Welcome to, The Roundup! This is our monthly news post which summarizes the past month in PC games news, tech news and new Thermaltake products that you may have missed. On today’s RoundUp: Batman comes to Fortnite, WOW Classic got DDOSED and are AMD’s new Threadrippers finally coming soon? All this and more, in The RoundUp for September, 2019!
GAMES RELEASED
September saw the release of quite a few high-profile games on the PC. Gears 5, as well as the AA game Greedfall, both released on September 10. In the more obscure games category, Untitled Goose Game, released on September 20. Four days later saw the release of The Surge 2, sequel to 2017’s The Surge. Lastly, the big boys! September saw the releases of both 2020 installments of the FIFA and NBA franchises respectively. As well as Gearbox’s long awaited, Borderlands 3 on September 13.[1]
MAJOR GAME UPDATES
In terms of game updates, all of you Magic: The Gathering fans can rejoice! The official PC card game has finally come out of Beta. It left beta on September 26, with the release of a new card set too, called the, “Throne of Eldraine”.[2]
The Sims 4 released a patch which added “L” shaped stair variants to the game. There is a new pull out tab when you place in standard stairs which, “lets you swing the stairs on a center axis to split them in the middle and have them go in different directions.”[3] A new magical themed game pack was also released for the game this past month titled, Realm of Magic.
It’s been a busy month for the battle royale Apex Legends. First, it held it’s “Voidwalker” event. This expanded on the character Wraith, with an awesome character short at the start of the month. Additionally, towards the end of the month, they released another character short for their new character, “Crypto”. It seems he will be joining the cast of Apex with the release of season 3 in October.
The leaked Fortnite and Batman cross over finally went live, turning Tilted Towers into Gotham city for the limited time event. There were also extra purchasable Batman themed cosmetics and weapons available.
The game that just won’t quit, Minecraft, announced they are adding a character creator. Until now, if you didn’t want to look like Steve, you would have to go to an array of online sites dedicated to Minecraft skins. All the skins available for purchase through Mojang are created by the development team[4] and they look quite impressive too.
Steam recently updated how their games are recommended. Valve stated, “The September 12th changes […] balanced out the games that were shown, highlighting more games that players could play right away.” This was due to Steam sometimes recommending players unreleased games. [5]
GENERAL GAMES NEWS
In some local gaming news, a new Esports arena venue will be opening in Melbourne in early 2020. The 2,700+ square metres venue operated by Fortress Esports Pty Ltd, “will cover house over 160 PCs, as well as function rooms, tabletop play areas, a restaurant, two bars and a 200-seat arena.” It is set to be situated in Emporium, between Bourke St Mall and Melbourne Central. [6]
Ex-Bioware writer David Gaider is setting up a new independent studio here in Melbourne. ‘Summerfall Studios’ will be launched at PAX Australia. They promise to, “crush your dreams and tear out your heart… in the very best way.”[7]
Rockstar Games have released their own launcher. “The Rockstar Games Launcher” still requires you to log in with your Social Club details though. This has led many to believe the PC port of Red Dead Redemption 2 might be coming sooner rather than later, hence the interest in creating a separate launcher just for their titles.[8]
The popularity of WOW Classic caught the attention of a DDOS attacker earlier this month. This rendered users in NA unable to access the servers at all. The arrested suspect faces up to 10 years in prison.[9]
Lastly, Sony held their State of Play presentation on September 24. They shared new trailers for Call of Duty: Modern Warfare and The Last of Us Part II. Unfortunately it seems there is still no news on a PC port for either Last of Us games though.
CONTROVERSIAL NEWS
Loot boxes are back in the news again. The UK’s department of Digital, Culture, Media and Sport, “recommend[ed] that loot boxes in video games be subject to the same regulations as gambling”[10]. The US’s ESA (Entertainment Software Association) has disagreed with their claims however. Curiously, the ESA represents companies like Activision Blizzard and EA though – companies known for their use of loot boxes.
Bethesda’s divisive Fallout 76 met with some backlash recently. They introduced a purchasable in game item that when used can slow the decay of food and drink. This caused a stir because Bethesda had previously claimed only cosmetic items could be purchasable with real money. The fridge arguably can give some players an advantage over others. Albeit a minor advantage, “Players [worry] it would be a slippery slope, allowing other utility items into the shop”[11]
E3 has announced they’re going to be trying new things with future E3 conventions. The goal for future E3’s is to, “involve more celebrities, arrangements with influencers and paid media partnerships”. With the recent decline in interest with E3, this seems to be an attempt to save the gaming showcase. [12]
TECH NEWS
Moving into the Tech world and USB 4 is looking like it’s on the horizon. It will be a modified version of USB 3, and aims to be released sometime in 2020.[13]
Onto AMD news. There was frustration earlier on in the month due to people noticing their 3000 Processors were unable to reach their advertised boost clock speeds. AMD stated, “We are in the process of preparing a BIOS update for our motherboard partners that addresses that issue and includes additional boost performance optimizations”. The update reportedly came through on September 10.[14] Additionally, AMD’s new 3rd gen Threadripper CPU’s will be arriving in November now, instead of September as they were originally planned.[15]
On the Intel side of things, they have made it clear that they still think they make the best CPU’s for gaming. Next month will see the release of their new Core I9-9900KS. [16] The Core i9-9900KS “aims to be the new king of gaming CPUs”[17].
Rumours are circulating around NVIDIA lately. Looks like both a GeForce GTX 1660 Super and 1650 Ti, could be on the horizon. Gamers on a budget appears to be their target market.[18]
Lastly, Blue has announced a new edition of the popular Blue Yeti microphone. The Blue Yeti X features a new “smart knob” which provides real-timing monitoring for your audio levels. It also promises, “better quality recording by bumping up to a four-capsule condenser array, up from three in the previous Yeti.”[19]
THERMALTAKE NEWS
September saw a few new releases on the Thermaltake front.
We released the stylish Level 20 GT ARGB case, as well as our long awaited, ToughRAM RGB RAM.
In addition, make sure to check out our awesome ToughRAM video up on our YouTube channel if you haven’t already! HERE
ALSO, we recently his 12k Subscribers on our YouTube channel and put out a celebratory Q & A Video!
SOURCES:
[1] https://www.forbes.com/sites/erikkain/2019/09/03/here-are-all-the-video-games-releasing-in-september-2019/#19a2c87cec2b [2] https://www.pcgamer.com/au/magic-the-gathering-arena-officially-launches-later-this-month/ [3] https://www.pcgamer.com/au/you-can-finally-customize-staircases-in-the-sims-4/ [4] https://au.ign.com/articles/2019/09/20/minecraft-is-getting-a-character-creator [5] https://www.pcgamer.com/au/valve-makes-more-changes-to-steams-discovery-update-to-address-visibility-complaints/ [6] https://www.pcgamer.com/au/fortress-melbourne-will-be-australias-largest-esports-arena/ [7] https://www.pcgamer.com/au/former-bioware-writer-david-gaider-is-setting-up-a-new-studio-in-australia/ [8] https://www.pcgamer.com/au/rockstar-games-launcher-launches/ [9] https://www.pcgamer.com/au/suspect-who-ddosed-world-of-warcraft-classic-is-arrested/ [10] https://www.pcgamer.com/au/the-esa-strongly-disagrees-with-uk-commissions-finding-on-loot-boxes/ [11] https://www.pcgamer.com/au/fallout-76-players-arent-impressed-with-the-new-dollar7-fridge/ [12] https://www.pcgamer.com/au/e3-2020-could-have-paid-media-partnerships-and-more-celebrities/ [13] https://www.pcgamer.com/au/theres-officially-a-new-and-faster-usb-standard-now-we-wait-for-actual-devices/ [14] https://www.pcgamer.com/au/a-bios-fix-for-ryzen-3000-boost-clocks-is-coming/ [15] https://www.pcgamer.com/au/amds-16-core-ryzen-9-3950x-and-3rd-gen-threadripper-cpus-land-in-november/ [16] https://www.pcgamer.com/au/intel-is-promising-dramatic-changes-to-its-x-series-and-high-end-desktop-cpus/ [17] https://www.pcgamer.com/au/the-upcoming-core-i9-9900ks-will-require-serious-cooling-to-maximize-performance/ [18] https://www.pcgamer.com/au/nvidia-rumored-to-be-prepping-a-geforce-gtx-1660-super-with-faster-memory/ [19] https://www.pcgamer.com/au/blue-yeti-x-aims-to-be-a-smarter-microphone-for-streamers/
