Dune: Awakening has received its first "major" free update, a continuation of the MMO survival game's story following the revelations of Act 3. What revelations were these? Honestly, lads, I never made it that far. My character is presently a furry chunk of worm jerky, crammed into a half-built shack after accidentally encasing herself in the furniture, so I couldn't spill the beans even if I knew. But I can reveal there are "gruesome murders" to investigate from this point on, and further opportunities to dig up the misbegotten secrets of Arrakis. Here's a trailer.

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GTA 6 will feature a bunch of in-game websites with real-world URLs, going by various domain registrations spotted by an active and efficient dataminer. The site URLs offer potential clues about the businesses and organisations you might patronise, during your time in Vice City. They include what sound like parody versions of ride-sharing app Uber and communication network WhatsApp, together with a government website for Leonida, the fictional US state and parody of Florida in which Rockstar's new Grand Theft Auto takes place.

One of the other rumoured GTA 6 websites appears to feature "hookers galore". I give odds of 6-4 that this will prove to be an in-game fishing supplier, ho ho. And then there's "myboyhasacreepycorndog.com". I give odds of 3-2 that "corndog" means "penis", har har. It's GTA, isn't it. There's absolutely a dick joke in there somewhere.

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Ok, that was quick. Hollow Knight: Silksong has been out less than a week, and no less than two modders have already had a crack at getting multiplayer working in it, so you can take on those pesky bosses with some co-op moral support.

Maybe I shouldn't be surprised. After all, the Skong modding scene has exploded out of the gates with the same level of gusto folks have had for just playing the base version of the long-awaited metroidvania. Then again, it's one thing for folks to be putting out a bunch of smaller scale tweaks that can help make things easier, and another for them to turn a one player game into a more than one player game.

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Former Bethesda marketing chief Pete Hines has been chatting about the ups and downs of videogame subscription platforms, such as Microsoft's Game Pass, PlayStation Plus and whatever the hell Ubisoft are calling theirs at the minute. Subisoftscription? UbiPassPlus? Answers on a postcard.

Hines is broadly of the opinion that subscription platforms are failing many of the developers who sign up to publish through them, though he cautions that his experience is out-of-date - he retired from Bethesda in October 2023.

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