Weekly Recap #495 May 20th – V Rising Early Access, Lost Ark Destroyer, SMITE x Slipknot & More!

JamesBl0nde recaps the MMO gaming news for the week of May 21, 2022! Transcript follows.

A new battle royale has emerged from off the grid, Elyon announced its new paladin class, Rogue Company debuts its first narrative event and the latest patch and crossover in Smite is a bit heavy metal.

What’s good everyone, JamesBl0nde here with the weekly recap for gaming news and announcements for the week of May 20th, 2022 and sorry for the delayed recap, its been a crazy week, just got back from a glorious vacation but had a ton of stuff to take care of after getting back. Anyway lets kick off the news.

If you enjoy Battle Royales and third person shooters, good news – a new studio has emerged and has announced Off the Grid, which promises to be a new Triple A Battle Royale for PC, PS5, and both of the Xbox Series, launching in 2023. We don’t have a whole lot of info just yet, but we know that it’s going to be cyberpunk theme and feature 150 player skirmishes, in addition to PVE storyline missions with a persistent online map. The game will also offer items that can be crafted, customized, and traded. The idea is to produce “Battle Royale 2.0” and that’s pretty ambitious for a genre that’s been out so far, so we’ll have to keep an eye out for it in the future.

Speaking of Battle Royale third person shooters, Netmarble has announced that it will run an alpha test for HypeSquad from June 13th through June 20th, with pre-registration available now on the website linked below. The alpha will feature the new map, Cagliostro, in two modes – Survival and Conquest – both of which support up to 60 players at once. Joining the alpha will also net players an exclusive skin. You can get into the alpha by downloading the game on Steam once it opens up!

And continuing the trend – the vampire survival game V Rising from Stunlock Studios is out now in Early Access! This one isn’t free to play but we’ve still had our eye on it. Early access is available on Steam for 20 dollars US and supports up to 40 players on a surver with PvE and PvP combat, both solo and co-op. The game boasts an open world, castle building, village pillaging, skirmishes, and more. If you’ve got the cash and this interests you it’s probably worth picking up, getting very positive reviews.

Legends of Runeterra is gearing up for a new expansion to launch on May 25th! Called Worldwalker, this expansion includes several new features, champions, and deck building rules. One of the big parts of this update is a rework to the Path of Champions game mode, which is set to offer better story mode progression, better power scaling, new world adventures, and even sets the stage for future co-op! It’s more detailed than I can get into here so make sure to check out the video linked down in the description. Alongside this will come much more that will be revealed up to the expansion release, so make sure to keep an eye on the game’s news for all the small details.

Next up Elyon has announced that it will be welcoming its new class, the Paladin, also on May 25th. This class uses a Sword and Shield, along with the Light attribute. They are capable of being either Support or Tank role. Currently a pre-registration event is underway! Any player who enables the newsletter setting in their account will be automatically eligible to receive a free exclusive helmet, armor, and cloak for their paladin when the class launches.

In other news, Lost Ark’s May update, titled Destined For Destruction, is now live! This update brings the first Legion Raid to Lost Ark – Valtan. This raid is meant to be extremely challenging, and is designed for eight players, with two check points available for players to save their progress and resume again once they’re ready to return. The update also introduces the fourth advanced class for the Warrior – the Destroyer, which uses a massive hammer to bend gravity to their will and their enemies to submission. There’s also a new guardian raid, new guild content, and a new island event that features the uprising of chickens tired of being turned into delicious food – this update has a lot to check out!

If you didn’t catch it in the last recap, Path of Exile has just launched its Sentinel expansion! This update includes the Sentinel Challenge League, which tasks you to find and collect powerful Sentinels that can be controlled and used to boost your enemies for greater rewards. Also in the expansion is 20 new Atlas Keystones, new uber versions of bosses, a revamped challenge system, and a bunch of quality of life and modifier changes. Not only that, PC players finally get controller support! It’s a bunch of great changes so I hope you check it out if you haven’t already.

Rogue Company released its Rogues Rising update, unleashing a new map and its first narrative event. Vertigo is the newest map for Rogue Company, a Jackal outpost built on a cliff face featuring interconnected paths and overlapping ziplines. It’s designed to shine In 4v4 modes for intense small skirmishes. The narrative event is Juke’s Gambit, the first narrative event in which players can learn more about Juke, Jackal, and the game lore while earning cosmetic rewards. Also in the update are more quality of life improvements from Project Saint, including a rework of the elimination count, new scoreboards, and dynamic music during matches.

Meanwhile Paladins has launched its Heart of Darkness update, welcoming their new Support Champion, Lillith! Lillith is one of the most aggressive Support champions, capable of healing allies or sucking the lifeforce of her enemies, paying the price from her own blood to use her abilities. The update also features new Siege: Beyond changes, giving players a chance to test out new Siege mechanics and offer their feedback as to their possible permanent inclusion. And of course there’s a new Event Pass – Lost Future, focused around the storyline of Yagorath and the Maw.

Things are a bit psychosocial in SMITE as a new crossover patch has just gone live – featuring Slipknot! Yes apparently the crossovers continue with big names, and this time it’s to feature the band Slipknot and its members in a series of nine skins, and dynamic music themes that play Duality, Psychosocial, and The Devil In I during matches. Alongside this the Conquest Map has gotten a refresh with the Knight’s Keep map, an Arthurian themed design with tougher objectives and an increased focus on teamwork. And finally there’s the Blast from the Past battle pass with lots of cosmetics – AND, oddly enough, Bob Ross’s crossover returns with a new Bob Ross skin, available free through Prime Gaming starting in June!

And Star Trek Online has launched its next update, Stormfall, on PC – with consoles getting the update in June. The story continues in the Mirror Universe alongside Captain Killy, Marshal Janeway, Admiral Leeta and more. Players will also discover a remastered Starfleet tutorial, two new story episodes, a new Task Force Operation rebuilt from a fan favorite, and a special event, the Heart of the Storm.

And finally let’s hit on this week’s free game on the Epic Games Store – it’s Borderlands 3! Yes, seriously – Borderlands 3, minus the DLC, is free to claim this week and there’s absolutely no reason not to grab this one for your collection. This is one gorgeous, zany, incredibly good looter shooter from Gearbox and 2K, and if you want to nab the DLC, it’s actually currently 60% off on the store as well. Incredible deal.

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!