If the thought of Assassin’s Creed Valhalla‘s Viking rugby tackles and recruitable cats for your long boat has you frothing for more of Ubisoft’s time-travelling murder series, then why not take a stealthy glance at Fanatical’s new Build Your Own Assassin’s Creed bundle? There are ten games to pick from in total, all dating back toward the earlier end of the Assassin’s Creed series, and you can either pick up three for £8.59 / $10 or five of them for £12.49 / $15. Here’s what’s on offer.

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Are you looking forward to the Assassin’s Creed Valhalla soundtrack just as much as the actual game? If so, then you should check out our latest music quiz, which focuses on all things Assassin’s Creed.

Because the masses have been eating up online quizzes during lockdown, RPS’ video wing has been testing the waters to see if you, the video game playing public, also enjoy them. And it turns out you do. And that’s lovely.

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This week’s free games on the Epic Store will have you murdering unsuspecting Englishmen and playing cards against your friends on a magical hex board. That’s right, it’s Assassin’s Creed Syndicate and Faeria! I’ll let you figure out which description goes with which game.

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Ahoy there, you salty sea dog! We ‘ear that ye want to be a filthy cutthroat pirate. All right, but you don’t become a pirate just by asking. You’ll ‘ave to play, the best pirate games! In each one, you’ll have to master the sword, the art of thievery, and the quest. What? That be treasure hunting, ye sea urchin!

So if ye want to prove yerself that yer pirate material, ‘ere be the ten best pirate games that we think are good trials. Aye, even being a pirate in space counts, because swashbucklin’ ain’t reserved for just the seven seas.

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Another month, another big video game publisher puts a great big dollop of video game music online for zero pennies. This time, it’s Bandai Namco, who have just uploaded every single Tekken soundtrack onto Spotify because, well, apparently everyone loves Tekken. I’ve never partaken in a Tekken, but with track names like “Massive Stunner” and “Lonesome City Jazz Party 1st”, I’m already 100% convinced the music must be great.

However, given my rather lacking expertise in all things Tekken-related, I thought that instead of doing a big Tekken musical breakdown like I did for Capcom and all the Final Fantasy games, I’d take this opportunity to celebrate some of the other great gaming soundtracks you can currently listen to for free right now, because boy howdy are there loads of ’em. So bang on those headphones and turn up the volume, folks. It’s head-banging time.

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Is Assassin’s Creed Unity a better game now that the real-world cathedral Notre-Dame de Paris has been gutted by fire? That’s the question I’ve had rolling around the back of my head for a few weeks. Ubisoft gave away their open-world murder simulator, which visits a virtual Paris circa 1789, for free in April after the fire and soon received a spike of positive player reviews on Steam. This caused store owners Valve to mutter about the idea of “positive review bombs” and how changing context can a game seem better. So, has Unity become a better game because it lets us visit a pristine Notre-Dame while the real one is caked in soot and scaffolding? What can we destroy to improve other games? And who can we MURDER?

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When Valve implemented Steam’s anti-review-bombing policy in March – manual exclusion of “off topic” review clusters from a game’s overall score – they’d not given much thought to what a ‘positive’ review bomb could look like. Just one month later, Notre Dame cathedral goes up in holy smoke and Ubisoft bring in a flood of positive press (and reviews) for Assassin’s Creed Unity through a Uplay giveaway and a half-million-dollar donation to help rebuild the landmark. This has led Valve to a rare bit of public introspection on how they should even define “off-topic”, shared in this official blog post.

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We were on a break! (Entirely topical references for you there). Yes, it appears that Assassin’s Creed is back after a year-odd hiatus from its traditionally annual release cycle. Various leaks have it that the game is named Assassin’s Creed: Origins, is set in ancient Egypt and looks, well, just like the image above.

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My calendar tells me we’re now over halfway through April. The Met Office tells me astronomical spring in the northern hemisphere started on March 20. Yet the weatherman told me yesterday that I can expect highs of a whopping nine degrees centigrade here in Glasgow this weekend. I’d swear it was still winter had the annual Uplay Spring Sale not kicked off this week, with big discounts on the likes of Assassin’s Creed Syndicate, Rainbow Six Siege and Far Cry 4, among others. Which others, you say? Find out after the drop.

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Since 2009’s Assassin’s Creed II, Ubisoft have released a new open-world murder playground every single year. Not in 2016. AC will indeed be taking a rest for a bit of a reworking, as was rumoured. I wonder if that means the Ancient Egypt setting for the next entry that rumourmongers mentioned is real too. Point is, Ubi are skipping 2016 and planning to return later with something fresher. Say, I wonder if Watch Dogs 2 will fill that October/November slot now open in Ubi’s lineup for this year.

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