According to a recent study by civil rights group the Anti-Defamation League (ADL), 74% of people who play online multiplayer games have experienced some form of harassment, with 65% experiencing severe harassment, which may include physical threats or stalking. And that’s only the start of their downpour of awful numbers, which cover bigotry, extremist views, which games have the worst occurrence rates, and more.

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A work of art. A timeless masterpiece. The pinnacle of level design mastery. Many things have been said about Bombsite A – but does it hold up in a new angle?

Everyone knows Dust2. These days, you can play it across three separate official games, or as a thousand custom maps. You can play Dust2 in Minecraft. You can play the deconstructed remains of mankind’s last Dust2 server, Dustnet. In VR.

This latest interpretation comes courtesy of Mark Mocherad’s Polystrike, a Dota 2 mod that takes Counter-Strike‘s hectic gunfights and pulls the camera way, way up. The mod is currently very early in development but already looks rather neat.

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Were Plato alive today, he’d declare a sixth platonic solid: de_dust2, representing the sixth element of devotion. This sacred configuration of geometry escaped its confinement in Counter-Strike and for eighteen years the map has lived in the hearts of men, re-emerging in dreams, in other games with level editors, and in mashed potato sculptures carved at the dinner table. But in the far future, the last remaining copy of de_dust2 is maintained inside Dustnet, a multiplayer sandbox building self-aware deathmatch museum… thing? It’s out now, I’ve played a bit, I adore it, and I’m excited to figure out exactly what it is.

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Fortnite: Battle Royale is, so far, the pinnacle of the decade-old battle royale game genre. It’s no understatement to say that we haven’t seen a game enter the mainstream in this way since Minecraft – but it’s not the only battle royale out there, and the genre has never before seen such quantity nor such quality. We’ll go over a handful of our favourite battle royale games like Fortnite below. Each of these games has been picked out for taking the genre in new directions, or adding a particular feel or flavour to the genre that we haven’t found anywhere else. If you’re looking for Fortnite alternatives, you’d be hard-pressed to find a more colourful selection than this.

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The battle royale game genre has been around for a good decade or so, but in the past year or two it has absolutely skyrocketed in popularity, thanks mostly to the mainstream success of Fortnite: Battle Royale. It’s no understatement to say that we haven’t seen a game enter the mainstream in this way since Minecraft – but it’s not the only battle royale out there, and the genre has never before seen such quantity nor such quality in its games.

We’re gonna go over a handful of our favourite battle royale games like Fortnite below. Each of these games has been picked out from the ever-expanding sea of battle royale games out there, because it takes the genre in a new direction or adds a particular feel or flavour to the genre that we haven’t found anywhere else. If you’re looking for Fortnite alternatives, you’d be hard-pressed to find a better selection than this.

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Are you looking to meet heavily-armed and available men in your area for hot action… and maybe more? Someone who won’t flashbang you then run? Or fancy a group of like-minded murdermen for chat and banter? Pick up your mouse and click on Counter-Strike: Global Offensive, which has added a looking-for-group system to help players party up and party down. The game already has matchmaking but this lets players investigate each other and have a chat before they commit to anything.

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Thanks to a childhood wasted in virtual velociraptor fighting pits, I will never not hear the words “Danger Zone!” in the chipper yet exasperated tones of a struggling 90’s game show jingle singer. I lured you in with a dash of raptor chat, there, but sadly even after the latest update to Counter-Strike Global Offensive‘s battle royale mode, the dinosaur count remains at nill.

The new map, jumpy boots, springy mines and respawn system counts, on the other hand, have shot right up. I have had a good (brief) bouncy time.

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I’m not big into numberwang. Vast numbers of people playing a game might indicate that it’s fun, or it might indicate that it’s Ark: Survival Evolved. (I haven’t played Ark and it could be amazing, this is irresponsible journalism and I will hand in my badge and gun shortly.) Point being, it’s more interesting to write about what has made a game popular than the fact that it is so.

Right. Now I have to convince you this animated graph of the most played Steam games from the past four years is fascinating.

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Excuse me while I come to terms with the fact that I ve been playing de_dust2 for 18 years. If my playing Dust2 was a person, I realise, it could legally drink, vote, and join the army in the UK. My playing Dust2 could have its university picked out, could be settling into a career path. It could have moved out. I could have driven it, teary eyed, to its new home, where it would find its own way in life, maybe even find its own first-person shooter map that it could play for 18 years.

I m trying to say that I have been playing Dust2 for a very long time. And somehow, I m still not any fucking good at it>. Sheer bloody mindedness alone should ve seen me get incrementally better, but dipping back into the newly free-to-play Counter-Strike: Global Offensive, I m still making the same mistakes I was in 2001. I m still rushing B too fast and getting mown down by a CT in the cracked wall. I m still hawking around the AWP corridor from the T spawn, getting my head taken off by a sniper shot for my troubles. I m still getting flashbanged by everyone, be they friend or foe. It s frustrating to still be this bad, to still not understand Counter-Strike s emphasis on precision and movement.

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Battle royale games. For a long time the RPS treehouse was unable to comprehend these chaotic, destructive influences on society. Shooters, yes, we understand. Survival games, we get it. But 100-person death marches in a shrinking zone of hate? What s so good about that? Well, this week we ve got a young person* to help us decipher this most murderous of riddles.

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