“We don’t want to do that ever again,” Epic Games Store boss Steve Allison said in March, in the wake of the uproar over Metro Exodus making a last-minute move from Steam to Epic. “This prompted further discussions at Epic, leading to the realization that these calls must be up to developers and publishers, and Epic wouldn’t tell them ‘no’ on account of existing statements made about Steam.” It’s worth remembering that Allison’s full comments were more nuanced than simply “we won’t do that anymo

Dreadlands is a post-apocalyptic tactics game where you command and customise a squad of wasteland warriors and send them out into the world to fight over resources in turn-based brawls. “With Dreadlands we want to take the online elements of an MMO or a shared world shooter and combine it with addictive turn-based gameplay” says Peter Nilsson, founder and creative director Blackfox Studios. It sounds like everyone will be on this one shared world, managing their squads, upgrading their bases, u

While you wait for Borderlands 3, which is coming to the Epic Games Store in September, you might fancy returning to the first two games and the moon-based Pre-Sequel. They’ve all been given a bit of a makeover today in the form of Borderlands: Game of the Year Edition, a definitive and remastered version of the original, and HD texture packs for Borderlands 2 and the Pre-Sequel. Borderlands: Game of the Year Edition, not to be confused with the old GOTY that just collected all the DLC, will con

Civ is one of the few games I haven’t bought a second copy of on Switch. I don’t even need the excuse of cross-platform cloud saves, which aren’t yet standard, but it makes a second purchase even more tempting. There are caveats, however, as the Switch version doesn’t yet have the expansions, so you’ll be stuck with the base game. Unfortunately, I don’t, so expect to find my corpse on the toilet, clutching my Switch. Sign up for a 2K account and you can use cross-platform cloud saves now.

Each time I’m reminded Team Sonic Racing exists I get newly excited: it’s a new kart racer by Sumo Digital (also responsible for the low-key amazing Sonic & All-Star Racing Transformed), and it looks smooth and colorful and cheerful. It’ll no doubt prove a mandatory palate cleanser after the enduring trauma this has caused. The objective is still the win the race, so that’s promising. Team Sonic Racing releases on May 21. It’ll support 12 player online races as well as local splitscreen play.

April Fools is a day when brands and corporations indulge in a little comedy, so you’d be forgiven for thinking that the latest Rage 2 announcement is a bit of a joke. But apparently it’s true: for those who pre-order the game, NBA Jam announcer Tim Kitzrow will deliver celebratory quips as you mow down foes in the wasteland. Kitzrow’s contributions to the NBA Jam series are fondly remembered by those who ever played them. Anyway, he’ll now say those things in a shooting game now, so long as you

Brendan Green, the “PlayerUnknown” of PlayerUnknown’s Battlegrounds, recently announced that after five years of working on PUBG, he’s moving on to something else. He’s remaining at PUBG Corp, however, at the head of a new division called PUBG Special Projects, which he said “will explore new possibilities of interaction and connection within the game space.” Multiplayer is clearly the focus, based on that statement, but Greene recently told GamesIndustry that one thing he’s not interested in do

Destiny 2’s upcoming 2.2.1 update will increase the drop rate of weapons in The Reckoning, the not-quite-horde mode that pits players against the Taken in a timed PvE event with persistent modifiers. Bungie will also be adding most of the weapons to the Gambit Prime loot pool to make it easier for players to pick up those hard-to-get Season of the Drifter weapons. “Most weapons will have a chance to drop at the end of Gambit Prime matches. Your drop chance will also increase in both Gambit Prime

Call of Duty: Black Ops 4’s Blackout battle royale mode is getting a new map called, and set on, the infamous prison island known as Alcatraz. Activision says players will need to develop new strategies and tactics to succeed on the Rock, which will feature both long-range outdoor fights and tight, close-quarters combat inside. The original Blackout map was billed as the biggest map in Call of Duty history, but Alcatraz looks to be quite a big smaller, a point Activision seemingly emphasizes whe

Update: Valve has confirmed to PC Gamer that, while incomplete, the technical information on the unfinished Valve Index pages is accurate. Finally, the Valve Index Controllers are indeed the ‘knuckles’ controllers under a new name, and they’ll be available at the same time as the Valve Index. Original story: An unfinished Steam page for the Valve Index has appeared, and it says the Valve-produced VR headsets will ship in June. They’re called Index Controllers on Steam, and are likely a version o

The /r/games subreddit is home to 1.7 million subscribers and sees upwards of 20 thousand active users at any given moment. To make their stance clear, the /r/games mod team has shut down the /r/games subreddit for April Fools’ Day, leaving a detailed statement of intent pinned to the top of the subreddit. Preventing the cultivation of bigotry means giving it no ground to go to, and as a whole leave only space for those who would respectfully participate. Browse just about any mildly popular gam

However, pricing on faster NVMe drives are starting to come down. It’s also dirt cheap for an NVMe drive of this capacity. Patriot Scorch 256GB SSD | NVMe | $36.99 (save $43)This is a cheap price for a 256GB NVMe solid state drive. Rated speeds are comparable to Corsair’s Force MP300 240GB, but you’re getting a tick more storage for less money with this one. Corsair’s Force MP300 240GB, for example, sells for $53.99.

Sword Art Online Alicization Lycoris is such a bizarre title for a videogame, even in the context of other overwrought Sword Art Online subtitles, that I worried at first that maybe it might be an April Fool’s gag gone over my head. The new game features Kirito, the head hero of the Sword Art Online “light novel” series, taking a journey through the Underworld, a strange but also familiar place where AIs behave like humans. Familiarity with the Sword Art Online series will obviously be a plus in

Back on this date in 2014, BioWare advertised the sexiest videogame accessory of all time: A Garrus Vakarian body pillow that you could, uhh, “calibrate to get the full night’s rest you deserve!” Alas, this date in 2014, as it is today, was April Fool’s Day, and the pillow existed only in the imaginations of quite possibly tens of thousands of disappointed Mass Effect fans. Somehow, it took BioWare a half-decade to recognize the obvious opportunity here, but finally, it has happened. I’m a littl

Some of the best CPU coolers are all-in-one liquid cooling units, and while generally safe, there is always the risk (however minute) that something will go wrong. And something did go wrong on a batch of Corsair’s Hydro Series H100i RGB Platinum SE (CW-9060041-WW) cooler, resulting in a partial recall. “We discovered that less than 1 percent of Hydro Series H100i RGB PLATINUM SE coolers sold to date are leaking small amounts of coolant into the hose sleeving. These leaks are easy to spot, as th

For Office Depot and Support.com, however, the Federal Trade Commission alleges it was a literally tricky business that raked in millions of dollars worth of PC repair and technical services, through deceptive malware scans. Office Depot is picking up the brunt of the bill, paying $25 million, while Support.com has agreed to fork over $10 million. “Consumers have a hard enough time protecting their computers from malware, viruses, and other threats,” said FTC Chairman Joe Simons. At the center o

Once the primary reason to get a brick-sized mobile phone, our fast-paced, modern world has left Snake far behind. Except now the snake is a train. Since it feels wholly unnatural to play Snake on anything other than a phone, you can also play on the mobile app. You have to essentially run over them, at which point they do a little jump and then vanish. What exactly are you making us do, Google?

We have arrived on April Fools’ Day, and that means one thing—wading through lots and lots of fake product announcements. Enter Aorus and its RGB hoodie. Aorus posted a video of its faux hoodie on Facebook, where it is clearly labeled as an April Fools’ Day prank. I don’t have a Ph.D. in seduction, but I’m pretty sure stuffing an LED light kit in my pants is not going to do it for anyone. Assuming there is no such thing as an RGB hoodie, there’s there’s always the DIY route.

A new monster is heading towards Hunt: Showdown’s Louisiana swamp. The Assassin is a spirit made out of a swarm of insects and a bundle of rags—just an unassuming pile on the floor that will quickly slice you up. Early on, the team had experimented with knives, but they couldn’t figure out where the knives went when it transformed back into rags and bugs. At various points in development, the Assassin looked like a witch doctor, then a plague doctor, and it was slow and quiet. You’ll be able to