GAMES
Godfall: Ultimate Edition coming to Xbox on April 7
Your time has come, Valorians! Godfall: Ultimate Edition marks the arrival of the epic action RPG on Xbox One and Xbox Series X|S. The team here at Counterplay Games can’t wait for the Xbox community to dive into this epic high fantasy playground we’ve created for you. Let’s jump in and look at some of the awesome content you’ll discover when Godfall: Ultimate Edition launches on April 7, 2022.
Godfall is a melee action-RPG designed specifically to be the tinkerer’s dream. Playing as Orin, you find Aperion on the precipice of ruin. You and your small band of loyal champions are the last of the Valorian knights, god-like warriors able to equip Valorplates. These legendary armor sets transform those that wield them into unstoppable masters of melee combat and harness powerful elemental and status effects to tear through foes. Your goal is to climb through the elemental realms and challenge Macros, who is rapidly acquiring the necessary resources to ascend to the status of a god.
Godfall: Ultimate Edition contains the core game and a year and a half of post-launch updates, including the massive Primal, Lightbringer, and Exalted updates plus the Fire & Darkness expansion. Godfall: Ultimate Edition will retail for $39.99, with a special limited time Xbox launch price of $29.99!
Take on the Epic Campaign in Single-Player and Co-op
The story of Godfall has players adventuring across the three elemental realms of Aperion alone or with up to two other players as you battle towards the final confrontation with the twisted fallen knight, Macros. If successful, an even greater threat will emerge with the arrival of Moirax and the Flameblood Tribe in the deadly Fire Realm from the Fire & Darkness Expansion. The enemies found in the Fire Realm are as diverse as they are formidable and will test even the most well-equipped knights. The Exalted Update brings a host of story updates and enhancements including new cutscenes, increased Macros dialog, contextual loading screens, and more NPC interactions. These changes make Godfall more immersive than ever before!
Choose Your Valorplate
These 12 unique sets of armor inspired by the signs of the Zodiac each offer diverse powers from summoning spiritual backup, redirecting damage back at enemies, or powering up attacks with elemental infused status effects of fire, earth, air, and water. They are unlocked by spending resources collected from various sources throughout the Realms of Aperion. Valorplates can be further empowered thanks to the new Shard system.
While dawning a specific Valorplate, players will need to complete unlock requirements like defeating enemies or locating points of interest in the Spirit Realms game mode to unlock Shards. Once unlocked, the Shards are equipped to the Valorplate activating an additional ability tied to a triggering move in combat. Shards can be upgraded up to five times at the Forge scaling the benefits. After unlocking all four of the Shards on a given Valorplate, it becomes Ascendant and gains a second ability. More still, once all four Shards are leveled up to rank five the Valorplate becomes Exalted and gains a third ability, such as massive boosts to ailment damage.
The Tinkerer’s Dream
There is no shortage of awesome loot to obtain in Godfall. And you better believe that the Exalted Update comes jam packed with features to help you navigate all these treasures as well as a host of new cosmetic options for you to unlock. Knowing that each battle and challenge can require its own special approach, players can customize and save up to three loadouts for each Valorplate. Make sure to continue experimenting until you’ve found the ultimate build befitting a god!
We wouldn’t be able to call Godfall an action RPG if it didn’t come loaded with a spread of deadly weapons for players to master and collect. Five weapon classes, each with their own play styles and attributes await players. These include the quick and deadly longswords and dual blades; the powerful far-reaching polearms; and the destructive warhammers and greatswords perfect for smashing through enemies.
By defeating enemies, players earn experience helping them climb to level 50. Each level earns a player a skill point that can be applied toward improving various attributes and your move set in combat. The journey doesn’t stop at just level 50 – players can power up beyond the level cap through a whopping 450 Ascension Levels to obtain new powers and bonuses, allowing them to gain the upper hand against our hardcore endgame challenges.”
An Array of Rewarding Endgame Activities
Godfall shines brightest when players have the ability to put their brilliantly crafted builds to the test. And what better way to do it than inviting your friends to loot and slash through the game’s several endgame modes? Players can matchmake with up to two other players to challenge Godfall’s unique endgame modes such as Dreamstones, Tower of Trials, Lightbringer, and the brand new six-player Spirit Realms. My personal favorite of these awesome options is to battle it out against increasingly ferocious enemies in the Ascended or Exalted Tower of Trials. These modes are wave based in nature and will be your gateway to legendary gear only attainable from climbing the tower and facing high leveled bosses. Xbox One, Xbox Series S and Xbox Series X players can all jump into endgame matchmaking together – so make sure to bring some friends!
Xbox-Exclusive Enhancements
When we set out to create Godfall, we wanted to create an opulent and vibrant world. Metals needed to be shiny, and visual effects needed to stand out from the backgrounds. With our arrival on Xbox, these desires have been cranked to 11. Xbox players will be able to experience Godfall’s visuals like never before with the addition of Variable Refresh Rate and Dolby Vision for HDR-capable displays. We spent a lot of time adjusting every visual effect in the game and we hope you can feel this labor of love, or at least benefit from the effort with brighter highlights, sharper contrast and more vibrant colors throughout the experience.
The Complete Experience
Godfall: Ultimate Edition is a complete premium experience. There are no microtransactions or DLC to fuss with —all cosmetics are earnable by reaching milestones and completing challenges in-game, and the Ultimate Edition even includes the original Ascended Edition and pre-order rewards! We have been listening closely to player feedback since the launch of Godfall and have worked incredibly hard to deliver as many of the community’s most requested features to the game as we can. Combat is faster and more fluid with a knockdown recovery skill; inventory management is more streamlined and robust; Valorplates feel diverse and offer unique play style options; the story experience has been enhanced, and there are now dozens of new weapons banner and shield cosmetics to unlock. We cannot wait for this new band of knights to explore the world we have so thoroughly enjoyed creating.
GAMES
This Week’s Deals with Gold and Spotlight Sale
GAMES
The German Empire Marches to Italy in a Free Expansion Today
We have a new expansion for our WW1 Italian Front FPS game Isonzo releasing today! It’s the first part of our Caporetto season of free expansions, and features a whole new faction with the arrival of the German Empire on the Italian Front, and brings a new map for the Offensive game mode. There will be two more releases in the Caporetto season, each one with a new map to ultimately link together into a three map Caporetto Offensive.
The German faction comes with more than ten new weapons, as well as historically accurate uniforms and equipment. This first Caporetto map sees you taking part in the early stages of the Twelfth Battle of the Isonzo, with German troops assaulting Italian positions on the road to Caporetto. Historically it was a military disaster for Italy which brought down the government – but maybe things can go differently with you on the battlefield?
The update sees new uniforms and equipment from the German Empire for Isonzo’s six classes: Rifleman, Assault, Engineer, Officer, Marksman and Mountaineer. For those who aren’t familiar with the game, each class has different weapon, gear and perk options that allow you to specialize your play style within the overall focus of the class. For instance, Marksmen are always sharpshooters, but a lot depends on your loadout. You could be a long-range sniper and observer identifying and eliminating high value targets with a scoped rifle, or you could equip body armor to take and hold a front line position with deadly accurate mid-range fire. Every class has choices to make in this regard.
In Isonzo’s signature Offensive game mode, one side must attack and break through multiple defensive lines. Thick layers of barbed wire, trenches, and whatever extra defenses the enemy engineers put together will stand in the way of a successful attack. Objectives can be taking and holding key points, or planting dynamite to sabotage enemy supply stashes or heavy artillery guns.
The new Caporetto map – the first of three in the season – is a huge battlefield based on the strategically important Monte Kolovrat. There are five defensive lines, where each line has two objectives for the attackers before they can advance further. While in the historical Battle of Caporetto both German and Austro-Hungarian forces were involved, in Isonzo we’ve chosen to focus on the German contribution, so the map recreates the stunning German advance from the town of Tolmein all the way to Kolovrat Ridge. It’s a damp, overcast day when the attack begins, and the attackers must first cut their way through lines of wire to break into a devastated town – including capturing a church defended by multiple heavy machine gun positions. Fortunately, in Isonzo there are many tactical options available to deal with such strong points: artillery barrages, smokescreens, snipers, rifle grenades, even poison gas. From there, it becomes a literal uphill battle for the German attackers as they begin to climb towards the peak of Kolovrat Ridge. They’ll need to sabotage bunkers and capture command posts while navigating rocky trenches and steep forested slopes. At the penultimate fourth defensive line there is a huge siege mortar to sabotage and a cluster of houses providing cover to the Italian defenders – then it’s one last climb to reach the final objective: Hill 1114. If the Germans can take it, the Italians will finally be the ones fighting uphill as their reinforcements stream in to try and counterattack.
Of course, things are no walk in the park for the defenders either – although it’s easier to maneuver when going downhill, and it’s much simpler for officers to deploy flares to call in support, the extensive trench lines can become a liability once the Germans get a foothold, providing cover as they advance. Some of the Italian defensive positions can be exposed against the sky, making it easy for German marksmen to pick off targets. Italian engineers should make good use of their construction abilities to put down additional sandbags and lay out extra wire to prevent German assault troops sneaking through the trees to flank trenches with their grenades or light machine guns.
As we mentioned before, historically the Battle of Caporetto was a disaster for the Italians. Appalling leadership led to poorly motivated and unprepared troops falling apart in the face of the combined Austro-Hungarian and German armies using cutting edge infiltration tactics. The Italian soldiers were not allowed to retreat until too late, and in the end hundreds of thousands would surrender. After Caporetto the top Italian general was fired and replaced by someone far more competent, who managed to turn the war around for the Italians. In Isonzo, it’s a more fair fight where both sides have an equal chance of winning, if they can use all the tactical options available better than their opponents.
The release will also bring other improvements to the game, including a prestige mode and higher level cap. Additionally, for those who want more options for visual customization of their character, the Royal Units DLC is releasing alongside the free expansion and contains uniforms from the German Kingdoms of Bavaria and Württemberg. Though part of the German Empire, these states had their own distinctive uniforms which we’ve carefully recreated with the same accuracy and attention to detail as with the other uniforms in the game.
The Battle for Caporetto Begins…
Isonzo is available right now on the Microsoft Store for Xbox, and the free Caporetto expansion is out today! Plenty of time to master the art of mountain warfare before the German Empire joins the action on the Italian Front. Follow us to get the latest development news as we add the finishing touches!
We’ll see you in the trenches!
Isonzo
BlackMill Games
$29.99
World War One expands to the mountains of the Italian Front – beautiful but deadly in equal measure. Inspired by the two year struggle for control of the Isonzo river valley and the Alps during World War One, Isonzo elevates the WW1 Games Series, figuratively and literally.
From the makers of Verdun and Tannenberg…
Take part in historical offensives from the Sixth Battle of the Isonzo to the Strafexpedition. Reflecting the course of the actual battles, as the attackers advance the fighting will shift through vastly different landscapes within a single offensive: from hillside fortresses to mountain trenches and fierce urban combat on city streets. Everything is recreated based on research and field trips, from sound effects and uniforms down to the houses, vineyards and trenches you’ll be fighting over.
The new Offensive game mode puts you right in the middle of key historical offensives on the Italian Front. Lead the charge across stunning Italian landscapes as you choose your path to victory – cut paths through barbed wire, flank your enemies by following mountain trails, or man a mortar to blast a way through. Shape a dynamic battlefield by laying sandbags and wire, placing ammo crates, deploying trench periscopes or sniper shields, and more.
Call in support with a unique historically accurate flare system: flare guns can mark targets for artillery or biplane flybys, or different colored flares can be used to guide your team. Once the big guns have softened up the enemy, finish the job at close quarters with an Arditi dagger or mountaineer’s pickaxe. Man heavy machine guns, mortars and even mountain guns for more direct fire support.
Choose from six classes based on historical combat roles and build your loadout from a selection of weapons, equipment and perks linked to that class, giving flexibility and variety while staying grounded in what real soldiers might have carried. You’ll be operating wire cutters, bandaging yourself and wounded teammates, and blowing the whistle to start an assault. One shot can kill and even lighter injuries can lead to quickly bleeding out.
Being an effective soldier in Isonzo is not just about being a good marksman. Mastering the terrain is also key – the mountain can be a friend or foe. Learn how to navigate well to maintain cover and surprise your enemies or support your allies.
Finally… watch out for the dreaded poison gas. You’ve never experienced WW1 action quite like this!
Isonzo key features include:
• MOUNTAIN WARFARE: Assaulting mountain fortifications, battling through ruined towns, and fording rivers are just a few of the challenges you’ll face as you fight your way through numerous enemy positions
• TACTICAL MULTIPLAYER FPS: Choose your role and loadout carefully to survive this high altitude combat – play a sniper to pick off the enemy engineers before they can cut your wire, use rifle grenades to clear enemy machine guns, and much more
• WORLD WAR ONE GAMEPLAY: Historical Offensive game mode based on real battles and focused on the unique challenges of Alpine warfare. Fight with 30+ WW1 weapons, poisonous gas attacks, and intense artillery barrages
• BUILD FOR VICTORY: Place your own wire, sandbags, trench periscopes, and more! Whether you’re digging in or on the attack, shaping the battlefield to your advantage will be key to victory
• FACES OF WAR: Make every class your own by picking from a variety of historically class-appropriate uniforms, accessories and headgear. As a finishing touch, you can even pick your mustache from several famous period-accurate styles!
• AUTHENTIC WW1 ATMOSPHERE: Accuracy in everything from maps and weaponry to music and the uniforms – fight for the Kingdom of Italy, the German Empire or the Austro-Hungarian Dual Monarchy
MORE GAMES IN THE AUTHENTIC WW1 GAME SERIES
Immerse yourself in more WW1 action with our other standalone titles Tannenberg and Verdun. Experience trench warfare on the Western Front in Verdun, or maneuver for control of key sectors in Tannenberg on the Eastern Front. These authentic WW1 shooters let players choose from a range of squads from across the war, as they fight for control of the ever-changing frontlines.
GAMES
Transport Fever 2: Console Edition is Bringing the Full Transport Tycoon Experience to Xbox
Today, we proudly share a sneak peek into the development of Transport Fever 2: Console Edition, and how we managed to bring the full transport tycoon experience to Xbox.
Transport Fever is a very popular and highly rated transportation tycoon franchise on PC. Its latest entry, Transport Fever 2, delivers a level of size and detail never before seen in the genre. The goal of the game is to build a successful transportation company by constructing railroads, streets, water and air lines. Starting in the 19th century, the player connects towns and industries to transport both passengers and cargo. In addition to a customizable free game mode, there is also a fully-fledged campaign mode with challenging missions set in real-world transportation history.
After the huge success of Transport Fever 2 on PC, it was only logical to bring the experience to consoles as well. Not only that, but no efforts were spared to give the console community the full experience that made the game great on PC. In order to achieve this, the engineers at Urban Games had to pull some rabbits out of their engineers’ hats.
Always providing the freshest layer of paint
One of the most cherished features of Transport Fever 2 are its highly detailed vehicles. The game comes with more than 200 lovingly hand-modeled trains, ships, and airplanes, each sporting multiple 4k textures and normal maps.
On PC, it is easily affordable to have all the models and textures in memory whenever needed, as a typical rig has 16 GB of RAM and a GPU with a dedicated extra memory. Consoles, however, are built differently. They have a unified architecture with an overall smaller amount but ultra-fast memory. The key to make it work on consoles is texture streaming, which allows to clear textures of models that are not in view anymore. Moreover, this technology is used in Transport Fever 2 to constantly load textures at the highest affordable resolution to present the stars of the show, like the classic Class A 3/5 steam locomotive, in their best coat of paint at all times.
Keeping the ground like a console pro
A trademark of Transport Fever 2 are its huge maps. During development of the game, it was always paramount to provide a real sense of scale. The engine should allow for maps where a high-speed train, such as the famous Japanese Shinkansen, can really make use of its superior speed. So, a lot of effort was put into designing a highly effective terrain rendering pipeline that can handle maps of more than 120 sq miles of size with a detail resolution of almost 1 yard. Central to this is a dynamic terrain tessellation algorithm on the CPU that, while costing a bit of extra memory, makes sure the engine can render these maps on a wide variety of PCs.
Now, enter the world of consoles with their incredibly well-designed GPUs and graphic APIs. Here, the hardware can be leveraged very well for terrain rendering by making use of the GPU tessellation feature. This feature generates the render mesh for the terrain fully on the graphics card, saving valuable processing time for the complex economy and city growth simulations. While generating more triangles, the hardware approach still costs less memory overall due to its efficiency. So vast maps can be viewed from a bird’s view high up in the sky and seamlessly zoomed in down to individual rocks on a riverbank.
Inspiring the inner architect
Finally, let’s talk about constructions, a central and defining part of the Transport Fever 2 experience. Constructions are large assemblies that consist of dozens of assets, street segments, ground decals and terrain modifications. Think of structures like airports, train stations, docks, highway crossings, and many more. Anything that is needed to build a vast transportation empire.
For a smooth construction experience, it is key that the player really feels that he has precise control over the building placement. On PC, constructions are typically built using the mouse. As the average PC user is very well adjusted to this method of input, it is sufficiently performant to calculate the entire construction each frame and place it under the cursor. However, on consoles, the best way of building constructions is to have them always kept in the center of the screen and move the camera along the map for placement. And moving the camera needs to be as smooth as silk.
So, for the console release of Transport Fever 2, the construction preview pipeline was overhauled. All dynamic calculations are now performed in the background while a static preview of the structure and its underlying ground plan are shown. Not only are constructions now completely stable in terms of FPS, but they also give feedback to the player on what environment features the construction would tear down when built.
Let’s get tycooning on console
We are very excited to bring the Transport Fever franchise to consoles for the first time ever with the release of Transport Fever 2: Console Edition on Xbox Series X|S and Xbox One in February 2023, and we hope you will enjoy it as much as we did developing it.
Google August Core Update Done, Google Interview, Google Ads & Merchant Center News & The YouTube Algorithm SEO
Plot Up To Five Metrics At Once
Google’s Guidance About The Recent Ranking Update
Google Search Volatility Still Heated After August Core Update Rollout
Daily Search Forum Recap: September 9, 2024
Best US Cities to Start a Business, Entrepreneurship: Report
Mediavine Bans Publisher For Overuse Of AI-Generated Content
Invest in Yourself with a Lifetime of StackSkills Courses for $29.97
Daily Search Forum Recap: September 10, 2024
Expert Embedding Techniques for SEO Success
-
SEARCHENGINES6 days agoGoogle August Core Update Done, Google Interview, Google Ads & Merchant Center News & The YouTube Algorithm SEO
-
SEO6 days agoPlot Up To Five Metrics At Once
-
SEO6 days agoGoogle’s Guidance About The Recent Ranking Update
-
SEARCHENGINES5 days agoGoogle Search Volatility Still Heated After August Core Update Rollout
-
SEARCHENGINES4 days ago
Daily Search Forum Recap: September 9, 2024
-
AFFILIATE MARKETING7 days agoBest US Cities to Start a Business, Entrepreneurship: Report
-
SEO5 days agoMediavine Bans Publisher For Overuse Of AI-Generated Content
-
AFFILIATE MARKETING6 days agoInvest in Yourself with a Lifetime of StackSkills Courses for $29.97
You must be logged in to post a comment Login