"We want people to try and outsmart the game": No Law aims for Arkane-style reactivity within a dangerous walled city

Port Desire, the hemmed-in city setting of immersive sim No Law, is hard to place. At points, it reminds me of walking around Lisbon. It shares that Portuguese city's verticality, where hill-straddling streets shouldered by colourful houses and corner shops can feel like tiers on a wedding cake. The strong sunlight and bursts of foliage reinforce the mediterranean vibes. Yet, the port city's structure and history is much closer to Kowloon Walled City, the ungoverned Chinese enclave that existed within British-owned Hong Kong.

Through the 1900s, with the British government taking a hands-off policy to the tiny district and the Chinese government exercising no control over its citizens, Kowloon became the most densely populated city on earth, with 33,000 citizens living in just 2.6-hectare borders. With virtually no official police presence, the city attracted anyone looking for a less-observed, less-regulated life – gangs, refugees, and a surprising number of unlicensed dentists.

As one of No Law's creative directors, Tor Frick, tells it, Port Desire is very similar. Not specifically the dentists bit, more the general, isolated lawlessness.

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The Division developers Massive are now "the global brand" in charge of Splinter Cell and Ghost Recon, alongside a new Ubisoft dieselpunk MOBA

Tom Clancy's The Division and Star Wars Outlaws studio Massive Entertainment just got, er, massiver. Parent company Ubisoft have announced that they're now "the global label" for several other series, including Ghost Recon and Splinter Cell alongside at least one original game, World War fantasy MOBA March of Giants.

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"Getting sidetracked doesn’t feel too unnatural": Baldur's Gate 3 Act Two Expansion modder on how they seamlessly fit a "detour" to fight an army into the RPG's plot

Midway through September, modder SquallyDaBeanz released a solo-developed custom campaign for Baldur's Gate 3 in beta, adding an extra chapter to the RPG's main story. Neatly nestled between the RPG's second and third acts, the mod sends you and your party on a trip through The Chionthar Wilds while the Absolute's Army marches on towards the city the series is named after. SquallyDaBeanz has now offered a bit more explanation as to why they reckon the second section of BG3's established story benefits from having a few more forks in the road before the serious business of the final act begins.

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GTA 6 will simulate hurricanes, rainbows and persistent, dynamic clouds, among other efforts to make you stop doing crime and become a weather nerd

Grand Theft Auto 6 features a re-engineered, "more localized and persistent" weather system that ranges in intensity from physically credible rainbows to full-bore hurricanes, according to Rockstar vice president of art for lighting and rendering Owen Shepherd. As ever with GTA, the question is to what extent this will materially affect your doings in the new open world game, but at the very least, it seems like there's scope to pack in the core Bonnie & Clyde routine and become an amateur weather watcher for hours at a time.

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With Deadlock's latest updating promising six new heroes, over 10,000 new voice lines and too much more to mention, it's clear Valve are still pretty committed to it

It feels weird that Deadlock is technically a game that isn't out yet, doesn't it? You can't even just play it as someone that's never done so, you have to have someone that's already got access to send you an invite. Valve didn't even really acknowledge its existence publicly, and they still sort of treat it as this little secret that everyone's in on. Two years on, though, it's still getting updates, and the latest one arrived today changing… well, a lot.

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Sometimes the thing you need is a wonderfully ethereal physics platformer jam game where you are a little round guy with very stretchy arms called Big Stretch

I have a working theory that above all other aspects, the Vibe (with a capital V) of a game is the most important thing to enrapture a hypothetical audience. A strong Vibe is not a guarantee of such a thing, this algorithmic world we live in denies us such luxuries, it's just the most important starting point. The Vibe does not look like any one thing, the only rule is that it must elicit a response along the lines of, "now what's this, then?" Big Stretch, a game jam physics-based platformer that features hardly a semblance of assets, feels like it proves that theory to me.

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I perished in the flesh pipes of Darktide's Depths of the Damned update, and you will too

Warhammer 40,000: Darktide continues to cling tightly, perhaps even aggressively, to my Steam installations, my occasionally waning interest repeatedly re-sparked by the addition of akimbo-autopistolling chem fiends or haughty toasterpeople. A live service sucker, it makes me. Today's Depths of the Damned update, the grimdark co-op shooter's biggest since the Skitarii rocked up, continues the trend: it's centered around a massive new mission that's as revolting as it is compelling.

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