Rock, Paper, Shotgun

I must (and have previously, and will continue to) admit that I wasn’t overly impressed by what I played of The Elder Scrolls Online. One thing that did take me by surprise, however, was all the random doodads lying around that I could just snatch up. One by one, bristling baskets of apples went right into my increasingly delicious pocket. Bread loaves, too. Oh, and bottles and lighting fixtures, because why not? I guess they were all for crafting, but I was just trying to fulfill my gamerly dream of possessing all objects. The latest Elder Scrolls Online video delves into all that and more, which is nice since these are kind of Elder Scrolls cornerstones. And it all looks quite attractive, too! I continue to worry, though, that Zenimax may not entirely be getting the point.

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I may sound somewhat incredulous in the headline, but in the 0.2 seconds it took me to hop down here, I had quite a change of heart. Sure, Wolfenstein’s had multiplayer since Return To Castle Wolfenstein in 2001, but only in Wolfenstein: Enemy Territory did it ever really shine. 2009′s Wolfenstein, meanwhile, didn’t do anything particularly well – multiplayer included. So maybe it’s best left on the cutting room floor in favor of single-player’s, er, Xbox red ring robots, I guess? The recent trailer did a spectacularly bad job of telling us what it’s actually about, so that’s all I’ve got. But yes, multiplayer’s officially out of Wolfenstein: The New Order.

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Word on the grapevine (Twitter) has it that there’ll be some big, noisy game announcement at 2pm, but at the time of writing I have no idea what it would be because no-one tells me anything. Probably because RPS has insulted pretty much everyone by now, but oh well. In the aim of providing vaguely timely news, I have pre-written the below post ready to have relevant keywords inserted and/or removed once I find out what the game in question is. Let’s see how well I do! Edit – nailed it.

[GAME NAME]WOLFENSTEIN: THE NEW ORDER is a REMAKE/SEQUEL/REBOOT/RIVAL/
HOMAGE OF/TO [OLD GAME NAME] WOLFENSTEIN 3D, developed by [COMPANY NAME] MACHINE GAMES and to be published by [COMPANY NAME] BETHESDA.
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[This Elder Scrolls Online post/travel brochure brought to you by Got Your Soul Industries, a subsidiary of Molag Bal, the daedric trickster god.]

COME TO PLEASANTLY BREEZY COLDHARBOUR. Bring your kids! Bring your significant other! Bring your brittle, tenuously tethered soul… wimsuit! Bring your swimsuit. Yes. You thought Skyrim was Tamriel’s number one destination for snow-coated outdoor fun? YOU THOUGHT WRONG AND YOUR LIFE IS FORFEIT. Um, we mean, clearly you haven’t traveled to other planes of existence. You should be more adventurous. Plus, for you native Morrowindians, our trees are all snaky and weird, and you’re in no very little danger of being shouted off a cliff by some crazed dragon hunter. So come join us in Coldharbour, whether you want to ski, snowboard, or have front row seats for the coming End Of Days. We promise, we don’t bite. (Disclaimer: except for Xzanlthor’phlaranx, Dreugh lord of a thousand pointy mouths. He has been known to bite occasionally.)

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What do you keep your evil in, readers? Do you have demonic tupperware? Perhaps an armoire of awfulness? I have a drawer of despair that I open every now and then, just to make sure my pants are not being burned up next to my socks of suffering. Bethesda keep their new survival horror, The Evil Within, within the most evil box of all: IGN [Lightning, sound of booth babes screaming]. They have the ‘exclusive’ first look coming up next week, so all we’re left with is a live-action trailer that shows us nothing of the game. Enjoy!
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That Skyrimajigger, huh? Who’d have thought it’d ever catch on, what with all its burly men, dragons, viking imagery, and infinitely memeable sights and sounds? In an industry that prizes quiet, civil ruminations on modern issues and abhors such savage flights of fancy, the very notion was ludicrous from the get-go. And yet, somehow, for some reason, people ended up thinking it was OK. So Bethesda stuck around and churned out buttery dollops of DLC, even though it desperately wanted to move on to its next speculative installation about a world in which nuclear bombs were never used nor created, and you explore places like Washing D.C. while constantly remarking how normally proportioned all the roaches are. Now, however, Bethesda feels its next big thing demands every last bit of energy it can muster, so Skyrim’s a done deal. Next up, something completely unknown and shrouded in mystery but no seriously it’s probably Fallout 4.

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The headline is a lie, as they so often are, because there is actually a whole lot of Daud in Dishonored’s first proper chunk of DLC. Following the trials thing, which I didn’t bother with and have therefore dismissed completely, Knife of Dunwall is just what Dr DLC ordered. The player controls Daud, who will have “a unique arsenal of new weapons and powers that enhance Dishonored’s dynamic combat, mobility and stealth systems”. While Dunwall itself may be Dishonored’s finest achievement, and I look forward to seeing new districts in this DLC, I’m increasingly convinced that the fluidity of motion – whether sliding, climbing or striking – has somewhat spoiled other first-person games for me. Here’s a trailer, whaler.

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We’ve got acres of Elder Scrolls Online coverage due to hit you in the face (n.b. this is an analogy for ‘reading words on a screen’ – RPS solemnly pledges not to hit any of its readers in the face) later today and tomorrow, as Nathan’s just got back from playing it, but lest it be drowned out by wordsplosion, it’s worth stating THE BIG LOUD NOISY HEADLINE on its own too. Which is that Bethesda have reinstated an Elder Scrolls-traditional first-person mode into their MMO. The internet got pretty internetty when the game was initially revealed to be lacking this TES mainstay, but now it’s back in there, visible hands and all.
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