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Weekly Recap #468 September 24th – BitCraft Announced, Elyon Pre-Reg, Fortnite C2S8 & more!

JamesBl0nde recaps the MMO gaming news for the week of September 24, 2021! Transcript follows.


Elyon pushed its launch date a bit for more prep and polish, the first major PC update for Bless unleashed brings in a twisted new field boss, we get a full preview for all the classes in the Final Fantasy XIV Endwalker expansion, and the new champion in League of Legends isn’t entirely doom and gloom… well maybe she is.

What’s good everyone, JamesBl0nde here with the weekly recap for gaming news and announcements for the week of September 24th, 2021 and starting out the news this week, I’m back now as dad round two started for me just a few days ago and thankfully this go around both mom and baby are super healthy, so thank you all for the healthy wishes, definitely seemed to have worked… but moving on to the gaming news,

There’s a new MMO on the horizon, and its name is BitCraft. Created by Clockwork Labs, BitCraft aims to be a community sandbox MMORPG with a single, shared world. The game will include building, hunting, crafting, farming, trading, and exploring, and is said to encourage long term progression and community-based development, instead of a competitive PvP atmosphere. Pre-Alpha for BitCraft will begin soon on PC, so check out the link below to sign up.

And speaking of new MMOs, Dynamight Studios has announced that its upcoming MMORPG, Fractured, has begun its Fall Alpha phase on September 22nd. The test phase, which will last until October 13th, will introduce dozens of new abilities, dynamic world events, points of interest, new monsters, and much more. PvP sieges will make their debut, and clever players can prepare to lockpick some treasure chests. Meanwhile the market gets an update with a marketplace overhaul and an expansion of the crafting and equipment systems. The test will also be pushing server limits to prepare the game for its launch in 2022. For more info make sure to check out our link below.

Kakao Games has released a new cinematic trailer for Elyon, along with some news for the game’s upcoming launch. After some testing, Elyon has pushed back the launch date to October 20th, giving the team more time to polish the game for its debut. As a bonus, Elyon is offering a pre-registration event, linked below, which will let players get special cosmetic items and a parrot mount when the game goes live! Characters can also start being created ahead of time on October 13th. If you missed it, Elyon recently announced it would be free to play, so it’s a great chance to sign up and see what the game’s about.

And finally in the new games for the week, Family-friendly MMO Neo 2045 has just launched, exiting open beta this week on September 23rd.  The launch included an update that added the Game Maker feature, and Pet Battles. The Game Maker is a drag and drop game maker that anyone can easily learn to use and create minigames, from small games to large multiplayer experiences. Meanwhile pet battles are just as you’d expect, letting players enter a card-game style battle with their pets. NEO 2045 is free to play, so if you’re looking for something good for any age, check it out on Steam or on mobile.

Moving on to updates and expansion –

Final Fantasy XIV’s next expansion, Endwalker, is approaching its November 23rd release, pretty quickly. And during a recent livestream, more information about the expansion was revealed, including a full preview of job actions for all the classes in Endwalker — including the new Sage and Reaper jobs. It also features some major changes for the Summoner job mechanics, timing-based tank cooldowns, new single target buffs for healers, and more. The full letter from the producer includes more details on duty reward adjustments, quality of life changes, and more, along with the postponement of the Data Center travel system until after the expansion goes live. Final Fantasy XIV has been seeing a huge burst in popularity and the game has made its base and its first expansion free to play, so it’s really worth checking out if you haven’t already.

The first major update for Bless Unleashed on PC is here! This Nightspire update introduces the Nightspire: Caverns of Wrath dungeon, designed for players level 35 and above, and features the boss Flame Lord Vale. There’s also a new field boss, the Twisted Spider Queen, who offers a challenge to players level 42 and above – but gives players a chance to obtain the coveted Wyvern mount. The update also features a series of various improvements, bug fixes, and balance changes, so make sure to read the full patch notes linked below.

Meanwhile Swords of Legends Online is celebrating autumn with its first fall event, the Moon Festival. This special seasonal event  lets players earn new avatars, emojis, and photo filters. You can head to the Festival Grounds to enjoy special scenery and to participate in minigames and release lanterns. This recent update, which went live on September 16th, also includes three new extreme dungeons, a new hard mode palace raid, and more.

Grand Fantasia has also rolled out a new patch this week, adding autumn events and new end-game content. Patch 35: Ultimate Force includes a new specialization skill type for characters at level 100, and quality of life updates from chat coordinate links to the recruitment interface and more. The mid-autumn festival is also underway, offering a questline that includes special rewards including a head costume for its completion.

And if you play Trove on console, there’s some good news – the bard class is now available on PlayStation and Xbox. The bard is a healing and support class that also does magic damage. This special class can be obtained through crafting in the Chaos Crafter, or by buying a pack in stores. A new crafting tier, Bardmancologist, has also been added to Crystallogy to craft up new things for the Bard class. Sadly, Switch players are going to have to wait a little longer for this update.

Leaving the fantasy MMOs behind –

Star Trek Online has gotten its next major update featuring the Mirror Universe, titled Reflections. Admiral Leeta, voiced by the Star Trek Deep Space Nine star, Chase Masterson, makes a guest appearance as the Terran Empire threatens the newly established peace. This new episode kicks off a new story arc for the game, and will feature new challenges, rewards, and quests for players to experience. Meanwhile, Perfect World Entertainment is featuring a special fundraiser for the Boys & Girls Club of America through its charity initiative, Perfect World Level Up. Players can purchase select in-game items at a discounted price and 100% of the proceeds benefit the charity. As always PC players can access this update now, but console players will need to wait a little bit longer… at least until November for this arc to roll out.

Armored Warfare has kicked off its Storyline Campaign event with the first episode now live as of last week. This is a special multi-month event where players can experience a true storyline and uncover lore of the game, while player decisions also alter the progress of the story throughout each Episode.  Complete all the objectives each episode, and you’ll get some exclusive rewards including cosmetics to showcase your participation. This is a pretty complex event so make sure to check out the link below if you’re interested in getting the full details.

Meanwhile, Fortnite’s still chugging along, and it’s recently rolled out Season 8 of its Chapter 2 arc. The cubes powering the mothership have landed, and portals are now open to the “Sideways”, a special low-gravity dimension full of monsters, of course. Here you can claim special weapons and crafting ingredients to help boost you to victory. Defend the land, claim and paint your own Toona Fish, and enjoy the outright craziness that is Fortnite these days.

The Trickshot update in Paladins also went live recently. This patch introduces the newest character, Saati. Her kit includes Dead Ringer, a useful decoy that can distract and damage enemies; and the Coin Flip, letting her ricochet bullets off a coin to hit enemies behind cover. Her Hand Cannon can also be supercharged to shoot through all surfaces.  The update also includes a visual rework of the Stone Keep map and, of course, a new Event pass featuring horrifying new skins just in time for the spooky season.

Speaking of skins, do you remember the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles crossover with SMITE last year? Well… wow that was a year ago? the crossover is back, bringing back Leonardo, Raphael, Michelangelo, Donatello, Splinter, and Shredder skins as a direct purchase for a limited time. Not only that, Krang is also now available as a special skin for Xing Tian, available for free through Twitch/Amazon Prime Gaming! A new Battle Pass is also out, and features a ton of new skins and other goodies you can earn through playing the game.

Well it’s almost that time of year again – League of Legends’ famous eSports tournament, Worlds 2021, is just a couple weeks away. And as everyone’s preparing for the big event, League has released a new patch with a bunch of balance changes and a new champion. Vex the Gloomist, described as an “artillery mage”, can interrupt dashes and cause fear with her basic attacks when boosted by Doom, along with laying down the Gloom mark. Her further attacks can detonate this Gloom, causing additional damage and reducing the cooldown on Doom. She can also slow enemies and, with her ultimate, pull herself to them to deal additional damage. Really neat!

In other news, it’s time for a new season in Conqueror’s Blade. Season 9 goes live on September 28th, and tasks players to raise a rebellion to liberate the Borderlands from a horrifying tyrant. There will be new tyrant’s armies and units to claim for your own. Ultimate Skills will now be unlockable through Mastery Points instead of Skill Pages, while crafting schematics will be condensed to make it easier to craft the items you need. The Territory Wars system will receive an uplift, with a redesign of the Prestige system and changes in how Cohorts engage in battles. It will also be the first time that players can pre-order Seasonal Units before the season begins. As always there’s a Battle Pass available too for extra rewards if you’re interested!

And finally let’s wrap up with some Epic Games Store news. First up, I just wanted to mention that the classic space MMO, EVE Online, has finally made its way to the Epic Games Store this past week. There really is nothing else like EVE Online out there, so if you’ve been curious, might be a good time to check it out. More exciting, this week’s free game is The Escapists, which is a pixel graphics style game all about escaping prison! This game has been really popular and loved since it launched in 2015 so if you haven’t played it yet, grab it and check it out this weekend or whenever you have some free time, its totally worth it!

But with that said, that’s about it for all the major news and announcements for this week. Be sure to stay safe, and keep your families healthy! Like always you can find more information on the news topics, linked in the description below, feel free to discuss the news or even more news in the comments below and don’t forget to like, subscribe, wash your hands a bunch, hit that little bell icon to get notifications and of course share this video! But until next time guys that’s going to be it for me… I’m JamesBl0nde… see ya out there gamers!

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