Another major announcement from Sony today. I wasn't even aware you could still buy games on PS3 so I'm quite impressed that it was up for as long as it has been - thanks for that info.
It makes sense. Downloads still allowed is great to see, and the way it should be until all the consoles are dust, but I am curious how they aren't able to push an update to their stores to modernize them even a tiny bit. I'm not going to pretend like I know a lot on the compliance side for processing payments, I pay companies to do that for me, but I would have guessed a small software update would be able to push a store update; PS3 last received the 4.93 OS update back in March of this year so it's not like they can't update things on the device.
But, that's also likely a large undertaking to make a big change to something not a lot of people are still using. More risk vs reward since it will likely take multiple developers and the Q&A process... yeah like I said, it makes sense this is being shut down lol.
Depends a lot on how far they are into designing/producing the thing, but it's entirely possible they'll drop the disk drive. If they wanted to go with the replaceable drive like the PS5 Slim/Pro, they'll probably just leave that as part of the console, but it won't be used.
I can't say that I'm surprised though. Nintendo, who has the highest costs for media due to flash chips, is even going the route of cutting costs on their physical distribution so for the discs, ending the production completely just makes sense.
I don't even hate it.
As someone who does prefer to buy physical games, for PS5 and Series X I'd say my split was 60/40 leaning in favor of digital. It's clear that digital is the big winner and we're going to only see the gap widen so there has to be a turning point. PS5 Pro has the disc drive as an expensive addon; Writing has been on the wall now since that released.
I am curious though if this means the PS6 is going to by discless and if that means it will also not have a bluray player at all, even as an accessory. I don't buy a lot of movies, but when I do, I always get them on 4K bluray so it was nice to have a player attached to a gaming console instead of needing yet another device in the entertainment stack. I'm certain I'm in the minority there but it would be just a little sad to lose optical media, or the choice of it, entirely from game consoles. Maybe Xbox will go hard on television again lmao.
Been on a Stardew session myself. Nearly completed my first year of the game. I definitely have not done as much as I should (the only building I had other than my house is one coop for chickens), but I'm having a lot of fun just being around the farm and doing things. I'm in the middle of the quest to get to level 100 of the Skull Cavern, and my plan is to just do the degenerate strategy of crafting 99 staircases.
And I know that at some point, I'm going to have to do this mess, and I'm not looking forward to it in the slightest.
The Path of Exile 2 grind continues. I've still got a bunch of the southern map to finish up to have all the additional trees finished up on the atlas skill tree, but I made a large dent this weekend in the northern part just mapping non-stop to acquire points.
My build has been iterated on a bit more and I've gained a bit more power but I am a tiny but more squishy now which makes me have to think a bit more about how I'm playing which isn't a bad thing but I can't go so zug zug anymore. All my next upgrades are hundreds of divine orbs so hopefully I can get some solid drops somewhere to make progress on that; It does feel kinda bad having such good gear but not good enough gear at the same time due to the insane price.
I hope everyone else had a games-filled weekend :)
I'm going to make a request that you please include spell schools. I probably wouldn't have failed as many times as I have if I could've used that to narrow things down. In fact, it would be much more helpful than minion tribes. You already call the column subtype, so maybe that was your plan anyway.
I am making this comment because I just failed. I narrowed it down to a 2 Mana Common spell in the Core set, but there were just too many left and no further information to narrow things down more.
I genuinely don't understand what Xbox is smoking. The Series S is now as expensive as the far more powerful PS5 digital, and that thing can be upgraded with a disk drive in the future. Sure, you can't get Game Pass on PS, but I don't think that'll be enough to make people get an Xbox.
Played a bunch of demos during Next Fest, some fun stuff there, and some that's releasing soon. Also started some metroidvanias, but I always have a hard time getting rolling with that genre, don't exactly know why. I also got a new PSVR2 adapter, since my old one stopped working (pro-tip: don't use magnetic adapters, they'll fry your port), so gonna get back into that. Also, Hearthstone.
I suspect all the recent updates we've been seeing for Path of Exile 2's 0.5.0 patch were all quite a bit planned to drip feed this way to keep engagement high. They have been on top of the bug fixes though, damn have they squashed a lot of of bugs, now we just need the client lockups to be fixed, though I've heard people having success changing over to the Vulkan renderer.
Exciting to see more atlas passives though. I am nowhere near done with the current passives that exist, but I do appreciate some expedition-focused stuff since I find myself skipping over it often if I don't see good currency rewards.
It's sad that people are losing their jobs. Nothing can ever make that not suck.
I am just so curious though as to why Bungie decided to not base Marathon in the Destiny universe. Leveraging your only IP in a new game would have brought in so many more players and since Destiny 2 was cooling down for years, it could have injected more life into that game as well, especially had they of done any cross-promotions.
IP is the most important thing any company owns and when you have a strong one, you should continue to expand upon it and most importantly, actually use it in media.
Being in the Destiny world wouldn't automatically make Marathon a good game, but at least it could have bought them more time.
Take it from the man who reviewed the game: RCT3 is a good game. It's a bit more janky than the first two games, and it hasn't aged as well as either of them, but the actual park building part of it is still as fun as it can be.
Yeah... I'm probably buying this before the weekend.
Star Fox 64 was, if not my favourite, my second favourite game on the N64. I still know the dialog by heart and I'm pretty sure I can play it blindfolded.
It's one of those games that was endless fun even though it was quite linear; I was always trying to achieve higher and higher scores and that bastard Star Wolf and his cronies were always there to upset the run by taking someone on the squad out.
Oooooh temptation, you are so strong. It's a damn good year though for nostalgia. Star Fox and then Ocarina of Time later?? We just need another recreation of Super Mario 64 and I've got my trifecta from back in the day. Hell, we even got a 007 game this year, not a remake but it kinda counts haha.
Tras'tath, Soul Parasite - The whole point of this card is synergy with void soul, because while you can just play this in whatever deck that plays/summon demons, its high cost and lack of other synergies may make a miss simply because you cant just jam this into existing strats nor is the card good enough to be evergreen in dhunter decks.
Void Soul & other cards - Honestly, its not that good. Not only does the void soul itself cost mana, the cards that generate it are overcosted for their stats, obviously to compensate for this. So you'll always be playing on the back foot, especially against aggro, and your only hope is a breakaway around turn 5, play like 3-4 of these and hope for the best. Even then you'll probably be stomped by any and all aggro deck, and maybe even value decks like companion hunter or leyline mage as well.
Chef Neth'rek - Ah yes, the most toxic class comes out with yet another feast or famine card to wreck havoc on us normal hearthstone players. Will this be playable? Yes, because you'll bet legend will be filled with these guys. Will this be good? Probably not, although you'll get cheesed every now and then, not unlike perfect draw companion hunter games.
Noxious Bribe - All the other revealed druid cards are meh, theyre gonna see play simply because of neth'rek. This card however stinks enough to be noted in a separate galaxy. I can see no earthly reason to play this card outside of achievements or shenanigans, because why would it? Not only do you have to pick a card that wont screw you after you end turn, your opponent will most likely be playing it first.
Jailhouse Manastorm - Its a card that will fit into any and all mage decks that isnt burn, and even then Im not sure whats stopping it. You'll play this card because mage is all about casting spells and this card practically turns all your damaging spells into board flips. Basically its like Tayla Earthstrider in companion hunter, if you manage to play this out without dying the following turn, you most likely win the game.
Bootleg Alchemist & Breakout Artist - Probably the only two interesting mage cards revealed. Unfortunately, I think both wont see much if any play, because jailbreak manastorm can function perfectly without them and theyre both too slow to be consistent. Of the two, only breakout artist stands a good chance simply because the effect is powerful and being a discover card, provides some agency.
Commander Beatrix - The biggest synergy would likely be in racist pally, 2 drop being scarlet bruiser. A fairly nice if slow deck that at least can incorporate both flight maneuvers and norzdormu. Other candidates being brash battlemaster and hilariously enough, captured archmage. I mean, kudos to team5 for designing a card in paladin that is actually interesting to play. Whether this will then proceed to take the meta by storm is less certain, and perhaps even irrelevant. Cards need to be either good or fun to play with. This card can be either and both.
Karov the Broken & other cards - I'll just say it now, its not good. In fact, priest is fucked royally this expansion. Both its legendaries are bad, in fact all its cards are bad, and only one card has perhaps synergy with the current existing control/combo priest, that card being holy embrace. I mean, what the fuck is priest supposed to do with karov, a 6 mana card with no taunt and needs to die for your payoff. Compare this with soothsayer, a card which in my opinion is not only more playable but also better in just about every respect by comparison. At least that card you can prep on 3 and play on 4, will protect your face, and will put out board if it dies.
Lotus Troublemaker & Other cards - Its just a massive feast or famine card to me. You either draw this early and win, or top deck this on turn 6 and lose. I cant see anyone making a deck out of this card, which is a shame because for some reason team5 decides to print three other cards to synergize with this one, and the worst part being that all of them arent good and rogue has better things to do that to play 2 cost cards the whole game.
It is the better patches and it will see play, if nothing more because its a free 3/3 with charge. The conditions arent difficult to pull off with a deck that plays for tempo.
Bonus points for having some synergy with hogger because you'll then pull out two of these. Thats it really, its just a functional hum-drum card that will see play because theres really no reason not to play this. Its a free 3/3 that can hit face, what more do you want?
Just as an FYI it will take some time for the guide sidebars to all update. They are currently hard cached with the old sidebars (some guides are anyway) and that will slowly fix itself.
That's a total of 12 card packs to earn over the next couple of weeks with 3 being Violet Hold packs so Theorycrafting streams are the most important of the three events and then you also need to play in the Tavern Brawl. Even losing the brawl run gets you a Violet Hold (and Cataclysm) pack so no reason not to give it a go.
What have I been playing...well, since my absence at Out of Games, a little bit of everything but a whole lotta nothin' at the same time. I've simply lacked the energy or the willpower or the motivation; something is blocking me from pressing the Play button 90% of the time. But even then, I've done a few things; in no particular order:
Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 came out after I left, and holy fucking shit was it the greatest video game I have ever played in my life. I called it from the first trailer: this game was going to be Game of the Year material. I love love love the game, and I even got my first ever tattoo depicting the Expedition 33 armband the team wears.
Acquired Pokemon Legends: Arceus and Pokemon Legends: Z-A. The former I didn't care for, stopped playing, eventually gave it a stronger attempt, then quit playing again. Z-A, though, was awesome and I've played through it three times (twice with the DLC).
Started a second playthrough of Pokemon Sword, focusing on Pokemon I've never used like I usually strive for. Finished the main story and the Isle of Armor, but stopped caring before the Crown Tundra was finished.
Started and finished a second playthrough of Cassette Beasts, just in time to learn of the sequel: Cassette Beasts 2002! My first playthrough ended right at the final boss, but this time I finished it, the post-game, and all of the achievements.
Started Borderlands 4 because it's now "Verified" on Steam Deck, which is good because my old PC cannot handle stuff like Ray Tracing or the specs of BL4. I love Borderlands, but maybe I'm outgrowing it or something because I haven't had the drive I would usually maintain for a favorite series.
Hollow Knight: Silksong came out, and it was every bit as amazing as we were all waiting for. Free expansion can't come soon enough.
I really enjoyed my time with Monster Hunter Wilds - bad reviews be damned - so to visit the universe once more I tried my luck with Monster Hunter Stories 3: Twisted Reflection. What a perfect game for me: turn-based monster hunting was exactly what I wanted, overcoming great odds and using your knowledge and skill combined against imposing threats. Great experience; waiting for the expansion for this one too.
Bought both expansions for Diablo IV, but the end result was that I petered out faster than I would have liked. Didn't even finish the last one before I uninstalled it to make room for Next Fest demos; stupid old PC and its stupid low storage space!
Compared to the original Path of Exile, I found myself rather enjoying Path of Exile 2. I stopped playing it because I felt I could wait until 1.0 was launched; I had seen enough, and I finished what content I could. I had a good time with my Thunder Monk; we'll see what awaits me in the future.
Started and stopped a second attempt at finishing Black Myth: Wukong. Love the experience, but I get distracted by the next shiny game and Wukong just takes up too much space on my current computer. Can't even run it on the Steam Deck, unfortunately.
Started a new playthrough of Sea of Stars, getting past the plot-twist moment that I stopped at the first time. Haven't finished; we'll see if I do.
In addition to the above, since I left I have bought and began the following games that I still have not finished: BL4, Escape From Ever After, Eternals Strands, The First Berserker: Khazan, Kingdom Hearts collection (specifically the 1.5 + 2.5 Final Mix), Lego Batman: Legacy of the Dark Knight, Stellar Blade, and Wild Bastards. I have alsopurchased the following (that I haven't even started): Avowed, DOOM: The Dark Ages, Esoteric Ebb, Final Fantasy VII Remake, Indiana Jones and the Great Circle, the remaining Kingdom Hearts games, Patapon 1+2 Replay (which to be fair I already played on my PSP years ago), Resident Evil IV, and Voidling Bound.
On Shadowstep I think that's by design. If they immediately started pushing things in a similar space, there would likely be some pushback.
I fully expect expansion 3 of this year will play around with that more since it'll be in standard for the least amount of time if they decide its too powerful which means less chance they have to do dust refunds on a potential ban.
Though, class sets also make an excellent moment to bring in some classic feel for classes, so maybe we have to wait that out and see when it ends up being delivered.
Yeah the 512 GB one is rough. The only reason I'd say go for it is if people have a smaller library because later on, you can always pop the thing open and upgrade your storage when storage prices inevitably decrease. You can also use a high speed MicroSD card though I gotta say, I'm not a big fan of that option because people love to buy cheap cards and they will die quickly and likely not put out as great of reads as possible making larger more complicated games load a lot slower... my teammates always seem to be playing on toasters. At least your saves should be safe lol.
I'm so thankful when I did my PC build storage was cheap. I was on the fence about buying two drives, but I did it because I wanted to dual-boot Windows and Linux and it ended out working out great because wow did prices go wild. My linux install doesn't even take up the whole drive, I'm using most of it for Windows so yeah lucked out a lot there.
This is cool and all, but I sincerely don't see a reason for anyone to buy the 512GB one. If you can afford the 512GB one, there's a very good chance that you can also afford the 2TB one, which is dramatically more cost-efficient for the amount of storage space.
Let us know how it's working. Personally, I can't justify getting one, my PC is a lot more powerful than one the Machine has to offer, and it's still running great.
Playstation Store Will No Longer Be Available on PS3 and Vita Starting This Year
Another major announcement from Sony today. I wasn't even aware you could still buy games on PS3 so I'm quite impressed that it was up for as long as it has been - thanks for that info.
It makes sense. Downloads still allowed is great to see, and the way it should be until all the consoles are dust, but I am curious how they aren't able to push an update to their stores to modernize them even a tiny bit. I'm not going to pretend like I know a lot on the compliance side for processing payments, I pay companies to do that for me, but I would have guessed a small software update would be able to push a store update; PS3 last received the 4.93 OS update back in March of this year so it's not like they can't update things on the device.
But, that's also likely a large undertaking to make a big change to something not a lot of people are still using. More risk vs reward since it will likely take multiple developers and the Q&A process... yeah like I said, it makes sense this is being shut down lol.
Playstation to Discontinue the Production of discs Starting in 2028
Depends a lot on how far they are into designing/producing the thing, but it's entirely possible they'll drop the disk drive. If they wanted to go with the replaceable drive like the PS5 Slim/Pro, they'll probably just leave that as part of the console, but it won't be used.
Playstation to Discontinue the Production of discs Starting in 2028
The end of an era.
I can't say that I'm surprised though. Nintendo, who has the highest costs for media due to flash chips, is even going the route of cutting costs on their physical distribution so for the discs, ending the production completely just makes sense.
I don't even hate it.
As someone who does prefer to buy physical games, for PS5 and Series X I'd say my split was 60/40 leaning in favor of digital. It's clear that digital is the big winner and we're going to only see the gap widen so there has to be a turning point. PS5 Pro has the disc drive as an expensive addon; Writing has been on the wall now since that released.
I am curious though if this means the PS6 is going to by discless and if that means it will also not have a bluray player at all, even as an accessory. I don't buy a lot of movies, but when I do, I always get them on 4K bluray so it was nice to have a player attached to a gaming console instead of needing yet another device in the entertainment stack. I'm certain I'm in the minority there but it would be just a little sad to lose optical media, or the choice of it, entirely from game consoles. Maybe Xbox will go hard on television again lmao.
What Are You Playing? Jovial June 2026
Been on a Stardew session myself. Nearly completed my first year of the game. I definitely have not done as much as I should (the only building I had other than my house is one coop for chickens), but I'm having a lot of fun just being around the farm and doing things. I'm in the middle of the quest to get to level 100 of the Skull Cavern, and my plan is to just do the degenerate strategy of crafting 99 staircases.
And I know that at some point, I'm going to have to do this mess, and I'm not looking forward to it in the slightest.
What Are You Playing? Jovial June 2026
The Path of Exile 2 grind continues. I've still got a bunch of the southern map to finish up to have all the additional trees finished up on the atlas skill tree, but I made a large dent this weekend in the northern part just mapping non-stop to acquire points.
My build has been iterated on a bit more and I've gained a bit more power but I am a tiny but more squishy now which makes me have to think a bit more about how I'm playing which isn't a bad thing but I can't go so zug zug anymore. All my next upgrades are hundreds of divine orbs so hopefully I can get some solid drops somewhere to make progress on that; It does feel kinda bad having such good gear but not good enough gear at the same time due to the insane price.
I hope everyone else had a games-filled weekend :)
Hearthdle (Standard)
I'm going to make a request that you please include spell schools. I probably wouldn't have failed as many times as I have if I could've used that to narrow things down. In fact, it would be much more helpful than minion tribes. You already call the column subtype, so maybe that was your plan anyway.
I am making this comment because I just failed. I narrowed it down to a 2 Mana Common spell in the Core set, but there were just too many left and no further information to narrow things down more.
Xbox to Increase the Cost of Consoles in August by 100+ USD, 2 TB Model to Be Sunset
I genuinely don't understand what Xbox is smoking. The Series S is now as expensive as the far more powerful PS5 digital, and that thing can be upgraded with a disk drive in the future. Sure, you can't get Game Pass on PS, but I don't think that'll be enough to make people get an Xbox.
What Are You Playing? Jovial June 2026
Played a bunch of demos during Next Fest, some fun stuff there, and some that's releasing soon. Also started some metroidvanias, but I always have a hard time getting rolling with that genre, don't exactly know why. I also got a new PSVR2 adapter, since my old one stopped working (pro-tip: don't use magnetic adapters, they'll fry your port), so gonna get back into that. Also, Hearthstone.
Path of Exile 2's Upcoming 0.5.4 Patch Adds New Uniques, Expedition Atlas Tree, & More
I suspect all the recent updates we've been seeing for Path of Exile 2's 0.5.0 patch were all quite a bit planned to drip feed this way to keep engagement high. They have been on top of the bug fixes though, damn have they squashed a lot of of bugs, now we just need the client lockups to be fixed, though I've heard people having success changing over to the Vulkan renderer.
Exciting to see more atlas passives though. I am nowhere near done with the current passives that exist, but I do appreciate some expedition-focused stuff since I find myself skipping over it often if I don't see good currency rewards.
Sony Confirms Major Bungie Layoffs, Cutting "Most of the Destiny Team"
It's sad that people are losing their jobs. Nothing can ever make that not suck.
I am just so curious though as to why Bungie decided to not base Marathon in the Destiny universe. Leveraging your only IP in a new game would have brought in so many more players and since Destiny 2 was cooling down for years, it could have injected more life into that game as well, especially had they of done any cross-promotions.
IP is the most important thing any company owns and when you have a strong one, you should continue to expand upon it and most importantly, actually use it in media.
Being in the Destiny world wouldn't automatically make Marathon a good game, but at least it could have bought them more time.
Epic Games Store Freebies This Week: Rollercoaster Tycoon 3, and More
Take it from the man who reviewed the game: RCT3 is a good game. It's a bit more janky than the first two games, and it hasn't aged as well as either of them, but the actual park building part of it is still as fun as it can be.
Star Fox is Now Available on Nintendo Switch 2
Yeah... I'm probably buying this before the weekend.
Star Fox 64 was, if not my favourite, my second favourite game on the N64. I still know the dialog by heart and I'm pretty sure I can play it blindfolded.
It's one of those games that was endless fun even though it was quite linear; I was always trying to achieve higher and higher scores and that bastard Star Wolf and his cronies were always there to upset the run by taking someone on the squad out.
Oooooh temptation, you are so strong. It's a damn good year though for nostalgia. Star Fox and then Ocarina of Time later?? We just need another recreation of Super Mario 64 and I've got my trifecta from back in the day. Hell, we even got a 007 game this year, not a remake but it kinda counts haha.
Escape from Violet Hold Card Reveals - Final Day [Finished]
Tras'tath, Soul Parasite - The whole point of this card is synergy with void soul, because while you can just play this in whatever deck that plays/summon demons, its high cost and lack of other synergies may make a miss simply because you cant just jam this into existing strats nor is the card good enough to be evergreen in dhunter decks.
Void Soul & other cards - Honestly, its not that good. Not only does the void soul itself cost mana, the cards that generate it are overcosted for their stats, obviously to compensate for this. So you'll always be playing on the back foot, especially against aggro, and your only hope is a breakaway around turn 5, play like 3-4 of these and hope for the best. Even then you'll probably be stomped by any and all aggro deck, and maybe even value decks like companion hunter or leyline mage as well.
Chef Neth'rek - Ah yes, the most toxic class comes out with yet another feast or famine card to wreck havoc on us normal hearthstone players. Will this be playable? Yes, because you'll bet legend will be filled with these guys. Will this be good? Probably not, although you'll get cheesed every now and then, not unlike perfect draw companion hunter games.
Noxious Bribe - All the other revealed druid cards are meh, theyre gonna see play simply because of neth'rek. This card however stinks enough to be noted in a separate galaxy. I can see no earthly reason to play this card outside of achievements or shenanigans, because why would it? Not only do you have to pick a card that wont screw you after you end turn, your opponent will most likely be playing it first.
Jailhouse Manastorm - Its a card that will fit into any and all mage decks that isnt burn, and even then Im not sure whats stopping it. You'll play this card because mage is all about casting spells and this card practically turns all your damaging spells into board flips. Basically its like Tayla Earthstrider in companion hunter, if you manage to play this out without dying the following turn, you most likely win the game.
Bootleg Alchemist & Breakout Artist - Probably the only two interesting mage cards revealed. Unfortunately, I think both wont see much if any play, because jailbreak manastorm can function perfectly without them and theyre both too slow to be consistent. Of the two, only breakout artist stands a good chance simply because the effect is powerful and being a discover card, provides some agency.
Commander Beatrix - The biggest synergy would likely be in racist pally, 2 drop being scarlet bruiser. A fairly nice if slow deck that at least can incorporate both flight maneuvers and norzdormu. Other candidates being brash battlemaster and hilariously enough, captured archmage. I mean, kudos to team5 for designing a card in paladin that is actually interesting to play. Whether this will then proceed to take the meta by storm is less certain, and perhaps even irrelevant. Cards need to be either good or fun to play with. This card can be either and both.
Karov the Broken & other cards - I'll just say it now, its not good. In fact, priest is fucked royally this expansion. Both its legendaries are bad, in fact all its cards are bad, and only one card has perhaps synergy with the current existing control/combo priest, that card being holy embrace. I mean, what the fuck is priest supposed to do with karov, a 6 mana card with no taunt and needs to die for your payoff. Compare this with soothsayer, a card which in my opinion is not only more playable but also better in just about every respect by comparison. At least that card you can prep on 3 and play on 4, will protect your face, and will put out board if it dies.
Lotus Troublemaker & Other cards - Its just a massive feast or famine card to me. You either draw this early and win, or top deck this on turn 6 and lose. I cant see anyone making a deck out of this card, which is a shame because for some reason team5 decides to print three other cards to synergize with this one, and the worst part being that all of them arent good and rogue has better things to do that to play 2 cost cards the whole game.
Escape from Violet Hold Card Reveals - Day 14 [Finished]
It is the better patches and it will see play, if nothing more because its a free 3/3 with charge. The conditions arent difficult to pull off with a deck that plays for tempo.
Bonus points for having some synergy with hogger because you'll then pull out two of these. Thats it really, its just a functional hum-drum card that will see play because theres really no reason not to play this. Its a free 3/3 that can hit face, what more do you want?
Escape from Violet Hold Card Reveals - Day 14 [Finished]
Did they tell the artist that this creature is a dragon?
Escape from Violet Hold Card Reveals - Final Day [Finished]
There actually are other existing examples of this: Exploding Bloatbat, Darkshire Librarian, Blood Razor, and in this expansion, Blackpaw's Whip.
I definitely agree that it's very weird though. Not sure why they couldn't format the text more regularly.
Escape from Violet Hold Card Reveals - Final Day [Finished]
The text formatting on Ball and Chain is weird. I've never seen a card with Deathrattle just floating by itself before.
Get 2 Escape From Violet Hold Packs via Twitch Drops (June 25–26) + Full Event Schedule
Thanks for the heads up, missed a few free packs the last couple of times!
Site Update - June 23, 2026
Just as an FYI it will take some time for the guide sidebars to all update. They are currently hard cached with the old sidebars (some guides are anyway) and that will slowly fix itself.
Get 2 Escape From Violet Hold Packs via Twitch Drops (June 25–26) + Full Event Schedule
That's a total of 12 card packs to earn over the next couple of weeks with 3 being Violet Hold packs so Theorycrafting streams are the most important of the three events and then you also need to play in the Tavern Brawl. Even losing the brawl run gets you a Violet Hold (and Cataclysm) pack so no reason not to give it a go.
What Are You Playing? Jovial June 2026
What have I been playing...well, since my absence at Out of Games, a little bit of everything but a whole lotta nothin' at the same time. I've simply lacked the energy or the willpower or the motivation; something is blocking me from pressing the Play button 90% of the time. But even then, I've done a few things; in no particular order:
Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 came out after I left, and holy fucking shit was it the greatest video game I have ever played in my life. I called it from the first trailer: this game was going to be Game of the Year material. I love love love the game, and I even got my first ever tattoo depicting the Expedition 33 armband the team wears.
Acquired Pokemon Legends: Arceus and Pokemon Legends: Z-A. The former I didn't care for, stopped playing, eventually gave it a stronger attempt, then quit playing again. Z-A, though, was awesome and I've played through it three times (twice with the DLC).
Started a second playthrough of Pokemon Sword, focusing on Pokemon I've never used like I usually strive for. Finished the main story and the Isle of Armor, but stopped caring before the Crown Tundra was finished.
Started and finished a second playthrough of Cassette Beasts, just in time to learn of the sequel: Cassette Beasts 2002! My first playthrough ended right at the final boss, but this time I finished it, the post-game, and all of the achievements.
Started Borderlands 4 because it's now "Verified" on Steam Deck, which is good because my old PC cannot handle stuff like Ray Tracing or the specs of BL4. I love Borderlands, but maybe I'm outgrowing it or something because I haven't had the drive I would usually maintain for a favorite series.
Hollow Knight: Silksong came out, and it was every bit as amazing as we were all waiting for. Free expansion can't come soon enough.
I really enjoyed my time with Monster Hunter Wilds - bad reviews be damned - so to visit the universe once more I tried my luck with Monster Hunter Stories 3: Twisted Reflection. What a perfect game for me: turn-based monster hunting was exactly what I wanted, overcoming great odds and using your knowledge and skill combined against imposing threats. Great experience; waiting for the expansion for this one too.
Bought both expansions for Diablo IV, but the end result was that I petered out faster than I would have liked. Didn't even finish the last one before I uninstalled it to make room for Next Fest demos; stupid old PC and its stupid low storage space!
Compared to the original Path of Exile, I found myself rather enjoying Path of Exile 2. I stopped playing it because I felt I could wait until 1.0 was launched; I had seen enough, and I finished what content I could. I had a good time with my Thunder Monk; we'll see what awaits me in the future.
Started and stopped a second attempt at finishing Black Myth: Wukong. Love the experience, but I get distracted by the next shiny game and Wukong just takes up too much space on my current computer. Can't even run it on the Steam Deck, unfortunately.
Started a new playthrough of Sea of Stars, getting past the plot-twist moment that I stopped at the first time. Haven't finished; we'll see if I do.
In addition to the above, since I left I have bought and began the following games that I still have not finished: BL4, Escape From Ever After, Eternals Strands, The First Berserker: Khazan, Kingdom Hearts collection (specifically the 1.5 + 2.5 Final Mix), Lego Batman: Legacy of the Dark Knight, Stellar Blade, and Wild Bastards. I have also purchased the following (that I haven't even started): Avowed, DOOM: The Dark Ages, Esoteric Ebb, Final Fantasy VII Remake, Indiana Jones and the Great Circle, the remaining Kingdom Hearts games, Patapon 1+2 Replay (which to be fair I already played on my PSP years ago), Resident Evil IV, and Voidling Bound.
I have a problem.
New Hotfix: Escape From Violet Hold Preorder Bundle Updated - Now Includes Signature Copy of Vanessa
On Shadowstep I think that's by design. If they immediately started pushing things in a similar space, there would likely be some pushback.
I fully expect expansion 3 of this year will play around with that more since it'll be in standard for the least amount of time if they decide its too powerful which means less chance they have to do dust refunds on a potential ban.
Though, class sets also make an excellent moment to bring in some classic feel for classes, so maybe we have to wait that out and see when it ends up being delivered.
The Steam Machine Launches on June 25th via Randomized List, Priced Above 1000 USD
Yeah the 512 GB one is rough. The only reason I'd say go for it is if people have a smaller library because later on, you can always pop the thing open and upgrade your storage when storage prices inevitably decrease. You can also use a high speed MicroSD card though I gotta say, I'm not a big fan of that option because people love to buy cheap cards and they will die quickly and likely not put out as great of reads as possible making larger more complicated games load a lot slower... my teammates always seem to be playing on toasters. At least your saves should be safe lol.
I'm so thankful when I did my PC build storage was cheap. I was on the fence about buying two drives, but I did it because I wanted to dual-boot Windows and Linux and it ended out working out great because wow did prices go wild. My linux install doesn't even take up the whole drive, I'm using most of it for Windows so yeah lucked out a lot there.
The Steam Machine Launches on June 25th via Randomized List, Priced Above 1000 USD
This is cool and all, but I sincerely don't see a reason for anyone to buy the 512GB one. If you can afford the 512GB one, there's a very good chance that you can also afford the 2TB one, which is dramatically more cost-efficient for the amount of storage space.
The Steam Machine Launches on June 25th via Randomized List, Priced Above 1000 USD
Hi, Sera! Long time, no see!
Let us know how it's working. Personally, I can't justify getting one, my PC is a lot more powerful than one the Machine has to offer, and it's still running great.