All these years of being a Star Wars fan, and I never knew Yoda had a pilot’s license. But there he is, in the first trailer for Star Wars Battlefront 2’s Starfighter Assault mode, blasting Sith out of the sky, including face paint addict Darth Maul. It confirms that we can play the likes of Yoda, Darth Maul, Darth Vader, Han Solo, Luke Skywalker and Poe Dameron. Shown off are a variety of battle locales, drawn from all three Star Wars cinematic eras. Star Wars Battlefront 2 is due out on Novemb

As of today, HTC is dropping the price of the Vive headset to $600 (and £600), bringing it closer to the recently reduced price of the Oculus Rift headset. We’re setting the price of the consumer version of the HTC Vive to $599.” I asked HTC if there was a plan to bundle the Vive’s Deluxe Audio Strap with the headset, or offer a discount for new buyers. The Vive’s new price is in effect as of today, August 21. The deluxe audio strap adds another $100 on top, if you want the best Vive experience.

Here’s a new Assassin’s Creed: Origins video, showcasing the game’s setting and mood to the tune of Leonard Cohen’s You Want It Darker. As you’ll have gathered by now, this installment is set in Ancient Egypt, and while Ubisoft has rejigged the series’ format quite dramatically by all reports, you can be safely assured that much stabbing and killing will still take place. The trailer was aired during the Xbox / Microsoft Gamescom press conference earlier today. Assassin’s Creed: Origins will rel

Orcs aren’t the only nasties roaming Middle Earth, and in Shadow of War you’re going to have to confront some real brutes. The latest video shows hero Talion face up to a fiery Balrog (you know, of the famous ‘You Shall Not Pass’ scene from the films), a tree spirit and what looks like an armoured, camouflaged Caragor. To defeat them you’re going to need more firepower that just a sword, and Talion has just the thing. The trailer shows him riding on the backs of two dragons as well as on the sho

You’ll be able to play pirate game Sea of Thieves with your Xbox-minded friends on launch day, developer Rare has confirmed. It’s “no asterisks” cross-play, the developer said during Microsoft’s Gamescom presentation today. And if you’ve got buddies that play on the Xbox One, cross-play helps you do just that. One more detail—you’ll be able to use your own vomit as a weapon in Sea of Thieves, Rare said. Hurl in a bucket and chuck it an an enemy to get the upper hand in a sword fight.

There’s a Jurassic Park game roaring onto PC next summer. Jurassic World Evolution, from Planet Coaster and Elite Dangerous developer Frontier Developments, is a theme park management game set on the exotic island of Isla Nublar, which featured in the original 1993 film. “Build your own Jurassic World, bioengineer new dinosaur breeds, and construct attractions, containment and research facilities. Every choice leads to a different path and spectacular challenges arise when ‘life finds a way’,” t

You’ve finally upgraded and the only sticking point is the left over thermal paste from the junk processor you just tossed away. Thermal paste can get mighty hard depending on how long it has been applied for. The best option is a microfiber cloth but paper towel will do in a pinch—it leaves behind much less material than toilet paper. Wipe the remaining thermal paste and reapply the alcohol as needed. Once you’ve gotten to a mirror-like finish, it’s time to apply your own thermal paste.

The next Great American Novel, still just a collection of ideas in a text file, but really good ideas. That save file for Lemmings with 350 hours logged. Losing a save file is a deep, scarring pain. The only way to heal old wounds is to exercise them, so we want you to share your most painful save file disasters. Tell us about your deepest, darkest moments of despair, as your most coveted PC save disappeared into digital dust forever.

This week: what game does everyone seem to love, but you can’t stand it? Jarred Walton: The Total War games—all of themI’ve been around a long time, and many of the Total War games are in my library. Give me a true turn-based strategy game or a full RTS and I’m good, but Total War… Total War never changes. I managed to stay away from the next entry, Medieval: Total War, because it sounded like more of the same. But when Rome: Total War received excellent reviews, I got suckered in again.

Last weekend we asked for you to share your craziest stories from PlayerUnknown’s Battlegrounds. And if you missed the opportunity to share your story last week, feel free to add yours to the comments below. Check it out on our YouTube:Jumping on a grenadeBattlegrounds leaves little room for friendship unless you’re playing with a squad. He stood up and said, “Eh, you can win, I’m good for second place.” Commenter: LegiosA story about a squad game.

Online fighting game Absolver lets you strike out on your own in an open-world but, as a new video demonstrates, you don’t have to be a lone wolf. I reckon the most interesting feature shown off in the video is the mentoring system. Lastly, the video details the game’s competitive scene, which will eventually be fairly sprawling. To start off you’ll only be competing in single player combat trials, which are best of five fights with a random opponent at specific points in the game world. But at

In a statement from the Mass Effect: Andromeda team, it’s been confirmed that the single-player portion of the game will no longer receive ongoing support. Early in development, we decided to focus Mass Effect: Andromeda’s story on the Pathfinder, the exploration of the Andromeda galaxy, and the conflict with the Archon. Our last update, 1.10, was the final update for Mass Effect: Andromeda. It’s no major surprise that BioWare wants to call it a day on Andromeda’s single-player. It’s not our fav

Friday the 13th players will be drowning in free updates very soon: there’s a brand new map, a new Jason and smaller versions of current maps to facilitate faster rounds waiting in the wings. I like the idea: players will get smaller versions of Higgins, Packanack and Crystal Lake designed for a faster pace of play. There’s free ‘Emote DLC’ incoming that will add eight emotes to help players communicate with their teammates. (On a side note, I’m not 100% sure on where the line lies between free

Fortnite could be an incredible tower defence shooter if it weren’t for one of the worst progression systems of all time—so said James when he reviewed it earlier this month. To celebrate the occasion Epic Games has announced a new survival mode, arriving on August 29 as part of the Survive the Storm update. You’ll receive some “amazing” goodies for making it out alive, according to Epic, and the longer your survival campaign the better the rewards. Executive producer Zak Phelps and creative dir

The weekend is here, and in part we can thank Ian McKellen’s great-great-grandfather for that. Even after they’ve been released, work continues: just take No Man’s Sky, which I’m going to be playing more of this weekend. So what are you all playing this weekend? Anything you didn’t like and hope a patch has made better or liked a lot and hope a patch didn’t make worse? And don’t forget thank Gandalf/Magneto’s dad’s dad’s dad’s dad for making sure you have a little extra time to play—assuming you

If I had to make a direct comparison, it would be to The Dishwasher: Vampire Smile, Ska’s previous 2D action RPG. Dark Souls is a poor and arbitrary acid test, and the Souls-like label creates unrealistic standards that threaten to bury great games. But as Souls games, they’re pretty terrible, probably because they’re not Souls games. Even if you are intimately familiar with Dark Souls, Souls-like still doesn’t tell you anything because it lacks a universal definition. But then, even if you are

Dead Cells, the excellent rogue-like Metroidvania, now has a daily challenge mode that you can replay as many times as you want to compete for a spot on the leaderboards. Daily Run gives everyone the same level and loot, and is already alive and kicking: apparent hardware enthusiast GTX1080ti_Prime is top of the pile. It means that players know their feedback is directly influencing the game in tangible ways. If you haven’t yet played Dead Cells and you’re a fan of Spelunky and its ilk then it’s

Dishonored 1 received a skill challenge pack, a fairly good piece of DLC and then a very good piece of DLC. My PC high of this week, then, instead applies to console gaming—but given the blue hedgehog is en route to desktops I reckon it’s all good. I say this as someone whose console career began with the first Sonic way back in 1991, and as someone who is therefore blinded by nostalgia. Come for the cow anecdote and despair, stay for the PC that looks like an oversized model of dubstep, if it w

Earlier this week, I posted our initial review of AMD’s RX Vega 56 and Vega 64, showing much of what the new cards have to offer. RX Vega 64 benchmarks and overclockingThe charts below are similar to those posted earlier this week, only now I’ve focused specifically on 1440p performance, and I’ve added benchmarks for several additional configurations of the RX Vega 64. Besides stock performance (RX Vega 64), using the default “Balanced” WattMan profile, I’ve tested using the WattMan Power Saver

These echoes learn and mimic your behavior, but only the things you do in the light—and they can only “learn” during blackouts. Yes, it sounds weird (which I tend to see as a plus), but the new gameplay trailer released today by developer Ultra Ultra helps make a little more sense of it all. It starts off looking like a fairly conventional third-person stealth game, with plenty of dodging behind pillars and creeping along low walls. That quickly sparks a blackout, as the computer controlling the