 Hello and welcome, my name is Philippe Magnus, and these are the gaming news for March 16, 2016. Plenty of paradox news going on around us, right? First, we've got Obsidian announcing a new RPG, Tarant, that will be published by Paradox. Fantastic. Once again, it's good to see that Paradox and Obsidian are two of my favorite developers and Paradox, of course, both developer and the publisher, are working together, maintaining a strong partnership after Pillars of Eternity. Perhaps partnership is not the best word, but a working relationship between these two companies is certainly going to bring us a lot of good games. Tarant is another isometric role-playing game, which will run in the engine of Pillars of Eternity, which was, in my opinion, an excellent game. What I particularly like about Tarant so far is the fact that you know that usually role-playing games start off with a big bad showing up, threatening to destroy the world, or take over it at the very least. Here, the big bad overlord of Evil and Darkness and all that crap has already won! We as the player will be stepping into the shoes of one of this Tarant's high-ranking minions. Is this a power play or is this a change of conscience? I have no idea, honestly, and the trailer, while cool, doesn't really give us much of an idea. Obsidian haven't said much other than the fact that you're going to take the shoes of this fatebinder, as they dub him, and you will be able to customize not only his look or hers, but also their history as you select certain decisions they made in the recent upheaval. This will drastically change the state of the world and Obsidian promises many branching storylines as an effect of your choices, even as early on as that. Especially, as early on as that. Personally, I'm looking forward very much to this game. Obsidian have always proven that they can pull off morally grey, interesting, complicated storylines in their role-playing games. You can look no further than Pillars of Eternity, Knights of the Old Republic II, and many others as proof of that. There has been no release date scheduled as of yet, not one that I know about anyway, but I'm hoping that we will see it soon enough. All we know about that is that it will be released in 2016, which means that we've got a timetable of no more than 9 months, unless it gets delayed, which has been known to happen with Obsidian games, and also would not be the worst thing in the world, because as we all know, Obsidian games are often, if not always, absolutely buggy at release. So if they would need more time to smoothen all the rough edges, I would not mind that one little bit. You can take a look at the trailer in the link in your upper right corner. And all the screenshots you've seen just now, well that's how the game is going to look, Reminiscent of Obsidian's latest title Pillars of Eternity, which is, in my opinion, fantastic. Ah, but this is not the only game published by Paradox Interactive that I'm interested in. Another game, Stellaris, which is a hybrid between Grand Strategy and Forex, is going to be released on the 9th of May, Paradox have announced. Unlike Obsidian's Tyrant, Stellaris has been developed in studio, which means that it is going to have a lot of Paradox's signature shenanigans, like indeed very deeply covered intrigue system and the like. In my honest opinions, Stellaris looks freaking amazing. It is a completely procedurally generated game, which means that the galaxy and all its inhabitants, meaning all the alien races you're going to be fighting or parling with, are also procedurally generated. This is very interesting and I can't wait to see if it's going to work. It is probably one of the most ambitious projects Paradox's own game development studio has tried to pull off in recent memory, at the very least. Games such as Hasvaren and Europa Universalis, Victoria, have all shown that Paradox's studio really knows what it's doing when it comes to complicated strategy games. And I'm really hoping to see, perhaps, a game with a lower learning curve but still a lot of depth. There is a lot to hope for in this project, let me make this clear, and I'm really really hoping, again, that Paradox will deliver something great and amazing. I'm really in the mood for an amazing space strategy. Please deliver Paradox, you have so much potential. But hey, perhaps games like Isometric RPGs and Ground Strategy Forex hybrids are not for you. Then you will be happy to learn, in case you want to play a new, brand new, good-looking MOBA, that Epic's latest game, Paragon, is entering Early Access in just two days on the 18th of March. Now, I'm not going to play it, not yet anyway. But it looks very very good. It's a third-person MOBA game, which means that it's a lot like SMITE only. It is also kind of science fiction-ish, in that it has guns and vibroblades and some weird psychic magic, I would have to say. It really looks impressive and the destruction, the skills the characters have, they look to be doing real damage. They feel very very meaty. You know what I'm saying? It feels like you are actually changing the state of the world, even if you're not. After all, we all know tree-laying MOBAs, nothing changes, not permanently. But it looks like it does, it looks like when you summon a giant meteorite to fall on the towers and the heads of your enemies and their minions, it looks to be doing actual damage to all the world. It's impressive. It looks good and if you want to buy the Early Access instead of the full game, you can do so at a large discount. The Early Access is sold for 20 euros or dollars or your regional equivalent, whereas the finished products will probably be sold for twice as much, somewhere around 40 euros. Which is, needless to say, a lot more and perhaps if you're a fan of MOBAs, this is something that will grasp your attention and maybe even keep it. I for one am probably not going to have time for it, but I might try it out. It's possible. I'll look into it. But hey, maybe MOBAs don't do it for you either. Well then, if you like real-time strategy games, I can offer you the first of three Starcraft 2 novice-centered mission packs out later this month. When exactly? Well, that would have to be the 29th of March. Good news of all, you fellow Starcraft 2 lore nerds, taking place after the conclusion of Starcraft 2 Legacy of the Void. These latest packs are going to concentrate on Nova Terror, you know, the Spectre from Starcraft 2, on her quest to save the Dominion from falling apart. Here is what the official press release tells us. The reign of Emperor Valerian Mengsk is under threat. Along with facing political opposition, several Dominion ghosts have gone missing in action, while under his rule, their trail leads to a secretive Terran group, the Defenders of Man. As Nova Terror upside on a ghost train to be the perfect covert operative, we must delve into the conspiracy before it is too late for the Terran Dominion. The Starcraft 2 Nova Covered Ops mission bundle costs, I believe, 23 dollars, 20 euro or 18 pounds, at full price over on Battle.net, with the first pack due from March 29 onwards. Ultramission packs are expected to be released by December the 1st of this year. Exciting, isn't it? Either one, I'm really interested to see where the story takes us. Only if you really, really, really prefer fantasy to science fiction, you might be happy to learn that Creative Assembly, the developer of Total Warhammer, of which I have spoken at length, previously, have announced the latest and last faction you can play as. The Vampire Counts, they debuted in a trailer which looks really quite good. It is in-game graphics, of course, so a lot of textures, as is expected in a grand strategy game, are very blurry. But the trailer itself looks amazing. The Vampire Count race, I can't wait to play, and generally I'm very happy with how Total War Warhammer is shaping up to look. If you'd like to pre-order it and get the Chaos Warriors for free, which is, by the way, very crappy, having a race you can only get for free if you pre-order, bad move Creative Assembly, they get a lot of hate for that, but if you want to pre-order, nonetheless, you can do so at their site. The game was pushed back from April to March 2014, the 24th, sorry. Anyway, today was heavy on strategy, wasn't it? Let's see what tomorrow brings, shall we? If you enjoyed this, please like, share and subscribe. If you didn't, well, sorry. Still, like, share and subscribe, maybe I'll get better. You can give me advice if you want or not. You can just dislike me, because I dislike myself, too. I wouldn't blame you at all. Really, thanks for watching. Let's see what tomorrow will bring, shall we? Bye!