Crafted with meticulous attention to player feedback, this electrifying track is a direct response to the clamor for more verticality in our racing experience. We heard you loud and clear after the release of our first Racing circuit, and Titans’ Alley delivers in spades. Prepare to navigate hairpin turns, dizzying ascents, and heart-stopping descents as you vie for victory in this thrilling new desertic environment.

Harness the power of your Dragons and ascend to victory in the ultimate test of speed and skill!

Ready for an unparalleled adrenaline rush? Get set to soar with the wind and command the strength of Dragons as you plunge into the depths of the Titan’s Alley desert.

The Circuit of Champions event not only unveils the new desert-themed circuit, but also two new Pick Ups:

• Blast ability: This ability works like the one used in PvP modes on the Phantom & Windguard: You first launch a projectile with a visible “bubble” to display its blast radius (grey for the caster, red for the enemies). The projectile explodes when colliding with a surface or when you press the ability key again for manual activation.
• Dash Ability: This ability is similar to the Feral Charge used by the Rimeblood in PvP modes. You can lock a target in front of you and quickly dash towards them upon activation. If you hit the target, they are struck while you continue forward.

You can also experiment with two new features added to the Dragon Racing game mode:

• Double Pickup System: You can now carry up to two abilities at the same time. The UI now displays an active slot in the foreground and a reserve slot in the background.
• Draft System: The Dragon Racing mode now features a Draft System, similar to other racing games. Staying behind a dragon for a short time (1.5s) will trigger a small speed boost.

The swiftest Dragoneers will not only claim victory but also unlock amazing prizes as a testament to their triumph!

As Dragoneers take flight atop their majestic dragons, navigating through challenging laps and outmaneuvering rivals, their quest extends beyond mere glory. They’re racing towards the promise of incredible prizes, awaiting those bold enough to seize victory with skill and determination.

Dragoneers will not only etch their names into the annals of dragon racing history but also gain access to exclusive rewards that will leave them in awe. From legendary Dragon gear, legendary and epic chests to scarce in-game currency and beyond, every triumph in the Circuit of Champions event propels you closer to a vault of jolly rewards.

Don’t wait another moment—leap into action today and claim your place as the quickest Dragoneer in this time-limited challenge!

Century: Age of Ashes

Playwing LTD

☆☆☆☆☆
326

★★★★★

Get it now

Century: Age of Ashes, the multiplayer dragon battle game is now available for free! Customize your dragon, dive into the arena and compete to become a legendary Dragoneer. Burn your enemies and rule the skies!

——-
INTENSE ARENA BATTLES
Dive into the arena alone or with friends and fight for your survival in exciting game modes:
– Outbreak (PvE): team up and protect the towers of Hel’s Breach against waves of horrific enemies.
– Carnage (PvP): A killing spree with special power ups. It’s Team Deathmatch, Dragon riders style!
– Gates of Fire (PvP): Two teams clash over possession of the flag. Gain points by flying through gates while holding the flag!
– Spoils of War (PvP): Steal gold from carriers & the enemy while protecting your own nest, and adapt to unexpected situations!
– Survival (PvP): It’s every dragoneer for themselves! Pit against other players in a ferocious and unforgiving free-for-all clash.

——-
CHOOSE YOUR CLASS
Experience different play styles with unique classes, each with their own abilities! Shield and disorient as the Windguard, track and destroy as the Marauder, stealth and trap as the Phantom, rush and thunder-shock your opponents as the Stormraiser, vine-trap them as the Thornweaver or frost-charge them as the Rimeblood! How will you choose your path to victory?

——-
FULL CUSTOMIZATION
Your dragon, your style! Century: Age of Ashes offers carefully designed cosmetic items to stand out in the arena. Gain experience as you play and unlock awesome skins to customize your dragon and its rider! Don’t worry, these items are purely cosmetic and offer no advantage in battle.

——-
FREE TO PLAY
Century: Age of Ashes is completely free-to-play. In order to keep the experience fair and equitable, in-game purchases are purely cosmetic. Battles are won by skill and teamwork alone.

The post Join the Circuit of Champions Event Now through May 23 appeared first on Xbox Wire.

Experience a magical convergence of strategy and chance in Spellcats, where mystical felines rule and tactics triumph. In this innovative roguelike deckbuilder, you are the catalyst in a spellbound world dominated by a group of humans called Nekocasters. Dare to venture into mysterious dungeons and the shadowy lairs where you must use your strategic skills to overcome your adversaries and free your four-legged siblings. Traverse mysterious dungeons, make card combos, and free your companions combining cards and cats.

As the Only Cat with Free Will, You are the Hope for Your Species.

Harness the raw power of over 100 diverse cat cards. Each cat comes to life with extraordinary abilities, from the stealthy Alley Pouncer to the majestic Thunderclaw. Build your deck with a mix of tactical prowess and random fortune, ensuring each dungeon run is filled with thrilling unpredictability.

Five Elements, Twenty Amulets, and Endless Meows

Spellcats also offers a unique gaming experience with five different elements: Water, Electricity, Fire, Ice, and Earth, each with its unique gameplay style that enriches the player’s experience through a myriad of mystical landscapes. Additionally, over 20 amulets await to be discovered and used. These will enhance the army of kittens and give an advantage in battles.

Strategy and Magic Combined in a Unique Rogueline Card Game

Empower your journey with unique trinkets, each adding layers of depth to your strategic maneuvers. These artifacts are imbued with capabilities that amplify your feline summons, turning the tide of battles. Dive into the heart of darkness and light in Spellcats, where each play is a step towards liberation or doom. The fate of the Nekos rests upon your shoulders—will you rise as their savior, or will the shadows of Nekocasters eclipse the land forever? Prepare to cast, conquer, and ascend in this enchanting saga of survival and sorcery, launching this May. Are you ready to unleash the true power of the paw?

Spellcats: Auto Card Tactics

NintaiStudios

☆☆☆☆☆

★★★★★

$13.99

Pre-order

Calling all cat lovers and card game aficionados!
Step into the paws of the only sentient feline in a human-dominated world. Gifted with the extraordinary magic power to summon other cats, you alone hold the key to freeing your kind. Fight the Nekocasters, a cadre of humans exploiting innocent ‘Nekos’ for their own nefarious gains, serving a greater evil.

Embark on an enchanting journey through mysterious dungeons, the grim lairs of the Nekocasters. Outplay your adversaries with a powerful combo of summoned kittens.

As the world’s only self-aware cat, uncover the mystery behind your origins. Are you the product of an ancient spell, a botched experiment, or something more profound? This vibrant, cat-filled world teems with secrets waiting to be unraveled.

Brave through the perilous dungeons, outsmart the cunning Nekocasters, and liberate your feline brethren in ‘Spellcats’. The future of the Nekos rests in your paws.

A Vibrant Deck of 60 Diverse Cats

Experience the excitement of collecting and summoning a wide variety of magical cats, each with their own unique abilities. Use these feline allies strategically to overcome challenges and vanquish enemies. From a small alley kitten to a majestic mountain cat (literally a mountain), the power of these cats will be at your command!

Five Elements with Unique Gameplay

Dive into the diverse mechanics of five unique elements: Water, Electric, Fire, Ice, and Earth. Each element offers a distinct playstyle that adds to the richness of the gameplay. The strategy you employ is entirely up to you!

Roguelike Trinkets

Discover and utilize over 20 unique trinkets to enhance your gameplay experience. These powerful items can power up your kitten army, granting them new abilities or augmenting their existing ones, giving you the upper hand in battles. Each trinket’s unique effect adds an extra layer of strategy to your dungeon runs, ensuring that no two playthroughs are the same.

The post Magical Felines Collide in Strategy Deckbuilder Spellcats, Launching May 17 appeared first on Xbox Wire.

Solving crime is no walk in the pond.

We’re very excited to announce that Duck Detective: The Secret Salami is coming to Xbox Series X|S, Xbox One, and the Windows Store! Duck Detective is Aggretsuko meets Return of the Obra Dinn, in a cozy mystery setting where a down-on-his-luck duck is tasked with exposing a sinister sausage-based conspiracy.

You play as Eugene McQuacklin, part-time private investigator, full-time duck. As a recent divorcee and ex-police detective, you must use your supreme powers of deduc(k)tion to save your ailing career and maybe, just maybe, pay next month’s rent.

Our small team at Happy Broccoli Games have been greatly inspired by the classic Agatha Christie novels. While they take a darker and more suspenseful approach, we wanted to create something that would keep you guessing as much as it will make you smile. It has been fantastic fun for our team to write such an energetic and twisty tale. A pompous detective, mismatched characters, and cramped environment, all mixed together surely makes for a big hoot!

Justice is a dish best served at the bottom of a pond. And you’re sure to get your flippers wet when it comes to the case of The Secret Salami.

We are very much looking forward to having all you detectives quack the case on release! We don’t have a firm date just yet, but we’ll work hard to get it in your hands as quackly as possible. Please look forward to more puns and more fun when the game launches on Xbox!

The post Use Your Powers of De-duck-tion in Duck Detective: The Secret Salami appeared first on Xbox Wire.

Jump back in comes to Compact Mode 

In November, we introduced Compact Mode, a feature available via the Xbox app on PC that enhances your gaming experience by providing a more intuitive user interface on smaller screens, including Windows handhelds. We’re excited to announce that the Jump back in feature and enhancements to the Friends panel are rolling out to all Xbox Insiders enrolled in the PC Gaming Preview starting today! 

When we launched Compact Mode, we focused on giving you more space to browse content by simplifying the sidebar. We are now taking it further with Jump back in, our latest feature that allows you to quickly access the games you have recently played on your Windows device when you are immersed in Compact Mode. 

Jump back in will feature the last nine games you played from the app. When you click on any game card, you will go directly to its game hub where you can jump into game play. You can also right-click or press the menu button on your controller to launch directly into game play from the context menu.  

Enhancements to the Friends panel 

With Compact Mode, we have also made it easier to access the Friends panel via controller navigation, with quick access directly from the sidebar, and consistent with other panels like Notifications. We are looking forward to hearing your feedback as we continue to improve the experiences related to Friends in the app. 

Starting next week, a new survey will be available in the Xbox Insider Hub (open or install clicking here) for players enrolled in the PC Gaming preview to give us your feedback on Jump back in and the updated Friends panel access with Compact Mode. As a reminder, you can always give us suggestions for the app or leave feedback by clicking on your Profile card inside the Xbox App and then selecting Feedback from the dropdown menu. We can’t wait to hear from you as we work to bring more enhancements to Compact Mode and the Xbox App on PC for you to enjoy seamless Xbox gaming experiences across all your Windows devices. 

How to get Xbox Insider support and share your feedback 

If you’re an Xbox Insider looking for support, please join our community on the Xbox Insider subreddit. Official Xbox staff, moderators, and fellow Xbox Insiders are there to help. We always recommend adding to threads with the same issue before posting a brand new one. This helps us support you the best we can! Also, you can provide direct feedback to Team Xbox by following the steps here under the “Report a problem online” section. For more information on the Xbox Insider Program, follow us on Twitter at @XboxInsider. Keep an eye on future Xbox Insider Release Notes for more information regarding the PC Gaming Preview. 

Like what you see but not an Xbox Insider? 

If you’d like to help create the future of Xbox and get early access to new features, join the Xbox Insider Program today by downloading the Xbox Insider Hub for Xbox Series X|S & Xbox One or Windows PC. (Note: The features outlined in this article are currently only available for PC-based Xbox Insiders.) 

The post Compact Mode continues evolving in the Xbox App on PC appeared first on Xbox Wire.

The game also features a unique combat system, which mixes traditional JRPG-esque turn-based combat alongside real-time bullet-hell elements. However, that’s not all! The game throws a monkey wrench in this formula by introducing a vast assortment of distinct ways of battling through an eclectic mix of unique minigames. This may include playing basketball, cooking, dancing your heart out, working out, playing old arcade games, drawing pictures, and more! And that’s not even mentioning the unique conversations and personalities of each enemy you can find throughout the game.

As you explore Athens, you’ll come across tons of different biomes, all with their own unique feel and residents (both friendly and not)! Not only will your party members play a role in how you explore these biomes, but so will the choices you make throughout the game and how you interact with those around you. You’ll find yourself in situations that range from odd (such as fighting an arrogant fly) to utterly bizarre (helping out in an Italian restaurant). What other secrets does the world of Athens hold? You’ll have to explore every nook and cranny to find out!

Last but not least, what’s up with that online system we mentioned? The complexity and deep variety of the game’s design means no two playthroughs will ever be the same. As you wrap up each playthrough of the game, you’ll be awarded your very own “rhapsody”, something of a unique memento that contains your player character and each and every nuance of how you experienced Athens. These rhapsodies can be collected and viewed, but also traded to friends! Collected rhapsodies can also be stacked/combined to give them additional effects. Plus, some rare rhapsodies exist, which may grant special in-game bonuses or allow for unique experiences to pop up in game.

Developed by Nico Papalia with co-development help, porting assistance for Xbox, and publishing by Top Hat Studios, Athenian Rhapsody is launching May 14 on Xbox Series X|S and Xbox One, with a 15% launch discount until May 28th.

Athenian Rhapsody

Top Hat Studios, Inc.

☆☆☆☆☆

★★★★★

Get it now

ARE YOU READY FOR THE CRAZIEST GAME EVER? CAN THE DEVELOPER OF THE GAME DO A BACKFLIP??? No, he can’t. Maybe one day, but for now he’s too scared!

…anyway, Athenian Rhapsody is a super-fresh, one-of-a-kind comedy RPG in which you’ll explore the World of Athens! Your goal is to build your very own Rhapsody – the story of you (the player) and your epic tale in this world. You’ll be faced with many challenges, and you’ll have to fight (or hug) your way through the world by either battling, or awkwardly trying to make friends with your opponents through esoteric knowledge, abstract jokes, memory games, and other strange and funny interactions.

If you want more of the meat’n’cheese, well feast your eyes upon these rather dry feature descriptions, written by someone who’s probably a little bit boring:

– Each character in the world of Athens has a bold personality, and a large amount of depth for you to discover. You can choose to adventure with whoever you’d like! There truly is a favorite for everyone to bond with, I promise.

– This world has no shortage of intense battles with opponents that range from weird, wacky, tough, cute, and outright goofy!

– On your journey, you may face mind-bendingly difficult challenges such as “Spell Richard” and “Carry A Feather” throughout your Rhapsody. Would you dare come face to face with the infamous 3×3 slide puzzle?

– Many characters will switch up the tactics of battle, you’ll be faced with various minigames based on the scenario you find yourself in.

– This game is fast paced, action packed, and full of zany and ironic humor that anyone can have a nice laugh at.

– You will NOT run out of things to do. If you do, you probably haven’t seen the sunlight in quite some time!

– Nothing substantial in this game is up to RNG. You choose your pathway from start to finish, creating an extremely specific pathway which’ll then be recorded – this is your playthrough’s Rhapsody, a narrated story of your journey through Athens! When you come to the end of the line and reflect upon your Rhapsody, could you say you did your best?

– You’ll be able to share Rhapsodies between your friends. Share, combine, read through, and maybe even delete your friend’s Rhapsodies!

The post Athenian Rhapsody Brings Laughs, Community, and IBS appeared first on Xbox Wire.

• Category: Games

Broken Roads: The NPCs We Love to Hate

Summary

• Broken Roads was released on April 10.
• This party-based RPG takes place in a post-apocalyptic Australian setting.
• Come and meet the most controversial characters in the game.

Broken Roads is the recent party-based RPG released by Australian studio Drop Bear Bytes. In this game, players meet all sorts of characters along their journey, and not all of them are a pleasure to be around. There are distant parents, egotistical buffoons, narcissistic mercenaries, and unfeeling killers out on the roads. Most of them wouldn’t look at you twice, but some would be more than happy to put you in the dirt.

As the game’s narrative designer, I have worked with the team to pick just a few of the NPCs we love to hate, and give you a taste of some of the characters you’ll meet in our post-apocalyptic world.

Louise Evans

As a meat and produce merchant for the farming town of Aldersyde, Louise Evans has never been shy about saying what she thinks in the most uncharming, inflammatory way possible. Louise has always considered everyone to be beneath her, especially her son, Charlie, and his run-away father. She only ordered the Alderman of Aldersyde to take over the town’s leadership because she got sick of the farmers and their endless whinging.

Louise never wanted to stay in Aldersyde, and if you ask her, it was all Charlie’s fault that she was even in this dung-smelling town to begin with. To Louise, Charlie is spineless, useless, and a waste of space.

Louise is a (not so) shining figure of motherhood and kindness in the world of Broken Roads. And, depending on your choices, you may get to discuss the moralities of parenthood and what it means to be a ‘good parent’.

Malcolm Hogan

Malcolm Hogan, of the Hogan House in Merredin, is a boastful man who has only gotten so far in life thanks to nepotism. If he was outside the walls of Merredin, someone would’ve shut his gob with a bullet a long time ago.

Malcolm is always scheming and on the lookout for a lackey he can use to strengthen his election campaign against Governor Angela Smith. He’s a man who relies on confidence and “charm” to cover up his stupidity and inability to really do anything right, besides getting on everyone’s bad side.

You’ll have multiple chances to morally agree or question Malcolm’s schemes and who he may or may not be benefitting with his choices that could change the entirety of Merredin. Vote for Hogan!

Ian Mason

The leader of the aptly named ‘Mason Gang’, Ian is the sleaziest of them all and would win first place five years in a row for the “most punchable face” award. A mercenary for hire, Ian is a narcissist who thinks everyone who doesn’t kiss his feet is jealous of him and wants him dead.

In reality, ‘Deadeye Mason’ as he’s called by everyone else (and not for his marksmanship), is the butt of everyone’s jokes and is only alive because no one reckons he’s worth the bullet. Alive or dead, Ian Mason is a waste of space, through and through.

You can use your Moral Leaning on the Moral Compass to intimidate him and discuss the meaning of contracts and obligations with him, though it may be more of a one-sided conversation.

James Wakefield

James Wakefield is a bad omen. Under all his bravado is a cruel man who kills without mercy, and it’s done in the name of his home city, Brookton.

The problem is, his unwavering loyalty to his people is the whole reason Brookton went up in smoke. If anything, the Brookton townsfolk should be grateful they got James knocking at their door: at least he killed them quickly.

Depending on how hellbent you are on finding him, you may just get the chance to put up your fists and settle the score

---

These are just a few of the colorful characters you’ll need to keep an eye out for during your time with Broken Roads. We can’t wait to see who else gets on our player’s nerves, and hope you enjoyed this look into the types of people that make up our narrative.

Broken Roads

Versus Evil, LLC

☆☆☆☆☆
19

★★★★★

$39.99

Get it now

Born of a love for traditional computer role-playing, Broken Roads provides a rich, engaging narrative in which players make their way across a desolated future Australia. Blending together traditional and all-new role-playing elements on top of a classless system offering nearly unlimited character development options, Broken Roads presents players with an original morality system: the Moral Compass. This novel design sees dialogue options and questing decisions influence, and be influenced by, a character’s philosophical leaning.

Features

• All-new post-apocalyptic setting
• Unique morality system influencing dialogue, quests and character development
• Authentic Australian locations and environments
• Blend of traditional and original RPG mechanics
• Up to 5 party members
• Turn-based tactical combat
• Hand-drawn artwork
• A content-rich and densely-crafted world

The post Broken Roads: The NPCs We Love to Hate appeared first on Xbox Wire.