Eurogamer

Tonight's Resident Evil showcase was heavy on news about the upcoming Resident Evil Village, which was announced for release on 7th May 2021.

As well as PC, PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series S/X, Village will also be released on the same date for PlayStation 4 and Xbox One, Capcom confirmed (which had been uncertain until now).

Excitingly, PS5 owners can play a non-combat demo set in Village's castle area from tonight. This slice stars a new character named The Maiden trying to escape the area, and is designed to show off the game's visuals, atmosphere and environmental detail.

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Sea of Thieves' previously revealed battle pass will launch its first season of player progression and rewards next Thursday, 28th January.

The battle pass - intended to offer a "tangible sense of progress", even when engaging in shorter sessions according to Rare - will feature 100 progress levels (with associated seasonal rewards) that can be unlocked through exploration, adventuring, and combat. There's also talk of pirate trials "that celebrate...existing content and encourage you to play in new ways".

Notably, this new seasonal model also marks a shift in development strategy for the multiplayer pirate game. Instead of delivering new content on a monthly basis, as it did previously, Rare will now release new features every three months, at the start of each new season.

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Should you wish to expand your increasingly insurmountable back catalogue still further, Epic has announced the next two freebies it'll be featuring on its store, starting with Galactic Civilizations 3 and continuing with gravity flipping platformer Dandara next week.

Galactic Civilizations 3 is developer Stardock's space-based 4X strategy game, which proved good enough to earn itself a twinkling Recommended badge when it fell under the Eurogamer review-o-matic's gaze back in 2015.

"If you've sunk hundreds of hours into GalCiv 2, it may seem early on like you're playing an HD upgrade rather than a sequel," wrote reviewer Richie Shoemaker, "but once ship production is in full swing and the fleets are massing on the borders, you start to appreciate all that is new...[it's] well deserving of the GalCiv name and offers enough in the way of traditional features and modern scalability to secure the series' place at the very top of the 4X tech tree".

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Firaxis has released a deep dive video revealing Vietnam for Civilization 6.

Vietnam, which is part of the New Frontier Pass due out 28th January, is led by Bà Triệu, also known as Triệu Thị Trinh or Lady Triệu. Bà Triệu fought against the occupation of northern Vietnam by the Wu Kingdom in the early 200s AD.

Vietnam's unique ability is Nine Dragon River Delta, which makes all land speciality districts only buildable on rainforest, marsh or woods tiles. Buildings on each type of tile receive either additional science, production or culture. This ability also allows woods to be planted with the Medieval Faires civic.

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In the world of Cyberpunk 2077, you can swap out your boring, run-of-the-mill human bones for an endoskeleton at the drop of a hat. It's so quick and painless, you won't even know it's happening. No, seriously: when you decide to install some cyberware at the Ripperdoc, almost nothing happens. The lack of a cutscene or appearance change for most of Cyberpunk 2077's cyberware has disappointed a fair number of players, myself included - and while visible changes appear with a couple of hand and arm mods, even these are fairly subtle. Where are the big red mechanical arms I was expecting? Why can't I have that NPC's robot legs?

Luckily, PC modders are here to help.

Over the last few weeks, modders on Nexus Mods have been hard at work opening up further customisation options for players, be it the ability to change your haircut and appearance mid-game, or access some of the fancy clothes normally locked to Night City's NPCs. There's even a way to get your hands on some Trauma Team gear. But the thing that excites me the most is this: modders have created several different ways for you to visibly modify your body.

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SNK has released a gameplay video for King of Fighters 15's sleepy pillow-lover Meitenkun.

The video below is much better than last week's Shun'ei gameplay, which was so packed with jump cuts it was hard to get a good idea of how the character works.

The Meitenkun gameplay, however, gives us a decent look at his moveset and combos. As in King of Fighters 14, Meitenkun is a sleepy young fighter who always holds a pillow. He's sort of like a drunken master archetype - except instead of being pissed, Meitenkun is just knackered.

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Frogwares is currently beavering away on Sherlock Holmes Chapter One - the latest entry in its well-regarded deduction-focussed adventure series - and as it works toward a PlayStation, Xbox, and PC launch later this year, the developer has shed a little more light on what's in store.

Sherlock Holmes Chapter One, as we learned when it was announced last year, serves as a prequel to Frogwares' earlier Sherlock Holmes games, rewinding the clock to Holme's days as a fresh-faced, 21-year-old in order to chart the events that would lead him to a life of sleuthing.

Chapter One marks a deliberate shift away from the fog-shrouded London streets of previous games, with its third-person, open-world investigatory action taking place on a sunny, Mediterranean-inspired island - riddled with class divides and corruption - as Sherlock, with the help of best friend Jonathan, investigates the death of his mother.

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Traditionally, the cross-gen period - the awkward transition from one set of consoles to the next - hasn't really worked out. There's the sense that the next-gen versions aren't necessarily everything they could be, while the software served up to owners of the older consoles often verged on the unplayable. But as move from PS4 to PS5, from Xbox One to Xbox Series, it's clear that we're seeing something very different this time around. IO Interactive's Hitman 3 shows that cross-gen can actually work out just fine, and there's the feeling that prior generation consoles are being pushed closer to their ultimate limits, while simultaneously, massive gains are achieved when playing on PS5 and Xbox Series X.

Of course, Hitman 3 is a game with additional interest for us, because IO's excellent Glacier Engine has evolved, bringing impressive new features into the technology - while at the same time back-porting those innovations to the entirety of the Hitman trilogy. It's to IO's credit that with each Hitman release, and with each iteration of Glacier, existing content has been ported to the latest game, benefitting from the engine upgrades. It's doubly useful for Hitman 3 played on a next-gen console because the baseline improvements are so profound, it's effectively both a new game and a next-gen remaster of the older releases.

Previously-unseen concept art from cancelled BioWare project Revolver has been posted online by artist Matt Rhodes.

Revolver, a spiritual successor to Jade Empire, was never officially announced. Bits and pieces about it surfaced over the years, before BioWare finally went into detail on the game in its recent 25th anniversary book.

Set in the near-future, the project was designed to spread BioWare's trademark narrative and character-driven efforts across a more open-world and action-heavy setting. Huh, sounds familiar.

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Puzzle Quest 3 is in development, publisher 505 Games has announced.

This is a brand new free-to-play entry in the popular puzzle-RPG franchise, and the first game released by 505 after it bought Puzzle Quest developer Infinity Plus Two. The teaser trailer is below:

According to the official blurb, Puzzle Quest 3 returns to its origins, "recalling the deep RPG mechanics and signature heroic storylines that made the original a standout hit within the Match-3 category".

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The United Nations has made a game about the importance of the ozone layer.

Reset Earth is a mobile game designed to give players a better understanding of the role of the ozone layer in protecting the planet. It's due out on the App Store and Google Play on 10th February. The trailer is below:

The game itself is a single-player platformer with hand-drawn art. You switch between characters and use their abilities across four levels. Puzzles aim to educate players about environmental history and the science of protecting the planet.

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In a certain kind of game I am always called AAA. Not because I am good, or because I am screaming - often I am screaming - but because defeat rockets me out of the game, through the leaderboard name input and back into another round before I can stop stabbing the GO button, whatever button that may be. Bezier: Second Edition has just launched on Switch. It's a reworked take on the brilliant PC game from - jeepers, 2016! This is that dense, personal kind of game so filled with treats I don't want to spoil much, but I can at least tell you this: chances are good that in this game your name will be AAA too.

Bezier's superficially described as an unusual take on Geometry Wars or Robotron. It's a twin-stick shooter with a luminous aesthetic, an arcade treat in which you are a point of light pursued by other points of light. But Bezier is far weirder. It has bosses and lore and odd terminology. It has enemies who put me in mind of deep-space objects one second and those strange little fish who will follow your finger across the glass of a tank in another. It's Robotron in love with Terrance Dicks and Nicholas Fisk rather than John Carpenter and Paul Verhoeven. The booming voices! The sense that things are a joke and also not a joke. The ingenious, retro-tinged way you choose which level to go to next. Throw in a bit of Berzerk too.

In the aftermath of the deadly riot that saw Trump supporters storm the US Capitol building, several social media and video-sharing platforms announced bans and suspensions for President Donald Trump's accounts. One of these was Twitch, which on 8th January announced it had disabled President Trump's channel - and the company has now confirmed Trump has been permanently banned from the platform.

"We have indefinitely suspended President Trump's Twitch channel due to the ongoing risk of further incitement of violence," Twitch said in a statement to IGN. "The President's statements continue to be interpreted as calls to action, and we are taking this action to remove the potential for harm to our community and the general public."

It seems Twitch intends to initiate wider change on the platform, however, and will be making further changes to its policies to clamp down on violent rhetoric.

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Herman Miller is a legendary name in office chairs, a Silicon Valley staple often brought up as an alternative to any new gaming chair. Last year though, Herman Miller announced it would be making a gaming chair of its own in cooperation with PC peripherals giant Logitech - the Herman Miller x Logitech G Embody Gaming Chair. As you might expect from the brands involved, this is a super-premium option with an eye-watering sticker price of £1195 - and it's just one part of a three-piece set that also includes the £175 Ollin monitor arm and the £995 Nevin Gaming Desk. Is any gaming furniture worth that kind of money? I've been testing out all three elements to find out - and after five months, I'm prepared to deliver a verdict.

Herman Miller x Logitech G Embody Gaming Chair

Let's just say it up front. The Embody Gaming Chair is by far the most comfortable chair I've ever used, particularly for long working or gaming sessions when you're sat down for extended periods. My back feels better supported, my legs don't ache and in general I look a lot more like that perfect posture guy you see in ergonomics infographics. This is largely down to its unique adjustability options, like a pair of handles that let you pull out more material to make the chair deeper, individual controls for adjusting the upper and lower back support and arm rests that can be splayed out or brought close to the body in addition to being pulled up or down.

Link being able to buy a house in Zelda: Breath of the Wild felt like it was going to be a big deal. Finally, our hero had his foot on the housing ladder. At last, he wouldn't be stuck in his childhood bedroom or living with his Grandma.

But then, as you know, nothing else really happens with it. The house is there if you really want to go back and visit, but there's no real reward for doing so.

Well, Zelda fan Waikuteru has now created a mod with some home improvements (thanks, Nintendo Life). The house hasn't exactly received a Grand Designs makeover, but there are some clever ideas here which would make Link's property purchase a little more useful.

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There's a lot to love about the original Super Mario 3D World, not least seeing lovable explorer Captain Toad become playable for the first time in a set of fun no-combat puzzle levels.

These levels will soon offer four-player multiplayer for the first time, as part of upcoming Switch re-release Super Mario 3D World + Bowser's Fury.

Players can team up and play as four members of the Toad Brigade in local or online multiplayer (Captain Toad, plus his Yellow, Green and Blue sidekicks). Here's a look at that in action:

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That detonator drone. Cor! Drones can be a bit dull in games - stuff to swat away in annoyance in the latest Ubisoft offering, stuff you know is the sort of thing that can probably be picked up at Currys. But in Everspace 2, those drones. Those detonator drones. Lovely.

It's a clever blend. They are Asimov and Popcap, Foundation and Peggle. They come at you and explode. So far, so drone. But as they approach they ring out these escalating notes. I'm back with Jimmy Lightning, the ball bouncing over pins one to three four - Ode to Joy! Except it's inverted. I'm frantic to stop the escalation, to shoot it away or EMP it or dash to safety.

Everspace 2 is the space game I didn't know I wanted. Now it's here I really want it. And I wonder why I wasn't initially that excited.

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Former EA executive Peter Moore has returned to the game industry, joining engine maker Unity as senior vice president of Sports and Live Entertainment.

Moore announced the news on Twitter.

Moore's career in video games began at Sega, where he worked to launch the Dreamcast in North America. He later joined Microsoft to work on the Xbox, displaying tattoos of Halo 2 and Grand Theft Auto 4 during E3 announcements. The video below shows the Halo 2 E3 2004 demo during which Moore showed off his Halo 2 release date tattoo.

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The brilliant Hitman 3 from IO Interactive is here, an ambitious cross-platform project that sees the firm's proprietary Glacier Engine deployed to more target platforms on launch day than we've seen in previous series entries. We'll be taking a closer look at this latest iteration of the engine in more depth soon, examining the enhancements made to the technology and how they play out in Hitman 3's new levels - as well as the legacy missions from the two prior titles, which are all playable within the new game. But in the here and now, it's PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X and Series S that are under the microscope, and it's the first title we've seen where Microsoft's additional hardware investment delivers a tangible spec increase over the competition in a cross-platform game.

But really, where it truly matters, Hitman 3 delivers on all next-gen systems - principally via a commitment to 60 frames per second gaming. In previous Hitman titles on consoles, IO offered users a choice: the ability to play with a 30fps cap, or alternatively to allow frame-rate to run unlocked. On top of that, the enhanced consoles offered both quality and performance modes, with various resolutions. Hitman 3 dispenses with all of this, delivering a flat 60fps performance level on all systems and with no need to choose between quality and performance modes. This time around, last-gen systems are pegged to 30fps instead, with the curious exception of PS4 Pro, which also offers what IO describes as a 1080p60 'frame interpolated' option.

Six months ago, Fall Guys arrived on PlayStation 4 via subscription service PlayStation Plus. Since then, it has been a PlayStation console exclusive, while also being available on PC.

Six months later, it now seems a matter of if not when the breakout battle royale will come to other console platforms, such as Nintendo Switch and Xbox. But when will it happen?

Around a week ago, a bit of light brandter between Fall Guys' cheeky Twitter and the official Xbox UK account set tongues wagging that Fall Guys would arrive on Xbox Game Pass sooner rather than later.

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UPDATE: Valve has issued Eurogamer with a statement disputing the European Commission's claims and vowing to appeal.

A Valve spokesperson told Eurogamer: "During the seven year investigation, Valve cooperated extensively with the European Commission ("EC"), providing evidence and information as requested. However, Valve declined to admit that it broke the law, as the EC demanded. Valve disagrees with the EC findings and the fine levied against Valve.

"The EC's charges do not relate to the sale of PC games on Steam - Valve's PC gaming service. Instead the EC alleges that Valve enabled geo-blocking by providing Steam activation keys and - upon the publishers' request - locking those keys to particular territories ("region locks") within the EEA. Such keys allow a customer to activate and play a game on Steam when the user has purchased it from a third-party reseller. Valve provides Steam activation keys free of charge and does not receive any share of the purchase price when a game is sold by third-party resellers (such as a retailer or other online store).

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Veteran designer Takaya Imamura has left Nintendo after more than three decades at the company.

A post on his Facebook page this afternoon (spotted by Kotaku) noted today was his last day at Nintendo.

Over a career spanning six console generations, Imamura worked on some of Nintendo's biggest franchises such as Donkey Kong and Zelda. His work for the latter included designing the fan-favourite character Tingle, but it's for his creation of the core Star Fox cast of characters that Imamura is best known.

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It's one of the most famous board games of all time, but until recently chess wasn't getting a whole lot of attention on Twitch. That began to change last year, however, when chess streamers started to raise the profile of the game on the streaming platform - and thanks to the release of a certain Netflix series, those numbers have now reached new heights.

In January last year, chess was averaging 3298 concurrent viewers over 24 channels on Twitch, peaking at 29,820 viewers. This month, that average is 24,048, with around 132 channels streaming chess at any one time - reaching a peak viewership of 161,968 on 16th January (via TwitchTracker). That was thanks to the efforts of siblings Alexandra and Andrea Botez, whose BlockChamps event - a crossover tournament with popular Minecraft streamers like Pokimane, LilyPichu and Fundy - pulled in over 91,000 concurrent viewers and over 1m unique views, breaking the chess viewership record for a single stream (via Chess.com).

You've got to really be into your Elder Scrolls lore to want to splash out $1000 on one of these: a 10K gold Ritual of Mara ring.

Bethesda added the ring to its US merch store (it's not on the European store), priced $1000 as a made-to-order, limited time offer that is only available until 14th February 2021. That's Valentine's Day!

Here's the official blurb:

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Fortnite's Champion Series (FNCS), the game's pinnacle competitive series, will dole out a staggering $20m total prize money in 2021.

Players will continue to compete in a cross-platform pool with weekly qualifiers, then semi-finals and finals played out on separate weekends to manage player fatigue.

The first three weekly qualifiers will take place in the first three weeks of February, with semi-finals in the first week of March and finals the week after.

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An astonishing demo build for The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time has turned up fresh details on early ideas for Nintendo's N64 masterpiece - such as Link being able to turn into his fairy Navi.

The demo in question was found on an old N64 development cartridge used to hold Nintendo racer F-Zero X. On further inspection, files relating to a 1997 Zelda demo build were also found, partly saved-over but some very much still intact.

Details have now been excitedly shared by the Forest of Illusion Twitter account, which is dedicated to preserving lost bits of Nintendo history. There's a lot to see.

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Alongside today's release of Hitman 3 is a welcome bonus - a mode that allows you to play through the entirety of IO's World of Assassination trilogy in virtual reality. That it works at all is a wonder, but there are a handful of caveats along the way, so here I'll run through what's good, what's not so good and whether it's worth investing for the VR experience alone.

If you didn't already know, Hitman VR is currently an exclusive for PSVR on PS4 (a timed exclusive, it would seem, though we don't know when exactly other headsets will be supported). If you own any of the Hitman trilogy games on PS5, you will only be able to play them in VR if you download and run the PS4 version of the game. And, if you are playing on PS5, you will need the PS5 PSVR adapter in order to get your headset working on that console. It's a faff, but you can claim the adapter for free from Sony - although it typically takes a couple of weeks to arrive.

What Comes After is a game themed around death, with themes of suicide.

Bertie: I never realised how wise babies can be. When the baby on the train told me it's not that babies don't understand adults, it's the other way around, I felt as though I'd been hit in the face with a profound baby toy. I'd never really thought about it like that before. I always assumed they were the ones who needed teaching - but do they? They seem pretty happy and content with their lot. It's only in the many ways adults complicate things that life becomes more, well, complicated.

This is What Comes After; this is the way the game makes you think. It is a game about life, about reflecting on a life, and waving away all the complexity to enjoy simply being. It's the story of a young lady called Vivi who has lost her way a bit, and one night on the way home from work, on the train, she falls asleep. She literally drifts off, and she finds herself on a spirit version of the same train. A train taking spirits to... what comes after. What follows are many conversations with the once-living on their final journey, and the nuggets of wisdom they have to impart.

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The story of Among Us really is the stuff of fairytales: originally released back in 2018 by a dev team of three, last year it suddenly became one of the most popular titles in the world after several high-profile streamers began to play it. In a year of lockdowns, Among Us appealed to many as a way to entertain themselves on video calls, and even some American politicians got in on the action.

But this massive spike in players brought challenges - a wave of cheaters being one of them - and developer Innersloth had to make some serious changes to the way it worked. In a new blog post, the dev team has addressed why some features are taking longer to implement than some expected.

"Among Us gained incredible traction pretty late into 2020 that we weren't expecting, and that meant a lot of change for us," Innersloth explained. "...Not only did we need to switch back to working on Among Us after thinking it was done, but we also needed to set ourselves up more sustainably to work on the game. We had to spend two months just restructuring, figuring out new processes, and getting external partners to help us manage on board."

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Fan-favourite Assassin's Creed character Shao Jun will get her own manga, to be released in stores and online on 16th February.

Assassin's Creed: Blade of Shao Jun chronicles the latter adventures of the character following her visit to Ezio seen in the short film Assassin's Creed Embers.

Set in 1526 against the backdrop of a great political purge by Emperor Jiajing, the manga sees Shao Jun work on her own to defeat a mysterious group after the rest of her Brotherhood has been killed.

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Fortnite's previously-teased Predator crossover is now fully operational, with the masked hunter available to unlock for current battle pass holders via new challenges.

Predator has also become a roaming boss, able to be found and battled on the battle royale map for all players. Look for him in the appropriately jungle-themed Stealthy Stronghold.

Defeat Predator and it'll drop Predator's Cloaking Device, which lets you become nearly invisible for a short time. If this sounds a bit overpowered, well, this is a supposed to be a reward for killing a tough boss who everyone else is after too.

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Relic has released a 64-bit update for Company of Heroes 2.

The update should result in greater stability and overall performance for the vast majority of players, Relic said in a blog post.

It also enables crossplay between Steam and Microsoft Game Pass / Windows Store users.

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The Borderlands Legendary Collection is going cheap on Amazon as part of a bigger deal around Take 2's games. Including Borderlands 1, 2 and the Pre-Sequel, it's a solid translation of the famous madcap shoot-and-loot sci-fi games (though doesn't include the third games of the series).

Not only that, but there's a sudden glut of notable Switch deals on Amazon right now, including discounts on Mario Odyssey, Hasbro Games and more. Some of them are good, some of them are pretty normal, but we've collated the most worthy ones just below for you to check out yourself.

Those who are looking for more deals can always find them at Eurogamer, with discounts on games, consoles and more. Check out the cheapest places to pre order Pokémon Snap, or find out the latest on PS5 stock availability here! Or you can always head to the Jelly Deals Twitter and follow us for all the best info on deals everywhere.

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Guerrilla has released a significant patch for Horizon Zero Dawn on PC that combats many of the remaining issues players had with the game.

Patch 1.10 introduces crash fixes and performance improvements reported by the game's community, Guerrilla said.

There are a raft of graphical improvements, too.

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Imagine you're walking down an English country lane one evening when you're struck by the feeling you're not alone. You turn, and a few yards away you see, in the fading light of day, the shape of what can only be described as a big black dog. It has shaggy hair and huge eyes, and it's watching you.

You walk on, trying to shrug it off, but every time you look back, it's there. Fear begins to creep in and you quicken your pace. You're nearly running when you reach your destination and, in a rush of courage, spin to confront your pursuer. But it's gone, vanished.

"Oh, yeah," one of the locals later tells you, completely unsurprised. "You've just seen a black dog."

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Developer Inbetweengames' acclaimed All Walls Must Fall, an alternate-future tactics game blending Cold War espionage with the dance floor decadence of Berlin's nightclub scene, is making it way to Switch tomorrow, 20th January.

Originally released back in 2018, All Walls Must Fall's rhythmic time-meddling action is gleefully high concept, unfolding in the Berlin of 2089, where the Cold War never ended.

Here, agents on both sides are caught in a never-ending temporal loop, hopping around the timeline to thwart each other's next move. That translates to a supremely stylish tactical adventure that, for no obvious reason beyond the fact it looks incredibly cool, sets each mission to the pounding techno beats and pulsating lights of a labyrinthine Berlin nightclub.

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Developer Rebellion is bringing the second season of its undead shooter Zombie Army 4: Dead War to a close today, 19th January, with the launch of Dead Zeppelin, the third and final instalment in its Death from Above story campaign.

Dead Zeppelin, which follows on from Season 2's debut episode Damnation Valley in October and Alpine Blitz in December, sees players boarding an undead airship to thwart the zombie army's evil plans. You can catch a glimpse of the ensuing carnage in the launch trailer below.

Season 2's concluding campaign episode is accompanied by the usual selection of cosmetic items and weapon bundles, including the Night Ops Jun Outfit, Toxic Hazard Weapon Skins, Black Ice Weapon Skins, Horror Charms Pack, Buckets Headgear Pack, 7.65mm Polizeipistole Pistol Bundle, and Nagant M1895 Pistol Bundle - all available to purchase individually or included in Zombie Army 4's Season Pass Two.

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Balan Wonderworld, the whimsical new action-platformer from Sonic the Hedgehog and NiGHTs co-creators Yuji Naka and Naoto Ohshima, is getting a sizeable demo next Thursday, 28th January, ahead its full launch in March.

Balan Wonderworld - which is set to release on PS4, PS5, Xbox One, Xbox Series X/S, Switch, and PC - takes place in the mysterious Balan Theatre, where "memories and vistas from the real-world mix with the things that people hold dear".

The ensuing platform action unfolds across 12 distinct worlds, each created by the worries of a different cast member, and is bolstered by over 80 wearable costumes, all imbued with their own unique abilities - from the fiery breath of a dragon to a sheep's inflatable, floating fleece.

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Firaxis has detailed the contents of Civilization 6's fifth New Frontier Pass DLC update, which arrives next Thursday, 28th January, bringing new leader Kublai Khan, new civilisation Vietnam, an economy-focussed game mode known as Monopolies and Corporations, and more.

The developer says it's saving a more detailed breakdown of Vietnam, described as a "culture and terrain focussed" civilisation, for an upcoming First Look video, but teases that it'll be lead by a still-mysterious "god-like figure whose achievements have become stuff of legend" that's known for their "bravery, guerrilla tactics, and deadly temper".

Also scheduled for a more thorough First Look reveal is the "jolly but ruthless conquerer" Kublai Khan, an alternative leader for the China and Mongolia civilisations, whose abilities are said to create "new and unique opportunities" during play.

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If you hadn't yet noticed, Rust is having a bit of a moment. Although it's been around since 2013, the survival multiplayer is experiencing a resurgence in popularity after a bunch of high-profile streamers set up private server together. The streamers, including Shroud, Pokimane, Myth, XQc and more, have all uploaded their own perspectives of the island (even creating their own factions), making for compelling viewing - and seriously boosting Rust's player count in the process.

Prior to the recent surge in popularity, Rust's previous Steam concurrent players record stood at 125k in April 2020 (coinciding with coronavirus lockdowns), but on 8th January it smashed that record by peaking at 201,497 players. The numbers have continued to rise over the last week, and as spotted by PCGamesN, the game hit 244,394 concurrent players on 16th January - breaking that record yet again.

All this, of course, seems to be paying off very nicely for Rust developer Facepunch, with studio founder Garry Newman revealing the studio had made over $1m (£734k) on two days in one week. With the player count showing no sign of declining, I imagine this is going to be an extremely good month for the game. And we haven't even had the Rust console launch yet.

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