Most of us want as much realism as possible in our simulation games, but there’s always a line we’re willing to cross in exchange for fun. In Ultimate Fishing Simulator, which leaves Early Access on August 30, that line is represented by the water level of whatever lake or river I’m fishing in. Plus, if you insist on more realism, you can play on a harder difficulty level where the camera is disabled. I start fishing in a small lake, surrounded by the ghosts of other active players (you can see

Following its flurry of real-world DJ talent in After Hours, GTA Online has added a new vehicle and a new Adversary Mode. The Declasse Scramjet will send you soaring, while the new Hunting Pack (Remix) Adversary Mode, for the most part, left me snoring. In our speculative what we want from GTA 6 (and the next version of GTA Online) overview, Sam and I suggested Grand Theft Auto’s next outing needs fewer but better Adversary Modes. As the name suggests, Hunting Pack (Remix) is a reworking of the

As you prepare to escape into the weekend, Fanatical wants you to escape Planet Earth. If you fancy catching the latter’s full story, the System Shock Pack adds the original’s Enhanced Edition for £2.09. Before you go—remember that Fanatical Assistant browser extension we mentioned a while back? Well, syncing your Steam Wishlist via the tool now stands you the chance of winning $100. “Everyone who has installed Fanatical Assistant and synced their Steam Wishlist since the extension launched in J

PC Gamer has collectively seen or played around 50 games this week, and below we thought we’d collect some of the highlights. Note this is just a selection of some of the games that were there. Neither of us played Sekiro, for example, which James had nice things to say about earlier this week. For clarity, we saw hands-off demonstrations of the first four games on this list, and actually got to play the latter four. Its absurd levels of detail, particularly in exterior environments, does feel l

Announced in February last year, Wargroove is Chucklefish’s cutesy “Advance Wars meets Fire Emblem” turn-based strategy game. I’m therefore pleased to hear Chucklefish CEO Finn “Tiy” Brice say it’s coming along well, despite taking its time. “It’s coming along at a really good pace, the reason it’s been taking longer than expected is because we decided we wanted a very complete and robust ‘package’ as well as wanting to perfect everything that was there. Around this time last year, Evan said War

Following its Dark Souls Age of Fire mod, the Datahacks team has released Forces of Annihilation—a similar hobbyist project for Dark Souls 3. Out now, FoA lets you storm Lothric as the game’s enemies and bosses alike. Naturally, that’s best portrayed in the massive shoes of Yhorm the Giant. With that, I’m particularly fond of seeing a hulking Yhorm wandering around the Profaned Capital, battering Headless Gargoyles. Since the mod’s release earlier this week, the Datahacks team has also shown off

Never mind portable rifts and movie crossovers, Fortnite’s latest feature is a cracker: you can now thank the Battle Bus driver before you hop out. As reported by our sister site GamesRadar, the new mechanic was born from Kody Keddie’s change.org petition titled ‘Add the ability to thank the bus driver before jumping out of the battle bus in Fornite’—which Epic now appears to have followed through on. “Since I was just a boy I have always loved jumping out of the battle bus but all this time I h

Tomorrow Corporation, an indie studio formed by World of Goo designer Kyle Gabler, Kyle Gray of Henry Hatsworth fame, and former EA developer Allan Blomquist, announced 7 Billion Humans at the start of the year. It was billed as a people-powered puzzle game where you direct groups of humans to solve programming challenges, and as the official the sequel to Human Resource Machine. It launched earlier today on the back of a new trailer (above): 7 Billion Humans is now available on Steam , Humble a

After only a few days with the test server for Rainbow Six Siege’s new Operation Grim Sky, Ubisoft is reacting quickly to feedback and issuing a set of balancing changes. Maverick is receiving the most drastic of changes to better balance him before his official release, but there are also some unexpected nerfs coming for Zofia, Glaz, and eventually Dokkaebi. Replace smoke grenade with stun grenadeUbi explained this change by saying smoke grenades gave Maverick overall “too much utility,” which

The rift that opened over Fortnite’s map in the lead up to Season 5 has started closing, but that doesn’t mean everything is going back to normal. As of update 5.30, the rift has shrunk significantly and turned a malevolent shade or purple. Even more eerie are the lightning strikes players are reporting. A lightning strike coming from the rift just hit the southeast part of the map! #Fortnite pic.twitter.com/qmhlgrN9VKAugust 23, 2018Much like Season 3’s meteor shower, purple streaks of lightning

Twitch announced today that the next Twitch Presents mega-marathon is Pokémon—16 movies and 19 television seasons of it, to be exact. The marathon will kick off on Monday, August 27 at 10 am Pacific with Pokémon’s Indigo League arc, and will run into 2019. In the spirit of Twitch’s interactivity, a special Twitch extension has been prepared for the marathon: the “Pokémon Badge Collector,” which “encourages viewers to ‘collect’ Pokémon badges that appear on-screen for points that place them on a

A high bridge cuts across Battlefield 5’s Rotterdam map, overseeing the wide streets either side of the river. There isn’t even a control point on top of the bridge, but its usefulness is so obvious that players fight to control it anyway. Collectively the changes remind me of that awful Battlefield 4 word ‘levolution,’ but instead of grand, gimmicky map shifts, Battlefield 5’s map changes have tactical significance. After an hour I was convinced that this will be the Battlefield that brings me

Image via UpboySeoul, South Korea’s Overwatch Fan Festival will come to an end today after two days of incredible cosplay, fanart, and ultra stylish shoes. I’m partial to the Genji pair, myself. If you’re wondering, the base shoe for Upboy’s project was Nike’s popular Air Force 1. Upboy layered colors and cutouts based on Overwatch heroes onto the white Air sneakers to create these designs. Sadly, they aren’t for sale, but you can see more of the shoes on Upboy’s Instagram page .

Call of Duty: Black Ops 4 is “optimized for the PC,” says Activision, and in case there’s any doubt, here’s a new PC-specific trailer showing it off. The PC version of Black Ops 4 will support ultrawide and multi-monitor setups, with 4K resolutions and uncapped framerates. Thomas Wilson, the co-head of co-developer Beenox, was more on-point a couple of weeks ago, ahead of the start of the first Black Ops 4 multiplayer beta. “Basically what we do is spend the amount of resources and time that PC

Overwatch is free to play this weekend, and once again “this weekend”, from the “Overwatch is free” perspective, begins on Thursday. The free weekend includes the full Overwatch roster and map lineup in modes including Quick Play, Custom Games, and the Overwatch Arcade. Players will level up and earn loot and unlocks in the usual fashion, and if you purchase the game during or after the free weekend, any progress you’ve earned will carry over. The Overwatch free weekend runs until 11:59 pm PT on

The explosive reception to both Red Dead Revolver and its sequel Red Dead Redemption are proof of that. Western Legends is the first release from new kid on the block Kolossal Games and designer Hervé Lemaître. It’s a difficult tightrope to walk, but Western Legends manages it with grace. Western Legends solves this issue by adopting a carefully crafted system of risk and reward, and making sure the risks are never too high. That collision of dramatic action and simple yet tough decisions forms

Stunlock Studios unveiled a battle royale mode for its MOBA brawler Battlerite in May, then earlier this month announced that it would actually be released as a standalone game called Battlerite Royale. Later in development, it became obvious that sharing the same balance and philosophy as Arena restricted the possibilities within Royale,” Stunlock wrote. Battlerite players who don’t own the All Champions or Ultimate Fan Packs but have an account level of 20 or higher when Battlerite Royale laun

(Image: © Intel)Intel has been issuing microcode updates for several weeks now address a range of side channel attack vectors affecting its processors, including Spectre, Meltdown, and more recently one called an L1 Terminal Fault. For whatever reason, Intel updated the license for its most recent microcode update to forbid sites from publishing benchmark data. The reason this restriction is problematic is because it seemingly prevents sites from publishing benchmark data highlighting any potent

Github via Felix Rieseberg. If you want to relive the good old days of Windows 95 without using a 20-year-old PC, well, now you can. Windows 95 is now available as an app on Github. It was compiled and uploaded by Felix Rieseberg, a Slack developer who apparently had a nostalgic itch to scratch. I briefly kicked the app’s tires on a Windows 10 machine and, well, it’s Windows 95 as I remember it.

Do you want a free Fortnite emote? And all you have to do to get one is enable two-factor authentication on your Epic Games account. Log into your Epic account, or create one if necessary. From there, hit “Password & Security” in the menu on the left, then scroll down until you see the “Two-factor authentication” bit. You can use an app, or you can verify through email—either way, you’re protected and you’ve got a free emote on your hands.