With the dawn of the year 2011, we enter a new decade. PC gaming is somehow alive and well despite many a naysayer’s prediction. The one noticeable shift though has been the emphasis on digital distribution over retail. This has benefited the PC gaming community immensely and we are seeing smaller developers forgoing retail distribution entirely to take advantage of all the benefits that services like Steam have to provide. Here are 5 PC exclusive games that are expected to release this year and have not currently been announced for consoles.
Guild Wars 2
The original Guild Wars was a refreshing take on the MMO genre with fantastic visuals, action packed combat, deep yet easy to indulge in gameplay and it even managed to tell a decent story along the way. All this came without a monthly subscription fee. Guild Wars 2 aims at raising the bar higher. Developers ArenaNet are pitching it as a title designed for gamers who love MMOs as well as those who never indulged in them. From what the developers have revealed so far, the game will feature a stylized painterly aesthetic. Despite being an MMO, they will get to play along with a personalized storyline. The action-oriented nature of combat from the first game will be further expanded upon. In favor of traditional grinding, the game will be designed to allow both low and high level players to participate together comfortably at any given time. The world of Guild Wars 2 will feature dynamic events while the player’s involvement in them will have permanent effects on the entire game world. As an added bonus, the new game will feature fully explorative aquatic worlds and like its predecessor, this offering too comes without a monthly fee.
The Witcher 2
The original ‘The Witcher’ is something of a cult favourite among PC RPG fans. Released originally in 2007 and having remained a PC exclusive until now, it achieved the rare feat of a new PC exclusive series having sold enough copies at retail to warrant the development of a sequel. While the original game was excellent in its own right, the title was held back from achieving greatness due to the lack of technical polishing. With the new game developer, CD Projekt RED aims at changing all that by employing a brand new RED engine developed in-house. Like the original, it will feature a complex storyline, a branching narrative and gameplay choices that affect how further events in the game will play out. The game will also feature 16 different endings. The use of the new engine has also enabled a complete graphic overhaul and CD Projekt believes that ‘The Witcher 2’ is the finest looking RPG ever created. PC gamers won’t have to wait for long to find out if the game lives up to its lofty ambitions as the PC exclusive title is slated to release on May 17, 2011.
Dawn of War 2: Retribution
Developers Relic Entertainment have been something of a savior for the strategy genre over the years with the Company of Heroes and Dawn of War 2 series bringing a new style of gameplay to the stagnating strategy game genre. It also opens up to a new legion of gamers with gameplay that favored tighter, more focused squad management in limited units rather than tedious micromanagement and attempts at handling countless units in battle. As a result, the games were branded as Action RTS titles rather than pure strategy games. Dawn of War 2: Retribution is the second standalone expansion to Dawn of War 2 and will feature multiple races for the all new campaign with each bearing great stories. Events in the new game take place 10 years after those of Chaos Rising. All previous races will return along with a new one that has not yet been announced. As far as Multiplayer is concerned, we can look forward to new Multiplayer units as well as one completely new faction to play with. Most importantly, the horrendous matchmaking of Games for Windows Live is being abandoned in favor of a Steam exclusive multiplayer service. All this comes at the price of an expansion pack.
Torchlight 2
Torchlight was a pleasant surprise for hack and slash fans. Released in late 2009, the game didn’t attempt to push for anything new but appealed to gamers impatiently awaiting the next Diablo in the interim. Featuring cartoonish graphics, a variety of environments and a well put together campaign, the title was a proud Diablo-inspired game that managed to exude its own personality. This was all thanks to its art style and memorable original soundtrack by Diablo composer and sound designer Matt Uelmen. Praised by gamers and critics alike, its one glaring omission was co – op multiplayer. With the success of Torchlight, developer Runic Games began work on Torchlight 2 which is set to feature a complete multiplayer experience incorporating support for LAN and internet co-op play. The new game will also feature new and distinct outdoor areas, new classes and more pets. They also hired a writer this time around and promised a better narrative. We get all this for a promised ‘low price point’, sometime during spring 2011.
Diablo 3
Blizzard sure knows how to take their time between sequels. The last Diablo game namely the expansion Lord of Destruction was released nearly a decade ago. A testament to the game’s core appeal is in the fact that players still indulge in gameplay online via Battle.net. Diablo 3 was announced back in 2008 and since then we have been fed intermittently with information about the classes and its world. Diablo 3 is slated to play out in a similar manner as its predecessor as it includes the requisite technical upgrades using a custom 3D engine with physics and destructible environments. The lead designer on Diablo 3 is Jay Wilson, a former designer of Relic Entertainment, the studio behind the excellent Warhammer 40,000: Dawn of War and Company of Heroes games. Even though Blizzard has not announced a definite release date, we have some hope of the game being released by the end of this year. Yet, as we saw with Starcraft 2, Blizzard will delay the game as long as it takes to get an incredible product out the door. Rest assured, PC gamers and Diablo devotees will be waiting patiently as long as it takes.
As you can see, there are some big PC exclusive games heading your way this year in addition to the multi-platform titles that have the PC versions releasing day and date with that of the consoles. You can be sure that the specially built ‘souped up’ gaming rigs will be put to full use. However, we must not forget the indie game development community where most of the gaming innovations seem to happen. Games like Minecraft and others will still continue to endure on the PC and apparently emerge as the most open gaming platform of them all.