Kill burglars as a robotic vacuum in Roombo: First Blood

And make sure the house is clean before the family gets home.

You’re a robotic vacuum, Roombo. The family is out and burglars are breaking in. What do you do? You leverage the full power of your hard plastic shell and access to the home’s smart controls to kill: Every. Single. One. Then you clean up the house before the family gets home, none the wiser to the carnage you inflicted. This is the concept behind stealth action game Roombo: First Blood, a beautifully named game from developer Samurai Punk, the team behind other zany games such as Screencheat and American Dream. It looks a lot like... Hitman if Agent 47 were a robot? Kind of? Hotline Miami with fewer animal masks and more vacuums?

It’s a self-described short game that was made as January’s Humble Original, available to everyone who subscribes to Humble Bundle’s Humble Monthly service.
Roombo: First Blood will release next quarter on Steam, but is available immediately to subscribers of Humble Monthly. Here’s Roombo: First Blood’s official website, and here’s the game on Steam.

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JRPG classic Tales of Vesperia: Definitive Edition is out now on PC

A JRPG fan favorite finally comes to the PC (and the modern era.)

After an announcement last summer, Tales of Vesperia is finally available on PC in its newly remastered form. Tales of Vesperia: Definitive Edition released yesterday on Steam, just over ten years since the original released on PS3. The definitive edition includes all the PS3 content, but is updated with HD graphics, new music, new mini-games, new bosses, unreleased DLC for the original games, and two more playable characters. Tales of Vesperia is a fantastical story about the struggle over a powerful resource created by an ancient race to benefit humanity that's now threatening to destroy it.
Widely regarded as the best game in the Tales of series, Vesperia’s soft-focus art style has really benefited from the upgrade. The game port seems to be relatively free of technical problems, as well, and holds a Very Positive user rating a day after release.
Tales of Vesperia: Definitive Edition is available on Steam. You can see some of the changes at Bandai Namco’s official website here.

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Microsoft resumes rollout of Windows 10 October update

Company will carefully monitor results as they release the update in phases.

The recent Windows 10 October update was, to put it mildly, bumpy for some. After some users reported losing files after installing the update, Microsoft put the rollout on hold until they could investigate the problem. Thankfully, as of yesterday, Microsoft has completed its investigation and will continuing rolling out the update, which includes full support for DirectX Raytracing (DXR).
The issues that were fixed are covered in detail in a prior announcement, including issues with Known Folder Redirection (KFR). In yesterday’s announcement, Microsoft mentioned that it would be taking a more measured approach to this rollout. In other words, little by little. The update will first be available to media and advanced users who manually check for updates, and after monitoring the rollout for those users, it will become available in phases to the remaining Windows 10 users.
Commercial users also have immediate access to the October update re-release as of yesterday. Microsoft plans to add a Windows update status dashboard next year so users can get timely information on update blocks.
So, until the update finally makes its way around to your system, remember to backup your files. If you discover you are still having issues, you can contact Microsoft directly to get some help, or provide feedback on Microsoft’s updated feedback hub.

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Blizzard's cruelty knows no bounds as it continues shaming one of Hearthstone's worst cards

Please let the poor gorilla go home.

Yesterday, an especially icy Blizzard revealed a new card from Hearthstone's upcoming Rastakhan’s Rumble expansion: Belligerent Gnome, a 2-mana Taunt minion with 1 attack, 4 health, and +1 to attack if your opponent has two or more minions on the board.

Belligerent Gnome

This is yet another slap in the face to the poor, maligned Silverback Patriarch, a 3-mana Taunt beast with 1 attack and 4 health. Every time Blizzard expands Hearthstone it makes sure this once-respected jungle creature knows that its days are past, and Belligerent Gnome is one of the worst cases of Silverback Patriarch disrespect: not only does Silverback cost more than Belligerent Gnome for the same stats, it lacks the potential extra attack from the Battlecry. (But it does have the 'beast' tag, as someone will point out.)
The Hearthstone wiki's 'Cards better than Silverback Patriarch' page has been updated accordingly, and it's getting pretty long. Past hits include Bronze Gatekeeper, a mech with the same cost and stats plus one more health, and Stonehill Defender, which has the same cost and stats but also lets you discover a new taunt minion.

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After some uncertainty, Telltale Games is closing for good

The end has come for Telltale Games, which is now in the process of winding down completely. A representative of consulting firm Sherwood Partners told GameDaily.biz that it is handling the company's liquidation, while a former employee said that company's legally-mandated COBRA health insurance will come to an end on November 30.
Telltale is now in assignment proceedings, which the site explained is different from bankruptcy proceedings but leads to essentially the same result: A sell-off of the company's assets, with money raised going to creditors. A lawyer told the site that such proceedings generally involve advance consultation with those creditors to ensure they're on board, which suggests that the process could be wrapped up relatively quickly.
Also of note, Telltale CEO Pete Hawley, who said shortly after the "majority closure" that signaled the beginning of the end that the studio would continue to operate, has deleted his Twitter account. His LinkedIn profile indicates that his tenure as CEO ended this month.

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Fallout 4 Spooky Scary Radio mod adds over 150 Halloween-themed tracks

Radioactive.

Fallout 4's irradiated Boston Commonwealth is terrifying all year round. Take the edge off this Halloween with a selection of seasonal tunes, courtesy of Natezomby's Spooky Scary Radio mod.
With a host of Halloween-themed songs (Monster Mash, Zombie Jamboree, Haunted Heart), movie trailers (The Mummy, The Exorcist, Frankenstein), poem readings (Poe's Raven, read by Vincent Price), and short story recitals, Spooky Scary Radio spans over 150 tracks, and has more on the way. Read the (tentative) list in full here.
Here's a teaser:

In-keeping with the modern Fallout series' penchant for retro music, creator Natezomby says their selection here reflects Fallout 4's lore. Don't expect songs like Thriller, then.   
"Do you hear that xylophone?" asks Natezomby on the mod's Nexus Mods page. "Feel the autumn chill in the air? Smell the pumpkin spice? Well, I guess that means that it's almost Halloween as I write this—my favorite time of the year! Better blast some bone-chilling bangers and bomb some bandits with big booms in Fallout, bud. I have just the thing.
"Please, follow me into my lab, I've been working on something. Hours and hours of curating the necessary parts, clipping, trimming, and stitching has all lead up to this. Go ahead, get closer... Lift the sheet, and reveal—Spooky Scary Radio."
Details on how to get Spooky Scary Radio direct to your Pip-Boy can be found this way.

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The mechs of Scythe: Digital Edition stomp out of Early Access

The digital port of mechs and economics 4x Scythe is now out of Steam Early Access and into a proper release. The full version of the game has a number of improvements, including a Hard difficulty setting for the game’s AI. We took a look at the game on its early access launch and called it slick and sharp—it’s a distillation of the 4x that many strategy fans are going to enjoy.
Scythe: Digital Edition is a port of Jamey Stegmaier’s board game, developed by The Knights of Unity, and published by Asmodee Digital. Scythe is well known for prominently featuring the 1920+ alternate universe of polish artist Jakub Rozalsk, a world also featured in upcoming RTS Iron Harvest.
Here are the highlights of the release version changes:

• Hard difficulty AI 
• Action Assist Display
• Camera Rotation 
• Stats for local games
• Steam Content (badges, Trading cards and backgrounds)
• Mac OSX support
• New languages supported: Japanese, Traditional and Simplified Chinese, Brazilian Portuguese, and Russian.

The Knights of Unity also promise more updates in "the coming weeks and months," with some great tabletop-esque rules like bribing other players to take actions, as well as a spectator mode for online play. You can check out Scythe: Digital Edition on Steam. 

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Victrix Pro AF gaming headset now available for pre-order on Amazon

It's designed for e-sports players and professional streamers.

The Victrix Pro AF gaming headset has been making waves in the PC gaming world since it was announced earlier this year. The company says it's purpose-built for streamers and e-sports players, and now you can preorder it on Amazon for $299.99.
The headset's main selling point is the four-microphone active noise cancellation, which Victrix says will block out 70% of all background noise. The built-in microphone apparently uses a pop filter originally designed to block out wind in the Cobra attack helicopter. There's also a ventilation system in the ear cups.
If you want to preorder the headset, you can grab it here. We'll have a review going up soon.

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Get a Dell desktop with a Core i5-8400 and GeForce GTX 1060 for $790

A good mid-range desktop for 1080p gaming.

You don't have to spend a fortune buying or building a gaming PC, so long as you're not looking to play at 4K with all the eye candy cranked up, with ray tracing to boot. If you plan to play at 1080p, there are some good cheap gaming PCs out there. One that falls into the 'under-a-grand' cateogry is this Dell Inspiron desktop that's on sale at Newegg today.
It's priced at $789.99, with no promo codes or mail-in-rebates mess with. We've highlighted this desktop line before in various configurations. This particular one sports a Core i5-8400 processor (6 cores, 2.8GHz to 4GHz, 9MB L3 cache, 65W TDP) paired with 8GB of RAM.
This model also has a GeForce GTX 1060 3GB graphics cards and 1TB hard drive (7200 rpm). You could always add a solid state drive and relegate the HDD to backup chores, if you want faster storage.
Go here to get this deal.
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Desktops, laptops, and accessories on the Dell online store are 17% off right now

An assortment of Dell and Alienware products can be found for good prices.

It's time to dig up all those Dell gift cards—the company's annual site-wide sale has just started. For the next few days (and while supplies last), you can get 17% off desktops, laptops, and other electronics.
You can see most of the discounted products on this page. Keep in mind that the listed price does not already have the discount applied—that only happens at checkout. We've highlighted some of the better deals below:

• Dell G3 15 (Core i5-8300H, 4GB GTX 1050 Ti, 8GB RAM) — $771.89 ($158 off)
• Dell XPS 13 (Core i5-8250U, Intel HD 620, 8GB RAM) — $829.99 ($170 off)
• New Inspiron Desktop (Core i5-8400, 2GB GTX 1050, 8GB RAM) — $622.49 ($127 off)
• Inspiron Gaming Desktop (Core i5-8400, 3GB GTX 1060, 8GB RAM) — $705.49 ($144 off)
• New Inspiron Gaming Desktop (Ryzen 7 2700X, 4GB RX 580, 16GB RAM) — $,078.99 ($221 off)
• Alienware 15 Laptop (Core i7-8750H, 6GB GTX 1060 OC, 16GB RAM) — $1,493.17 ($306 off)
• Alienware 17 Laptop (Core i7-8540H, 8GB GTX 1070 OC, 16GB RAM — $1,701.49 ($349 off)

Unfortunately, there are quite a few exclusions. Some PCs (like the Dell G7 15), all third-party electronics, all software, all gift cards, and some other products are not discounted. Still, if you've been waiting to pick up a PC or laptop, this is a good opportunity.
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Total War Saga: Thrones of Britannia update 'represents another shot' to reach its potential

Creative Assembly: "Although we stand by many of the core changes, there were some improvements we wanted to make."

Thrones of Britannia makes significant changes to the Total War formula, said Tom earlier this year. But these adjustments have upset some players—which is something its latest Allegiance update aims to address.
Game director Jack Lusted admits Thrones' reviews weren't as universally positive as he'd hoped, but says he appreciates how much it shakes up Total War as we otherwise know it.
"The Total War player base is extremely broad in their tastes, they disagree often and with impressive passion," Lusted tells us. "Our games are big and with all the various features, systems and facets, we know no one game is going to be all things to all players. But with Thrones, we were confident that a strong majority would enjoy it and see the value in the changes we’d made."
Lusted says to see the game accrue a "mixed response" at launch was tough, mostly because this label has negative connotations despite the game's positive attributes. Lusted adds that while he and his team stand by a number of the core changes Thrones makes to the Total War blueprint, the balance patch rolled out in May was a step towards getting players back onside—and that deeper changes resulted in the Allegiance update.

"The Allegiance update represents us taking another shot at helping Thrones to reach its full potential as a game that more of our players love and want to continue playing for years to come," says Lusted. "It addresses much of what some felt was lacking with the game, adding in some new features as well as expanding and improving on other areas of the game to enhance the overall experience.

"Now it’s released, along with the Blood, Sweat & Spears DLC, we’ll turn again to player feedback to see what next steps we may want to take. From what we’ve seen so far, the update has created a lot of positivity which is really encouraging."

Lusted describes the Saga series as "another string to our bow", and says its players "really support the idea" behind it. Sagas hold "huge potential" to steer Total War in new directions, says Lusted, and, as the Allegiance mechanic is based on the culture mechanic from Rome 2 and the religion mechanic from Attila, Thrones now pushes the envelope beyond what we're used to. 

As for the future, Lusted remains positive about growing the Saga series while continually listening to and adapting following player feedback. He says: "We fully intend to provide ongoing support for Thrones but our first step is analysing how players have responded to the update before settling on what we do next."

Additional reporting by Samuel Roberts.

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Old School Runescape comes to mobile devices in October with full cross-platform play

If you live in Canada, Iceland, or one of a few other nations, you can play it right now.

Old School Runescape is a sandbox MMO based on Runescape circa 2007, which is to say that hand-holding is minimal to the point of non-existence: "You go through a five-minute tutorial which teaches you the absolute bare minimum and then you're unceremoniously dropped into the hometown of Lumbridge" is how Austin put it in his May review. Despite that (or because of it), it's actually quite good, and soon it will be playable on Android and iOS mobile devices as well.  
All of this is relevant to us because the mobile versions will support full cross-platform play with PC, so you can keep on playing even when you're out and about: "You can just pick up from where you left off at home," Jagex said.
The mobile versions have been available for awhile now through closed beta tests and a soft launch in Canada, Denmark, Finland, Iceland, Norway, and Sweden, and will go into full release on both platforms on October 30. The good news is that if you already have a beta version installed, or if you live in one of the soft launch countries, you can keep on playing without interruption; the bad news is that if you don't, you'll have to wait, because moving the app into the preorder stage requires its removal from the Google Play store.
You can preorder or pre-register (I'm not sure what the difference is) Old School Runescape for Android devices here, or iOS here. Pre-release access is not available in some countries, "mainly due to our concerns over the experience players will have due to the lack of local worlds in those regions," Jagex said. You'll need iOS 10 or later or Lollipop 5.0 or later on Android to run it. Full details are available at runescape.com.

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2K asks players to 'contact local government' about Belgian loot box ban

"We will be continuing conversations in order to explain our view on how NBA 2K already complies with local laws."

Late last year, Sam Horti wrote about how the loot box controversy shaped gaming in 2017. The same furore has inevitably rolled into this year, and a number of politicians, universities and gaming authorities have since expressed dismay with premium videogame consumables.
Now, publisher 2K has responded to the Belgian Gaming Commission's decision that loot boxes violate the country's gambling laws, with a number of changes to NBA 2K's in-game currency and purchases tied to its MyTeam packs. It has also asked NBA 2K players who reckon the publisher's practice now "comply with local laws" to "contact [their] local government representative to communicate [their] opinion."
Here's the publisher's statement in full:

In May, the ESA president defended loot boxes, and warned against government regulation. Blizzard, however, has since removed paid loot boxes from Overwatch and Heroes of the Storm in Belgium—and Belgian and Dutch CS:GO players can no longer open loot cases.
Read our full coverage of loot boxes this way.
Cheers, PCGN. 

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This Gigabyte RX 580 8GB is just $210 right now

This Gigabyte RX 580 8GB is just $210 right now

While prices for high-end cards like the GTX 1080 and GTX 1070 have fallen drastically over the past few months, mid-range GPUs like the RX 580 and GTX 1060 are still at (or above) standard retail prices. If you're in the market for an affordable graphics card, the Gigabyte RX 580 8GB is just $209.99 with a mail-in rebate from Amazon.
This card has a core clock of 1380MHz in OC Mode, and 1365MHz in Gaming Mode. The RX 580 is roughly equivalent to a GTX 1060 in terms of performance, and it has 8GB of memory. For input, you get 3 DisplayPort, one HDMI, and one DVI.
You can buy the Gigabyte RX 580 from Amazon. The listed price is $229.99 (which is still a good deal on its own), but if you mail in the $20 rebate, the cost comes down to $209.99.
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Anthem's conversation system allows for two dialogue choices

We've finally seen Anthem's dialogue system in action.

During a Q&A session at a pre-panel press briefing on Anthem at PAX West, BioWare debuted footage of the conversation system players will use in Fort Tarsis, the singleplayer area players visit between multiplayer missions.
Forgoing the complex conversation wheel of previous BioWare games like Mass Effect and Dragon Age, Anthem will only allow for two dialogue choices in conversations. The two choices aren't aligned with a morality system of any kind, but do differ in tone slightly.
When asked why the system was simplified for Anthem, executive producer Mark Darrah replied, "We are showing this to an audience that is not used to these kind of decisions and conversations. We wanted to keep it simpler, but we also don't want to present you with any false choices."
Fort Tarsis is where you'll do most of the talking, and from a first-person perspective as opposed to the third-person javelin camera in the shared world. Conversations pull the player in close and provide supplemental information about who you're talking to, whether they're tied to a political faction, and whatever back story BioWare deems important. Character models look great, and the facial animations are leagues better than Andromeda's, but I'll still miss the impression of complexity I got from more choices.
Clearly, Anthem isn't just another BioWare RPG, but I don't blame anyone for expressing concern at its differences from the studio's previous games. Change is hard, but everything we know about Anthem so far points to an impressive, entertaining cooperative shooter with a heaping of BioWare's storytelling on the side. It's hard to be mad about that.

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Anthem will get a demo in February

EA Access subscribers and anyone who preorders are guaranteed access.

During a pre-panel press briefing at PAX West, Mark Darrah and Mike Gamble of BioWare announced that the VIP demo for Anthem will be arriving on February 1st for PC, Xbox One, and PS4 simultaneously.
'VIP' because EA Access subscribers and anyone who preorders are the only ones guaranteed access, though more methods for having a go at the demo will be detailed at a later date. Gamble and Darrah said that this will not be a tech demo meant designed for testing online infrastructure, but a legitimate, old-school demo—a vertical slice of Anthem designed to demonstrate what it's all about.
Tech tests will happen as well, but details for those have not been announced.
Demos are rare, arguably replaced by a combination of Early Access, temporary betas, and plentiful access to video footage. BioWare's typically known for sprawling singleplayer RPGs where your relationships with characters and choices have a big impact on the story and world, which makes a shared-world shooter that looks like it's doing a convincing Destiny impression a tougher sell for BioWare's usual crowd. Everything we've learned about Anthem so far makes it sound like a good time, though I don't expect it to scratch my Mass Effect itch. Andromeda left a big rash behind.

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Magneto mod lets you do all the best Magneto things in GTA 5

Throw cars, pull planes from the sky, derail trains, even yank guns from people's hands and shoot them with 'em.

I saw two second of a clip of this mod script on Reddit and knew it was JulioNIB's work. And it could be the modder's best work yet: bringing Magneto, the master of magnetism, into GTA 5. The video above shows off Magneto's powers, from levitating and hurling cars to pulling a plane out of the sky and using it to smash a helicopter. Someone call the X-Men!
But wait, there's more! You can pull guns out of people's hands—with magnetism—and make the guns shoot the person who was trying to shoot you, which is such a Magneto thing to do. You can uproot metal poles and impale people with them. You can link metal objects together and create a massive spinning metal cluster of death. You can even derail trains! Is there anything magnetism can't do?
You can get the full details and installation instructions for the script here, and JulioNIB has a Patreon if you want to support him and get early access to his mods.

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Save $60 on this Ryzen 5 2600 CPU and Asus X370 motherboard bundle

A strong foundation for a gaming PC.

If you're looking to build a new gaming PC with AMD hardware, you can save a few bucks by taking advantage of Newegg's bundle offer consisting of a Ryzen 5 2600 processor and Asus ROG Strix X370-F Gaming motherboard.
Purchased together, the combo is priced at $299.99, saving you $59.99 if you were to buy the two parts separately. That's a nice chunk of change that you can apply to some other area, like the graphics card, memory allotment, or storage.
In case you're not familiar with these parts, the Ryzen 5 2600 is one step down from the Ryzen 5 2600X, which we consider the best AMD option. Both chips are 6-core/12-thread CPUs with 16MB of L3 cache, just the non-X part is clocked at 3.4GHz to 3.9GHz, slightly slower than the X variant's 3.6GHz to 4.2GHz clocks.
As to the motherboard, it's a higher end option based on AMD's X370 chipset. It has three PCIe x16 slots, eight SATA 6Gbps connectors, and two M.2 sockets for faster NVMe SSDs.
Go here to grab this combo.
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Divinity: Original Sin 2 Definitive Edition is out now as a free update

Our favorite game of 2017 is getting new and revised dialogue, new areas, a new difficulty setting, and more this week.

Update: Looks like the update went out a bit early! (At least if you're in a timezone where it's still Thursday.) The patch is now available for owners of Divinity: Original Sin 2 on Steam.
Original story: Our 2017 Game of the Year wasn't our favorite game of 2017 because it was technically flawless. Divinity: Original Sin 2 launched with a few bugs, and there are weak spots within its mountains of dialogue. I still loved it, though, and it'd be hard for Larian to somehow make it worse, so I'm damn excited for Divinity: Original Sin 2 Definitive Edition, which launches this Friday, August 31 as a free update on PC.
The 8.2 GB Definitive Edition update promises "approximately 150,000 new and rewritten words," according to Larian, with a lot of focus on the third act. There are also new areas, fights, and performance improvements, as well as new Story difficulty that tones down the battles for those who aren't much into tactical wizardry but want to see the final act within their lifetimes.
We won't be re-reviewing Original Sin 2—while it's a new release for consoles, PC owners get the update free, and we've already told you how much we love it in more than one way—but I'll be replaying 2017's best game from the beginning and we'll have more thoughts on it next week.
There's no exact timing for the update, but it should be pushed out sometime on Friday. We'll update this story with the full patch notes when we have 'em.
We have early access to the Definitive Edition update, and while we haven't taken it for much of a spin, there's one thing we can confirm: the launcher now allows you to select between the Definitive and 'classic' editions, and classic saves are not compatible with the Definitive Edition. They'll still be there for you, but you won't be able to load them into the updated version, which is about what we expected.

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Star Wars: Battlefront 2 winter roadmap reveals new sandbox mode and upcoming heroes

The next few months will see heroes and villains from the prequel trilogy join the fight.

Electronic Arts has laid out its plans for Star Wars: Battlefront 2 for the balance of 2018, which will kick off in September with a new Squad system enabling players to spawn on squaddies in the Galactic Assault, Blast, and Strike modes. The 91st Mobile Reconnaissance Corps and 104th Wolfpack Battalion—which is a very Star Wars way of saying "new clone trooper appearances"—will also make their debut.
October will see the release of a new Dark Side hero, General Grievous, followed by Obi-Wan Kenobi for the Light Side in November. November will also see the release of Geonosis, a new Galactic Assault map, the new STAP, BARC speeder, and AT-TE vehicles, and the 212th Attack Battalion clone soldier appearances.  
Beyond that, over the less-well-defined "winter," Count Dooku, Anakin Skywalker, the Coruscant Guard and 501st Legion trooper appearances, and a new, non-linear sandbox mode in which two teams battle to bring down capital ships (or keep them from being brought down, I would think) will also be added. The General, the Jedi, the Count, and the Kid will get additional appearances as well.
EA said that the Battlefront 2 development roadmap as it stands is an "advance look into what's coming up," and that more details will be revealed in September.  

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