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Price: From £140,000 (est) On sale: Late 2018 The Bentayga SUV will be Bentley’s first attempt at a plug-in hybrid. It’ll feature a new 3.0-litre V6 petrol turbo allied with an electric motor, to deliver CO2 emissions of 75g/km and an all-electric range of 31 miles. The car is tailored towards efficiency, with the satellite-navigation set-up working with the hybrid drivetrain to calculate the best combination of electric motor and engine usage for every journey.

In the opening exchange of the contest Tasoev countered the Czech athlete to take the first Grand Slam gold of his career. And in a wonderful sporting moment, there was a great display of judo etiquette as the two men came together in the centre of the mat at the end of the contest. 'Yes, this is my first medal in a grand slam and before this I took my first gold medal in a Grand Prix. I’ve never fought in a Grand Slam. You know, I didn’t expect to win. It was very surprising for me, but I managed to win, and I’m very happy,'' Inal Tasoev said in an interview. Woman of the Day Our Woman of the Day was Guusje Steenhuis of The Netherlands. She met number two seed Natalie Powell of Great Britain in the -78kg final.

HE has designed hats worn by some of Hollywood’s most stylish stars including Gigi Hadid, Justin Bieber, David Beckham and Cara Delevingne. So it’s no wonder you’ll rarely see Californian hatmaker Nick Fouquet without some kind of headwear. “Hats draw a certain amount of attention, so I might wear a beanie or a baseball cap,” Fouquet said. “I usually do have my head covered,” he laughed. “The trick is to own the hat and not let the hat own you.” Venice Beach-based Fouquet is in Melbourne to attend the Caulfield Cup tomorrow, where has designed a hat to be worn by New York-based Australian model Jessica Hart, 32. Fouquet will be among the VVVIP guests in the Californian-inspired Stella Artois marquee. Fouquet’s signature brand of headwear recently made global headlines after British supermodel Cara Delevingne wore one, teamed with a Chanel suit and stilettos, to Princess Eugenie’s royal wedding. “It was her in a Chanel suit and tails, with a top hat,” Fouquet said, wearing one of his own hats, a shirt and jeans with a pair of cream Converse Chuck 70s sneakers. “It looked amazing and I was so, so proud to be part of that. “I think it’s going to be something that’s more seen for girls who don’t want to wear a dress, and that are really cool and stylish.”

The Pentagon is sending over 5,200 troops to the border with Mexico as thousands of Central American migrants head north through Mexico. General Terrence O'Shaughnessy said Operation Faithful Patriot would focus on Texas, Arizona and California. President Donald Trump earlier said the "invasion" of migrants would find the US military waiting for them. There are already 2,100 National Guard members at the border, sent after a previous request by Mr Trump in April. What is the migrant caravan heading to US? Honduran migrants: 'We left because we had to' Fake news follows migrant caravan Both sides of the US political divide have been accused of using the migrants for electoral gain just a week before Americans go to the polls. In mid-term elections on 6 November, President Trump's Republican Party will seek to keep both houses of Congress out of Democratichands. The migrants are still around 1,000 miles (1,600km) from the US border. Gen O'Shaughnessy said the troops would be deployed by the end of the week with weapons, helicopters, aeroplanes, barriers and miles of razor wire to support border patrol agents. Why the urgency? After a week in which guns and bombs dominated the headlines, Donald Trump seeks to return the focus on the migrants making their way through Mexico toward the US border. Their numbers may be dipping thanks to an offer of Mexican asylum and the length of the journey, but the president is sounding the alarm. The deployment of 5,000 soldiers to the border will probably have little tangible impact, given that the migrants plan to file legal requests for asylum. The urgency is questionable as well, given that it could be months before they arrive at the border. What the announcement represents, however, is clear. The president seeks to paint the refugees as a national threat that he alone is willing to counter. At the moment immigration is not among the top concerns of American voters. The president, perhaps seeking political advantage, has eight days to change that. US Customs and Border Protection (CBP) commissioner Kevin McAleenan also addressed Monday's news conference. He told reporters the migrants were estimated to be several weeks away from reaching the US border. The figure of 5,200 military personnel is higher than the 800 troops it was initially predicted would be sent. The total military deployment means the number of troops at the south-western border will exceed the US troops currently in Syria and Iraq, the Wall Street Journal notes. Mr Trump tweeted on Monday: "Many Gang Members and some very bad people are mixed into the Caravan heading to our Southern Border. "Please go back, you will not be admitted into the United States unless you go through the legal process. "This is an invasion of our Country and our Military is waiting for you!" Many of the migrants say they plan to seek asylum in the US There is a legal obligation under international law to hear asylum claims from migrants who have arrived in the US if they say they fear violence in their home countries. Those seeking asylum must be fleeing due to a serious fear of persecution in their home country. Under international law, these are considered refugees. If an asylum seeker enters the US illegally, they are still entitled to a hearing of their claim. There is a legal obligation under international law to hear asylum claims from migrants who have arrived in the US if they say they fear violence in their home countries. Those seeking asylum must be fleeing due to a serious fear of persecution in their home country. Under international law, these are considered refugees. If an asylum seeker enters the US illegally, they are still entitled to a hearing of their claim.

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Since designing and launching a specialized workflow management system in 2010, a research team from the US Department of Energy's Oak Ridge National Laboratory has continuously updated the technology to help computational scientists develop software, visualize data and solve problems. Workflow management systems allow users to prepare, produce and analyze scientific processes to help simplify complex simulations. Known as the Eclipse Integrated Computational Environment, or ICE, this particular system incorporates a comprehensive suite of scientific computing tools designed to save time and effort expended during modeling and simulation experiments. Compiling these resources into a single platform both improves the overall user experience and expedites scientific breakthroughs. Using ICE, software developers, engineers, scientists and programmers can define problems, run simulations locally on personal computers or remotely on other systems -- even supercomputers -- and then analyze results and archive data. Recently, the team published an article in SoftwareX that both details the history of the system and previews the potential benefits of upcoming versions. "What I really love about this project is making complicated computational science automatic," said Jay Jay Billings, a researcher in ORNL's Computer Science and Mathematics Division who leads the ICE development team. "Building workflow management systems and automation tools is a type of futurism, and it's challenging and rewarding to operate at the edge of what's possible." Researchers use ICE to study topics in fields including nuclear energy, astrophysics, additive manufacturing, advanced materials, neutron science and quantum computing, answering questions such as how batteries behave and how some 3D-printed parts deform when exposed to heat. Several factors differentiate ICE from other workflow management systems. For example, because ICE exists on an open-source software framework called the Eclipse Rich Client Platform, anyone can access, download and use it. Users also can create custom combinations of reusable resources and deploy simulation environments tailored to tackle specific research challenges. "Eclipse ICE is an excellent example of how open-source software can be leveraged to accelerate science and discovery, especially in scientific computing," said Eclipse Foundation Executive Director Mike Milinkovich. "The Eclipse Foundation, through its community-led Science Working Group, is fostering open-source solutions for advanced research in all areas of science." Additionally, ICE circumvents the steep and time-consuming learning curve that usually accompanies any computational science project. Although other systems require expert knowledge of the code and computer in question, ICE enables users to immediately begin facilitating their experiments, thus helping them gather data and achieve results much faster. "We've produced a streamlined interface to computational workflows that differs from complicated systems that you have to be specifically qualified in to use properly," Billings said. Throughout this project, Billings has also emphasized the importance of accessibility and usability to ensure that users of all ages and experience levels, including nonscientists, can use the system without prior training. "The problem with a lot of workflow management systems and with modeling and simulation codes in general is that they are usually unusable to the lay person," Billings said. "We designed ICE to be usable and accessible so anyone can pick up an existing code and use it to address pressing computational science problems." ICE uses the programming language Java to define workflows, whereas other systems use more obscure languages. Thus, students in grade school, high school and college have successfully run codes using ICE. Finally, instead of relying on grid workflows -- collections of orchestrated computing processes -- ICE focuses on flexible modeling and simulation workflows that give users interactive control over their projects. Grid workflows are defined by strict parameters and executed without human intervention, but ICE allows users to input additional information during simulations to produce more complicated scenarios. "In ICE you can have humans in the loop, meaning the program can stop, ask questions and receive instructions before resuming activity," Billings said. "This feature allows system users to complete more complex tasks like looping and conditional branching." Next, the development team intends to combine the most practical aspects of ICE and other systems through workflow interoperability, a concept referring to the ability of two different systems to seamlessly communicate. Combining the best features of grid workflows with modeling and simulation workflows would allow scientists to address even greater challenges and solve scientific mysteries more efficiently. "If I'm using ICE and someone else is using a different system, we want to be able to address problems together with our combined resources," Billings said. "With workflow interoperability, our systems would have a standard method of 'talking' to one another." To further improve ICE's accessibility and usability, the team is also developing a cloud-based version to provide even more interactive computing services for simplifying scientific workflows. "That's what research is -- we keep figuring out the next step to understand the system better," Billings said.

Sennheiser. Just the name should be enough to send tingles down the spine of any real audio buff. The company behind a complete line-up of offerings for the audio fan with everything from relatively cheap but good quality in ear buds to replace the rubbish that came with your phone all the way up to the legendary and downright audacious $55,000 Orpheus. Yes, you did read that right, Sennheiser actually made a pair of headphones that cost more than a car. In a day and age of publicly traded companies and boring sounding business phrases like “return on investment” Sennheiser is one of the few privately held firms that takes a longer term view of things like this and from time to time will go completely bonkers with an offering like Orpheus to simply show what it can do if it lets its engineers loose to just make the best headphones they can with the expectation that halo products such as this may contain technologies, innovations and learnings experiences which will eventually filter down to more mainstream products. I’ve had a few different gaming headsets since I came back to PC gaming in earnest 5 years ago, mostly with varying degrees of “semi-lapsed audiophile geeks shouldn’t buy gaming headsets” conclusions. Don’t get me wrong, some of them are not bad, but there’s a lot of very average, overpriced kit out there which sells because someone got a pair of bog standard mediocre headphones plugged a mic in and slapped the tag “Gaming” on them with a snazzy logo and maybe some RGB. Razer Tiamat 7.1 discrete, HyperX Cloud II and of course the never materialised Ossic X which collapsed after crowdfunding have all graced my personal “gaming audio” story. I’ve toyed with the idea of getting a proper amp and hooking it up to my PC but haven’t had the time so I’ve generally stayed somewhat disappointed with gaming audio headsets.

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American Truck Simulator (ATS) is a 2016 business and vehicle simulation game developed by the Czech company SCS Software and is the parallel video game sequel to Euro Truck Simulator 2. It was first announced as being in development in September 2013[1] and unveiled at the Electronic Entertainment Expo 2015 (E3 2015). The game was released on 2 February 2016. Gameplay : American Truck Simulator is a truck driving simulator with business management elements. In the game, players drive trucks and deliver trailer-moved goods to a designated location in order to be compensated with money and experience points. The payload must be delivered to the location speedily within a given amount of time, and with the least amount of damage to the goods as possible, in order to net the most money and experience points possible. In-game money, after being earned, can be used to purchase more trucks and associated aesthetic, mechanical, and structural upgrades, purchase fuel and repairs for those trucks, take out and repay loans from a bank, as well as hire drivers and purchase garages to house and base them in. The amount of money and experience points earned is commensurate on the length of the delivery in distance traveled as well as the type of goods being transported. When delivering goods, players can use their own personally-purchased truck or use one provided by an in-game company. When delivering goods using a fleet-provided truck, repairs and other costs are paid for by the company rather than out of the player's in-game fund pool. Experience points can be accumulated and used to obtain perks, which improve the player's driving ability and what kinds of payloads they can deliver, such as chemicals and explosives, which net a bigger reward when completed successfully. In addition to driving and delivering goods, the player can also manage a trucking business with hired drivers and owned properties. Hired drivers will perform deliveries on their own, netting the player money. The longer the drivers are hired, the more skillful they will become, thus increasing the amount of money they earn from each delivery. The player can train each driver to focus on a specific area of their driving that can be improved upon. Unlike in Euro Truck Simulator 2, the game features weigh stations, where players must stop at a designated weight station in order to determine the weight of the cargo before proceeding through (though the game will sometimes allow them to bypass the station but avoiding it deliberately will result in receiving a fine). The game started off at launch with the U.S. states of California and Nevada, and expanded from there, with Arizona being added in June 2016 as a major update. The U.S. states of New Mexico and Oregon have been made available, as paid DLC, in November 2017, and October 2018, respectively. More U.S. states (and parts of Mexico and Canada)[citation needed] are expected to be added by SCS Software in the future. Development : SCS Software first announced the game on 6 September 2013.[3] It was revealed at E3 in 2015.[4] On 11 April 2014, SCS Software announced that there will be 100+ cities in the game once completed (not initially), and SCS released screenshots of the game. Truck brands included on American Truck Simulator so far are Kenworth and Peterbilt, but more will follow; the only setback remains the licensing of trucks from their manufacturers. SCS plans to eventually include the entire contiguous United States, as long as the game continues to do well. On 26 January 2015, SCS Software published a 1-hour video to YouTube of footage from early alpha of the game. On 18 December 2015, SCS Software announced the official release date for American Truck Simulator, 3 February 2016, on their blog. The game was released 1 day earlier instead.[5] On 23 June 2016, SCS Software announced that it will edit the size of the in-game environment to increase its size by 75%.[6] On 20 July 2017, SCS announced the 1.28 update, jumping from 1.6 in order to reflect that American Truck Simulator shares features with Euro Truck Simulator 2. The game was released for PC-DVD on 14 December 2017

The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt[a] is a 2015 action role-playing game developed and published by CD Projekt. Based on The Witcher series of fantasy novels by Polish author Andrzej Sapkowski, it is the sequel to the 2011 game The Witcher 2: Assassins of Kings. Played in an open world with a third-person perspective, players control protagonist Geralt of Rivia, a monster hunter known as a witcher, who is looking for his missing adopted daughter on the run from the Wild Hunt: an otherworldly force determined to capture and use her powers. Players battle the game's many dangers with weapons and magic, interact with non-player characters, and complete main-story and side quests to acquire experience points and gold, which are used to increase Geralt's abilities and purchase equipment. Its central story has several endings, determined by the player's choices at certain points in the game. Development began in 2011 and lasted for three and a half years. Voice recording took over two and a half years. The writing was infused with real-life aspects like moral ambiguity in a deliberate attempt to avoid simplification, impart authenticity, and reflect Sapkowski's novels. Europe was the basis of the game's open world, with Poland, Amsterdam, and Scandinavia as its primary inspirations. REDengine 3 enabled the developer to create a complex story without compromising the game world. The music was composed by Marcin Przybyłowicz and performed by the Brandenburg State Orchestra. The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt was released worldwide for Microsoft Windows, PlayStation 4, and Xbox One on 19 May 2015. The game received critical acclaim, with praise of its gameplay, narrative, world design, combat, and visuals, although it received minor criticism due to technical issues, some of which were later patched. It received numerous Game of the Year awards, and is considered to be one of the greatest games of all time. The game was also a commercial success, shipping nearly ten million copies by March 2016. Two expansion packs, Hearts of Stone and Blood and Wine, were also released. A Game of the Year edition, with the base game, expansion packs and all downloadable content, was released in August 2016. Gameplay: The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt is an action role-playing game with a third-person perspective. Players control Geralt of Rivia, a monster hunter known as a Witcher.[1] Geralt walks, runs, rolls and dodges, and (for the first time in the series) jumps, climbs and swims.[2][3] He has a variety of weapons, including bombs, a crossbow and two swords (one steel and one silver).[4] The steel sword is used primarily to kill humans while the silver sword is more effective against creatures and monsters.[5] Players can draw out, switch and sheathe their swords at will. There are two modes of melee attack; light attacks are fast but weak, and heavy attacks are slow and strong.[6] Players can block and counter enemy attacks with their swords.[4] Swords have limited endurance and require regular repair.[7] In addition to physical attacks, Geralt has five magical signs at his disposal: Aard, Axii, Igni, Yrden and Quen.[8] Aard prompts Geralt to unleash a telekinetic blast, Axii confuses enemies, Igni burns them, Yrden slows them down and Quen offers players a temporary, protective shield.[9] The signs use stamina, and cannot be used indefinitely.[10] Players can use mutagens to increase Geralt's magic power. They lose health when they are attacked by enemies, although wearing armour can help reduce health loss. Health can be restored with meditation or consumables, such as food and potions.[4] Players may also control Ciri, Geralt's adoptive daughter who can teleport short distances, in certain parts of the game.[11] It has responsive, advanced artificial intelligence (AI) and dynamic environments. The day-night cycle influences some monsters (and their powers), as a werewolf becomes powerful during the night of a full moon.[12] Players can learn about their enemies and prepare for combat by reading the in-game bestiary.[13] When they kill an enemy, they can loot its corpse for valuables.[13] Geralt's witcher sense enables players to find objects of interest, including items that can be collected or scavenged.[14] Items are stored in the inventory, which can be expanded by purchasing upgrades.[13] Players can sell items to vendors[15] or use them to craft potions and bombs.[16][17] They can visit blacksmiths to craft new weapons and armour with what they have gathered.[18] The price of an item and the cost of crafting it depend on a region's local economy.[3] The game focuses on narrative, and has a dialogue wheel which allows players to choose how to respond to non-player characters. Geralt must make decisions which change the state of the world and lead to 36 possible endings, affecting the lives of in-game characters.[19] He can have a romantic relationship with some of the game's female characters by completing certain quests.[20] In addition to the main quests, books offer more information on the game's world.[13] Players can begin side quests after visiting a town's noticeboard.[13] These side missions include Witcher Contracts (elaborate missions requiring players to hunt monsters)[21] and Treasure Hunt quests, which reward players with top-tier weapons or armour.[13] Players earn experience points by completing missions.[3] When a player earns enough experience, Geralt's level increases and the player receives ability points.[22] These points may be used on four skill trees: combat, signs, alchemy and general. Combat upgrades enhance Geralt's attacks and unlock new fighting techniques; signs upgrades enable him to use magic more efficiently, and alchemy upgrades improve crafting abilities. General upgrades have a variety of functions, from raising Geralt's vitality to increasing crossbow damage.[10] The game's open world is divided into several regions. Geralt can explore each region on foot or by transportation, such as a boat. Roach, his horse, may be summoned at will.[23] Players can kill enemies with their sword while riding Roach,[24] but an enemy presence may frighten the horse and unseat Geralt.[13] Points of interest may be found on the map, and players receive experience points after completing mini-missions in these regions.[25] Players can discover Places of Power for additional ability points.[26] Other activities include horse racing, boxing and card playing;[27][28] the card-playing mechanic was later expanded into a standalone game. Development : Although the game was planned to begin production in 2008, CD Projekt Red's preoccupation with Rise of the White Wolf pushed it back to 2011.[36] The company developed The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt with a self-funded budget of US$81 million over three-and-a-half years. The project began with 150 employees, eventually growing to over 250 in-house staff. Fifteen hundred people were involved in the game's production globally. While the game is based on Sapkowski's novels, his involvement with the game was limited to the creation of its in-game map.[40] It was localised in 15 languages, with a total of 500 voice actors.[41][42][43] The game was scripted concurrently in Polish and English to alleviate difficulty in localisation.[44] According to Side (the company which handled voice casting and recording), the 450,000-word script had 950 speaking roles. The voices were recorded from late 2012 to early 2015.[45] CD Projekt Red wanted The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt to be free of any digital rights management (DRM) due to the developer's unsuccessful control of piracy with its predecessor, The Witcher 2: Assassins of Kings, whose DRM also made it run slowly.[46] The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt was created with the REDengine 3, CD Projekt Red's proprietary game engine designed for nonlinear role-playing video games set in open world environments,[47] aided by the PlayStation 4 and Xbox One consoles and prepared for use in October 2014. The first play-through indicated to the developers that the open world, despite its content and generation around the quests, seemed empty. As a solution, they added points of interest. The game had 5,000 bugs that December, which (with a launch date of February 2015) necessitated its postponement.[36][48] Like the previous two Witcher games, players are given a complex story with multiple choices and consequences. Unlike other game engines, REDengine 3 permits a complex storyline without sacrificing virtual world design.[49] The user interface was made more intuitive with grid-based solutions. The camera system was improved to use long shots for battles with multiple enemies and close-ups for more-intimate confrontations.[50] More animations were used for combat sequences than in The Witcher 2, with each lasting less than one second for quick succession.[51] Game director Konrad Tomaszkiewicz and senior game designer Damien Monnier cited Dark Souls and Demon's Souls as influences on Wild Hunt's combat system,[52][53] and level designer Miles Tost and senior environment artist Jonas Mattsson cited The Legend of Zelda series and Red Dead Redemption as influencing the game's level designs and environments.[54] Months before its release date, the game's economy, crafting, and inventory systems were incomplete and apparently unable to meet the deadline. Senior gameplay designer Matthew Steinke thought of a remedy and drew up a system context diagram. To allocate prices, Steinke wrote a formula based on rate of damage, defence, or healing. Polynomial least squares were used to determine its efficacy, and it was found to eliminate bugs from the system and reduce loading times.[55] Each character was given a unique personality to contrast the fetch-quest system typically used in video games. It was decided early that the writing would be witty, with metaphors and implied meanings. Dialogue was limited to 15 lines, with occasional exceptions, to retain content originality. Player options were written as morally ambiguous, reflecting real life and Andrzej Sapkowski's original Witcher series. Alcoholism, abuse and sexuality, depicted as normal parts of the medieval world, were incorporated into the story for authenticity.[36][48][44] Areas of the open world were based on Poland, Amsterdam, and Scandinavia.[44] Objects on the game's levels were modelled by hand.[48] Storylines such as Yennefer imprisoning Geralt on an island and Geralt's covert recruitment to the Wild Hunt were discarded to make the game smaller and avoid splitting it into two parts. The card game Gwent was preceded by other mini-game proposals, including a drinking game, knife throwing, and ice skating.[36] A re-enactment of the Battle of Grunwald was recorded for the sounds of battle, marching, blacksmithing, and the firing of arrows. Recording the knights' voices for post-processing, the speakers wore helmets for an authentic sound. Marcin Przybyłowicz was the game's music director and composer, with additional music contributed by Polish folk band Percival because their instruments were older. According to Przybyłowicz, working with Percival was a challenge; he expected an academic approach before learning that most of the group were not formally trained, and much of the music was improvised. Multi-instrumentalist Robert Jaworski of the folk band Żywiołak recorded lute, Renaissance fiddle, bowed gusle, and hurdy-gurdy sections. The score was performed in Frankfurt (Oder) by the Brandenburg State Orchestra, conducted by Bernd Ruf.

Monster Hunter: World[a] is an action role-playing game developed and published by Capcom. A part of the Monster Hunter series, it was released worldwide for PlayStation 4 and Xbox One in January 2018, with a Microsoft Windows version in August 2018. In the game, the player takes the role of a Hunter, tasked to hunt down and either kill or trap monsters that roam in one of several environmental spaces. If successful, the player is rewarded through loot consisting of parts from the monster and other elements that are used to craft weapons and armor, amongst other equipment. The game's core loop has the player crafting appropriate gear to be able to hunt down more difficult monsters, which in turn provide parts that lead to more powerful gear. Players may hunt alone, or can hunt in cooperative groups of up to four players via the game's online services. Announced at E3 2017, Monster Hunter: World adopts the series' standard formulas from its older home console roots and recent handheld games to take advantage of the higher processing power provided by modern consoles and computers. Changes made in Monster Hunter: World include creating environmental spaces that are fully connected and removing the "zones" that were necessary for the PlayStation 2 and handheld games, more advanced monster artificial intelligence and physics to create seemingly living ecosystems that could be taken advantage of during hunts, a more persistent cooperative multiplayer experience, and a refinement of the game's user interface, menu systems, and tutorials to help with bringing new players into the series. These changes led Capcom to plan for the game's simultaneous release across both Japan and Western markets, since Monster Hunter as a series has generally languished in the West compared to Japan partially due to disparate release schedules. Capcom also opted to support online play between these different geographic regions for similar reasons. The delay for the Windows release was attributed to Capcom seeking to make sure its first foray into the Windows market was optimized for players on computers. Monster Hunter: World received critical acclaim upon release, with critics praising how Capcom was able to make the game more accessible to new players and to Western markets, without detracting from the series' core gameplay elements and enjoyable difficulty, and fully taking advantage of the computational capacity of modern consoles to create living ecosystems. Within a few weeks of release, the game became the fastest-selling game in Capcom's history. It eventually became their best-selling game, with over ten million copies shipped by August 2018. Synopsis : In an unnamed high fantasy setting, humans and other sentient races have set their eyes on the New World, a separate continent from the po[CENSORED]ted Old World. The New World is an untamed wilderness where many powerful monsters roam, and where researchers have been drawn to uncover new mysteries. Several ocean-bound Fleets have been sent already to establish working bases, safe from monsters, and operations are led by the Research Commission. Plot : The player controls a hunter that they can name, supported by an assistant handler, who are a part of the Fifth Fleet which has been summoned by the Research Commission to provide more support to the New World. A particular focus of the Expedition is to study Elder Dragons, powerful beasts that can affect entire ecosystems, and why they migrate to the New World every ten years in an event known as the Elder Crossing. While traveling to the New World, the Fifth Fleet encounters Zorah Magdaros, a massive Elder Dragon the size of a mountain. After being rescued and arriving at the base camp, known as Astera, the Hunter and their Handler undertake various tasks to explore the area and study Zorah Magdaros at the behest of the Commander of the Expedition. The Expedition determines that Zorah Magdaros is dying and is migrating to a massive graveyard, known as the Rotten Vale. An Expedition-led capture mission against Zorah Magdaros is foiled by Nergigante, an Elder Dragon that feeds on other Elder Dragons, and is protecting Zorah Magdaros as its future meal. After escaping the ambush, Zorah Magdaros unexpectedly enters the Everstream rather than traveling to the Rotten Vale. After further investigations, the Expedition learns that if Zorah Magdaros dies within the Everstream, its released bio-energy will destroy the New World. With no time to evacuate, the Expedition develops an emergency plan to intercept Zorah Magdaros and drive it to the ocean, where its released bio-energy will form a new aquatic ecosystem. Nergigante once again interferes, but this time is driven off by the Hunters, and Zorah Magdaros is successfully driven into the ocean. However, when Nergigante flees to the Elder's Recess, an area in the Everstream with massive amounts of stored bio-energy, the presence of Nergigante drives away its Elder Dragon prey toward neighboring locations, upsetting each individual ecosystem. With the help of the Admiral, the true leader of the Expedition, the Hunter is able to track down and kill Nergigante. With Nergigante dead, the Elder Dragons calm down and return to the Recess. After their defeat by the Hunter, the source of energy within the Elder’s Recess is discovered: Xeno'jiiva, an infant Elder Dragon, which had been incubating within the Elder's Recess, and was feeding on the bio-energy of dead Elder Dragons. Xeno'jiiva hatches upon being discovered, and at the behest of the Admiral, the Hunter defeats it before it can wreak havoc on the world. With the Elder Crossing now fully understood, the Expedition is considered finished, but members are offered the chance to stay in the New World to continue their research. Gameplay : Monster Hunter: World is an open-world action role-playing game played from a third-person perspective. Similar to previous games in the series, the player takes the role of a player-created character who travels to the "New World", an unpo[CENSORED]ted land mass filled with monsters, to join the Research Commission that study the land from their central command base of Astera. The Research Commission tasks the Hunter to hunt down and either kill or capture large monsters that roam outside Astera to both protect the Commission and to study the monsters there.[1] The player's character does not have any intrinsic attributes, but instead these are determined by what equipment the character is equipped with. This includes a weapon, selected from the series' fourteen archetypes (such as long sword, bow, or hammer),[2] which then further defines the types of combat moves and abilities the player can use, and pieces of armor, which can lead to beneficial or detrimental combat skills if matched properly. While some basic equipment can be purchased using in-game money, most equipment is built from loot obtained by slaying or trapping monsters, rewards from completing quests, or items gathered while in the field. This creates a core loop of gameplay that has the player fight monsters they can beat to obtain the right loot to craft improved weapons and armor to allow them to face more powerful monsters and the potential for even better equipment. After taking a quest in Astera, or after choosing to simply go on an open-ended expedition, the player is taken to a base camp in one of six large regions that make up the New World. Each region is made up of numbered zones, but unlike previous Monster Hunter games, these zones are seamlessly connected, and there are no loading screens when moving between zones. The player must traverse zone to zone, though they can quick-travel to any of the base camps in that particular region when outside of combat. From camp, the player can acquire limited provisions, rest to restore their health, and new to World, have a meal that provides limited-time buffs to the player. The player sets out to track down monsters, which in World is aided with the use of Scout flies, which hover near tracks and other signs of large monsters, or highlight resources that the player can collect such as flora, ores, bones, and insects. Investigate the traces of the monster leads to improving the Scout flies' abilities for the quest, eventually enabling them to lead the player via their glowing flight path towards the monster they seek; further, investigating these help the player to gain research towards the monster that helps them gain insight on its strengths, weaknesses, and behavior.[3][4] Once a monster is located, the player can take several approaches to either slay or capture it using traps once sufficiently weakened, using a combination of their weapons and items they are carrying. As a monster is weakened, its tactics will often change, frequently becoming more aggressive, or fleeing to a lair to rest or find food to recover. The player has additional tools within World for combat. Each player has a Slinger, a tool that can be used to fire small projectiles like rocks at the monster to damage it or cause other debuffs, or can be used as a grappling hook to reach higher elevations or pull down objects onto a monster.[2] A new type of tool called a Mantle can be used for a limited amount of time; these cloak-like objects provide a buff to the player, such as acting like a ghillie suit to reduce the chances of monsters detecting the player. Furthermore, the player has opportunities to use the environment strategically against the monster, such as bursting a natural dam to flood out a monster, or leading a monster into another monster's den to cause them to fight each other.[2][5] The game includes a dynamic weather system and day-night cycle, which can affect the behavior of some monsters mid-quest.[2] In combat, the player must watch their health — if it falls to zero, they faint and are taken back to camp but then can set out again at a reduced reward; however, fainting three times will cause the quest to fail. Further, the player must watch their stamina, which is consumed for nearly all attacks, dodges, and other actions; stamina will recover quickly but the player must not take other aggressive actions for this to happen, which can be tricky in the heat of battle. The player can carry various restorative items for health and stamina; unlike previous games where the player was forced to stand still to take these, World allows the player to take these while walking, though the player must not be interrupted for a few moments to gain the full effects of the restorative item.[6] The player must also be aware of various debuffs that monsters can inflict on them, the sharpness of their weapon or the quantity of ammo for certain weapon types, and the limitations of items they can bring on a quest that restrict how much they can recover while in the field. If the player successfully completes the quest, they gain reward resources, often consisting of parts from that monster along with zenny, the in-game currency. The distribution of rewards from a quest are determined by rarity, so obtaining certain rare parts may require repeating a quest several times to get a desired part. Astera acts as a central hub where the player can buy and sell goods, manage their inventory, craft new equipment, and gain new quests.[3] A core facet of Monster Hunter games is the construction and upgrading of armor and weapons at a forge using the monster parts and resources the player has gained from combat. As the player defeats tougher monsters, they can make armor with more defensive value or particular elemental resistance, or can improve weapons to be more lethal and deal elemental or debuffing damage. Weapons and armor also carry various skills which have a number of different effects for the player; World introduces a new streamlined skill system compared to previous games, where each weapon or armor piece has one or more ranks in at least one skill, and the total effect of a skill on the player is determined by adding up all ranks of that skill from all equipped items the player carries. Additional services in Astera include a farm to grow quantities of flora while the player is out on quests, training areas to practice weapons, a gathering hub to take on special Arena challenges against one or more monsters, and a canteen which the player can order a meal from specific ingredients to provide buffs and special conditions while out on the field. World features a story mode offered through the quest system. Unlike previous games, where the story mode led the player through and to complete the "Low Rank" quests, before opening the game to more difficult "High Rank" quests without a story driver, World will have a narrative that continues into the "High Rank" quests.[7] The game's complete story mode is estimated to take between 40 and 50 hours, according to director Yuya Tokuda.[8] Instead of quests that required the player to slay a number of smaller monsters or collect resources, World will offer these as Bounties that can be achieved alongside the main quests, or provided as Optional quests that generally lead to improving some facet of the resources in Astera.[9] A player can have up to six different Bounties active, and which provide rewards when they are completed.[10] The player can gain Investigation quests as well, which come from investigating the trail of monsters with Scout flies or by breaking off parts of monsters in combat. Each Investigation offers a quest that may have unique limitations or goals compared to main story quests, such as time limits or reduced fainting limits but also provide additional rewards; Investigations can only be attempted, successfully or not, a limited number of times before they are exhausted and removed. The game supports both single-player and up to four player cooperative mode while being online; there is no local offline multiplayer. The game's quest system is the same in both modes.[2] Players gather in multiplayer servers supporting up to sixteen players, during which they can post quests to invite others to join, or join other existing quests as long as they have progressed far enough in the game's storyline. If there are only one or two hunters on a quest, each brings with them a Palico (an anthropomorphic sentient cat species) to assist them in combat; these Palico can be equipped with weapons and armor crafted in the same manner as the hunter themselves. If there are less than four players in a party, a party member can launch a red SOS flare, which other players, while in their instance of Astera, can opt to join to help out, creating a drop-in/drop-out system.[2] The game also supports Squads, the equivalent of clans or guilds in typical massive multiplayer online games.[9] The game allows players in different release regions to work together; the game will use a pre-determined set of common greetings and commands that are translated to the various languages so that players can effectively communicate with each other.[2] However, players are limited to cooperating with those on the same platform, and will not feature cross-platform play.[3] Players also need to register with their console's service (PlayStation Network or Xbox Live) to use multiplayer features.[11] With an aim to reach a wider audience than past games, Monster Hunter: World also provides more information to players, such as a companion that will warn the player when they are running low on health, and more details on the advantages and disadvantages of weapons and armors against specific monsters.[4] In addition to quests shipped with the game, Capcom has offered downloadable content quests, similarly featured in the handheld versions. However, with the greater degree of connectivity offered by modern consoles/computers compared to handheld systems, Capcom has been able to offer several time-limited Event quests that players can easily jump in on through the new matchmaking system.[7][11][12] Through the event system, the game has included limited-time unique gameplay modes, such as a 16-person raid against a single monster, with players working in teams of four to help defeat the monster.[13] Capcom has also added new monsters to hunt through free downloadable content; the first such update, adding in the Deviljho monster from previous games was released alongside other quality-of-life updates in March 2018.[14][15][16] Capcom also expected to provide paid post-content material as well;[10] however, Capcom does not see World as a type of service, as they do not expect players to continue playing the game five to ten years after release.[17] The game will not include any type of microtransactions that influence gameplay; Tsujimoto said that as Monster Hunter is meant as a cooperative game, they did not want to create any type of "friction" between players due to some having simply purchased better equipment with real-world funds compared to those that spent the time to work through challenges to acquire the equipment.[18] There is paid downloadable content available for the game, but these are limited to cosmetic items only, such as gestures, character customization options, and stickers used in communicating with other players. Development : Monster Hunter: World is considered a main installment in the Monster Hunter series, according to the game's senior producer Ryozo Tsujimoto and director Yuya Tokuda.[6] Along with executive director Kaname Fujioka, Tokuda served as a director for Monster Hunter 4 and Monster Hunter 4 Ultimate.[19] Development of World started about three years prior to the E3 2017 reveal, following a year of brainstorming on what the next main game in the series would be.[20] With the series more than a decade old, Capcom re-evaluated where they wanted to take the series, and realized that with the hardware capabilities of the new consoles, they could realize a different vision compared to the handheld entries.[20] According to Capcom Europe's COO Stuart Turner and marking director for the Europe, the Middle East and Africa Antoine Molant, the divisions of Capcom outside of Japan had suggested for Capcom to embrace a Western release with full online gaming support. The Japanese teams had been wary of this, since the series normally assured them of three to four million sales within Japan and they would risk those assured numbers by making the game more global. However, the risks of taking a more worldwide approach were embraced when Sony said they would help support this approach, since they believed this would also help to boost PlayStation 4 sales.[21] Additionally, the sheer scale of the project also used a large budget which they deemed necessary to "go up against Hollywood movies", and cost-cutting measures had to adopted throughout Capcom. [22] Tsujimoto said that past games typically had arcane rules, and the zoned-area structure made each zone feel isolated, and wanted to change that approach.[23] They have also wanted to implement living worlds and ecosystems, with complex artificial intelligence interactions between monsters and the environment but have been limited in the past by handheld gaming hardware.[6][20] The team determined that they would pursue highly detailed worlds that felt realistic, eliminating the disconnected zoned-map approach.[23] This created a "ripple effect" of changes in gameplay; for example, elimination of loading screens meant the player could not use the tactic of jumping to a different zone to heal in safety, and thus allowed the player to drink healing potions while walking.[24] Tokuda noted that with these changes, the pace of the game also became quicker.[24] A prototype of this more open world approach took about 18 months to complete by November 2015 with a team of 50-70 developers to test the seamless transition in the map, and how monsters would behave in these varied environments.[25] This also helped the team recognize that player survival during hunts by effective use of the environment, either for protection or as means to harm monsters via destructible components, and of monsters themselves, luring one to an area to draw out another, could be a key part of World's gameplay.[26] While the game features monsters already created from previous games in the series, the developers also crafted new monsters that took advantage of the benefits from more powerful processing hardware. A design of a new monster typically began around developing a certain gameplay challenge or mechanic for the monster's behavior that the player may need to exploit to defeat it, and then working with the level designers to find or help craft an area in the region maps to have that monster inhabit that allows for that behavior to be shown off. This in turn helped to establish the look and other behavior of the monster so that it felt like it belonged in that particular region.[27] Individual features of the monsters could now be more directly animated compared to the previous games, such as showing feathers on bird-like monsters having natural-appearing movements, or having monsters take on different forms. In one case, the monster Nergigante was designed to have thorns all over its body that grow over time as it becomes more aggressive; with the ability to render monsters in more detail, they could show each of these thousand-some thorns moving and growing on their own, which directly affects how the player interacts with it in combat, making it a creature they could not have previously used in early games.[27] Monster animation was developed in part with motion capture, with human actors acting out some of the various monster actions.[28] Sets of rules were developed for the monsters to follow to interact in their environment, but they did not resort to any type of scripted event. This often created unexpected monster behavior when testing or demonstrating the game to public audiences.[12] Once monsters were created, then they used those to develop the various weapon and armors that could be crafted from those monster parts to give a consistent feel to the game.[27] As they worked towards this, Capcom found that this more open world would be something better appreciated by Western audiences. The Monster Hunter series has generally languished in sales in Western markets due to the complexity of the game, high learning curves, and the preference of console and PC gaming in Western audiences compared to the po[CENSORED]rity of portable gaming in Japan.[23] The team felt the new approach to the game would be something that would mesh well with Western markets, and starting adopting the game to include more Western standards in controls and interface design. They also looked to provide more tutorial information as well as making these fully voiced, as to avoid unskippable dialog boxes that had been used in the past.[23] With these changes came the decision to make the game a worldwide release with inter-region play, as they believed they would be able to draw more Western players with the gameplay changes they have made.[23] Tsujimoto and Tokuda recognized that World would be the first Monster Hunter game that many in the Western regions will likely play, so wanted to make sure the game was accessible to those players without having played any of the previous games. They also were aware of past criticisms that the games were very hard to learn though provided a rewarding experience once learned, so aimed to include means to help ease the learning curve and provide more information to the starting player.[6] Fujioka responded to some initial criticism of the Western-driven changes to the game that they were not trying to make the game easier just to drive sales: "We're not taking things that people in the west hate and fixing them to make western players buy it. People sometimes make that assumption, or they've got that fear, but that's not the case at all."[5] He continued that some of the changes that were seem to favor Western audiences were necessitated by the highly interconnected maps, and that "the new gameplay has to mesh with the new concept or else it would just be a mess."[5] Tokuda said that they were not simplifying the game, but instead "It's more that we want to have this great core action gameplay where players observe monster behaviour and then learn how to take advantage of that and mani[CENSORED]te that to assist in hunting them. We want to make it so that if they make mistakes they don't feel it's unfair but instead think that it's their mistake and they have to grow and learn."[12] Most of the changes made were thus specifically to reduce the difficulty curve to make it easier for new players to grasp the concepts of the game, but otherwise not changing the core difficulty.[12] Tsujimoto also said that as they have been working on the series for more than a decade, they are aware of what fans expect of a Monster Hunter game, saying "we want Monster Hunter fans to feel like this is a Monster Hunter game through and through when they play it".[5] The subtitle World alludes to many facets of the game's design changes from past Monster Hunter games: it reflects that the game had a worldwide simultaneous release, that it plays on worldwide servers rather than segmented by region, that the maps are no longer connected zones but wide-open worlds, and that these maps represent living worlds.[6][20] Capcom opted not to use a numerical title, such Monster Hunter 5, as that would give the impression that players needed to have completed other games in the series to play this one.[24] Tsujimoto and Tokuda said they add a unique gameplay element with each Monster Hunter, and as such, the "Hunter Arts" and "Prowler" Modes from Generations were not included. However, they have re-evaluated all the existing weapon classes to add new moves and abilities to provide a fresh take on the series for veteran players.[20] While their main Monster Hunter development team from Osaka developed the core, Capcom brought in other programmers familiar with the newer consoles to help with bringing the game to those systems.[6] The game uses a modified version of Capcom's internally developed MT Framework engine which provided a minimum of 30 frames per seconds on all platforms.[29] The PlayStation 4 and the Xbox One version includes ultra-high resolutions and other improved features for the PlayStation 4 Pro and Xbox One X.[20] When they had started development, neither of these console refreshes had been announced, and by the time the specifications for both were released (around 2016), Capcom recognized they did not have time to evaluate the specifications fully without changing the release window, but were aided by support of both Sony and Microsoft to help make World run efficiently on these newer consoles. For these, the game includes options to run between a detailed graphical version, lowering the game's framerate, or with reduced graphical details to maintain a high framerate.[12] Tsujimoto and Tokuda said the delay on the Windows version release was to make sure it was "optimized and fine-tuned for the PC as much as possible", with all work being done internally within Capcom to avoid treating the game as an outsourced port.[30] They also seek to have Monster Hunter: World support a wide variety of personal computer configurations, and need the additional time to achieve this broad range.[24] Additionally, the Windows platform lacks the built-in matchmaking that is in Xbox Live or PlayStation Network, requiring them to build their own version for this.[31] Tsujimoto announced in January 2018 that they are aiming for a Windows release in the second half of 2018,[32] looking to get the console versions released so that they can spend their full attention towards the Windows port.[31] There are no plans for Monster Hunter: World to be released for the Nintendo Switch. Fujioka and Tokuda said that development started well before the Switch was announced, and had focused the game to best play on the PlayStation 4 and Xbox One.

Thimbleweed Park is a point-and-click adventure game developed by Ron Gilbert and Gary Winnick for Microsoft Windows, macOS, iOS, Xbox One, PlayStation 4, Linux, Android, and Nintendo Switch. The game was revealed on November 18, 2014, along with a Kickstarter crowdfunding campaign with a goal of US$375,000, and was released on March 30, 2017.[1] The game is a spiritual successor to Gilbert and Winnick's previous games Maniac Mansion (1987) and The Secret of Monkey Island (1990), and is designed to be similar to graphic adventure games released in that time period, both visually and gameplay-wise. Gameplay : The game is played similarly to early graphic adventure games; it is seen from a third person perspective, with a view of the area taking up the majority of the screen, while the bottom portion is taken up by the player's inventory and a list of verbs, such as "use", "pick up", and "talk to". By clicking on a verb followed by one or two items or characters, the player character will attempt to perform the action described. An example given in the reveal trailer was "Use balloon animal with corpse", performed by clicking on the verb "use", the "balloon animal" item in the player's inventory, and a corpse found in an area in the game. The game has five different player characters which the player can switch between in the middle of gameplay, similarly to Maniac Mansion. Plot : FBI agents Ray and Reyes arrive at the town of Thimbleweed Park to investigate a murder. Their investigation leads them to several persons of interest: Chuck, the recently deceased owner of the PillowTronics robotics company; Ransome the Clown, cursed to wear his makeup forever after going too far in his insulting performances; Delores, computer programmer and niece of Chuck; and Delores's downtrodden father Franklin. Franklin attempts to pitch his business ideas to Chuck, but is murdered at the town hotel and becomes a ghost. Delores discovers that Chuck has written her out of his will, angered by her choice to pursue a career in video games. Ray and Reyes gather blood samples, fingerprints, and photographic evidence, and arrest vagrant Willie, who protests his innocence. They leave town, but return incognito to pursue other agendas: Ray has been tasked with stealing computer secrets, and Reyes wants to clear his father of causing the fire that burnt down the PillowTronics factory. Ray, Reyes, Delores and Ransome infiltrate the factory. Delores disables the security systems and discovers that Chuck has uploaded his personality into the factory computer. Chuck reveals that everyone in the town is trapped inside a video game that keeps repeating, and that the group must free themselves by deleting the game. Ransome apologises to the citizens of Thimbleweed Park, clearing his reputation. Franklin says goodbye to his daughter and disappears to the afterlife. In the local paper, Reyes publishes a confession from Chuck clearing his father of blame for the factory fire. Ray steals a game design document from game designer Ron Gilbert and is transferred out of the game by her employers. Delores enters the "wireframe world", a prototype version of Thimbleweed Park with simplistic graphics, and shuts down the computer. Development : On November 18, 2014, Gilbert posted an update to his blog, in which he revealed that talks about the game had begun "several months ago" while he and Winnick had been discussing how fun their time developing Maniac Mansion at LucasArts (Lucasfilm Games at the time) had been, and how they liked the "charm, simplicity and innocence" of the adventure games of that era. Winnick proposed that they should make a new game in the style of their old ones; as such, it is designed as if it had been made in 1987 and as if it were "an undiscovered LucasArts adventure game you've never played before". Gilbert agreed, and suggested that they should crowdfund it on Kickstarter.[4] Development started with Gilbert and Winnick building the game's world and story, designing puzzles using puzzle dependency charts, and creating characters around the puzzles. From the start, Gilbert says, they wanted to parody the TV shows Twin Peaks, The X-Files, and True Detective.[4] The game's production was planned to last for 18 months, with Gilbert programming, Winnick producing art, and both writing and designing. Six months into development, an additional artist and programmer was hired along with a part-time musician. Development began on January 2, 2015. Crowdfunding A month-long crowdfunding campaign for the game was launched on Kickstarter on November 18, 2014, with a goal of US$375,000; people who pledged at least $20 received a copy of the game.[3] At the end of the campaign, on December 18, 2014, they had managed to raise US$626,250 from 15,623 people; they had also managed to reach a number of "stretch goals", which would allow German, Spanish, French, and Italian localizations of the game, full English voice acting, and ports to iOS and Android. The German localization is planned to be done by Boris Schneider-Johne, who was responsible for the German localization of Monkey Island. After the end of the campaign, there was a 14-day period of waiting for credit cards to clear; Gilbert and Winnick finally got access to the money on January 5, 2015. Kickstarter took a 5% cut, and Amazon, who handled the payments, took a 3–5% cut; this added up to $57,198 of fees. Additionally, another $4,890 was deducted from the raised amount due to failed transactions; in the end, they had $564,162, plus around $8,000 from people who had pledged via PayPal.[6] According to Gilbert, a lot of the failed transactions were from people who had problems with Amazon, and who then went on to pledge money via PayPal instead; because of this, he suggested that perhaps only half of the $4,890 had been lost. Budgeting was done around the money from Kickstarter, while the PayPal money was to be a safety net, or for potential added improvements to the game.[6] Game engine and tools Gilbert had already started to look for adventure game engines in August 2014,[7] but because of his experience of always wanting to modify engines to do exactly what he wants from them, he decided it would be easier to create his own engine.[8] He already had a 2D graphics engine written in C/C++ that he had used for his non-adventure games The Big Big Castle! and Scurvy Scallywags, which he decided to use for Thimbleweed Park; SDL was used for handling window creation and input, while Gilbert's own code was used for rendering the graphics. The only other thing that was needed for the engine was a scripting language; Gilbert had looked at Lua, and while he considered it "easy to integrate and highly optimized", he disliked its syntax. He considered making his own scripting language, but due to time concerns, he chose the language Squirrel instead.[8] Winnick mostly used Adobe Photoshop. According to Winnick, the style they were aiming for would lend itself very well to being drawn entirely digitally from the start. He drew the initial concepts and layouts as sketches.[9][10] Updates While the game was released on 30 March 2017, the developers have continuously released updates not only fixing problems but introducing various new gameplay elements. In the 20th June 2017 release, the characters became able to talk to one another (fully voice acted as the rest of the game), which became an inventive "hint system" without explicitly offering specific hints to solve the puzzles. Apart from this there's a more classical hint system which includes calling the hint line using the phones available in the game, which offers context-sensitive help.

Plot : The game is set in an alternate 1886 where the eruptions of Krakatoa and Mount Tambora, the dimming of the Sun, and other unknown factors caused a worldwide volcanic winter. This in turn led to widespread crop failure and the death of millions. This event roughly lines up with the real world 1883 eruption of Krakatoa, a volcanic event that led to global cooling. In response to this, several installations called "generators" were built by the British authorities in the coal-rich North, designed to be city centers in the event that dropping temperatures force mass migration from the south. In all scenarios, the player is the leader of a city around a generator, and will have to manage resources to ensure the city's survival. There are currently 3 scenarios in the base game and 1 additional scenario offered in a free DLC, each with different backgrounds and storylines. A New Home In the main scenario, the player is the leader of a group of explorers who fled the cold and the hunger of London in an expedition to find supposed massive coal reserves in the North. Instead, the group gets separated from the main expeditionary party and discovers a massive heat generator in a giant sheltered crater and settles there. The player begins to face the issue of the people's dwindling hope as they find out, through exploration, a city similar to theirs called Winterhome has been destroyed, leaving few survivors. The player has to make hard decisions in order to help the people find their purpose and stay hopeful. The player later also has to prepare enough supplies to make sure the city survives an impending storm. The Arks In the second scenario, the player is tasked as the leader of a group of scholars from Oxford and Cambridge responsible for establishing a self-operational city for the purpose of preserving seeds and plants from around the world from the volcanic winter. They settle around a generator located in an ice crevasse. During the gameplay, the player will be presented with the issue of a neighbouring city struggling with resources, and will have to make a choice whether or not to help them prepare for the incoming storm. The Refugees In the third scenario, the player is set as the leader of a refugee group who have taken over a generator reserved for the wealthy. The people have intended the city to be a place where everyone is equal, but in time the people will begin to divide into two separate social classes. The player will also have to deal with constant waves of refugees seeking shelter in the city, and the player will have to decide to accept them or reject them while also minding the limited resources they have access to. The Fall of Winterhome Released on September 19th 2018 as free DLC, this scenario revolves around the story of Winterhome, a city established well before the events of the main scenario. Through ineffective management by a neglectful leader, resources ran dry and the city fell into anarchy and rioting. Hundreds die in the fighting, starvation, and cold. The player is tasked of rebuilding what is left of the city and its residents, and also discovering the lore behind the eternal winter and the wasteland they live in. Gameplay : The player character starts out with a small group of survivors (that consist of workers and engineers) and several small caches of supplies with which to build a city. From there players harvest coal, wood, steel and food in order to keep their society warm and healthy in the midst of constantly fluctuating temperatures. Weather conditions and political turmoil can cause citizens to not want to work as hard. The player has the option to use laws to regulate the productivity of their society at the cost of possibly raising discontent. Building a workshop structure allows the player to research technology that will make the city more efficient and to scout the surrounding frozen wasteland for additional survivors and resources. Development : The game was announced in August 2016.[1] The developers were initially targeting a release in the late third quarter of 2017, however the game was delayed into the first quarter of 2018.[3] Eventually, the final release date – 24 April 2018 was announced on 9 March 2018. Reception : Frostpunk received an 84 out of 100, based on 65 reviews, indicating "generally favorable reviews", according to review aggregator Metacritic,[5] and a 9 out of 10 from IGN. It was nominated for "Best Strategy Game" at the Game Critics Awards,[6] and for "Best Visual Design" and "PC Game of the Year" at the 2018 Golden Joystick Awards.