Spoiler warnings for Mass Effect 2.

I'm not sure why I liked Kelly Chambers so much. There's definitely more exciting characters in Mass Effect 2. She was just cool is all. They seemed so good together, her and my Shepherd, two straight-talking women on a ship full of neverending melodrama, quipping back and forth along the bridge. But I was trapped in a loveless relationship with the odiously boring Kaidan Alenko. So Kelly remained elusive: the steadfast second in command, a constant source of warmth, good sense and pragmatic kindness.

Anyway, she melted. In fact, most of my crew died in that final mission, but Kelly was the first, melting down into flesh chowder in a giant frosted glass tube. Afterwards I read that the only way to save everyone was to max out your relationship stats, upgrade your ship to the nth degree, and hightail it over to the suicide mission the moment you can. Reader, that's exactly what I did. I went back to the start and put another 30 hours into that game, telling myself I was getting value for money. But in my heart of hearts I knew it was all for Kelly.

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Hello! Welcome back to our regular feature where we write a little bit about some of the games we've found ourselves playing over the last few days. This time: rats, sieges and samurai.

If you fancy catching up on some of the older editions of What we've been playing, here's our archive.

Online multiplayer games have never been my thing. I've heard too many stories about toxic players and the abuse directed towards women, POC, and queer players, let alone the anger thrown your way if you're - god forbid - learning how to play the game and don't have the reflexes of a teen who just downed three espressos.

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Developer Asobo Studio's wonderful, rat-infested medieval stealth adventure A Plague Tale: Innocence will be free on the Epic Games Store starting next Thursday, 5th August.

A Plague Tale unfolds in a bleak, but gorgeously wrought, version of 14th century France, and follows the harrowing journey of Amicia and her sickly 5-year-old brother Hugo, the children of a nobleman, after they're forced to flee their home in an attempt to escape the Inquisition.

What follows is a brilliantly engaging single-player adventure - primarily built around simple stealth and dual-character puzzling - that sees players evading ravenous rat hordes, English soldiers, and other perils as they traipse across the desolate, plague-ridden landscape.

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Music Week continues with Bertie meeting a composer whose work had a powerful effect on him, and whose processes aren't at all what he expected.

What is it about the music in Vampyr that appeals to me so much? I've played plenty of games with great music but this was the first to really make me think about it, to listen, to contemplate, to wonder. Maybe it's the loneliness of the cello. There's a powerful melancholy and almost yearning quality to it, in the way the bow sweeps the strings and makes that rasping, sonorous wave of noise; in and out, the sound lapping at your attention. And within it, there's a sense of aching. The more I think about it, the more it seems to be Jonathan Reid, the vampire, alone on the streets of 1918 London. Alone while coming to terms with what he is, what this world is, and where he fits within it.

Not only do I love the sound and the associations of it, I love the confidence I picture behind it. A confidence to do things differently, to strip everything back and just present a naked sound. No orchestra, no overt demonstration of musical power, no insecurity fuelling a need to impress. Instead, a cello. A cello played almost improvisationally, with scraps of melody moving irregularly as if on a whim. A cello not afraid to be ugly, to squeak by being played on the bridge. Who does that? Who commands someone to make those sounds for a game and knows they will be OK, that they will be enough?

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If you've been wondering what's next for Xbox Game Pass on PC, Microsoft has the answer in the form of three new titles heading to the subscription service soon - and they're all good 'uns, taking the form of A Plague Tale: Innocence, Gris, and Children of Morta.

First up is developer Asobo Studios' stealthy third-person action-adventure, A Plague Tale. Released last year to positive reviews, it offers a bleak, but frequently gorgeous, jaunt through 14th century France, as players - in the role of nobleman's daughter Amicia de Rune - attempt to protect sickly younger sibling Hugo from the grip of the Inquisition.

Its stealth might be a little so-so, but the inventive puzzling - often based around manipulating the hordes of diseased rats ravaging the countryside - is much smarter, and considerably more enjoyable. All in all, it's a strong (if sometimes silly) story-driven adventure, with a cast of engaging, wonderfully realised characters and some frequently breathtaking historical sights. It'd frankly be rude not to give it a go when it comes to Game Pass.

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A Plague Tale 2 is reportedly in development.

The rumour comes from XboxSquad, a French website that claims A Plague Tale: Innocence developer Asobo Studio is working on the sequel, which is reportedly set for reveal in 2020, with a target release window of 2022.

When contacted for comment, publisher Focus Home Interactive did not deny the rumour, instead saying it will talk about Asobo's next game "when the right time comes".

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"And now, as I still continued to step cautiously onward, there came thronging upon my recollection a thousand vague rumors of the horrors of Toledo. Of the dungeons there had been strange things narrated - fables I had always deemed them - but yet strange, and too ghastly to repeat, save in a whisper. Was I left to perish of starvation in this subterranean world of darkness; or what fate, perhaps even more fearful, awaited me?"

Edgar Allan Poe, The Pit and the Pendulum.

If you're playing a lot of games, there's no escaping the dusty depths of dungeons. They are everywhere; their twists and turns and nooks and crannies filled with monsters, traps and loot form the spine of countless games.

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Developer Asobo Studio's well-received 14th century "single-player co-op" adventure, A Plague Tale: Innocence, has just launched a free trial version featuring the game's full first chapter - and it's available to download now on PC, Xbox One, and PS4.

A Plague Tale, which originally released back in May, follows the frequently bleak journey of Amicia and her sickly 5-year-old brother Hugo, children of a nobleman, forced to flee their castle home to escape the Inquisition. What follows is an enormously atmospheric, if somewhat rough-around-the edges, adventure through fog-shrouded, plague-ridden France.

When Eurogamer contributor Edwin Evans-Thirlwell reviewed A Plague Tale earlier this year, he was critical of the game's frequent dalliances with dull, unrefined stealth. Thankfully, A Plague Tale shines considerably brighter in its environmental puzzling, and that, when combined with its wonderfully rich atmosphere and affectingly well-wrought central relationship, Edwin reckoned, helps it rise above those stodgier elements.

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The Gamesplanet Summer Sale began yesterday with over 1900 titles on offer, plus rolling 24-hour flash deals on recent PC releases and old favourites. But that's not all. As a way to celebrate the occasion, Gamesplanet has kindly provided us with ten games to give away to you lovely Eurogamer readers.

As the Summer Sale has entered its second day, a new selection of flash deals are now live. Right now, that includes the likes of Hitman 2 for 15.99, Fallout 4: Game of the Year Edition for 9.75, Fallout New Vegas: Ultimate Edition for 3.70, Dragon Ball FighterZ for 9.99, Metro Redux Bundle for 5.99, XCOM 2 for 8.50, Transport Fever for 5.99, Space Hulk: Tactics for 9.25, For Honor for 9.75 and Motorsport Manager for 5.75.

The majority of these will only be live for a short period of time so make sure you grab anything you're interested in quickly! Continue to check in throughout the rest of the week too as new titles will be reduced every morning at 10am until the end of the sale on 12th August.

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We've scoured the lands looking for some top gaming deals and, shining brightly on the horizon, is this offer on Red Dead Redemption 2 over at Amazon UK.

The swish and stylish edition of Rockstar's western opus comes with a collectible SteelBook and is now only 33.99 on PS4 and Xbox One. A quick look elsewhere shows most standard versions of the game going for around a similar price, so you're getting a nice case for free here!

In fact, if you flick through the site some more, you'll see it's one of the many games on sale ahead of Amazon Prime Day 2019, even though the big bargain event doesn't start until next week.

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