Today we have a rad panorama from the Allods folks showing off how pretty the landscapes in Skyforge are, lore and other updates for Pantheon: Rise of the Fallen, Smedley getting busy with tons of H1Z1 news tidbits, and patch notes from DCUO and SWTOR. Later today I'll be posting a really rad new video to our Videos and Livestreams section that you should totally check out. I was going to add it in here, but I think it'll be a fun standalone, and keeping that section fresh is always a good thing. While that will happen later, let's dive in to the news we have right now!

Skyforge

Pretty much all I have to say is that you should head over to this page right here and play with the panorama Allods put together that lets you rotate through their latest Skyforge reveal, Naori Island. If you can't get to the panorama right now, let me tell you about the island. Naori Island, before the invasion, was a place where heroes could go to relax and recuperate after a long battle. Now it is marked by invaders, leaving it full of dangerous threats lurking from the moment of arrival. You can see more images of Naori Island at the announcement page or just skip straight to the panorama linked above.

Pantheon: Rise of the Fallen

The folks over at Visionary Realms have been busy populating the game's subreddit with information, which is a nice change of pace. For far too long, the only Pantheon post showing up in my gaming feed was a self post asking if the game was officially dead in the water. It's nice to see new life over there, likely at the hands of the game's new loremaster, Joppa (who shows up in the article comments sections from time to time here). Joppa also took the time to post a dev blog with new lore updates. These updates are more along the lines of “this is where we are now and this is where we're going” and not so much “hey guys, have a story” (those are cool, too, but this post is quite useful). More importantly to the visually inclined, we have a first peak at Amberfaet, a cavernous area. Joppa teases us that the ceiling itself is full of playable content, if we can figure out how to get to it. Jump puzzles in Pantheon, perhaps?

I've previously written about the separation of the Lore4 from Pantheon, but it was nice to read about Joppa getting in contact with Rapha, who has been discussing Pantheon's timeline, which gives Joppa a better perspective of the big picture. If you're reading this and feel that I'm flip flopping with my opinions on Pantheon, I'll just say that I will freely change my opinion when new information becomes available that will help me make better judgments. I'm pretty excited that Visionary looks to be taking the game in a good direction again, and I'm pretty excited about the recent updates and other information I've learned. Back to Joppa teasing us, though, I'd like to point out the part of his blog where he says he plans on releasing a timelapse of Amberfaet being built similar to what we saw with the High Brace timelapse. I highly recommend reading Joppa's blog, and for more screenshots, have a look at the Pantheon subreddit.

H1Z1

Now that we have a release date for at least Early Access (and it's $20? Uh, bye anyone I know), Sony Online Entertainment's President, John Smedley, has been crazy busy with the updates. I'd recommend following him on Twitter since he does communicate through that medium quite frequently. For example, he has tweeted the dev whiteboard (or, to-do list) for the road heading towards Early Access. He's also good with teasers, so he made sure to let us know that not everything is on the “punchboard” so we have some surprises to look forward to. Another teaser from Smed is a screenshot with the sentence, “Flora work coming along nicely.” Also, if you're wondering, H1Z1 will be built exclusively for 64 bit. Also, if you've been wondering about server rulesets (I believe he previously stated on Twitter that yes, there will be straight PvE servers), I suggest you head on over to the H1Z1 subreddit to read Smed's stickied post where he hints at different rulesets (spoiler alert: so many) and gives some details on special Events Servers that will be around. There will even be a no zombies server, which the lover of dystopian futures and post-apocalypse fiction in my is quite interested in. If you want your zombie slaying experience to be a bit more realistic to certain facets of zombie lore, you'll likely enjoy the server that features a headshot only for kills ruleset.

DCUO

While there are a few neat things coming into DC Universe Online with today's patch, the most noteworthy is likely the announcement of Legends PvE. Similar to the Legends PvP update, players can now play some of the iconic superheroes from the DC universe – icons like Batman, Superman, and Green Arrow – but in a PvE setting. With this update, Deathstroke is introduced as a Legendary character. These Legendary characters can be played inside of DCUO's dungeons, which should be a fun change of pace for a lot of the playerbase. If your favorite dungeon isn't available for Legends PvE at the start, don't fret. SOE plan to gradually release new ones over time. Currently, the South Gotham Courthouse alert is ready to go. Other patch highlights include a new League Hall environment, which not only has a unique look, but two new terrains, an update to the Combat HUD that features a display for Equipped Combat Rating for level 30 or higher characters, and Season's Greedings, the annual in-game event for the holiday season.

SWTOR

STAR WARS: The Old Republic also received a game update today, Patch 3.0.0b. While looking at the community responses to see what the highlights were for them, the TL;DR of that seems to be that whatever your pet bug is, it didn't get fixed this patch, even if you sent an employee a PM about it. Going to the link for the notes doesn't have much of anything, though, which is probably why people are wondering why their favorite issue hasn't been fixed yet. “All PvP Modifications sold on vendors are now Bind on Pickup. This includes Warzone and Ranked Warzone Modifications.” is the only line from today. Maybe next week, folks.