The hostage hoax that saw armed police rush to the offices of Ubisoft Montreal while dozens of employees barricaded themselves on the rooftop for safety was the work of a notorious Rainbow Six cheater, says a new report by Canadian newspaper La Presse.

According to court documents obtained by La Presse, the catalyst for last year's police response was a hoax call from an individual claiming that five men had taken 40 employees hostage at Ubisoft - and that they would "blow up everything" if demands for a $2m ransom weren't met. Employees were later safely escorted off the premises as police continued to investigate the scene, but La Presse reports the incident didn't mark the end of the caller's malicious campaign.

In December, for instance, an individual allegedly claimed to have placed a bomb near the daycare facility within Ubisoft Montreal's offices, while another call in January claimed a senior Ubisoft employee had been shot in the head following another hostage incident. In both cases, the police are said to have made more "discreet" checks instead of immediately launching a major operation such as the one seen in November.

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If you're the kind of person that lists big stompy robots, feisty FPS action, and parkour as three of their favourite things, then you've almost certainly already played Respawn Entertainment's Apex Legends pre-cursor, Titanfall 2. But if you somehow haven't, then you can do that very thing for free this weekend on Steam.

Titanfall 2 released back in 2016 to much acclaim (its commercial reception was less favourable, perhaps due to publisher EA famously dubious decision to wedge its release between Battlefield 1 and Call of Duty: Infinite Warfare), with ample praise piled on the first-person shooter's sterling blend of the aforementioned robots, guns, and zippy traversal.

It's biggest surprise, however, came in the form of a brisk but immensely entertaining single-player campaign. "Like the best Mario games," enthused Eurogamer's Essential review, "Titanfall 2 picks a trick, themes an entire level around it, and then drops it the second it threatens to become overfamiliar. And just like Mario, it's all backed up by those rock-solid fundamentals that mean when you are just in firefights, or are asked to navigate a chasm using wall-running, everything feels nigh-on flawless."

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Mobile network EE is offering a new add-on to its existing phone or SIM-only customers that grants you an Xbox Game Pass Ultimate membership and unlimited data use for gaming for just £10 per month.

That makes it a rather good deal if you're looking to sign up for Game Pass Ultimate or your subscription is about to expire. Sure, it'll save you one whole Great British pound off a regular monthly membership, but more importantly, you get the benefit of all that free data to use for game streaming on your phone.

The delights on Halo while on the bus, Gears while in the park (would people do this?) and - let's be honest, the most important benefit - Slay the Spire while pooping, await.

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It's safe to say Cyberpunk 2077 had a particularly rocky launch in December last year. With the game struggling to run on last-gen consoles, CD Projekt eventually started providing players with refunds, while Sony fully removed the game from the PlayStation Store (from which it still remains absent). CD Projekt has since issued various apologies for the launch, promising to continue patching the game and fixing its many bugs.

Thanks to a high number of pre-orders, the game still sold 13.7m copies, helping CD Projekt make over £215m in profit last year. Yet some analysts were expecting the game to perform better than this - and so were some of the game's developers. According to a new report by Bloomberg's Jason Schreier [paywall], some developers were expecting bigger bonuses than what they eventually received, and could have received more if the game had been delayed to launch in a better state. CD Projekt executives, meanwhile, are still taking home some pretty enormous bonuses despite the messy launch.

CD Projekt's annual profit-sharing plan sees 20 percent of its annual earnings allocated to bonuses: 10 percent goes to employees, and the other 10 percent goes to the board. According to a CD Projekt statement (via Bloomberg), a total of $29.8m is being split between 865 employees, averaging at $34k per employee. Bloomberg notes there were also some smaller performance bonuses for staff earlier this year.

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Gentle indie farming sim Stardew Valley was a pretty soothing experience already. Now, however, its tuneful MIDI-esque soundtrack has taken on an even more soporific sound, via an album of cover lullabies.

Prescription for Sleep: Stardew Valley is a 12-track album produced by creator Eric Barone and written by Gentle Love - a duo comprised of Metal Gear Solid composer Norihiko Hibino and Etrian Odyssey pianist Ayaki.

This is the latest in a line of similar lullaby albums featuring video game music from Gentle Love, with previous titles remixed including Celeste, Shovel Knight and Undertale.

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Konami is still fighting the good fight when it comes to football video game licences - it's just nabbed the exclusive on Italian club Napoli.

The marketing partnership starts from next season, but Napoli becomes a genuine PES exclusive from the 2022/23 season, Konami said.

It's a similar deal to the one Konami signed for Cristiano Ronaldo's Juventus, which forced rival EA Sports to come up with a fake name for the Old Lady in FIFA 21. So, expect EA Sports to have to come up with a fake name for Napoli in 2022's FIFA 23.

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Square Enix and People Can Fly have released Outriders' biggest patch yet.

There a huge number of bug and crash fixes listed in the patch notes, but I'd like to highlight one change in particular:

"[REBALANCE] AI snipers now give players more time to dodge their shots."

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Rhythm shooter roguelike BPM: Bullets Per Minute will come to consoles for the first time later this year.

PlayStation and Xbox versions have been announced by Playtonic Friends, the new publishing arm of Yooka-Laylee developer Playtonic, which previously told Eurogamer it had plans to work with BPM studio Awe Interactive.

Described as a mix of Doom and Rock Band, BPM is a dungeon-clearing first-person shooter where your actions are tied to the beats of a rock soundtrack. Here's a trailer:

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FIFA 21 hits EA Play and, by extension, Xbox Game Pass on 6th May, EA has announced.

EA Play members get the game then on PlayStation 5, PS4, Xbox Series X and S, Xbox One and PC.

EA Play is part of Xbox Game Pass Ultimate and Xbox Game Pass on PC, so if you subscribe to either you'll get FIFA 21.

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UPDATE 20/5/21: Bandai Namco has now officially confirmed Ni No Kuni 2: Revenant Kingdom for Nintendo Switch, and given it a release date of 17th September.

As detailed in the earlier ratings board leak, below, this will be the Prince's Edition version of the game with both of its major DLCs included: The Lair of the Lost Lord and The Tale of a Timeless Tome. You'll also get a collection of items, including a "Proper Tidy" ring themed around the game's fairy helper.

Here's a look at all that in action:

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