Following its content-devoid GDC unveil, Obsidian's new “Tyranny” RPG revitalizes the Pillars of Eternity engine, but slaps a new, eviler-than-thou visage on top. We were given a hands-off preview of Tyranny and its single-player, four-character approach to classic RPG progression. The unveil demonstrated Tyranny's unique take on the player's role within conflict, acting an arbiter to warring factions and issuing fate-binding edicts.

Coincidentally, the player's characters are “Fatebinders” – archetypes we'd traditionally see as “bad guys” in standard RPGs, but they're clearly working only in the best interests of Terratus' inhabitants. Where the Lawful Good types might facetiously ask, “who are we to judge the fate of these townsfolk?” the Fatebinders would answer, “uh, that'd be us. Over here, in the red-and-black and radiating evil.”

Obsidian today announced its maniacal “Tyranny” RPG, published in renewed partnership with Paradox Interactive. As was the situation with Epic Games’ Paragon upon first reveal, there’s not much information right now – but we’ve got the basics, and we’ll have a full preview live in a week’s time.

Tyranny runs on the Pillars of Eternity engine, so it’s fair to expect the same multi-character, single-player system as exists there. At least, that’s the probable foundation. As its name might suggest, Tyranny’s undertone is one of oppression and ulterior motives – the player’s actions are less aligned with “good” and tend to edge more on the realm of “possibly really evil” – a stark change from Pillars of Eternity.

Blizzard's Diablo II, the year 2000's best dungeon crawler, has once again been resurrected from the brink of incompatibility. The game just received patch 1.14a, making Diablo II one of the longest-supported video game titles in history, with on-and-off patching for sixteen years; in 2011, Blizzard pushed patch 1.13 for expanded OS & hardware support.

A developer post on the official Blizzard forums (posted by “Classic”) indicates official support for OSX Mac operating systems. Somewhat surprisingly, Blizzard also pointed toward updated cheat-detection and hack-prevention systems. In the official post, Blizzard wrote:

“Chivalry: Medieval Warfare” is the de facto representation of “first-person slashers” in the gaming market, rooted in the years-old Age of Chivalry Source Engine mod. It's a gruesome, unforgiving deathmatch in red-vs-blue style with more historically accurate weaponry, removing the fantasy expectation that usually accompanies medieval-era games.

Overpower does this differently; the indie arena game feels like Team Fortress 2, but deals in warriors, mages, assassins, and rangers, using more playful stylings and mechanics than might be found in a game like Chivalry. This makes Overpower uniquely positioned to appeal to “arena shooter” fans who'd like a change of pace, mixing in some MMO PVP arena mechanics and classes.

New inXile title Torment: Tides of Numenera officially entered early access today on Steam. Torment: Tides of Numenera is the spiritual successor to the 1999 cult-classic Planescape: Torment. In 2013, this new Torment title had one of the most successful Kickstarter campaigns for any game at over $5 million. InXile reunited some of the original game's key personnel -- Chris Avellone, Colin McComb, and Mark Morgan -- to recreate the game’s iconic feel and atmosphere.

Like its predecessor, Torment: Tides of Numenera is an isometric RPG that will place heavy focus on storytelling and character development through a dialog tree system. Check out the trailer here:

Last week's game news was primarily dominated by actual, emergent games -- a good thing, given the abundance of lawsuits and industry items over the past few weeks. Granted, we haven't been able to escape the legal side of the industry: Palmer Luckey of Oculus VR is still being sued by Total Recall, and that lawsuit has been allowed to proceed (barring some of the more poignant and critical points of the plaintiff).

As for the more fun, gaming-oriented content, we saw major moves for Black Desert Online as it has continued a push into the public eye, Epic Games' Paragon released an alpha gameplay trailer, Minecraft: Education Edition was announced, and Humble Bundle has more sales.

Written and video content below -- take your pick of consumption!

The trouble with slapping “MOBA” onto games is that the genre is associated instantly with the likes of DOTA and LoL. But there's also not a great, succinct way to describe a certain class of “FPS-styled multiplayer arenas with MMO PVP combat” (FMAMP does have a ring to it, though) and so “MOBA-inspired” ends up getting tagged on such games.

Overpower is one of those “MOBA-inspired” games, but it's more relatable to Counter-Strike and Unreal Tournament than a proper MOBA. The game builds around the concept of fast, fun combat with an over-the-shoulder view of staple fantasy RPG characters – your usual gamut of rangers, warriors, mages, and assassins. Chivalry is the closest, current game we could come up with that matches Overpower's mechanical goals, but there are still distinct differences between these two titles.

Steam has long been rife with first-person survival -- from DayZ to Rust to The Forest to, to, to -- there’s enough to fill the biggest house voxels can build. To cut through the melange, Teotl Studios gave upcoming title “The Solus Project” a twist: it’s linear, not open-world. The plot to The Solus Project will be familiar to anyone who's been watching sci-fi movies over the last couple years. The protagonist is on a ship carrying the last remnants of humankind, eventually downed when the ship crash-lands on an alien planet. The protagonist is the only surviving crewmember of the crash and, of course, it’s up to them save what’s left of the human race.

Korean developer Pearl Abyss (or, more likely, Dutch publisher Daum Games) has proven itself PR-savvy with the release of a free, standalone character creator for its “open-world action MMORPG,” Black Desert Online.

A few years ago, the team at Beamdog began their reproduction of classic Black Isle RPG Baldur’s Gate. The team followed this up with reproductions of Baldur’s Gate II and Icewind Dale, more classic RPGs from days past. Over the summer, Beamdog announced an upcoming expansion to Baldur’s Gate Enhanced Edition, called “Siege of Dragonspear.” This expansion would feature brand new content that’s meant to bridge the void between Baldur's Gates one and two.

Siege of Dragonspear was initially meant to be a short piece of DLC; however, Trent Oster of Beamdog said of the title: “It grew in scope and we realized we were tight on time and needed to put more effort into Baldur’s Gate II ahead of its launch, so Dragonspear went on the backburner." According to Oster, the expansion continued to grow as the team returned to working on it, and so the short DLC grew to 15 hours of play, then onto 35 hours "if you play the critical path and don't do much besides."