As an old man yelling about deals at the clouds, I’ve often felt a bit jealous of these back-to-school sales. By my recollection, unless you wanted a new writing pad, some stationery, or a backpack, these deals didn’t really exist.

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Folk Emerging describes itself as a turn-based 4X strategy game, but in practice, it's possibly more of a 2.5X strategy game, in that it puts you in charge of a nomadic hunter-gatherer community from before the rise of agriculture and the founding of towns and cities.

As this developer update suggests, it's like the turn or two at the very start of Civilization when you just have one Settler unit, but stretched out across thousands of years, with a social element and rustic spreadsheet aesthetics that remind me of King Of Dragon Pass. It's got somewhat doofy cartoon Stone Age muzak, but is otherwise the most intriguing Civlike strategy game I've laid eyes on since the one that looks like an octopus murder scene - and whadayaknow, by happy coincidence there's a public playtest running from right now till August 18th.

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Oh, hello there, Is This Seat Taken? The logic puzzler with a name that's real awkward to stick midway through a sentence has surprise-released today, August 7th, right off the back of an appearance in a Nintendo Indie World showcase.

When we woke up this morning, all we knew was that this game about telling people where to stick their bottoms would be coming out in August - a vague window previously announced during June's Whole Direct. Now, it be here.

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Apex Legends launched its Season 26 update this week with the new Wildcard mode, what must be its fourth or fifth attempt at a 'battle royale but faster' sideshow. If anything, Wildcard – with its tightened safe zones, generous respawn allowances and automatic loot pickups – is the most ferocious, cage fightin'est variant yet, its matches routinely playing out as breathless slaughters as crammed-in squads fight, die, and resurrect over a condensed selection of strongholds.

Still, while I’ve enjoyed ApeLegs' previous action-favouring tweaks, something about Wildcard underwhelms. It’s not the shooting, which is as crisp and dynamic as in any other Respawn FPS. And it’s not the simplified gear gobbling, which is fine for a supplementary mode. It’s that at the end of a Wildcard round, even the ones I’ve won, I’ve never felt that I’ve really gone anywhere or done anything except aim down my sights and left-click. In chasing nonstop drama it denies you something that good battle royales, and their progenitors, can so effectively deliver: a journey.

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Promise Mascot Agency, Kaizen Game Works' thing about running a business that revolves around costumed weirdos, fairly intense menu shuffling and a lot of driving around, has gotten a free update that adds in a host of new features. The ability to grind along rails like Michi's truck's a skateboard, for instance.

Sure, you can already unlock the ability to fly said truck around the spooky Japanese countryside, but come on, if there's something every management game needs, it's tricks from the X Games.

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I am neither a wrestler nor a wrestling fan. I have never attended a cage fight or hit somebody with a folding chair. I have never had a blowoff or no-sold somebody's attempt to lay the smackdown on my randy ass. I cannot> smell what the Rock is cooking. I cannot. Nonetheless, I think a Hades-style roguelite built around grappling sounds like a fun time, especially when it's set in a cursed Byzantine citadel. This is Realm Of Fame from Black Cube Games. Can you smell what the trailer is cooking?

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Sony remain confident that Bungie's live service shooter reboot Marathon will launch within their current fiscal year - that is, before March 31st 2026 - and are fairly sure they'll be able to share an exact release date this autumn. They've factored it into their financial forecasts, see.

They're also pretty upbeat about their live service business at large, which accounted for around 40% of first-party software revenue in their last financial quarter, though they acknowledge that they screwed the pooch with Concord, which got to exist in public for a whole couple of weeks before Sony kicked it into the sun.

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I'm sure Call of Duty: Black Ops 7 and Battlefield 6 won't be exactly the same game, despite their obvious bullet casing-littered common ground. However, they are opting to mirror each other in one manner - both will require you to enable secure booting on your PC.

As if summoned to do so by EA letting everyone know that this week's BF6 open beta would necessitate a delve in your BIOS to click yes on a thing in the name of eliminating cheating, Activision have revealed Blops is doing the same thing.

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A new joint investigation between the Guardian, Israeli-Palestinian publication +972 Magazine, and Hebrew-language outlet Local Call has claimed that Microsoft have worked with the Israeli military to store surveillance data on Palestinian civilians in Azure servers overseas, with some of that data allegedly being used to research and identify bombing targets. The report has led to renewed calls for game developers and players to join the recently launched Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions campaign against Microsoft and Xbox gaming products and services - in particular, Minecraft, Call Of Duty, Candy Crush, and Game Pass.

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If you've tried to hop into the Battlefield 6's open beta's early access period this morning and have ended up sitting a queue behind thousands of other folks in camo gear, then don't panic. Or at least that's what EA say, as their wrenches slam against the game's servers in an attempt to let more people in.

With players stuck twiddling their thumbs in lines that can stick you as far away as 240-something thousandth from the front, the developers have been jolted into action. After all, you don't want to anger the sorts of folks who're up for shooting some blokes on an otherwise chill Thursday morning.

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