Sephiroth is now the strongest fighter in Smash Bros.

At The Game Awards, fans of Smash Bros. had a pretty big announcement drop into our laps, namely the reveal of the next fighter joining as part of Fighters Pass Vol.2 – brooding mama's boy and Final Fantasy mega villain, Sephiroth. It was met with an admittedly mixed response but left me thinking about something. Something that I haven't seen anyone else mention or speak about.

Sephiroth is now canonically the most powerful character in Smash.

Stay with me, because I have a reasoning for this, but we have to go back to the beginning and the story mode of Super Smash Bros. Ultimate for it. The World of Light mode opens, as I'm sure you will remember, with the combined cast of the game fighting together against impossible odds during the invasion of an army of Master Hands, led by the evil entity Galeem.

It turns out that the Master Hands were a redundant addition to their arsenal, as Galeem is arguably the most powerful entity in Smash Bros. history. They unleashed a devastating array of beams that vaporise the entire roster, except for the precious pink marshmallow Kirby, who only really escaped owing to his speed and because Sakurai loves him like his own son.

This began a quest to rescue the entire roster from Galeem's control, and then combining their efforts to eradicate the mysterious being for good. There's a few other things such as a twin evil entity and other such nonsense in the story, but that's the heart of it. However, something in the Sephiroth trailer overturns the prospect of Galeem being the most powerful force in this universe.

As he makes his grand debut, Sephiroth cleaves through the angelic abomination with a single slice of his Masamune and turns the entire army of Master Hands to dust. This is after several of the roster, including DLC fighters like the Hero of Dragon Quest and Richter Belmont, are literally brought to their knees again (or for the first time, it's hard to nail down a stable timeline for this game) by the invading forces of Galeem.

Our favourite son of Jenova then proceeds to "bring despair to Smash" and beat down on several of what could be considered the strongest characters in the game, making easy work of powerful fighters such as consistently top-tier Bayonetta and, erm, Greninja. Before turning his attention to Mario in one of the greatest fake outs in Smash Bros., impaling the portly plumber on his blade through a strap on his dungarees.

The truth is that he saved the roster from annihilation by Galeem's "Mega Vaporiser Lasers"™ (the official name, so I'm told), which were in the process of being charged up. Instead of this being an act of mercy, however, it was instead a means to bring his own devastation down upon them in the form of frenzied sword slashes, dark orb explosions, and glorious swishes of his magnificent hair.

All I'm saying is if it took the combined power of the entire base game roster to take down Galeem in the World of Light, it's going to take more than a simple upgraded Omnislash to dispatch Sephiroth, no matter how pretty it may be. Also, let's not forget that not only was he still standing after this attack, but he ascended to his Safer (read: god-like) form at the end of the trailer, no doubt increasing his power still further above his "One Winged Angel" form.

Not only this, but he isn't even the "real" Sephiroth if we're taking all the Advent Children lines and visuals in mind. This version is – SPOILERS, by the way – the possession of Kadaj by the spirit of Sephiroth. So, he's not even the actual Lifestream-bothering villain and yet he is still powerful enough to bully Galeem.

So, in short if you needed a TLDR, here's my reasoning for Sephiroth being the most powerful character in Smash Bros. Ultimate canon:

  1. Sephiroth destroys a baddie it took the entire base Smash roster to defeat.
  2. He did the above without exerting himself at all.
  3. He then proceeded to lay waste to the roster too.
  4. He has ANOTHER two forms above his base form.
  5. Sephiroth has simply glorious hair.
  6. This isn't even the real Sephiroth.

We're due a guide today about the character and how he will play in the game from Sakurai himself, which you can watch here at 10pm GMT, but honestly, I have no idea how they will top this. Sephiroth now stands as the most powerful entity in this game beyond doubt, and short of adding an actual god to the game, I'm unsure how he could possibly be canonically defeated.

Unless, wait …

Make it happen Nintendo, you cowards.

Among Us is coming to Xbox consoles & Xbox Game Pass in 2021

Microsoft and developer Innersloth have confirmed that indie sensation Among Us will be coming to Xbox One and Xbox Series X|S in 2021. Oh, and not only that, but it will also be a part of Xbox Game Pass for console when it arrives.

The announcement comes just as the game is inducted into the Xbox Game Pass for PC library, and two days after it was hot dropped onto Nintendo Switch. There's no word about PlayStation at the moment, but surely it's only a matter of time before it arrives on Sony's platform as well. Of course, there could be a timed exclusivity deal in effect here, but there's no mention of exclusivity either. We'll just have to wait and see.

Among Us has been one of the indie hits of the summer, despite actually having released all the way back in 2018. The game was discovered by Twitch streamers, with its paranoia-infused multiplayer making for a lot of fun and plenty of cross-channel collaborations. It helps that the game's really cheap at just £4.

The game is built for 4-10 players, with one or more players being an "imposter", and alien interloper who has to try and murder their way through the other players as they try to complete tasks. As murdered bodies are discovered, players report them and call a group meeting to bicker, accuse, and potentially kick someone out of an airlock.

Just last week at The Game Awards, they revealed the upcoming Airship map, before this week's surprise announcements and Switch release.

I dove into the Nintendo Switch release this week, pondering what it could mean for the game's future and the problems that Innersloth need to figure out before they can really bring the game to PlayStation or Xbox consoles. There's a few, such as how chat works in the game. I wrote:

Given how much buzz there is surrounding Among Us, it's no surprise that Innersloth have sought to bring it to console, and Nintendo Switch is by far and away the most logical first platform for them to tackle. That said, they've clearly got their work cut out for them to make it truly feel like a first class citizen on the platform, ironing out the kinks and figuring out how best to translate the game to PlayStation and Xbox.

It certainly sounds like they're well on their way to figuring it out!

Source: Xbox

Epic Games Store Holiday Sale 2020 brings back the endless £10/$10/€10 coupons

Epic have kicked off the Holiday Sale 2020 on the Epic Games Store, offering a wide range of saves across the library of games they sell, giving away 15 free games through the second half of December, and bringing back the endless £10 / $10 / €10 coupons to save even more on any games you decide to buy.

Say what you want about Epic, but they sure know how to splash all that Fortnite cash around!

So, what do I mean by endless £10 / $10 / €10 coupons? Well, I mean literally that. Once claimed, you can use the £10 / $10 / €10 coupon against any qualifying game over £13.99 / $14.99 / €14.99 across the store – It cannot be redeemed against DLC or pre-orders, though. Not only that, but you'll then receive another £10 / $10 / €10 coupon. So if a game is cut to £20.99, like Star Wars Squadrons is, the effective price is actually just £10.99. Bargain!

Make sure to head to the following link to log in and collect your coupon before trying to make any purchases:

Alternatively, you can claim one of the free games that Epic are giving away. The company are throwing out games every single day, starting off with the fantastic Cities: Skylines. If you do that, the coupon will be added to your account and automatically applied for purchases of eligible games and add-ons. These can be games in the sale as well as released games without discounts, like the newly released Cyberpunk 2077 (which isn't too bad to play on a PC).

The Holiday Sale runs from now until 4PM GMT 7th January, and (unlike last time) any unused coupons will expire at that point.

Here's a list of some of the games in the sale – head here to skim the full catalogue – and remember… there's an extra £10 off most of these.

Sackboy: A Big Adventure multiplayer update is now live with cross-save and cross-play support

Sackboy: A Big Adventure has been updated with support for online multiplayer across PlayStation 4 and PlayStation 5, finally letting you team up with chums from across the internet to tackle the platforming adventure together.

Online multiplayer supports up to four players at once, building on the local co-op that was available from launch. It was something sidelined at the last minute by Sony, just a week before the game's release, as Sumo Digital raced to get the game ready to arrive alongside the PlayStation 5.

The update also brings with it support fro PS4-PS5 cross-play, bridging the generations of this cross-generational release, and if you started playing on the PS4 and have since snagged a shiny new PS5 (or have one wrapped up for Christmas), you can now transfer your progress from PS4 to PS5.

To do this, you need to load up Sackboy: A Big Adventure's PS4 version, select Extras in the pause menu and then follow the instructions it provides.

The update to version 1.003 weighs in at a slightly chunky 3.16GB on PlayStation 5, though that's obviously tiny by modern standards. We'll add the patch notes to this article if we find them.

Behind only Astro's Playroom, Sackboy: A Big Adventure was the main family friendly release that came out alongside the PS5. Of course, it (and Spider-Man: Miles Morales) was a cross-gen release hoping to reach as many families as possible this winter with all the charms of the main LittleBigPlanet series.

It breaks out of LBP's side-scrolling platforming in favour of more 3D platforming with a real focus on multiplayer through the open level design and wider camera angle – this made the lack of online play a real downer originally. While charming and often wonderfully fun and inventive, it wasn't our favourite PS5 launch title. For our Sackboy: A Big Adventure review, I wrote:

Sackboy: A Big Adventure starts off slow, feeling like a hollow reflection of the franchise, but eventually grows into its new 3D platforming elements. It's at its best when it blends the new with the old, when there's power-ups, side-scrolling and a meaningful challenge, but it takes a bit too long to get it together.

Source: PS Blog

Dauntless adds festive PvP modes, "second migration" Slayer rewards

Dauntless developer Phoenix Labs are getting into the festive spirit with their newest game update for the online action RPG.

Patch 1.5.1 is now live across all versions of the game including PlayStation 4, Xbox One, Nintendo Switch, and PC (as well as PS5 and Xbox Series X|S), adding time-limited seasonal content to the game alongside a shopping list of changes and improvements.

From now until January 4th you can enlist in one of two unique new game modes. Hunting Grounds: Snowball Fight and Snowforts are both available allowing Slayers to participate in some festive PvP fun.

This new update also makes quality of life changes hot on the heels of Dauntless Reforged. This huge reshuffling of the monster hunting RPG has completely changed how you interact with the game's content, stepping away from individual fights to bigger arenas known as Hunting Ground. You can read our review of Dauntless Reforged for more details.

Additionally, Phoenix Labs have confirmed a "second migration" for those transitioning between Dauntless and Dauntless Reforged. In a nutshell, veteran players can expect more resources to fill ut the new Slayer's Path skill tree while also having more "aetherhearts" – items used to supercharge your weapons and armour.

Dauntless Update 1.5.1 Patch Notes

BEHEMOTHS

BOREUS

  • Fixed a bug where Boreuses would put up their ice shields before spawning minions.

HELLION

  • Fixed a bug where Hellion volcanoes would target players outside of their combat area on Hunting Grounds.

EMBERMANE

  • Improved performance during Embermane encounters.

MALKARION

  • Fixed a bug where the camera would flip upside down after a Malkarion tried to eat a Slayer.

PANGAR

  • Fixed a bug where Pangar heads would stretch.

RIFTSTALKER

  • Fixed a bug where a Riftstalker's murder palace wouldn't vanish after it fled.

TORGADORO

  • Torgadoro grapple sync attacks can no longer down a player, activate the "From the Ashes" amp, and then kill the player again. Once is enough, Torg…

KOSHAI

  • Koshais no longer vanish during the Melting Point island event.

MISCELLANEOUS

  • Slaying Behemoths below your weapon level now provides less XP, but slaying Behemoths above your weapon level now provides more XP. Pick on someone your own size… or bigger.
  • Fixed a bug where Behemoths were not providing rams when slain.

WEAPONS

REPEATERS

  • Prisms can now be power surged.
  • Fixed a bug where the Standard Barrel couldn't be power surged.
  • Repeaters barrels will no longer show a power score of zero when viewed on the loadout screen.
  • Repeaters barrels will no longer be listed as "Tier 0."
  • Moved the combo exit window a little earlier in the shooting animation to allow Slayers to dodge sooner.
  • Fixed a bug where holding the attack button while at zero ammo would reload the repeaters but stop shooting.
  • Fixed a bug where players couldn't see the Twin Suns tab on the repeaters screen while they were equipped.
  • Fixed a bug where the Dynamic Carbine barrel was overpowered when power surged.

WAR PIKE

  • Fixed an issue where the war pike was out of position when unsheathed on Slayers using Body Style 2.

QUALITY OF LIFE

MISCELLANEOUS

  • Added an option to mark all content notifications as read. You can find it under the Gameplay section of the Options menu.
  • Changed floating XP numbers to include the word "XP." Example: You will now see "+150 XP" instead of "+150."
  • Supply crates now stick around much longer after being placed.
  • Added timers to island event chests in the Hunting Grounds. You can now see how much time is left before they disappear.
  • Removed platinum skip options for "First Warden's Bryjind (II)" and "The 'Mane Attraction (II)" rumour quests.

BUG FIXES

HUNTING GROUNDS

  • The compass now correctly reveals Behemoths when a flare is used in their combat area.
  • Fixed a bug where Linnea would spawn halfway inside of a cliff. Ouch.
  • Fixed a bug where using supply crates while shocked would remove the crate.
  • Fixed a bug where island event chests were difficult to interact with if other players were nearby.
  • Fixed a bug where the Swarmageddon island event was not spawning swarms. That's like its one job.
  • Fixed a few cases of infinite fall loops.
  • Fixed numerous cases of floating environment elements such as bushes and rocks.
  • Fixed a few gaps in island geometry to prevent falling through the map.
  • Fixed some areas on Hunting Grounds islands that lacked detail and appeared low-res.
  • Fixed an issue where supply crates would fall through the map.
  • Fixed a bug where island event icons were showing up during hunt arrival animations.
  • Linnea has been given a nameplate.

SLAYER'S PATH

  • Merit and ram costs are now consistent for weapon mod and weapon special nodes.
  • Optimized the Slayer's Path screen to improve performance; it now opens faster.
  • The first Escalation node incorrectly referred to "Easy Escalation" — this doesn't exist and has been changed to "Normal Escalation."
  • Island node descriptions now list the Behemoths that appear on those islands.
  • Unlocked grenades for players who had them unlocked prior to 1.5.0.
  • Made it easier to select nodes on Nintendo Switch.
  • Fixed a bug where the assault tonic's duration bonus from Slayer's Path wasn't working.
  • Fixed a bug where stamina regeneration levels showed "1" at every level instead of increasing with each node unlock.
  • You can now see your current balance of merits and rams on the Slayer's Path screen.
  • Moved the "Claim" button to better fit the UI.

GLIDERS

  • Fixed a bug where the glider's second node in the Slayer's Path had better stats than the final node. The second node's performance has been tuned down and the final node's performance has been improved.
  • Polished player model and animations while gliding.
  • Glider stamina meter no longer remains on screen if you exit out of gliding immediately after deploying your glider.
  • Fixed a bug where if a player deployed their glider a second time in one gliding session (without touching the ground in between), the stamina meter wouldn't appear.

COSMETICS

  • Fixed a bug where a Slayer's hair and clothes would flap wildly when previewing their character in store menus.
  • The Mechaetheric Technovisor now glows while its wearer is standing still.
  • Expanded dye regions for the Frostwarden armour set.

QUESTS AND RUMOURS

  • Fixed a bug where players were unable to view or accept early game quests after updating to 1.5.0.
  • Fixed a bug where Lady Luck would refer to the "Bright Shadows" quest, which no longer exists.
  • Fixed a bug where dealing less than 20% damage to a Behemoth would still complete that objective in "First Warden's Bryjind" and "A Strange and Interesting Behemoth" quests.
  • Quests and rumours that require Slayers to take "less than X damage" before killing a Behemoth no longer take prior combat encounters into account.
  • Fixed a bug where interrupting a Koshai did not count toward the objective in "The 'Mane Attraction (III)" rumour quest.
  • Threat and power levels displayed for "Spore Problems" and "Far and Away" now display 11/375 to correctly match the level/power of the actual Behemoths spawned.

GAMEPLAY

  • Fixed a bug where players would receive lantern-focused bounties before they had unlocked lanterns.
  • Fixed a bug where the Discipline cell didn't reduce the player's health bar total on the Training Grounds.
  • Fixed a bug where the transfusion grenade's healing orbs would seek out the wrong targets.
  • Fixed a bug where players would take more damage after chugging bulwark tonics.
  • Fixed a bug where assault tonics no longer had the correct cooldown.
  • Fixed a bug where revive icons for downed Slayers were visible when they were offscreen, but disappeared when they were in frame.

PERFORMANCE

  • Reduced the amount of data being sent to the game to reduce timeouts, disconnects, and a number of other related issues.

UI

  • Added reforge ranks to weapon menu icons on the weapon crafting screen.
  • Fixed various typos, incorrect descriptions, incorrect terminology, and missing text.
  • Fixed some cases of missing localization.
  • Fixed various cases of text breaking out of text boxes.
  • Fixed a handful of errors in the crafting menu, including incorrect power sorting, unhideable prompts, overlapping elements, and cut-off text.
  • Fixed a bug where players were still receiving party invite notifications after invites were set to blocked.
  • Fixed a bug where the quest tracker would sometimes vanish.
  • Fixed unclearable Journal notification breadcrumbs in Discoveries.
  • Removed the Elite Hunt Pass purchase button from island event and Behemoth loot screens in the Hunting Grounds.
  • Damage objective progress is now showing correctly for "The 'Mane Attraction (VI)" and "A Strange and Interesting Behemoth (VI)."
  • Fixed an issue where purchasing an Elite Hunt Pass played the upgrade animation twice in quick succession.
  • Removed the countdown to the daily bounty token.
  • Fixed a bug where loading screens would change the game's aspect ratio.
  • Fixed a bug where the pointer icon would become huge after unlocking a quest-directed node on the Slayer's Path.
  • Fixed a bug where the Hunt Pass experience icon was using the Hunt Pass daily collectibles icon.
  • Fixed a bug where a broken rewards and break parts guide could show up while returning to Ramsgate.
  • Crafting and Equipment menus now correctly show the button prompts to activate legendary weapon abilities, where appropriate.
  • Fixed a bug where the escape key would not close tutorial slates.
  • Selecting "View How to Unlock" for the Clearsky Glider in the Personality menu no longer takes players to a random Slayer's Path node.
  • Fixed a bug where the revive UI was visible during island arrivals.
  • Fixed a bug where the text above Rosk's head was replaced with white squares.
  • Emotes can now be set immediately after purchasing them from the Personality menu.
  • Fixed a bug where some bounty cards were showing old icons for Hunt Pass XP.
  • The "Claim Bounty" button is now correctly aligned with the surrounding UI.
  • Rosk now has the weapon overview as the last option in his dialogue window instead of the first.
  • Fixed an issue where the Sparkforge had no compass icon, making it hard to find.
  • Power surged gear will now read as Tier 6 in the equipment details tab instead of displaying its original tier.
  • Armour in crafting menus is now sorted by resistance.
  • Removed references to old quests in Escalation text.
  • Fixed a bug where the former Hunt Pass Chronicles section was missing from the Journal.
  • Fixed a bug where players could not scroll right on loot screens.

AUDIO

  • Fixed a bug where a Behemoth's flee audio would play in the Hunting Grounds.
  • Fixed a bug where the music in Hunting Grounds was way too loud. We apologize to your ears.
  • Fixed a bug where audio cues wouldn't play when holding down the craft button.
  • Fixed long pauses between Behemoth music during island events.
  • Reduced the volume of environmental sounds in Hunting Grounds.
  • Lowered the shocknado (yes, that's what we call it) audio during combat.

MISCELLANEOUS

  • Fixed a bug where Tragic Echo's effect would end and players could still move if they had mounted a Behemoth.
  • Pulled back the camera on gliders in the store.
  • Fixed a bug where players were stretching when performing a dodge roll.
  • Fixed a bug where characters were always looking to one side. We will never know what they were truly seeing.
  • Fixed a bug where the Daily Login Core was granting double the intended number of patrol keys.
  • Fixed a bug where the Gone Fishing emote's fishing pole appeared out of place for one frame during its preview. That one frame annoyed an animator so much that it had to be fixed.

Source: Dauntless

Overwatch 2 details coming at BlizzCon Online in February 2021

If you've been wondering about Overwatch 2, you're definitely not alone, as Blizzard have been practically silent about the pseudo sequel to their hugely popular hero shooter for the past year. Jeff Kaplan (from the Overwatch team) has now revealed that an update on the game's development will be coming at BlizzCon Online in February.

BlizzCon Online is the delayed annual conference and fan fest that Blizzard have held in the autumn almost every year since 2005. The 2020 edition was cancelled because of (you guessed it) COVID-19, with Blizzard deciding bring next year's event forward to compensate. It will now be held 19-20th February 2021.

In the latest Overwatch development update, Kaplan said what many people suspected: they're holding off on revealing anything more about Overwatch 2 until BlizzCon.

Speaking about a new map coming to Overwatch, he said, "I know a lot of you weren't expecting this to be coming. As you know, our big focus is Overwatch 2, which we will be talking about more in February with BlizzCon Online coming up."

"Can't wait to talk to you more about Overwatch 2, can't wait to show you more with Overwatch 2. We know it's been too long, we know we've been quiet, and we still have a ways to go, just to manage expectations. But we're working extremely hard, we want this game to be great for you, both the live game and the upcoming sequel."

Don't expect the game to come out any time soon, though. It's still quite a way away.

The new map, Kanezaka, came directly from Blizzard's push to expand the Overwatch team that's working on Overwatch 2. One of the new hires was being inducted into the team's tools and design ethos, tasked with coming up with a map to demo their skills. It was so good that the rest of the team wanted to spin it out into a full production and release it for the current game. It has a cat cafe, which instantly makes it better than any other map in the game.

Overwatch 2 was announced at last year's BlizzCon, as an unusual sequel-cum-expansion to the existing game. Overwatch 2 will be backward compatible with Overwatch with heroes, balance, maps and other competitive multiplayer content. To put it another way, Blizzard are adding all the new competitive content to keep the original game in lockstep. So what's new? Well, a major expansion of the PvE co-op content, going beyond seasonal events to really flesh out the game's playable story.

Overwatch update 3.02 live with Winter Wonderland event

Blizzard Entertainment have rolled out their latest update for popular hero shooter, Overwatch, just before wrapping for 2020.

Headlining this chunky patch is the Winter Wonderland 2020 event, complete with a slew of unlockable cosmetic items (including Conductor Reinhardt, Ice Empress Moira, and Penguin Mei) as well as time limited game mode dubbed Freezethaw Elimination.

Overwatch update 3.02 also introduces the new Priority Pass system to help with matchmaking queues. This is mainly aimed at Damage role players who have been struggling with queue waiting times. You can now select the "Flex" option while matchmaking, earning Priority Passes when you win matches, helping put you closer to front of the queue when matchmaking. For a full breakdown of the new Overwatch update, see the full changelog below.

Overwatch Update 3.02 Patch Notes

GENERAL UPDATES

New Feature: Priority Pass

In an effort to help address the population imbalance between Tank, Support, and Damage roles, and the longer queue times that Damage players often encounter due to this imbalance, we're introducing the new Priority Pass feature. Players can earn Priority Passes by choosing Flex when they queue, with more passes earned for wins than for losses. Use a Priority Pass to decrease queue time for a role currently experiencing higher traffic.

Priority Passes may not be used when playing a group of 5 or more. Since we try to pair large parties against other large parties, and parties this large already contain a good balance of roles, we do not anticipate that using a Priority Pass would actually reduce queue times. As such, we don't want players to waste their passes if this wouldn't have a noticeable effect towards the feature's goal.

Feature Update: Replay Viewer Custom Spectator Options

We have added a new options menu to the Replay Viewer, accessible via the Media Controls. Our goal is to give our players more control over how the Replay Viewer looks and behaves in order to navigate replays more easily, as well as make awesome content! These additional settings include the ability to independently toggle UI elements, modify player outline strength, disable objective capture sounds, and adjust the spectator camera behavior. We've also added 0.75x and 1.75x playback speeds to give you finer control.

New Options:

  • Team 1 Banner
  • Team 1 Heroes
  • Team 2 Banner
  • Team 2 Heroes
  • Status Messages
  • Playback Indicators
  • Game Mode Specific HUD
  • Kill Feed
  • Player Names
  • Player Health Bars
  • Player Outline Strength
  • First-Person Health
  • First-Person Ultimate Meter
  • First-Person Ability and Weapon Info
  • First-Person Crosshair
  • First-Person Hero HUD
  • First-Person Activity Feed
  • Objective Capture Sounds
  • Time Skip Interval Length
  • FOV Change Per Zoom
  • FOV Interpolation Rate
  • Maximum Free Camera FOV
General
  • Mix of game sounds has been adjusted to give third person footsteps more prominence

WORKSHOP UPDATES

New Workshop Features
  • [PC-Only] Inspector Log File

When the setting Enable Workshop Inspector Log File [PC-ONLY] is enabled, any log entries written to the Inspector Log will be written out to a local file on disk. When the custom game ends (or if you disconnect), the current log file will close. A new log file will be opened each time you are in a new custom game that writes out a log line via Log To Inspector.

New Workshop Values
  • String Slice

BUG FIXES

General
  • Fixed a bug that caused the health display for heroes with a small amount of damage to appear at full health
  • Fixed a bug that caused the "Default to Friends" option on the competitive leaderboards to not persist between game sessions
  • Fixed a bug that caused the "Leave as Group" option while leaving games to not persist between game sessions
  • Fixed a bug with Role Queue Beta season stats displaying the same ratings for all roles
  • Fixed a bug that allowed some damage-over-time abilities to charge certain heroes' ultimate abilities during the duration of their activated ultimate ability
  • Fixed a bug that caused pain exertion sounds to not trigger properly
Maps

Eichenwalde

  • Fixed a bug that caused broken Castle doors to disappear from the game client after a player respawn

Ilios

  • Fixed a bug that allowed players to land on an unintended map location

Temple of Anubis

  • Fixed a bug that caused the first capture point to have a higher capture point volume than intended
Heroes

Baptiste

  • Fixed a bug that resulted in his left forearm animating incorrectly during his Scout emote

D.Va

  • Fixed a bug that would allow D.Va to use Call Mech immediately after ejecting from her mech in rare conditions

Echo

  • Fixed a bug that caused her hero portrait to reflect a cloned unit during end of round flows of PvE game modes
  • Fixed a bug that would cause her to become stuck in the previous spawn point

Sigma

  • Fixed a bug with his Medal victory pose that would cause him to clip into allies during specific victory lineups

Sombra

  • Fixed a bug with Sombra's hair animation not appearing correctly during her "Hacked" victory pose

Widowmaker

  • Fixed a bug that caused her to spawn with an abnormal amount of health

Wrecking Ball

  • Fixed a bug that caused the length of his grapple ability to be shorter than normal
  • Fixed a bug that caused the camera to appear beneath the ground if Wrecking Ball shifts into ball mode while his model is still loading

Source: Overwatch

Assassin's Creed Valhalla sneaks in XP boost microtransaction

With Assassin's Creed Valhalla players getting stuck into the newly added Yule Festival seasonal event, Ubisoft have snuck in a divisive microtransaction.

If you swing by Valhalla's in-game store you can discover a variety of optional premium items such as cosmetics for Eivor. Following the recent Assassin's Creed Valhalla 1.1.0 update, there's a new store item under the utility category, offering players a permanent 50% increase in the experience points they earn.

This paid-for cheat is priced at $10 – for an extra five bucks you can add a 50% money increase to that XP boost. Purchasing this item will boost your earnings for all characters tied to your save data, Ubisoft confirming that the standard XP and money gain rates have not been modified to entice players into buying those boosts.

Here's what they had to say to Game Informer when quizzed about the microtransaction:

As more and more post-launch content becomes available, we want to give the option to players to advance their progression. Utilities allow players who lack the time to fully explore the world of Assassin's Creed Valhalla to be able to acquire the game's best gear, as well as other items, by accelerating their progress. For instance, these players can purchase maps that uncover some interesting locations in the world, but would still have to visit and play them to get their rewards.

Assassin's Creed Valhalla will expanded post-launch with expansions taking us to Ireland and even Paris. It's likely this will be high-level content, so this kind of time-saving boost certainly has its appeal to players.

However, the question remains: why not make the XP boost a free option instead of something AC fans have to pay for? Sadly, this move doesn't come as a complete surprise – Odyssey offered the exact same boost back when it launched two years ago.

With Assassin's Creed Valhalla marking another positive step for the series, it's a shame to see this kind of money grabbing practice. If Santa hasn't finished writing up his naughty list, we'd say there's room for one more name…

Assassin's Creed: Valhalla guides & more from TheSixthAxis

Black Ops Cold War multiplayer Free Access Week starts today

In the run up to Christmas, Activision are holding a Free Access Week for Call of Duty: Black Ops Cold War's multiplayer, highlighting the Season One content that launched just yesterday.

Starting today, Thursday 17th December, at 6PM GMT and running until Thursday 24th December, at 6PM GMT, you'll be able to a selection of maps, modes and playlists from the game without paying a penny (except for needing PS+ or Xbox Live Gold for online multiplayer).

The week is split into two, 'Stage 1' from Thursday to Monday featuring Team Deathmatch, Domination, 2v2 Gunfight, the Nuketown Holiday 24/7 Playlist and the Raid the Mall Playlist.

Then, from Monday until the week ends on Thursday, players will also have access to Prop Hunt, Combined Arms Hardpoint and Fireteam Dirty Bomb, in addition to the modes from the first few days.

The promotional week isn't just there to lure in new players, but also get existing players to play some more. From 18th to 21st December, you can get double XP for all operators and double weapon bonuses as well. Then from Tuesday 22nd December through to 6PM GMT on Monday 28th December, you'll get Double Battle Pass XP.

Just to make things a bit more confusing, the Double Battle Pass XP only applies to BOCW from 22nd-25th December, and then both BOCW and Warzone from 2th to 28th December.

You got all that?

Cool.

After a last minute delay of 6 days, Call of Duty: Black Ops Cold War and Call of Duty: Warzone kicked off Season One yesterday. For Black Ops Cold War, it saw the return of 2v2 Gunfight, a new Fireteam map as Raid returned from Black Ops II, and new Zombies modes. For Warzone, this was the update saw popular battle royale spin-off would now tie in with Black Ops instead of Modern Warfare, getting the Alcatraz map to play on, adding 30 BOCW weapons into the mix and shaking up how the Gulag system works.

In our review for Call of Duty: Black Ops Cold War, Nick wrote:

Call of Duty: Black Ops Cold War is a decent entry in the series, but it feels like it doesn't quite know what it wants to be. The campaign is full of underused ideas, while the multiplayer misses some of the magical charm of Modern Warfare, opting for faster paced aggressive battles which just don't feel as satisfying. While still enjoyable, Black Ops Cold War fails to recapture the magic of Black Ops 1 and 2.

You can read the full review here.

Source: Activision

Game of the Year 2020 – Best Ongoing Game

There's all manner of games out there in terms of length, from short two hour experiences and six hour cinematic campaigns, through to sprawling RPGs that will take you closer to 100 hours before you see the end. Then there are those games that just keep going and going and going, like they're a Duracell Bunny (or Energizer Bunny if you're American).

I am, of course, referring to the so-called 'live' game, the game where developers keep on plugging away, adding regular content drops, responding directly to the community's demands and giving them more and more things to do. Your MMOs, your looter shooters, your battle royales and other seasonal multiplayer games. These games don't always stick (arguably, they won't more often than not), but when they do, they can keep players occupied for years.

Our winner shouldn't be much of a surprise, to be honest – you may get a sense of deja vu here – with a developer that has been been knocking it out of the park with meaningful updates that have gone far beyond their original vision for the game.

No Man's Sky has been on a long road since its disappointing launch four years ago, with Hello Games having spent most of the intervening time "fixing" the game to say the least. Just last year they added whole new gameplay systems, online multiplayer and VR support, and they've shown no signs of slowing down. 2020 has seen the addition of mech suits, living ships, and Hello Games navigated the often tricky waters of cross-platform multiplayer with relative ease, but that's small stuff compared to the update that released in September.

Titled 'Origins', this huge update changed the fundamentals of how planets are procedurally generated, allowing players to explore planets full of mountains that are kilometers tall and oceans of unnerving depth, not to mention apparently doubling the diversity of the animals and plants you encounter as well. There's even giant worms! Then there's the next-gen update, bringing No Man's Sky to PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X|S style with a graphical upgrade that's so stunning in the trailer it almost looks like a sequel.

With all of this in mind, No Man's Sky gets the uniquely rare honour of winning Best Ongoing Game two years in a row.

– Gareth C

Runner Up – Among Us

Among Us came hot on the heels of Fall Guys in a summer of discovery and sudden flashes of viral popularity amongst game streamers. Though practically unheard of until 2020 – this was a game that seemingly hadn't stuck that landing – Among Us came out in 2018, pitching a number of crew members in a tense battle of wits in order to survive and root out the Imposter.

Reminiscent of The Thing, one or more players are Imposters, seeking to murder the other crew members before they can complete all of their tasks. However, Imposters can only kill infrequently and can easily be voted out if discovered. The key to the game is really the oppressive silence as regular crew members go about their tasks, before bickering and trying to weed out the deceitful players once a murder has been discovered.

Innersloth had actually been starting work on Among Us 2 when their original game caught fire, and they had to suddenly pivot first to simply get the server capacity to handle the sudden jump in players, and then deciding to ditch the sequel in favour of continuing to support the original. Since then, they've set out a roadmap of new features and content (including a new map revealed at The Game Awards), and we're keen to see them really follow through.

Runner Up – Monster Hunter World: Iceborne

Monster Hunter World: Iceborne continues to surprise us. Following on last year, when it won the very same accolade, the enormous DLC expansion has resolutely stood its ground as the gift that keeps on giving. We've all been eagerly awaiting the next Monster Hunter game, coming to the Nintendo Switch in 2021, but the constant trickle of excellent new content has been very warmly received.

On top of all the other free content Capcom just gave away for the Iceborne expansion, the game has received no fewer than five title updates, bringing with it a slew of new monsters to hunt, weapons and armour to turn them into, and a series of seasonal festivals to keep you engaged at every turn.

– Nic B

Honourable mentions (in alphabetical order)

  • Dauntless
  • Destiny 2
  • Rocket League

Game & Watch Super Mario Bros. Review

To say that Nintendo know their business would be the grossest understatement. Their canny non-conformity to gaming trends and immortalised roster of characters mean that even when everyone thinks they've gone insane – and occasionally they have – they still ultimately come out on top. Yet, for all their idiosyncratic decisions, they are still a company that plays to the crowd, and as that crowd includes many somewhat older fans who've been with them since the 80s.

Following on from the NES and SNES Mini consoles, Nintendo are trying to make this Christmas portable. Their handheld line up obviously features the Switch and Switch Lite, but it now also extends to a brand new Game & Watch; Nintendo's classic, and original, series of LCD games. For Nintendo fans of a certain age, it's a nostalgia bomb that's going to blow you back to 1985, but as you'd expect, it's not as straightforward as all that.

In terms of form factor, you've probably forgotten how big or small a Game & Watch was because your hands are now much bigger. In the here and now, a Game & Watch is a surprisingly dinky little thing. Its memory-tickling dark red and metallic gold casing will have you thinking of a simpler time where all you wore was denim, and roller skates were the primary form of transportation. If you ever had one of these when you were a kid, you will adore it.

The old Game & Watch were a purely LCD affair. Starting with Ball (or the more questionably named Toss-Up if you're over in the US) and taking in some of their most iconic characters in their earliest incarnations, they were the top tier of the proto-handheld gaming world. They were, to all intents and purposes, my first gaming platform, and the scratchy bleeps and bloops they emitted are etched on my psyche forever.

This 2020 re-release is a considerably more modern iteration, even if the games hidden inside it are still unequivocally retro. It boasts a clear and compact colour LCD screen, and alongside the system's original Ball, Nintendo have seen fit to add in the original NES version of Super Mario Bros. and Super Mario Bros. The Lost Levels. These are games that, if you're a certain age or a dyed-in-the-wool Nintendo fan, you'll have probably come across before, but never in quite this fashion.

The unit is rechargeable via USB-C, and there's a neat little power button squirrelled away on the right-hand side. Marvellously it saves your state, so no matter where you are when you stop playing, whether that's with multiple balls in the air, or as you leap past a Koopa Trooper, you can drop straight back in to where you were.

The Game and Watch stylings have had an upgrade on the control front, with this remade version now hosting a NES-style D-Pad alongside an A and a B button. There's then a trio of selection buttons, with Game swapping between the three game choices, Time turning the unit into a handy little clock, and a Pause/Set button that also lets you change the volume and the brightness. It's all very neat, well thought out and exactly what you'd expect from Nintendo.

It is about as perfect a stocking filler as you could find for that family member who simply can't get enough of Nintendo. If you had one of the original Game & Watch handhelds as a kid there's every chance that the amount of joy this will give you could overwhelm you on the 25th of December, but it's possible that all that happiness could be somewhat short-lived.

Top of the issues is likely to be the fact that this is a £40 novelty, containing games you may well have played so many times you can make it through them without having to look at that bright, colourful screen. Secondly, a Game and Watch was a comfy enough thing to grip when you were seven, but as an adult you'll find yourself carefully cradling it between your fingers. It's not uncomfortable per se, but it's a long way from being ergonomic.

Hades updated with cross-save for PC & Switch

Supergiant Games' Hades has been earning plaudits left, right and centre, but there's been one long promised and much requested feature that it's been missing: cross-save. The team have been working on it since launch and now, with an update to the game on Nintendo Switch, Hades supports cross-save between PC and Switch.

The update also rolls in the post-launch improvements that have been made on the PC version of the game.

While the game is a roguelite, there's a deep story woven into it and progression that players will no doubt want to keep. Those tempted into double-dipping and buying the game on both Switch and PC can now take their progress with them.

Supergiant do warn that you'll want jump through the hurdle of ensuring that your save data is in a different slot on the game, however.

Hades is easily one of the most highly regarded games of 2020, with a great critical reception that's seen it appear in more than a few Game of the Year lists and awards. Hades tells the story of Zagreus, son of the titular god of the underworld, fighting time and again to try and escape, with each defeat sending him right back to the start to try again.

After two long years in Early Access on Steam, the game launched in September for PC and Nintendo Switch, with the hybrid console getting some preferential treatment over the home consoles. That led many to wonder…

We awarded it a simply sublime 10/10, and you can catch more of Jason's words in our Hades review.

"Hades is one of the best roguelites of all-time. It's a phenomenal achievement in story telling, gameplay, and an absolute treat for both your eyes and ears. It's astounding, and it's always been fairly astounding through Early Access, but this final release cements it as one of the greats. If you like roguelites, and even if you don't, you should probably get in on this as soon as you can."

Source: Twitter

Visage Review

For a game that was never released outside of a delisted tech demo, PT has had a massive influence on the horror gaming scene. It could even be argued that the cancellation of Silent Hills and demo removal directly added to a desire for a game that will never see the light of day. Since PT's removal there have been many titles that have attempted to offer its mix of domesticity and terror, ranging from shot for shot remakes to original takes on its themes. Unfortunately these have mostly been either disappointing or not much more than demos themselves.

With Visage, however, we finally have a full-length game experience that promises to expand on everything that PT offered. How did my time facing terror shape up?

Visage begins in the most shocking way imaginable, opening with a cutscene showing (in first person) your player character shooting their family and then themselves, before cutting to a later shot of them lurching zombie-like towards the door that leads to the rest of the house. It's a harrowing opening that will only be explained by finishing the game, but even then it is deliberately left somewhat ambiguous. It's obvious right from the off that Visage is not a game for the faint hearted. This is a game that focuses on some very dark and disturbing content so player discretion is seriously advised. If it sounds like your kind of game, though, make yourself comfortable and read on.

The majority of Visage takes place in a single house, though this takes a number of forms as the game develops. Getting to know your way around is the most crucial first step as it is not long before your exploration is haunted by deadly enemies. The house is a well designed environment, with a maze like basement that proves particularly challenging to navigate when you are rushing. I initially felt the lack of a map was an oversight, but it does mean that you are forced into learning your way around rather than following icons.

Graphically the rooms and contents are full of detail and everything looks good, although on first loading up I had to correct the auto-detect to get a more appropriate resolution (an RTX2060 playing at 640 x 480 is a horror that I wasn't prepared for). Much of the time your surroundings will be in darkness and Visage makes good use of lighting to build its atmosphere.

As is often the case with horror games, the audio is where Visage really stands out. Combining it with digital 7.1 positional audio was as terrifying as it was impressive. Being able to quickly locate the direction of strange bumps and groans really added to the experience, even if it often wasn't enough to save me. Visage opens up with a warning that it is a difficult game requiring careful resource management and, while resources didn't really seem an issue, I certainly died plenty of times.

In a manner highly reminiscent of Amnesia, you must make use of whatever light sources you can find. Sometimes this is simply turning on light switches and lamps, but it also takes the form of lighters, candles and a torch (flashlight for US readers). Candles are effective when left in place, while the fuel in the lighters is limited. Being left in the dark rapidly decreases your sanity and leaves you open to increased attacks from the supernatural forces. There are pills to collect that can help you to replenish your sanity and it is crucial that you always have these on hand.

Inventory management is a mixed bag here. You have four slots for usable items, as well as your two hands. At first I found myself using pills in hand when I didn't intend to due to the fact that they are mapped to the same mouse button as investigating things in the environment. This did become less frequent once I adjusted, but it was still an annoyance. There are also occasional two-handed objects that require you to put away any light source to use, but these are generally restricted to specific story moments or puzzles.

Progression through the horrors of Visage is linear to a point, but you can choose which chapters to play in which order. Each one is activated by interacting with an object in the house and the game clearly warns you when you are about to begin one. There are four chapters in the released version with the fourth being a scavenger-hunt of sorts only available once you have finished the first three. The first two are very effective ghost stories set in the house, although the second really suffers from a lack of clarity as to how to proceed. You unlock a series of mysterious mirrors that you have to travel through in a set order, but there is far too much trial and error involved in working this out. The third chapter is by far the weakest, most of it taking place in a local hospital and involving some particularly frustrating stealth mechanics.

Amazon Prime Gaming has free Fall Guys crowns and a costume, plus new free games for Christmas

Amazon Prime Gaming has a bunch of new free loot available to help celebrate the launch of Fall Guys Season 3. Log on to Prime Gaming and you will be able to claim three crowns and a natty Winter Warmer costume, described as "the snowy peak of Blunderdome fashion." The free crowns should help you unlock other costumes in the game.

The service will also be giving away extra free games this festive season with Yooka-Laylee, Yooka-Laylee and the Impossible Lair, and couch co-op cooking game Overcooked available to claim on Christmas Eve.

Those games are for PC only, but console owners can still claim the Fall Guys loot and a bunch of other extra bobbins as well. At the time of writing you can also pick up the Unchained Exotic Gear bundle for Destiny 2, which includes an emote, a sparrow, and a ship, an exclusive Carolingian Dynasty Gear Pack for Assassin's Creed Valhalla, a free Breton horse of your choice for Red Dead Online, and the Fenyx Shivering Character Pack for Immortals Fenyx Rising.

There are also helmets for Star Wars: Squadrons, the Thatcher Operator set for Rainbow Six Siege, and – frankly I have no idea how this works – The Boy's 'Queen Maeve' kit for World of Tanks.

Fall Guys has been a huge success and we awarded the game an excellent 8 our of 10 in our review earlier this year.

Full of cute and cuddly jelly beans bumbling into each other in a race for the crown, Fall Guys is just about the most wholesome battle royale imaginable, and a whole lot of fun.

Fall Guys was made available for free on PlayStation Plus back in August and quickly became it's most-downloaded complimentary game. It was a massive hit on PC as well, though, selling millions of copies and becoming a staggering success for Mediatonic.

Source: Press release

CD Projekt storefront GOG heel turns over release of Devotion, after "many messages from gamers"

CD Projekt are in the headlines once again, but this time it's not the company's CD Projekt Red development studio and the calamitous release of Cyberpunk 2077, but rather their digital storefront GOG.com that's getting them a bad rep.

Just hours after Red Candle Games announced that horror game Devotion would be released on GOG.com, the online store has changed their mind, citing "many messages from gamers". Digging into the game's troubled history, it doesn't take a genius to figure out that this is GOG bowing to pressure, either from the Chinese government, Chinese gamers, or a combination of the two.

Devotion was first released in 2019, with Taiwanese developer Red Candle having their game published by Chinese publisher Indievent. Unfortunately, it was rather short-lived as the game was pulled from Steam shortly after its release in February, and the Chinese government decided to remove Indievent's business license. What could they have possibly done that was so bad that the government shut them down?

Well, the game featured a poster that compared Chinese President Xi Jinping to Winnie the Pooh, a comparison that he seems to be rather self conscious about, and calling him a moron. It's a political meme that is censored in China.

The developers went silent for several months, despite having made changes and apologised in the immediate wake of the incident, but it was then discovered in July last year that Indievent's business license was revoked, though the incident was not mentioned as a reason (though we're 99.9999999% certain that it was). Red Candle returned to Twitter to issue a statement and shoulder the blame for the incident. They noted that the game would not be re-released in the near term future and that they were not taking any profits from the game during its short time on sale, with the hope that those who objected to the game's unintentional use of a politically charged poster can eventually see the game in its original light.

The re-release (obviously without any posters demeaning Winnie the Pooh's good reputation), was announced this morning, and then summarily cancelled a little over five hours later by GOG.com. While it might have been a move intended to appease any audience they have in China (which is a huge and growing market for video games), it's backfiring in the western world. It's certainly not a very cyberpunk of them to do so, anyway.

Epic giving away 15 free games starting tomorrow

Epic are gearing up for Christmas, announcing that their store holiday sale will be kicking off tomorrow on December 17th, promising savings of up to 75%.

On top of that they will be giving away 15 free games spread across two weeks. You have 24 hours to claim each game and add them to your library during the giveaway event.

Epic have yet to reveal which games they will be adding to their free games list. However, judging by the quality of recent freebies, there will definitely be a few big surprises.

Until tomorrow afternoon, anyone with an Epic account can sign into the store (via client or browser) to redeem a pair of meaty RPG favourites: Pillars of Eternity: Definitive Edition and Tyranny: Gold Edition.

You can check the full list of free Epic games below, complete with dates of availability, and reviews plucked from our archive.

Epic Games store free games list

Game Name Dates Available
Pillars of Eternity December 10-17, 2020
Tyranny December 10-17, 2020
Cave Story+ December 3-10, 2020
MudRunner November 26-December 3, 2020
Elite: Dangerous November 19-26, 2020
The World Next Door November 19-26, 2020
The Textorcist: The Story of Ray Bibbia November 12-19, 2020
Dungeons 3 November 12-19, 2020
Wargame: Red Dragon November 5-12, 2020
Ghostbusters The Video Game – Remastered October 29-November 5, 2020
Blair Witch October 29-November 5, 2020
Layers of Fear 2 October 22-29, 2020
Costume Quest 2 October 22-29, 2020
Amnesia: A Machine for Pigs October 15-22, 2020
Kingdom New Lands October 15-22, 2020
Rising Storm 2: Vietnam October 8-15, 2020
ABZU October 8-15, 2020
Pikuniku October 1-8, 2020
Rollercoaster Tycoon 3: Complete Edition September 24-October 1, 2020
Football Manager 2020 September 17-24, 2020
Watch Dogs 2 September 17-24, 2020
Stick It To The Man! September 17-24, 2020
Railway Empire September 10-17, 2020
Where The Water Tastes Like Wine September 10-17, 2020
Into The Breach September 3-10, 2020
Hitman August 27-September 3, 2020
Shadowrun Collection August 27-September 3, 2020
God's Trigger August 20-27, 2020
Enter the Gungeon August 20-27, 2020
The Alto Collection August 13-20, 2020
Remnant: From the Ashes August 13-20, 2020
A Total War Saga: Troy August 13-14, 2020
Wilmot's Warehouse August 6-13, 2020
Superbrothers: Sword & Sworcery EP July 30 – August 6, 2020
Barony July 30 – August 6, 2020
20XX July 30 – August 6, 2020
Next Up Hero July 23-30, 2020
Tacoma July 23-30, 2020
Torchlight II July 16-23, 2020
Lifeless Planet: Premier Edition July 9-16, 2020
The Escapists 2 July 9-16, 2020
Killing Floor 2 June 9-16, 2020
Hue July 2-9, 2020
Stranger Things 3 June 25-July 2, 2020
AER Memories of Old June 18-25, 2020
Ark: Survival Evolved June 11-18, 2020
Samurai Shodown NeoGeo Collection June 11-18, 2020
Overcooked June 4-11, 2020
Borderlands: The Handsome Collection May 28-June 4, 2020
Civilization VI May 21-28, 2020
Grand Theft Auto V May 14-21, 2020
Death Coming May 7-14, 2020
Crashlands April 30-May 7, 2020
Amnesia: The Dark Descent April 30-May 7, 2020
For the King April 23-30, 2020
Just Cause 4 April 16-23, 2020
Wheels of Aurelia April 16-23, 2020
Sherlock Holmes: Crimes and Punishments April 9-16, 2020
Close to the Sun April 9-16, 2020
Gone Home April 2-9, 2020
Drawful 2 April 2-9, 2020
Hob April 2-9, 2020
Totally Reliable Delivery Service April 1-8, 2020
World War Z March 26-April 2, 2020
Torment x Punisher March 26-April 2, 2020
Figment March 26-April 2, 2020
Watch Dogs March 19-26, 2020
The Stanley Parable March 19-26, 2020
A Short Hike March 12-19, 2020
Mutazione March 12-19, 2020
Anodyne 2 March 12-19, 2020
Gonner March 5-12, 2020
Offworld Trading Company March 5-12, 2020
Inner Space February 27-March 5, 2020
Faeria February 20-27, 2020
Assassin's Creed Syndicate February 20-27, 2020
Aztez February 13-20, 2020
Kingdom Come: Deliverance February 13-20, 2020
Ticket to Ride February 6-13, 2020
Carcassonne February 6-13, 2020
Farming Simulator 19 January 30-February 6, 2020
The Bridge January 23-30, 2020
Horace January 16-23, 2020
Sundered: Eldritch Edition January 9-16, 2020
Darksiders Warmastered Edition January 1-9, 2020
Darksiders 2 Dethinitive Edition January 1-9, 2020
Steep January 1-9, 2020
Yooka-Laylee and the Impossible Lair December 31, 2019
Hello Neighbor December 30, 2019
The Talos Principle December 29, 2019
Shadow Tactics: Blades of the Shogun December 28, 2019
Hyper Light Drifter December 27, 2019
FTL: Faster Than Light December 26, 2019
Totally Accurate Battle Simulator December 25, 2019
Celeste December 24, 2019
Ape Out December 23, 2019
Little Inferno December 22, 2019
Superhot December 21, 2019
Towerfall Ascension December 20, 2019
Into the Breach December 19, 2019
The Wolf Among Us December 12-19, 2019
The Escapists December 12-19, 2019
Jotun: Valhalla Edition December 6-12, 2019
Rayman Legends November 29-December 6, 2019
Bad North November 21-29, 2019
The Messenger November 14-21, 2019
Ruiner November 7-14, 2019
Nuclear Throne November 7-14, 2019
Costume Quest October 31-November 7, 2019
Soma October 31-November 7, 2019
Layers of Fear October 24-October 31, 2019
Q.U.B.E.2 October 24-October 31, 2019
Alan Wake: American Nightmare October 17-24, 2019
Observer October 17-24, 2019
Surviving Mars October 10-17, 2019
Minit October 3-10, 2019
Metro 2033 Redux September 26-October 3, 2019
Everything September 26-October 3, 2019
Lego Batman Trilogy September 19-26, 2019
Batman: Arkham Collection September 19-26, 2019
Conarium September 12-19, 2019
ABZU September 5-12, 2019
The End is Nigh September 5-12, 2019
Celeste August 29-September 5, 2019
Inside August 29-September 5, 2019
Fez August 22-29, 2019
Hyper Light Drifter August 15-22, 2019
Mutant Year Zero: Road to Eden August 15-22, 2019
GNOG August 8-15, 2019
For Honor August 2-9, 2019
Alan Wake August 2-9, 2019
This War of Mine July 25-August 2, 2019
Moonlighter July 25-August 2, 2019
Limbo July 18-July 25, 2019
Torchlight July 11-18, 2019
Overcooked July 4-11, 2019
Last Day of June June 27-July 4, 2019
Rebel Galaxy June 20-27, 2019
Enter the Gungeon June 13-20, 2019
Kingdom: New Lands June 6-13, 2019
City of Brass May 30-6, 2019
Rime May 23-30, 2019
Stories Untold May 16-23, 2019
World of Goo May 2-16, 2019
Transistor April 18-May 2, 2019
The Witness April 4-18, 2019
Oxenfree March 21-April 4, 2019
Slime Rancher March 7-21, 2019
Thimbleweed Park February 21-March 7, 2019
Axiom Verge February 7-21, 2019
The Jackbox Party Pack January 24-February 7, 2019
What Remains of Edith Finch January 11-24, 2019
Super Meat Boy
December 28, 2018-January 10, 2019
Subnautica December 12-27, 2018

The Epic Games Store also hosts a growing number of online free-to-play hits including Fortnite, as well as Rocket League, Dauntless Reforged, Rogue Company, and more.

Source: Epic Games

Cyberpunk 2077 Review in Progress

It simply isn't possible to enjoy the privilege of a cold first impression of Cyberpunk 2077. After eight years of development, well over a year of frenetic marketing, and facile pre-launch discussion beaten to within an inch of its life, this is a game that's been stamped onto the gaming community's collective conscious through controversy, questionable company decisions, and its promise of unparalleled adventure through a hedonistic depiction of Night City.

I won't be the first to point out the fact that this is a game built on the foundations of a dated historical genre, and I'm not the last to define it as an experience born from a Gen-X perspective, thanks to its roots in the Cyberpunk 2020 tabletop RPG. Dragging cyberpunk into the realms of 21st-century AAA game development is a foregone conclusion, and as a result, V's Night City is tinted by a very specific rose-colored set of mirrorshades.

Night City has an enormous reach and it's an absolute pleasure to jump on a bike and ride it from one end to the other – janky traffic AI aside. The city is undoubtedly far more of a main character than either V or Johnny Silverhand. One of my greatest pleasures in the game was a series of side quests involving the sentient Delamain cab company, trying to reunite the fragments of a fractured AI personality. It wasn't just a charming bit of writing, but a welcome reprieve from the constant hustle of the street kid campaign I'd chosen, featuring a nice little cameo from Portal's GLADoS. Night City at its best meant gunning it out to the Badlands at sunrise with my radio set to Royal Blue FM, a lovely bebop/old-school jazz addition to the lineup of hard rock/EDM stations.

But after over twenty-five hours in the game on PlayStation 4 Pro, most of the experience has been painfully, almost predictably generic – this is, of course, aside from the veritable cornucopia of bugs that have plagued its launch.

Cyberpunk 2077 ticks all the boxes for an AAA title. It's got a lot to do, and a lot of places to do it in, and for a certain subset of people with the right hardware, it's a visual feast. For a game styled as an immersive playground, it's incredibly frustrating to be so consistently and frequently jarred out of that experience by relentless glitches.

There were relatively harmless Bethesda-level derps like watching NPCs levitate their drinks with the backs of their hands and people floating in the air. There was a relentless bug that forced me to slow-RP walk until I rebooted the game, a bug where quests glitched out until I rebooted the game, a bug where scripted sequences wouldn't load until I rebooted the game… you get the idea. An NPC cycled through canned flavor lines during a particularly sobering play-on-rails segment. "Pick it up, okay?" she repeated as I embarked on a high-stakes rescue mission at Arasaka HQ that ended in tragedy. There were also smaller inconsistencies like Mayor Rhyne's death plastered all over the news but the radio anchor still discussing his next term.

Hacking follows the tried-and-true matrix system that felt marginally more rewarding in Shadowrun, and even though I initially built myself out as a netrunner/tech, the baseline quickhacks didn't feel like a worthy investment. Reboot optics were useful for the mandatory stealth portions, but a spray-and-pray approach seems more in line with the street kid bravado and determination to make a name for themselves in the city. Combat feels appropriately chaotic given the context of Night City's burgeoning criminal culture, and even with all the other options – stealth, hacking, etc. – nine times out of ten, the game leans hard on fighting your way out of a situation.

What 2077 does well is expand on its roots from Mike Pondsmith's original creation, which is unabashedly style-over-substance and belongs squarely in its decade of birth for a reason. I've written at length on the historical nature of cyberpunk as a genre, and while there's nothing particularly sacred about it, 2077 has taken a very particular set of historical aesthetics and social paradigms and watered them down into something as puerile as it is comfortably, mind-numbingly addictive. Do I want to collect all the cars? Do I need all the clothes (I definitely don't need the "BURN CORPO SHIT" pants)? Not really, but there are a million other things V can do to kill time and make easy money from finding tarot graffiti around the city or checking in on a troubled neighbour, and generally working on their street cred. The glory of making a name for oneself in Night City is the main thrust of the game and it never lets you forget that.

The game's treatment of gender and culture is, unsurprisingly, not great, which isn't news for anyone who's paid attention to CDPR's botched portrayals of transgender people, especially the in-game ad for 'Chromanticore' (which is still, of course, plastered all over Night City). For all of cyberpunk's association with transhumanism, this is a game for kids who still get their kicks from seeing a dildo. Sure, sex is supposed to be ubiquitous in the future, but 2077's hypersexualized cuddle puddle isn't even interesting, and for the trans community, it's just plain demeaning. Boiling it down to a choice between penis or vagina is the most insipid take on future transhumanist possibilities ever, but 2077 would have you believe you're on Mr Toad's Wild Ride.

Then there's good old Takemura, the Ghost of Cyberpunk that nobody wanted. The cryptic eastern riddles that he sends V are probably meant to be satire, but CDPR probably aren't the right folks to pull that off well. The Alt Cunningham treatment is also a fairly tired trope, as a ghost in the machine and wronged ex rolled into one easy way out. I'm not even sure whether I'm on board with Keanu Reeves' Johnny Silverhand – he's found the magic formula for just the right amount of abrasiveness and swagger while still remaining very much a background fixture in V's landscape.

2077 so far isn't terrible, but it definitely deserved more time in the oven. For consoles, maybe it deserved to build a whole new oven from scratch. I'm living for the small lowkey moments where V actually gets to explore their heritage in Heywood, providing a nice slice of humanity that departs from the baseline adolescence of the gameworld. V's relationships with characters like Judy and Misty are some of the stronger moments of writing and character development, but are these small moments enough?

As someone with a lifelong soft spot for the medium-specific charm of video game glitches, Cyberpunk 2077's botched launch just ain't it. Even overlooking the rushed rollout, after an eternity of being bludgeoned in the face with hyperbole, running through 2077 so far feels like five different games stitched together into an entertaining, passably decent, generic behemoth. It also goes without saying that CDPR's poor labor practices make a laughable parallel with cyberpunk's roots in the rise of neoliberalism.

Pondsmith has talked at length about how 2020 and 2077 aren't meant to be prophecies, but cautionary tales, but CDPR isn't quite the right studio to pull off a cautionary tale of this scope. I'm not sure whether dumping more hours in will yield a better takeaway, but here's hoping for more.

Paranoid, a psychological horror game from Madmind Studios, has a new trailer

Madmind Studios, the team that brought us the somewhat questionable Agony, have a new game on the horizon and it's called Paranoid. It's a first-person survival horror set in the 1980's that "combines an extensive, psychological story with dynamic and brutal combat."

The trailer shows Patrick, the protagonist, struggling with voices in head that affect his behaviour and are leading him on a dark path. Please note that this trailer is NSFW for the few remaining souls who are not stuck in their own living rooms hunched over a laptop.

Here's some more blurb:

The game tells the story of Patrick Calman, a 31-year-old man who has lost his entire family under mysterious circumstances. His parents died violently, and his sister went suddenly missing. Trauma associated with the loss of his loved ones destroyed Patrick's psyche. His own apartment became his prison.

One day Patrick gets a call, and the voice on the phone seems to belong to his sister. Thirteen years after the disappearance, she announces her comeback. To learn the truth about everything, Patrick will have to leave his secluded life, exposing himself to horrible experiences that will put him on the verge of madness.

Key features:
  • A dynamic and brutal combat system
  • Raytracing and 4k support
  • A constant struggle between paranoia and reality
  • Terrifying opponents
  • Drug abusing gameplay mechanics
  • A deep plot combining psychological horror with action and survival
  • A disturbing atmosphere that combines psychosis and surrealism
  • Realistic visual setting
  • Three endings depending on the style of the player's gameplay
  • Cinematic cutscenes

Patrick suffers from mental illness, a topic that must be delicately handled and I hope Madmind Studios are being sensitive. However, as Agony featured first person rape and babies being eaten, I am a little worried as to what Paranoid will turn out to be. As you can see from the trailer, there are already boobs-a-plenty in the game.

The game has no release date but is available to wishlist on Steam.

Source: Press release

Game of the Year 2020 – Best Remaster/Remake

As we near the end of the year, it's time to kick off our Game of the Year awards, diving into over a dozen different categories to celebrate the best of what we've seen since the start of 2020.

The last few years in particular have seen the trend of quick remasters that do a minor sprucing up of a game's visuals making way for full blown remakes of older classics. Publishers have been more than happy to mine the nostalgia that people felt for games like Crash Bandicoot (our 2017 winner) or Resident Evil 2 (our 2019 winner), but the developers have then gone the extra mile to actually make them. There's a difficult balancing act beyond simply making the graphics anew, as they judge if the gameplay still holds up for modern gamers, and where to make changes, improvements, additions.

In development for the last five years, but having been constantly demanded by fans for the last fifteen, our winner is…

How do you go about remaking one of the most beloved video games of all time? Well, you probably don't start by ramping up expectations with a graphical tech demo that you have no actual intention of following up on. It might have been a PR faux pas through the PlayStation 3 era, but the PS3 tech demo Square teased us with way back in 2005 only proved that the demand was there for a full on remake of Final Fantasy VII.

Even then, Square Enix were true to their word that this would be a vast project to undertake, not content with simply rebuilding the game's graphics, but also deciding to delve in and expand upon the underlying story and character relations. It's expanding the game to the point that this is being broken up into multiple parts, allowing Square Enix to flesh out ideas and areas that maybe weren't so fully formed in the original. It might not have been strictly necessary (and some of the changes are a little divisive), but it largely works.

Turn-based battles still have their place in the JRPG genre (hello, Dragon Quest XI) yet Square decided to shelve these for the Final Fantasy VII Remake. The combat here still has elements from that original ATB system though flows more dynamically, packing in just as much tactical nuance while admittedly looking way flashier. On the whole, this is a staggering remake and hopefully – now with the foundations in place – we won't have to wait as long for Square to deliver the next instalment.

Demon's Souls – Runner Up

Definitely revered as more of a cult classic compared to Final Fantasy VII, Demon's Souls is the precursor to one of gaming's most celebrated franchises. However, at the time of its original launch on the PlayStation 3 back in 2009 it was the definition of niche, gaining popularity through word of mouth as RPG die-hards chased down imported copies.

Demon's Souls is just as obtuse and unfriendly as it was all those years ago, Sony and the remaster… masters at Bluepoint Games thinking it would be the perfect launch game for the PS5. In some ways it is, showing off the console's raw power while also proving that Sony aren't just pandering to mainstream audiences. Although some purists have taken issue with some of Bluepoint's visuals upgrades, this remake perfectly mirrors FromSoftware's brutal fantasy RPG from its gruesome tome down to the fluid combat and oodles of character customisation options.

– Jim H

Tony Hawk's Pro Skater 1+2 – Runner Up

Tony Hawks Pro Skater has been one sports franchise that's managed to ride the swiftly changing half-pipe of popularity. While Activision tried to refresh the first game in 2012 with Pro Skater HD, it wasn't the hallowed return that fans had been yearning for, but this year's Tony Hawks 1+2 was thankfully exactly what they'd been hoping for.

Drawing together the first two games in the series, this time around the visuals were given a full current-gen buffing, the soundtrack was given a suitably Hawks-ish update, and it stuffed the roster with every skater you could possibly want to smush into every obstacle out there. Add in a host of accessibility options and an enhanced endgame and you can see why this earned one of our hallowed 10/10s.

– Dom L

Honourable Mentions (in alphabetical order)

  • Age of Empires 3: Definitive Edition
  • Resident Evil 3
  • Spider-Man Remastered

What was your personal favourite of the year? Let us know in the comments below, and make sure to stick with us through the rest of this month as we tick our categories off one by one.

Hunt: Showdown 1.16 update drops ahead of "Blood & Ice" event

Crytek have released a new update for Hunt: Showdown for PC and consoles, bringing all editions of the game up to version 1.4.8.

Those on PlayStation 4 and Xbox One (as well as PS5 and Xbox Series X|S via backwards viability) will see the patch appear as update 1.16.

Hunt: Showdown players should expect a number of key additions and changes to the popular multiplayer bounty hunting game. These include new and revised weapons as well as adjustments to the game's maps with new items to pick up and vantage points to scout out.

You can catch the full 1.4.8 patch notes down below. The Hunt: Showdown community will also want to keep their ears to the ground for today's developer livestream. This will go live at 13:30PM UK time with details on the festive "Blood & Ice" in-game event.

Hunt: Showdown Update 1.4.8 Patch Notes

Highlights

Additional Looting Options: This update brings a new looting opportunity to keep an out for on your treks through the Bayou. As with everything loot/ammo related in hunt, the "rule of two" applies to these new items.

The following items are now scattered throughout the world:

  • Envelopes that can contain one of the following:

    • 1000 Hunter XP.

    • 500 Bloodline XP.

    • 3-6 Upgrade points.

  • Small bags:

    • <25 Hunt dollars.

    • <3 Blood Bonds.

  • Trait charms:

    • These items will instantly unlock a random trait for your Hunter.

  • Blueprints:

    • These items will unlock the next available item unlock available for the currently equipped item (e.g holding a weak vitality shot while collecting the blueprint will unlock weak stamina shot.)

  • Gun oil (cosmetic only):

    • Oil that will clean your currently equipped weapon.

  • Meatheads:

    • Trait charms have a chance to drop from killing Meatheads.

Developer Note:

Looting in Hunt has always been an exciting experience. Whether it is desperately looting a dead hunter for extra supplies or trying to sneak those thousands of Hunt Dollars out while using a budget loadout, the action has always evoked the primary emotions that Hunt is built around. With this addition, we have 2 aims:

  • We want to add more value to the specific Hunters you use when ranking up (improve the risk/reward balance that we have always tried to keep prevalent in Hunt: Showdown).

  • Allow for more opportunities to explore the map and ensure there are benefits to doing so.

Additional traits have been available in quickplay for a while, but we wanted to find a good way to tie acquiring traits in to Bounty Hunt and we feel this is a good way to achieve that goal. The main difference in bounty hunt is that the charm drop shows which trait will be unlocked, so you can decide if you want to collect it, unlike in quickplay where the traits are randomly given for investigating clues. Each charm will contain a different trait, so it is up to you if you want to take one or leave it to your partner(s) ("rule of two" applies to trait charms also). This method also means that meatheads are a much more worthwhile investment in terms of time vs reward.

These new ways of levelling your hunters will mostly benefit new and low rank/newly prestiged players, as many of the traits will not be available to purchase at that early stage.

Watch Towers: A new addition to the landscape of the Bayou; Watch towers have now been added in several locations.

  • Hunters will have a chance to find supplies such as ammo/ health or weapons at the watch towers, though it will contain less than you find at the regular supply points.

  • Make sure to check the top of the tower when you pass by as there will always be something to find.

Lawson Delta:

  • Watch tower added on top of the Bunker between Sweetbell Flower and Fort Carmick

Stillwater Bayou:

  • Watch tower added in the swamp between Pitching Crematorium and Lockbay Docks.

  • Watch tower added to the hillslope north of Healing Waters.

Hunting towers:

  • Hunting towers have also received an upgrade. Hunters will have a chance to find either an ammo box, health station or weapon in the tower.

New Weapon Variants

Winfield M1873 Musket-Bayonet

  • An elongated variant of the Winfield M1873 with a Bayonet and a slightly larger magazine

  • Holds an extra +2 rounds in the elongated tube magazine

  • Levering shoots at a slightly reduced rate of fire than other Winfield M1873 rifles

Nagant M1895 Officer Carbine Deadeye

  • An Officer Carbine variant with a Deadeye scope.

  • Reduced shoulder aim accuracy due to the mounted scope.

  • Recoil is harder to control in ADS due to increased zoom.

New Legendary Weapons

Vagrant

  • Legendary Winfield M1873C Silencer

  • A vagrant known as the tin-man rattled around the city with a large bag of cans, harmless until a malicious Hunter threw them into the bay. Able to save but a few, he decorated his Winfield M1873C Silencer with the remainder, and set out for revenge – silent as a whisper.

Death Letter

  • Legendary M1895 Nagant Officer Brawler

  • Death pens no warning of His coming, and for Hunters and soldiers alike, the sound of gunfire is the only correspondence foretelling their demise. This Nagant's personalized engraving appears to reference an old Civil War ballad written by one who would later become a Hunter – delivering his own dark tidings with each deadly shot, death incarnate.

DeSalle's Silence

  • Legendary Sparks LRR Silencer

  • The favored Sparks LRR of the elder DeSalle brother, a man whose business ventures would not have been as successful without the occasional enforced silence.

Gunplay

Concertina bomb

  • Explosion delay decreased to ~0.5s (previously ~1.5s).

Melee changes – Hatchet, Talon, Heavy Knife & Machete

  • Slightly changed the attack angle of the Hatchet and Talon attachments to ensure hits are more reliable.

  • Slightly changed the attack angle of the Heavy knife to ensure hits are more reliable.

  • Slightly changed the angle of the normal attack for the Machete to ensure hits are more reliable.

Officer Carbine

  • Slightly Increased the recoil of the Nagant Officer Carbine.

Antidote shots

  • Antidote shots no longer reduces the damage taken from poison-based attacks (e.g spider bounce, stings from the Hive Swarms

  • Poison cloud damage remains unchanged and will reduce damage by 100%

Developer note:

Up until now, if you were attacked by the spider or a hive while an antidote shot was active, the physical damage that was caused was also reduced. We felt that this was a little unbalanced especially in instances like the spider frenzy, which made it possible to tank the spider far more effectively than intended so with this change, the physical damage will from attacks such as these will be applied as normal while still ensuring you remain poison free after an interaction with a spider or Hive.

Aim Assist (Consoles Only)

  • Increased aim assist strength for Water Devils

Hunter

Trait Rework: Ghoul

  • New description: "Killing grunts at close range restores a small amount of health".

  • Radius of 25m, similar to Necromancer and Serpent traits.

  • Health will be granted only if you instigate the damage, you do not have to land the killing blow to benefit from the health gain.

  • Restores 5hp per kill.

  • Price increased to 7 points (this is subject to change based on test server feedback).

Developer note:

In our opinion, Ghoul is a trait that has a lot of untapped potential (as well as a low pick rate) and could use some attention. We wanted to ensure that the trait remains true to its theme of replenishing health from the dead, however we wanted to make it less situational. In the past, players could only benefit from it if they dared to loot a hunter in combat, but in most instances that was not the main goal of looting in a fight (the main goal usually getting another consumable or tool charge to benefit the fight).

We wanted to turn the Ghoul trait into something that is more versatile and offer it as a more of a tactical option through any stage of the game. The trait can now help to preserve your health items for the important PVP fights later in the round and as a result should help hunters be less reliant on searching for health stations throughout the match.

Interaction Outlines

  • Option added to the menu to allow you to customize the highlighting outlines of interactable items (doors, windows, etc.)

  • This option does not alter the UI prompts from showing in the top right corner of the screen when in range of an interactable object.

The options are as follows:

  • All: Current behaviour – all interactable object are outlined frequently.

  • None: Turn of fall outlines for interactable objects and partner outlines.

  • Exclude Door and windows: Similar to "all", but doors and windows will no longer be highlighted (does not affect other interactable objects)

Developer note:

This change is meant to address two long standing requests from the community. Some have wanted to remove more UI elements from the game to be able to record cinematic content more efficiently.

For others, it has always been hard to track opponents behind doors or windows in certain lighting conditions. We understand that our veterans know where every accessible door and window are so we want to provide them with the option to forfeit interaction highlights for a better overview of what is going on behind the doors/windows.

Bounty Hunt

Banishing a Boss

  • Initiating the banishing process with now restore all lost health chunks as well as replenishing all your health.

Developer note:

Previously, it was unclear to a lot of players as to what was restored by the banishing process. To remove some of the ambiguity that came from using different health chunk set-ups we have made it so that all health chunks are restored, and your health pool is refilled. So, if your team starts the banish, you are in back in the fight – no questions asked!

Dark Sight Boost

  • Investigating a clue while carrying a bounty token will now restore 1 second of Dark Sight Boost. We hope this will encourage Hunters to be more inclined to run the gauntlet if there is a second target.

Extraction Points

  • Changes made to ensure that all extraction points will not spawn next to each other. One extraction point will always be at least 500m away from the other two.

Developer note:

We like challenging rounds as much as the next person, but we must acknowledge that certain randomly generated elements in the game such as the location of extraction points, can lead to unfavorable situations for those that want to focus on objective play.

With this change, we want to eliminate one of the most extreme cases that limits potential exit strategies. The available extractions may still be in roughly the same area, however, setting the distance of one to at least 500m will give better options to extract so that you may live to die another day.

Leaderboard

  • Player will be shown on the leaderboard only if they meet all those conditions:

    • Logged in within the last 30 days.

    • Have at least 100 kills in Quickplay or 100 Kills or Assist in Bounty Hunt.

    • Didn't opt out from showing their stats publicly.

    • Not banned.

    • Played at least 50 hours.

MetaUnlock Rank Changes

  • Duster is now available at Rank 1 (previously Rank 20).

  • Spyglass is now available at Rank 1 (previously Rank 24).

  • Machete is now available at rank 24 (previously Rank 12).

  • Nagant M1895 Officer is now available at Rank 12 (previously Rank 36).

  • Winfield M1873 is now available at Rank 20 (previously Rank 42).

Developer note:

In preparation for update 1.5, we are moving around some items so that we can evenly distribute the unlocks before adding the new unique Winfield M1876 and M1887 that were teased in our most recent blog post. In addition to this, some items have been moved to Rank1 to allow for more variety in the early levels and more choice when it comes to selecting preferred melee tools.

The Nagant officer family now unlocks shortly after the Caldwell Pax, which give players more choice when it comes to assembling balanced loadouts as well as adding more quality weapons around those ranks rather than having a focus on the quantity of weapons available (example combining single shot rifles or shotguns with a rapid-fire handgun and vice versa). The same applies to the Winfield, which is now sitting between the Martini Henry and Sparks LRR unlocks.

Faster Progression: XP Overspill for Equipment Unlocks

  • XP earned during a mission with any piece of equipment will now overspill into the next unlock within that equipment family.

Developer note:

Due to some technical issues. The experience from the last hit, that resulted in the death of an AI would not carry over (overspill) into the next unlock, but all XP after this was applied as normal. This has now been resolved and any overspill XP will be applied correctly going forward.

e.g. player requires 10 XP to unlock the Romero handcannon. Killing a Hive grants 20 XP, which will unlock the weapon and open the next unlock gate, but that extra 10 XP was lost.

Store

Price updates

  • Nagant Officer Carbine is now $155 (previously $80)

New Weapons added

  • Added Nagant Officer Carbine Deadeye for $211

  • Added Winfield Musket-Bayonet for $137

  • New Legendary Weapons added

  • Added Legendary Winfield M1873c Silencer "Vagrant" for 200 Blood Bonds

  • Added Legendary Nagant Officer "Death Letter" for 200 Blood Bonds

  • Added Legendary Sparks LRR Silencer "DeSalle's Silence" for 400 Blood Bonds

Roster

  • Added new possible name variations for Hunter recruits

Miscellaneous

  • Tweaked a calculation tied to the texture streaming memory budget to improve the game's performance.

  • Improvements made to the overall game stability and fixed multiple issues that was causing a memory leak with the renderer.

  • The "Rank" text has been replaced by a dedicated icon on the Lobby screen

  • A new icon representing the Traits was added onto the trait selection bottom bar in the Roster and Upgrade pages.

Bug Fixes (PC and Console)

AI

  • Fixed an issue with the pathfinding for some AI that could become stuck on corners (Meathead, Butcher, Grunts).

  • Fixed an issue that resulted in caged dogs not taking damage from a burning player.

  • Fixed an issue that meant players could receive damage from caged dogs while standing directly beside the cage.

  • Fixed an issue that resulted in crows and ducks reacting incorrectly to the sounds of the Silenced Spark LRR as if it were the regular Sparks LRR.

Misc

  • Fixed an issue where deployable items such as the Bear Trap could be placed on concertina wire.

  • Static (unlit) lanterns will now make a sound when shattered.

  • Choke bombs will now extinguish Alert trip mine flares.

  • Fixed an issue where lanterns in boxes were difficult to interact with.

  • Fixed an issue that resulted in Decoy fuses not being resupplied while having the Decoy resupply trait.

  • Fixed an issue where explosions would not influence farm bells (ding!)

  • Fixed an inconsistency in the exhausted state melee damage for the Mosin Nagant Obrex variants.

  • Fixed a crash that could potentially occur when shutting down the game.

  • Fixed an issue that could result in being attacked by an immolator during the "waiting for players" stage when spawning in South-East Lawson Delta. (they just wanted a hug!)

  • Fixed a rendering issue where certain geometry would flicker in an out at specific points in Healing Waters Church.

  • Fixed an issue where players could become stuck on some bunkbeds in Wolfshead Arsenal (no sleeping on the hunt!)

  • Fixed an issue that could cause a player to become stuck at a hut by the river near Arden Parish.

  • Fixed a spot in Catfish where hunters could become stuck.

  • Fixed an issue where a hunter could vault through a roof in Sweetbell Flour.

  • Fixed an issue where AI would pop in too close to a Hunter in Fort Carmick.

  • Fixed a number of issues that resulted in not being able to pick up hammers and axes.

Known Issues (PC and Console)

  • New "+" symbols will appear in the store and news after a game restart, even if no new items are available.

  • In some cases, on the recruitment page, an insanely high amount of hunter dollars will be displayed in the "hire" section. This is purely visual and is only visible when no recruits are present.

  • When purchasing a DLC that contains 2 Hunters, the 2nd legendary hunter pop up will not be displayed.

  • A butcher extinguished with a choke bomb can still set you on fire with the final death swing (so don't get too close).

  • In some cases, the spider frenzy will end if you leave the boss area.

  • In some cases, weapons can disappear through the floor after swapping with another weapon.

  • Some buttons in the store can disappear when selecting different filter options.

  • It is possible to dismiss all hunters.

  • Depending on the sprinting state, you may encounter some inconsistencies with movement speed while stopping bleeding/fire.

  • Some LoD transitions are delayed.

  • In certain cases, where there is a slowdown between client and backend, it is possible to reshuffle a number of times, in these cases you will use more blood bonda than intended.

  • In some rare cases, the extraction icon will show the incorrect message (such as being revived in the extraction while spectating, the revived player may still see "Your partner is down, Revive them!". This is purely visual and the timer will count down as normal.

  • In some cases, when at rank 100, the value of bloodline XP in the game summary may show double what was earned.

  • Incorrect ammo reserve details can sometimes be shown when looting a weapon.

  • In rare cases, the concertina wire will not damage players.

  • ELO arrows are not displayed in the killcard if the player that killed you has their stats are hidden.

  • In some cases, shooting at birds from a distance will not cause them to fly away.

  • Whisper indicator will stop once the Assassin has been killed.

  • Duster melee chaining may not work as intended after several melee attacks.

  • Any lootable weapon that spawns in the tutorial is not kept when leaving the mission.

  • When using Gunsligner, melee cannot be used during weapon preparation.

  • When using Gunslinger, chained (repeated) shots are less reliable.

  • When using Gunslinger, cancelling a reload can result in extra inputs needed to get back to ADS.

  • Disconnecting from the game while interacting from a metal gate will cause the action to continue.

  • Switiching firemodes while dual weilding the Lemat does not return you to the correct stance and continues to play the audio loop.

  • The Butcher will not stop its attack when extinguished by a choke bomb.

  • Thrown world axes will not damage hive swarms, but will bounce off them.

  • Buy button on the sole survivor page will show an incorrect value if no survivors are available.

  • Weapons sway may increase when landing after a jump.

  • Spectator mode: Clues may appear with a pink glow outside of Darksight.

  • Picking up a weapon can sometimes result in the weapon not being shown (showing as empty handed) if you move to far during the interaction phase. Switching the weapon again should resolve this.

Known issues (Console Only)

  • In some cases, you may encounter a freeze/stall during the start of a Trial.

  • There may be a drop of 3-4fps when exiting Darksight.

  • AI are less responsive in comparison to the PC version.

  • Pop up does not appear correctly when linking your account to be awarded 5000 hunt dollars.

  • The "sell all" function will also sell the selected items that are currently equipped to your hunter in the roster/equipment screen.

  • In some cases, you may encounter some inconsistencies in button behaviour when buying something in the roster/equipment screen.

  • Some text for the controller shortcuts may be cut off while in the lobby screen.

Source: Reddit

Among Us on Switch is a solid port, but there's work to be done before it can join PlayStation and Xbox

From relative obscurity to becoming one of the many hyped up reveals during The Game Awards, Among Us has come a very long way in a very short space of time. Released in 2018, its big break came in August of this year as numerous streamers latched onto the game's innate watchability, and before developer InnerSloth knew it, their servers were falling over as people rushed to group up with their friends and then stab each other in the back.

Available for Android, iOS and Windows for the last two years, the game has now made the jump across to Nintendo Switch. Could it soon be coming to PlayStation and Xbox as well?

Well, we'll get to that, but first: what is Among Us?

Essentially, the game is based on the social deduction game Werewolf, where you have a group of players, one of whom is seeking to covertly kill the rest while avoiding suspicion. Instead of having everyone sat round in a circle, Among Us gives all of the players tasks to complete, while the imposter(s) have to go around pretending to perform tasks and sneaking in a little murder every now and then.

It all comes to a head when a body is discovered or if someone calls a meeting to reveal some suspicious behaviour. Players debate, they interrogate, they lie, obstruct and can then vote to kick someone out or wait, if they haven't narrowed down a suspect just yet. It's a great video game adaptation, playing off social interactions exceptionally well, and a deserved (belated) success for InnerSloth.

Originally created for smartphone, the jump to Nintendo Switch is almost effortless. Roaming the map is as intuitive as it's ever been, and you have both button and touch screen support for the little task mini-games that pop up.

That said, it also feels quite rough in ways that will be both familiar to players on other platforms and new to the Switch version. The main menu, for example, includes buttons and links that will take you to Facebook or Twitter… or they would if the Switch had a web browser and didn't just flat out crash….

The Nintendo Switch release also highlights one of the continued weaknesses of the game for me: the lack of built in communication tools. While much of the game plays out in relative silence, the meetings are hives of back and forth interrogation if you play in person or use something like Discord to have a group voice chat. In-game, all you have is text chat, which can be fine, but basically just boils down to players stating a colour in the interest of time. That depends on the group you're playing with, obviously, and the game is by far best played with friends with voice, as opposed to text chat with a group of strangers.

The Switch fits in with the current workarounds quite neatly, to be honest. To put it in another, slightly more brutal way, the frankly dumb lack of a built in microphone on the Switch and the nigh on useless mobile app as a substitute for system-level voice chat and parties all mean people would be resorting to Discord and other set ups anyway.

You do still have text chat, but the pop-up keyboard on Switch covers the game entirely, meaning you cannot see the chat, and I've always found touchscreen text input on Switch oddly detached compared to smartphones and tablets.

If the game is to come to PlayStation or Xbox any time soon, it would need a rethink of the communications options. Voice chat would really need to be integrated – though PSN and Xbox Live both have robust party systems, in-game chat could automate the muting and unmuting for meetings – and a system of quick communications to relay information without a keyboard. It's sure to be a big task, and why the ports to other consoles have only ever been in consideration.

Given how much buzz there is surrounding Among Us, it's no surprise that InnerSloth have sought to bring it to console, and Nintendo Switch is by far and away the most logical first platform for them to tackle. That said, they've clearly got their work cut out for them to make it truly feel like a first class citizen on the platform, ironing out the kinks and figuring out how best to translate the game to PlayStation and Xbox.

Does Among Us need Nintendo Switch Online to play?

Nintendo and InnerSloth surprised gamers with the sudden launch of Among Us on Nintendo Switch. The console port was officially revealed during Nintendo's recent Indie World showcase broadcast.

Available now for £3.89 directly via the Nintendo Switch eShop, this brand new version of the hugely popular multiplayer hit has cross-play enabled with the PC and mobile editions of Among Us.

Although light on content (something InnerSloth is already tackling with their Airship map update) Among Us packs in plenty of replay value within that £3.89 price tag though there's also a "hidden cost" some may not be aware of.

Does Among Us require Nintendo Switch Online to play?

If you're coming over from the PC and mobile versions of Among Us, or perhaps only use your Switch very rarely, you may be unaware of the Nintendo Switch Online service. This is basically Nintendo's answer to Xbox Live and PlayStation Network, allowing you to access multiplayer and other network features within games. As long as you've got an active subscription, of course.

The same goes for Among Us. In order to play this game you will need to purchase or renew your Nintendo Switch Online membership. There are three payment options available starting at £3.49. So, if you fancy dipping your does in Among Us for 30 days, you can opt for this lowest subscription band. However, you'll be saving up to 57% if you choose top up even further – 3 months (or 90 days) is currently priced at £6.99 with a year (365 days) for £17.99.

We've been playing Among Us on Nintendo Switch – you can read our first impressions here. Although InnerSloth have done a good job in porting their flagship hit to Nintendo console, there are some initial kinks that need ironing out.

If you're on the fence about splashing money on Nintendo Switch Online, there are some added perks that may swing your decision. Not only will you be able to play Among Us and a growing catalogue of multiplayer games online via Nintendo's network, you will also be able to access cloud saves and a range of complimentary retro titles from the NES & SNES era.

WWE Undefeated Review

From the makers of Power Rangers: Battle for the Grid comes a new fighting venture featuring your favourite wrestlers in the form of WWE Undefeated, a free to play title for iOS and Android.

Now, I don't want to blow my own trumpet, but I'm quite good at fighting games, so you can imagine my surprise when I was able to apply proper fighting game fundamentals to matches that I played. I should have expected it, really – Battle for the Grid was pretty good.

It's difficult to do fighting games well on mobile, though. You just doesn't get the precision that veterans would be used to from playing stick or even a pad. Thankfully, the controls are simple. You swipe left or right to move your character back and forth – spacing is important as it always is in fighting games – and then tap on abilities once they become available to use. Easy.

Each move has a range and speed, meaning throwing your moves out at the wrong time can result in whiffing and getting a return slap. Abilities are not set in stone and made up by a battle deck which you can fully customise for each wrestler. There are three types of ability cards: Counter cards that put your wrestler in a defensive position and instantly counter an incoming melee attack, Strike cards that perform said melee attacks and Grapple cards which, as you can probably guess, perform grapples.

There's a rock, paper, scissors element to the system as well which generally see one type of card beat one type of attack but fall prey to another. Counter cards work against Strike cards, but do nothing against Grapple cards. Grapple cards are easily interrupted by Strike cards, and so on. It's a simple yet effective system where you can learn to bait your opponent into one move and then counter with another. On quite a few occasions, I've been able to dash in and quickly dash backwards, tricking my opponent into using a Strike move. I'd wait for the animation to nearly be over and then retaliate with a Strike move of my own.

Each card has a cost to use during the match. You have a bar at the bottom of the screen that fills up over time from zero to to ten and this is your pool of energy points to play with. The Flying Clothesline, for instance, costs three points of energy to use so if you are maxed at ten energy, your bar will go from ten to seven and then slowly keep refilling. You need to avoid spamming moves willy-nilly and be savvy during your assaults. If you aren't, there might be occasions where you use all your abilities and then stand there for a moment or two while your opponent is free to beat down on you.

You can also chain attacks together if timed right, making a slip up by your opponent fatal, especially if you have a Hype move banked and ready to use. The Hype meter builds up over the course of the match as you get hit and deal damage, giving you access to a wrestler's finisher once full.

At time of writing, there are a total of thirteen wrestlers in the game to unlock with three more listed as 'coming soon'. You start off with the ever popular Dwayne "The Rock" Johnson, and proceed to unlock more wrestlers through winning matches and moving up to the next league. It's a slightly annoying way of handing characters out, as a wrestler like The Fiend is only available to unlock when you hit league VII, and that can take a while. Then again, it's a mobile game model and the progression path is generally a given. I just feel sorry for fans of The Undertaker who will not be able to play with the phenom straight away. For now, you can unlock Adam Cole, AJ Styles, Drew McIntyre, Finn Balor, Otis, The Rock, Kevin Owens, Kofi Kingston, Roman Reigns, Seth Rolins, Shinsuke Nakamura, The Fiend and The Undertaker.

One thing to note here is the lack of female wrestlers right now. It's definitely an odd choice not to include them considering how big the women's division is.

Winning battles nets you different rarity boxes that contain battle cards and tokens to unlock and level up characters/moves. If I get ten Gut Kick cards in a box, I can use that to take the move from level three to level four increasing the move's damage, for instance. Character tokens also work in the same way, leveling up a character's stats and abilities as you go.

Stats are further increased as you play by using the Talent Level bonuses that you unlock, giving say, an increase to damage by 5% when you hit level three. Unfortunately, there's no way to check what bonuses you have at this time which is slightly frustrating.

Sadly, there is only once mode to play right now, which is just labeled as 'Battle', meaning if you're looking for variety in modes, you will be a little disappointed. It's early doors for this game, and Undefeated is bound to get updates adding news modes into the mix. Right now, it's severely lacking a practice mode, because if you want to try a new wrestler out, you are forced to go into the online ranking mode. If you lose, you also lose league progression, which is not fair when you just want to try a new character out.

Once you hit a high enough talent level, you can also join a Faction. Factions right now only seem to serve one purpose and that's for requesting and donating character tokens and battle cards. It feels very strange that it was included this early on in the game's life considering there's not much you can really do with it right now.

Of course, it would be remiss of me not to talk about the microtransaction element of Undefeated. Gold is the purchasable currency of choice which can in turn be spent on things like buying more Battle Bucks, the rank up currency for wrestlers and cards. Gold can also be used to unlock boxes that are gained through battles quicker. I can see how this might be tempting as some of the higher rarity boxes can take up to six hours to unlock. It's not a deal breaker to me, and certainly not the most insidious use of microtransactions. You can still play the game and there's no major advantage of spending money at the moment.

The great dildo plague of Cyberpunk 2077 is to come to an end

There are a phenomenal amount of dildos in Cyberpunk 2077, they seem to be scattered across almost every corner of the game including places dildos should not be, throbbing sneakily from behind the counter of many cafes. CD Projekt RED have now explained why the game contains so many fake phalluses, "Where something by today's standards might be taboo or kinky is very normal and commonplace by 2077 standards."

Dildos are not taboo, and they certainly 'aint kinky. Rubber pleasure poles have been around since the 1930's and the first known sex toy was created around 30,000 years ago, and back in 2016 Phil and Holly had a feature on the best vibrators during This Morning where they discussed the 'Lovehorny Clitoral Desire Vibe'.  A big floppy silicon wang lost any sort of shock value many years ago.

It's unclear why scattering huge amounts of jiggling jackhammers across a city is meant to show sexual liberation, but apparently it does. Dildos spawn as part of the random loot items in the game and it seems that the algorithm that selects when and where a sexy toy is placed isn't working very well.

"We were still tweaking those settings, so especially during the early reviews, the amount of dildos in the game world was pretty high. We're going to adjust them so that the dildos don't appear too out of place/context and distracting and more where they should be by design," explained senior quest designer Philipp Weber to Kotaku.

This will be the first, and hopefully only time, a game gets a hotfix to patch out a plague of plastic penises.

Despite record breaking pre-orders and launch sales for Cyberpunk 2077, CD Projekt Red have found themselves in hot water over the launch of the game. With myriad bugs, poor performance on PlayStation 4 and Xbox One, and the company issuing a public statement saying the unsatisfied users could seek refunds, all coming after a review cycle that only featured the PC version of the game, it's safe to say that public perceptions of the company have taken a nose dive.

In an emergency board call to answer questions, the company's top brass were grilled about the launch, upcoming updates, how they dropped the ball, and the fallout that they're currently seeing.

First and foremost, joint-CEO Adam Kiciński admitted in his opening statement that "After 3 delays, we as the Management Board were too focused on releasing the game. We underestimated the scale and complexity of the issues, we ignored the signals about the need for additional time to refine the game on the base last-gen consoles."

This was later followed up by co-founder Marcin IwiÅ„ski was said "It is more about us looking – as was previously stated – at the PC and next-gen performance rather than current-gen. We definitely did not spend enough time looking at that."

Source: Kotaku

EA Play for Xbox Game Pass on PC delayed until 2021

On the day of its intended launch, Microsoft have stated that EA Play's induction into the Xbox Game Pass for PC game library has been delayed until sometime in 2021.

EA Play is still, however, a part of Xbox Game Pass for console, and has been since the launch of the Xbox Series X|S on 10th November.

Writing on the Xbox blog, they say:

When we originally set out to write this blog post, which would announce the availability of EA Play on PC with Xbox Game Pass, it looked a little bit different. Unfortunately, what had been a celebratory post is now one asking for a little more patience: We made the decision to delay until 2021 the release of EA Play on PC as part of the Xbox Game Pass for PC and Ultimate memberships.

We established this partnership with Electronic Arts because they are as passionate as we are about helping people and communities discover great games, and we knew we could provide a great experience for members by working together. In order to deliver on that, we need more time to provide the Xbox Game Pass experience.

It was on the cusp of that launch that Microsoft originally announced that the tightening of their partnership with EA would extend to Windows 10 as well. While Microsoft have not gone into the reasons why, there's any number of background technical issues that could have led to this, from having to add a bunch of EA games to the Microsoft Store all in one go, to the ties back to EA's own platform that the games have.

On Windows, EA Play is available through EA themselves, but also arrived on Steam back in August. The service debuted as EA Access on Xbox One back in 2014, the PC counterpart Origin Access arriving in 2016, before EA Access it belatedly spread to PlayStation 4 in 2019. Earlier this year they rebranded it all as EA Play. Much less confusing.

Source: Xbox

Among Us announced for Nintendo Switch, is out today!

Slow burning indie hit Among Us has stealth released on Nintendo Switch and will be available to download and play today, December 15th!

There is no news on PlayStation or Xbox versions and as Nintendo are all over this announcement I would expect there's some sort of timed exclusivity deal, but the other console version can't be far behind.

Last week new map for Among Us was revealed at The Game Awards, where developer Innersloth picked up a couple of awards (and were totally adorable with their reactions and acceptance speeches).

Called The Airship, the new map is set on the Toppat Airship, with tasks like polishing diamonds and emptying trashcans. You'll have to take ladders to get around, while there's new mechanics like being able to choose your starting position after a meeting, and more.

Among Us has been one of the indie hits of the summer, despite actually having released all the way back in 2018. The game was discovered by Twitch streamers, with its paranoia-infused multiplayer making for a lot of fun and plenty of cross-channel collaborations. It helps that the game's really cheap at just £4.

The game is built for 4-10 players, with one or more players being an "imposter", and alien interloper who has to try and murder their way through the other players as they try to complete tasks. As murdered bodies are discovered, players report them and call a group meeting to bicker, accuse, and potentially kick someone out of an airlock. There's tons of options to customise lobbies and tweak settings to balance the game for your group,

In response to the sudden boom in popularity in August, Innersloth set back to work on their now very popular game. It had achieved moderate popularity originally, allowing them to start working on a sequel, but they decided to instead cancel the sequel and put more resources into supporting their now huge audience.

Source: Twitter

Katamari Damacy REROLL has us gagging for a Katamari sequel

Amidst our grim fascination with explosive, ultra violent video games, there's also that omnipresent longing for something to come and wow us, whether it be a bold new take on the familiar or something completely abstract. Katamari definitely slots into the latter category and if you've always been curious about this Namco curio, you can finally play it on modern PlayStation and Xbox consoles.

Katamari Damacy REROLL isn't just a nifty remaster of a cult classic, it's a remedy. It's a silly salve that dissolves the over-seriousness of AAA gaming, an unapologetically absurd palette cleanser.

Miguel has already waxed lyrical about Namco's revival of this beloved PlayStation 2 gem when it originally bounded onto the Nintendo Switch and PC at the very end of 2018. Two years later and it has finally made it way onto other last-gen systems (and it's obviously playable on PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X|S via backward compatibility).

If you've never heard of or touched a Katamari game before then the premise is as bonkers as it is refreshingly straightforward. As the Prince you'll drop into different levels, moving your ball-like Katamari around in an attempt to roll up as many items as possible within a set time. The bigger your Katamari grows, the bigger the objects will be that you can stick onto it.

Damacy starts you off at the small end, scooping up various articles of Japanese paraphernalia around a suburban home. By the end of the game, however, you'll be big enough to roll up people, cars, and entire cities. It's incredibly cathartic.

In another universe, there's a version of Katamari Damacy that is M-rated nightmare fuel. This game turns out to be the complete opposite, oozing with eccentric charm from every pore. Everything, from the calming pastel colours to the blocky 3D models and character designs are uniquely endearing. Just take a look at the Prince's dad, The King of All Cosmos, to get a dose of the game's fruity flavour.

Controlling your Katamari in REROLL is deliberately clunky. You'll need to move both sticks in tandem to push your big ball of rubbish in that direction. Meanwhile turning is done by pushing up on one stick and down on the other, clicking them both snapping you 180 degrees when you need to quickly pivot. The items you manage to stick onto will morph the Katamari's shape – snag a few fence panels and they'll likely jut out of one side, awkwardly catching on your surroundings as you roll along. Katamari Damacy REROLL really isn't the smoothest, most modern-feeling game to play and that could definitely rub newcomers the wrong way, but only if they've somehow not been entranced by its sheer bizarreness.

In terms of playable content, there isn't as much as other games in the Katamari series though plenty to keep you going as you bounce between a mix of story and bonus levels. There's also a score-chasing element here, as well as competitive split-screen multiplayer that helps expand REROLL's lifespan beyond its trippy main adventure.

There wasn't much Namco needed to do here in terms of visuals besides remaster everything in HD. Katamari is one of the strongest examples of games that out-flex photorealism with their gorgeous art direction. The soundtrack is top-tier work, too, to the point that Katamari mixes have long been a go-to of mine when working, studying, or in the mood for uplifting tunes spliced with some killer jazz.

Much like Miguel two years ago, I'm here to tell you that Katamari Damacy REROLL is a Japanese gaming treasure, tarted up for a new generation. You'll know just by looking at a single screenshot whether it will suit your vibe. Even if it doesn't, there's still a good chance you'll come away with the biggest grin on your face.

The Fall Guys Season 3 is now live!

Update: Fall Guys Season 3 is now live, bringing with it plenty of new levels, costumes to earn and stuff to do within a wintry new theme.

The launch of Season 3 comes, of course, with a big new update. Head here for the Season 3 update patch notes.

The original post follows.

Cuddly battle royale sensation Fall Guys is about to embark on its third season, sprinkling the game with a light dusting of wintry content to go with the festive cheer of the season.

Fall Guys Season 3 is out on 15th December for PlayStation and PC.

The winter update will bring with it 7 new levels to test yourself on, new obstacles to deal with, and over 30 new skins to unlock through wins and playing.

So what's the point in playing this weekend? Well, you can try to get through the last few levels on Season 2 with its medieval theme, which will certainly be helped by the Double Fame points that are currently being handed out. Or maybe take a break so that the winter content will all feel nice and fresh?

We awarded the game an excellent 8 our of 10 in our review earlier this year. Here's how I summed up my time with the game:

Full of cute and cuddly jelly beans bumbling into each other in a race for the crown, Fall Guys is just about the most wholesome battle royale imaginable, and a whole lot of fun.

Fall Guys was made available for free on PlayStation Plus back in August and quickly became it's most-downloaded complimentary game. It was a huge success on PC as well, though, selling millions of copies and becoming a staggering success for Mediatonic.

Fortnite gets 120Hz mode on PS5 & Xbox Series X, adds PC Performance Mode for older computers

Epic Games are pushing out Fortnite update 15.10 today, which is all about increasing performance for an ever wider group of players.

On PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X|S there's a new 120fps mode that applies to both Battle Royale and Creative modes of the game – you can find the toggle in the Fortnite Video settings. It's not clear what resolution and video settings playing at 120fps will result in, but expect a fair few sacrifices to be made to get there.

Epic have also further optimised the game on Xbox Series S, so that the standard 60fps mode now has a maximum resolution of 1200p, up from 1080p. That should add a touch of added clarity to the game on the lighter new generation console.

Meanwhile, over on PC, Epic have released a Performance Mode update that enables the game to run on older PC specs than before. It's an in-game setting that quite simply trades visual quality for lower memory usage and a lighter load on the CPU and GPU. It's intended to lower the bottom end specs, but also to help smooth frame rates for those that are struggling.

The download can also be reduces, with the ability to opt out of high-resolution textures through the Epic Games Launcher installation options page. This will slash 14GB from the game's size, dropping it to as little as 17GB when also ditching the Save the World mode and unnecessary language packs.

Epic have provided examples for the kinds of performance uplift that can be expected, both devices featuring integrated graphics and running the game at 720p:

Hardware Example 1: Hardware Example 2:
CPU: Intel i5-8265U @ 1.60GHz CPU: AMD A10-5745M APU @ 2.1GHz
Memory: 8GB RAM Memory: 6GB RAM
GPU: Intel UHD Graphics 620 GPU: AMD Radeon(TM) HD 8610G
FPS Before: 24 fps FPS Before: 18 fps
FPS After: 61 fps FPS After: 45 fps

Source: press release

Empire of Sin Review

Empire of Sin's authentic decor, swinging house band, and menu of exotic systemic cocktails can't make up for a serious termite infestation that threatens to quite literally bring the house down. It can be a real swell ball at times, but there comes a point – say, somewhere after the roof has collapsed, crushing all the guests – where you have to cut your losses and close up for renovation.

Had Empire of Sin launched in early access, I'd have called it exceptionally promising. Like a mob hitman dangling a lit cigarette over a gasoline-soaked rival business, it's constantly threatening to turn into something absolutely explosive. Its many systems are poised to coalesce into some truly fascinating results, from the micro level personalities of the individual mobsters you can hire, to the apparent nuances of the higher level strategy management game. It doesn't quite manage it, though.

I outlined most of what I felt were the game's highest and lowest points in my review in progress, and at least one hotfix later, I'm sad to say that not a great deal has changed. Truthfully, however many approaches and clever tricks the game offers in the running of your mobster empire, the AI factions are never smart enough to warrant you actually using most of them. Weak minor factions will sit right next to the more powerful opponents, and the big fish will barely ever swallow the little one, despite the clear advantages they hold. There are many small issues like this, but they all come down to a lack of aggression or manipulation on the AI's part. You have to wonder how they made it this far in the underworld with such a lack of ambition.

After several more hours with the combat that comprises around two thirds of the time you'll spend with Empire of Sin, I've grown ever more weary of it. The lack of an auto-resolve feature means you'll spend an age fighting grindy battles, and the ease of ambushing means fights are often over before they begin. This can be fun, for the first twenty or so times, but it ends up feeling like so many other parts of Empire of Sin: you're barely even playing, just going through the motions needed to progress.

Because the economy benefits so strongly from your ability to take things by force, easy combat also leads to the management layer feeling almost inconsequential. You can break it with a few clever tricks, or you can take it by force, but the only way in which you actually have to work for it is in an investment of time, never strategy or forethought.

I still want Empire of Sin to realise its full potential, because its stylings really are something. A love for the time period permeates everything the game does, from the weapons and dialogue to what is probably my favourite soundtrack this year. The few battles that force you to pull out all the stops are properly gripping, and there's a gleeful, immediate violence to finishing blows that bring to mind John Romero sneaking downstairs while his wife was asleep to add his own satisfyingly juvenile signature to the game.

I can't remember having such an unsatisfying experience with a game that I didn't end up fundamentally disliking, perhaps ever, because Empire of Sin is such a charming, and as I've said, ambitious creation. It's not a bad game, it's just one that needs more development time to realise its potential.

Empire of Sin is a promising strategy game but one that feels woefully incomplete. I can't recommend it, but I can recommend following it's hopeful transition into something genuinely wonderful.