First things first: If you’re coming in here for the usual onslaught of trailers, you’re not going to find much this week. Most anything worth anything aired last night during the 2016 Game Awards, and we’ve rounded all those up over here for you. That leaves the barest of leftovers for our wrap-up this week.
In non-trailer news, Titanfall 2 is free this weekend, Rocket League is getting a new Halo-esque map, Pathologic emerges from the Kickstarter cave, and Grand Theft Auto IV got patched. Yes, that’s GTA IV, not GTA V.
This is gaming news for November 28 through December 2.
Play time
Time for our weekly “What’s Free This Weekend?” segment. And as we roll into December, EA’s getting everyone into the holiday spirit with a free multiplayer demo for Titanfall 2. It’s uh…apparently not selling too well despite being pretty good. As in, “a quarter of the copies of the original” not well. I guess that’s what happens when you launch between Battlefield and Call of Duty.
But that shouldn’t stop you from playing! Titanfall 2’s multiplayer may not have won me away from Battlefield 1, but it’s a decent evolution of the original game and definitely a fine way to spend a weekend. The free weekend lasts through December 4.
Mouse and keyboard
Not-so-free but just as important: Gears of War 4 is hosting a cross-play experiment this weekend. The game launched with cross-play enabled only for co-op modes, but for the next few days the game will pit controller users and mouse-and-keyboarders against each other. Or as they put it:
“This test is being conducted to evaluate the potential of a more permanent Crossplay solution in the future to allow Windows 10 and Xbox One gamers to play together in Versus outside of Private Matches. Crossplay is divisive in any Versus experience, and Gears of War 4 is no different. From the beginning, we stated our intention to keep both platforms separate in non-cooperative game modes in order to preserve competitive balance. Conserving a fair, competitive environment remains a top priority for us.”
This is your chance to prove all the “Mouse and keyboard is more accurate” smack talk is correct and trounce some console-ites. Good luck.
Disastrous
We’ve shown off a bunch of trailers for the new Cities: Skylines expansion, Natural Disasters, but none quite as disastrous as this one—by which I mean a bunch of cities get wrecked. Perfect.
War has changed
This is more PSA than news, but I have one hell of a soft spot for Darksiders, and the appallingly-named-but-very-pretty Darksiders: Warmastered Edition released this week. If you owned Darksiders already, the remaster is in your Steam library. If not, it’s only $4 right now. Highly recommend it. It’s the best Zelda game I’ve ever played. Here’s a trailer in glorious 4K:
Grand Theft Auto…IV?
The PC port of Grand Theft Auto IV: Niko Goes Bowling is legendary for being hot garbage, but now it’s slightly less garbage thanks to a patch this week—the game’s first patch in six years. Hallelujah. It’s still got that Games for Windows Live stink all over it though.
Pray for Prey
We got another look at Prey during The Game Awards, but if that’s still not enough then here’s eight minutes of commented game footage for you to pore over:
Battle on more fronts
Anyone still playing Star Wars Battlefront? Well if so, there’s one final piece of DLC coming soon in the lead-up to Star Wars: Rogue One. And no surprise, it’s tied into Rogue One, specifically the tropical planet of Scarif.
Oh, and if you hadn’t already guessed, EA confirmed to Videogamer.com that there will be no Battlefield next year as DICE gears up for Battlefront uh…2? 4? Not sure what numbering scheme they’ll go with yet, though hopefully they don’t ask whoever named Battlefield 1.
Rocket League Part 16
Will I ever get tired of writing about Rocket League expansions? Maybe in the future, but not today. This time, it’s a brand new (and free for everyone) map, Starbase Arc, which has you playing on basically the Halo from—you guessed it!—Halo. Check it out:
A pox on your house
The Kickstarted remake of Pathologic is apparently coming along fine, with developer Ice Pick Lodge releasing a series of short teaser videos this week (and a demo today to those who pledged $80 or more). I’m only going to share one, but there are more on the developer’s YouTube page. It looks suitably creepy.
And if you’ve never heard of Pathologic, start here. I’ll take any opportunity to link that series.
That seems like a good note to end the week on. See you back here next Friday.