Don’t panic. Or don’t get too excited, depending on your opinions on the long-dead The Sims Online from 2002. During a recent earnings call, EA’s CEO Andrew Wilson alludes to experimenting with social and competitive elements in a future Sims game but the word “MMO” was definitely not mentioned. Instead he says that “this notion of social interactions and competition […] will start to become a part of The Sims experience in the years to come.”

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Early this month, the studio behind the archaeological language adventure Heaven’s Vault tweeted out seven words teasing their next project. At the time, the story-focused Inkle Studios had only this to share: “swords, anguish, Britain, unrequited, forests, hope, and revenge.” As of today we’ve still got no imagery to go with all the teasing but we do have some more words and they’re much less abstract this time.

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We’ve known about Adobe’s plans to kill of Flash for years now. Back in 2017 Alice O shouted off a list of memorable Flash games and it’s telling that I’ve an entirely different list in my head (as do all of you) of games that it will be a shame to lose. Fortunately there are enough preservationists here in the wilds of The Internet looking to keep an archive of what was, even the wonky ones. Flashpoint is a launcher preserving all the old games and animations built in Flash before Adobe trashes support this year.

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It’s come to everyone’s attention that Blizzard have revamped their User Generated Content policy just in time to launch Warcraft 3: Reforged, and claim ownership of all maps made in its editor. The new legalese, while definitely overbearing and disappointing, shouldn’t be a surprise: they started tightening legal claims years ago with StarCraft II.

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The folks who’ve brought you all those cute animal parent games: Shelter, Shelter 2, Paws, Meadow and the lot, revealed last year that they have something new in the works (aside from the planned Shelter 3). Might and Delight’s “tiny MORPG” is called Book Of Travels and is planned as a “unique social roleplaying experience” somewhat in the vein of the studio’s multiplayer experiments in Meadow. After being successfully crowdfunded, they are looking forward to beta testing starting this summer and an early access release for the autumn.

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A new Crusader Kings 3 video developer diary explains how Lifestyles are going to work in this third instalment of the series. It’s a new and improved system that’s pretty different from Crusader Kings 2 – featuring proper skill trees so you can better shape your character to be the way you want them to be.

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Disintegration, the upcoming game from V1 Interactive about flying around and shooting people on a tricked out hoverbike called a “gravcycle”, goes into open beta today. Lead by Marcus Lehto of Halo fame, the developers are inviting as many players as they can to come and test their game. With two modes and seven gravcycle crews on offer, it’s a chance to get your hands on it for a short time before it releases later in the year.

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Last week, the haunting and hilarious Disco Elysium added an extra difficulty setting called Hardcore True Detective Mode . On the surface, it seems like a fairly standard set of tweaked parameters. More demanding dice roles to shaft dear old Harry Du Bois at every opportunity.

If you take time to read the update notes though, it becomes clear that these new changes are storytelling devices as much as adjusted sliders. Since there are no monsters to make tougher, it s your wallet and psyche that take the hits. It s had me thinking about how ZA/UM s surrealist cop odyssey, and other games, express poverty through their systems. Games that invert the traditional power curve of farmhand to godhood, or make us try twice as hard to get half as far. Far from being a detached add-on, the update is a deft application of mechanics-as-metaphor that wouldn t work if desperation, isolation, poverty, and addiction weren t already stitched deep into the fabric of Disco Elysium s fiction.

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Rounds in Legends of Runeterra are perhaps the most complicated thing to get your head around. It relies on understanding the logic behind how spells resolve, when you can play certain cards, and actions that can take place during combat phases. A lot of how Runeterra works is dependent on understanding a concept Magic players would be familiar with. Let us guide you through how turns work in Runeterra.

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Since it first launched years ago as the Skype-killer app for Twitch streamers and gaming communities, VOIP and group chat app Discord has hulked up. New features are constantly in the works like sorting servers you’ve joined into folders, an overlay for seeing your voice chat while in-game, and plenty of other big ticket features. Like any widely-used app that reigns over a relative lack of competition (lookin’ at you, Steam) some features just don’t survive contact with users and need to be culled (lookin’ at you>, Steam). Discord threw two such underutilised bits in the bin this week.

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