Ever since we announced Mass Effect Legendary Edition on N7 Day and revealed a first look at it earlier this year, your passion and excitement have blown us away. Today, we’d like to give you more details on what you can expect to see in this remaster. You’ll find the latest information on the Legendary Edition, from gameplay tuning to rebalancing and more. Next week, we’ll provide an additional look at the remastering process with a strong focus on the visual changes across the trilogy.

Let’s get into it. Here’s what this post contains, in order:

• Combat Tuning (Mass Effect)
• Additional Gameplay Improvements (All)
• The Mako (Mass Effect)
• Unifying & Modernizing the Trilogy (All)
• Galaxy at War Rebalancing (Mass Effect 3) 

“I don’t need luck—I have ammo.”

Combat tuning

Combat in the Mass Effect trilogy has evolved across the series, with each game’s experience being different. We wanted to make the experience better across the board, but we didn’t want to unnecessarily change what our fans have come to love about each game. That proved a unique challenge, as the first game is quite different from the second and third in terms of gameplay and combat. Mass Effect was heavily influenced by traditional RPG mechanics, like the randomness of a dice roll and pen-and-paper stat building. As a result, weapons in Mass Effect often felt less accurate and reliable than the gunplay in Mass Effect 2 and 3.

We heard the consistent feedback that it was pretty frustrating to take a few shots with an assault rifle and suddenly have the reticle enlarge to span a large portion of the screen, so we looked at tuning the mechanics to provide better handling without outright scrapping the spirit of the original games.

In the first Mass Effect, accuracy (including reticle bloom and weapon sway) has been tuned across all weapons to allow players to maintain more consistent firepower while still managing their shots/overheat meter. We’ve also improved the aiming down sights (ADS) camera view to be tighter on combat so that ADS is more accurate (like the second and third games), and we’ve improved the aim assist to provide better precision. These small behind-the-scenes changes collectively make combat much “snappier,” putting more control into the player’s hands.

Abilities have also been rebalanced in the first game. For example, the “Immunity” ability now grants a powerful defensive buff that lasts a brief period of time instead of being a small buff that lasts indefinitely.

The following overview lists gameplay changes we made specifically to the first Mass Effect, with the goal of bringing it a bit more in line with the rest of the trilogy:

• Shepard can now sprint out of combat
• Melee attacks are now mapped to a button press rather than automatically occurring based on proximity to an enemy
• Weapon accuracy and handling has been significantly improved
  • Reticle bloom is more controlled
  • Weapon sway removed from sniper rifles<

If you love cute robots make sure you don’t miss The Colonists when it comes to PlayStation 4 on May 4. You’ll need to help the bots build their dream home by automating a whole city to meet their needs.

Think of city builders and you probably visualise gray tower blocks and industrial cranes. But The Colonists has a much friendlier face in the form of a grinning robot. The hard-working bots are the stars of the game so we hope you fall in love with them as much as we have.

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Each bot is defined by the specific job they have to fulfil within their community. We want to introduce you to a few of them as by learning what each bot does you will understand the basics of how The Colonists works.

Carrybot

First up is Carrybot. This energetic bot’s job is to carry resources along roads to the various buildings. This means you’ll need to consider the layout of your roads and where you place buildings in relation to them in order to maximise this bot’s productivity. 

That said, if Carrybots do run out of items to transport they’ll just start dancing on the spot. They clearly have a lot of energy and know how to use it to have a good time. You’ve got to admire that!

Farmbot

Where do Carrybots get all of that energy? You can thank Farmbot for that. These bots till the soil and grow crops in it that go towards feeding the entire city. If there are no Farmbots then there’s no energy to power your bots. It’s that simple.

You’ll notice that Farmbot is fit for its job by taking the shape of a plough. There’s no better design for cutting lines in the ground, tending the orchard to make apple juice, and growing whe

Oddworld: Soulstorm is not a remake in the traditional sense. Remakes are very popular right now and we have seen several wonderful games in that vein recently. Soulstorm differs in that it builds on what we originally wanted to do 22 years ago.

Back then, we weren’t afforded the time to execute our vision for the second game in Abe’s five-part quintology. We had just successfully released Oddworld: Abe’s Oddysee (a.k.a. Oddworld: New ‘n’ Tasty),  the first game in Abe’s quintology, and we were asked to deliver a sequel to it within nine months.

We had to chop and cut down what we wanted to do to get it done. That meant Abe’s Exoddus was a wildly different story and experience than what we initially intended in the grand dream of the overarching five-game quintology.

Soulstorm is our grand dream come true. It is a new game. It is our attempt to make the deeper and more conceptually unsettling second episode in the story of Abe that we originally intended all those years ago. The story takes place after the events of Oddworld: New ‘n’ Tasty, when Abe follows his destiny to save his fellow Mudokons from corporate oppression. Soulstorm also features new gameplay mechanics including a scavenging and crafting system, where Abe can make versatile items like mines that knock enemy guards unconscious.

Our partners at Sony, Microids, and Unity helped us tremendously along the way and we would not be here without them. Most importantly, if not for fans of our games, Soulstorm would never have happened. Thank you for your continued support all these years. 

Tomorrow is the day our original vision for the second game in Abe’s five-part quintology, when Oddworld: Soulstorm launches. Let’s dive into things you should know before you embark on Abe’s next adventure.

PlayStation Plus

The digital version of the game releases April 6 on PS5 and PS4. The PS5 version will be free for PlayStation Plus members during April. Also, if you purchase the PS4 digital version, you can upgrade to the PS5 digital version at no additional cost.*

The physical retail versions of the game will be in stores on July 6. If you purchase the physical retail PS4 version, you will get the PS5 digital version at no cost.

Save your followers, they’re important

There are nearly 1,400 Mudokons that you can save in Oddworld: Soulstorm. How you decide to play is up to you, but keep in mind there are multiple endings in the game, and we recommend you try to save at least 80% of the Mudokons in each level (more info below).

There is strength in numbers with followers being a plus multiplier for Abe.  In New ‘n’ Tasty, Mudokons followed you or stayed put.  They were beasts of burden you led through deadly obstacle courses in the hopes they’d be rescued. Your followers gave you no real support or power of scale; they just made your job harder.

In Soulstorm, it’s more than just saving all those Mudokons for a better Quarmic score and nar

Hey there! We at HypeTrain Digital are incredibly happy to present you with the fruit of our glorious labor – Breathedge, an awesome space survival adventure with humorous flair, which launches on PS4 tomorrow, April 6! Stepping out into space isn’t nearly predictable as it would seem. Breathedge has many life-threatening hazards, including but not limited to suffocation, freezing, burning, getting beat up and/or shot, dying of hunger and thirst, electrocution and so much more. 

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That’s why we’ve decided to provide you with a helping hand (on a stick!) and guide you during your first voyages outside.

Get better gear

The civilization is built with tools. Too bad the tools you create don’t match the blueprints at all. But don’t worry, comrade, they still get the job done. Venture outside your shuttle and start touching things. Somehow, your suit’s onboard AI will figure out how to make something useful with what you find. It could be anything – metal, paint, an old back scratcher, batteries, even stale shawarma may come in handy.

Get yourself a new oxygen tank, a booster, and a flashlight – ta-daaa, exploration is now a whole lot more enjoyable. Don’t skimp on exploring around your starting area – all the good stuff is scattered around there somewhere. Pay extra attention to floating shipping containers – these often have some goodies that you would have to craft or harvest elsewhere. 

Take advantage of the environment

Flex your ingenuity. Do things that make sense, and things that really don’t. It all works out! When feeling cold, look for a warm place. Need to connect two broken wires together?…throw a corpse between them! Chased after by a bad police robot? Short-circuit it with your own bodily fluids. The list goes on.

April’s PlayStation Now lineup is a titanic team up featuring Marvel’s Avengers, Borderlands 3, and The Long Dark. Save the world, shoot up a galaxy, or survive an icy wilderness: take your pick from tomorrow when the games launch into the service.

Let’s take a closer look at each in turn. 

Marvel’s Avengers

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Marvel’s Avengers is an epic, third-person, action-adventure game that combines an original, cinematic story with single-player and co-operative gameplay. In a future with Super Heroes outlawed, a young Kamala Khan must reassemble the Avengers to stop AIM. Marvel’s Avengers continues the epic journey with new Heroes and new narrative delivered on an ongoing basis, for the definitive Avengers gaming experience. Assemble into a team of up to four players online, master extraordinary abilities, customize a growing roster of Heroes, and defend the Earth from escalating threats.

●      Marvel’s Avengers is available until Monday July 5, 2021. 

 Borderlands 3

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The original shooter-looter returns, packing bazillions of guns and a mayhem-fueled adventure! Blast through new worlds and enemies as one of four new Vault Hunters, each with deep skill trees, abilities, and customization. Play solo or with friends to take on insane enemies, score loads of loot and save your home from the most ruthless cult leaders in the galaxy. Play with anyone at any time online or in split-screen co-op, regardl