Battlestate games, developers of Escape from Tarkov, have revealed new details about the game’s in-game skill system, skill upgrades and skills’ influence on gameplay, which are detailed below.

Escape from Tarkov features five skill categories, and each skill upgrade is repetition-based: the more a character performs a certain action – the better he becomes at it. In short, a player’s actions directly influence their character by upgrading the most essential and frequently used skills.

The skill system in Escape from Tarkov is designed to be a bit different from everything what you may have seen so far in the majority of RPG projects, and moreover, it is designed so that it does not interfere with the core gameplay.

In the skills interface, each skill icon features a small colored letter – and all of them have their own meaning.

The digits at the bottom of a skill icon reflect skill level and progress.

So how does a skill upgrade occur? It’s fairly simple – skill upgrades are repetition-based, and, by performing any action, you are gradually upgrading the respective skill or skills, thus making consecutive performance better, quicker and more accurate.

As a result, your character will only improve in the skills that you use during gameplay.

Additionally, on every experience level gained, you will be granted an opportunity to level up one skill at your own discretion.

Click here for more in-game skill system details.

More info on Escape from Tarkov can be found at the game’s official website.

Source: UbiBlog

Incursions, the first of two free updates for The Division, is now available on Xbox One, PS4, and PC. This new 1.1 update adds several new features to the game – the most notable being the Falcon Lost incursion. This new area within the game pits Division Agents against wave after wave of LMB soldiers who guard an important water treatment facility. Also arriving with the Incursions update are Dark Zone supply drops (that contain uncontaminated gear) and assignments, which give players rewards for completing a series of designated tasks that change periodically. In addition to these activities, players will have access to player trading and new gear sets with all-new perks and bonuses. Watch the Tom Clancy’s The Division Update 1.1 trailer here.

Today also marks the arrival of Operation ISAC. Every Tuesday, players will get in-game missions from Simon – a technician in charge of the only ISAC system node in New York City. Completing these missions will give rewards. Watch the Operation ISAC trailer here.

For a full rundown on what’s included in the Incursions update you can check out this story here.

Decisive Campaigns: Barbarossa is coming to Steam very soon. This award-winning wargame, considered as one of the best games around by both players and press, can appear very intimidating to newcomers. It’s not really something you would consider as an introductory game for novices.

We have asked YouTuber and avid tactical wargamer Idjester to try and explain the game from the point of view of someone who never got to face a complex operational wargame.

“What I am trying to accomplish with this video series is to give players an idea of the game concepts and understand to core mechanics behind the gameplay, once you understand these important parts you will be able to dive into Decisive Campaigns: Barbarossa very easily”

In the first video you will see the start of the German campaign and the initial key strategic decisions that set the tone of the overall gameplay features. Becoming a master is only a few hexes away.

Decisive Campaigns: Barbarossa is a wargame simulating the German Invasion of the Soviet Russia. Alongside more “traditional” elements (like the map divided in hexes, turn based system, etc.), the innovative “Human” Factor feature adds a new layer of depth to the strategic decisions, making you feel the importance to deal with superiors and subordinates for the achievement of the war objectives!

Coming to Steam on April, 28th

By Hilbert Hagedoorn @ Guru3D

We review the Z170A Gaming PRO CARBON from the MSI Gaming PRO Series motherboards. Armed with a competitive and affordable price at €150/$170,- this motherboard has refined looks, an RGB LED lighting system and next to that, this is Z170 meaning it is fast, feature rich and tweakable as well. A motherboard that offers features plentiful to provide your Intel Core i3/i5/i7 Skylake processor the full infrastructure is needs for a delicious gaming PC. Dressed in black and with added benefits like USB 3.1, M.2. slot and DDR4 support the product will offer a lot of value for your money.

Read The Review Here

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.

• Corsair Releases the Carbide SPEC-ALPHA Mid-Tower ATX Case
• G.SKILL Announces DDR4-3600MHz CL15-15-15 16GB(8GBx2) Low-Latency Memory Kit
• Corsair Extends Select PSU Warranties From 7 Years To 10 To Compete With EVGA
• Spire Announces the Pearl Series Power Supplies
• BitFenix Announces the Alchemy 2.0 Sleeving Components & Modular Cables
• SteelSeries Apex M500, the Mechanical Keyboard For eSports Now Available
• Lian Li Announces the PC-J60 Case with Cable Management Compartment
• DEEPCOOL Launches Upgraded CPU Liquid Cooler CAPTAIN EX Series
• Major BIOS Updates Allow ASRock X99 Motherboards to Support Intel Broadwell-E
• Thrustmaster TMX Force Feedback-racewheel for Xbox One and Windows
• Samsung Curved Monitor Sales Pass 1 Million Units
• NVIDIA Pascal Graphics Card to Launch at Computex 2016
• Team Group Announces Zinc Alloy Body USB 3.0 Flash Drives
• Kingston Ships Management Ready, Hardware-Encrypted USB Flash Drives

Join in on Amazing Events And Earn Free Tanks

Developer Obsidian Entertainment and global publisher My.com invite players to join the festivities in Armored Warfare. Running from April 6 – 30 Panzerfest will introduce events and gifts for current and aspiring tank Commanders alike. Panzerfest is the festival name for three separately named activities running during April:

• Brand-new tank commanders, who enlist during this period, will receive a free Leopard 1 tank and premium time upon entering the game.
• Existing and new players can earn 1 million credits, premium time, and the Leopard 2AV ICE edition for successfully playing the game.
• Join your favorite German faction and earn rewards by helping your selected faction to victory!

Watch the the Panzerfest video here.

Visit the Panzerfest event page for more information.

You can download the game for free and get more information at the official Armored Warfare website.

“The raising of that flag on Suribachi means a Marine Corps for the next five hundred years. “

James Forrestal, Secretary of the Navy, 1945

U.S. Marines, the latest expansion for Order of Battle: Pacific, has been released on PC and Mac!

Are you ready to be thrown into the adventurous island-hopping campaign of 1942-1945? A long and bloody military operation that starts with the assault of Tulagi and advances across small and isolated jungle islands, reaching up to the iconic epilogue at Iwo Jima.

Order of Battle: U.S. Marines is the second expansion of the franchise and it includes a campaign with 11 brand new scenarios against the Imperial Japanese troops. You’ll fight, amongst others, the historical battles of Guadalcanal and Tarawa. In these savage landscape enemies adapt their strategy from ruthless assaults to deep and well-prepared defensive systems.

Fight with the new U.S. Marines faction, deploy many new units on the battlefield and employ the new support fire ability for Heavy Infantry.

Onwards to victory! Semper fidelis!

A special 10% launch discount on the expansion is available for a limited time period!

Watch the Order of Battle: U.S. Marines launch trailer here.

Last but not least, don’t miss the Twitch stream tonight at our official Twitch Channel at 8PM CEST / 6PM UTC / 2PM EDT!

By Alex Connolly @ The Wargamer

If  you didn’t do your fair share of fighting up the Ia Drang last year, you really should. South African studio Every Single Soldier crafted a slick COIN wargame in Vietnam ’65, one that received hearty praise across the board. Counter-insurgency is an extra-dirty business in the modern era, where the might of state actors don’t quite have the purchase they’d otherwise have in more conventional scenarios. In a post-9/11 world, mired in protracted military campaigns, this is the war of the Now. This is also the war ESS’s Johan Nagel wants to tackle in the follow-up to Vietnam ’65, Afghanistan ’11.

Read on…

Since its release, Decisive Campaigns: Barbarossa has been considered one of the most groundbreaking wargames depicting the German invasion of Soviet Russia.

Awarded “Overall Digital Game of the Year and Digital Wargame of the Year” by the Groghead’s Readers, Decisive Campaigns: Barbarossa employs an innovative gameplay mechanic, in which political affiliations and personal relations between you and your superiors (and subordinates) have a strong impact during the military operations!

Today, developer studio VR Designs is very proud to announce that Decisive Campaigns: Barbarossa is marching straight to Steam with a full set of improvements and upgrades, included an elegant “War Diary” feature, which follows the diary of a German soldier, based on what is happening in the game, giving you an insight into how your progress and decisions reflect on the “ground level”!

Plus, the map artwork has been significantly improved to make the gameplay more realistic and immersive than ever!

Is your will strong enough to face both external and internal enemies?

Stay tuned for further updates! The game will be available on Steam on April, 28th!

Get more information about Decisive Campaigns: Barbarossa from its official product page!

Global publisher My.com and Obsidian Entertainment are proud to announce that Armored Warfare will get Altay, the new Turkish Main Battle Tank. The mass production of this brand new tank has been announced today by Otokar, the manufacturer of this modern vehicle. Altay is the first Turkish-developed MBT since World War Two. It was developed using the South Korean K2 Black Panther tank experience and is armed with a 120mm L/55 smoothbore gun, comparable to or derived from the Rheinmetall 120mm. Its maximum speed reaches 70 km/h. The Altay tank will be added to Armored Warfare in 2017 and its in-game characteristics and tier will be announced in the future.

New tanks and armored vehicles will be regularly added to Armored Warfare, thereby letting all tank games fans try all the latest modern warfare technologies.

Armored Warfare is a free-to-play massively multiplayer online tactical military game that puts the player into the world of modern warfare. In Armored Warfare, players get a chance to try the most powerful tools of destruction invented by mankind – from modern main battle tanks to scouts and wheeled vehicles. Using modern defense systems like anti-missile protection and smoke grenades, along with various types of armor and ammunition, players can jump into fast paced battles both in PvP mode and a vast amount of PvE missions.

You can download the game for free and get more information at the official Armored Warfare website.