These words begin the latest dev diary for open world RPG Outward, from Nine Dots Studio and Deep Silver. It’s not just the romantic idea of a backpack signifying travel and adventure, either: in Outward, your backpack has an effect on your character beyond just how much loot you can carry. Check out the dev diary above. Using a large backpack in Outward will obviously allow you to carry important supplies, but it’s cumbersome, slowing you down and making it much more difficult to dodge enemy at

League of Legends has released a new cinematic, Awaken, to celebrate the Ranked 2019 season, which kicks off on this week. I’ll be honest, I’m not particularly familiar with League of Legends—I did install it once but don’t think I got as far as playing an actual game—but despite my ignorance, the cinematic looks absolutely stunning. All of this is brought to life by the vocals of Valerie Broussard and violinist, Ray Chen. But don’t take my word for it; you can check out the full cinematic for y

On Friday afternoon, the ice orb transformed into a large clock and exploded shortly after, allowing the Ice King to cover the entire map with snow, transforming the predominantly green playground of Fortnite into a Winter Wonderland. Well, a Winter Wonderland with ice zombies. Prepare for battle – dive in now to take on the Ice Legion and survive the storm! pic.twitter.com/yvcHgCIYvkJanuary 19, 2019Not content with transforming the entire map, the Ice King has also been busy spawning a new type

We’re firmly out of Steam sale season now, but there’s always a PC game sale somewhere. Right now, Fanatical has a bunch of big savings going on both newer and older games—here’s a few highlights. There’s a particularly decent 60 percent saving on fun beat-’em-up Ultimate Marvel Vs Capcom 3, which is a lot better than the more recent Infinite. One of the highlights of Fanatical’s selection of bundles right now is this pick-‘n’-mix for blockbusters. Fanatical always sources its keys from publishe

For those who’ve had their eye on the Blue Yeti USB microphone, now’s your chance: Amazon’s selling it with a digital copy of Assassin’s Creed Odyssey for the bargain price of $109.99 . Thanks to excellent sound quality, portability, multiple pattern selections (cardioid, bidirectional, omnidirectional, stereo), and a proven track record, the Yeti is worth every penny. For those who already have Odyssey, Walmart’s selling the Yeti in white on its own for $99 . Meanwhile, UK users can get the Blu

Following a leak through Call of Duty’s companion app, Treyarch has confirmed that ‘Ambush’ is the next limited time mode coming to Black Ops 4’s Blackout. The leak was apparently spotted on the Call of Duty companion app and captured by Reddit user carkeys11 and posted to Reddit. Treyarch was quick to respond to the thread, confirming the new mode:”It’s true, Ambush is coming soon in Blackout as our next limited-time mode in Blackout—just not quite yet! There’s been a lot going on for Call of D

If you’re still waiting to pick up that new laptop for the new year, we have some good news: our best gaming laptop , the MSI GS65 Stealth Thin (15.6″), has $220 knocked off its asking price on Amazon. As mentioned by our Hardware Lead Bo Moore in the best gaming laptop guide, it’s also beautifully designed. In fact, the MSI GS65 Stealth Thin “delivers everything I want in a gaming laptop. If you prefer PC for gaming but don’t want the fuss of making it yourself, head to our best gaming PC list

Amplitude has announced details and released trailers for the Endless Space 2 and Endless Legend Penumbra and Symbiosis expansions. First up, Endless Space 2: Penumbra will introduce a new, wraith-like faction, the Umbral Choir. Here’s more from Amplitude on how the Umbral Choir came to be:”10 months ago, we started out on a journey to co-create the Umbral Choir faction with our community. You’ll be able to attempt to hack into others’ home systems, regardless of the faction you’re playing. Endl

A new update is heading to Sea of Thieves next month and will reduce the overall installation size of the game on your hard drive. explains Joe Neate, executive producer of Sea of Thieves. “[The update] ultimately means the game install size goes down so it takes up less space on your hard drive and we have much more control over the patch process, going forward.” Neate goes on to explain that while the size of future patches may slightly increase, the overall space that the game takes up on you

Stardock has announced that its space sandbox strategy game Galactic Civilizations 3 is getting a new expansion, entitled Retribution. Adding new playable civilizations and a story campaign, the new expansion will conclude the backstory of Galactic Civilizations 3 with a ‘climactic final battle,’ as well as introducing various new features. Galactic Civilizations 3 was initially released back in 2015 and has enjoyed a number of updates since then. The most recent Intrigue expansion added planeta

As EA mentioned in a press release yesterday, Sims fans now have the option to drive their entire household crazy with hours of music from The Sims, Sims trivia, and Sims facts. You can also drive your Sims households crazy with Lin-Z, an in-game virtual personal assistant that is a lot like Alexa. But aside from trying to figure out if my life is real or a simulation, The Sims music Alexa plays isn’t limited to the just covers of popular songs in Simlish. The trivia game has three levels of dif

Degrees of Separation is a co-op puzzle platformer, written by famed RPG wordsmith Chris Avellone, that follows the adventures of two very different characters named Ember and Rime. Ahead of its release next month, publisher Modus Games has put out a video that digs into the game’s narrative and its hot-and-cold game world. “As Ember and Rime move between different worlds, the barrier between them, they gain various kinds of control over it. So it was definitely a new challenge for him, but I th

Section 2.4 of Unity’s TOS, “Working with Third Party Service Providers,” now states:Unity developers are free to use any service offered to Unity developers (each, a “Third Party Service”). Unity does not have any obligation to provide support for any Third Party Service provider or Third Party Service under this Agreement. Terms of service changes will also be hosted on Github, so users will be able to see exactly when and how they change. “We know Improbable was in violation even before the D

Sure, that’s after rebate, but think about it this way: you’re already saving $280 before you have to mail anything in. For one, it’s bundled with a headset, the MSI Gaming Headet S, and while I’ve never used these cans for myself, Newegg seems to think they’re worth $100… because that’s how much the headset costs if you buy it on its own. Then, if you’re a Fortnite player, this laptop is eligible for the Nvidia “Counterattack” bundle deal that’s going on right now. So, on top of the MSI GV62

Remember a couple of years ago, when a trailer for a fake game that appeared in Watch Dogs 2 turned out—maybe, according to sources—to be a real project called Pioneer? It looks like that report may have been accurate, because now it appears that the whole thing has been cancelled. But the trailer had already been inserted into Watch Dogs 2 by that point, and so out the door it went. I’ve emailed Ubisoft to ask if there’s anything to all of this, and I’ll update if I receive a reply. But unless

That’s all well and good, but what if you just want a faster card without paying extra for ray tracing support? Nvidia may have you covered, if a rumor pointing to a GeForce GTX 1660 Ti is true. If those specs are true (and the card actually comes to fruition), it would likely perform in the neighborhood of a GeForce GTX 1070. During a recent Q&A session with VentureBeat, Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang said that the GeForce GTX 1080 Ti, 1080, 1070 Ti, and 1070 have all sold out, and “in several more we

I played a brief demo of Katana Zero back in 2015, when it was still being published by Adult Swim Games (these days, Devolver Digital is handling publishing duties for Askiisoft). I enjoyed what I played, though there’s likely been a lot of iteration on the 2D action platformer since then, and I look forward to seeing how it’s developed. The main thrust of it is that, as in Hotline Miami—which surely provided a bit of neon inspiration—one hit takes you out, so you’ve got to flawlessly execute e