October 2022

CD Projekt Red recently updated Cyberpunk 2077 to add items from the new anime series, Cyberpunk: Edgerunners. Their own updates didn't add the show's omnipresent risk of cyberpsychosis, however, so a modder has stepped in to do it for them. The Wannabe Edgerunner mod adds a "humanity" cost to all cyberware implants and certain actions in the open-world shooter, as well as consequences for when your humanity gets too low.

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The developers of Röki are trading Norse mythology for Greek, it seems. Polygon Treehouse have announced that their next game is Mythwrecked: Ambrosia Island, a non-linear adventure about uncovering a mystery, restoring an island paradise, and making friends with Greek gods. They also call it a "friend 'em up", getting in there with the "'em up" description before we can.

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If I’m honest, I’m mainly into the Touhou Project for the bangin’ fanmade choons. But here’s a bangin’ fanmade game, Touhou Luna Nights: what might have been a fairly rote 2D Metroidvania, were it not for both some time-bending tricks and a few key influences from the official Touhou schmups.

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We celebrate all three of us being back on the Electronic Wireless Show podcast, but two thirds of us being be-plagued, by talking about rejuvinating the Earth - truly, the podcast host of us all. Inspired by new eco-friendly farming game Coral Island, which I've been playing this week, we talk about our favourite games that roll with an ecological protection theme. This is hard for Matthew, because he hates the environment (unless his immediate environment contains a can of Rio).

Matthew comes through with an excellent Cavern Of Lies about trees and tree monsters in games, where he attempts to pull the illusive Double Beckford on us. Does he succeed? Listen to find out.

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Detective games are often about filling in the blanks. A terrible crime will sit at the heart of them, yes, but most take place in the days and weeks that follow, where the bulk of your time is spent gathering clues and building a case to work out whodunnit. Rarely do you get to glimpse the immediate aftermath of the crime itself, where all the major suspects are still in play and their pockets are stuffed with incriminating evidence they'll no doubt be disposing of in the coming minutes.

The prime exception to this rule is Lucas Pope's Return Of The Obra Dinn, which gives you a time-travelling pocket watch to revisit the scenes of its many, many murders and work out exactly what happened to its 60-strong passenger list on its titular, ill-fated ship. Frogwares' Sherlock Holmes games and their mind palace visualisation techniques also warrant a mention here, and maybe even Outer Wilds at a push, if you count its 22-minute timeloop as an investigation scene several millennia in the making. But it's Obra Dinn that Color Gray Games emulate most strongly with their impressive debut in The Case Of The Golden Idol, which gives you a series of 12 murders to solve, each of which is presented as a freeze-frame vignette at the moment of death. You're still filling in blanks here, slotting names, objects and eventually verbs in its various scene scrolls to deduce whodunnit and howtheydunit, but this intriguing tale of 18th century high (and a secret) society, betrayals, backstabbing and murder most foul is a mystery game for the ages.

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Galactic strategiser Stellaris is inviting players to muck about with adjustments to the game’s combat this month in an open beta, starting today. The beta is running from now until the end of October to trial planned changes and rummage up some feedback for Stellaris’ next update, 3.6 Orion. Don’t worry if you just fancy playing regular Stellaris; this is an opt-in thing. You can find out more by watching the video below.

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A video that appears to have been sent to playtesters of Ubisoft’s mysterious session-based co-op shooter Project U has been shared on Twitter. It mostly consists of clips of the game’s dev team talking about playtests, but there are a few sections of gameplay and other footage from the game itself interspersed between those. Creative director Damien Kieken appears in the video, saying that the U in Project U “stands for Unite”.

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Fantasy construction sim Dwarf Fortress is, by the admission of its designers, difficult to learn and even harder to master. That’s why the game’s Steam version will have its own tutorial. Co-creator Zach Adams has roped in a novice playtester to try the tutorial out, in the form of his wife Annie. Annie bounced off the original, not-so-visually-appealing version of Dwarf Fortress. Yet, says Adams, the tutorial seems to be working to help Annie ease into the game at last.

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There’s an updated Steam app for phones and tablets, everyone. That’s a sentence I thought I’d never type. Describing it as “completely revamped”, the Android and iOS apps are essentially new and add a way to sign into your account on PC using a QR code, remote downloads from your Library, and customisable tabs. If you really enjoy looking at videos of swiping around on phones then you can watch Valve’s below.

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It’s been months since we’ve heard much from Bethesda’s upcoming sci-fi RPG Starfield, but studio director Todd Howard has been answering some questions about the game in a new video series. You can watch Howard chatting about the make-believe space programme below, where he covers if Starfield is hard sci-fi (not really), the games traits system, and dialogue. It seems that Starfield RPG's are incredibly chatty, with many times more dialogue than Fallout 4 and Skyrim.

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The RTX 4090 sure is expensive, huh? Wouldn't it be a shame if there was a graphics card that cost one eighth as much and offered the same basic technologies? Well, good news chums, EVGA's RTX 2060 SC Gaming model is available for £212 - and despite costing 12.5% the price of the RTX 4090, it delivers at least 25% of the performance - nice. That's like, double the value!

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The Samsung Odyssey G7 is one of the best gaming monitors in the world - or at least, that's what I keep telling myself after buying one last year. This is a 32-inch model, offering a 2560x1440 resolution, a 240Hz refresh rate and a DisplayHDR 600 certification that means it actually delivers impactful HDR - a rarity at this price point. Anyway, it's down to £499 today after a £100 discount, so listen up - here's why I rate this monitor so highly.

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Open-world hoverbike 'n' climbing game Sable is due to leave PC Game Pass on Sunday, and I only started playing today. I will not finish in time. That's fine. Honestly, I haven't finished half the games I've bought, and I've long since stopped thinking about 'The Backlog' as if I ever will. But I might enjoy this one week of exploring a gorgeous desert, climbing and gliding and hoverbiking, and you might too.

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Last time, you decided that utterly rinsing a place is better than an end credits song. This was a pretty close one, with rinsing taking 54% of the vote. Good. Onwards! This week, you must choose between two things which add fleeting novelty and surprise. What's better: temporarily piloting an enemy, or a game within the game just for funsies?

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I've long been excited about the possibilities offered by upcoming tidying things up nicely game A Little To The Left, and back in May this year Alice0 (one of us is RPS's Mirror Universe Alice, but nobody knows which) finally had a crack at it. The way she wanted to organise keys wasn't what the game thought was the right way, and her article examined this frustration; she described the canonical correct solution as being that of a "domestic Joker".

The developers at Max Inferno Studios read this article and decided that, you know what? Alice0 was on to something. They contacted us to let us know that her piece was the inspiration for adding a feature called Let It Be, a skip puzzle function that you can access at any time. Anne Macmillan, who's a co-founder of Max Inferno Studios as well as artist and animator for A Little To The Left, was kind enough to talk to me about it.

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Friends, let me admit something up top. I am the most tedious of Dead Rising apologists. I love its in-game timer. I adore its linear mission structure that is completely at odds with the expansive semi-open world shopping mall in which it takes place. Hell, I even like its severely stripped down Wii port. I firmly believe that Dead Rising is an all-time great, but also understand why folks have (reasonably) cooled on the game’s particular quirks.

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Hello, yes, it’s me, once again banging on about the WD Blue SN570. I just think it’s neat: a highly affordable yet remarkably quick M.2 SSD, with multiple capacities to choose from and regular sales making it even cheaper. Speaking of, today is the last day of the Amazon Prime Early Access Sale, which has the 1TB Blue SN570 down to £65.

That’s not quite its lowest price ever, but it does match its flash sale pricing during Prime Day back in July. And is an utter pittance for a 1TB NVMe SSD, let alone one that’s actually quite speedy. Amazon UK also have the 2TB version on sale for £128, just £1 more than its lowest dip on record (Prime Day 2022 again, as it happens). These prices are only available to Prime members, but the Blue SN570 ranks highly among the best SSDs for gaming, so they're well deserving of your cash if you’re in need of PC storage improvements.

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Games. So many, many games. Each and every week the game pile grows higher, forming the walls of a virtually impenetrable digital structure known only as the ‘backlog’. As the games multiply, thickening the increasingly cell-like walls of our den of entertainment, we can only gaze on and hope it doesn’t one day become our tomb. On that light note, it’s nice to see that SteamDB now has a section showing what games are coming out on Steam every week.

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If there's one thing that brings stability to my life, it's the escapism of reality TV. Below Deck: Mediterranean had me covered last winter (alongside its Sailing Yacht spin-off), as I watched super yacht crew toil to meet the demands of the wealthy and unhinged. Then Love Island stepped up to fill a large portion of my summer with curated chaos. One guy confessed "I licked her tit or whatever," in a shock revelation to his betrothed.

What's on the reality TV menu for winter? Ainori Love Wagon: Asian Journey, baby. It's on Netflix and I'm convinced it shares great parallels with some of my favourite RPGs of all time.

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Defining boomer shooter Doom, like Skyrim, is one of those games that’ll eventually be ported to everything. Microwaves. Checkouts. Voight-Kampff machines maybe, in the years to come. Right dang today though, you can (almost) play Doom in Notepad, or DOOMpad as its creator Samperson calls it. Catch a glimpse of the ripping and tearing in action by watching the video below.

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Cultic has really good headshots. I mean, it also has a lot of other things going for it, but it feels rude not to highlight this right at the very top because I think it’s important. Cultic’s headshots are sensational. Enemy noggins pop with a squelchy crack that tickles a very unnerving part of my brain, the resulting blood fountain spraying so high it causes the ceiling to drip with human juice long after your hopeless adversary has slumped to the floor. It’s gross. But. You know. It’s also kind of great.

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When there’s a Prime Day, Black Friday, or any other big dealspalooza involving games hardware, it never takes long to find a SteelSeries headset with a money-off sticker slapped across an earcup. This time, on the second and final day of Amazon’s Prime Early Access Sale, it’s also one of SteelSeries’ best headsets so far: the Arctis 7 wireless model.

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You probably already knew if you were willing and able to buy the Nvidia GeForce RTX 4090 after seeing its price announcement, so here’s a short version of the following review: Yes, on pure performance it’s the best graphics card for 4K you can get. Yes, DLSS 3 is the real deal. And no, neither of those make the RTX 4090 good value for money, even if it makes a compelling argument for Nvidia's latest upscaling tech.

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I first made the RPS treehouse aware of Kevin Costner's Waterworld The Game over a week ago, when I dumped this tweet in our work chat. At the time it was swiftly shot down as an obvious joke, and I was shamed, but now the freeware game based on a ten-second joke in a 1997 episode of The Simpsons is out. So who's laughing now, eh? Play it for yourself via creator Macaw45's itch.

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Imagine making all the incredible effort to get a spacecraft to another star system, only to crash it into a wild and unexplored world. That’s the gist of Stranded: Alien Dawn, a futuristic survival sim from the devs behind Surviving Mars that launches into early access today. The game puts you in charge of four survivors who’ll be up against the basic demands of continuing to exist, and facing dangerous alien creatures.

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Call Of Duty fans are getting worked up about whether there’ll be a new game in the military shooter series next year, as a yearly instalment has been tradition since 2005. Bloomberg’s Jason Schreier has waded in to allege that, while there will be some fresh COD in the offing, it’ll be in the form of something like a paid expansion for the upcoming Call Of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 instead of a full game. A Modern Warfare 2.5, if you will.

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The Saints Row reboot sees its first major update next month, but don’t expect any new stuff in Santo Ileso to play around with. Devs Volition insist this one’s just concentrating on hunting down and squashing the game’s many bugs. As we noted when it was released in August, Saints Row has rather a few technical issues. While Volition say this means they’re not at the stage where they can be “talking about roadmaps and expansions”, they are at least releasing a free cosmetic pack this week that includes some boots that look like bananas.

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After announcing a four-player co-op mode will be coming to Gotham Knights next month, Warner Bros. Montreal has shared another piece of less exciting news: The game will run at 30 frames per second on console with no performance mode option.

The announcement was made via the official Gotham Knights Discord server by the game's executive producer Fleur Marty. She confirmed that the game will not provide an option to switch between a high-quality graphics mode and a performance mode which will raise the frame rate.

"Due to the types of features we have in our game, like providing a fully untethered co-op experience in our highly detailed open world," Marty writes, "it's not as straightforward as lowering the resolution and getting a higher frame rate." Marty continues by confirming that Gotham Knights "does not have a performance/quality toggle option" and will run at "30 FPS on consoles."

The news follows the confirmation of a four-player co-op mode, called Heroic Assault, which will be added to the game for free on November 29. Heroic Assault will feature 30 levels of enemies and objectives for up to four players to challenge, joining the game's two-player co-op story mode.

Mei in Overwatch 2 faced one of the biggest hero nerfs when Blizzard removed the freeze effect from her primary weapon. That leaves her with just one average DPS ability that can’t handle multiple threats at once. While Mei fans might think that’s the end of the road for Mei, she still has a strong role to play in battle. Here's how best to play Mei in Overwatch 2.

Mei overview

Mei is a hybrid support and DPS character whose abilities can inflict debuffs on enemies and help control the battlefield. Her primary weapon slows foes down, while her Ice Wall ability can divide the opposing team, block passageways, and even provide a temporary shield for your party depending on the situation. Unlike some DPS heroes, Mei can heal herself in a pinch, blocking all incoming damage and restoring her HP. Where Mei struggles is against more than one opponent, since her attacks are slow and can only target one enemy at a time.

Pokemon Go players will soon have a new challenge to pursue (literally), as Niantic has announced Elite Raids, a brand-new type of raid that can only be challenged in-person.

Elite Raids are special raids that will randomly be inserted into existing gyms within Pokemon Go. Once they appear in a gym, the special Elite Raid egg will take 24 hours to hatch, meaning players in the area will have a full day to organize if they wish to challenge the raid. Once the 24 hours are up and the egg has hatched, the Pokemon inside will only be available to challenge for 30 minutes.

The first Elite Raid will feature Hoopa Unbound, a powered-up version of the Kalos region's legendary Pokemon Hoopa. Both Pokemon originally appeared in Pokemon Go during the Season of Mischief in late 2021, with Hoopa Confined made available to Trainers after completing a special questline.

The Elite Raid announcement follows the reveal of Pokemon Go's Halloween event, which will take place across two parts beginning October 20. The event will introduce Ghost- and Dark-type Pokemon into the wild, including a brand-new Mega Raid in Mega Banette, while also increasing the amount of Candy earned through catching or hatching Pokemon.

Pokemon Go is available to download now for free on iOS and Android devices.

Warhammer 40,000: Darktide opened a beta today, which will run through the weekend and end on October 16.

The three-day beta is technically closed, however anyone can sign up via Steam for a chance to get access. Developer Fatshark will let in more players over the weekend, so it's worth signing up if you are interested. Relevant streamers have also been given access to the beta and may give away keys as part of their livestreams.

Darktide is a first-person four-player co-op action game a la Warhammer Vermintide, which was also developed by Fatshark. Vermintide is set in Warhammer's medieval fantasy setting, while Darktide takes place in the far-future, space-facing world of 40K. Vermintide let you take control of specific characters, each with an associated class. In Darktide, you make your own character and customize their class and backstory. The game intends to add more replayability and flexibility to the Vermintide formula, adding a loot system and expanding on level variants. If you don't get into the beta or want a sense how it plays, you can read GameSpot's preview of Darktide or check out 11 minutes of Psyker class gameplay footage.

Warhammer 40K: Darktide releases on November 30 on PC. An Xbox Series X|S release date is upcoming and the game will be featured on Game Pass.

Reinhardt in Overwatch 2 is the same sturdy tank as ever, causing headaches for the enemy team with his strong shield and rocket hammer. This time around, with just one tank on your team, Reinhardt’s task is a bit different, though. Protecting remains his forte, but you want to pair it with a strong offensive plan to help push past the enemy and seize victory. Here's how to best play as Reinhardt in Overwatch 2.

Reinhardt Overview

Reinhardt is a mighty force on the battlefield and one of the ultimate defenders. His powerful barrier can withstand heavy assaults and keep your team safe while they push forward to claim the objective, and anyone who gets too close gets treated to the taste of Reinhardt’s hefty rocket hammer. The tank does struggle with long-range combat and can be easily overwhelmed in the wrong circumstances, so don’t make the mistake of leaving him alone too long. Reinhardt works better with a team and, ideally, a healer nearby to make up for his lack of self-sustaining abilities.

Tracer in Overwatch 2 remains one of the most versatile DPS characters and a change from your usual strikers. While Tracer can still wrack up the damage counters, her biggest utility is in flanking, confusing, and distracting the enemy. Just make sure to watch her back. Tracer won’t last long in a direct fight.Here's all you need to know if you're planning on making this front-and-center hero your main.

Tracer overview

Tracer is a DPS hero who prioritizes speed over fancy weaponry. Her pulse pistols are the only damage-dealing ability she has, outside her ultimate, which means she can take a bit of getting used to if you’re expecting something like a fast Soldier 76. However, Tracer’s speediness is even more useful in Overwatch 2 than it ever was, as flanking and quick maneuvers take on more important roles and digging in with your tank is a thing of the past.

Tracer abilities

• Pulse Pistols: Unleashes rapid-fire blasts from two pistols
• Blink: Tracer teleports horizontally in the indicated direction. Can be used three times consecutively
• Recall: Returns Tracer to a few seconds earlier in time
• Pulse Bomb: Tracer throws a bomb that attaches to a character or surface and explodes after a few seconds

Now you see them

Tracer’s Blink ability makes her one of the fastest characters in the game. Unlike Genji, whose dash ability only works once before going on a long cooldown, Tracer can use hers almost constantly, as Blink has three charges. It only takes three seconds to restore one charge, so you can dash in and out of danger before enemies can even react.

Nvidia "unlaunched" the 12GB RTX 4080 after community backlash concerning the shared name with the 16GB RTX 4080.

In a blog post on the Nvidia website, the company explained, "The RTX 4080 12GB is a fantastic graphics card, but it’s not named right. Having two GPUs with the 4080 designation is confusing." The post also confirms that the 16GB model is on track to release on November 16.

The 12GB model was original planned to launch alongside the 16GB model. Despite having the same name, the two GPUS are quite different under the hood, which caused confusion and criticism. The 16GB GDDR6X memory model has 76 RT cores, 9,728 CUDA cores, and a memory with a 22Gbps throughput and 256-bit bus. The 12GB GDDR6X memory model has 60 RT, 7,680 CUDA, and a slower memory with 21Gbps throughput and 192-bit bus. The difference also shows up in price. The 16GB will start at $1199 and the 12GB would have started at $899. Additionally, according to a report from the Hardware Times, the 12GB 4080 only outperformed the 3080 model by 12% and ran slower than the 3090 Ti.

The unlaunch means that there will not be a mid-range graphics card alongside alongside the 16GB 4080. There has been no word as to whether Nvidia will release the 12GB 4080 under a different name.

Overwatch 2's launch earlier this month wasn't exactly smooth, but the game has reached a massive new player milestone right out of the gate. Blizzard announced that the free-to-play shooter hit 25 million players in 10 days. The studio used the "mind-blown" emoji to describe the player number.

"Thank you to the 25 million players who have now jumped into Overwatch 2 with us," Blizzard said.

In a press release, Blizzard said Overwatch 2's daily player base is spread "near-even" across the Americas, EMEA, and Asia, and this is nearly triple the previous daily player peak numbers for the original Overwatch.

Blizzard also added that new hero Kiriko has proven popular with Overwatch 2 players so far, noting that her Kitsune Rush ability was used more than 2 million times in the first week.

What's more, Blizzard announced that players are getting special bonuses for their "enduring support" of Overwatch 2 and its issues since launch. Anyone who logs in from October 25 to the end of Season 1 will get the new Cursed Captain Reaper legendary skin and a Health Pack weapon charm. Additionally, there will be double XP weekends on tap, including:

Overwatch 2 is now available as a free-to-play game, letting anyone jump into the hero shooter. While the game has had some server issues and bugs, the launch has transitioned the original Overwatch into Overwatch 2. This brings a ton of new content, like the brand-new Push game mode, but it also brings back all of the heroes from the original Overwatch. Included in that roster is D.Va, a tank hero that operates a large mech. Here's how to best play D.Va in Overwatch 2.

D.Va overview

D.Va is a pilot inside a mech costume, which means whenever you run out of health, the pilot is ejected from the mech. This gives you the opportunity to deal damage and earn back the mech, which can be faster than respawning in some circumstances. D.Va is armed with two machine guns that have unlimited ammo, along with rockets, and a defense matrix that absorbs projectiles. The mech also has the ability to fly for a short period of time. D.Va has a high damage output for a tank, but doesn't have as much sustainability as other tanks.

D.Va abilities

Fusion Cannons (mech): Automatic short-range spread weapons.

Light Gun (pilot): Automatic pistol.

Boosters (mech): Fly in the direction you are facing.

Defense Matrix (mech): Block projectiles in the area in front of you.

Micro Missiles (mech): Launch a volley of explosive rockets.

Self-Destruct ultimate (mech): Eject and overload your mech, causing it to explode.

EA Sports was once synonymous with golf through its Tiger Woods series of golf sims, but that partnership ended, with EA later trying to revive the series with Rory McIlroy as the cover star. That didn't work out so well, and EA hasn't released a golf game on console since 2015. But that's about to end, as EA Sports PGA Tour is coming in Spring 2023, promising a lot.

This is all happening with the backdrop of the upheaval in professional golf with the controversial LIV Golf tournament series taking aim at the PGA Tour and stirring things up. EA Sports PGA Tour is going ahead despite all of this, and fans are hoping it’s a return to form.

We still don't know too much about EA Sports PGA Tour--only a very brief gameplay trailer has been released thus far--but it's never too early to get excited for the new golf game. Here are are rounding up everything we know about EA Sports PGA Tour.

Release Date And Platforms

EA Sports PGA Tour is set for release in Spring 2023 across "next generation platforms," EA said in an official FAQ. This likely means PS5 and Xbox Series X|S, but whether or not the game comes to PC, PS4, Xbox One, or Nintendo Switch remains to be seen.

Apex Legends Mobile's Aftershow battle pass is about to expire, with Season 3: Champions set to launch on October 18 at 5 PM PT / 8 PM ET. But Season 2 still has plenty to give, from the Hyperbeat Seasonal Shop to the Aftershow event hub. In fact, a new event was added to the hub this week, and it might be the best event of the season.

The 7 Day Login Streak event is exactly what it sounds like: Log in to the game for seven days and unlock a different prize each day. There have been other login events this season, but this one has far better rewards than previous login events.

The rewards you'll gain for completing each day of the challenge are as follows:

Apex Legends Season 15 is fast approaching as the final month of Season 14 begins to come to a close. Season 15 will likely be the final season of Apex Legends Year 4, meaning--if tradition holds--developer Respawn will be adding a new battle royale map in the upcoming season alongside a new playable legend, battle pass, and story-driven Quest.

The potential of a fifth battle royale map raises several questions as to how Respawn is going to handle map rotations going forward. As of right now, only one battle royale map leaves Apex Legends' map rotation per seasonal split, leaving three maps in each rotation. If a fifth map is added, will the seasonal rotation be bumped up to four maps or will Apex Legends start having two maps out of rotation each split? We'll have to wait and see.

In the meantime, we can at least talk about what we do know about Season 15. Below, we cover everything we know about Apex Legends Season 15 so far, including when the new season starts, who the new legend is, and where the new map is located.

Start date

Respawn has not officially confirmed the start date for Apex Legends Season 15, but we can look to the patterns of recent seasons to make an educated guess. New Apex Legends seasons typically start the day that the previous season ends. In this case, Season 14 concludes on November 1, so it stands to reason that Season 15 will start on November 1.

Sky: Children of the Light's development team has announced that its new season will be a collaboration with Norwegian musician Aurora, fittingly titled the Season of Aurora. The new season is set to arrive on October 17, bringing with it a new story told through song, four new Spirits, and plenty of new cosmetic items.

The new season will feature Aurora herself as the season's Guide, who can be found in the Valley of Triumph's Coliseum. Aurora will be joined by four new seasonal Spirits who are the quest-givers for the season. The seasonal quests will each have a story written by Aurora and told through song in a way that fleshes out the world of Sky. The quests can be completed multiple times by returning to the starting point.

The new items coming for this season include new masks, capes, outfits, and new musical sheets that will allow players to play Aurora's music on their in-game instruments.

Some of these cosmetics will be available to all players who play through the season content, but to unlock all of the items, players will have to unlock the $10 season pass. Extra items will also be available directly from the shop such as the Runaway hairstyle and outfit, and the Tiara We Can Touch accessory.