14 DAY TRIAL // This week, the review department at Softpedia Games is delivering long-form evaluations for: Until Dawn, the cinematic-focused new title from Supermassive Games and Sony, Satellite Reign, a very cool real-time infiltration and combat title, Party Hard, and Shadowrun: Hong Kong.
An Editorial talks about the minimum quality that developers should deliver, using the recent problems of the Call of Duty: Black Ops 3 beta on the Xbox One as a starting point.
The Gamer Diaries deliver a more in-depth look at the core mechanics of some of the titles that we spent time with, and this week, the focus is on Until Dawn, which manages to create both some of the most interesting and the most disappointing character-driven moments in modern gaming.
The EndWeekGame piece explains how I plan to spend my free time for the weekend, and we also have a selection of the most important pieces of news from the week that was.
From Monday to Friday
On Monday, Rockstar offered more details about the Editor that was coming to the Xbox One and the PlayStation 4 versions of GTA V, and DICE talked with the Battlefield 4 community about the name of the coming collaborative free map.
On Tuesday, Microsoft revealed the Games with Gold package for September, which includes the most recent Tomb Raider title, and 343 Industries offered more information on the new Halo novel, Hunters in the Dark, and its connection to Halo 5: Guardians.
On Wednesday, Larian Studios delivered Divinity: Original Sin 2 on Kickstarter, with funding arriving in less than 12 hours, and Microsoft explained that admission to the Preview Program for the Xbox One was slowing down.
On Thursday, Capcom revealed that R. Mika was part of the cast for Street Fighter V, and Square Enix unveiled a new Rise of the Tomb Raider Collector's Edition with some cool physical content.
On Friday, Bungie offered more details about Nightfall and heroic activities in Destiny once update 2.0 arrives, and rumors hinted at the return of Nuketown in Call of Duty: Black Ops 3.
On Saturday, Firaxis announced that it was delaying XCOM 2 to February 5 of next year in order to make sure that it would deliver the experience gamers are expecting.