealed or released. Had Itsuno gotten to work on his idea earlier, would we all know him instead of Miyazaki, and talk about dogma-like instead of souls-like? There’s a good chance that would be the case!

The “Western” JRPG mashup & it’s glorious Monster Hunter Feels

The souls overlap is well-known to fans of both series, but for those of you who are missing the gap, let’s delve into what Dragon’s Dogma set out to be: a mainly single player RPG experience with a mild, casual online “brush” with others, something that would replicate the feeling of hanging out on a bulletin board (modern day forums or discord communities) where you share things asynchronously and only indirectly, but can still connect to others.

In addition, Dragon’s Dogma was to be a Japanese take on the open world concept of games like Oblivion, spicing it up with the addictiveness of JRPGs like Dragon Quest, but developed by a team that understood Action combat and could deliver a deeper combat experience.

We have seen a great deal of open-world action RPGs over the years, [but never] one that really put everything together in the action parts. We figured that if there hasn’t been a game made by people who understand how action works, then we ought to do it ourselves. We wanted a game where the player is thrown into the world and needs to figure out how to stay alive via nothing but his own controller

Hideaki Itsuno to Famitsu, 2011

If this is sounding just like the Demon’s Souls pitch, it’s because well, it was, and as you can expect Capcom’s reaction was the same as Sony’s original reaction: Skepticism, budget restrictions and eventual delays.

Nevertheless, the project was given the green light, and so a team of action developers became RPG developers, with unexpected results such as the accidental merge of Monster Hunter concepts into the combat. This was not intentional and the rumor that Dragon’s Dogma was a diverted Monster Hunter project is inaccurate, as it seems that it was rather the natural outcome of having Monster Hunter team members working on the project.

‘Monster Hunter’ was its own series, its own franchise, and it just so happened that we wanted to make a realistic fantasy-based action game, and because we had the staff available to make something like that, we’re able to make this game. The ideas for ‘Dragon’s Dogma’ came from a completely different place

Hideaki Itsuno

As Itsuno’s team was still developing Dragon’s Dogma, Demon’s Souls launched and had its initial struggles with poor reception. Those early negatives are likely part of what made Souls so successful, as it gave FromSoftware a push to work with the multiplatform Namco instead, but they likely influenced Capcom’s perception of the quality of their version of the concept, and thus the project was delayed and launched in 2012, 7 months after Dark Souls.

A Lukewarm Launch like Demon’s Souls

Dragons Dogma was officially launched on May 2012, and it enjoyed a good reception and high sales in Japan, where it broke some records for fast-selling IPs of the time. Western media was lot more lukewarm, with the game barely averaging an 8 out 10 from most outlets and getting criticized for lacking proper multiplayer, being too “hardcore” and missing out in character narrative depth. (Yes this sounds familiar too!)

But that poorly understood audience that would become the hardcore avalanche of souls players noticed the game and sales started to ramp up, reaching 1.5 million units one month after launch. Since Capcom had adjusted the project’s budget to target 1 million units sold, it was an immediate commercial success, and this set in motion development for an expansion, Dark Arisen, that would arrive a year later. As more and more of these players discovered the game, our community became more and more obsessed with it, eventually resulting in the creation of our Dragon’s Dogma Wiki, which is the first non-fromsoftware wiki we made for the community.

So what was it about the game that managed to eventually convert so many people to the brand? Let’s discuss!

Why Dragon’s Dogma is the Best Game Ever

Much like Demon’s Souls, Dragon’s Dogma was conceptualized by someone who wanted to have an explorative RPG experience but with good combat. This means that rather than trying to mix and match popular bits and pieces of games to create a marketing juggernaut, the developers were instead making something new and unique that they thought you’d want to play.

This sincere craving to create a new concept and give old ideas new deliveries drove a series of development decisions that resulted in what we can all agree are “quirky” choices and details, such as the fact that your character height and weight affect your carry capacity, their arm length your climbing stamina, and your overall size will determine whether you can use some specific tiny holy shortcuts around. And it’s those details that make the “secret sauce” of why Dragon’s Dogma is unmissable.

I love open world games, but it is not often they can be enjoyed without the bothersome encumbrance of obnoxious quest markers. It’s rare to be allowed to get lost in the exploration and discovery aspects, motivated by the feeling of being the person to discover it, and the rewarding nature of putting things together from context, trial and error, with uncertainty as to what is hidden behind the next corner.

Your Dragon’s Dogma experience begins like an on-rails RPG with some mild party management, followed by a simple setup for your hero to depart a fishing village and head to the big capital. The ridiculous amount of time you then spend between that first step and making it to progress the main story is entirely your fault. And you just can’t help it! What is that item over there? Wait, are the enemies changing at night? Should I help this NPC? Hold on, I’ll hire this pawn first. But oh, I like that one now, how does this work? it says I got mail how do I get it!? Oh no I put one toe into the water and I’m dead.

I have such fond memories of all my little discoveries as I took my first and completely noobish steps around Gransys. But like most games that receive high praise from me, it’s the layers of complexity that make or break a game. You can casually play Dragon’s Dogma without understanding its mechanics. But if you do spend the time on them, you can find just so much detail, nuance and extravagant coding. That carrot you picked up 3 days ago? Yes, it rotted now. Oh you worked hard on a quest for this lily that gives you extra XP? Well you better put it in some flask or it’ll rot too!

Or perhaps you thought to approach a bandit camp for a quest, only to discover if there’s a male in your party you’ll all be attacked on sight. Or did you accidentally give too many gifts to a vendor and now he’s doing googly eyes at you everytime you approach. And of course, there’s the going around falsifying items so you can hand them over for quests and also keep them… but are you sure you want to? The consequences may be dire!

On and on the small details of what can happen and the small ramifications of my every trip made the game feel more and more like a very freeform RPG where I am not in complete control of every quest progress and outcome, but rather experiencing a world and slowly unveiling its secrets.

And of course, then there’s the monster hunting. Come about almost by chance, as discussed by the director, the game features some massive monsters that can be hunted, sometimes in specific grounds or locations and at specific times. These hunts are engaging battles where your whole party has a role, and the climbing of the monsters to attack them creates an extra layer of awesome.

Learning how to hunt these monsters and target “parts” to get materials for loot ugprades made the on-foot exploration of the extensive map all the more rewarding, and it even brought me to appreciate the initial lack of fast-travel, as it forced me through paths that had hidden loot, quests, and enemies.

The more I played Dragon’s Dogma, the more I liked it, and for me the crowning moments of it would come with the Everfall, the post-game dungeon crawling that turned the game from an exploration and story adventure to an addictive lootfest of Ur-Dragon farming. It was that transition that would keep people hooked in, and eventually be fully realized in the DLC.

The Test of Time and Upcoming Sequel

So we have established that, much like Demon’s Souls, Dragon’s Dogma started off to mixed reception and a lot of doubt and skepticism from press and audience. But the game’s subtle appeal slolwly won people over by word of mouth, so by the time Dragon’s Dogma: Dark Arisen came around one year later, the overall tone had already shifted. Take IGN for example, that had given the release a 7.5 score, and gave the expansion bundle an 8.9 instead. By 2020, 8 years after that 7.5 score, that same IGN would rank Dragon’s Dogma at N9 in the “best modern role-playing games”.

The long-term appeal of the game and its unique mechanics have slowly but surely set it apart from the rest as a must-play experience. Over time, sales just kept going up and up because the game’s style remains singular, without emulation, leaving fans to want more of it, with the total sales number surpassing a completely unexpected 7 million units sold despite low marketing investment and the supposed “niche” appeal of the genre, that has kept Capcom from investing on the international releases of the game.

So now we are looking at a 2024 release of Dragon’s Dogma 2. Much like the first game, it approaches rather humbly, with cautious marketing that seems more focused on conveying the developer’s vision than convincing you that you should buy it. And that could not make me happier. I want Dragon’s Dogma 2 to simply be more of that awesome experience. Sure, add quality of life, improve systems, surprise me with new mechanics and systems! But, please, keep it quirky, unexpected and unrelentingly committed to being just what the developers really wanted to make.

It surely worked for FromSoftware, and I’m craving to see what the sequel will bring us. We already played a bit of Dragon’s Dogma 2, so check out that video if you’re interested, or turn notifications on because there’s a developer panel coming soon and we’ll be covering all the new reveals. In the meantime, I fully recommend that you pick up the old game and give it a go. Graphics are dated, mechanics are stiff, but it’s still so much fun!

So what do you think? Is Dragon’s Dogma your favorite game ever? Or maybe it was at some point? What other titles would you like us to cover on this series and why? Let us know in the comments below!

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Black Myth: Wukong is an upcoming third-person action RPG with stunning combat and graphics, and is based heavily on Chinese mythology. 

Black Myth: Wukong Everything We Know About the Upcoming Action RPG

In this article, we’re going to be checking out everything we know about Black Myth: Wukong. It is a third-person action RPG that has captured the gaming world’s attention with its visually stunning graphics, intriguing setting and lore, and an exciting-looking combat system. 

The game is being developed by Game Science Studio, and is an ambitious project that draws inspiration from the classic Chinese novel “Journey to the West.” We’ll be exploring the game’s various aspects, from the story, locations, the main character, and various systems.

Story and Setting

In “Black Myth: Wukong,” players step into the shoes of Sun Wukong, the legendary Monkey King. It is set in a fantastical version of ancient China, loosely based on the 16th-century Chinese novel “Journey to the West”. The game blends traditional mythology with a dark fantasy twist. Players can expect encounters with gods, demons, and other fantastical creatures as they unravel the main character’s mythical journey. 

Our main character is the Monkey King, Sun Wukong, who has been granted immortality. However, this immortality becomes both a blessing and a curse. His longevity allows him to witness centuries pass, but it also isolates him from mortal life. He can see the rise and fall of entire civilizations as he stays alone. The emotional toll of immortality eventually drags him down, leading us to some inner turmoil that the main character will hopefully express. 

In the source material Journey to the West, Sun Wukong is known for his incredible speed and strength as well as the ability to transform into various people, animals, and objects, all of which were displayed in the initial gameplay trailers for Black Myth: Wukong. 

He wields a magical black iron staff that can grow in size or shrink based on its owner’s commands, perfect for creating a weapon that could be used up close or at a medium range at a moment’s notice. 

According to the book, Wukong possesses several other abilities. He can also clone himself, use a cloud for traversal, and even leap entire buildings in a single bound (take that, Superman!). Being an ancient mythical figure also has its mystical perks, as Wukong has some degree of magic at his disposal. He can change or at the very least manipulate the weather itself, or even control and influence minor spirits.

Gameplay (Exploration)

The game world is vast and meticulously crafted. As players, we’ll traverse diverse landscapes—lush forests, towering mountains, ancient temples, and hidden caves. If Elden Ring taught us anything, every nook and cranny holds secrets waiting to be discovered.

No specific location names were given, except for “Fright Cliff”, an area that debuted in the Gamescom 2023 coverage. Given its namesake, the Fright Cliff is a rocky and expansive mountainous region. Despite brown being the main color palette used in the location, it was able to show off the game’s impressive lighting system that could depict a great contrast between sunny and darker areas. Additionally, light sources such as torches and magical runes stood out, further accentuating how “special” they looked. 

Black Myth: Wukong also doesn’t settle for static environments. Instead, it boasts dynamic weather patterns and a realistic day-night cycle. Rainstorms obscure visibility, snowfall blankets the ground, and fog shrouds mysterious corners. The stark contrast in weather types made things look much more believable and visually stunning. 

Gameplay (Combat)

Fluid Combat System

The game’s combat is heavily influenced by the Souls genre, an inspiration that it proudly wears on its sleeve. We have an ever-present stamina bar that depletes when performing actions like attacking, dodging, or running. The game also has a healing gourd similar to Sekiro: Shadows Die Twice, another game that draws inspiration from Asian culture. Sun Wukong wields his iconic staff, which transforms into various forms during battle. Timing, dodging, and mastering combos are essential for survival. 

Wukong will be able to swap through various stances (or forms) to be able to highlight a particular combat style at any given time. These are called Smash Form, Pillar Form, and Thrust Form. Like Lost Ark’s Glaivier class, Wukong can switch between specializing in stabbing and poking with his staff and using wide-angle sweeps. Players will also of course be able to chain hits together, beautifully weaving light and heavy attacks in a satisfying string of combo hits. 

We don’t know what other kinds of weapons Sun Wukong can make use of, at least in his base form. Footage has shown us that the staff can extend and shorten itself, allowing us to perfectly adapt to any situation. One of the more comedic scenes shows Sun Wukong extending his staff a few dozen meters, allowing him to perch up in the air as if taunting the incoming boss.

Black Myth Wukong also looks to be sitting in the spectrum between Lies of P, Sekiro, and Bloodborne, as it places great emphasis on speed and relentless offense instead of slower and more calculating attacks like you would see in the likes of Lords of the Fallen or Dark Souls. Due to the nature of the character, making the most of his agility will be paramount to victory.

Wukong can’t even block enemy hits. Instead, you will need to rely on staying on your toes by dancing around the battlefield either by simply running around, jumping, or dodging. Evading can also be leaned onto the offensive side, as the developers have teased that there’s an unlock later on that will create a phantom copy of yourself from where you evaded that will automatically counterattack any enemy that tries to attack it. 

Three’s Plenty

Another skill that Sun Wukong generously makes use of is his ability to create clones of himself right out of thin air. This will have many practical combat applications in Black Myth: Wukong, the most obvious of which is to make distractions that can lead the enemy in a certain direction, opening them up to some well-timed back attacks.

Alternatively, it looks like the clones can even deal a small amount of damage, given that there are enough of them. Sun Wukong’s clones can swarm enemies, all the while hitting them with sticks that seem just as painful as our main character’s. 

Shapeshifting Abilities

Sun Wukong’s ability to transform into different creatures almost immediately adds tons of strategic depth and options in combat. Whether you become an agile insect, a hulking beast, or something in between, each form grants unique skills. Adaptability is key in intense battles, where switching forms at the right moment can turn the tide.

One form that was shown off is the humble Cicada. This bug form is heavily showcased in some of the earlier parts of the trailers, setting the stage for some monologue and story exposition. We don’t know just yet whether the Cicada form will be usable in combat, as it looks as if this has no practical way of dealing damage. Perhaps the one biggest use it could have is to dodge enemy attacks as an emergency button.

Wukong can also take the form of some defeated enemies, though probably not all of them. Some footage includes the character transforming into a massive grey feline who traded staff strikes for bate hand (or claw) brawling. This form lets Wukong deal massive AoE damage to everything in the nearby vicinity. The transformation also lets him jump up into the air and crash down into foes, which knocks them back giving you some much-needed breathing room. 

He also turned into a fiery martial artist, who can set his staff ablaze. It looks like this transformation makes Wukong move even faster, while also stylishly charring enemies to a crisp. 

Another form that was shown was some sort of creature that looked as if it fell face-first into some rock and soil. There’s no easy way to describe this transformation, as it looks as odd as it sounds. Since the creature is quite literally just a mud ball with legs, it doesn’t make use of traditional attacks. Instead, it rams itself into enemies to deal damage. Alternatively, it can just fall over and break off the extra grime and dirt, letting Wukong return to his normal monkey self. 

Other forms from various gameplay demos have also shown off a firey wolf form and poisonous creature forms. 

In the book, Wukong can transform into over 70 distinct forms. This would be highly impractical (not to mention difficult) to implement in a video game, so only the best of the best of his forms will make it into Black Myth: Wukong. 

Bossing Around

Another of the most striking features of the game is the emphasis on boss fights and mini-boss fights. The trailer showcases a variety of enemies, some of them huge in size and scope, such as the dragon fight that resembles a Monster Hunter World encounter. Bosses come in all sizes as well, as you have some human-sized opponents that you will need to contend with. The game seems to focus more on these epic and challenging battles than on the level design and the enemies in between. 

Black Myth: Wukong’s Big Focus on Boss Fights is also an exciting affair, as these encounters will take place in unique “arenas” specific to each enemy. We have seen some majestic areas, such as in front of a massive bell tower, a burning courtyard, and even a frozen lake. 

Certain arenas will also help highlight the various technologies that the game uses. The Macaque Chief boss on the mountaintops is full of snow-covered terrain. This dynamically moves in respect to your and the bosses’ actions, making quite the visual spectacle, provided you can pay enough attention not to get his. Another boss called the Tiger Vanguard sits in a pool of blood that will act very much like water, creating ripples and splashes when needed. Hopefully, your blood won’t add to the already messy pool.  

Just like in the novel, Sun Wukong often faces off against these larger-than-life entities, gods, demons, and other mythical creatures. Oftentimes in extreme grandeur as well. 

Gameplay (Leveling Up, Customization, etc.)

Skill Trees and Progression

Customization plays a significant role in Sun Wukong’s journey. Skill trees will players to allocate points, enhance combat prowess, unlock new moves, and improve survivability. However there has been no coverage yet on specific skill tree unlocks, what kind of perks you may have, or even if there will be an in-depth leveling system where you can allocate points to certain attributes. Unlike Elden Ring, you aren’t a generic character in Black Myth Wukong so there is a certain assumption on what kind of fighter you may be. 

A lot of the progression will likely come from gaining and upgrading spells that you receive from certain bosses, such as The Pluck of Many (the clone summon ability), Immobilize (freeze enemies in place), Stone Solid (freeze yourself in place), and Ring of Fire (burn everything that’s not you). 

It is also said that there will be certain spell interactions that the player can learn that may not be too apparent at the start. For example, drinking a healing gourd will be more effective when you’re inside your Ring of Fire, as compared to when you take a swig outside of it. Perhaps Wukong just really likes to watch the world burn. 

Equipment and Upgrades

You’ll discover powerful artifacts, armor, and weapons throughout your adventure. Upgrading gear is essential for survival. Balancing offense, defense, and utility becomes a strategic choice. There haven’t been any specifics yet on what types of gear you’ll be able to place onto Wukong.

Players will also collect various potions and elixirs to use to help enhance certain combat capabilities, depending on whether they want to offset some of their weaknesses or lean heavily toward one stat group. 

Black Myth: Wukong Release Date and Sale Price

As of now, no official release date has been announced. However, it has been speculated that the title will be released sometime in the Summer of 2024 which may or may not coincide with Elden Ring’s Shadow of the Erdtree DLC. 

Black Myth: Wukong is expected to be a premium title that will cost $69.99, given its ambitious approach to the soulslike genre. Its visual quality, exciting combat, and different lore focus seem like they will make it worth the price of admission for action RPG fans. 

The game has already been in development for several years, following its initial announcement back in February 2020. Black Myth: Wukong’s initial interest was sparked by the title’s extremely impressive visuals and intriguing focus on a different mythology. It was originally developed using Unreal Engine 4, but later on, swapped to the newer Unreal Engine 5. This is so that the developers could leverage the advanced engine’s capabilities, and create even more visually stunning graphics. 

The post Black Myth: Wukong Everything We Know About the Upcoming Action RPG appeared first on Fextralife.

In this Warhammer 40k: Space Marine 2 article, we’ll be going through everything we know about the third-person shooter so far.

Space Marine 2: Everything We Know About The Upcoming Third-Person 40k Shooter

Space Marine 2 is the highly anticipated sequel to the 2011 third-person shooter of the same name, Warhammer 40k: Space Marine. This time around, the sequel is being developed by Saber Interactive and published by Focus Entertainment. The game is set in the grimdark sci-fi universe of Warhammer 40k, where humanity is beset by countless enemies, both alien and heretical. 

Story and Setting

The game follows the exploits of Lieutenant Titus, an Ultramarine and a veteran of countless battles, as he leads his squad of Space Marines against the Tyranid invasion of the planet Sedna.

For those who aren’t familiar with the lore, a Space Marine is a superhuman warrior and agent of the Imperium of Mankind. They are considered the Emperor’s greatest defenders. They are further divided into Chapters, each with their own cultures, histories, and practices. 

Space Marines are genetically enhanced and undergo rigorous conditioning to become the ultimate warriors of destruction that can be pitted against any enemy in any environment. They wield massive weapons that normal humans could never even dream of using, such as fully automatic Bolters, deadly chainswords, and plasma guns. 

The Space Marines tower over humans, with their average height being about 8 feet tall but are made even more gargantuan with their massive power armor. The presence of a Space Marine is quite rare, as evidenced by their absence in Warhammer 40k: Darktide, or the fact that there is only one of them (so far) in Warhammer 40k: Rogue Trader. Usually, Space Marines are called in as a last line of defense for the Imperium of Mankind. Grey Knights, which were the main forces in Warhammer 40k: Daemonhunter, are even rarer and are reserved for apocalyptic levels of emergencies. Most citizens of the Imperium can go through their entire lives without even hearing about the Space Marines. 

Warhammer 40k: Space Marine 2 picks up what looks to be a few years after the first game. Titus was seen being taken away by the Inquisition, the Imperium’s branch that sniffs out heresy before it takes root, due to his exposure to the Warp at the end of Space Marine 1. It looks like he made his way out somehow, and finds himself on the planet Sedna, an Imperial world that has been besieged by the Tyranids, a race of destructive creatures that lay waste to entire galaxies in their quest to absorb any biomass that they come across.

It will be up to the Space Marines to stop this insurmountable foe from gaining even more foothold in the sector. Leaving the Tyranids unchecked will spell doom for the entire galaxy, and not just Sedna. 

Gameplay and Features

Warhammer 40k: Space Marine 2 is a third-person shooter that combines brutal melee combat with ranged weapons and abilities. The game will feature a solo campaign, as well as a 3-player co-op campaign, where players can team up with up to two of their friends or other online players to face off against the Tyranid hordes. 

The game will retain the core gameplay mechanics of the first game, such as the regenerating health system, the fury meter, the brutally satisfying executions, and the weapon swapping. Space Marine 2 also looks to continue the trend of not introducing a cover system at all. Puny walls aren’t needed when the Space Marines themselves are the cover. 

Speaking of which, Space Marine 2 puts a heavy emphasis on the grandeur of the Space Marines themselves. As they are literally walking tanks of fury, players will immediately feel the sheer scale and weight of the Space Marines. The ground shakes whenever Titus charges at a hapless foe, even more so when he gets into melee range and starts striking his enemies. 

Space Marine 2 is all about fulfilling the fantasy of becoming a titular Space Marine and becoming an avatar of wrath, brutality, and destruction. 

Melee Combat

Melee is as satisfying as ever, letting players engage in a cacophony of violence with every weapon swing. We see the return of fan favorites, such as the chainsword, eviscerating hapless Tyranids with ease. Those with tougher armor will require a bit more effort to take down but is made easier with more defensive options.

New to Space Marine 2 is a simple yet effective parry and blocking system. Certain foes can be parried in melee, staggering them for a brief moment and opening them up to instant kill execution moves or a quick shot to the face. Another very entertaining new move is that Titus can catch enemies mid-air, and then thrash them into the ground for massive damage. He can even cut them in half with his chainsword if he has it out. 

Titus can also gain access to a Jump Pack, presumably at set points in the game just like in the first one. This will let you become an Assault Marine that can fly into the air, only to cannonball down into a group of foes, sending everything flying and to their doom. Smashing yourself into bunched-up enemies never got old in the first game, so it’s interesting to see how frequently we’ll be able to make use of the Jump Packs here. 

Battlefields eventually become littered with corpses, body parts, and other debris, giving you a satisfying sense of pride and accomplishment after every combat encounter. 

Ranged combat

Titus and the Space Marines will have a lot of options when it comes to ranged combat. Aside from mowing down enemies with your regular Bolter gun, players can also pick up Auto Bolt Rifles, Bolt Carbines, Meltaguns, Heavy Bolters, and Plasma Incinerators. 

The interesting options here are the Meltagun, Heavy Bolter, and the Plasma Incinerator. Meltaguns shoot out a small burst of superheated energy that can tear through lesser foes while stunning some of the more elite ones. Heavy Bolters are massive weapons that can tear through enemies with their superior rate of fire coupled with explosive rounds. These are more limited, however, and cannot be reloaded so you can only use them sparingly. Last is the Plasma Incinerator, which launches a bolt of pure energy that is capable of melting armor. 

This isn’t to say that other weapons aren’t effective. Even the simple Bolter gun is capable of violently tearing apart any foe, be it large or small. 

Cooperative Play

Space Marine 2’s cooperative mode will include up to three players in a group. There are only three characters, Lieutenant Titus, Brother Chairon, and Brother Gadriel. Chairon and Gadriel will be AI-controlled in case you prefer not to engage in the multiplayer mode. 

All three of the Space Marines will fundamentally play the same in the sense that you are all hardened walking tanks. You will have the same basic moves in melee and have the same options when it comes to weapon choices.

However, each of the characters has a unique ultimate ability they can unleash when they reach maximum Fury. Titus looks like he will be retaining his defiant roar which makes him more dangerous while in melee range. Chairon can scan the area and mark enemies for everyone to see. Perhaps it will be like the Veteran in Darktide, wherein he immediately draws attention to high-priority targets, instead of just highlighting everything that moves. Lastly, Gadriel has some explosive munitions available only to him, so it looks like he might be fun if you’re into pyrotechnics.

There’s also a revive system in place in case one of you falls in battle, allowing the standing Marines to try and bring the other back into the fight. 

It hasn’t been announced just yet whether the multiplayer will have any form of cross-platform or cross-progression support. 

Space Marine 2: Enemies of the Imperium

The Tyranid Swarm

Space Marine 2’s visuals are a huge step up from the 2011 original, both in terms of the technical side as well as the artistic direction. Due to the developers’ choice of limiting the sequel to current-gen consoles and PCs only, they can create some very intimidating displays. 

The Tyranid Swarm is constantly on full display in Space Marine 2, be it up close or at a distance. There are some moments when you can see that this is truly a war because of the scale of everything. Some scenes even contain hundreds of Tyranids flying around the battlefield, creating chaos in their wake. The aliens are so many that they become a literal sea of horrors, ever-flowing closer to you and your allies. The technology being used here is impressive, as each of these are individual entities in the game world that you can shoot at. 

As the Tyranids are on a full-scale assault here, we can see a wide variety of strains here. Everything from the cannon fodder Termagants to the iconic Tyranid Warriors who wield bone swords, to even psychic Zoanthropes are represented in the game. As expected, each type of Tyranid will have its own unique behavior. 

Termagants and Hormagaunts will try to swarm and overwhelm the player, as they are weak individually. The bigger Tyaranid Warriors will face Titus head-on, either in direct melee or with venom cannons that can penetrate even a Space Marine’s hardened power armor. 

There are also airborne horrors that you will need to attend to. Spore Mines are floating sacs of explosive poison that launch themselves at their enemies. 

The Forces of Chaos

Also introduced in one of the latter trailers for Space Marine 2 was the return of the forces of Chaos. Specifically, we see that the Thousand Suns traitor Legion being represented here, who are devout followers of the Chaos God of Change and Sorcery, Tzeentch. This is further confirmed in the trailer footage by the presence of a Silver Tower, a demonic engine that is often used by the Thousand Suns as a mobile fortress that can transport troops over great distances, or even act as an energy battery to help supply magic users with unholy powers. 

Chaos Space Marines will prove to be a different challenge entirely to the Tyranids and will require a different approach to take them out effectively. For one, they will not swarm you with numbers and try to kill you in a battle of attrition. Instead, Chaos Space Marines are also formidable in their own right, being Space Marines themselves. They have been trained and equipped similarly to Titus and his Battle-Brothers, but have the bonus of being touched by Chaos.

Essentially this means they have demonic powers under their belt, which often take the form of dangerous Warp powers from their Sorcerors or mutations that greatly enhance their speed and strength. Oftentimes, the forces of Chaos would summon lesser demons to do their bidding and act as cannon fodder to spread disarray in their enemies’ ranks. 

What sets the Thousand Suns apart from other Chaos Space Marines is their affinity to magic and their “thrall” soldiers. The Thousand Suns have suffered from a curse known as the “Rubric of Ahriman” that was supposed to cleanse them of their imperfections. Instead, the bodies of the non-psychic turned to ash. The ranks of the Thousand Suns became, and still is, a mass of animated armor devoid of any free will. 

Only two specific types of Chaos foes were shown off, the Scarab Occult Terminators and the Exalted Sorcerers. The first are powerful Terminator armors that have been animated by the essence of former soldiers. Exalted Sorcerers are just that – extremely powerful magic users. 

Release Date and Platforms

Warhammer 40k: Space Marine 2 is expected to launch this “Winter”, although no specific date has been announced yet. This could mean any time from now up until the early months of 2024. The game will be available for PS5, Xbox Series X/S, and PC via Steam. The game is a current-gen exclusive, which means it will not be released for PS4 or Xbox One. This decision is highly likely due to the way they are presenting the grandeur of the Warhammer 40,000 universe. As alluded to earlier, making use of current-gen hardware lets the developers run wild with their imaginations, specifically with the huge number of enemies that can appear on screen at once.

The game also called for a beta test, where eager players could get early access to a preview build of the game, and provide feedback to the developers. It looks like the beta test is available for all platforms, and will feature a smaller portion of the solo campaign. 

Space Marine 2: Final Thoughts

As it stands from all of the trailer footage, Saber Interactive and Focus Home Entertainment are set on capturing lightning in a bottle. They have extremely large shoes to fill, as the first game was a cult classic that could be considered one of the best Warhammer 40,000 games of all time. However, it looks like they have all the ingredients they need to make this second entry a success. They have an amazing look and feel nailed down, alongside a new apocalyptic-level threat looming over the horizon. The essence of the first’s gameplay looks to also have been preserved quite well but enhanced tenfold. Also, the addition of a co-op mode is sure to bring in even more fans. 

It looks like fans of the Warhammer 40,000 franchise will eat well this Winter Season as they will have Space Marine 2 and Rogue Trader to look forward to. 

If you enjoyed this preview, be sure to check out Everything We Know on Darktide and Rogue Trader. 

The post Space Marine 2: Everything We Know About The Upcoming Third-Person 40k Shooter appeared first on Fextralife.

Happy weekend from Fextralife! If you’ve been too busy to keep up on the latest in the games we cover or are looking for a refresher we’ve got you covered! Here’s a bite-sized version of the Top RPG news of the week. Taste all the latest news across the Fextralife Wiki Network.

This Week in RPGs – November 19th, 2023

This week in RPG news, a possible leaked release date for Dragon’s Dogma 2, lots happening with Baldur’s Gate 3, winning several awards at The Golden Joysticks, gaining more nominations for the upcoming The Game Awards as well as further BG3 news. Lies of P gets an update, The Thaumaturge gets delayed, Grim Dawn gets an update anticipating its expansion and much more in this week’s news.

Baldur’s Gate 3

• Having quite the week, Larian Studios had many things to celebrate including their recent wins at The Golden Joystick Awards. The CRPG has not only won the hearts of those who are fans of Astarion but also the judges of the yearly award show. It celebrates all the major releases of the year including Starfield, Final Fantasy 16, Cyberpunk 2077’s expansion Phantom Liberty, Alan Wake 2, Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom and much more.
• Their CRPG Baldur’s Gate 3 snapped up seven awards including Studio of the Year but also Best Storytelling, Best Visual Design, Best Game Community, Best Supporting Performer, PC Game of the Year and the Ultimate Game of the Year.
• Sven Vincke the head of Larian Studios was seen grappling with several of the awards within his grasp, experiencing some real-life inventory management issues. This wasn’t the only news for the BG3 studio this week as Larian also nailed down when Xbox fans will be finding out the release date for the game on the platform. According to a recent post on X (twitter) by the official Larian Studios account, the date will be unveiled during The Game Awards 2023. They also reaffirmed it will be “on track for a December release”.
• Along with this news this week was the announcement of the Physical Deluxe Edition which will be coming to PS5, Xbox Series and PC in early 2024. Priced at £/€79.99 the Baldur’s Gate 3: Deluxe Edition will feature playable discs, with PS5 gaining two discs and Xbox Series gaining three. It also bundles in all previously released deluxe content as well as other physical goodies. Pre-orders are available on the official Larian store.
• For more on this news or any news mentioned in this video the link is in the description below.

For more on this news find it here in Baldur’s Gate 3 Wins 7 Golden Joystick Awards Including Ultimate GOTY, Baldur’s Gate 3 Xbox Release Date to be Announced at The Game Awards 2023 and Baldur’s Gate 3 To Get A Physical Deluxe Edition in Early 2024.

The Game Awards 2023

• Speaking of Baldur’s Gate 3 awards, Geoff Keighley has now revealed the nominees for this year’s The Game Awards 2023. This year the nominees have been dominated by two games, Baldur’s Gate 3 and Alan Wake 2. This shouldn’t be too much of a surprise as Baldur’s Gate 3 had an amazing year, leaving early access in August.
• Baldur’s Gate 3 has already been nominated for eight categories including Game of the Year 2023. Nominees for GOTY include Alan Wake 2, Marvel’s Spider-Man 2, Resident Evil 4, Super Mario Bros. Wonder and The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom. 
• Diablo 4 the ARPG from Blizzard has also gained two nominations under Innovation in Accessibility and Best Multiplayer. Interestingly Baldur’s Gate 3 is also nominated for Best Multiplayer among Party Animals, Street Fighter 5 and Super Mario Bros. Wonder, so it’s a pretty diverse category.
• Remnant 2 the souls-like shooter is in for Best Action Game but it’s going against the colossal Armored Core 6: Fires of Rubicon.
• Lies of P has also managed to snag two nominations for Best Art Direction and Best RPG. Since the RPG category is highly competitive this year it will be a tough one to win. The category includes BG3, FF16, Lies of P, Sea of Stars and Starfield.
• The Game Awards 2023 will be live on December 7th at 4:30 PM PT. Who’s your favourite pick for GOTY 2023? How many awards do you think Baldur’s Gate 3 and Alan Wake 2 will pick up? Let us know in the comments below.

For more on this news find it here in The Game Awards 2023 Nominees Over Taken By Baldur’s Gate 3 and Alan Wake 2.

Grim Dawn

• Fans of the Victorian ARPG, Grim Dawn, are in for a treat this November as it gets an update version 1.2. This beefy patch will have tons of improvements ahead of the next expansion The Fangs of Asterkarn.
• Grim Dawn’s 1.2 update will improve the leveling experience significantly by offering more better rewards, better pacing, and a more engaging experience.
• The game’s difficulty system will also be getting an overhaul. Players will now be able to start with any difficulty level that they’ve already unlocked – no more going through Normal, Elite, and Ultimate in that specific order. Another huge update to Grim Dawn is the addition of a dedicated dodge ability.
• In case you missed it, the title is an Action-RPG that released initially for PC back in February 2016. The game features fast-paced real-time combat and emphasizes collecting loot and slaying Lovecraftian horrors. The game also builds upon systems from Titan Quest, most notably skill unlock and dual classing systems.
• Grim Dawn is anticipating its fourth expansion Fangs of Asterkarn expected to release sometime next year.

For more on this news find it here in Grim Dawn Version 1.2.0.0 Modernizes the ARPG Classic.

Lies of P

• The soulslike Lies of P has gained a new update which adds further costumes, a new category in the costume menu, balance changes plus fixes. The official soundtrack has been released which is now available for $9.99 on Steam, so you can now listen to your favourite tracks from the game such as Feel, whenever and wherever with the downloadable track list.
• Lies of P or Lies of Style we should be calling the game after the update as new options are available for Pinnochio. A new category has been added to the Costume menu, allowing players to equip both a ‘Mask’ and ‘Accessory‘ together found in the Hair section of the menu.
• As previously teased in the Director’s Letter video that took place at the end of October, changes to combat have been implemented. This includes Rising Dodge now being a default ability, with the Retain Gaurd Regain upon Pulse Cell use now taking its place in the P-Organ system.
• There have also been changes to weapons including damage increases to weapons, decreased delay after an attack and time to charge a ‘Charge Attack’ for some heavy handles. Heavier Handles also now have a faster attack speed which is dependent on the assembled blade.
• These are just some of the changes with the patch, you can check out all the new balance changes over on our Lies of P wiki.

For more on this news find it here in Unicorn Overlord Gets New Details on the Tactical RPG and Diablo 4 Gets A Week of Experience and Gold Bonuses Starting Nov 20th.

C.A.R.D.S RPG: The Misty Battelfield

• We got a first look trailer for the roguelike deckbuilder C.A.R.D.S. RPG: The Misty Battlefield. The title will be released for PlayStation 5, Switch, and PC via Steam in 2024 worldwide.
• This game will bring together a tumultuous war, vying sides and dragons. The game follows the Clausewitz Battalion into a map covered in mist. Here players will collect and strengthen cards to build the best deck to fight against enemies.
• The game is an interesting mix of card gameplay and grid based battles woven into rogue-like elements as well as traditional strategy. Players will have over 50 varieties of cards to collect, as they try to find a way through the mist covered land. 
• Facing hidden enemies, facilities and discovering further equipment to help them win the fight. The game is set to also feature fully voiced characters for further immersion in this war-ridden world.
• C.A.R.D.S. RPG: The Misty Battlefield is coming to PlayStation 5, Switch, and PC via Steam in 2024 worldwide.

For more news find it here in C.A.R.D.S. RPG: The Misty Battlefield Gets ‘First Look’ Trailer of the Roguelike Deckbuilder.

The Thaumaturge

• Narrative-driven turn-based RPG The Thaumaturge gets its release date pushed to February 20th 2024. Originally set to release on December 5th for PC via Steam, Epic Games Store and GOG. It’s also coming consoles PS5 and Xbox Series at a later date.
• The announcement shared details that the game has been delayed so as not to “compromise” the quality of the game. The additional time will be given to “achieve the standards that players have come to expect”, adding further polish.
• In case you missed it The Thaumaturge is set in 20th-century Warsaw Poland. A mix of ancestries under the pressure of the Russian tsardom.
• Within this city are those with the ability to tame spirits or Salutors. Only Thaumaturges can assess Salutor’s true nature and essence. This power does come with a dark side and should be used with caution.
• The game uses turn-based battles in a narrative-driven isometric RPG. Being a Thaumaturge allows players to navigate different situations in numerous ways. Taming Salutors will unlock unique skills to gain an advantage when exploring the world and in combat. The summons look very eerie and could be interesting especially as you tame more.

For more on this news find it here in The Thaumaturge for PC Now Pushed to February 20th 2024.

Diablo 4

• Blizzard has announced Mother’s Blessing is returning to Diablo 4 but this time for a whole week starting November 20th running to November 27th. This will give players a chance to catch up on the latest Season of Blood with 35% increased rates for both experience and gold.
• This bonus will apply to both the Seasonal and Eternal Realms at all World Tiers. You can also bonus stack with Elixirs and the Urn of Experience to really take advantage of this week.
• You can also check if the boon is applied by finding the new in-game icon which will appear next to your potion count and will let you know you’re earning an increased Gold and XP. This event can also help in boosting through the Battle Pass ranks, getting through higher Levels and World Tiers. Complete your season journey to face the Abattoir of Zir coming on December 5th.
• Planning on adventuring through Sanctuary? Don’t forget to drop by our Diablo 4 wiki for all the latest.

For more on this news find it here in Diablo 4 Gets A Week of Experience and Gold Bonuses Starting Nov 20th.

Remnant 2 The Awakened King DLC

• The first expansion for the shooter soulslike Remnant 2 dropped this week adding new areas explore in the games very Bloodborne-inspired Losomn. The DLC adds a new Archetype called the Ritualist which uses Miasma on its foes, using status effects infliction to really deal some damage.
• The DLC also raises the game’s Trait cap to 85, allowing further ways to customise builds. You can also try out the ‘One Shot Mode’, a pre-determined layout and set of dungeons, but it can only be accessed once.
• We have a whole review that goes over the details of the The Awakened King DLC and what we thought of it. We also have a couple of new builds to try out on our channel that will be perfect for the latest update. You can also head to our Remnant 2 wiki for all the latest info.

For more on this news find it here in Remnant II The Awakened King DLC Review.

Dragon’s Dogma 2

• Dragon’s Dogma 2 may have had its release date leaked according to a recent rating of the game. The epic return of Capcom’s fantasy open world Action-RPG apparently is launching on March 22nd 2024 for PS5, Xbox Series X|S and PC if the leaks are to be believed.
• The PEGI rating was for Europe which listed Dragon’s Dogma 2 to be PEGI 18. This could have accidentally revealed the release date early. Now take this with a grain of salt as Capcom has not released any official news on this just yet.
• However, there will be a 15-minute showcase which has been officially announced to be happening on November 28th at 1PM PST, set to unveil brand-new gameplay reveals. It will be led by director Hideaki Itsuno and producer Yoshiaki Hirabayashi. This could also be a way for Capcom to announce the launch date of the game.
• Dragon’s Dogma 2 is set to be four times bigger than its predecessor, with an open world. There will be new advanced classes to master and new ways to get around by Oxcart. The game’s AI Pawn system will also be returning no doubt enhancing the fun combat from the first game. We had our own hands-on with the game not too long ago, you can check out that video for more on gameplay. If you’re excited to know more about Dragon’s Dogma 2 head to our wiki where we’ll be updating it as new info releases.

For more on this news find it here in Leak: Dragon’s Dogma 2 Release Date?; Capcom Announces 15 Minute Showcase Nov 28th.

Well, that’s it for the Week in Wikis. Please join us next week for yet another great week of gaming! Remember to check out our VIP program for some exclusive supporter benefits, and budding writers should take advantage of our Become an Author initiative! Thanks again for being a part of this great community. Keep checking in with us for news, reviews, YouTube streams and vids, and general wiki goodness!

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The post This Week in RPGs – November 19th, 2023 appeared first on Fextralife.

The Awakened King DLC for Remnant 2 has added a lot of unique and exciting items for players to hunt and play with, and most of these items can drastically influence a wide variety of Builds. So, I decided to make a list showcasing my top 10 recommended DLC items that I think are worth getting your hands on, no matter what your playstyle is.

BEST New Items In Remnant 2: The Awakened King

Obviously, not all items made the cut, but there were a couple that were just on the fringe so I decided to add them as honorable mentions. So let’s get them out of the way before we jump into the best of the best.

Honorable Mentions

Burden of the Departed

First is the Burden of the Departed Ring. This Ring Reduces Total Relic Charges by 33% but increases all damage dealt by 10%. The 10% damage it provides is indeed a nice bonus, however, this Ring will often only be used by Veteran players.

Relic Charges are limited in the early stages of the game, and beginners will surely need all the charges that they can get. Particularly when adjusting to the game’s mechanics so reducing charges might not be a good idea if you’re still learning to play the game, which is why it’s not on the actual list itself.

Dried Clay Ring

The next honorable mention is the Dried Clay Ring. What it does is, it provides 1 permanent stack of Bulwark and grants an additional All Damage bonus depending on how many stacks of Bulwark you have. This is a nice bonus since you are kind of sacrificing DPS when building a tank.

This ring fills that gap a little bit, ensuring you will have at least some added damage bonus even if you prioritized survivability. The Dried Clay Ring can really work well with other Damage Reduction Rings currently, so use it to your advantage.

Top 10: Creeping Mist

Coming in at number 10 on the list is the Creeping Mist Mod. In terms of Mods, I usually go for the ones that I can easily access and use simultaneously with other Mods, and this is one of them. What it does is, it shoots a canister that explodes and releases a deadly mist that covers a decent range. 

Enemies caught in it will receive 25% additional Status Effect Damage and can be critically hit more easily. It is super easy to apply negative status effects in Remnant 2, with so many items and weapons possessing them, so a lot of people will find this Mod useful, especially when creating Builds that focus on inflicting negative status effects.

Top 9: Gift Of Melancholy Amulet

At 9 on the list is the Gift Of Melancholy Amulet. This amulet increases All Damage dealt by 25% when Stamina is at 100% for 7s. What I usually do is pair it with a Bisected Ring which negates Stamina usage, so basically I have that 25% Damage Boost up all the time.

I find this ring really useful when I am running Archetypes that rely on Summons since that 25% damage bonus is applied across the board, making them even more effective.

Top 8: Whispering Marble Amulet

Coming in at number 8 is the Whispering Marble Amulet. This Amulet grants 3 stacks of Bulwark by just wearing it and increases All Damage by 3% per stack of Bulwark. I find this a really good Amulet when stacking up Damage Reduction.

It can work well with rings such as the Dried Clay Ring, as I just mentioned. Not only will you have that added Bulwark Stack, but you will also have an additional damage bonus on both the ring and Amulet. Or perhaps another good combination is with a Soul Guard Ring that can provide you additional stacks of Bulwark for each active Summon you will deploy.

Top 7: Burden Of The Sciolist Ring

Moving on to number 7, which is the Burden of the Sciolist Ring. This increases Mod and Skill Damage by 15% but reduces Ammo Reserves by 25%, which can easily be disregarded by using Ammo Boxes.

Not only will Mod-focused Remnant 2 Builds find this Ring really strong, but the Skill Damage bonus is a great addition overall. Skill Damage bonuses apply to Archetype Summons as well so this Ring will give you much flexibility.

Top 6: Tainted Blade Mutator

A Mutator secured the 6th spot on this list which is the Tainted Blade Mutator. A huge chunk of this DLC is all about Negative Status Effects anyway so I find this Mutator really strong when using the Krell Axe. 

Thanks to this Mutator, you can effortlessly apply Corroded and Overloaded Negative Status Effects on your targets. If you want to inflict multiple status effects, having these pairings will provide you with a good start.

Top 5: Index Of The Scribe Amulet

Coming in at number five is the Index of the Scribe Amulet. This Amulet grants the wearer a flat 35% Mod and Skill Weakspot Damage Bonus. 35% Weakspot Damage Bonus is no joke, especially when playing with specific Mods that can target an enemy weak spot, so this can find a home in many Remnant 2 Builds.

Pair this Amulet with other rings that increase your Mod Damage further and you will be seeing huge numbers in terms of DPS. The additional Skill Weakspot Damage is a nice bonus as well especially when deploying Archetype Summons. However, it could be a hit-or-miss thing since there are a lot of cases where Summons can’t hit enemy weak spots.

Top 4: Monarch

The next item on the list is the Long Gun Monarch. Monarch is a unique, and extremely fun, weapon to use as it shoots homing projectiles at targets when you activate its Harpoon Mod. One of its unique features is the Influence gauge. When it fills, this weapon automatically reloads and creates a shockwave. The wielder becomes enraged, gaining 20% Increased Damage and Infinite Reserves that last for 20 seconds.

These projectiles can even penetrate targets so you will have some crowd control capabilities there. It is not game-breaking or broken in any sense, but it does provides a refreshing experience every time I play with it, so consider checking it out if you have not already.

Top 3: Birthright Of The Lost Amulet

Coming in at number 3 is the Birthright Of The Lost Amulet. Essentially, this Amulet inflicts the Status Effect Exposed on enemies when the wearer successfully performs a perfect dodge. Exposed enemies will suffer 24% additional damage from all sources for 10 seconds.

When playing a DPS build, you will be dodging a lot of attacks anyway so expect that you will be continuously inflicting Exposed on enemies. Of course, I find this Amulet very useful in Boss Fights so you should definitely try this one if you are in need of a little extra damage, and you typically find yourself dodging anyway to avoid attacks.

Top 2: Atonement Fold Ring

My second favorite item in the latest content is the Atonement Fold Ring. This Ring will allow you to have a self-inflicted Bleed Status in exchange for an increase in Critical Hit Chance by 10%. This Ring is one of the best rings as it opens a lot of new Amulet and Ring combinations that can provide useful and strong effects to our builds.

For instance, I mostly pair this Ring with Nightweaver’s Grudge Amulet if I want a huge Critical Hit Chance increase and access to the Haste buff on my Remnant 2 Builds. Another great Ring that you can pair it with is the Hardcore Metalband. By just wearing both of these Rings, you will have a permanent 5 stacks of Bulwark active. These are just a couple of examples of what this Ring can do, but there are many more.

Top 1: Sparkfire Shotgun

Taking the number 1 spot is the Sparkfire Shotgun. The Sparkfire Shotgun fires incendiary shells that apply Burning to targets which deals Fire damage over time. Even without a Mod or a Mutator equipped, this thing can hit for a ton of damage.

What is good about this weapon is you can increase its firepower by using another elemental Mod. Like for instance the Overflow Mod which can inflict an additional Negative Status Ailment. Pair it with one of the latest Mutators which is Fetid Wounds, and this beast can blast through enemies while also inflicting three unique Negative Status Effects. This weapon has a HUGE amount of potential and is indeed one of the must-haves in The Awakened King.

And there you have it. I know there are a lot of great items that are not on this list, but these are my personal favorites so far and I enjoyed experimenting with every one of them. What are your favorites? How are you enjoying The Awakened King? Let us know in the comments below!

If you’re looking for info on weapons, armor, builds, locations and more head to our Remnant 2 wiki for all the latest.

The post BEST New Items In Remnant 2: The Awakened King appeared first on Fextralife.

Elden Ring is the best game ever made! In this article, we’ll discuss why Elden Ring is indeed the Best Game of All Time, and why you should not miss out on playing it, based on my completely unbiased and objective opinion that I am sure 100% of readers will agree with and will generate commentary only telling me how perfectly correct I am.

Elden Ring is the Best Game Ever Made

We’ll go through the atypical marketing cycle that fueled relentless hype for the game, its spectacularly successful launch, and the elements that make the game feel like Magic: Player Agency, Freedom, redefining Immersion and infinite build variety. If you want even more of this, check out our video that explains why Elden Ring Succeeds where other games fail.

This is the first on a series of videos exploring how many games have gotten impressively huge and committed fanbases, and what it’s great about each of them. If you haven’t noticed it yet, the title is not serious!

The Atypical Marketing of Elden Ring

Elden Ring is a rather unique title as it went through a very interesting development process and it created a few wrinkles on their marketing plans due to unexpected but massive delays. This would normally cause the hype for a game to die down, but it had the contrary effect of fueling a rabid obsession among fans of souls, leading to an incredible amount of hype at launch.

Initially announced at E3 2019, Elden Ring was originally supposed to release in 2020 or 2021. Yet after the initial announcement, there was no Elden Ring at the game awards 2019, then silence for most of 2020 except for some tweets confirming the game was still in development, and no Elden Ring News at the Game Awards 2020. By this point it had been a year and a half since the game’s announcement and the fanbase was losing touch with reality, to the point the subreddit has declared that period as “The Great Hollowing“. Fan desperation and memes about “ohhhhhh” and no news of Elden Ring became daily gags throughout May 2021, until finally there was a June 2021 Summer Game Fest trailer.

But it would still be over 7 months before Elden Ring was finally released, at which point it had gone an unimaginable (tee-hee) 992 days from announcement to release. That’s over 32 months, or over 2 and a half years of fans just “waiting”. This may be seen as normal for some long standing series like The Elder Scrolls or Final Fantasy, but it’s something that FromSoftware and Namco don’t typically do: Start the hype marketing only to completely stop and drip breadcrumbs of non-news until finally restarting the campaign 6 months before launch.

By any previous standard, this campaign should have failed, yet it did not. Why? Obviously, the eagerness of dedicated Souls fans contributed immensely to sustaining interest, but in a strange way the buildup of mystery and expectation in the absence of any proper information became enticing for non-souls fans too. Articles began popping up about how the fanbase invented lore, theorycrafted non-existing builds, and laid out more and more hype built on dreams and hopes from very suspicious and sometimes obviously fake leaks and rumors. These articles attracted more views, which created more fake leakers, more hype memes, which created more articles… and it could all have come crashing down spectacularly had the launch not delivered. But, as it’s now the norm for FromSoftware, it did.

The Spectacular Launch of Elden Ring

Once Marketing was re-started, FromSoftware went to their typical pattern of closed-door previews, gameplay reveal, network test, and pre-launch reviews. This is a very consumer-friendly method of advertisement, as it gives plenty of information and even access to press, influencers and players so that everyone can get a taste for the upcoming product. With this transparency as a backing, I whole-heartedly recommended preorders of Elden Ring, and I’m happy to look back and say I wasn’t wrong.

Elden Ring went on to sell 13 Million Copies by the end of March 2022, almost doubling that by March 2023 with 20 million copies, and is Bandai Namco’s fastest selling game of all time, and of course smashing records for FromSoftware itself.

The fact the game has kept selling and is sustaining high concurrent players late into 2023, almost two years after launch and with little additional content, demonstrates the game’s value, appeal and longevity. But what is it that makes it so good? Let’s discuss.

Why Elden Ring is The Best Game Ever

Many have attempted to downplay the brilliance of Elden Ring by saying it’s simple Dark Souls with a horse and more space. And while the core of that argument is true, the implication that this is a bad thing is completely off-base. After all, the “Dark Souls Formula” isn’t really a formula, but rather the same artist using similar components to create thematic but clearly different experiences for the user.

As I said in my review of the game:

When I first heard of Elden Ring and saw the few screenshots and early footage, I thought it would be Dark Souls 4. When I first saw official Elden Ring gameplay last year, I thought it would be a take on open world like Dragons Dogma, but still be Dark Souls.

When I first played Elden Ring during the network test, I thought it would be less souls and more about traversing large landscapes and popping into dungeons. 50 hours into the demo I thought I knew the game’s tempo and knew how the whole game would turn out.

My first hours with the full game have taught me otherwise: this is a game that will shatter your expectations and you can’t even imagine the actual scale and depth of it. Every time you think you have it figured out some new thing pops around the corner to surprise you.

What made Elden Ring so successful is that FromSoftware correctly identified the best aspects of Souls, and masterfully weaved them into a seamless open world, integrating innovation and new tricks in subtle but impactful ways. The melding of elements is so well done that it is indeed difficult to list out “new features” of Elden Ring versus the souls series beyond the obvious like a jump button. Everything that was added to the game was done with a precise touch and a careful measuring spoon, to meld new and old concepts into one completely unique flavor.

Dark Souls was an action RPG focused on combat and challenge, and the perseverance and dedication needed to overcoming those challenges made your eventual success feel very rewarding. So FromSoftware was faced with the challenge of alluring a fanbase that loves to say “git gud’ to instead try a game that pretty much anyone can play and focuses instead on exploration and discovery.

Of course the first success in this was to create clever “traps” so that people may get an initial impression of difficulty that may not necessarily be so, such as the Tree Sentinel that roams your path right after the tutorial, the casual Dragon that will melt you just a short ride from the start point, or the Night Cavalry and Deathbird minibosses in Limgrave. These are nothing but “Illusory Walls” as they are avoidable encounters that can be done later when you’re more powerful, but they helped set the tone that the game had that “challenge” approach early on.

From here, FromSoftware had to then also convert the non-souls fans who may have been intimidated by the difficult enemies. So they added Guidance, that points you away from danger, and many, many options for exploration that would quickly distract anyone without putting them in danger, allowing them to gather gear and level up, which makes all encounters a lot easier.

Thus, with a good foundation that allowed more casual players to continue while keeping the self-titled “elite” engaged, the next step was to fill out a world that would truly compel you to explore, so that you would seek out the challenging encounters because you want the loot hidden behind them.

It is here where I feel FromSoftware truly created something unique. I am a huge fan of builds, tinkering and character optimization. Many times I make builds just to see how they do against bosses and feel powerful, then restart my game or respec the character to try something else, without ever progressing. It’s how we ended up with over 100 unique builds created by me that have been published to our wiki and channel.

The Infinite Builds of Elden Ring

Being the kind of person that tries to make many builds in many games and play it many ways, I can say with confidence that Elden Ring delivers the most satisfying build experience in Gaming. Yes, CRPG games like Pathfinder have a lot of classes and nuance, MMOs like Lost Ark or Elder Scrolls Online have huge amounts of customization via loot, and ARPGs like Path of Exile or Diablo have deep and ongoing metas that everyone loves.

But Elden Ring gives an incredible amount of variety and uniqueness per build, without needing to be “Meta” or farmed, and it does it without the frequent bugs and issues of things not working correctly that are commonplace in other complex RPGs. The excellent balance of the game drove me to create a mock series where I explained how every weapon is the “best weapon in Elden Ring“, something that is only possible because the game is that well thought-out, that you can truly make it through and feel powerful using almost anything.

Builds, of course, aren’t just about weapons. In many games they are about classes, but since Elden Ring classes are simple attribute and gear starting points, their classless system moves “skills” to a freeform choice where you can select the skill you like that matches your weapon’s moveset and own playstyle. Then you add in talismans, spells, buffs and consumables to end up with thousands of unique combinations. And the important thing is that they work – you can play the game with them, you’re not hopelessly gimping yourself if you want to stick to A or B.

Of course, some builds are more powerful than others, and there are certain “metas” for PvP that are quickly found and abused. But given FromSoftware has now deployed separate balancing for pvp and pve, solo players can really devote themselves to creativity and enjoy the combat in multiple unique styles.

Player Agency, Freedom & What Immersion Truly Means

The build variety is the most appealing to me, but the reality is that Elden Ring’s interpretation of Player Agency and Freedom redefine what “immersive” means and it’s a huge factor in its success.

Many games approach immersion as a need for high-end graphics, a minimalist UI, realistic physics and events. Many fall into the trap of becoming an interactive movie, where you are “immersed” into the events but have little control over them.

Elden Ring gifted us instead with a world as a playground, where rather than feeling that you’re playing a game, you feel like you’re playing a world. Like if you had wondered into a book, each corner hides unique vistas, secret lore, hidden valuables and unexpected enemies. It successfully delivers the excitement and intrigue that Tabletop RPGs have always been lauded for, giving a feeling of freedom to explore, interact, attack or retreat.

This approach is reinforced by the “multiple protagonist” narrative, where you as the player character aren’t the “Main Protagonist” and will find the NPCs don’t exist for your purposes, and will act and move of their own accord based on their own actions and objectives, regardless of whether you stopped to talk to them. This of course leads to the player missing out on steps for multiple questlines, which can be a frequent complaint, but it is a powerful tool when it comes to making you aware that this world does not revolve around you.

The Magic of Elden Ring

Taking all the individual components of the game, one could easily think that there’s little new or innovative in the mix. Yet somehow the combination resulted in a magical experience. The reason for this is, as I said earlier, the careful consideration and use of each aspect. The nuanced layering of mechanics so that players would not be overwhelmed, but rather thrilled to discover something new. The scale of the map, exploration and hidden spaces that aren’t locked behind tools or events, but rather your own observation and creativity.

It has been almost two years since the launch of the game and I still lose myself in the quiet tunes of Limgrave, and I still see people discovering small things here and there, tying up lore notes, or perfecting our understanding of how specific effects work or even charting every boss moveset into complex graphs.

The passion the game has generated among the fanbase has not dampened. And now, with the announcement of Shadow of the Erdtree Expansion, we have arrived at yet another cycle of waiting for more news. First revealed in February 28th, 2023, most don’t expect it to be out until February 2024, which is a year after its official introduction. But the lack of news and updates has many thinking the expansion may be even further down into 2024, meaning yet many months of expectation buildups.

Will the Elden Ring DLC deliver this magic once again? Can FromSoftware surprise us again, in this same world? I have complete confidence that yes, they can. For the past 15 years, release after release of FromSoftware games have successfully delivered a unique and compelling gaming experience. I fell in love with Demon’s Souls, I was seduced again with Dark Souls, I was completely blown away by Bloodborne and then again by the tempo pace of Sekiro, and finally I was left in awe at Elden Ring. For that, I’m happy to say that it’s the Best Game Ever Made.

So what do you think? Is Elden Ring your favorite game ever? Or maybe just right now? What other titles would you like us to cover on this series and why? Let us know in the comments below!

The post Elden Ring is the Best Game of All Time appeared first on Fextralife.