If all the current Black Friday deals already flooding the internet weren't enough, the Steam Autumn Sale is now here, with hundreds of deals on PC games and software.

This year the sale lasts until December 1st, 18:00PM GMT, and as usual the main Steam storefront has been redesigned to promote the new deals, with sections for genre, for major franchises, for users' wishlists and featured deals, among others. We've outlined some of the best offers we've seen here, and there's a good chance that there'll be other offers cropping up as we go through the week.

This also marks the start of nominations for this year's Steam Awards, the site-wide ceremony where users can nominate and vote for various games in various entries - game of the year, best VR game, soundtrack, story and so on. Nominations start now and voting will occur during the Winter sale later (presumably landing in the Christmas period).

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Five of the Best is a weekly series about the small details we rush past when we're playing but which shape a game in our memory for years to come. Details like the way a character jumps or the title screen you load into, or the potions you use and maps you refer back to. We've talked about so many in our Five of the Best series so far. But there are always more.

Five of the Best works like this. Various Eurogamer writers will share their memories in the article and then you - probably outraged we didn't include the thing you're thinking of - can share the thing you're thinking of in the comments below. Your collective memory has never failed to amaze us - don't let that stop now!

Today's Five of the Best is...

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Surprise! Or maybe not, as it turns out those rumours were true: Civilization 6 is the latest free game on the Epic Games Store, hot on the heels of GTA 5.

The game, which normally costs 49.99 on the platform, can now be picked up for free until 28th May 2020 - according to its Epic Games Store listing. As with all Epic's previous freebies, you only need to claim the game in that time period, and after that you can keep it forever.

It's worth noting that Civ 6's new season pass is also launching today, offering six downloadable packs from now until March 2021, with content dropping on a bimonthly basis. What a coincidence.

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Three-and-a-half years after it came out, Civilization 6 is getting a new season pass.

The New Frontier season pass adds eight new civilisations, nine new leaders and six new game modes to Firaxis' strategy game.

The content hits the game in six downloadable packs delivered on a bimonthly basis starting 21st May 2020 and ending March 2021.

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2K has apologised after a social media hack of its various accounts was used to post racist comments.

Yesterday evening, 2K lost control of a raft of its social media accounts across Twitter and Facebook, including the official pages for Borderlands, WWE and Civilization.

During the hack, the official accounts were used to post a number of offensive messages. The Facebook page for WWE 2K saw its profile picture changed to the logo for AEW Wrestling, and its cover image changed to a picture of wrestler Chris Benoit.

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Proving once again that nothing is impervious to the lure of Battle Royale, developer Firaxis' 4X strategy game Civilization 6 just launched its own take on the omnipresent mode on PC.

Known as Red Death, Civ 6's new turn-based Battle Royale mode ditches the game's usual slow-and-steady expansion in favour a desperate last-person-standing grasp for survival across a post-apocalyptic wasteland, replete with ruined cities, corrosive waters, and a ring of radiation that slowly shrinks as a match goes on. It's designed to accommodate between two and 12 players, with each able to select from a range of beneficially differing factions - including mad scientists, mutants, jocks, and pirates - in their attempts to stay alive.

There are no civilisations to guide through the ages, however, and building is entirely out too. Instead, each participant is tasked with protecting a single civilian unit on the map at all costs. If a player's unit is killed or captured, then they're out of the game - but if they're the last unit alive, they'll be whisked off into space to start a new life among the stars.

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I love Civilization 6, but sometimes I pine for the art style of its equally wonderful predecessor, Civilization 5. Civilization 6's cartoony vibe is all well and good, but when you've got an entire civilisation's worth of people resting on your every decision, a serious look is sometimes required.

Thankfully, there's a mod for that - and this one's from a developer at Firaxis.

The Environment Skin: Sid Meier's Civilization 5 mod for Civilization 6, by the game's art director Brian Busatti, changes the visuals of the game to better match the colours and tones of Civ 5.

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In the middle of a tense Civ 6 barbarian battle but really need the loo? Well, now you can take your game with you, as 2K has implemented a cross-platform cloud system allowing players to transfer their saves between Switch and Steam.

This essentially means players can instantly close down a game on one device, boot up the other, and continue playing the same game. To do this you'll simply need to link your 2K account and select "multi-platform cloud save" in the in-game options.

It's a pretty neat idea, with the only catch being Civ 6 on Switch does not yet have either of the two expansions released so far for the PC version. Vanilla only saves for now, I guess.

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The latest expansion to the game that burns midnight oil like no other is out tomorrow - so we've gathered up the cheapest Civilization 6: Gathering Storm deals for you to peruse right here.

There really isn't much between all of the major online digital retailers but Green Man Gaming is offering the best price for Civilization 6: Gathering Storm at 27.29/$31.19.

The second expansion to Civilization 6 adds a whole host of new features and systems to the game, including environmental effects, a World Congress to discuss global issues, a new approach to consumable resources, a new era of technology and civics, as well as the usual selection of extra civilizations and leaders.

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If you've got a hankering for global domination, but don't particularly fancy leaving the house today, then here's a little thing that might appeal: Sid Meier's Civilization 6 is currently free to play on Steam.

Should you be a 4X fan that hasn't, for whatever reason, given Firaxis' 2016 instalment of the long-running series a go, you've got from now until 6pm on Thursday, February 14th, in the UK to change that. A quick word of warning to new players though: whatever you do, don't pick Queen Victoria as your first leader unless you want to be driven almost completely insensible by the endless repetitions of Scarborough Fair. I barely made it out alive.

Of course, as canny sorts will have realised, this current freebie event isn't just a case of publisher 2K suddenly finding itself in an altruistic mood. Rather, it's all perfectly timed to prime players for the release of Civilization 6's latest expansion, Gathering Storm, which arrives at precisely the same moment the free-play event ends.

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