Eurogamer

Following its premature unveiling via YouTube mishap earlier today, Activision has now formally detailed its free-to-play Call of Duty battle royale experience, known as Warzone, which launches tomorrow on PlayStation 4, Xbox One, and PC.

Warzone will feature two distinct play modes at launch: Battle Royale and Plunder. Battle Royale follows the usual last-man-standing formula, with 150 players in teams of three attempting to take out the opposition in a steadily shrinking play area, this time courtesy of a cloud of deadly gas. Plunder, also playable in three-person squads, is a race collect the most in-match Cash by looting the map, robbing downed enemies, and completing in-match Contracts. 

A squad can have one Contract active at any time, with Scavenger Contracts challenging players to find and open a series of Supply Boxes, and Recon Contacts requiring players to secure a specific location. Alongside Cash (which can be used to purchase beneficial items from Buy Stations in Battle Royale mode), competing Contracts will provide loot and special rewards, such as the ability to see the next circle collapse location ahead of time.

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Fanatical's Spring Sale has just sprung into life with thousands of discounts available across its entire library of digital games.

They've got things underway with a trio of headline deals. The first brings Borderlands 3 down to £22.49. The Gearbox loot-shooter has been regularly dipping down to around this price over the last few months, so if you've missed out in the past here's another chance to snag it for cheap - as long as you can put up with the juvenile humour for the barmy gunplay.

The second limited-time offer discounts the Resident Evil Survivor's Pack to £12.99. This bundles together unquestionable masterpiece Resident Evil 4, competent co-op follow-up Resident Evil 5 and hilariously awful Resident Evil 6. The latter is just about saved when playing with a friend as you can share in its absurdity - especially as the number of vehicles continually crashing into each other or buildings continues to rise.

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UPDATE: Surprise surprise, a countdown timer has appeared in Call of Duty: Modern Warfare, and it's almost certainly the release time for the new battle royale mode.

Under the "classified" tab of the menu you can find a 24-hour countdown clock, which ends at 3pm GMT tomorrow. In light of the gameplay leak earlier today, it seems this is probably the time the battle royale mode will go live for those who own Modern Warfare - but we'll have to see if the free-to-play download releases at the same time.

ORIGINAL STORY: Whoops, looks like someone messed up the embargo, as gameplay footage of Call of Duty: Modern Warfare's battle royale mode appeared online a little early.

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Well here's a turnip for the books: the Animal Crossing player who said he'd hit one billion bells through hard graft alone has achieved his goal, and to celebrate, he's raised hundreds of dollars for an animal charity.

Last week, BrianMp16 announced he would be the first to legitimately earn one billion bells in the GameCube version of Animal Crossing. He claims this makes him the first to have legitimately earned every item in the game, as the post office model only unlocks when a player clocks up one billion in savings. Unless you just cheat and enter a Nook Code, I guess.

While others may well have earned the item through grinding, BrianMp16 seems to be the first to have recorded the entire effort, proving he didn't use glitches or codes by livestreaming the process. The effort took him a little over 180 hours, thanks to shifting large amounts of turnips at once, and his ability to predict the Stalk Market "using the items available to buy in Nook's on a given day". If only that could be used in the real world at the moment.

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PlayStation VR game The Persistence is coming to consoles and PC without the VR requirement this summer.

The rogue-like sci-fi horror game, developed by Liverpool studio Firesprite Games, launches on PlayStation 4, Xbox One, Nintendo Switch and PC this summer. Here's the official blurb:

"In The Persistence, players are tasked with surviving on board a doomed deep space colony starship in the year 2521. Said ship is overrun with horrific and murderous aberrations that make their presence known as players explore, evade and fight their way through the depths of an ever-changing labyrinth to bring the ship back to Earth."

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Max von Sydow has died aged 90. According to the BBC, his family announced "with a broken heart and infinite sadness" that the actor died on Sunday.

The Oscar-nominated actor was best known for his five-decade film career, which included roles in The Exorcist, Minority Report and Star Wars: The Force Awakens. He also played the Three-Eyed Raven in Game of Thrones.

But Max von Sydow's unmistakable voice will also be familiar to fans of The Elder Scrolls 5: Skyrim. He played Esbern, an Elder Nord and one of the last remaining Blades who acts as the guide, advisor and mentor of the Dragonborn.

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There really is nothing worse than being out-and-about and watching the remaining battery from your phone, Switch or other device disappear completely. But you'll never have to experience this problem now that you can get an Anker power bank for less than £20.

For today only, Amazon UK is running a deal on a range of Anker chargers and more. The best of the lot, though, is the Anker PowerCore 15000 Redux for £18.99.

It has enough capacity to recharge an iPhone X or Galaxy S9 almost four times. Or you can use it to refill your Nintendo Switch at least twice off a single charge. Not bad for something that'll very easily slip into your bag or back pocket! Plus, there are two ports to charge two devices at once, while you can also activate the trickle-charge mode for smaller devices such as earphones and earbuds.

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If you lived within a 20-mile radius of central London in the 90s and had any interest in interactive entertainment, there was only really one game in town. London's Trocadero was a mecca not only for video games, but a very particular, very 90s brand of video game: Sega's big, brash arcade racers, the likes of Sega Rally and Virtua Racing becoming an indelible part of so many childhoods. It's no wonder so many of us still pine for these glorious things.

They all played a big part in the childhood of Trevor Ley, a young kid who got the racing bug at Brands Hatch and did all he could to get a taste of the action at what was then known as Sega World. Having later carved out a living making racing games at EA, Rockstar and Sony's London Studio, and working on the likes of Burnout and Midnight Club, it's something he's been keen to return to ever since.

"I wanted to do something that brought back the feeling of the arcade games back in the 90s, because I used to skip school and go to Trocadero to play games like Virtua Racing, Hard Drivin', Daytona USA, Sega Rally," he says. "Driving games were basically the ones for me."

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NetherRealm has released gameplay footage of Spawn in Mortal Kombat 11.

The upcoming DLC guest character appears in the fighting game with all his trademark abilities, including chains, cape and weapons.

Spawn has an invisibility ability - and he's able to strike his opponent briefly while using it. I also noticed a bout of flying, a parry and the ability to summon guns.

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Years ago, an editor of mine who was very brilliant used to say, what's the chance of actually reviewing a game? Even the simplest of games contains multitudes. Even the simplest of games is impossible to get your head and your hands around. Why not just review the first five minutes?

I love this idea, and it came springing back into my mind when I first loaded up Gonner earlier this morning. Gonner is free on the Epic Games Store at the moment, and jeepers! What a first impression! Few games come across as interestingly as Gonner in its first few moments, I would say. It's so gloriously idiosyncratic, and yet so direct! And so assured!

Gonner's a shooter, but you don't get a gun for a few seconds. At first, your character, who is sort of a mucky rough-hewn stamped-shape sort of beast, appears to be a tadpole or a sperm, pursued - aided? - by a friendly whale. They're a splodge that can jump. Soon though they grow limbs and learn to double-jump. Next comes a gun, with yellow ammo that appears on screen huddled together like so many teeth. Next come things to shoot at, mucky red rough-hewn stamped-shape sort of beasts. You shoot at them and they pop. But hey, maybe you can jump on them too? You can! Mario lives, sort of. Jump on enemies and shoot 'em. Gonner is coming into focus.

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It's Warframe's seventh - seventh! - official anniversary, and to celebrate, developer Digital Extremes is releasing a celebratory Dex Raksaka armour set for players who get involved over the month of March. Just log in before 30th March 2020 to secure yours.

You can also earn weapon slots, dex weapons and cosmetics from previous anniversaries celebrations, too - participate in special Alerts taking place at regular intervals through March.

"Warframe is officially seven!" says Digital Extremes on the company's YouTube channel (thanks, PCGN). "Behind every year is an Arsenal of unforgettable memories and moments - now it's time to create new ones. Log in now for free Anniversary Armor, plus play Alerts every weekend in March to get previous Anniversary rewards."

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Do you still use Fortnite's Legacy Look Controls? Brace yourself - from next week, the option will be removed.

In a couple of messages posted on the battle royale's social media channels, Epic Games says that following "improvements made to Aim Assist", the option to use legacy look controls is now redundant - so it's removing the legacy look option entirely.

It's not all bad, though - you can "maintain your legacy sensitivities" by copying them over in the controller options.

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We now know who won the auction selling off an ultra-rare Nintendo PlayStation prototype, which was rediscovered in an attic in 2015. The winning bid of $300,000 USD (around £230,000) - excluding the $60,000 "buyer's premium" fee - came from Greg McLemore, the founder of Pets.com.

"I'm looking to not have this machine just buried in a closet somewhere," McLemore told Forbes. Along with his collection of over "800 coin-operated machines and countless other smaller games, trade magazines and original art", he says he wants to build a permanent museum in which he can showcase his collection.

"I'm interested in sharing my passion for gaming," McLemore said. "One of my areas of focus is the evolution of gaming, including how earlier arcade games inspired video games and how early video games influenced later innovation. I believe the Nintendo PlayStation fits in well with this focus."

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If you've been wondering if your PC rig is going to cope with the demands of Doom Eternal, wonder no more: developer id Software has finally revealed the shooter's recommended and minimum specs.

The specs - which were made available on the Steam page (thanks, GamesRadar+) - suggest you'll need a pretty robust set-up to get the best out of the frantic FPS. Here, take a look for yourself:

Doom Eternal Minimum PC Specs

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To mark International Women's Day, Cyberpunk 2077 developer CD Projekt Red has revealed a new version of the default female protagonist.

In a brief tweet that simply says "Miss V, a pleasure..." followed by the hashtag for International Women's Day, the tweet gives us our first peek at the updated female lead, who's had her appearance tweaked with red hair since we last saw her in action.

When a commenter said "What we need is a reversible box art!", the company replied with: "You're looking at it :)".

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PUBG Corp. is looking to you to help shape the rules of its upcoming competitive mode.

"Ranked Ruleset is now live in LABS for a limited time," the company said via Twitter. "Bring out your competitive side with the heart-pounding intensity of the Ranked Ruleset. Feedback from this test will help us determine the ruleset for our upcoming Competitive Mode."

The Ranked Ruleset is available now in the LABS section of the menu until tomorrow, 9th March (7am UTC).

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Another piece of the puzzle slots into place as PC owners receive a new title for Halo: The Master Chief Collection. The original Halo Combat Evolved - or more specifically, its Anniversary Edition - is now available. Overall, it's a good port of the existing Xbox One edition of the game, bringing with it a range of options never seen before on the existing PC version. However, by extension, as an Xbox One port, this also means that a host of smaller but heavily criticised issues inherent to console version make their way across to PC too when we really would have loved to have seen these problems properly addressed once and for all.

In this freshly minted port of Halo: Combat Evolved Anniversary Edition, PC owners get access to a number of features from the original remastering effort, layered on top of a conversion of the original experience. Important is the inclusion of the remastered graphical presentation from Saber Interactive, filled with screen-space ambient occlusion and shadows, character models from Halo Reach and new textures. I'll lay my cards on the table here - I'm not a big fan of the changes to the art and the shift to the overall mood brought about by this remaster, but it's just as optional as it was in the original release. Users can toggle the presentation between OG and remastered visuals in real-time simply by pushing the tab button on the keyboard. Alternatively, players can choose which version to play from the get-go via the options screen.

People love to laugh. Laughing is fun, it brings people together, some even say it's medicinal. People love laughing so much that I'm often paid to stand up in a dark room telling jokes to strangers.

After a night attempting to make people laugh (and sometimes hideously failing) one of my favourite things to do is play video games. And I've started to think recently: why so serious? Wouldn't a bit of humour liven things up, maybe even make things more believable and relatable?

It's not that easy, of course. If all it took was someone saying 'just be funnier', then I'd be filling stadiums. But maybe some of the same rules that a lot of us use in stand up are transferable.

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A shotgun reloading glitch is causing issues for Call of Duty: Modern Warfare players.

As spotted by Dotesports, a new bug with the reloading animation is preventing players from replenishing their shotguns, leaving them vulnerable to attack and unable to reload.

This player shared a clip on the official Modern Warfare subreddit, showing the glitch in the midst of an Infected match on Rust. This one shows the glitch plaguing the same shotgun and in the same circumstances, but in a Gunfight match this time.

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2K may have recently joined Activision and Bethesda in removing its portfolio from GeForce Now, Nvidia's streaming service, but it seems the service's biggest game - Fortnite - isn't going anywhere just yet.

"Epic is wholeheartedly supporting NVIDIA's GeForce Now service with Fortnite and with Epic Games Store titles that choose to participate (including exclusives), and we'll be improving the integration over time," Epic Games' boss, Tim Sweeney, announced on Twitter. "It's the most developer-friendly and publisher-friendly of the major streaming services, with zero tax on game revenue. Game companies who want to move the game industry towards a healthier state for everyone should be supporting this kind of service!

"Cloud streaming services will also be key players in ending the iOS and Google Play payment monopolies and their 30 per cent taxes," Sweeney added. "Apple has decreed that these services aren't allowed to exist on iOS, and therefore aren't allowed to compete, which is megalomaniacal and won't stand.

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The remaster for Platinum Games' The Wonderful 101: Remastered has finished up its £38,000 ($50K) Kickstarter campaign with a grand total of ¥235,320,528 - that's a whopping £1.7 million ($2.2m).

The Wonderful 101: Remastered's Kickstarter campaign was so successful, it smashed its £1.16 million ($1.5m) stretch goal within hours, prompting Platinum Games to add even more goals early in the campaign.

"We at Platinum Games want to express our heartfelt appreciation for all the warm wishes and support for our Kickstarter for The Wonderful 101: Remastered! We couldn't have done it without all of you!" the team said (thanks, VGC).

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Interactive media festival, South by Southwest (SXSW), is the latest casualty of COVID-19 fears. Just a week before it was scheduled to take place, its organisers have now confirmed the show has been cancelled.

In a statement the organisers said that they were "devastated" and while only a few days ago, host city Austin's public health team said "there's no evidence that closing SXSW or any other gatherings will make the community safer", the "situation evolved rapidly" and they were left with no choice but to "honour and respect the City of Austin's decision".

"We are devastated to share this news with you," the statement said (thanks, Nintendo Life). "'The show must go on' is in our DNA, and this is the first time in 34 years that the March event will not take place. We are now working through the ramifications of this unprecedented situation.

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Nintendo director Shigeru Miyamoto has opened up about how the company drives innovation within the company, and well as managing its family-friendly image without appearing too infantile or "childish" for its core gaming audience.

In this week's issue of Famitsu magazine - as translated by Siliconera (thanks, VGC) - Miyamoto repeatedly quoted the mantra "peace of mind as key to Nintendo's child-friendly market positioning.

"If I were to express Nintendo's qualities in words then it is also 'peace of mind'", Miyamoto said. "There's peace of mind when looking at it as a parent and you can have it in your living room. We've put great effort into creating something that can be the center of family amusement.

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2K is the latest publisher to pull its games from GeForce Now, Nvidia's streaming service.

Already we've seen Activision and Bethesda remove (most of) their portfolios, and now players have lost access to 2K's games too, including franchises like Borderlands, Bioshock, Mafia, X-Com, and Civilization, amongst others.

As Wes summarised a few weeks back, GeForce Now ties into your existing PC library across a range of online storefronts, allowing you to play your games on computers, smartphones and tablets. It offers two access tiers to the system: the free offering lets users access the cloud system for a session of up to one hour - good enough for a game of Fortnite. After that, there's nothing stopping the user from starting another session, though if the servers are fully occupied, a wait may be required.

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What do you know about Jean-Jacques Lequeu? I'd be surprised if you know anything because he's quite obscure. A rare find. He was French architect who lived through the Revolution only to die in poverty having never found fame. Almost nothing he drew was ever made but by bequeathing 800 drawings to the Bibliothèque nationale de France, he ensured his ideas would not be forgotten. And I'm glad they haven't been.

Lequeu doesnt' seem to have been bound by reality, which is an unusual trait for an architect. He plotted grand designs as if in the knowledge they would never be made. Take 'The Island of Love and Fisherman's Rest' for example: it is an island - who designs an island?! Bond villains not included. Yet there it is, in Lequeu's unerringly precise pencil work and ink, neat and crisp, as if actually it does exist somewhere and he is merely replicating it.

Do you know how many different kinds of animals Lequeu imagined living there? Quite a few, according to an online Morgan Library & Museum tour. There were to be lions, tigers, leopards, lynxes, foxes, otters, sable, tamarins, armadillos - even god damn unicorns. We know this because of the copious amounts of notes on the picture - another feature of his architectural work. It's as though he couldn't leave the exact functions or stories of the designs to chance. The purpose of the floating island? To give people a place for quiet repose from the two large military encampments either side of it (although quite how much peace they'd get with all those animals running around, I don't know).

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The ultra-rare Nintendo PlayStation prototype, which was rediscovered in an attic in 2015, has been sold at auction for $300,000 USD (around £230,000).

The prototype (officially known as the 'Nintendo Play Station') was initially created as part of a doomed collaboration between Sony and Nintendo. It was intended to add CD-ROM capabilities to the 16-bit SNES, and was Sony's first foray into the world of gaming hardware.

Famously, the project was terminated after a falling out between both parties when Nintendo suddenly announced a partnership with Sony rival Philips, but Sony's efforts would eventually form the basis for its own console, 1994's PlayStation - and the rest, as they say, is history.

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It was only last week that Minecraft developer Mojang revealed it would be resurrecting its old MineCon live event format in September for a big real-world jamboree known as Minecraft Festival. Unfortunately, it's now opted to cancel this year's event as a result of the coronavirus.

Minecraft Festival - which promised interactive exhibits, competitive tournaments, and live entertainment - was due to be held from 25th-27th September at the Orange County Convention Center in Florida, and would have been the first official real-world Minecraft event since livestream replacement MineCon Earth debuted in 2017.

Tickets for the event were originally set to go on sale this evening, but, "after careful consideration and much hand-wringing", Mojang has opted to postpone its inaugural Minecraft Festival until next year.

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The list of games available in this month's Humble Choice bundle has been revealed - and it's good news if you enjoy slo-mo gun fu, designing theme parks or whizzing around the same bit of tarmac for hours on end.

My Friend Pedro, Planet Coaster and F1 2019 are the three big headline games, with the rest filled out by intriguing indies such as Battle Chasers: Nightwar, Etherborn and more.

Rick found My Friend Pedro to offer “slick 2D shooting that slips over itself” in the Eurogamer review. Meanwhile, Planet Coaster was labelled “the finest park construction simulator yet” and F1 2019 “the most authentic F1 game to date”. A decent trio to get you started, then!

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Disgaea's two side-scrolling platform spin-offs - Prinny: Can I Really Be the Hero? and Prinny 2: Dawn of Operation Panties, Dood! - are being bundled up into one penguin-themed package for Switch, and it's due to arrive later this year.

From a gameplay perspective, both are obviously a million miles away from the glorious turn-based strategy abyss that is the main Disgaea series - it's all running, jumping, and thwacking here - but they're immediately recognisable as being part of the same universe, sporting the core games' appealing art style and daffy sense of humour.

Prinny 1, in case you're wondering, sees our titular hero off on an adventure to locate the ultimate dessert for their demonic master, Etna, while the second, as its name implies, sees Prinny hot on the heels of the nefarious panty stealer, Phantom Thief. In both cases, spirited platforming action ensues, some of which can be seen in the announcement trailer below.

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In one of the greatest bamboozles in recent video game history, Respawn pulled an incredible bait-and-switch by hyping up a new Apex Legend, then murdering him before he ever reached the game. Forge's assassination was a shocking but brilliant moment, helping to renew interest in the battle royale as it reached its one-year anniversary, and providing a pretty dramatic way to reveal actual new legend Revenant.

But it seems Respawn wasn't just out to fool the average player, as a new interview has confirmed community suspicions that the bait-and-switch was intended to trick data-miners.

Speaking to Dot Esports, Respawn design director Jason McCord explained the Forge stunt was dreamt up by designer Rayme Vinson as a way to regain the element of surprise and misdirect data-miners, who had already leaked Revenant months before season four.

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The Resident Evil 3 remake already looks intense, with Nemesis stalking you around Raccoon City. But things just got extra sweaty with the revelation the hulking monster thing can break into the game's safe rooms if he's chasing you.

As revealed by Official Xbox Magazine,via Reddit, Nemesis is the first monster in Resident Evil history capable of breaking into safe rooms. I guess this means we can't call the safe rooms safe rooms anymore? So, just rooms?

For the unfamiliar, the Resident Evil games include safe rooms, or save rooms, that often include typewriters you use to save your game. There's nice safe room music, too. Here's a reminder:

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Nearly 10 years after the release of Amnesia: The Dark Descent, Frictional Games has announced another game for the terrifying series, and it's called Amnesia: Rebirth. Looks like another one I'll be watching on YouTube until I pluck up the courage to play it myself.

Releasing on PC and PS4 sometime this autumn, Amnesia: Rebirth is a follow-up that builds on the original game while featuring a "new protagonist, a new setting [and] a new story".

"That doesn't mean that we're just doing more of the same - in horror, repetition is a deadly sin," said creative director Thomas Grip in an announcement post. "You need to keep players on their toes at all times. We've had to twist expectations, refine old features, and up the ante on everything you've seen from us."

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Konami has delayed the release of the PC Engine Core Grafx mini due to the coronavirus.

In a statement, the Japanese company said the manufacturing and shipping facilities in China were suspended due to the outbreak, and as a result the delivery of all PC Engine Core Grafx mini products are delayed until further notice. It had been due out 19th March 2020.

"We deeply apologise to our customers for the significant inconvenience, and we humbly ask for your understanding and patience while we keep our close attention on the situation," Konami said.

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Breaking news: it turns out if you drunkenly fire a live weapon mid-stream, you'll get yourself suspended on Twitch. Who knew?

Carl Riemer, who's best known for his Call of Duty trickshots, was midway through a stream last night when he started goofing around with a fully-loaded glock. After yelling "say I 'ain't got money" at an imaginary person, Riemer accidentally discharged the gun, and looked rather surprised about the whole situation. Here's the infamous moment as it happened:

Thankfully no-one was hurt, but it seems Riemer will be the person who 'ain't got money now, as the episode has landed him a Twitch suspension - and he's also been booted out from esports organisation SoaR.

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Five of the Best is a weekly series about the bits of games we overlook. I'm talking about hands, maps, cats, startup screens - things we ignore at the time but can recall years later because, it turns out, they're integral to our memory of the game. Now is the time to celebrate them!

It works like this. Various Eurogamer writers will share their memories in the article and then you - probably outraged we didn't include the thing you're thinking of - can share the thing you're thinking of in the comments below. We've had some great discussions in our other Five of the Best pieces. So come on, what are you waiting for? On we go!

I barely notice save points these days. They've been cleaned away. There's a polite interruption at the beginning of the game to say the little logo you're seeing means the game is saving, then off you go, never to really give it a second thought again. If you fail at some part of the game, you reload nearby. How handy, how streamlined.

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When The Outer Worlds first launched, it came with a problem that seems to be ever-more-frequent in modern games: absolutely tiny text. Not only did this mean everyone had to sit an inch away from their screens, but it wasn't accessible for those with visual impairments - and many critics and community members raised it as an issue.

Mercifully, a bigger text mode was introduced via a patch in November last year, and now a more permanent solution is about to arrive.

As shared by user interface programmer Nate McDorman, Obsidian will soon introduce a way for players to scale the font to whatever size they please. Seems like it includes an extra large option that's easy on the eyes.

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You can save up to 85 per cent on up to five games published by Paradox Interactive in a new Build Your Own Bundle promotion at Humble.

There's a mix of 50 games and special editions in total to choose from, with some of Paradox's biggest hits such as Stellaris, Crusader Kings and Pillars of Eternity all included.

Many of the games are already on sale, but the big discounts come in as soon as you buy three games. When you do, the discount across all of them increases to 80 per cent. Buy four to get 83 per cent off, or the maximum of five to save 85 per cent on them all.

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Toy Story 2 was my first ever experience of the cinema. The imaginative young boy that I was dreamt for years afterwards of being in that world, going on adventures with a cast of characters I knew back then as friends. Woody, Buzz and Jessie - they were all there. One particular moment that has always resonated with me was the opening sequence of the film, which involves Buzz Lightyear raiding his arch-nemesis Zurg's base. It's quickly revealed that the whole episode is in fact a video game, played by a frustrated toy dinosaur called Rex, who constantly fails to complete the challenge. It was a scene I would always rewatch, rewinding the VHS tape to the point of death, and I always challenged myself to tackle that gauntlet if it ever came to fruition. Toy Story 3 finally allowed me to do that.

Before the birth of Disney Infinity, developer Avalanche Studios worked closely with Disney to create a plethora of movie tie-ins, ranging from passable to marginally above average. Then Toy Story 3 came out and showcased the team's talents in creating a truly vibrant representation of Disney worlds with an admirable sense of confidence.

It's that confidence that confirms Toy Story 3 is a superb Double-A game. Right at the start, a stellar action-oriented set-piece places you on the back of Woody's horse Bullseye, as you ride into a sea of explosions and gorgeously animated environments. It's wonderful - but the best is yet to come.

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Ninja Theory's Bleeding Edge is a bit out there when it comes to its hero characters. It's got a character who's part motorbike, a character who's got robot chicken legs, and a character who's consciousness is housed in a robot snake arm that's attached to their corpse.

Now, rounding out the roster of playable characters included with the team-based competitive multiplayer brawler at launch is a super smart dolphin who pilots a fishbowl crab mech via an on-board Japanese-made AI that also translates for him.

The dolphin is called Mekko, who I had a chance to play around with during a recent trip to Ninja Theory in Cambridge. I found him hard to get to grips with, but fun. The video below includes Mekko gameplay and provides a good idea of how he works. For more on how the game feels to play, check out Chris Tapsell's Bleeding Edge hands-on preview from E3 2019.

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It was only last week that Ubisoft announced a delay for Ghost Recon Breakpoint's mysterious new "immersive" mode, pushing it out of its original February release slot. As it turns out, though, it didn't get pushed very far at all, and Breakpoint's "immersive" mode will now launch on Xbox One, PlayStation 4, and PC on 24th March.

Breakpoint, of course, wasn't exactly met with rapturous applause when it launched last October. Eurogamer contributor Vikki Blake, for instance, called it a "half-baked hotchpotch of magpie'd ideas that neither function properly nor mesh" and "a broken, swirling vortex of recycled Ubisoft mechanics stamped across a dismal, forgettable world."

Its commercial reception was about as positive as its critical one, ultimately forcing Ubisoft to rethink its approach to Breakpoint. Just weeks later, it announced it was working on a "more radical and immersive version", designed to deliver a "gritty and authentic military experience".

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