Michel Ancel, the co-creator of Rayman and creative director of Beyond Good & Evil, today announced that he’s stopping working on video games. The French designer started at Ubisoft when he was a teenager and, after over 30 years in the industry spent mostly at Ubi, says he wants to focus on his second passion, wildlife. Come for the announcement, stay for the video of a fox stealing brioche.

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Rayman is now a bit part player. Like Ubi stablemate Sam Fisher, his days of being the main attraction are over. Despite the quality of 2013’s Rayman Legends, the limbless wonder seems confined to making sporadic appearances in games that just aren’t as good as his own.

Although, it’s not like Ray’s a stranger to a comeback. After many years on the shelf, his act was modernised in 2011 and we were gifted the exceptional Rayman Origins.

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The god game genre hasn’t had many breakout hits, and it’s hard to argue From Dust is one of ’em. But despite a load of hoo-ha about DRM when this first released on PC, back in 2011, it’s probably the most meditative god games I’ve ever played. You’re not omnipotent, you see. You don’t actually have a lot of powers. You can move sand around like nobody’s business, though.

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Ah, religion. I know this is a topic we all have trouble agreeing on. But fear not, humble practitioner of a good pray, I am not here to squint angrily at your favourite book of life advice. I m only here for the videogame religions. The ones that are very, very, very, very bad. You know, the gun-loving cults and the xenophobic people-burners. The (mostly) fictional religions that involve an uncommon volume of murder. Step this way, sprinkle yourself with some of my 100% genuine oil of the almighty, and peruse the 9 most dodgy religions in games.

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The biggest names in platforming used to live only on console, but it’s on PC now that the genre is thriving. Indies have taken the simple ingredients and spun them off in umpteen directions (but still normally from left to right). Below you’ll find a collection of the very best platform games on PC – including puzzle platformers, physics platformers, platformers with roguelike elements, and platformers about absolutely nothing but pixel-perfect jumping.

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Have You Played? is an endless stream of game retrospectives. One a day, every day of the year, perhaps for all time.>

I Am Alive is one of the best games I’ve ever had the misfortune to play.

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Ubisoft have announced that the next game they will give away as part of their 30th birthday celebrations is mediocre racing game The Crew, so consider this a warning that you’ve only got another few days to grab the wonderful, lovely, delightful platformer Rayman Origins for free.

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Have You Played? is an endless stream of game retrospectives. One a day, every day of the year, perhaps for all time.>

I have a confession: I’ve never played as far as the mutant stuff in Far Cry.

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Hot on the heels of Fallout 4’s Survival Mode, which brings exhaustion and dehydration back to the world of post-apocalyptic entertainment, Ubisoft have announced that Far Cry Primal [official site] will be getting the survivalist treatment.

The keystone of that survival mode is the change in the exploration, crafting, and difficulty of the game to make it even more realistic. After that, there are options the player can activate to go further.

Survival mode will arrive as part of a free patch on April 12th. We called this earlier in the month, of course, when we made Robert Zak play the game wearing nowt but a loincloth. More details below.

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When Far Cry Primal [official site] was unveiled, I shrugged with semi-feigned disinterest, aware that the series has hit milking point, but unable to dismiss the inner teenager tugging at my inner sleeve saying But – but it’s got cavemen and tribes and woolly mammoths and – and you can ride them, and throw spears and stuff! Yes, the prehistoric era taps into a primal fantasy in me, but when that’s overlaid with an advanced radar, an owl endowed with the abilities of a military drone, and heat-vision that conveniently colour-codes every object, footprint and smell, the fantasy kind of tapers off.

By shutting off as many aids and HUD elements as possible, I intended to reclaim the fantasy.

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