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Ubisoft Announces Tom Clancy's The Divisions : HeartLand free to play
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Ubisoft's The Division franchise has been quite successful, especially after the release of the second game. Now the French developer announced plans to expand the franchise with a brand new game in the same universe: Tom Clancy's The Division: Heartland.
“In the past 5 years, The Division has grown from a very ambitious project at Ubisoft, to a world-renowned franchise reaching 40 million unique players. We are very proud of what our teams have accomplished with this franchise and the amazing universe they have created. The potential and depth of this enables us to explore new and exciting content that will please loyal long-term fans of The Division and new ones alike,” explained Alain Corre, Executive Director of Ubisoft EMEA.
Tom Clancy’s The Division: Heartland is a free-to-play game set in The Division universe, which is developed by Red Storm Entertainment, a studio with close ties to the Tom Clancy licenses, who have also worked on The Division and The Division 2. Ubisoft confirmed that The Division: Heartland will be a standalone experience and that the game will release on PlayStation, Xbox, and PC in 2021-22.
For those who still play The Division 2, Ubisoft will release new content as part of an update coming late 2021. Ubisoft Massive, with support from Ubisoft Bucharest, is leading the development of this new content that will include an entirely new game mode and new methods for leveling agents with an emphasis on increasing build variety and viability.
Last but not least, The Division is also expanding its transmedia offering, with the previously announced film, starring Jessica Chastain and Jake Gyllenhaal, in development with Netflix, also announcing an upcoming original novel published by Aconyte.
The story will be set after the events of The Division 2 and will explore how the Outbreak affects different regions of the United States as agents fight to secure supply routes.
In other news, Ubisoft announced plans to take The Division franchise to mobile, bringing the universe to an even wider audience.
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Tom Clancy's The Division 2 - Official Gameplay Trailer
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dRGw_8xePZ8
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Assassin's Creed Valhalla: Wrath Of The Druids DLC - Yay or Nay
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Wrath of the Druids is the first major expansion for Assassin's Creed Valhalla, and while it's a standalone experience, you must have played the base game for at least a dozen hours to be able to jump into the new DLC.
To be able to play Wrath of the Druids you must have completed at least one of the main story arcs in England. It's also recommended to be at least at power level 55 before going to Ireland because everything in the new expansion is set at this power level.
It doesn't matter that your Eivor is much more powerful, Wrath of the Druids will synchronize your character with the challenges ahead, but not if your power level is lower than 55, so you've been warned.
In Wrath of the Druids, players are summoned by one of the smaller kings of Ireland, who also happens to be Eivor's cousin. Barid chose Christianity to be recognized by the High-King of Ireland, Flann Sinna, as the rightful ruler of Dublin, but that didn't gain the king's trust as well.
That's where Eivor comes in, as Barid sends his most trusted counselor, Azar, a one-eyed trader from the Middle East, to ask for your help. If you finished one story arc in England and own the new DLC, you'll find Azar in your settlement near the dock.
If you liked Assassin's Creed Valhalla, you'll love Wrath of the Druids. The expansion has a similar gameplay loop that requires players to do a bunch of repetitive side quests to advance the main story. In this case, they're called Royal Demands and reward you with some much-needed resources that will allow you to upgrade Dublin, your main settlement.
Every Royal Demand requires you to retrieve an item or assassinate one or more enemies. The catch is that each comes with secondary objectives like completing your mission without being detected or not killing anyone. For each secondary objective successfully cleared, you'll get boosted rewards.
Just like in the base game, throughout your adventures in Ireland, you'll clash axes with a mysterious cult of druids called Children of Danu. The cult is tied to the main story, so I won't go into details. However, I will say that killing all cultists will lead to an interesting outcome, so I'd strongly suggest doing that if you have the time.
Obviously, Wrath of the Druids is all about druids, so let's talk a bit about the new enemies you'll encounter in Ireland. Well, there are several types of druids that employ different fighting tactics (some even have their own pet companions), but none have been designed in the traditional D&D sense.
Just about all of them are fighters first and magic users second, so brute force will work whenever facing the fearsome druids. They're very nimble and many times they use hallucinogenic substances or poison. Some of these hallucinogenic substances can even make you see your enemies differently, like wolves can turn into werewolves (for real), so there's a bit of strategy involved whenever fighting certain types of druids.
Then we have the brunt of the Irish army: man-at-arms, elite warriors, spearmen, etc. They're not really a threat for Eivor when facing alone, but in great numbers they could pose quite a challenge, so don't ever get surrounded unless you want to.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nhdnos2tPYI&t=10s
Ireland is split into four territories, which you'll end up exploring in detail throughout the campaign. There aren't too many story-based side quests in the expansion, and that's a good thing since it means we're getting less bloat.
There's one activity in Wrath of the Druids that you'll find yourself involved in more than anything: trading. You see, there are trade hubs spread throughout Ireland, which you'll have to find and rebuild to get the resources that you need to upgrade Dublin.
Each Trade Post will give you a certain type of commodity, which you will need to fulfill requests coming from main trade hubs across the globe. The more requests you manage to fulfill, the faster you'll be able to upgrade your settlement.
Unfortunately, I didn't find any difference between having a level 1 renown Dublin and a maxed-out settlement. It shouldn't affect the outcome of your main campaign, but having a level 5 renown Dublin is required for the platinum if you're a completionist.
It took me around 17 hours to finish Wrath of the Druids and I've done a fair share of the side quests, but if you're going for the platinum, you're probably looking at an 25-hour gameplay time.
Conclusion
Wrath of the Druids feels like a micro-version of the base game. It brings a handful of new enemies and, more importantly, interesting new characters. The trading mechanics are interesting, but I did not find them rewarding enough to worth my time. Sure, you get a lot of new gear and cosmetic items, but most players will be overgeared for Ireland anyway.
Story-wise, Wrath of the Druids is compelling enough to make you want to play through the end, but don't expect any major plot twist. Visually, Ireland is really beautiful, and many times I found myself exploring “just one more” point of interest so that I can admire the scenery.
The best thing about Wrath of the Druids is that you can play it without having to finish Assassin's Creed Valhalla, which is a humongous game. I do recommend the first expansion to all those who liked the base game, but I would definitely wait for a sale. Wrath of the Druids launches on May 13 and costs €25 / $25, which I think is too steep a price to pay for what it has to offer. If price isn't a concern to you or you've already bought the Season Pass, then, by all means, get into it, it's good.
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Valve Could Launch a Portable Gaming PC
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(Illustration by Rafael Henrique/SOPA Images/LightRocket via Getty Images)Valve is reportedly working on a new device that would bring PC gaming to portable hardware running Linux. While a number of specifics are still unknown, there does appear to be a handheld gaming initiative underway at Valve, Ars Technica reports. The new device has shown up in Valve’s Steam code as the “SteamPal” as first spotted by Pavel Djundik of SteamDB.
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A couple of new games are coming to Microsoft Game Pass this month
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Microsoft used its Xbox E3 livestreamed event Sunday to talk about most of the games we wanted to hear about: Starfield, Halo Infinite, Stalker 2 and even Diablo II Remastered. But what was especially interesting was how many of the games mentioned by the Xbox team at E3 2021 are coming to Xbox Game Pass, the console, PC and cloud game-subscription service.
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Diablo II: Resurrected Will Launch on Sept. 23
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It’s almost time for your next trip to the mystical realm of Sanctuary. Blizzard has announced that Diablo II: Resurrected will launch on September 23rd. This release will bring the iconic story and gameplay of this piece of gaming history to modern hardware. Blizzard has also made numerous quality-of-life improvements, but the save file structure is unchanged. Yes, you can hop right back into your old game.
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Amazon prohibits reviews from customers who receive free products
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There was, of course, a catch. Club members had to buy the products and write a review for Amazon, where they were sold. Then, the purchases would be refunded.
"In this group, we will always offer you wonderful and excellent products for free trial," Zhong posted to Club Ki-Fair. She didn't say the reviews needed to be positive, but the group's members showed nothing but excitement for the products she offered.
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Biggest games of 2021: The PlayStation, Xbox and Switch
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After a slow start to the year, games like Resident Evil Village, New Pokemon Snap and Mass Effect: Legendary Edition, breathed life into gaming's 2021. And after E3 in June, we now have a much better idea of what the second half of the year will look like. We have new Metroid, Forza and Marvel games to look forward to -- as well as an updated Switch model, announced in July.
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Steam Deck Ship Dates Slip Into Q3 2022
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Valve only just opened reservations for its Steam Deck to anyone over the weekend, and the wait times are already up to six months long in some cases. As of this writing, the Steam Deck 64GB and 256GB models have an estimated availability date of Q2 2022, while the Steam Deck 512GB model is delayed until Q3 2022.
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