A new collection of concept art reveals details of a Halo Wars 3 pitch that featured space battles and XCOM-esque base management.

Luke Kopycinski is an artist who worked on Halo Wars 2. Specifically, he did a bunch of the game's cards, the system used to build units in Blitz multiplayer mode.

Kotaku Australia has learned that JB Hi-Fi stores from around Australia will begin advertising a special Xbox bundle from tomorrow, termed "Race Wars".

Demos have been gone so long there will be younger readers who never really got comfy with them in the first place, but a some news from big PC publishers this week shows that the oldest (and maybe best) way of selling a video game is making a comeback.

In an update that I'm sure will work as intended, Microsoft has unveiled a new feature that will transcribe in-game voice chat into text, or in-game chat into automated speech.

The nice thing about Halo Wars 2 is that it works.

I've been in a bit of an RTS mood lately, so when the preview event for Halo Wars 2 cropped up I was pleasantly surprised. It was exactly the kind of game I wanted to play, right when I wanted to play it.

And after a few hours with the game's campaign and various multiplayer modes, I walked away reasonably satisfied. But as a StarCraft tragic (and by tragic, I mean someone who had two active accounts in Grandmaster back in the vanilla days), not all is well.

Ahh, summer. A time for hitting up the beach, playing backyard cricket, sausage sandwiches ... and then realising how bloody hot everything is, and going inside to chill with a fan and a console/PC.

Once the stickier, uncomfortable part of summer hits, you'll need something to do. Fortunately, there's plenty of games coming out over the season.

Ben Nicholas is an artist and concept designer formerly with 343 Industries who worked on Halo Wars 2. He's also a huge fan of Final Fantasy VII, which is why he decided to embark on a project to re-imagine the game's various interiors, beginning with pharmacy nestled deep inside the Wall Market strip of the Midgar slums.

We should know a whole lot more about Halo Wars 2 soon, according to a series of leaks today.