With its latest update, Mordhau has opened up a whole new castle for us to run around sticking swords into people. It’s good, based on the ten minutes I’ve spent being cut to pieces so far, but that’s not all that’s new. The Mountain’s Peak map has been expanded, ranked duels have left beta, there are new cosmetics, and the combat’s been tightened up in a bunch of ways I don’t understand. I think I’m feeling the impact of them, though. The swordplay’s never been sharper.

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You never know what you’re going to see on a Mordhau duel server. People dress as Shreks and gnomes. Others hold up their arms in eternal ‘come at me’ gestures, constantly braying rather than fighting. I once joined a server where everyone wielded lightsabers and force-jumps. It’s a weird frontier.

Sadly, I have never hopped into a server full of people playing cricket using shields as balls and staffs as bats. Happily, someone else has, and there is video.

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I have no doubt that “Toss A Coin To Your Witcher“, the hit song from the Netflix Witcher series, is destined for greatness. It’s got 11 million views on YouTube. Children are chanting it in the street. The music industry is reeling. Before I came along, though, nobody had grabbed a lute and played the song at impoverished Mordhau players. I expected adoration, and that I might inspire songs of my own. Legends about the brave vanguard of pop culture.

Turns out my audience was a little more hostile.

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2019 was a great year for PC games – aren’t they all? – but you might not yet know what the very best> PC games of 2019 were. Let us help you.

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There is drama within every Mordhau battle, but most of them don’t feature betrayal, family, and boisterous pub goers. All are prominent in the latest work from “Frost The Canadian”, a film maker dedicated to creating in-game epics with stupid sword boys. It’s machinima, except better than usual because you know everyone you see is a real person making use of Mordhau’s daft voice lines and emotes.

Come and watch this tale of sad blue people chopping up sadder red people. May it distract from modern times.

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For as long as Mordhau‘s had lutes, its had people willing to play them in the midst of war. Bards are a common site on battlefields, uniting friend and foe through instruments that can play proper notes and everything. It’s taboo to touch them.

With a lute equipped, you can mangle out a tune by waggling your mouse up and down – but you can also use a mod called LuteBot to automatically play actual songs. A new version called LuteMod is in the works, which will let aspiring minstrels whack other aspiring minstrels with their lutes in order to form bands. It’s all appropriately medieval.

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I’ve always been drawn to competitive videogames. It’s not hard to see why. They’re the best kind. Competition can be exciting, rich, varied. It gets you interacting with people, pitting your abilities against thinking, improvising, engaged and pivotally human opponents. A competitive context can be both a wonderful generator of interesting decisions, and a platform for genuine connection. I believe in and value these things wholeheartedly, because I’ve extensive experience with both.

I also believe competition has a dark side. It can be the kindling to incendiary ego, stoking a way of looking at the world that leads to, or is at least bound up with, insecurity and distress. I’ve experienced this, too.

Let’s start with me thrashing my Dad at Need For Speed 2.

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I still play Mordhau almost every night. People are far too good at it nowadays, but thanks to Tuesday night’s update I can now take refuge in a pub. Full modding support is still a ways out, say developers Triternion, but you can now automatically download the maps people have managed to make just by jumping into a server that’s running them. I’m delighted to report that at least some of them involve roleplaying as bartenders.

There’s also a new asymmetrical mode called Invasion, which I’ve only played for a tiny bit. I mentioned there are pubs now, right?

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Fortnite: Battle Royale, I think it’s fair to say, is the standout title of the decade-old battle royale game genre. Not since Minecraft have we seen a game enter the mainstream in this way – but that doesn’t mean Fortnite is the only battle royale out there that’s worth playing. We’ll go over just a few of the very best battle royale games like Fortnite below.

Ecah of these games has been picked out for taking the genre in new directions, or adding a particular feel or flavour to the genre that we haven’t found anywhere else. If you’re looking for Fortnite alternatives, you’d be hard-pressed to find a more diverse and colourful selection than this!

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War often changes, as slapstick peasant-bothering stabfest Mordhau proves. Developers Triternion have announced details about what players can expect in the near future of the (mostly) melee fighting simulator, including ranked play, new maps, and a reduction in the undeserved powers of horse-riding cowards. The much-requested mod support is still only a maybe.

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