Baldur’s Gate 3’s romance system is one of the game’s most famous and popular features, and while Avowed’s choice not to have a romance system of its own may raise a few eyebrows, director Carrie Patel expressed her confidence during an interview at EGX that the game is better off without one.

The latest RPG from the storied Obsidian Entertainment, taking place in the same universe as its Pillars of Eternity series, Avowed is currently on course to release early next year. While excitement for the game is high, comparisons are already being drawn between it and Larian Studios' triumphant 2023 hit, Avowed is set to follow its own path, focusing on only four well-written companions, with the lack of romance being key to how players will experience their stories.

“It’s a ton of work”, Patel notes, on romance systems. “You want to make sure you do it right. And part of that is also you want to make sure that a player who opts not to romance but still wants to have a very deep relationship with those companions gets to have just as thorough and meaningful an experience on a friendship or ally path as [if] they went on a romance path. And so we felt that we could best tell our companions' stories and our players' relationships with them without the romance option”

For the Avowed team, ensuring that all of their companions are equally fleshed out, and their stories can be experienced equally by all players is key to the game’s story, and by extension, key to players’ experiences. “With the four companions we wanted them to all have key roles in the story, different party roles, different personalities, and ways that they compliment each other and let them tell the story of the Living Lands to the player”, Patel explains.

The lack of a romance system is particularly important with regards to one companion, who Patel explains is in a relationship, something which is key to their development over the course of the game. “[It] isn't a story that I think you often get to see in a lot of games with a party member who's travelling with you”, she begins “and so one thing players will really get to explore with here is kind of how she navigates having her heart in one place, while knowing that she really needs to be here”.

At the end of the day, Avowed and Baldur’s Gate 3 are, of course, different games, and while Patel accepts that romance “works very well in some games”, that is not necessarily the case with Avowed. Though comparisons between the RPGs are unlikely to go away anytime soon, Patel remains confident that Avowed’s quality will inevitably do the talking. “Players will always respond well to a really good character.”

Pocketpair, the developers of the popular game Palworld have revealed the details behind the recent lawsuit filed against them by Nintendo and The Pokémon Company. The lawsuit alleges that Palworld infringes on multiple patents owned by both Nintendo and The Pokémon Company. Pals!

Palworld rose to prominence following it’s release on Steam and Xbox Game Pass in game preview at the start of this year. It was immediately compared to the popular Pokémon games, with a focus on catching ‘pals’ and taming them for the player to enslave, do battle with and more.

Following the lawsuit that was filed back in X, Pocketpair have now revealed via a press release that it focuses on three patents that were filed only this year by Nintendo and The Pokémon Company, listed as “Patent No. 7545191, Patent No. 7493117 and Patent No. 7528390” but that they sit under an existing ‘parent’ patent, which was actually filed back in 2021. Palworld reveals the details.

The ‘parent’ patent in this instance is focused on the capture of creatures by throwing an item, and that once captured, would be owned by the player.

Nintendo and The Pokémon Company are seeking an injunction against Palworld, in addition to fines and late payment damages.

Pocketpair have once again asserted that they will fight – stating that “We will continue to assert our position in this case through future legal proceedings“.

Do you think Pocketpair have a case? Are Nintendo being big ol’ jerks? Let us know in the comments.

Smoking barrels.

As we spoke about yesterday, Stalker 2 is now less than two weeks away from releasing on Xbox Game Pass - and the team has just gone into detail on the game's arsenal of weaponry ahead of its launch.

As showcased above in the game's new 'Smoking Barrels' trailer, developer GSC Game World has detailed exactly what gear you can get yours hands on in the wastelands of Stalker 2 this month. Since its announcement, this game's gunplay has looked impressive - and we're even more excited to properly go hands on with it after this new trailer.

Read the full article on purexbox.com

A new report claims that Amazon is officially developing a TV show based on Bioware’s hit sci-fi franchise, Mass Effect. This follows previous reports indicating that Amazon wanted to make a Mass Effect show. Seems the retail giant is finally doing it.

Not sure how I feel about this.

Take-Two has sold indie publisher Private Division to an unknown buyer in the wake of shuttering Roll7 and Intercept Games, saying that it wants to focus on its core and mobile businesses going forward. While virtually all of Private Division's live and unreleased games will go to the new buyer, Take-Two says it will continue to support No Rest for the Wicked, the recently-released action RPG from Moon Studios that's currently in early access.

Take-Two announced the move during Wednesday's earnings results, saying in a statement, "We are grateful for the contributions that the Private Division team has made to our company and are confident that they will continue to achieve success in their new home."

The Private Division sale follows Take-Two's decision to wind down indie studios Roll7 and Intercept Games, both of which operated under the label's umbrella. An IGN report at the time revealed Take-Two's plans to offload the label and that it had found interest from a private equity firm, with discussions faciliated by individuals with connnections to Moon Studios leadership. It's unclear whether that firm ultimately followed through on its interest.

Private Division was founded in 2017 with the goal of provide funding and support to "triple-I" game such as The Outer Worlds. Its upcoming releases include Tales of the Shire, the cozy Lords of the Rings game that was recently delayed into 2025, and an untitled action-adventure game from Game Freak codenamed Project Bloom.

Take-Two has spent much of 2024 trying to sell Private Division, telling employees in April that it would no longer support the label and laying off many of its employees. A small group has remained to continue support No Rest for the Wicked as well as Private Division's other upcoming games. Take-Two, for its part, is turning even more of its focus toward Grand Theft Auto VI, which it still expects to release in fall 2025.

"Command your insect legions in epic battles".

One of the games from our November 2024 Xbox releases roundup that we've been keeping an eye on, but haven't really delved into here at Pure Xbox, is Empire of the Ants. This is described as a "photorealistic, third-person real-time strategy game" in which it's your job to lead an army and compete in battles throughout a microscopic world.

There's a lot to like about this game on paper, such as its beautiful Unreal Engine 5 graphics, its potential for epic "tactical and strategic" conquests, and the fact that it supports both solo play and online multiplayer with others.

Microsoft's Xbox Game Pass titles for November are:

Metal Slug Tactics (Cloud, Console, and PC) - 5th November (Game Pass Ultimate, PC Game Pass)

Go Mecha Ball (Console) - 6th November (Now with Game Pass Standard)

Harold Halibut (Xbox Series X S) - 6th November (Now with Game Pass Standard)

The Rewinder (Console) - 6th November (Now with Game Pass Standard)

Turnip Boy Robs a Bank (Console) - 6th November (Now with Game Pass Standard)

Goat Simulator Remastered (Cloud, PC, and Xbox Series X S) - 7th November (Game Pass Ultimate, PC Game Pass)

Microsoft Flight Simulator 2024 (Cloud, PC, and Xbox Series X S) - 19th November (Game Pass Ultimate, PC Game Pass)

Xbox Game Pass games leaving on 15th November:

Dicey Dungeons (Cloud, Console, and PC)

Dungeons 4 (Cloud, Console, and PC)

Goat Simulator (PC)

Like a Dragon: Ishin! (Cloud, Console, and PC)

Like a Dragon: The Man Who Erased His Name (Cloud, Console, and PC)

Persona 5 Tactica (Cloud, Console, and PC)

Somerville (Cloud, Console, and PC)

Review aggregation site Metacritic has spoken out in response to the ongoing review bombing of Dragon Age: The Veilguard by online commenters upset at the game's inclusive characters and themes.

BioWare's latest Dragon Age epic holds a "generally favourable" review average of 84 on Metacritic, based on a consensus of 54 critics' scores.

But the game's Metacritic user score is listed as just 3.8 out of 10, with a majority of user opinions falling in the starkly negative range. Looking at some of the most recent reviews at the time of writing, these include numerous scores of zero out of 10 for content in the game repeatedly described as "woke".

"Awful dialogue and obviously some woke agenda psyop," reads a zero out of 10 review from one user. "This is censorship at its worst."

"Woke kill the game," wrote another user who rated the game with a zero. "But gameplay is nice."

"This is what happens when you try to force push DEI [Diversity, equity, and inclusion] and sexual ideology in a fantasy game," wrote a third, who also scored the game with a zero.

Countless other examples are also visible, some of which include slurs and abuse we won't reproduce here. A number of commenters note they are leaving repeat responses as their earlier ratings have been deleted, presumably by Metacritic moderators.

By contrast, the 13,006 user reviews for Dragon Age: The Veilguard currently on Steam - which requires you actually play the game before leaving a review - are "Mostly Positive".

Dragon Age: The Veilguard features a companion character who identifies as non-binary, who the game's protagonist Rook can be supportive of. Rook themselves can also identify as transgender if the player chooses.

In a statement to Eurogamer acknowledging the backlash to Dragon Age: The Veilguard on its site, a spokesperson for Metacritic parent company Fandom said its site was a "place of belonging for all fans".

"We take online trust and safety very seriously across all our sites including Metacritic," the spokesperson said. "Metacritic has a moderation system in place to track violations of our terms of use. Our team reviews each and every report of abuse (including but not limited to racist, sexist, homophobic, insults to other users, etc) and if violations occur, the reviews are removed."

Last year, Fandom confirmed to Eurogamer it was "evolving [its] processes and tools to introduce stricter moderation" following similar reactions to Horizon Forbidden West's DLC, Burning Shores.

"It is the strongest and loudest answer BioWare could have mustered for the people still doubting whether it could do it," our Bertie wrote in Eurogamer's Dragon Age: The Veilguard review. "The answer is yes, emphatically. The Veilguard is spectacular. BioWare is back."

Hey all, it's the time of the year where my subs are running out. Wondering if I should change things up. Right now I have drunkenslug, nzbfinder, geekhub, and nbz.su. Any suggestions on new/better sites?

The decade-long wait for another game in BioWare's epic fantasy series has paid off big time as the newly released Dragon Age: The Veilguard is already breaking records.

After its own rocky development journey, Dragon Age: The Veilguard finally released just yesterday to both solid reviews and a record number of players on Steam. According to SteamDB estimates, the fourth Dragon Age game pulled in more than 70,000 concurrent players who were fighting to protect the Veil all at the same time. The RPG has also topped the platform's 'Top Sellers' chart and even passed Call of Duty: Black Ops 6 on the list.

Publisher EA is probably chuffed since The Veilguard is now its one of its biggest single-player launches on the platform, narrowly passing Star Wars Jedi Survivor's peak concurrent numbers, which were already impressive a year ago, but not quite reaching The Sims 4's 96,000 peak record - and who can blame 'em? It's The Sims.

Developer BioWare can still throw a party and call the game a record-breaker since it did set a new record for the studio itself. The Veilguard overtook Mass Effect: Legendary Edition's 59,000-player peak to become the company's biggest Steam release of all time.

We don't fully know how The Veilguard is stacking up alongside BioWare's biggest hits, however. EA famously stopped releasing games on Steam in 2011, and only began again in 2019, so we don't actually have a concrete idea of how big the crowds were for Mass Effect 3 or Dragon Age: Inquisition on launch day. Either way, after a decade of low points from Anthem and Mass Effect: Andromeda to internal troubles and layoffs, it's good to see the storied studio find success doing what it does best.

I haven't personally played it yet but I'm hearing a lot of mixed reactions. Mostly about inclusion and diversity related things. Anyone play? What are your thoughts?

After a year on sale, Alan Wake 2 is finally close to recouping the money Remedy spent on developing and marketing the game...