A Ukranian news site is reporting that the developers of Stalker and Stalker 2, GSC have shut down their studio. An "informed source" told them that founder and CEO, Sergei Grigorovich made the announcement at a staff meeting, saying that the company was closing because of unspecified "personal reasons." RPS spotted a tweet from the company denying that GSC has been closed, but that has since been deleted. If true, it would be a sudden and very sad turn of events. We'll know what's happening for certain when GSC make official comment.

 
Several days after it was released for the rest of the world Saints Row: The Third has come out in the UK. Huzzah! Now we can finally experience all the fun Tom S had in our Saints Row 3 review! However, like several other recent games, it's missing from the steam store in the UK. Boo! Hiss! This sadly means UK players won't be able to get the Saints Row 3 Team Fortress 2 promotional items. You can, however, still buy the game digitally via Gamersgate, Direct2Drive or Origin.

Once again, we wish we knew why steam is being affected by these absences and no-one else is, but we're being kept in the dark as much as you are. Rest assured, if we ever find out, we'll let you know.

Saints Row: The Third isn't quite out yet, but THQ executive VP Danny Bilson has already confirmed to CVG that a fourth entry is in the works. "Like any game, if you have a great creative core to it you just keep exploiting that core," he says.

"I know what Saints Row 4 is about and it is wilder than this one," he adds, comparing the new sequel to Saints Row: The Third.

Having played it, it's hard to see how the next Saints Row could be any wilder without the entire game being set in a city-sized zoo full of ride-able giraffes. We look forward to exploiting Saints Row: The Third's "creative core" when it comes out on November 15 in the US and November 18 in Europe.

 
Here are the first 12 minutes of Saints Row: The Third. Before you even jump into the character creator, you spend the prologue robbing a bank by using a helicopter to tear the entire vault out of the heart of the building. Believe it or not, things escalate from there in the full game. All will be revealed on release day, which is Tuesday November 15 in the US, and Friday November 18 in Europe. Saints Row is landing in the heart of release season, close to Modern Warfare 3, Skyrim, Batman: Arkham City, Assassin's Creed Revelations and every other blockbuster. Will you be setting aside some cash for Saints Row: The Third?

Saints Row: The Third is going to be delightfully nuts. A casual glance at the Saints Row: The Third trailers that have gone before will tell you everything you need to know about the wild tone and Volition's 'anything-goes' approach to building a city. Hover bikes? Sure, why not. UAV attack drones? Throw them in there. A car that collects pedestrians and shoots them out of a giant cannon? Make it so. It's all playable in co-op, too. It'll tide us over until GTA 5 rolls around quite nicely

It'll take advantage of a few of the PC's fancier processing techniques, too. THQ say that it'll support AMD Eyefinity, DX9, DX10, and DX11, Crossfire, SLI, advanced depth of field, reflections, ambient occlusion and god rays. They've also released the full system requirements. You'll need a GeForce 8800 / ATI Radeon HD3800 or better to run it, but aside from that, the requirements aren't too taxing. See them for yourself below.

Minimum system requirements:

OS: Windows XP
Processor: 2GHz Dual Core Processor (Intel Core 2 Duo or AMD Athlon X2) or higher
Memory: 2GB System RAM or more
Graphics: 320MB Video RAM GPU w/ Shader Model 3.0 support. NVIDIA GeForce 8800 series or better. ATI Radeon HD3800 series or better
DirectX: 9.0c
Hard Drive: 10GB
Sound: 100% DirectX 9.0C compliant sound card or equivalent onboard sound
Co-Op Play: NVIDIA GeForce 8800 cards require 640MB of Video RAM. ATI Radeon HD3800 cards require 1GB of Video RAM
Online Steam Account

 
Recommended system requirements:

OS: Microsoft Windows 7
Processor: Any Quad Core Processor (Intel Core i5 or AMD Phenom II X4) or 3.0+ Dual Core CPU
Memory: 4GB System RAM or more
Graphics: 1GB Video RAM GPU w/ Shader Model 4.0 support. NVIDIA GeForce GTX 400 series or better. ATI Radeon HD5000 series or better
DirectX: DirectX 11
Hard Drive: 10 GB
Sound: 100% DirectX 9.0C compliant sound card or equivalent onboard sound
Online Steam Account

A new blog post on the Relic Dawn of War blog details every ability and piece of wargear that the new Tau Commander Last Stand hero will unlock on his quest to reach level 20. It looks like Relic have not only nailed what the Tau are about, but have created a high-risk, mobile, ranged devastator that should provide new challenge for anyone who thinks they've mastered Dawn of War 2's superb three-man survival mode. This is a character who does ZERO damage in melee, but has access to a plasma gun and jump jets from the start, and abilities with names like "sky ray barrage."

Listing every upgrade and wargear unlock will be a bit spoilery for some, but if you're eager to see some of the slightly terrifying upgrades on offer, including heavy assault drones and nano-bots, you'll find the full list on the Dawn of War 2 blog. According to IGN the Tau Commander is set to hit Steam later today, and will cost $9.99.

Relic are also releasing some new chapter packs for Dawn of War 2's armies, including the Death Korps of Krieg for the Imperial Guard, and Word Bearers for Chaos.

Dawn of War 2's fantastic Last Stand mode will get a new hero later this month. The Tau Commander is the imperious leader of Warhammer 40,000's race of technologically advanced space-communists, the Tau. They stomp around in huge, customisable mech suits, which makes them perfect for Last Stand's loot driven progression system. With every level, new wargear is unlocked, opening up new build options that can completely change each warrior's role in the three-man team. See one in action in the trailer above, spotted on Reddit.

Going by the video above, it looks as thought the Tau Commander will play as a devastating artillery specialist, with some area of effect support abilities thrown in to keep team mates happy. It's fitting. In 40k lore, the Tau are one of the few races still making new tech, and the Crisis Battlesuit the Commander hides inside carries some of the best. Expect jump jets, drones and great big energy beams.

The trailer says that the Tau Commander will "be available for purchase at the end of October." There's no price yet. The Last Stand mode is available as a standalone purchase now on Steam and is on sale now as part of the tail end of a weekend Steam deal.

Have you played Metro 2033? Have you been meaning to, only to be derailed by something of vastly lesser importance - like poverty? Well then, today's your chance to fix that. Steam's currently catapulting it off virtual shelves at $4.99. Yes, that decimal's in the right place.

The rest of this week will see special daily deals, including 33 percent off THQ's entire Steam catalog (minus Saints Row: The Third and Space Marine, for some reason), and newly added cloud support for many older titles.

Mostly, though, Metro's the best game about Russian train zombies you'll ever play. So you know what to do.

One of the best real time strategy games ever made is ridiculously cheap on Steam this weekend. Company of Heroes and both expansions are available individually or as part of the complete pack at 80% off. The original game is just £1.39 / $1.99. The complete pack, which includes Opposing Fronts and Tales of Valour, costs just £5.39 / $9.99.

Company of Heroes has a superb single player campaign that features some of the best RTS missions in PC gaming. You start out with a single squad of men, fighting through enemy territory to secure reinforcements, and end up as a well drilled force builds bases, constructs tanks and takes entire towns. The asymmetrical Allied and Axis forces are almost perfectly balanced for competitive mutiplayer, and it's especially good in co-op against a force of hard AI.

Both expansions have lacklustre single player campaigns, but the addition of British and Panzer Elite forces in Opposing Fronts makes it easily worth the extra cost. Tthe German Panzer Elite specialise in lightly armoured fast vehicles, and have a tendency to mount any gun of any size onto a half-track to blitzkrieg foes from unexpected directions. The British have a degree a of manoeuvrability thanks to their mobile bases, but specialise in building trenches and holding ground. They're most notable for their incredible artillery, Churchill tanks and Commandos who come crashing into the fight in a glider.

Tales of Valour is the most disappointing part of the package. With an uninteresting series of quick single player campaigns and no new factions (a smattering of new units for existing armies is added instead), it's the one you should drop if you're looking to save a bit of money on the deal. If you're interesting in playing co-operatively with friends, the £1.39 / $1.99 is worth it for the survival map, an early precursor to the brilliant Last Stand mode in Dawn of War 2.

THQ have confirmed Homefront 2, the sequel to their decent take on modern day combat battlefields. It'll be out in 2014 on console and PC. And it will probably be quite pretty, given that development duties have been handed over to Crytek, the devs responsible for Far Cry and Crysis.

It's a massive way off, but Cevat (Yerli, Crytek) and Danny (Bilson, THQ) are already saying it's going to be amazing. "Homefront's unique setting and storyline captivated gamers the world over," said Danny. "With Crytek's industry leading technology and legendary experience in the FPS genre, we're supremely confident that the next Homefront will deliver that AAA-quality experience that players demand." He then did a little jig for emphasis.

"We see Homefront as a really strong universe that has a lot of potential and that has been expertly created and marketed by THQ, replied Cevat, as he nervously wondered if he should dance too. "We believe that bringing our level of quality, creativity and production values to the next Homefront title creates an opportunity for both THQ and Crytek to deliver a truly blockbuster game. It's really important to us that THQ has the faith in giving us a lot of creative freedom over one of its most important properties to allow us to bring the Homefront world to life in a new and innovative way."

Homefront was pretty good - we gave it 79% in our Homefront review, yet soon after release, publisher THQ closed the studio responsible, with much of its staff moved to THQ Montreal. Cut-throat business, this videogames lark.