Brethren! Cease your prattling and pick up your GameCube controllers. It is time to start playing Eternal Darkness: Sanity's Requiem at an unhealthy velocity, while funding lawyers to uphold the legal rights of LGBTQ+ people in the USA.

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You head down to the pet shelter in Fortnite. It's full. Woof, says one invincible banana dog, I barely see my owner because they wanted me to be a banana dog who regularly changes colour. Alas, this cannot be, so they've had to spend their V-Bucks on a small army of invincible banana dogs in a variety of hues. You try to cheer up this Sidekick by telling them that their owner can at least change their name and hat at any time. It provides little comfort.

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A question I often ask game developers when I've run out of real questions is: what was the hardest part of making your game? Which is a terrible line of inquiry, because it's like asking somebody with their foot in a hornet's nest which individual hornet they dislike the most. As Arc Raiders executive producer Aleksander Grøndal told me in a chat last week, "I can probably sit here and talk to you about all the problems we've had for hours on end, but yeah, game development is always tricky. That's what I can say. There's nothing that comes for free - everything is a constant struggle."

Still, the question often gets an interesting response, because as readers of Alex Wiltshire's old The Mechanic series will know, big problems may necessitate inventive solutions. So, what has been the hardest part of making Arc Raiders? Perfecting the slides? Avoiding mandatory player progression resets from season to season? Dealing with reports about the game's generative AI usage? According to Grøndal, it was trying to create an economy of loot and crafting materials - ranging from all-purpose Mechanical Components to rare or uncommon ingredients for specific guns, sometimes found in special field depots - that isn't too "punishing" and which doesn't just feel like accumulating "cash value".

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Existing PC vampires of Seattle, you should now have access to the expanded wardrobe Vampire: The Masquerade - Bloodlines 2 devs Paradox and The Chinese Room have rolled out for Halloween. The free update's fresh hairstyles, makeup styles, and eye colours were only on offer to folks who started fresh saves initially, something that it turns out wasn't intentional.

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Apex Legends is rolling out its Season 27 update next Tuesday, November 4th, and RPS has been furnished with an overview of its meatiest rejigging work. I haven’t playtested this megapatch so unlike with Season 25, I can’t say from experience how any of these changes will get you killed. Still, since it tweaks my favourite map, my favourite playable Legend, and> my favourite hovercar, I feel uniquely qualified to declare without evidence whether they’re good or not.

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I’m not that keen on extraction games like Arc Raiders. The last two I played at length were Tom Clancy's The Division (specifically its Survival mode), which features possibly my favourite videogame piles of trash, and Hunt: Showdown, which features possibly my favourite (i.e. the absolute worst) videogame spider. I just don't see the point of a loot commute, even with other players around to add spice. Still, I do think I'll spend more time in Arc – out now on Steam, EGS and the Microsoft Store - after losing a few hours to a pre-release multiplayer session last week. Amongst other things, it has an enticing buried city and a neat sliding mechanic.

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GOG continue to conquer the world of old games you either remember fondly or have totally forgotten about. They've added 18 new ones to their preservation program this week, with the latest arrivals being the Resident Evil HD Remaster and Resident Evil 0.

It's good to see the storefront's preservation efforts keep on expand, given they've recently revaled that this program's been a tougher undertaking than originally envisioned thus far. Things that're worth doing are rarely easy, though, are they? Well, ok, maybe having a cheeky biscuit with your supper is still worth doing.

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