Rock, Paper, Shotgun

I almost missed the trailer for Arc Raiders during The Game Awards, but quickly found the tab it was playing in as soon as I heard Robyn's Dancing On My Own. What a fab tune for a game trailer! Arc Raiders looks alright - it's a free-to-play third-person shooter in which you and a squad of mates fight evil robots, and it's coming out in 2022. Check out the vid below (if only to listen to a proper bop).

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It's been three years since Babylon's Fall was first announced, but PlatinumGames' co-op hack and slasher finally has a release date. It's out on March 3rd 2022, and its new Game Awards trailer certainly shows a much more vivid and eye-catching game than the one Ed and I saw in the most recent closed beta. Not only are there giant skull bosses with lasers bursting out of their eye sockets, but some of the creatures you'll face in the Tower Of Babylon look suspiciously like Nier: Automata-style bullet-hell boys. See it all in action below.

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While horror fans wait with dread to see what Konami do with Silent Hill next, several people vital to that series have announced a new horror game of their own, Slitterhead. Revealed during The Game Awards tonight, it's coming from Bokeh Game Studio, who are led by Silent Hill director Keiichiro Toyama and boast a number of other people from the Silent Hill and Siren games. Check out the announcement trailer below for some deeply unpleasant monsters rampaging in a city.

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Developers 10 Chambers Collective had a little surprise for everyone at The Game Awards tonight - their co-op horror game GTFO has launched out of early access. It first arrived in early access two years ago, and has had loads of update adding new weapons and environments since. With today's 1.0 launch, it adds even more content too, including new environments, tools, bots, checkpoints and more. That's my weekend plans sorted.

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A new Elden Ring trailer fresh out The Game Awards introduces the story of the new game from Dark Souls developers FromSoftware and Game Of Thrones author George R.R. Martin. Well, I say it introduces the story, I mean it does it in a very Souls way, reeling off names like "the Blade of Miquella, Malenia the Severed" without explaining anything. This seems like it would be the game's opening cinematic so if you watch this trailer now, hey, it's almost as if you're starting Elden Ring two months early. Almost.

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The Game Awards is done and dusted for 2021, and there were buckets of big reveals and new trailers alongside all the trophy handouts. If you missed the action or just need a handy reminder of everything that went down, we've got all the new trailers and announcements right here in a handy list. From all the pre-show reveals to the grand (sort of) finale, here's everything you missed at The Game Awards 2021.

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During The Game Awards, Conan Exiles developers Funcom announced Dune: Spice Wars, a real-time strategy game with 4X elements that's coming out in 2022. While Funcom are publishing the game, it's being developed by Shiro Games, the folks who made Northgard. Check out the new trailer below, it's rather vague, but does have some very nice sand in a very large hand.

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The actual biggest surprise of The Game Awards was the announcement of Warhammer 40,000: Space Marine 2, a sequel coming a decade after Relic's chainsword-wielding action game. Spoice Mahreen was a lovely wee stompy hack-and-slash game, capturing the chunky feeling and ultraviolence of futurefascists in a way no other 40K game had. Ultramarine boy Captain Titus will return, this time cutting into the Tyranid hordes. Check out the announcement trailer.

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Announced at The Game Awards, Rumbleverse is an upcoming third-person last-man-standing brawler published by Epic Games and developed by Iron Galaxy Games (who've previously worked on the Killer Instinct series, as well as the Crash Bandicoot and Spyro PC ports). I attended a hands-off preview, and it sure does look like a cartoony battle royale. The most standout thing to me was that you could put an entire cooked chicken in your pocket, or throw it at someone, so that's something.

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With an unexpected live-action appearance from Amanda Waller on stage at The Game Awards, Rocksteady Studios gave a wee look at Suicide Squad: Kill The Justice League in motion with its first gameplay trailer. After years of playing goodies in their Batman: Arkham games, now they'll have us playing goodies to kill the goodies—but for a good cause. This new trailer focuses on their attempts to murder the brainwashed Flash, come see.

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As pandemic restrictions ramp back up in England, hey, let's do 2020 all over again with a return to Among Us too. At The Game Awards tonight, developers Innersloth announced a VR version of their multiplayer hidden roles game. Taking the action into a first-person view for goggleheads, it's being made by Schell Games, the studio behind James Bond-y VR escape room series I Expect You To Die. Check out the announcement trailer below.

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After multiple delays, Cuphead - The Delicious Last Course finally has a release date. The expansion for Studio MDHR's 1930s cartoon-inspired platformer comes out on June 30th, 2022, and adds a new character to play and a bunch of new bosses to die to over and over again. You can see some of the newbies in the new trailer below from this evening's Game Awards, including a spooky witch and a donkey (mule? horse?) in shining armour.

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Heavy Rain developers Quantic Dream and Lucasfilm Games are making Star Wars: Eclipse, an action-adventure game set in the "golden age of the Jedi". It was announced at The Game Awards with a rather dramatic trailer featuring an alien playing some drums, adorable green monkeys in a market, lotsa space ships, and of course, plenty of shiny lightsaber shots. The rumours were true, then.

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Poor Saltzpyre has been waiting so patiently while all the other characters in Fatshark's Warhammer: Vermintide 2 have received their snazzy new classes over the last year or so, but his wait is finally over. During The Game Awards, the developers announced Saltzpyre players will be able to become the Warrior Priest of Sigmar today, wielding a chunky, glowing hammer for some close-quarters action. He also has new armour that's covered in skulls, which looks very edgy indeed.

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After needing seven years and several failed starts to successfully launch a game of their own, Amazon Game Studios are perhaps cautiously turning to other developers for their next. Today they announced a release date of February 11th for Lost Ark, the Diablo-y action-RPG first released by Smilegate in South Korea in 2019, which Amazon will publish in Europe and the Americas. Might be alright? It'll free-to-play, anyway. Check out the new trailer from The Game Awards below.

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After yonks of leaving us aching for even a mention of a PC release for Final Fantasy VII Remake, Square Enix casually announced at The Game Awards tonight, oh hey, it's coming next week. Just like that. Next Thursday, the 16th of December, FF7 Remake will hit PC in its expanded Intergrade form. Like many other recent Square Enix RPG ports (and as expected), it will be exclusive to the Epic Games Store.

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Inflexion Games, the new studio of former BioWare general manager Aaryn Flynn, announced their debut game during The Game Awards. Nightingale is a "shared world survival crafting game" set in a Victorian world of gaslamp fantasy, which will send us into magical realms to explore, build farms and communities, craft tools and weapons, and such for a fight against the Fae. Should any Fae be reading this post, allow me to stress to our readers that this is vile propaganda, and to stress to you that I would very much like to wake up with all my teeth.

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After teasing the return of horror novelist Alan Wake in Control, at The Game Awards tonight, developers Remedy finally announced a full sequel. Alan Wake 2 is coming in 2023, and this time Remedy say it will be a survival horror game, not an action game. Also, Alan looks a bit like Jake Gyllenhaal now? Check out the trailer below.

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The follow-up to Hellblade: Senua's Sacrifice, Senua's Saga: Hellblade 2, was first announced at The Game Awards back in 2019, and we haven't heard much about it since then. But it was back at The Game Awards again this year, showing some brand new footage of Senua leading a group of fighters through a rather wet cave to face a giant. It looks fantastic, and incredibly eerie.

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During the Game Awards pre-show tonight, the reformed Telltale Games announced a new story 'em which I set in the widely admired sci-fi world of The Expanse. Gosh! The Expanse: A Telltale Series will seemingly focus on the show's best character, Camina Drummer, who's played in the game by her show actor, Cara Gee. Aw that's great, that. Helping out on development are Deck Nine Games, the studio behind Life Is Strange: True Colors. Check out the trailer below.

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At tonight's Game Awards, Falcon Age developers Outerloop Games announced Thirsty Suitors, a story-driven RPG about fending off suitors and exes while trying not to disappoint your family. Published by Annapurna Interactive, it looks eccentric and colourful, with battles involve throwing ghostly cars and calling in giant family members to swat your opponents. It also features cooking, skateboarding, and possibly dancing (though I can't quite tell from the trailer if the dancing is separate from the battling).

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Gun Interactive, the folks who made Friday The 13th and Layers Of Fear 2, are making a new multiplayer horror game based on the Texas Chain Saw Massacre. Sticking with naming conventions, it's unsurprisingly called The Texas Chain Saw Massacre. It'll be based on the film that came out in 1974, and the teaser trailer revealed at The Game Awards features a delightful creepy shot of leatherface.

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After 19 years, Homeworld 3 will arrive in 2022 to continue the sci-fi strategy series about leading an armada of spaceships. A new "gameplay" trailer arrived today during the Game Awards pre-show today and yes: absolutely the spaceships still leave those pretty engine trails behind them. The trailer also gives neat-o peeks at spacebattles raging through the ruins of derelict megastructures. See for yourself below.

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The two latest games to be offered free to keep from the Epic Games Store couldn't be more different. In one corner, the grim management sim Prison Architect, in which you carefully house and profit from criminals. In the other corner, Godfall, an ARPG looter-shooter about looking fabulous and smashing monsters to bits.

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Chivalry 2 is having a day. The cut and thrust multiplayer game will reveal a new update tonight at The Game Awards, the game is currently 33% off to buy, and it's free to play for the duration of the weekend.

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Yesterday, Ubisoft announced their intention to bring the first NFTs to their games in the form of three cosmetic items for Ghost Recon Breakpoint. As part of the announcement they produced a 79 second trailer describing how the system, dubbed "Ubisoft Quartz", would work.

After around 24 hours, the video has 200k views, 1300+ likes and 35,000+ dislikes.

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Total War: Rome Remastered made one of the most beloved entries in the strategy series more accessible to modern audiences. Now its final content update makes it more accessible to modders, including removing limits on the number of cultures, building types and factions.

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Maybe games just look like this now? S.T.A.L.K.E.R. 2 is an Unreal Engine 5 game, so it's bound to be pretty. Yet I look at the new screenshots its developers posted to Twitter, and they look to me less like screenshots than the painted-over bullshots of yore. See them below and make up your own mind.

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This Is The President is a game that, partway through, had me worried it wouldn't really qualify as a strategy game. As you'd expect, it's about being the US President, and making lots of decisions about running the country and trying not to become too unpopular. But it's far closer to interactive fiction than a simulation, with a main plot whose demands, if failed, will instantly end the game.

It has, however, got me considering what exactly "political strategy game" means.

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Halo Infinite is now out and playable in its entirety, following a weirdly chopped-up release process that culminated in me having to run three different downloads just to play the campaign. But anyway! Now seems like a good time to take a closer look at Infinite’s PC system requirements, and which graphics settings you should tweak to get the best performance.

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I'm not normally a fan of children in games because, as noted in this episode of the Electronic Wireless Show podcast, they get into the uncanny valley pretty quickly. But it's the season to be jolly, so we're talking about the times we thing kids in games are actually really good.

We do end up going on quite a lot of tangents, notably one on which Warhammer faction Matthew would play, and of course we ask Matthew for his thoughts on Mr. Beast's Squid Game. This week's Cavern Of Lies is in Nate's control, which means he takes us to Dwarf Fortress, with predictable results.

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The third and final big free content update for Blasphemous launched this morning, introducing new levels, bosses, and more. Named 'Wounds Of Eventide' (love a few wounds with my Catholocism), the update brings the story to a point that the upcoming sequel will pick up. Here, come watch the trailer to meet some of the new monsters, including a giant snake. No room for subtlety here.

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Arachnophobes may be hesitant to open this door on the Advent Calendar, but we promise it'll be safe, and there's even an arachnophobe mode. You know who could do whatever a spider could better than Spider-Man? An actual spider, that's who.

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Yesterday, a lawyer representing an Activision Blizzard employee held a press conference outside of Blizzard Entertainment's California headquarters, demanding more compensation for workers affected by sexual harassment and discrimination. The employee, named Christine, spoke about her firsthand experiences of misconduct and retaliation while working at the company for the last four years, claiming she experienced inappropriate touching, unwanted sexual advances, and "a frat boy culture that's detrimental to women".

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We've added a few new entries to our selection of the best free PC games for 2021, and you'll find them all at the top of this (unordered) list. But don't worry, you'll still find plenty of older free games that are worth just as much of your time as they new-uns.

Our picks below include both free and free-to-play games. Anything with a mandatory cost is excluded, as are mods or anything dependent on another purchase. The result is a list of games that run the gamut, from ARPGs to management, 2D platformers to co-op first-person shooters.

If you'd prefer to consume a version of this list via the magic of moving pictures, you can do so with this handy video we've put together:

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The Great Battlefield 2042 Fix continues, with the final promised patch of this year having gone live today. While it’s not as hefty as previous updates, it’s still full of tweaks. And that’s good, because this game could use them. Expect your bullets to find their targets a bit better, various audio improvements, and rooftop objective removals from the Breakthrough mode.

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After a crazy summer that saw Final Fantasy XIV’s playerbase expand dramatically during what was supposed to be a quiet period, it’s no surprise that anyone wanting to tuck into the new Endwalker expansion has a lot of queueing to do. But if you can stand the two hour waits and dreaded 2002 error then you’re in for a grand, if a little slow-starting, adventure.

Final Fantasy XIV: Endwalker is the final chapter in the story arc of warring gods Zodiark and Hydaelyn, and sees you trot across the globe to make new friends, fight old foes, and get some space travel under your belt. It’s huge. So huge that it’s going to take a few more weeks to soak it all in and do a full review justice. Between the queue times and sheer scale and finality of the story, Endwalker is a lengthy undertaking.

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The next patch for Assassin's Creed Valhalla is a big one: 78GB big. Ubisoft today announced that next week's patch "will "will require players to re-download the entire game as part of a data restructuring." The whole base game, downloaded all over again. It's for a good cause, at least. This should make the game load faster and generally run better, which is a nice change for a game to still have the motivation to deliver a year after launch, but maybe not such welcome news if you're on a slow, throttled, or metered connection.

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While some Chaos gods have perfectly reasonable cover stories for their interests in pursuits like decay and mutation or murder and mutilation (I mean, one can hardly get skulls for one's skull throne at Ikea), Slaneesh is unashamedly 'horny on main' (as middle-aged people like me believe young people might still say, possibly?). This much is clear in a new trailer which introduces the Slaneesh of Total War: Warhammer 3, clad in hot pinks and meat lingerie.

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Ever since Grand Theft Auto V launched eight years ago, fans have pleaded for Rockstar to release a singleplayer expansion, and received only multiplayer additions. Well, they still haven't announced more singleplayer GTAV, but today they did announce one of the singleplayer stars will return in multiplayer. The next GTA Online update, named The Contract, will focus on campaign co-star Franklin, now running a 'fixer' agency and needs our help dealing with a big client, Dr. Dre. Yup, it's the D-R-E, and he's bringing unreleased new music with him.

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