Welcome to, The RoundUp! This is our new monthly news show which will summarize the past month in PC gaming, tech and new Thermaltake products that you may have missed. On today’s inaugural RoundUp, we have a list of the coolest new PC game releases, some game changing Overwatch news, and Half- Life 3 rumours. All of that and more, in “The RoundUp” for July 2019!
GAMES RELEASED
Starting off with the gaming world, a bunch of new Games for the PC dropped this July.
Including the latest in the Wolfenstein Series, Wolfenstein: Young Blood as well as the Wolfenstein VR game Cyberpilot.
Tech Corp, a tech company simulation game was released, and the previously PS4 only TETRIS Effect finally came to the PC for all those hardcore TETRIS gamers out there.
There was also the post-apocalyptic 60 Seconds! Reatomized and the turn-based space strategy game Interstellar Space.
Lastly, we had the arena battle-action fighting game Kill la Kill and the 2D musical adventure game Songbird Symphony. [1]
MAJOR GAME UPDATES
July also saw bunch of big updates to some existing games. Overwatch has now introduced a 2-2-2 role lock system. They claim this will, “create an environment that fosters teamwork and encourages players to bring their very best to every match.”[2] They also introduced the new tank hero, Sigma. Sigma is a gravity-wielding mad scientist.
Another game which has had a recent update is the EA juggernaut, The Sims 4. The now five-year-old game recently had an overhaul of all its graphics. This includes menu screens, the all-important plumb-bob and the cover art for their base game and expansion packs. Not that everyone liked it though. This was due to the somewhat clashing bright colour scheme, and concerns it could affect players who are colour sensitive. The Sims devs have been very receptive to critique though. Some colours have already been toned down due to the feedback. The Sims 4 also has included a “sims stories” feature to create-a-sim. It aims to make sims feel more unique.[3]
Lastly, Apex: Legends, started their official second season. And they also introduced their second new hero, Wattson, a hero with electric based abilities.[4]
GENERAL NEWS
In general games news, it seems Valve, might be working on a new game… and it might just be related to Half Life 3. Or not, probably not actually. The project has been coined “Citadel” and has been described as having, “a lot of things related to stealth, AI pathfinding, and a top-view minimap”[5]. So not really feeling the Half Life vibes with this. And unfortunately no new news on the VR game people suspected earlier in the year might be Half Life 3 either.
Sadly, for all us Psychonauts fans out there, it seems the sequel’s release date has been sadly pushed back to 2020. This is due to them being picked up by Microsoft studios.[6]
For those of us with console pleb friends we were keen on playing Borderlands 3 with, it has been confirmed that at launch there will be no cross play. However, there is still potential for it to happen. You will just maybe have to wait a little while[7]. Or your friend could get a PC and join us here in the master race.
In a sad turn of events, Brisbane based studios Defiant Development, makers of the Hand of Fate series, have closed down. They cite the reason being the studios struggle to keep up with the changing games market. The studio stated that they would be going into, “caretaker mode to support our current existing products”[8]
Just like an annoying rash that just won’t go away, Fortnite is still around. It held its World Cup event this July, drawing in more than 2.3 million concurrent viewers on Twitch[9]. The winner of the event was only 16 years old, winning a whopping 3 million for his efforts[10].
Lastly, the original Diablo game, is now available to play, on your browser! If you own the original and have the files you can actually play the entire game. For the rest of us, we only have access to a shareware build of the game. Still pretty awesome though, thanks Rivsoft![11]
CONTROVERSIAL NEWS
There was also some controversy this past month in gaming. Starting with divisive game key website G2A undergoing some drama around paid reviews. They allegedly tried to get some positive coverage by contacting reviewers directly and offering to pay them to post a story they had pre-written for them themselves. Of course, these emails were promptly screenshotted and shared publicly. So it basically it did the opposite of their original intention.[12] Ouch!
Lastly, there was some very exciting leaks that appeared on reddit earlier on in the month about GTA6[13]. All evidence suggests now though that it seems like they were not true. After several sources pointed out the leaks weren’t real including videos and other reddit posters, the leaker mysteriously deleted all their accounts. This seemingly confirmed the deceptiveness of the post. Rockstar have yet to speak about this incident, so we might have to wait a while to know for sure.[14]
TECH NEWS
A bunch of new AMD CPU’s released this past month, with the Ryzen 3000 Processors dropping. All except for the Ryzen 3950X which will be coming out in September.
Additionally, MSI released their new MAX motherboards which are specifically designed to support the AMD 300s CPU’s[15].
Graphics cards wise, both NVIDIA and AMD released new graphics cards. NVIDIDA released their SUPER graphics cards, the GeForce RTX 2070, the GeForce RTX 2060 and the GeForce RTX 2080. AMD on the other hand, released their Radeon RX 5700 XT graphics card. [16]
THERMALTAKE NEWS
Things you might have missed Thermaltake wise was the release of our new H100 and H200 Chassis, which we did a First Look and Building video on our YouTube channel.
We also released the sophisticated S500 Chassis, The View 31 ARGB chassis, The Core P5 V2 chassis, and lastly, our PF1 ARGB Platinum and GFI ARGB Gold Power Supplies.
Keep an eye out on our Youtube channel for our next product release videos of the Floe DX AIO Cooler, which should be out soon and our amazing new Toughram.
To stay up to date with all our latest releases, keep an eye on our website as well as all our social medias.
