MikeB

Yesterday’s Anthem livestream was a bit of an interesting one as it gave us a peek at something players will be able to do at endgame: Legendary Contracts. My original understanding was that the stream would focus on Anthem’s weapons, but the change in plans wasn’t a bad one.

I’ve been interested in Anthem ever since the game’s announcement at E3 2017. But even with my excitement growing each day as we get closer to the game’s launch, I’m still left with a few questions that leave me a bit apprehensive.

With 2018 now behind us, it’s time to look towards the year ahead. Fortunately for us, 2019 is shaping up to be another banner year in gaming and there are even some interesting things to look forward to in the world of MMOs. I recently shared a list of my favorite games of 2018, so let’s kick off the New Year with a list of what I’m looking forward to most this year.

2018 has been an absolutely insane year for gaming, but unfortunately I wasn’t able to play as much as I would have liked for variety of reasons, but I did play some things. These were my favorite games of 2018, listed in no particular order.

With the launch of Anthem fast approaching, EA is finally pulling back the curtain on the game, with the latest livestream tackling gear and progression. Missed the stream? We’ve got you covered.

The last few updates were part of BioWare’s attempt to put the genie back in the bottle by knocking the Eternal Alliance down a few pegs. Jedi Under Siege is the first real step towards a full course correction and return to the game’s roots as a story of conflict between the Sith Empire and Galactic Republic. The problem is that, at least so far, it’s about as awkward as I expected it to be.

While I do have the full Brotherhood available to me at this point, I’ve been running flex picks in a couple of slots more often than not. Let’s go over a couple ideas.

Magneto, the final piece of the Brotherhood of Mutants puzzle, arrived yesterday for players who had enough five-star characters to get him. While things are still quite early, my first impressions are super positive.

Even with the additional time the holidays often provide us, there are typically more games released than we could ever hope to play. My backlog is basically infinite at this point, so I tend to just focus on what’s ahead of me instead of trying to tackle all the stuff I bought but failed to play. And boy is it a good time for new games. Here’s what’s on my list.

X-Men (and X-Force) are the teams I want to assemble most in Marvel Strike Force, but the Brotherhood of Mutants is a close third and is getting a full rollout this month. FoxNext has released some information on how we’ll be unlocking the new team and we’ve been poring over what leaks we’ve been able to find on their kits, but the characters are finally here and it’s time to dig into them!

It’s been some time since I’ve actively played Hearthstone. Keeping up with it just got too expensive, but after digging into some of the more popular decks lately, I’ve considered getting back into the game. My decision was made a bit easier when the newest expansion, Rastakhan’s Rumble, was announced at BlizzCon last week. Color me interested.

Earlier this year Marvel Strike Force was moving at a breakneck pace, not giving players much chance to even prepare for all the things FoxNext was throwing at them, but the team appeared to heed the feedback from frustrated players and slow things down a bit. I’m not sure what’s going on here, but things look to be speeding up again and I’m already feeling a bit overwhelmed.

Bethesda has taken a lot of flack from fans over Fallout 76 ever since it was announced, but personally, I’ve been cautiously optimistic about the game. It’s true, I’d much prefer Fallout 76 to be a more narrative driven co-op PvE experience than the multiplayer survival sandbox we’re getting, but let’s be fair, the IP fits the genre like a glove. And best of all? It looks fun!

It’s a good time to be bad in Marvel Strike Force. All characters added to the game through the end of this year will be villains and on top of that, they’ll almost all be Mutants. More specifically, we’re getting the Brotherhood of Mutants.

We recently had the opportunity to sit down with the FoxNext dev team and chat about a wide range of topics on Marvel Strike Force.