Last month, it was revealed that Valve plans to launch a brand-new game in 2018 — its first major release since Dota 2 in 2013, other than virtual reality minigame collection The Lab. Now, we’ve been given a glimpse at another recent project — one that never saw the light of day.
Drew Wolf is an artist who has been employed by Valve since 2009. His personal website states that he’s now independent, although it’s not completely clear whether he’s still affiliated with the studio or not, according to a report from Eurogamer.
Wolf’s online portfolio features artwork produced for Dota 2, The Lab, and various other Valve projects. It also features a multitude of drawings produced for an untitled fantasy game, which seems to have been in the early stages of development at the studio in recent years.
“The project was a fantasy adventure game centered around cooperative combat and driven by story,” reads a description accompanying a set of images. It seems that players would have formed teams of four, choosing from a selection of ten archetypal characters.
This certainly seems to be in line with Valve’s output in recent years. Dota 2 has proven to be an enormous hit for the company thanks to its roster of clearly defined characters, and its capacity for endless additions of new content. It’s easy to see how this project could have been an attempt to offer up a slightly different take on co-operative multiplayer.
Ultimately, it seems that Valve chose not to pursue the idea. Based on the timing of both projects, it seems like next year’s collectible card game Artifact simply took precedence. However, it shouldn’t be too surprising for anyone who keeps up with the studio to find that an idea for a new game never made it past the prototyping phase.
Earlier this year, former Valve writer Mark Laidlaw released what seemed to be a version of his story treatment for Half-Life: Episode 3, one of the biggest ‘what-ifs’ in all of gaming. It’s impossible to understate what the company has done for PC gaming as a whole, but it’s easy to see why longtime fans have their frustrations with the studio’s intermittent output.
The absolutely absurd idea of putting a touchscreen display on a mouse isn't exactly new. Turtle Beach already did it with its Command Series MC7, which features a 2.25-inch control screen. But apparently, even that wasn't ridiculous enough for Arctic Fox Technologies. Its new Super Mouse looks like someone took the chunky old Atari ST mouse, slapped a touchscreen and scroll wheel on it, and called it an upgrade.
The result is a rather unusual-looking mouse that is now on Kickstarter, starting at $199. And as ridiculous as it looks, some of its features are genuinely intriguing.
Apple is less than a day away from launching its highly anticipated OLED MacBook Pro with a touch-sensitive screen. But it appears that the upgrade is going to cost a pretty penny. According to a report by Bloomberg, Apple is reportedly eyeing a starting price of $2,899 for the 14-inch MacBook Pro, while the 16-inch version could start at $3,399 in the US.
"At $2,899, the 14-inch model would mark the highest starting price for a new MacBook Pro model, surpassing the $2,799 Apple charged for a 17-inch version introduced in 2006," says the report. The report claims that Apple is targeting a minimum price hike of $400 for its upcoming redesigned 14-inch and 16-inch MacBook Pro models.
I've spent a good amount of time digging into the spec sheet of the new M6 MacBook Pro (14-inch), and for all intents and purposes, this is a classic Apple "chip and connectivity" refresh. It's not a full redesign. The chassis, Liquid Retina XDR panel, speakers, ports, and battery, all of them carry over unchanged.
However, the M6 brings more cores, stronger on-device AI, higher memory bandwidth on the larger configs, and modern wireless. Here’s the practical rundown of what actually improved, and whether those gains are worth your money.