Eurogamer

The PC version of Crash Bandicoot 4 launched exclusively on Battle.net yesterday - and players weren't exactly thrilled to discover it's always-online.

Crash Bandicoot 4, which does not have any online multiplayer, requires an internet connection to play on PC - as seems to be standard practice with Battle.net games.

Players have reported issues with this requirement, such as login errors that force the game to close. These login errors reportedly present themselves even when your internet drops while playing. It also means that any issues Blizzard experiences with its authentication servers could make the game unplayable.

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THQ Nordic is taking on the long-running Football Manager series with a football management sim of its own it describes as "a throwback to classic traditional management games".

We Are Football is from German studio Winning Streak Games. It was co-founded by Gerald Köhler, the creator of the On the Ball football manager series, which was a big hit in Germany in the early '90s.

The debut We Are Football trailer is below:

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Microsoft held an ID@Xbox showcase last night, and as part of it listed 22 games coming to Xbox Game Pass.

Some of the games in the list below are already out on PC (Art of Rally, for example), and some we already knew were set to launch into Xbox Game Pass at launch (Narita Boy, for example). But there are 15 additions here, including the just-announced Nobody Saves the World, so it's well worth shining a light on what's coming down the content pipe.

My personal highlights here are Art of Rally, which Martin had good things to say about in our review, 1980s-themed side-scroller Narita Boy, which I've had my eye on for some time now, and Stalker 2, which is doing interesting things with its teeth. Chris Tapsell previewed Drinkbox's Nobody Saves the World yesterday, saying it "has all the lurid zip and levity of Guacamelee, with an RPG twist". And Emma was positive about Recompile, "a Metroidvania that makes hacking look beautiful."

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Rust Console Edition launches 21st May on PlayStation 4 and Xbox One.

Double Eleven, the Middlesbrough-based developer and publisher of Rust on console, said the standard edition costs £39.99. The deluxe edition, which costs £49.99, includes three days of early access, closed beta access, staging branch access, the Welcome Pack, and the Future Weapons and Tools Pack.

Then there's the £69.99 ultimate edition, which includes everything in the deluxe edition but also an upgraded Welcome Pack, 1100 Rust Coins, and an Elite Combat Skin Pack.

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As a Mauritian who loved Super Mario Sunshine back in its day, I could already see the many similarities Super Mario Sunshine has to Mauritius.

Sunshine is a game that sold relatively well but remains divisive amongst Super Mario fans. The game starts with Mario, Peach and Toadsworth arriving on Isle Delfino where they aim to enjoy a nice relaxing holiday. This of course is not what happens, and Mario is soon framed and wrongly imprisoned for spreading a goop-like substance and attendant monsters across the island. Mario the polluter! It's then Mario's task, and yours, to clean up the island with his new mechanical water shooting weapon, F.L.U.D.D.

The tropical island setting, the happy inhabitants, the holiday destination feel. How could I not think of Mauritius? I return to my very own Delfino Island of a home country every other year - apart from last year for the obvious reasons. And this is where it gets spooky. It may be a stretch to say that a decades old Mario game predicted exactly what happened in Mauritius last year, but the more I look into it...?

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Artisan Studios has unveiled Astria Ascending, a new Japanese-style RPG being developed in conjunction with Final Fantasy 7 writer Kazushige Nojima and FF12 composer Hitoshi Sakimoto.

Astria Ascending casts players as one of the eight demigods - guardians of Harmony charged with protecting the world of Orcanon from the mysterious Noises.

There's plenty more scene-setting in the trailer below - including mention of the delightfully named "Harmelon", an instinct-suppressing melon used to maintain harmony across the land - but the gist is that it's a side-on, turn-based RPG with some very nice hand-drawn art.

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Variable State, the developer behind 2016's small town mystery adventure Virginia, has offered a closer look at its upcoming supernatural anthology drama Last Stop in a new gameplay trailer.

Last Stop, which was unveiled back in 2019, is described as a game about "secret lives, the ties that bind, and how magic can be found in the mundane". It tells three occasionally interweaving stories set in modern day London, each focussing on a different cast of characters.

Variable State's latest look at Last Stop hones in one of those characters, John - an "overworked middle-aged single dad" who, thanks to the aforementioned supernatural malarky, has accidentally swapped bodies with his next door neighbour Jack. The pair must work together to return to their original bodies and lives.

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Monster Hunter Rise has only just arrived on Switch, but already Capcom is talking up the game's first major post-launch update. Version 2.0, as it's known, will release toward the end of April, bringing new monsters, an unlocked HR cap, and more.

As confirmed on the game's official website, Monster Hunter Rise's first Free Title Update will expand the current creature roster by welcoming in Chameleos - a mist-themed Elder Dragon that debuted in 2006's Monster Hunter 2. This, incidentally, is the same upcoming monster referred to as Onazuchi by the game's Japanese Twitter feed.

Chameleos will be joined by "several" additional new monsters in April's Version 2.0 update, one of which will be the Apex Rathalos, as revealed at the end of Rise's launch trailer below.

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In amongst today's ID@Xbox fiesta you'll have likely clocked Death's Door, a game where a small, sword-wielding crow has it out with a rocket-fuelled cathedral, amongst other things. This is the new game from Acid Nerve, the two-man studio behind the tense, one-hit boss-hunter Titan Souls. It's coming to Xbox and PC soon-ish - "We're getting to the last stages now, just polishing and bug fixing, so we're expecting it to be out this summer," designer David Fenn tells me - and it looks extremely good.

The premise - not that this kind of spicy crow-on-chateau action needs much embellishment - is that the little bird is a reaper, who has to go about collecting souls from people in a world where people and things no longer naturally die. You report to some weary bureaucrats, also crows, who need to keep doing this soul-harvesting job to survive themselves, but then one day one of your big souls gets stolen, which is not good, and off you go: laser cathedral. Boss frog. Waves of gelatinous blobs and bubbling hazards in a weirdly touchable, gothic plasticine world.

Its Titan Souls lineage seems clear, obviously in those structured, big-on-small boss fights, but also in the slightly mournful tone between the action (I saw a slightly different bit of footage to that one above, with a bit more of the combat - it looks very, very good). And yet Death's Door is actually pretty different. "Kind of the opposite," in fact, as fellow designer Mark Foster puts it. Titan Souls was built on a single, very specific idea: a game jam prompt of "you only get one" that gave what Fenn called a kind of "textbook indie elegance - where there's really no words, there's no UI, everything is like as efficient as minimal as possible."

Playtonic Friends, the new publishing label from Yooka-Laylee developer Playtonic, has confirmed its first game. It's Demon Turf from Fabraz, the developer of the excellent twitch platformer Slime-san.

As detailed in today's ID@Xbox Showcase, Demon Turf will be launching this summer on Steam, Nintendo Switch and Xbox.

Described as a "3D platformer with attitude", you can try a free version, Demon Turf: Trials, on Steam right now. It contains two levels from the game, a tutorial, and a weekly trial.

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There's a kind of innocence to some humour, an innocence it needs in order to work. You realise this when you think about Guacamelee, Drinkbox's breakout PS Vita hit - a game with these strange things called "memes" in it, a game named with a pun. I feel like we probably wouldn't enjoy a game with memes in it in 2021 - they're familiar now and sort of oddly important, and so you lose the innocence. But Drinkbox has kept the innocence elsewhere with Nobody Saves the World. It's another silly, but also seemingly very good, game that's built on humour first and clever evolution of genre just behind it, and another game named with a pun.

You play as someone called Nobody in Nobody Saves the World, which drops the wrestling metroidvania costume of Guacamelee (barring a few familiarly chicken-sized tunnels) for the fantastical cloak of a dungeon-crawling action RPG. It's not the genre I expected, after battering my way through Guacamelee, but it's a result of the studio wanting to keep "engaged and creative," as lead designer Ian Campbell put it, and the result is a game that feels the same: energetic and zippy and full of snap.

Developer Mimimi Games' superb stealth tactics game Shadow Tactics: Blade of the Shogun is getting a standalone expansion. It's called Aiko's Choice and is coming to PC later this year.

Aiko's Choice returns players to gorgeous Edo period Japan, giving them control of kunoichi adept Aiko - one of the protagonists featured in the main game - alongside her playable assassin pals, each with their own unique skill sets.

Stealth is once more the order of the day and players will have a range of tools at their disposal as they assist Aiko in her quest (which can be tackled across three difficulty settings) to hunt down a vicious enemy from her past.

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Crash Bandicoot mobile spin-off On The Run is off to a speedy start on the iOS App Store and Google Play.

The free-to-play runner was downloaded 8.1m times yesterday, 25th March, according to Sensor Tower data shared with Eurogamer. Since 23rd March, when it released early on the iOS App Store in some regions, it has accumulated 11.4m downloads total.

How does that stack up? Well, it's much higher than the launch of King's last big release, Candy Crush Friends Saga, which generated 1.4m downloads on its launch day.

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Veteran Assassin's Creed writer Darby McDevitt is departing Ubisoft, he has announced.

McDevitt most recently served as narrative director on Valhalla, where his work was praised by fans for tying in and tying up various plot-threads from throughout the series' labyrinthine lore.

Among the Assassin's Creed community, McDevitt was celebrated as the franchise's loremaster and its most-recognised figurehead - a title earned through frequent interactions with fans and a resume filled with half a dozen Assassin's Creed games.

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This year's Call of Duty returns to World War 2, according to fresh reports in part verified by Eurogamer.

Modern Warzone reported this year's new Call of Duty is in development at Sledgehammer Games, maker of 2017's well-received Call of Duty: WW2, and is due out late 2021. Eurogamer sources have indicated this is indeed true.

Modern Warzone also reports this game is codenamed Call of Duty WW2: Vanguard, and reports the name will be changed in the future. While this may indeed be the case, Eurogamer understands Activision's current plan is to stick with the Vanguard subtitle for the final version.

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UPDATE 26/3/21: As promised, Ubisoft has issued a further hotfix to address issues introduced with the start of Assassin's Creed Valhalla's Ostara festival. This will re-enable decorations, and allow you to complete the Easter-like event's quests.

ORIGINAL STORY 21/3/21: Ubisoft has removed newly-added decorations and quests from Assassin's Creed Valhalla after the content caused players' systems to crash.

Ostara Festival arrived in Ravensthorpe earlier this week as part of Valhalla's seasonal free content. Running until 8th April, it features the return of drinking, archery and fighting mini-games and three new questlines let Eivor go egg hunting, fight off night spirits, and become a May Queen, but it's the new settlement decorations that are causing a little trouble.

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Uh oh, it looks like some ranked Apex Legends players are being naughty again, as Respawn has banned two Apex Predators on Xbox who were caught DDoS-ing a server to win a game. Like a real-life drone EMP.

Yesterday, two videos appeared on Reddit showing a game in which a top-ranked Apex Legends player was knocked down, only for the server to then mysteriously crash. How convenient. When the legitimate players reconnected to the server, they found themselves knocked down - and could see the suspicious duo standing over them. The offending fourth and sixth-ranked players were then accused of carrying out a DDoS attack once they started losing in order to get an easy win. (A "distributed denial of service" attack basically overwhelms a server with requests, thus preventing legitimate users from accessing the service.) Given their high placement in Ranked mode, it seems likely the pair had DDoS-ed their way to the top of the leaderboard.

In any case, it seems Respawn agreed with this assessment, as security analyst Conor "Hideouts" Ford confirmed the pair have been banned.

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Blizzard has made a significant change to the options available to those who play World of Warcraft via game time.

In a post on its forum, Blizzard said it had ditched the game time options of 30, 90 and 180 days, leaving the only available purchase option of 60 days.

60 days of game time, which is World of Warcraft's version of a prepaid game card, costs £19.99, and grants you access to World of Warcraft and WoW Classic.

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Hello! Welcome back to our regular feature where we write a little bit about some of the games we've found ourselves playing over the last few days. This time: Puzzling curios, a SNES classic, and a loveable punchy robot.

Some recent chat about the return of Puzzle Quest sent me back to 2009's Gyromancer, an attempt to jump on the original game's bandwagon that's notable for the names behind it: Square Enix and PopCap. It's also notable for being excellent. While not my favourite puzzle RPG of the Xbox Live Arcade era - that honour belongs, of course, to Capybara's mighty Might & Magic: Clash of Heroes - Gryomancer is a wonderfully refined and satisfying design.

It's basically an elaborate reskin of PopCap's classic match-3, Bejeweled Twist, with some Pokémon-style creature collection, levelling and battling layered on top - and fey, ornate, Final Fantasy-inspired artwork and story layered on top of that. It has to be said, it's an ugly clash of aesthetics, but a harmonious mesh of ideas. The cleverest thing about it is the way it builds an entirely single-player battle mechanic that's just you versus the board, so you're never waiting for an AI to take a turn and your greatest enemy is always just your own lack of foresight or elegance. You can pick Gyromancer up for pennies on Steam and it's also available - and fully backwards compatible - on Xbox.

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Platform game Balan Wonderworld released earlier today, but the launch day has been troubled by reports that the final boss fight contains a potential epilepsy risk. Publisher Square Enix has now confirmed that this is a bug in the unpatched version of the game, and warned players to make sure they have the day one patch installed.

The warning comes in response to a video from YouTuber Bigdaddyjende, which showed some potentially hazardous flashing lights in the game's final boss battle. (There's a link here, but please note the footage contains a potential epilepsy trigger, so watch with caution.) It takes the form of a white flashing light, covering the entire screen with a strobe effect. Other videos of the same boss battle, however, did not show the flashing light effect - leading some to speculate that it was some form of bug.

According to Square Enix, the flashing is not intentional and is indeed caused by a bug in the unpatched version of the game.

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The Legend of Zelda: Skyward Sword Joy-Con are now available to pre-order for £70 at various retailers following an announcement in the recent Nintendo Direct.

Although there has been a mixed response to the news that The Legend of Zelda: Skyward Sword HD is coming to Nintendo Switch later this year, many have been waiting to buy the exclusive Joy-Con. Sure, I get it, it's not strictly a deal, but some folk really want these.

They sport a fancy design inspired by the iconic Master Sword and Hylian Shield that Link has wielded in various adventures across the last 35 years.

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The Stalker 2 developers are using a custom teeth tool to make each character's smile unique.

In a new video showing off some of the detailed character and weapon models in Stalker 2, GSC Game World's Zakhar Bocharov said the developers are using a custom tool to remove teeth, or replace teeth with variants such as dental crowns.

This custom teeth tool ensures each character looks completely unique. "Literally every human in Stalker 2 has a one-of-a-kind smile - or grin, I suppose," Bocharov said.

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It's that time of the week again! In the video below, Tom, Emma and I run through the recent headlines that caught our eye in a chinwag of epic proportions. It's the Eurogamer Newscast!

We start with Sony's reported plan to close the PlayStation 3, PSP, and Vita digital stores for good this summer. It's a blow for game preservation, but will it also be a blow to Sony's bottom line? And does Sony have a responsibility to preserve its gaming history in the first place?

Speaking of game preservation, Nintendo's plan to stop selling Super Mario 3D All-Stars in shops and even on the eShop at the end of March gets the full 'what the hell are you playing at, Nintendo?' treatment from the News Cast crew. Seriously, what the hell are you playing at, Nintendo?

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Finding new interests is an exciting thing. We get a taste, decide to further investigate, and before realising it, we're down a rabbit hole. In a literal sense, mine was larger than most. Being gifted Godzilla: Destroy All Monsters Melee one Christmas day, it became my first experience with the King of the Monsters. Placing this iconic character into a 3D fighting game, Pipeworks Studio had a hit, and this soon became a trilogy. Godzilla Unleashed was a disappointing end but, Godzilla: Save The Earth? That was the real sweet spot.

Before I get into the game, it's important to remember Godzilla's historical context. An allegory for nuclear tragedy, he reminds us what such dreadful weapons can do, the impact it held on the Daigo Fukuryū Maru's crew. Most entries contain a political message, but during the late Showa era, that point was lost amidst light-hearted storylines. When Toho started wheeling out alien invasions, champions of Seatopia and a cybernetic space chicken, it didn't land the same way.

These later entries weren't deep, but they brought us some cheesy entertainment. Who could forget Godzilla repeatedly drop-kicking a giant beetle. Melee brought these cheesy aspects on board, and in 2004, Save The Earth built upon it. There wasn't much of a story, though it didn't need one either. The Vortaak had returned, taking control of Earth's monsters once more. Their goal? Obtaining G-Cells, Godzilla's DNA. When G-Cells created known fiends like Orga and SpaceGodzilla, calling his genetics potent would understate matters.

Call of Duty: Black Ops Cold War gets its first weapon tuning update in over three months next week, developer Treyarch has confirmed.

The much needed weapon balance sweep arrives as part of the mid-season update.

Treyarch said the tuning update will make LMG adjustments, and add tuning for the LC10, AK-74u, MAC-10, KSP 45, Milano 821, Krig 6, FFAR 1, Groza, Magnum, 1911, RPG-7, and more.

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Just when you think you've seen it all, Marvel's Avengers gives us zombie robots.

Beyond the puzzling paradox - surely something that has never been alive in the first place cannot, by definition, be brought back to life? - it's a fitting metaphor, I suppose. A free next-gen upgrade and the arrival of a new superhero has breathed new life into Square Enix's hitherto flatlining GaaS superhero adventure. But is it enough to bring it back from the dead?

The TL;DR answer? No, not really.

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Daedalic Entertainment has revealed (brief) gameplay of The Lord of the Rings: Gollum. Check it out in the video teaser below.

Eurogamer had the chance to see a 10-month old build of The Lord of the Rings: Gollum during a recent preview event. There's a heavy emphasis on stealth, with Gollum able to use his heightened senses to "feel sounds in the darkness".

The story revolves around Gollum's attempt to escape Barad Dur, where he has been since he was captured by Sauron. In the footage we saw, Gollum had just made his way through an area infested by spiders, and entered an area higher up from the mines and slave pits under the Barad Dur tower.

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Glitchpunk is Grand Theft Auto 2 meets Cyberpunk - and its developers are pretty open about that.

This top-down open-world action adventure is the debut game from Polish indie studio Dark Lord, which wears its GTA 2 influence on its sleeve. At a recent preview event held by publisher Daedalic, Dark Lord admitting to riffing on DMA Design's 1999 crime kill 'em-up, while adding modern design mechanics.

You take contracts, either succeed or fail, steal vehicles, drive around, run from the police, collect money and shoot guns. "You might find more similarities, and we are very open about not trying to pretend this core experience is much different. In this particular aspect, we want to build on the GTA 2 formula and enhance it with modern UX solutions, like an easier save system, fast contract replays, more wanted levels, easier item management, and more destructible objects."

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The results are in for this year's BAFTA Games Awards, and acclaimed dungeon-crawler Hades has proven to be the big winner of the night, picking up gongs in a total of five categories.

Developer Supergiant Games' Hades came out top in this year's Best Game category, winning out against Half-Life: Alyx, Ghost of Tsushima, and Animal Crossing: New Horizons. It was also hailed as the winner in categories for Narrative, Game Design, and Artistic Achievement, while Logan Cunningham (who voices Hades, Poseidon, Achilles, and many more in the game) took home the top prize as Performer in a Supporting Role.

The Last of Us Part 2, meanwhile, also had a big night; it was named the EE Game of the Year (a category voted for by the public), took home the prize in the Animation category, and Laura Bailey was named Performer in a Leading Role category for her portrayal of Abby.

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Microsoft has unveiled a number of new special edition Xbox Wireless Controllers, which it says marks another step toward more eco-friendly hardware for the company.

The newly revealed Xbox controllers come in two varieties. There's the "high-energy" yellow Electric Volt - which will cost $64.99 USD when it releases on 27th April - and the red, grey, and black Daystrike Camo, which comes with a $69.99 USD price tag and 4th May launch date.

Microsoft is keen to point out these aren't just new colour variants, however; it also draws attention to some production changes that, it says, continues the company's efforts toward becoming "more sustainable across the Xbox product lifecycle".

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Bloodborne is one of the most celebrated platform exclusives for the PlayStation 4, but similar to the original Demon's Souls on PS3, there's the sense that momentum for the series has tailed off, despite enormous critical acclaim. There was never a sequel to the game, and not even a PlayStation 4 Pro upgrade was delivered. In the here and now, if you play Bloodborne on PlayStation 5, you have a 1080p experience at a wobbly 30 frames per second that is barely improved over the PS4 original. However, today, we can show how the game looks running flat out at 60fps via backwards compatibility, along with an additional pass of AI upscaling taking the action up to 4K. Put simply, you've got to see this.

The story behind the video is actually a bit of a saga. Back in May 2020, Digital Foundry showcased an unofficial unlocked fps patch for Bloodborne, coded up by Lance McDonald. McDonald tapped into changes to the code of Dark Souls 3's PS4 Pro patch that enabled an unlocked frame-rate, bringing them into Bloodborne and essentially allowing the game to run at up to 60fps. But the problem was that the game was never designed to run on PS4 Pro, it couldn't tap into all of the power of the machine - boost mode was as far as you could get. A locked 1080p60 was off the table while even 720p60 had issues, presumably because having removed the GPU bottleneck, CPU limitations became the issue. McDonald's patch was released publicly a while ago now and could be run on development PS4 hardware and exploited retail machines.

People Can Fly has issued a stark warning to those who cheated in the Outriders demo, vowing to brand their HUD with a watermark if they keep it up when the game launches proper.

"We can see you all," the Polish studio said in a post on reddit. "Yes, even the person who gave themselves 600 legendary weapons."

Since the Outriders demo launched, cheating has been a hotly-debated topic. Progress made in the demo carries forward into the main game, so there is concern among legitimate players that the balance of the looter shooter will be thrown in chaos by cheating already done in the demo.

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An account system may not sound like the most glamorous game feature of all time, sure, but it's been one of the most highly-requested additions for Among Us - and with good reason. As a result of the game's explosion in popularity last year, developer InnerSloth has struggled to crack down on hackers and cheaters, while players frequently complain about toxicity and unfair treatment in public lobbies. The addition of accounts and reporting tools should (at least partially) address this, and after announcing the account system would arrive in The Airship update on 31st March, InnerSloth has now detailed exactly how it will work.

PlayStation 4 exclusive Ghost of Tsushima is being turned into a movie with John Wick director Chad Stahelski on board as director.

The film will follow the story of game protagonist Jin Sakai, Deadline reported. Will it also let you watch in black and white?

"We're excited to be partnering with Chad and 87Eleven Entertainment, to bring their vision of Jin's story to the big screen," PlayStation Productions boss Asad Qizilbash said. "We love working with creative partners like Chad, who have a passion for our games, ensuring we can create rich adaptations that will excite our fans and new audiences."

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Back 4 Blood has been delayed by four months. It was due out 18th June. It's now due out 12th October.

In a statement, developer Turtle Rock said it needs more time to make the co-op shooter "the best it can possibly be at launch".

Turtle Rock added there will be an open beta this summer.

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10 years ago today, Nintendo 3DS launched in Europe. It had been a month since the handheld arrived in Japan, and North America was soon to follow.

The initial 3DS model now looks angular and small compared to some of its many later, larger redesigns. Back in 2011, the dinky portable was available in just Aqua Blue and Cosmos Black colours, and launched without a major Nintendo franchise as a system seller.

Sure, it had Nintendogs + Cats, as well as Pilotwings Resort. And from third parties such as Ubisoft and Sega it had Rayman 3D, Super Monkey Ball 3D and two Tom Clancy games. But there was no Mario, no Zelda - at least not yet.

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Tekken 7, Need for Speed Hot Pursuit Remastered and Civilization 6 are available to play for Xbox Live Gold and Xbox Game Pass Ultimate subscribers until the end of the week.

They're live now until 8am UK time on Monday, 29th March as part of a Free Play Days weekend.

Tekken 7 is the latest entry in Bandai Namco's long-running fighting game series. Need for Speed Hot Pursuit Remastered is the remaster of Criterion's excellent 2010 racing game, and Civilization 6 is the latest in Firaxis' superb strategy series.

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Creative Assembly's much-revered strategy classic Rome: Total War is getting a remaster, in celebration of the Total War games reaching their 20th anniversary this year.

It's a big first for the series, and is mostly being handled by London-based Feral Interactive, in collaboration with Creative Assembly itself. It's coming to Windows, Mac and Linux on 29th April this year, with cross-platform multiplayer available from the off - another series first - and will include both the Alexander and Barbarian Invasion expansions. It'll also launch at £24.99 here in the UK, with a 50 per cent discount to £12.49 if you already own the original. Here's a look at the first trailer:

Feral Interactive has plenty of history with Total War, taking on the mobile ports of the original Rome as well as handling the Mac and Linux versions of the many others in the series for some time now. Rome: Total War is a proper classic for strategy fans, of course - Feral's managing director, David Stephen, referred to the process as "a bit like recutting the crown jewels", which sounds somewhat nervewracking, but we spoke to Tom Massey and Edwin Smith, the team's head of production and head of design respectively, to get a bit more detail on what to expect from the remaster, and it sounds extensive.

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Launch Hitman 3 at any point within the next two weeks and you might just notice a familiar blue logo on the front page!

From today, five custom Eurogamer Contracts that we've created will be featured in the game and they're bursting with Easter eggs for regular viewers of our Youtube channel to discover.

Set exclusively in the Mendoza level of Hitman 3 and playable across all available platforms, these custom contracts take place against the beautiful backdrop of the winery and vineyards of Viñedo Yates. That stunning scenery won't be serene for very long however, as these missions embrace the Video Team's love of all things chaotic.

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In one scene in Genesis Noir, I'm sticking my virtual hands into the prehistoric ocean to create the first life forms out of parts that look like a child's building blocks. It's basically creationist Lego. I need to build molecules in a way that allows them to reach other molecules out there in the soup and mate with them, and tadah! - I've just spurred on abiogenesis, the origin of life. Before playing Genesis Noir, I'd neither heard of abiogenesis nor would I have understood it as anything other than an abstract construct. Elsewhere, my character, a slouch hat-wearing watch peddler in a trench coat, is cheering on Golden Boy, a cosmic entity giving a saxophone performance.

These things don't sound as if they go together, but I can assure you they do, and that's the magic at the heart of Genesis Noir. It's both a silent film in black and white, featuring dames with big hair, irresistible jazz performances in smoky clubs and, inevitably, crime, and also an illustration of the birth of our universe. To call Genesis Noir a game would likely do it a disservice, but people tend to get very cross with me if I don't tell them exactly what kind of game they can expect, so let's call it a point-and-click adventure. You point at things and you click, but this is a game that's really out to discover how many different actions you can take through essentially pointing, clicking and moving your mouse around. You make planets spin. You throw galactic debris. You make sweet, sweet music.