"It is out of the question to let a boss run rampant" - Ubisoft workers strike against "disastrous" cutbacks

Ubisoft’s bloodbath of game cancellations and restructuring yesterday has attracted the expected fiery response from unionised workers, with the French game industry union Solidaires Informatique calling a half-day strike today. Cost-cutting and potential layoffs aside, the strikers are protesting against Ubisoft’s decision to mandate a full return to office, with workers given an annual allowance of work from home days instead - something a publisher executive has justified as a move “to enhance collective efficiency” and “the sense of belonging”.

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Nexus Mods' latest modathon isn't a typical modathon, it's a first go at the same for multi-mod collections

With their latest Fallout modathon having wrapped up at the close of last year, mod-hosting site Nexus Mods have decided to try something new with their latest event designed to supercharge mod creation around a specific game or theme. Rather than asking folks to submit fresh individual mods like usual, the modathon that's about to kick off is all about putting together chunky multi-mod lists which can overhaul a game in one fell swoop.

These user-assembled modlists, dubbed Collections, are a feature Nexus Mods have been pushing for a number of years now, so it's not surprising they're now serving as the subject of a modathon for the first time.

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Rule your own, slightly socially awkward knights in the round table management RPG Sovereign Tower

You ever accidentally find out that you're the sovereign of an entire nation as dictated by a prophecy even though you're technically just random nobody, and so you wind-up being the one to have to make all the decisions about how your nation is run? No? Well, that's fine, but if you'd like that to be you, I'll introduce you to Sovereign Tower, a management RPG where you send off your knights of the round table to deal with all manner of quests.

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Firestarters promises to mix Rollerdome, arena shooters and visual novels into a government-sanctioned bloodsport

This is probably the umpteenth time I've said I'm not someone who plays many shooters, but here I am saying it again, because an FPS has rocked up that has clocked my interest. It's called Firestarters, an arena shooter that's a bit like Quake, a bit like Rollerdome, and looks like good, bloody fun.

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Marathon Steam pre-orders no longer automatically try to install Destiny 2, as Bungie fix Freudian slip/bug

Ah, no, not that one. That, I assume, has been the reaction of folks who've gone to pre-order the Marathon reboot on Steam, and immediately been informed that Destiny 2 is sneaking its way back onto their machines. Thankfully, Bungie have now fixed whatever issue was causing the latter to take pre-purchases of the former as a cue to re-install itself.

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Life is Strange: Reunion, the time-fiddling finale of co-protagonists Max and Chloe's tale, arrives in March

The next Life is Strange game, dubbed Life is Strange: Reunion, is set to arrive in March. Officially revealed following an impromptu teaser from PEGI earlier this month, this new entry sees series stalwarts Max Caulfield and Chloe Price serve as co-protagonists. The former's still able to stick time in reverse and the latter's return provides the verbal prowess necessary to solve a blaze-based mystery.

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The Witcher 3 now has online multiplayer thanks to a mod, allowing gaggles and gangs of Geralts to gather

As much as single-player solitude's a big reason why I love getting lost in The Witcher 3, running around its world with a small crew of mates also seems like it'd be a nice time. A good thing it is then that a new mod for the decade old RPG allows it to host online multiplayer sessions with several players running amok at once.

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TR-49 review – a code breaking puzzle game where you get all up in some dead authors' gossip

I am in the dusty basement of Manchester cathedral. On the streets above me, there are police searching for anyone who would challenge the state. Someone like me. I am supposed to be working on a weapon to use against these fascists. It isn't a gun or a bomb, it is a machine that eats books.

At least, that's what I should be doing; instead, I'm searching for the final letter between the members of a love triangle of 1950s academics. I've tracked down all their trashy novels and papers on temporal dynamics, but I want to find the last bit of saucy gossip. Smashing the state can wait a moment.

There is a lot I won't tell you about TR-49, Inkle's latest puzzle game. I don't want to ruin any of the epiphanies that lie in wait for you. But it is a treat for anyone looking to get all up in the personal lives of some long-dead fictional authors.

I know there are many of you curtain twitchers out there.

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An ARC Raiders auction house would be "risky", but Embark are looking at a playable Speranza hub and an actual trading animation

The winter abates, the days begin to lengthen, the snowdrops creep forth from their burrows, and the raiders of ARC Raiders carry on raiding Arcs. Developers Embark have also done another round of interviews, in which they discuss plans for ARC Raiders updates in 2026, and in particular, address the question of whether to implement a player-trading menu and/or some kind of auction house feature. Right now, you can only officially barter with NPC merchants.

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Alleged Fable concept art seems to point towards a return to Fable 2's rogueish hive of scum and pub islands

A bunch of alleged concept art for the Fable reboot has reportedly been unearthed via a developer's portfolio, ahead of the RPG's appearance at this week's Xbox showcase. As of writing, there's no indication as to what stage of developement the apparent game art could be from. However, if it's genuine, it does seem to point towards a location from Fable 2 making a return in the reboot.

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Real-time tactics game Strategos is out now in early access with some clever communication and morale systems

Historical real-time tactics game Strategos is out in early access today, boasting over 120 factions and 250 units based on “the major and minor powers of the ancient Mediterranean”, according to developers Strategos Games. If you are a brazen tomfool, you might summarise it as Total War without the sprawling campaign map element. If you are an excessively brazen tomfool – brazen to the point that a formation of Greek Hoplites would use you as cover while manouvering around some pesky Achaemenid Persian archers – you might also say that “Strategos” sounds like a spiky brand of cereal, rich in essential iron and horse sweat.

We neither of us are tomfools, however. We know better than to write such nonsense out loud. I’ve still yet to play Strategos, but I’ve been reading more about its “command and control” simulation, after covering the news that MicroProse would publish the game, and it does sound like a worthwhile complication of the process of clattering phalanxes together like frying pans.

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Ex-Assassin's Creed lead sues Ubisoft for around $1 Million, alleging his exit was a disguised dismissal

Former Assassin's Creed series lead Marc-Alexis Côté is suing Ubisoft for damages, alleging that his abrupt October departure from the company after 20 years wasn't a matter of personal choice, but a case of "constructive dismissal". That, in non-legalese, means that the developer believes he was left with no choice but to resign, having been offered new roles he viewed as demotions amid a round of corporate musical chairs.

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Valve rewrite Steam's GenAI disclosure rules to more explicitly allow AI-powered "efficiency" tools

Valve have reportedly rewritten Steam’s AI disclosure form, essentially a declaration of a game’s generative AI usage that developers and publishers must complete to sell on the platform. The new form, shared by consultant Simon Carless, now specifies that while the presence of in-game GenAI content must still be divulged, including on the game’s store page, the usage of AI-based production tools for "efficiency gains" does not require disclosure.

"We are aware that many modern game development environments have AI powered tools built into them," the update form reads. "Efficiency gains through the use of these tools is not focus of this section. Instead, it is concerned with the use of AI in creating content that ships with your game, and is consumed by players."

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This week in PC games: a new Inkle game, a Total War alternative, a Paper Mario-like RPG and some bladesongs

Happy new week of PC game releases, all! First, the customary paragraph of Maw musings. What we refer to as the Maw goes by many other names in different regions, as different cultures react to its cosmic incursions. Across the channel in Normandy, generations of monks have addressed the creature as La Bête des Trous. The Finnish know the Maw as Tuleva Syöjä. In the United States, meanwhile, they call it Friday Night at Applebee’s.

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The Sunday Papers

Sundays are for walking around your home, looking for somewhere to install the home security camera you got for your birthday, and realising a) how few unused surfaces actually exist in this space and b) it was pretty stupid to ask for a home security camera when you knew full well its only purpose would be keeping an eye on the cat while you’re out. And she’s the cat equivalent of a human octogenarian. What, exactly, is she going to do, that might warrant establishing a surveillance state in your own living room? And seriously, how is there not a single inch of unused shelf?

Better, it sounds like, to have a seat and reason quality articles. Go on, while no-one’s watching.

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How game developers worldwide are reliving Y2K Japan, from Jet Set Radio to Dance Dance Revolution

Many of today's game designers have, like me, grown up with Japanese Y2K style - the style of the late 90s and early 2000s that gave us not only fear of the end of the world due to a calendar change, but also the WipEout series, futuristic PlayStation 2 ads, and fashion that incorporated everything from glitter to holographic fabrics and cute crop tops.

In a media landscape that seldom shies away from homages and sequels, I’ve waited a long time for the influence of childhood favourites such as Dance Dance Revolution and Space Channel 5 to pop back up. After all, plenty of Western developers have taken inspiration from Japanese role-playing games, giving us Sea of Stars, Undertale and Clair Obscur: Expedition 33, to name a few. Recently, I found some really cool games by Western developers that are living the Y2K dream with me, so it was time to dive into their inspirations and compare some childhood anime with some nerds.

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What are we all playing this weekend?

Saturdays are for… drat, look at the time! I shouldn't be writing an article. I should be loading boxes into vans. Frantically disassembling furniture. And stopping the friends who are 'helping' me move house from pausing to sip cups of tea. It's like they don't know how long I spent on the phone to the council booking parking permits. No, I couldn't possibly tell you. Well, twist my arm. 45 minutes.

So, if you're curled up in bed having a relaxing morning, I envy you. But know that I'm in that blessed window where I can 'accidentally' lose all the personalised mugs and t-shirts I've been given as presents over the years. You know, the ones the gift giver is always asking after or expecting to be on display. This is a window that only opens once every few years, and with both hands I'm throwing 'Boyz on tour mugs' out of it.

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Further testing seems to confirm Monster Hunter Wilds DLC performance improvement theory, to an extent

I think we all want it to be true that the Monster Hunter Wilds’ infamously limp PC performance can be blamed upon, as was reported yesterday, an overzealous DLC checking process gumming up what might overwise be a perfectly fine-running beastfight game. Partly because it just sounds funny. Willing but frustrated graphics elves running about, harangued to distraction by a hairstyle add-on overseer nagging for licenses, like a Daily Telegraph reader demanding to know why you aren’t wearing a poppy on November 3rd.

The best part? All evidence suggests it genuinely is true – albeit only to varying degrees, and in the case of my own testing, nowhere near as drastically as in the originally discovered case.

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Some of Resident Evil Requiem's regular zombies remember being alive

Capcom have released a new 13 minute Resident Evil Requiem gameplay showcase, with commentary from director Koshi Nakanishi. About 20% of it is Leon Kennedy kicking zombies in the noggin, doing Wickian dodge-shoots, or chopping torsos with a chainsaw or hatchet (the latter a subweapon that needs periodic resharpening). Another 20% consists of new, stealth-oriented character Grace creeping through ornate chambers in first person; being the "cold bath" to Leon's "hot sauna", she doesn’t have serious fighting skills, but she does have a ‘pinch hitter’ handcannon for those times when skulking behind tableware won’t cut the mustard. There’s talk of a new crafting system, whereby Grace turns zombie blood into a vaccine to stop corpses reanimating.

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The Assassin’s Creed 4: Black Flag remake sea shanty siren song grows even more deafening, as Ubisoft reupload a bunch of sailing tunes

We'll heave him up an away we'll go. 'Way, me Assassin's Creeda! We'll heave him up an away we'll go. We're all bound over to Ubisoft's official music YouTube channel! We'll heave him up from down below. 'Way, me Assassin's Creeda! Oh, this is where a bunch of the original Black Flag's sea shanties have just been reuploaded, potentially providing yet another hint that we're all soon bound to be playing that long-rumoured remake of the pirassassin adventure!

This sudden influx of classic ditties might not have meant much in a vacuum, but it follows many reports about the badly kept secret that is the remake and a PEGI rating that's about as close as you can get to a seal of approval short of Ubisoft finally giving up the ghost anmd revealing the thing themselves.

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Mirror's Edge's iconic art style? Yeah, turns out it was sort of an accident

It's kind of baffling how Mirror's Edge came out almost two full decades ago, and there's hardly a whisper of a game that's managed to match its art direction. The thing is just too clean, too specific, there's a purpose to every detail. It feels like the future distilled into digital form, though no one really followed suit in the years since, opting for drab, lifeless realism instead. Except, as it turns out, that's almost what Mirror's Edge looked like too.

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Point-and-click adventure game filled with "ah yeah, them" British actors Earth Must Die is out later this month

Anyone order a point-and-click adventure puzzle game for later this month featuring a cast of British actors that'll make you go "oh, right, them!" when you Google them? Well, someone must have, because Earth Must Die, the next game from Lair of the Clockwork God developer Size Five Games, now has a release date. Come on, it's getting cold!

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Valve stress again that there'll be more Steam Machine Verified games than Steam Deck ones, with "fewer constraints" in their testing programme

Regardless of whether you've laid hands on the plastic contours of a Steam Deck, you’ve probably seen the Steam Deck Verified programme in action: badges of honour (or of 'Unsupported' disgrace) on a game’s Steam store page, reflecting how well it runs and plays on the portable PC per Valve’s in-house testing. The programme is being expanded to include the upcoming Steam Machine too, and is set to bestow a lot more games with Steam Machine Verified status, given what a Valve designer calls "fewer restraints" in their judging criteria.

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Hytale's first hotfix targets crash-inducing hairdos and buckets, as its devs outline update plans for the next few months

A first round of hotfixes has arrived for Hytale, following the Minecrafty sandboxer's arrival in early access form yesterday. Developers Hypixel have also offered some insight into which aspects of it they're planning to prioritise working on in the coming months.

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Fired GTA 6 devs suffer setback in legal fight against Rockstar as UK court denies request for interim relief

GTA 6 developers fired by Rockstar last year on the charge of leaking information about the upcoming game have been denied interim relief, as they and their allies at the Independent Workers’ Union of Great Britain begin their legal case against the company for alleged union-busting.

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Mama's Sleeping Angels is a Lethal Company-esque, dream-exploration, Y2K smorgasbord for the zillenialpha generations

Isn't it funny that we don't have a definitive reason as to why we dream? We have ideas, theories, like that they're the brain moving memories from short-term to long-term storage. But why the hell can they get so weird? And worse, scary. This feels like the central question at the heart of Mama's Sleeping Angels, an upcoming Lethal Company-esque procedurally generated dream-exploration game where you're having a sleepover with friends and must feed a goddess within her dream.

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Big Hops, out today, is as delightful to play as it is to look at

It feels quite fitting that a game like Big Hops released today, the day after Awesome Games Done Quick wrapped up, because this thing feels like it has a guaranteed spot in Summer Games Done Quick already. You're a frog! Who hops around! What's not to love? It helps that the platformer feels so good in motion, too.

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RAM may be abominably expensive, but hey, at least SSD prices are also exploding

As we stumble into what increasingly looks like a hardware-unfriendly 2026, RAMnarök shows no signs of petering out. As tech giants continue hoarding memory chips to build their AI farms, and suppliers gleefully jack up their prices in turn, consumer-grade RAM is still laughably expensive – and SSDs, most of which also need these in-demand chips, are seeing some nasty inflation as well.

I bring this up now, when storage prices began climbing back in November, because the past week has been particularly fucked, vis-à-vis the kind of SSDs you’d want in a modern games PC. Keepa, Amazon-tracking the browser extension I’ve long used to gauge the honesty of Prime Day and Black Friday deals, makes for grim reading: the 1TB WD Black SN850X currently sits at £162, having been £116 on January 5th, and £85 on November 5th. Nearly double the price, in barely two months.

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With Hytale early access imminent, lead dev urges folks to take a couple of steps to "significantly reduce launch-day stress"

It's Hytale early access release week, with the recently resurrected via purchase from Riot blocky sandbox set to ruck up tomorrow, January 13th. Ahead of the big day the Hypixel co-founder who's currently spearheading the game has asked prospective players to download and log into its launcher nice and early, with the hopes this can help keep launch day disruption to a minimum.

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The Sunday Papers

Sundays are for trying to work out what the hell we’re supposed to do when every videogame company above a certain scale has business links to some kind of fearful death machine. And also, for rediscovering the joys of small fan heaters. My fan heater is called Phil. He hunkers by my feet and fills my ears with a soothing roar. Occasionally I try to dry socks on him and he gets mad, switches off and sulks for 15 minutes, but beyond that, we have a pretty good working relationship. He’s humming away right now as I assemble this round-up of Top Reads.

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Oh yes, I will take a look at the Vampire the Masquerade and Indian folklore inspired RPG Rakshasa, thanks

Every once in a while, a game rocks up that so quickly finds itself in my Steam wishlist I don't even remember clicking the button. Today, that game is Rakshasa, Vampire the Masquerade: Bloodlines and Baldur's Gate inspired first-person RPG set in modern India where you must face off against demi-gods and "centuries-old flesh-eating monsters" inspired by Indian folklore. Yeah! Hell yeah! Yeah, yeah sign me up!

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As The Sims Project Rene switches to being "mobile-first," EA vaguely tease the series' "next evolution"

I think as long as you make a new year's update post before the incredibly arbitrary date of January 13th, you're still able to do so without me thinking "come on, it's almost February", which is exactly what EA did with their new years Sims update post. Perhaps reassuringly, after word came last year of EA's concerning acquisition, the post opens by doubling down on what the team has previously said regarding staying committed to their values (those values including inclusivity is welcome though I wish they'd be more explicit about who is being included). But the post also, sort of, goes into what's next for the series.

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Pilot a big ol' fort with steampunky legs in the deserty extraction shooter Sand: Raiders of Sophie when it launches in March

Hear ye, hear ye, another extraction shooter is almost upon us, this time the smaller but still quite bold in scope Sand: Raiders of Sophie. Last time I personally heard of this game it was just called Sand, which doesn't sound great for that whole search engine thing, though I'm not entirely convinced by the subtitle. Anyway, this extraction shooter is set in an alternate 1910 where you get to roam the desert in a steampunky fortress with legs, and it's got a release month!

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Silent Hill f writer Ryukishi07 explains how the cultish town isn't just a place now, but a "phenomenon"

Last year, after a bit of a wait, Silent Hill was released, and with it came some changes to the series. The combat was a lot more actiony, the format for multiple endings was drastically different, but the most obvious change was its setting. We're not in Silent Hill anymore, Toto! We're in Ebisugaoka, Japan, also a fictional town, though clearly not a fictional country. And that's because Silent Hill, the place, is now also Silent Hill, the "phenomenon."

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What are we all playing this weekend?

Saturdays are for putting your hand in a bucket of ice, swallowing a mouthful of honey and lemon, and breathing a sigh of relief. All that practice you put into your welcome handshake and 'Here comes trouble!' paid off. Almost every member of the treehouse has been successfully greeted home.

All bar one. But I'll get him. I'll get him good.

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Steam Workshop mods should hopefully suffer less update-induced hassle, thanks to new version control tools

The regular modpocalypses which tend to erupt when a fresh update for a game comes down the pipeline - an especially terrifying prospect if it's an older game and the tweaks/additions aren't something you're happy to temporarily switch back to vanilladom in order to enjoy - may now be less of a ballache. Well, at least when it comes to the Steam Workshop, which has just had new version control pipes welded to its pulsating metal frame.

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Rally Point: Unorthodox. Complex. Laborious. Not just XCOM again. Of course I love USC: Counterforce

What did you do while recovering from your big medical thing, Sin? Well. Loath as I am to talk about myself ("lol. lmao." - Combative New Ed), I... don't know? There was some Ultima Underworld, some workers, some resources, some Pagonians pioneered. But in the dimensionless vortex of first-time-off-since-2020, I think I did... nothing. The lists barely moved.

Except, finally, for a game I struggled with last year. A strange game, easily punished, as all turn-based games must be for dolt reasons, for not being bloody XCOM. USC Colon Counterforce is more like old XCOM, aka UFO. But it's not a recreation of that, nor of Aliens, its other obvious inspiration. It diverges as much as it reminds, and makes some mistakes in a way that we all must, when pursuing our own identity instead of an impression of someone else's.

I wish I'd given it a second chance sooner. I wish I could shake everyone and say "This! This is the way! There is more than one path, if you just look for it! Yes, the one before you stumbled. But look at it it. See the admittedly weakly-named USC, and its bruises. It is beautiful. It is itself".

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Free bad dating sim Don't Stare makes me want to play an Elder Scroll where NPCs object to your gaze

The self-explanatory Don’t Stare is both a gamejam creation I enjoy for itself and also, an idea I’d love to be incorporated into any number of first-person RPGs. Here is how the latter possibility might work: you are bandying insults with the Demon King ahead of the final battle. You’ve got some solid bantz going, but there’s a note of awkwardness, for the Demon King has very large, protruding ears, and you can’t stop looking at them.

Such biteable tubercles! Such luscious lobes! The more you stare, the more agitated the Demon King becomes, till at last, he flees in tears before you’ve exchanged a single blow. And that, young Chosen One, is how we first defeated evil many decades ago. I understand the Demon King has had some plastic surgery since.

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Wolfenstein 3 is reportedly in the works at Machine Games, possibly alongside a Rainbow Six Siege-ish multiplayer thing

The world could certainly do with another game about slapping up Swastika-wearers right now. Thankfully, having finished off Indiana Jones And The Great Circle, Machine Games are reportedly working on the previously teased Wolfenstein 3.

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GTA 6 may not yet be "content complete" and another release delay is possible, claims Jason Schreier

GTA 6 may not yet be “content complete”, according to anonymous sources cited by Bloomberg’s scooper-dooper journoman Jason Schreier, and he would not be “super shocked” if the new Miami-set open world game were delayed again, though he thinks the current 19th November 2026 release date is relatively solid.

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Fortnite's latest collab with an adult animated series that's somehow still going is none other than South Park

You know what South Park feels like to me? It feels like randomly waking up in the middle of the night, looking around your bedroom as you think "cripes, it's still not morning yet?" A feeling of waiting for the inevitable, the end, or the beginning. Not so much the contents of the show, none of that needs all that much thought, more so its very existence, which is now apparently transplanting itself into Fortnite.

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Help! I'm caught in the grip of a clicker game where you feed the belly of a fusion reactor

I regret to inform you, I am once again in the grips of an idle clicker. Feed The Reactor was only released last night, but I've already become one of the 0.1% of players to prestige its tech tree. In my defense, there's something a lot more active and engaging at the core of this 'idle' clicker than I'm used to.

Though, it also helps that Feed The Reactor's theming has me picturing myself as a lab boffin, carefully crafting the mix of fuel and ignition sources that will fire up the heart of a fusion reactor...

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FPS Quest turns the perpetual battle for a good frame-rate into an emergent shadow war between rival geeks

I'm a bit tantalised by FPS Quest, but I do worry that it has already defanged its most interesting ideas. Developed by Farlight Games Industry, it's a dungeon crawler in which your frame-rate "is your health", with mistakes and damage causing slowness and stuttering.

To regain health/frame-rate, you must do what you do when running any game on a potato PC - fiddle with the settings like you're bargaining with an especially recalcitrant devil. This extends from lowering the quality of wall textures and characters, to plucking out whole pieces of environment. The more you do this, of course, the stranger the world becomes and the harder it is to navigate. The killer line from the Steam page: "optimizing is risky". You'll also have to keep a lid on a simulation of your PC's temperature, and there are faux-prototype off-map areas to explore via noclip-style abilities.

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Fallout season 2 is fuelling another Steam player bump, as folks once again remember they like Fallout

While it hasn't taken as commanding a stranglehold over the world's collective consciousness as its debut series did, the second helping of Amazon's Fallout TV show is succeeding in helping drive a number of extra Steam players back to the wasteland. That said, a number of said wastelands being heavily discounted as part of the platform's recently concluded winter sale likely hasn't hindered those efforts.

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Dragon Quest VII Reimagined gets a demo this week, and your progress'll carry right over into the full game

Grab your dragons and don't forget those quests, as a Dragon Quest VII Reimagined demo is set to pop up on Steam this week. It'll offer a taster of the revamped RPG ahead of full release next month, and any progress you make in the demo'll transfer right over, so you don't have to worry about sprinting through early game sections again.

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Nvidia reveals DLSS 4.5 with anti-aliasing upgrades and a dynamic, if slightly mad, 6x frame gen mode

CES 2026 is underway in Las Vegas, and while Nvidia have passed on the opportunity to announce any new RTX 50 Super graphics cards – perhaps in the knowledge that they’d be hurled directly into the raging vortex of an ongoing component pricing snafu – the tech show has yielded some interesting GeForce news. Namely, there’s a new version of Nvidia DLSS, 4.5, launching today, that promises to sharpen up and boost performance on any RTX GPU.

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Through modding wizardry, a seemingly cut Ashley opening level has been found in Resident Evil 4 Remake

The funny thing about games is that while making them, if you put something in them, it's quite hard to take that thing back out again. Who knows what that might break! Which can of course lead to people finding things that were never meant to be seen, like cut parts of a game, which is pretty much exactly what has happened to Resident Evil 4 Remake through the discovery of a level all about Ashley.

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Gloomwood rings in the new year with a very vertical update filled with piggish cops and a useful new gun

Gloomwood opened the year not with a whimper, but with a town - a Hightown! Right on January 1st, a fresh update and new area (The Hightown District) arrived in the early access stealth game. This new district is very vaguely described as the game's "most vertical open area" yet, and it certainly looks as suitably gloomy as the rest of the game.

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The Witcher 3 reporting winds continue to howl of mysterious extra DLC allegedly arriving this year, and there's one thing I'd love to see it do

Gerry from the River rides up to a noticeboard. Between contracts, he scans the pinned scraps for a fresh job to take on, only for his eyes to rest on one particularly peculiar bit of prose. 'There's a mysterious extra DLC for The Witcher 3 in the works', this bit of paper claims. 'Oh, you mean that anniversary patch which was delayed last year?' Gerry's mutant brain asks in response. 'No, seemingly not that one,' the sentient scrap replies.

Gerry grumbles to himself in mild confusion. The RPG's a decade old at this point, and while CD's love of relentlessly adding more stuff to their games is well-documented, they're surely busy focusing on the likes of The Witcher 4 and Cyberpunk 2?

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Fallout: London's next DLC, Last Orders, will be served up early this year if current pint-pulling plans hold

It's a new year, and Fallout: London developers Team FOLON have kicked it off by revealing that the massive Fallout 4 mod's second DLC is currently planned to rock up in the irradiated tube station of our lives pretty soon. This add-on's dubbed Last Orders and looks to have at least something to do with a trip to the pub.

To be fair, that makes perfect sense. Fallout: London's first DLC was dubbed Rabbit and Pork, so following up last year's meal of new quests with a drink is only human.

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