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Hello, and welcome to another GamesBeat weekly roundup! This time, the classic space game Star Control II is getting a sequel, Fortnite: Battle Royale reaches 10 million players, and Hearthstone boss Ben Brode tells us what “casual” means to him.
Enjoy, and have a great weekend!
Pieces of flair and opinion
- The DeanBeat: Optimism and despair over VR at Oculus Connect
- PC Gaming Weekly: Independents day
- Creating corpses: Making bodies matter in Diablo 3
- AR/VR Weekly: Seeking a virtual reality tabletop
- 3 reasons why VR’s killer app will be collaborative
- Diablo 3 brought the Necromancer back from the dead — here’s how
- Is the Vice President secretly a helicopter? GamesBeat Decides
- Overwatch’s Ana finally got the great Legendary skin she deserved
- Fans worry Star Wars: Battlefront II is flirting with the pay-to-win dark side
News
- Grand Theft Auto Online’s new land, sea, and air races make for a mad, mad, mad, mad world
- Middle-earth: Shadow of War’s PC players unlock unlimited loot boxes with cheat app
- BioWare senior creative director Mike Laidlaw announces his departure
- Star Wars: Battlefront II developer addresses pay-to-win concerns
- VY Esports raises funding for esports brand matchmaking platform
- Discord launches verified servers for Minecraft, Squad, and more
- Serial Cleaner is bringing its indie stealth action to the Switch later this year
- Oculus Connect 4: All the new games
- Titanfall and Call of Duty veterans will bring a VR game to Oculus Rift in 2019
- Improved Oculus avatars are coming to SteamVR and Daydream
- Rift Core 2.0 is coming with new Dash and improved Home for Oculus devices
- Oculus Dash adds Minority Report-like interface to Rift VR
- Facebook unveils Oculus Rift bundles for business
- Oculus Go is Facebook’s new standalone headset for $200
- Mark Zuckerberg: We want to get 1 billion people in virtual reality
- Fortnite: Battle Royale passes 10 million players in two weeks
- Daybreak Games and Twin Galaxies to run H1Z1 Pro League
- Niko Partners: Taiwan’s game market on path to $2.8 billion by 2021
- Ubisoft details Assassin’s Creed: Origins free and paid DLC
- GameStop is getting more SNES Classic Editions
- 3rd Eye Studios raises $1 million for its VR, PC, and mobile gaming dev tool
- Ariella Lehrer becomes president of AR games maker HitPoint Studios
- Tamagotchi is back for its 20th anniversary
- Founder Brian Mullins steps down as CEO of augmented reality firm Daqri
- Star Control II developers working on ‘direct sequel’ 25 years later
- Everything Is Going to be OK wins IndieCade’s 2017 Interaction Award
- Hearthstone adds its first new Warlock hero, and you can get it at a Fireside Gathering
- Mantis VR adds integrated headphones to any PlayStation VR
- EA extends Star Wars: Battlefront II open beta test to October 11
- Echo sneaks its sci-fi stealth and puzzles to PlayStation 4
- WWE 2K18 scores the secret recipe for KFC’s Colonel Sanders as a playable wrestler
Mobile and social
- ARKit games are the top AR downloads in the Apple App Store
- Square Enix brings Million Arthur VR card battler to the U.S. and more
- Bury me, my Love’s tale about Syrian refugees launches October 26 on iOS and Android
- Supersolid raises $4 million as it preps to launch Home Street mobile game
- Facebook Spaces will let you livestream 360-degree video from anywhere
- Oculus opens Explore API to all Gear VR developers, coming to Rift in 2018
- This clicker game lets you take over the world with paper clips
Previews, reviews, and interviews
- Project Santa Cruz: Hands-on with Facebook’s next-generation wireless VR headset
- Spintires: MudRunner trailer shows off the ultimate turf-wrecking truck sim
- Middle-earth: Shadow of War review — a grind as epic as its story
- Fear Sphere turns the scary flashlight levels of horror games into reality
- Nyko’s Nintendo Switch Power Pak gives it more power … and more pounds
- Hearthstone boss Ben Brode gives me new insight on what ‘casual’ means