The last ten years have brought us many joys. We’ve already celebrated the best games of the past decade, but with such scattergun nomination comes neglect. Only three of the fifty games we picked had grappling hooks, so clearly the entire endeavour was pointless and you will need an alternative resource.

Here’s my definitive guide to the swinging tenties. I haven’t mentioned Worms, because they get everywhere and I don’t want to spend my whole day talking about helminths.

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It’s been an eventful decade for PC games, and it would be hard for you to summarise everything that’s happened in the medium across the past ten years. Hard for you>, but a day’s work for us. Below you’ll find our picks for the 50 best games released on PC across the past decade.

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A lizard-riding auntie with a shotgun and an incarnation of aether today arrived in Dota 2 and Dota Underlords in matching Outlanders Updates. Snapfire and Void Spirit are the two new heroes announced at The International in August, and here they are in both games now. They’re accompanied by big updates for each, with Dota 2 adding new buildings and dozens of new items and Underlords adding a new quick-paced mode plus the other Spirit heroes. These patch notes sure are a lot to take in. Damn, Dota.

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I’ve always been drawn to competitive videogames. It’s not hard to see why. They’re the best kind. Competition can be exciting, rich, varied. It gets you interacting with people, pitting your abilities against thinking, improvising, engaged and pivotally human opponents. A competitive context can be both a wonderful generator of interesting decisions, and a platform for genuine connection. I believe in and value these things wholeheartedly, because I’ve extensive experience with both.

I also believe competition has a dark side. It can be the kindling to incendiary ego, stoking a way of looking at the world that leads to, or is at least bound up with, insecurity and distress. I’ve experienced this, too.

Let’s start with me thrashing my Dad at Need For Speed 2.

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After eight years, Valve have finally updated Dota 2‘s matchmaking system to end those frustrating situations where five randos are thrown together against an organised party of five. You know, where your team starts bickering over buying wards and you end up muting at least one teamie, while they’re laughing with their natural rapport and practised teamwork. Awful. No more! Thanks to last night’s update, five-stacks should now only ever be matched against other five-stacks. And solo players will now only ever go against teams who have, at most, one party of two. Glory be!

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An enterprising thief allegedly burgled Valve’s Bellevue office last June, making off with a prop (I assume) minigun and an estimated $40,000 ( 32k) worth of games and equipment. The intruder shoved the goods into a wheelie bin and lugged to his car across the street.

There will be no jokes about this grave matter.

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Dota 2‘s stuck around for a good while now. We’re only a few years off from a decade of Valve’s fantasy murder brawl, with no signs of slowing down. But will Dota 2 be relevant in 10 years? 20? Will I still be doting over my MMR when I’m a haggard old crone, fending off water-raiders with the last good knife while I wait for the underlords at Valve to find me a game? Some unfortunate sods will certainly hope so. A new season comes with another ban wave – and these suspensions are nothing to scoff at.

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Dota 2 s mega esports event The International has wrapped up, with OG lifting the aegis for the second year running. The team will take home a cool $15 million ( 12.2m), as well as the honour of being the first team to win the event twice, let alone twice in a row.

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Another new Dota 2 hero has been announced at The International, hot off the heels of Snapfire, the elderly lizard-riding goblin announced earlier this week. They should have lead with this one. Snapfire is not an easy act to follow. Still, Void Spirit will also be joining the MOBA this autumn, though he seems somewhat reluctant to do so in his introductory video, which you can see below.

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The next hero coming to Dota 2 is Snapfire, an elderly goblin who bakes cookies, carries a shotgun, and rides a giant lava-spewing lizard. She seems a lark, as long as you stay on her good side. Valve announced Snapfire today during their huge Dota tournament, The International, to arrive in a future update for the free-to-play MOBA. It’s a mystery for now how she plays and what her abilities are, but come watch her introduction video and you might have a few guesses.

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