I'm almost glad there's no first-person knocking animation in Early Access survival crafting game Rust if there were, I'd be sick of watching it by now and my virtual knuckles would be bloody and full of splinters. I've been knocking on player forts all night, dozens of them, in an attempt to go trick-or-treating for Halloween. It's not going well.

It began well, though! The admin for the Rusty Moose servers was kind enough to help me with a request: a way to spawn with a mask. Cognizant of the fact that I might die repeatedly, I didn't want to have to do any harvesting or crafting for my costume, so she was nice enough to place a few shacks around the servers, link me to the sleeping bags within, and fill a crate inside the shack with pumpkins. This meant I could spawn in the shacks, put a pumpkin on my head, and get right to work. Sure, I was completely naked otherwise, but a costume is a costume.

Time for trick-or-treating! Dressed as a nude man with a pumpkin on his head and nothing else on his anything, I leave the shack and head for the nearest visible fort, making almost fifteen feet before I encounter another player. This is a popular server without about 150 people on it, and not all of them ask questions first and open fire later.

I'm dropped so quickly I almost don't realize what has happened, though luckily I got a replay the next time I spawn. And the next. And the next. At least I can see the inside of my mask each time I'm killed, which makes the adventure a bit more festive.

I pick a different shack to spawn in, and finally get the chance to actually knock on a few doors. There's no answer on any of them, but all this running around lets me admire and critique some player forts. A common design theme seems to be It's A Big Box, but I also see a few It's A Small Box, several It's a Box With Another Box On Top, and more than one It's Part of a Box.

Also, in keeping with election season: It's A Wall.

At any rate, the amount of forts is impressive. The server was completely wiped not long ago, and I was a little worried there wouldn't be any forts at all. I was wrong: there are tons of them. Rust players certainly know how to build. They also know how to shoot you, stab you, and bludgeon you. It's a multi-talented community.

I knock on some more doors, but no one answers. I run into a player, the first I've encountered who doesn't actually murder me, and we chat for a moment. A few minutes later another goes hopping by, his dong flapping in the breeze. Gunfire echoes in a nearby valley. I see a deer and a horse and a boar. I knock on more doors, even yelling "Trick-or-treat!" a few times. Still, no one answers.

I run and knock on more doors. It begins to rain. A bald naked woman assaults me with an unlit torch, and chases me for a while before giving up. The complete lack of treats I've received means I'm beginning to starve, and soon, I'm dying from lack of food. Two heavily armed players run by, and one helpfully saves me from starvation by shooting me in the face.

I hop onto the other Rusty Moose server hoping to find less bloodshed and more snacks. I visit more forts, including one that looks like two Box forts climbed into a teleporter together and were spliced together to form a BrundleBox. I see a few wooden skyscrapers, at least one Octagon, and a homeless shelter (I presume for players who haven't built their own Boxes yet.) Still, no one is answering when I knock or yell "Trick-or-treat!"

I'm living longer there aren't as many hostiles here but that just means I begin starving again. At one point, I eat my pumpkin mask just to stay alive, but running around without it means I'm not a trick-or-treater, I'm just a naked idiot. I leap from a tall structure to kill myself, but wind up just severely wounding myself, and after I writhe around screaming for a while, I respawn, put on another pumpkin, and head out for one last pass.

After a long night of running around with a torch knocking on another few dozen empty forts, I see a wonderful sight. It's a fort, and someone's home: I can see a figure on the roof, outlined against the sky. Excitedly, I rush up to the door and knock. There's no answer. I peer up at the roof, then knock again. Still nothing. I look up at the roof again, just in time to see the fort's owner jumping off it to the ground, where he beats me to death with a rock.

Before he finishes me off, I hear him munching on something. In a night spent trick-or-treating in Rust, it's the closest I ever get to a treat. Happy Halloween.

I post a lot of teasers, trailers, and gameplay videos, as you might imagine, and it's extremely rare that I feel compelled to warn people that they might not want to watch one of them while at work, or with children present. Agony is definitely one of those games. It's a first-person horror game about escaping from the depths of Hell, and what we've been exposed to thus far really is quite hellish.

It was, and remains, slated for release sometime in the second quarter of next year, which is coming up rather quickly. Even so, developer Madmind Studio has launched a Kickstarter to support an expansion of the game beyond its initial design. "We do not want to disappoint the great expectations of what is to our production in recent weeks emerged. That is why we ask you for support. We are determined to make this game even bigger and better than originally planned," the studio said. (Madmind is based in Poland, so the english is a bit hinky in spots.)

The Kickstarter doesn't reveal much in the way of new information about the game, but it does offer some interesting insights into how Madmind is approaching its development. Survival-horror has become "rusty" in recent years, the studio said, because it's veering too far into action game territory. "We are still visiting psychiatric hospitals and abandoned houses, shooting zombies and running from cultists. Some productions have become clones of others, bringing nothing new to the genre," it wrote. "There are few exceptions of course, but generally this genre stops its own evolution."

Agony aims to take a more psychological approach, and will make heavy use of audio and non-conventional concepts of Hell "to induce anxiety, fear, and shivers." The images on the Kickstarter and Steam pages make it pretty clear what Madmind is aiming for: The mix of sexualized grotesqueries and unearthly, horrific environments can be powerfully uncomfortable. Make it move and scream and slither on you while you're desperately trying to get away, and yes, I can see where that'd really be something you wouldn't want to miss.

The Agony Kickstarter is live now and runs until December 10, with a goal of $66,666.

Samsung Galaxy and SK Telecom T1 finally faced off on Saturday after the month long World Championship. While both teams represented the Korean league, they had two very different stories. Samsung Galaxy, despite the past glories of previous roster and former World Champions Samsung White, weren't thought of as highly. They were a roster of rookies, has-beens, and players taken from the most unusual places (who could have foreseen that CoreJJ, an ADC alumni of North America s Team Dignitas, would end up in the World Finals as a support for a LCK team?)

Everyone expected the series to be a 3-0 stomp in favour of SKT, and it was hard to refute that view. Samsung had emerged as fan favourites, showing off dynamic personalities and relentlessly optimistic spirits as they won game after game after game. SKT, on the other hand, were positioned as the unstoppable villains. Their defeat of the ROX Tigers only cemented that reputation. The underdogs faced off against the clear favourites, and the two teams delivered a series that defied expectations.

Starting with a bang

The Worlds final kicked off with a huge celebration fitting of the finals: a holographic stage that showed champion spells off in crazy detail, a live performance of Zedd s Ignite, and an orchestra. The teams sat behind giant, curved, sci-fi-esque shields with their team's logo emblazoned across the shell, and the minimap itself flared to light on the stage. It was gorgeous, but fans were convinced that the real finals had been between the Tigers and SKT a week previous, and this was just a formality.

Sure enough, SKT took the first two games despite SSG being allowed a very generous pick and ban phase. While Crown performed well on his signature champion, Viktor, and Samsung played their hearts out, SKT remained one step ahead. While fans held out hope, SKT not only took the first two games, but took control of the first half of the third game as well. Fans began to head home or switch off their Twitch stream. After all, SKT had their boot on Samsung s throat. Surely, there was no way that they could come back from such a devastating position.

Samsung have spent their entire time at Worlds so far defying expectations. This final series was no exception.

Fighting from the corner

Anyone who walked away from the game missed out on Samsung managing to turn game three around on SKT, slowly dragging it out and eking out every advantage they could. While early leads allow a team to snowball, the six item limit means that eventually a team can come back... even if it takes them over an hour. After a painful, edge of your seat 71 minute game, Samsung picked up their first win against SKT.

This was proof of Samsung s tenacity, but it could be chalked up to overconfidence on SKT s part. Surely they had just played with their food for too long, allowing the prey to fight back. Samsung picking up one game was, while a bit of a surprise, understandable.

The teams headed back onto the Rift for game four, and here s where things got interesting. SKT drafted a careful, control oriented comp, similar to their strategy against the Tigers: Ashe, Orianna, Nami, Zac, and Gnar. Samsung, on the other hand, went with Jhin, Lee Sin, Kennen, Viktor, and Karma. It was an audacious draft, but they took the fight to SKT and they were successful. They closed out game four after 46 minutes, fighting constantly. Samsung knew they had nothing to lose, and so they were able to stand up to the tournament favourites without fear.

Gods on tilt

SKT s Blank proved to be a relative weak point, but what was really interesting about SKT s play is that the whole team seemed agitated. SKT had spent the entire tournament as cool and unflappable. When Faker faced down the crowd at the beginning of the series, he didn t try to top his iconic tumble forward from last year, nor did he wave to the crowd and smile. He stared the entire crowd down, like an anime villain holding the thralls before him in contempt.

Even against the ROX Tigers, SKT and Faker had an air of unshakable confidence. The only concession Faker admitted to needing was a chocolate bar after game four. Sure, Wolf had been annoyed at the Miss Fortune pick, but that came across as more trivial. He admitted that the pick had inspired him, both to play better and to shake up his support game. If the Tigers weren t able to throw SKT off their game, what could?Samsung provided the answer to that question. Anger turned from something that fueled SKT forward to an active hindrance. At one point, Faker gave an uncharacteristically sloppy play on Viktor where he chased down a kill, running into the massed players of Samsung and dying. SKT s player cams showed the players sitting with tense posture and aggravated expressions.

Sealing the deal

Nonetheless, SKT managed to prevail. As with so many series, the hours of play culminated in a crucial fight around Baron. SKT was able to put a relatively fresh Bengi in to replace Blank, and the team managed to overcome their anger and play with a fresh, sharp perspective. While Samsung fought valiantly, they ultimately succumbed. It was the result everyone had expected, although the journey was a wild ride.

Ultimately, Samsung still have a lot to be proud of regarding their performance. SKT have won every international titles this year and taken their third World Championship. There is no shame in falling to such a worthy foe, especially when the team wasn t even expected to make it to Worlds. League s competitive season for 2016 didn t end with a whimper, as expected, but with one hell of a bang. That s a result that everyone can be happy with.

Off the back of its Halloween update and coinciding sale, Crowbar Collective has announced a rough timeline for the Xen portion of its Black Mesa Half-Life remake. Still living in Early Access, Black Mesa's take on the otherworldly locale that rounded off Gordon Freeman's first outing will portray what Crowbar reckons Valve would have done "without the limitations of the time."

That means its maps have been redesigned and expanded both in size and in number. "We wanted to use the holiday and the sale to announce our rough timeline for Xen. We are currently targeting a summer 2017 release," says Crowbar via an update post. "We will keep you up to date on our progress and we plan to show off some media as we finish developing Xen to give everyone a glimpse at what we are working on."

In mid-2015, Crowbar confirmed the original mod iteration of Black Mesa would not receive Xen levels, however the process of getting them onto Steam and into the Early Access game has taken longer than planned. The team now has summer 2017 in its sights, though, and wants "to do Xen the justice it deserves, and have it be the definitive climax to the Half-Life 1 story."

The update includes the following similarly-scaled shots which show the original game against Black Mesa's reinterpretation:

For more on Crowbar Collective's Black Mesa, check out Chris' Early Access review.

Hitman's sixth and final episode lands today, drawing Agent 47's latest transglobal journey to an end for the time being. Named 'Situs Inversus', season one's ultimate mission sends the hairless hired gun to Hokkaido, Japan and is "the culmination of everything players will have learnt in terms of both gameplay and story," so says publisher Square Enix. It also packs some PC-specific features, such as DirectX 12 support.

Besides a new story mission and a host of challenges and gear, episode six remedies a number of bugs and also supports multi GPU and "exclusive fullscreen," according to this Steam Community update post. As it's disabled by default, multi GPU is enabled via the Hitman Launcher. It's worth bearing the following in mind before doing so.

• Currently only dual GPU configurations are supported. 
• Expect highest scaling in 1440p/2160p. 
• Steam overlay is automatically disabled when using Multi GPU due to an incompatibility
• If you experience instability, especially when toggling windowed and fullscreen mode, then disable services that provide in-game capture, such as Raptr, plays.tv, etc. 

Notes specific to AMD and Nvidia cards can also be found via the link above.

Set within the grounds of the "hyper-exclusive" GAMA private hospital and resort, episode six looks a little like this:

It was a brave decision to go fully digital episodic with Hitman, fundamentally changing how we make the game, and for us it has been a major success, says IO Interactive's studio head Hannes Seifert. I want to say a big thank you to all the players for making this possible! Together we've built and run the biggest and most replayable locations of any Hitman game and added new live content every single week since launch. And although we re now completing season one, this is only the beginning for our ever expanding World of Assassination.

Hitman Episode 6: Hokkaido is out now. While this marks the end of the first season, Phil reckons Hitman is best served in distinct courses.

Our man Steven Messner has a knack for uncovering interesting stories from CCP's space-flung MMO EVE: Online, with recent tales exploring everything from a pilot who placed a $75,000 bounty on a rival alliance; a DEA wannabe who aimed to get players off drugs; and a player who faked a suicide attempt in a bid for personal gain.

When the sci-fi-inspired persistent world adds free-to-play alongside its current subscription model on November 15, more dramas, fictions and fables are certain to surface and the developer has now released an informative trailer to best explain what EVE is all about for those on the sidelines.

"Everybody is on this journey and writing their own stories," explains one commentator in the video above. "That is probably the simplest way I can describe EVE."

Any one of these stories will help the uninitiated gain a better understanding, yet that's barely scratching the surface. Know that we consider it one of the best MMOs to date, and one of the most ambitious games out there. The rest is up to you to discover for yourself.

Once you've forked out for a top-of-the-line VR headset, the thought of spending more money on actual software can be wince-inducing. So it's lucky there's plenty of smaller (and free) VR stuff to try, and Project Cars: Pagani Edition has, as of this weekend, joined that list.

As the name implies, Pagani Edition is all about Pagani cars, and seems to be a vehicle for promoting that brand (it's the "result of a unique collaboration with legendary Italian car-maker Pagani Automobili".) You get five Pagani cars and three tracks on which to drive them, in Time Trial or "Quick Race Weekend" modes. Importantly, you don't need a VR headset to play, though it supports both Oculus Rift and HTC Vive.

You can head over here to download it. Our Matt White quite enjoyed the base game when it released last year, describing the "uncompromising simulation" as "beautiful, bold and varied".

People celebrate Halloween in different ways. Some dress up as their favourite character, some turn their houses into haunted dwellings, and some light firecrackers and scare my dog. For modder Yogensia, however, Halloween is a time to celebrate by creating iconic horror movie weapons for use in Left 4 Dead 2.

Since starting four years ago, the talented creator has made more than 40 weapon mods for Left 4 Dead 2, which include a candy cane shotgun, Harley Quinn's Suicide Squad bat, and a Rickenbacker 4001 bass guitar. This Halloween, he modeled and textured the The Shining's iconic axe and the machete of Friday the 13th's Jasoon Voorhees, which was a collaboration between him, Rafael De Jongh, Maksymilian Genewicz, and Renato Carvalho. Yogensia told me that while he's done with the Halloween-specific creations for this year, he still has a few projects in the works.

"I still enjoy the idea of adding new [mods]," he said. "It's all about finding something that piques my interest and matches my skills, then finding free time to work on it.

"I'll most likely work on Negan's baseball bat 'Lucille' from The Walking Dead in the next few weeks."

The work Yogensia puts into each mod can take anywhere between a few hours to several weeks depending on how ambitious the project is. He tells me that the "workflow is not set in stone," and that every modder has a different way of doing things. His method starts with him modelling a high-polygon version of the featured weapon, making sure to focus on as much detail as possible.

"After that, I simplify the model to make it low-poly and usable in games, making sure the general shape still looks relatively good," he continued. "Then I do a process called 'Baking,' which transfers the details of the high-poly model to the low-poly one as textures.

"This makes the low-poly look almost as good as the high-poly from a normal viewing distance. Then I start texturing the low-poly model, and finally I convert the model to the game's format, make sure it works properly, and upload it."

Before actually modelling and creating the weapons, Yogensia says he spends a lot of time doing research and looking at pictures for reference. He tends to stick to shots from the movie itself since "Google searches tend to show a lot of cosplay props or replicas with missing details and inaccuracies."

"Axes and machetes are relatively simple, but sometimes you just want to be sure you aren't missing any small details," he explained.

Of all the iconic weapons created by masters of design and armory, Yogensia singled out the M41A Pulse Rifle from Aliens as his white whale. He's worked on a model of it for the last couple of years, taking his time and care to make sure it's as accurate as possible.

"Sci-fi rifles are, of course, more complicated than melee weapons, and if I ever release an Aliens-related mod, I'd like it to be up to the standards of the first two movies," he said.

You can check out Yogensia's work on his website and the Steam Workshop.

We're just a day away from Halloween, when small people will appear at your door to procure sugary treats while dressed as grisly pop culture references. To get into the spooky spirit, hardware manufacturer Corsair has put together a video that is sure to scare the bejeezus out of any PC gamer.

It opens with a horse-headed man asking a man if he'd like to play a game, in a similar fashion to the movie Saw. But hey, it's not all bad. He gets to play Doom. That's a great game! Oh, wait. What's happening? Oh, god... the frame rate. It's dropping!

"What's the matter, Adam? The human eye can only see at 24 frames per second anyway," the horse man says, demonstrating perfectly just how evil he is. Don't say I didn't warn you.

As for other creepy celebrations, Steam is currently in the midst of its Halloween sale, with discounts on games like Resident Evil 4, the Metro Redux series, and much more. It lasts until November 1 at 10 AM PT.

Humble has a new bundle to celebrate the Day of the Devs event that will shortly be rocking San Francisco, and it's a good'un that is, if you've somehow managed to avoid acquiring copies of Broken Age, Titan Souls, Lumino City and a few other discount-friendly games.

You can pay what you want for copies of the above games, or beat the average for copies of Oxenfree, and Double Fine's Grim Fandango Remastered and Massive Chalice (there are a lot of Double Fine games included here). Meanwhile, an investment of $9 will secure you Day of the Tentacle Remastered, along with a VIP ticket to Day of the Devs, which takes place on November 5.

There's nothing majorly surprising in there, but it's a pretty great bundle if you don't own many, or indeed or any of those games. If that's not enough for you, there's another bundle going that includes Technobabylon, Odallus: The Dark Call and Chroma Squad.

Oh, and there are several Halloween sales ongoing now too. It's all a bit overwhelming, actually, so maybe just fire up Steam and fish out something from your 'backlog' instead.