Rock Paper Shotgun – PC Game Reviews, Previews, Subjectivity

Epic Games are the Fortnite company, sure. But on the developer side of things, they're the Unreal Engine company - and while Fortnite is obviously made using that base, the two rarely overlapped if you weren't actively employed to work on the battle royale. Next year, however, Fortnite players will be able to spice up their creative maps with custom models, bespoke scripts and editable maps using Unreal's toolset.

I'm sure we all have our fond memories of playing through Left 4 Dead and its brilliant sequel. But fun as they are, there's no hiding the pair are getting on a bit, and it's time enough something stepped in to carry on that co-op carnage*. Fortunately, Turtle Rock's own Back 4 Blood entered closed alpha today, and while it's not Left 4 Dead 3 by name, early reports suggest the devs have delivered a rock-solid successor to Bill and the gang's zombie-smashing classic.

Wait, what? Epic have made some rather bold moves since setting up their own storefront - chasing exclusives by the dozen, firing at Steam with aggressively dev-friendly revenue shares, using Fortnite to take trillion-dollar tech companies to court. Now, they're branching out of the games bubble, adding monolithic music streaming service Spotify to their platform earlier today.

No, really. It's right there, just below Hyper Scape.

Microsoft Flight Simulator features some absolutely stunning weather. But as far as the ground's concerned it's always the height of summer, with even the northernmost parts of Scandinavia left remarkably snow-free. That changes with next Tuesday's free update, which adds a sprinkling of snow, ice, and virtual reality goggles to the planet-sized flight 'em up.

While Mojang continue to work on Minecraft's massive Caves & Cliffs update, the latest Java snapshot build has introduced its very best feature: axolotls. These adorable aquatic amphibians won't be live in the main game until the update's full launch in mid-2021, but folks on the bleeding edge can now befriend them. More like amfriendians.

They might make a mess of tramlines and festivals, but at least I don't have to trust Edinburgh City Council with keeping the town from falling out of the sky. Spare a thought, then, for the citizens of Airborne Kingdom's skyward metropolis, who have you to thank for keeping their livelihoods safe above the clouds. The Wandering Band's lofty city-builder took flight today, a floating management sim that dares you not to create a town-shaped hole in the ground below.

There's just over a week to go 'til giftsmas day - and while I'm sure we're all panicking over what to get our friends, loved ones and recurring villains, what's the harm in picking up a little treat for yourself? The Epic Games Store's holiday sale begins today, giving away a new free game for the next 15 days alongside the usual slew of store-wide deals. Your first gift is Cities: Skylines, with plenty more to come over the next two weeks.

Here I thought Assassin's Creed Valhalla might get away from those icky experience point boosters Ubisoft so like to put in their games, alas it was not to be. In Valhalla's in-game store you can now buy XP boosts for real-life cash, which effectively double your XP gain. They're designed to save you time, so you don't need to do tons of side quests to level up. But they caused a fair bit of backlash in Assassin's Creed Odyssey, and I can't say I'm particularly happy to see them return.

The new season in Call Of Duty: Warzone has got off to a rough start, with the novelty of a new map and weapons being counterbalanced by a nightmarish bug which lets players run round fully invisible, killing with impunity. Presumably that'll be a high-priority one to fix but right now, oof, it's rough out there in the Warzone.

Age Of Empires 2 is about to receive its sixth expansion pack, Lords Of The West, just a casual 22 years after the base game first wololoed its way onto our screens. From January 26th in the year of our lord 2021, players will be able to take the knight-happy Burgundians and the castle-dropping Sicilians for a spin, as well as play through three new campaigns - one each for the new civs, and a third for the Britons, featuring good old Edward Longshanks. Longshanks, of course, was the baddie off of Braveheart, and thus also the baddie off of AoE2's first ever campaign, where you played as William Wallace in a series of adventures that were totally based on history and not the film.

What a pleasant Christmas surprise! Here I thought that most development would've shifted onto Overwatch 2 by now, but it seems Blizzard aren't finished with their original hero shooter just yet. Overwatch is adding a pretty new deathmatch map set in Japan, called Kanezaka, and it's coming to the Player Test Realm (PTR) this month.

Kanezaka is a lovely-looking Japanese village placed just below Hanamura (the assault map that also features in one of the game's animated shorts), and there's a cat café!

Hideo Kojima appears in Cyberpunk 2077 (ever so briefly) along with a BB bottlebaby, so it's only fair he return the favour. The PC version of Death Stranding today added new crossover missions and gear inspired by CD Projekt Red's dystopian RPG, including Johnny's silver hand, a cyberbike, and those ol' cyberlines for Sam's face. He even gains the ability to hack machines. The update's free, and out now. Come see Cybersam in the trailer below.

Xbox Game Pass for PC is going cheap for the holidays this week, as you can currently get a third off a three-month membership over at Amazon. That's three month's worth of games for the price of two. The deal is already live in the US, knocking $10 off its usual price, and here's hoping we'll see a similar deal arrive in the UK shortly. Remember, you can stack codes up to 36 months, too, making this a great time to buy in bulk to help reduce the overall cost of your membership.

If you've liked Hades enough to buy it a second time, good news: you can now play the same save on both PC and Switch. Developers Supergiant Games last night launched the 'Cross-Saves' update on Switch, which lets you hook the game up to your Steam or Epic account and share saves through the cloud. So if you want, you needn't start over fresh and unlock everything again on your Nintendo. That's nice.

Season 10 of Playerunknown's Battlegrounds has arrived with update 10.1 bringing a new map with some brand new enemies. The new Haven map is a small one, dropping in a total of 32 combatants on the map. You've got more than 31 enemies though, because some new AI baddies will be guarding the loot this season.

Alright alright, quiet down class. We've got a new student in the school of unlikely objects used to control games. Move over, goose costume. Pipe down, theremin. This Call Of Duty: Black Ops Cold War player is using a recorder. Yes, the thing you never properly learned to play Hot Cross Buns on can be used to (sometimes) score kills in Cold War's multiplayer.

Cat cafe simulation Calico has come out of the oven right on time. I was starting to fear that it would roll over into the new year without hitting its expected 2020 release window. Never fear though, Calico has scooted out here in the last weeks of the year, so you can jump in to decorate cakes, collect animal friends, and assemble your cafe right now.

Earlier today, the developers of the horror game Devotion announced it would return to sale via GOG on Friday. It's been unavailable for purchase since early 2019 due to an in-game joke at the expense of Chinese president Xi Jinping. Hours later, GOG have released their own peculiar statement reversing their decision to release it.

The makers of joyful adventure games like Chuchel last night announced Happy Game, and it most certainly is not so. They're going grim 'n' gory with this "psychedelic horror adventure" next year, bursting with blood, bone, guts, grinders, guillotines, and even a skellington. But it still looks like an Amanita adventure game, even if you maybe shouldn't share it with the kids. See for yourself in the trailer below.

Multiplayer imposter-hunting game Among Us now has a Nintendo Switch version, I say on this here PC gaming website. What's that matter to you lot? Well, it's got cross-platform multiplayer so you PC-owning folks can play with your Switch-having pals. It's a nice pre-holiday surprise for those of us wondering what we can pick up to share with our friends while we stay separated through the winter.

A new map has arrived in Call Of Duty: Warzone, the mini murderzone Rebirth Island. This new island is in its own separate 40-player mode, with ye olde Verdansk continuing to offer bigger battles. The Season One update also smooshes in a load of Call Of Duty: Black Ops Cold War, adding over of its 30 weapons to Warzone. And there's a new battle pass. And Cold War has a load of new maps and bits. There's a lot going on.

Some days, you just wanna play a bit of Valorant, you know? But occasionally you're a bit too tired or not in the mood for the tense competitive matches Riot Games' tactical FPS typically has on offer. Which is why the new winter mode is great. Yesterday, Valorant introduced the limited-time Snowball Fight, and I think running around pelting people with snow is exactly the sort of chilled-out social mode this game needed.