Daily Gaming News: June 25, 2020

Fun fact: I’m currently roasting in my living room (it’s 83 degrees right now) as I write up today’s Daily Gaming News.

Get Half-Life: Alyx for $44.99 during Steam’s Summer Sale

Okay, Steam’s Summer Sale is underway, and there’s a ton of stuff on deep discount. Among the Bioshocks (50-75% off), Metal Gear Solid Vs (70% off) and Left 4 Deads (75% off) currently on sale is Half-Life: Alyx, the best gaming experience you will have in VR. Of course, if you’re planning on getting a Valve Index, know that Valve will throw in a free copy of the game (and if you already have one, well…why haven’t you gotten your free game?!). So this deal is mostly for people with other headsets or bought their Indexes used (like me).

Minecraft’s Nether update (1.16) brings a slew of new stuff

I’ll admit it: I have never played Minecraft, and in all probability I never will. I don’t have any real specific reason; the art style (or lack thereof) used to bother the hell out of me, but  Nether’s trailer showed that the game’s blocky graphics could be charming. I guess I’m just not into the whole crafting/random exploring genre.

Anyway, the new update brings a crapload of new areas, a new material (Netherite), and new monsters such as Piglins – who you can choose to trade with or fight.

Night City Wire: Episode 1: new Cyberpunk 2077 trailer debut and an upcoming Netflix anime

The first episode of Night City Wire dropped earlier today, revealing a new trailer for Cyberpunk 2077, a new game mechanic called Braindance, and a collaboration between CD PROJEKT RED and Studio Trigger to produce an anime called Cyberpunk: Edgerunners.

Braindance is pretty interesting – it’s a game mechanic that lets you explore people’s memories as an observer, with the ability to view action from any angle. Apparently, you’ll use it for more investigative purposes during the story.

Cyberpunk 2077 is currently slated for release on November 19 after several delays.

LCSEats: A free cookbook with recipes from your favorite NA LCS League of Legends teams

The NA LCS has released a free, 37-page cookbook filled to the brim with all kinds of tasty recipes from teams in the NA LCS. [the LCS is the pro league for League of Legends]

Cloud9, 100 Thieves, TL, DIG, FlyQuest, Golden Guardians, Immortals, CLG, and TSM all feature in the cookbook (and mysteriously, Evil Geniuses are nowhere to be found). Included are Doublelift’s Sheng Jian Bao, Soaz’s Caneles, and Nisqy’s Chicken Caprese Salad, as well as recipes for dishes sold at past LCS concession stands.

It’s currently hosted on Dropbox – get it here: LCSEats

Blizzard’s latest Diablo IV quarterly update describes the development process behind playtesting, multiplayer, and open-world features

Before you ask…no, there’s no release date here. Instead, Game Director Luis Barriga goes into detail about a few elements of the upcoming (heh) action RPG, Diablo IV.

Some tidbits:

• Two types of conversations: simple ones where the camera zooms in and the characters use preset animations, and real-time cutscenes that are deliberately movie-like
• Most popular open-world feature are camps – essentially evil areas that need to be cleaned up (in the killing type of way) before they become friendly towns (think Horizon: Zero Dawn)
• Can get a mount for faster travel (no fast travel?) along with mount-specific items
• “We find that the game stops feeling like Diablo and the world feels less dangerous when you see other players too often or in too high numbers.”

One of the things that bothers me about some of the items above are that…they’re just mostly boring numbers and stat boosters. Give me interesting items like that helmet in Diablo 2 that let you teleport when you socketed a rune, not just 3.5% cooldown reduction.

Bonus: Final Fantasy XV’s latest Windows update fixes something

F~ this game. Seriously. I’m still annoyed I paid full price for it.