Table of contents for Issue 262 in Hyper

DEVELOPER: UBISOFT MONTREAL PRODUCER: UBISOFT PLATFORM: PC, PS4, XBO RELEASE DATE: TBA Three of history’s greatest warrior-types going at it sounds like the setting of a kid’s (read: my) bedroom. Surely the only way to claim the 'Ultimate Warrior' crown is to mush the plastic bodies of action figures together until one ends up victorious? But it seems Ubisoft Montreal has found a better path, taking up the cry of, “Chronology be damned!” with an attempt to create the most historically accurate, albeit chronologically inaccurate, competitive hack and slasher, to date. Thanks to a strong focus on each faction’s unique fighting style, this could be the definitive place for Vikings, Knights and Samurai to strut their stuff, creating intense individual bouts that put my epic plastic duels to shame. CLASH…

DEVELOPER: CREATIVE ASSEMBLY PUBLISHER: SEGA PLATFORM: PC, MAC, LINUX RELEASE DATE: 24 MAY, 2016 From the Shogun era to Medieval England, Total War has always offered a real-world basis. Yet the latest outing is about as far in the opposite direction as you can go, bringing monsters, magic and high fantasy from Warhammer’s colourful world. But that hasn't scared off the team at Creative Assembly, already having committed to two future standalone instalments alongside a flurry of additional content packs. A HAMMY LOT Players will be able to get behind one of four fantasy armies: the Empire, the Dwarfs (not Dwarves), the Greenskins and the Vampire Counts, with each team being led by one of eight legendary lords from Warhammer Fantasy Battles. The Greenskins, for example, can either choose to…

DEVELOPER: PARADOX DEVELOPMENT STUDIO PRODUCER: PARADOX INTERACTIVE PLATFORM: PC, MAC, LINUX RELEASE DATE: 2016 It’s hard to find more enthusiastic Word War II nerds than Paradox. Since the early 2000s, the team has built three games that focus purely on the earth-shattering period between 1936 and 1948. Originally pegged to be released halfway through last year, their fourth instalment is almost upon us, having been pushed back a few times in order to refine the overwhelming amount of options that the new game provides. This time around, multiplayer games can house up to 32 players at a time with matches capable of running for 10+ hours in either competitive or cooperative bouts. This is because any nation involved in the conflict is now playable, from the smallest countries trying to…

Perhaps you have seen one of the many documentaries about the astonishing super-weapons that the Germans hoped would help them win World War II. The Third Reich boasted an incredible string of high-tech firsts: jet fighters, stealth fighters, wire-guided missiles, cruise missiles, ballistic missiles, and mega-tanks galore. They were even trying to make nukes. Historians are still figuring out just how advanced the Nazi nuclear program was, but there are multiple sources claiming they conducted at least two atomic tests. So why didn't any of these wunderbar Wonder Weapons help the Germans? Because with maybe one or two exceptions they all cost far more than they were worth in terms of R&D time, manufacturing capacity, raw materials, and opportunity cost. V2 rockets were technological marvels, but as a practical means…

War. War never changes. It’s the phrase we expect to hear uttered by the inimitably smooth Ron Perlman with every new instalment in the Fallout franchise. But how often is this simple platitude ever truly explored by the series? I felt like the recent Fallout 4 used the line somewhat insincerely; just something there for brand recognition. Certainly, its Taken-esque, tried-and-true plot about the quest for a missing child with some of the same rusty old Asimovian questions about artificial intelligence thrown in did nothing to explore the game’s by-now famous opening statement. New Vegas, however, is another story entirely. New Vegas takes place in the Mojave desert, where a battle for control of the Hoover Dam, and therefor Vegas itself, is taking place between the New California Republic, a…

Console wars don’t carry as much meaning as they used to. Exclusives still exist, but most of the massive third-party releases are made available across systems. These days opting for one console over another might mean that you get Tomb Raider a bit earlier, or that Activision will give you those Call of Duty maps you already paid for a little sooner. Nintendo’s off running their own race, and no one puts as much effort into slagging the competition off as they used to. But the console wars of my childhood were a different matter. They were brutal, dirty affairs. Franchises were torn away from their home consoles. Polygon counts were argued over. Local propaganda rags (agnostic Hyper notwithstanding) churned us all up. Shit got real, friends. I’ve recently recovered…

Wargaming.net knows what it means to create niche games. In 1998, Victor Kislyi co-founded the company in Belarus, with a handful of enthusiast friends from high school whose initial development ideas revolved around improving on strategy juggernauts such as Civilization and Warcraft. Because of this, Wargaming was initially focused on PC-exclusive multiplayer strategy titles. DBA Online, the company’s maiden title, was a licensed digitised version of a tabletop game with 1,300 hand-painted units. This paved the way for Wargaming’s first original IP, Massive Assault, with another three releases in the series in as many years. Then Wargaming expanded. It bought out fellow Minsk-based studio Arise, and focused on creating real-time strategy series Order of War, with back-to-back titles released in 2009 and 2010. It was during this time that household-name…

DEVELOPER: GEARBOX SOFTWARE PRODUCER: 2K GAMES PLATFORM: PC, PS4, XBO RELEASE DATE: 3 MAY, 2016 Here at Hyper we have issues with being objective about Borderlands. Nothing shady is going down, it’s just we love it so damn much. Editor Wilks has put more time into Borderlands 2 than anyone thought humanly possibly, and I’ve championed Roland and Axton more than could be considered healthy — variation may be the spice of life for some but, y'know, turrets. Needless to say, we have huge expectations when it comes to Battleborn. At first, the game looked like Gearbox's own MOBA, but to pigeonhole it in such a way is not only lazy but downright wrong. FLAVOUR CITY The MOBA element comes from Meltdown, one of Battleborn’s three multiplayer modes. This mode…

DEVELOPER: THE COALITION PRODUCER: MICROSOFT STUDIOS PLATFORM: XBO RELEASE DATE: Q3 2016 Since the departure of lead designer Cliff “Cliffy B” Beszinski, Gears of War has sat stagnant. Gears of War: Judgment came and went, offering an experience that can only be described as “meh”, with the series existing in that long exhale until E3 last year where it was announced Epic was no longer on board. The buck has now been passed to Microsoft-owned company The Coalition, putting its future in an interesting position. A new era of Gears of War is on the way, leaving a lot to speculate on and even more to anticipate. One thing’s for sure: change is on the way, and what that means is anyone’s guess. WHO LOVES YA BABY? Twenty-five years have…

Very few war games present the USA as the underdog, as the side being overrun by a more powerful, more advanced and more determined military foe. Where guns and tanks are concerned, the star-spangled banner is typically found flying high and mighty above videogame battlefields as a symbol of all-conquering righteousness and invulnerability. Whenever the flag is found languishing in the digital mud, then, it pays to take extra notice as a game that dares to present it in this way is likely one prepared to take risks. Risks don't always pay off, but when they do they can result in some of the most striking and worthwhile changes a medium could possibly enjoy. Without risks progress is fleeting. Homefront: The Revolution is taking such a risk, depicting a future…

Books, films, and videogames are a reflection of the world around us. They can capture the mood of an era, and reflect both its darkest fears and greatest aspirations. Glance back to the early '80s, and the mood was decidedly nervous. The biggest story in town was the renewed Cold War animosity between the Soviet Union and the USA, and the very real fear that we were one button press away from nuclear war. This international rivalry inspired and influenced a generation of games, providing the narrative for titles like Missile Command, Raid Over Moscow, Rush'n Attack, and countless others. In the process, it offered impressionable kids a not very subtle lesson in geopolitics and the grand theory of Mutually Assured Destruction. The Soviet Union may be long gone, but…

The Formosa LAN centre was a hive of villainy and headshots. Located on Brisbane’s south side, in one the city’s more ethnically diverse neighbourhoods, it was part of a shopping strip that did a passable impression of downtown Taipei. In a world of white picket fences and boring neighbourhoods that turned the lights out at 9pm, this neon-lit outpost provided an escape from the mundane. A place where you could drink $5 bottles of Passion Pop and watch the world through a cloud of smoke, while perched outside the all-night pool hall. And if there was nothing else going on you could always head up to Formosa LAN, pay your money, and have access to virtually any game under the sun (copyright laws be damned). The first time I was…

DEVELOPER: POCKETWATCH GAMES PRODUCER: POCKETWATCH GAMES PLATFORM: PC, MAC, LINUX RELEASE DATE: TBA 2016 Sometimes real-time strategy games can be a little overwhelming. There’s nothing wrong with having a hugely engrossing game to fall into, but when every game relies on how many attacks per minute, clicks per second, or macros per millisecond you’re able to achieve, things can get carpal tunnel crazy. Tooth and Tail plans to simplify this, selling itself as an arcade RTS that’s easy to pick up and play. All matches sit under 12 minutes, and the gameplay itself utilises only four buttons, making it just as comfortable to play on a gamepad as it is with a keyboard and mouse. SUPPLY AND DEMAND Simplifying controls doesn’t mean the game is light on. While the devs…

DEVELOPER:BEHAVIOUR INTERACTIVE PUBLISHER: BANDAI NAMCO ENTERTAINMENT PLATFORM: PC, PS4, XBO DUE: 2016 After the death of THQ in early 2013, the hopes and dreams of many died. The Warhammer 40k MMO that fans of the franchise, and of MMOs in general, had been anticipating for years died with the distributor. Now, three years later another 40k MMO has entered early access and shows definite promise for fans of the grim dark future. The current early access code gives players access to two factions, Space Marines and Chaos Marines, and pits them against each other in team-based multiplayer featuring a variety of classes, weapon loadouts and vehicles. As it stands, Eternal Crusade feels somewhat like a more simplistic version of a Battlefield game but it’s more proof of concept than it…

"EVEN THE INDUSTRY'S NONVIOLENT EXAMPLES ARE ABOUT PITTING YOURSELF AGAINST AN ENEMY AND CONQUERING THEM" If we want to get biblical about it, war — or at least, violence — has been around since Cain and Abel. The first actual war occurs shortly afterwards, when the Bible says an alliance of kings including Amraphel, Arioch, Chedorlaomer and Tidal waged war against Bera, Birsha, Shinab and a chap called Shemeber. If you believe the names, at least. Just stories, of course, but battle has been a part of the human experience since we stepped out of the primordial ooze. Survival of the fittest, and all that. Archaeologists have found examples of prehistoric warfare between hunter-gatherer groups from 10,000 years ago — including a rock painting in northern Australia depicting intergroup conflict.…

'War is hell', said William Tecumseh Sherman. Who was kind of a madman but he killed a lot of slavers so that's ok. But the thing is, unless war is affecting you, it's not hell. It's actually really, really interesting. They're fiendishly complex beasts, wars. You're organising thousands, millions, of people. You're feeing them, clothing them, arming them, moving them. And then, you're killing them. Sad trombone... In the real world, such logistics are boring. A constant, endless stream of 'If a train comes from Canberra at 100 KPH how soon until it meets a train coming from Sydney at 200 KPH' mixed with a mum's dispiriting shopping list. I dunno. Maybe that's fun for you. But you should leave the house, maybe meet someone. Within the context of a…

Not enough has been made of how bizarre the plot of Black Ops III is. The game came out, reviewers and fans noted that the story was confusing and that the writing was bad, and everyone moved on. But Black Ops III isn’t just a poorly written game — it’s baffling to the point of actually being scary. If you keep in mind as you play that this all came out of human brains, and made it into the biggest game release of the year, it’s terrifying… but terrifying in a wonderful sort of way. Calls of Duty plots have bounced all over the place since Modern Warfare’s genuinely thoughtful pastiche of recent global conflicts, but Black Ops III is perhaps the most ambitious game in the series, story-wise. It…

Strategy is a prominent part of our gaming lives. Whether violent, jovial or downright silly, most games we play require some form of planning. With so many games dropping in today’s climate, sometimes it’s hard to stay on top of all the different ways to win. Luckily the old masters have our backs, and Chinese war genius Sun Tzu opted to share his pearls of wisdom rather than shout hurtful abuse down the mic. The thirteen chapters of The Art of War aim to help you better understand yourself and your enemy, but in order to implement each step you need to have a clear understanding of where they apply. To help, we’ve paired each chapter with an appropriate game — but don’t get ahead of yourself — Master Sun…

The world has been in a near constant state of war since time immemorial. As long as there have been social groups there have been struggles over territory, resources, ideology, and myriad other things. Despite this, there are only a handful of wars that serve as tentpoles for gaming, forming the framework of numerous titles. World War II, of course, rules the roost, with hundreds of titles based around its many battles and campaigns, but the American Civil War and Roman conquests also have their fair share of games. Isn't it time we looked further afield? Sure, shooting Nazis in the face never really gets old, but wouldn't you rather explore a new conflict, a new era, or new world? Don't you want to go to interesting new places, meet…