Deep Silver and 4A Games announced today that Metro Exodus is available to pre-order across all major physical and digital retailers in North America.

For those who prefer physical products, two versions are available:

The Aurora Limited Edition contains a copy of the game in an exclusive Steelbook®, a beautiful 32-page art book, and the Metro Exodus Expansion Pass, all contained within a bespoke metal outer case inspired by The Aurora, the steam locomotive that Artyom and his companions use to journey across post-apocalyptic Russia. The Aurora Limited Edition represents fantastic value and will be in limited supply at select retailers worldwide. Meanwhile, the Standard Edition contains the game disc in a standard box and will be widely available.

On digital storefronts, you can choose between the Standard and Gold Edition of Metro Exodus; both contain the game itself, while the latter also includes the Metro Exodus Expansion Pass.

All physical PC pre-orders and Steam pre-orders include a digital art book and the Metro Exodus OST.

No upcoming in-game content has been reserved for pre-order – gamers can order with the knowledge that no matter where, how, or when they buy Metro Exodus, they are getting the full experience as 4A Games intended it.

Metro Exodus will be released on Feb. 22, 2019 on Xbox One, PlayStation 4 and PC. Pre-order now from www.metrothegame.com/preorder. Watch the Metro Exodus Pre Order Trailer HERE.

Experience the ultimate sniper gameplay, set against the rough terrain of the Siberian wilderness and featuring a brand new contracts system that encourages strategic thinking across engaging, replayable missions

CI Games have announced the next game in its acclaimed tactical shooter series: Sniper Ghost Warrior Contracts. The title takes its genre-defining sniping gameplay to the harsh climates of the Siberian wilderness and introduces a brand new way to play – the contracts system. The game features both single player and multiplayer modes, and is set to release on PC, PS4 and Xbox One in 2019.

Drawing upon community feedback, Contracts delivers tense, mission-based scenarios with CI Games’ best sniping ever. This is all thanks to the new contracts system, which takes a step back from Sniper Ghost Warrior 3’s open world. In the single player campaign, players dive headfirst into tailor-made contract missions that offer a clear main objective with a fixed monetary reward, and have the option to complete secondary objectives for bonus payouts. Feel like you can do better? Jump back in and tackle the mission from a different angle — players can repeat every contract to earn more money.

Contracts distills the core sniping gameplay that series fans have come to love, offering dense, more focused maps that reward tactical thinking. With a wealth of optional objectives to complete, the combination of open-ended missions and emergent gameplay ensure these scenarios are wildly replayable. Couple this with the intense environmental obstacles presented by the harsh, modern-day Siberian wilderness, as well as hundreds of ways to take down a wide range of targets, and Contracts offers sniping gameplay at its absolute best.

“It is exciting to see the team really motivated and working hard on our next sniping game,” said CI Games Chief Executive Officer, Marek Tymiński. “They don’t have to start from scratch this time and can now – on top of developing new content – spend way more time on improving things they already have.” This highlights CI Games’ commitment to listening to their community and iterating on their feedback.

Tymiński continued, “We were too ambitious in terms of the scope of Sniper Ghost Warrior 3, but we’ve learned from our missteps. Sniper Ghost Warrior Contracts will be more focused on emergent gameplay with an open-ended mission design that the team feels strong about, but it will not be set in an open world. It is going to be a more tactical, more condensed experience and the game will offer plenty of replayability, both on the single player campaign and on the multiplayer modes.”

All of this is coupled with a more optimized game engine, minimizing load times and maintaining a stable FPS, keeping players grounded in the rich, moment-to-moment sniping gameplay. Between the introduction of its Siberian setting, a return-to-form with an intense mission-based system, and sniping at its best, Sniper Ghost Warrior Contracts is locked and loaded to impress genre and first-person fans alike.

Sniper Ghost Warrior Contracts will launch in 2019 on PS4, Xbox One and PC.

If you’re looking for a tense, tactical game where skill and cunning are equally important, then look no further than Rainbow Six: Siege. Starting Thursday, August 16, PS4, Xbox One, and PC players can play the game for free until August 20.

If you find yourself hungering for some more Siege after the weekend, you can pick up the Standard, Advanced, Gold, and Complete Editions of the game for a discount of up to 60% off if you purchase before August 27. Players who participate in the free weekend will see all of their progress carry over.

The free weekend coincides with the Six Major Paris tournament, Europe’s largest Rainbow Six: Siege competition ever. Tune in to witness the best professional players from around the world compete at the highest level. The tournament will take place from August 13 to August 19 and be broadcast on twitch.tv/Rainbow6.

The Six Major Paris broadcast is also the place to see the full reveal of Siege’s next season, Operation Grim Sky. The new season will feature two new Operators – an American Attacker and a British Defender – as well as a completely reworked Hereford Base map.

The free weekend is the perfect time to join the more than 35 million Siege players around the world. Rainbow Six Siege is currently available on PS4, Xbox One, and PC.

Get into the Free Weekend August 16-20th.

Check out these latest hardware announcements for today from around the web. Also included are some hardware news bits, and on some days, a few rumors tossed in for good measure. Click on the links below to read the official press release, visit the products web page, or to an independent news source.

• Thermaltake Releases New Level 20 GT RGB Plus Edition and Level 20 GT Edition Full-Tower Chassis
• SilentiumPC Announces Regnum RG4T(F) RGB Chassis
• Turtle Beach Announces New Line of Gaming Headsets Branded Atlas
• Thermaltake Riing Plus and Pure Plus RGB Radiator Fan Series Now Amazon Alexa Supported
• Lian Li Announces New Lancool One Case With Tempered Glass and RGB
• Cooler Master Launches its MasterLiquid ML360R RGB CPU Cooler

BattleGoat Studios has released a major update to its flagship strategy game title “Supreme Ruler Ultimate“, featuring new content, modern world updates, and a set of world-building and editing tools.

The original Trump Rising DLC brought the world a hypothetical future featuring President Donald Trump. Today’s Trump’s World update adds a new 2018 Sandbox featuring modern day tensions and relationships, plus new opportunities and threats. Commented Lead Programmer George Geczy, “Starting in the modern day, players can take on the provocations of Russia, Iran, North Korea, and much more. They can play as the US to Make America Great Again, or take on the challenge of other countries trying to make their way in a rapidly changing and unstable world.”

Existing Sandboxes and Campaigns have been updated with new leaders and relationships resulting from recent elections and geo-political changes. Gameplay has also been updated with a number of new features, AI improvements, and other additions, including regular tweets by President Trump to the rest of the world (some are real, some are not – will you be able to tell which are which?) Continue building a wall with Mexico if you desire, or else search for new ways to influence, or maybe alienate, the rest of the world!

The 2020 future scenarios have also been updated to reflect real world changes while presenting hypothetical situations including “Divided States” (the US has collapsed along political lines) and “Global Crisis”, a world where individual nations become increasingly isolationist and aggressive.

In addition, BattleGoat is pleased to release the Supreme Ruler Map Editor and Content Editor tools, for the first time allowing players to not only modify existing maps and sandboxes, but to create entirely new past, present and future scenarios, and even entirely new worlds.

Availability: The Supreme Ruler Trump’s World Update is available immediately as a FREE update to Supreme Ruler Ultimate. The Supreme Ruler Map Editor and Content Editor tools are also being released for free to all players.

You can purchase Supreme Ruler Ultimate via Steam.

Indian Themed Dharma Add-on Coming Next Month

The riches and intrigue of Indian politics are the focus of Europa Universalis IV: Dharma, the newest expansion to Paradox Development Studio’s classic historical grand strategy game. Will you defend the subcontinent against foreign commercial empires? Can you set up a European trading empire in one of the richest lands on the globe?

You will get your chance to build a new world-spanning empire on 06 September, 2018, less than a month from today. You can watch the Europa Universalis IV: Dharma – Release Date/Story Trailer HERE.

Features in Europa Universalis IV: Dharma include:

• Design Your Government: Unlock reforms that will define how you govern your kingdom or republic, earning free policies and boosting the power of some estates.
• Reworked Policy System: Policies get a new look in the free update, but Dharma will include special bonuses that make this system even more attractive.
• Trade Company Investments: Upgrade and improve the provinces tied to your trade companies, conferring bonuses both to the European master and neighboring Indian nations.
• New Cossack Government: Exclusive for owners of The Cossacks expansion.
• New Indian Mission Trees: Unique mission paths for the most important Indian sultanates and kingdoms.
• New Indian Estates: Alongside a free update to the estate system, India gets five new castes. Raise the brahmins to reduce unrest in a province or install Jain governors for a boost to income while reducing manpower..
• New Mughal Culture Bonus: The Mughal Empire can assimilate and accommodate newly conquered cultures with ease.
• Charter Companies: Europeans can buy a foothold into trade charter zones in Africa and Asia, if they can find a prince that trusts them.
• Upgraded Trade Centers: Invest in the development of your Centers of Trade

And more, including: new ways to suppress rebellion, the monsoon season, new uses for colonists in non-colonial development, scornful insults, multiplayer teams, new art, and a host of new achievements.

As usual with Paradox expansions, Dharma will be accompanied by a large update, free for all Europa Universalis players. The Mughals update will include a more detailed map of the Indian region, a renewed Estate system, and a new approach to Policies.

AMD today announced the release of the 2nd Gen AMD Ryzen Threadripper processors, featuring the new 2990WX processor with 32 cores and 64 threads, along with the 16-core, 32-thread AMD Ryzen Threadripper 2950X processor. We have collected a number of reviews on AMD’s new 2nd Gen Ryzen Threadripper CPUs, and you can read them via the links provided below.

• HARDOCP
• GURU3D (2950X)
• GURU3D (2990WX)
• ANANDTECH
• TOM’S HARDWARE
• HARDWARE CANUCKS
• HOT HARDWARE
• PC PERSPECTIVE
• HEXUS
• BIT TECH
• THE TECH REPORT
• TECHPOWERUP!

Check out these latest hardware announcements for today from around the web. Also included are some hardware news bits, and on some days, a few rumors tossed in for good measure. Click on the links below to read the official press release, visit the products web page, or to an independent news source.

• AMD Launches World’s Most Powerful Desktop Processor: 2nd Generation Threadripper
• Cooler Master Announces the Wraith Ripper for 2nd Generation Threadripper
• INNO3D Entering a New Era, Introducing iCHILL High Performance Gaming Memory
• ENERMAX Readies LIQMAX II 240 Liquid Cooler for 2nd Gen AMD Threadripper
• Thrustmaster’s New T.Flight U.S. Air Force Edition Gaming Headset Available Soon
• MSI Announces the MEG X399 Creation Motherboard
• EK Water Blocks Releases Acetal C6H Monoblock for ASUS ROG Crosshair VI and VII
• ADATA XPG Unveils SPECTRIX D41 TUF Gaming Edition DDR4 RGB Memory
• EK Water Blocks Releases CPU Monoblock for ASRock X470 Taichi Series
• Alphacool Announces New RGB-Enhancing Products – The Aurora Frame and HardTube RGB Ring
• NZXT Announces H700 Nuka-Cola Limited Edition Fallout Themed Chassis
• Cooler Master Introduces MasterBox MB530P with Three Tempered Glass Panels and Addressable RGB

‘Evil Twin Artworks’, the award winning indie team behind PC RTS classic, ‘Victory At Sea’ discuss the difficulties in developing an open world sandbox for their upcoming RTS, Victory At Sea Pacific.

“When we first started developing Victory At Sea Pacific we took the stance that it would be similar to the original, where you focused on one fleet,” said James Carroll, Director at Evil Twin Artworks. “However as the scale of the game increased it became obvious that the player would be better off taking control of the entire Pacific Theatre.”

“One of the hardest aspects of building an open world RTS covering the entire Pacific war was creating a sensible system that would allow the player to manage the whole thing. If we had any brains we would have made the top level turn based, with the individual battles played out in real time.”

To prevent it from being overwhelming the player is introduced to the Bridge in stages, bringing a huge amount of control and customisability, as well as emphasising the cat and mouse aspects of running naval battles over such a vast area.

To find out more you can visit their blog HERE.

The Steam page for Victory At Sea Pacific can be found HERE. Get more game info on the Victory At Sea Pacific official website.

Source: TechPowerUp!

AMD has released version 18.8.1 Beta of its Radeon Software Adrenalin drivers that keep your graphics card’s performance equal to that of a well/oiled machine (figuratively, of course). The new software version brings driver-level support and improvements for the upcoming (and highly awaited) Monster Hunter: World. for that game, this driver release promises up to 5% and 6% increased performance on AMD’s RX Vega graphics card and RX 580, respectively, compared to AMD’s 18.6.1 driver release at 1080p.

This driver also adds support for World of Warcraft : Battle for Azeroth, We Happy Few, and Madden NFL 19. Another interesting additions are the extended functions for the Vulkan API, supporting more commands than previous driver versions.

The new Radeon Software Adrenalin 18.8.1 Beta drivers are available online at the AMD driver download page.