Rock, Paper, Shotgun

I’ll admit that I haven’t been back to War of the Roses since shortly after it launched, but maybe now’s finally the time for me to de-rust my steed and feed my armor some of the good carrots. Or wait, no, the other way. Feed my carrots some armor. There we go. Anyway, Paradox’s medieval melee’s seen yet another free content drop – this time taking the form of armor and weaponry forged in the image of the Scottish Gallowglass mercenaries. Apparently, they “brought brute force and fighting spirit to the battlefields like none could,” so probably get ready to smash first and ask only the most necessary of questions. But, even though the update’s named after them, the mercenaryfolk aren’t the main event of today’s update. Rather, it’s complete reworks of core systems – for instance, armor, weapon speed and power, and movement – that stand to make the Middle Ages feel young again.

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I played War of the Roses, and I liked it pretty well. I also died a lot. But before long, I found my ornate steel shoes sloshing through syrupy pools of repetition. There’s only so much frantic deathmatching and all-over-the-place point-capturing you can do before you start to see cracks in War of the Roses’ armor, and that threshold is woefully low compared to other multiplayer fight-o-fests. Fortunately, Fatshark’s throwing its oh-so-characteristically sharky girth into setting things right, and we’re finally about to see the results. Come Wednesday, you’ll be able to take the exceedingly high-stakes Pitched Battle mode for a spin.

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Update: The achievement system has officially been patched in, and it sounds as though many glitches are largely confined to specific hardware configurations. We’ll have our thoughts on the game itself up soon, but in the meantime, the coast appears to be largely clear.

Original article: So Krater sounds really great to me. It’s the silver-tongued sales shark of action-RPGs. “Tired of graybrown, grimdark post-apocalypses?” it asks. “Well, ours has color!” Then it adds “Planning to take another 11 years off from ARPGs after that one with the guy and stuff? Well, we have three guys and stuff. And also permadeath in a mode you don’t have to unlock.” “Sold!” I’d immediately reply, if I didn’t briefly gaze into Krater’s wavering eyes and detect a hint of fear. “What about bugginess and missing features?” I inquire, head cocked to one side. Beads of sweat pooling on its forehead, it stammers out an “Er, um, well, about that… hey, a trailer!”

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