ARK: Survival Evolved - contact@rockpapershotgun.com (Natalie Clayton)

Ark: Genesis, the monstrous next expansion for Ark: Survival Evolved, has been delayed. Again. Well, half of it, at least. While the first bit of Ark’s massive two-part expansion was set to embark last December, its release was later pushed back to January. This week, Studio Wildcard regret to inform us that we’ll need to hold on a little longer before building a bungalow on a sea turtle, with Genesis now scheduled to arrive on February 25th.

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Assassin’s Creed® III - contact@rockpapershotgun.com (Katharine Castle)

HDR on PC hasn’t improved much in 2019. Despite there being more HDR gaming monitors than ever before, the very [cms-block]s for HDR continue to be quite expensive compared to non-HDR monitors, and the situation around Windows 10 support for it is still a bit of a mess. However, provided you’re willing to fight through all that, then the next step on your path to high dynamic range glory is to get an HDR compatible graphics card.

Below, you’ll find a complete list of all the Nvidia and AMD graphics cards that have built-in support for HDR, as well as everything you need to know about getting one that also supports Nvidia and AMD’s own HDR standards, G-Sync Ultimate and FreeSync 2. I’ve also put together a list of all the PC games that support HDR as well, so you know exactly which PC games you can start playing in high dynamic range.

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Rock, Paper, Shotgun - contact@rockpapershotgun.com (Ollie Toms)

There have been a great many games like Minecraft over the past decade. Which is to be expected, because who wouldn’t want to capitalise on the runaway mainstream success of the decade, and the best-selling video game of all time? There are many things that are very special about Minecraft, and remain more or less unmatched even ten years later; but we’ve done our very best to condense all that specialness down into a simple list of six criteria, and from there, we’ve compiled our list of the 16 best games like Minecraft out there right now.

Some of these games you might look at and think, “But Ollie, my dear fellow! You must be crazy! This game looks nothing like Minecraft!>” Bear with me, and I’ll explain exactly why each game on this list has earned its place there. Each of these games are well worth a try if you enjoy Minecraft for whatever reason. And who knows? You might find your new favourite game within this very list…

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Quake II - contact@rockpapershotgun.com (Katharine Castle)

It’s Gamescom this week, which can only mean one thing – more confirmed ray tracing games for Nvidia’s RTX and selected GTX 16-series graphics cards. Indeed, the big one that’s just been announced is Minecraft, which (like Quake II RTX) is getting full, real-time ray tracing support for everything from water reflections to its entire lighting system. That’s not all, though. Dying Light 2 will also be getting real-time ray tracing, while Tencent’s freshly-announced action survival game Synced: Off-Planet will be getting ray-traced reflections and shadow support.

In truth, the number of games on this list that you can actually play with ray tracing enabled right this second is still pretty small. A lot of the confirmed RTX games you’ll see below still haven’t received their promised ray tracing and performance-boosting DLSS support, so this is more of a complete ‘this is how many games will have it eventually’ kind of thing than ‘these are all the games you can play with ray tracing right now’. Still, if you’re currently on the fence about buying one of Nvidia’s RTX or RTX Super graphics cards as opposed to the new AMD Navi GPUs, this guide should hopefully help you decide whether ray tracing is something worth investing in. Here’s every confirmed ray tracing and DLSS game we know about so far.

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Grand Theft Auto V - contact@rockpapershotgun.com (John Walker)

Hi, it’s me! Yeah! No, nothing’s wrong, all’s good. I was just calling to see if you wanted some Steam Charts? … STEAM CHARTS … Yeah, that’s right. No, no it’s not. You don’t? Oh, um, I already sent them over.

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ARK: Survival Evolved - contact@rockpapershotgun.com (Emily Gera)

Multiplayer dinosaur-riding island-surviv-a-thon series Ark: Survival Evolved has taken inspiration from my fever dreams and will be introducing giant sea turtles who double as islands which then double as an open construction site for your future home.

The next chapter in the ongoing Ark saga, known as Ark: Genesis, will be made up of two hefty expansion packs. These will introduce tameable albeit shapeshifting animals – new biomes, and something that’s being referred to as “mission-based game mechanics” which I can only assume is a genetically mutated version of story-based missions. But frankly, it’s all about my future tortoise island paradise.

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Grand Theft Auto V - contact@rockpapershotgun.com (John Walker)

Hello friendly people! Welcome to the always-lovely, always-cheerful soft-play-of-fun-and-hyphens that is Steam Charts!

Today we’re going to laugh together, learn together, and maybe, just maybe, if we’re lucky, laugh and learn a little. Please, pull up a trouser, take a seat (take as many seats as you need – we have too many seats), and prepare to enjoy, laugh, and maybe even learn.

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ARK: Survival Evolved - contact@rockpapershotgun.com (Dominic Tarason)

Ark: Survival Evolved is nearly as popular now as it was at launch, so it’s no great surprise that Studio Wildcard’s Dino Riders-ish survival sandbox is still being supported. What is a pleasant surprise is that the new Valguero expansion will be completely free of charge, and released tomorrow. It won’t require any existing DLC, and will include one new dinosaur to hunt or befriend; the agile and feathery Deinonychus, seen tussling with a Tyrannosaurus above. Below, a trailer taking us on a scenic tour of the multi-layered, 63 square kilometre new environment.

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Quake II - contact@rockpapershotgun.com (Katharine Castle)

The number of confirmed ray tracing games for [cms-block] and selected GTX graphics cards has just got a little bit longer. With E3 2019 in full swing, Nvidia have confirmed that both Watch Dogs Legion and the upcoming Call of Duty: Modern Warfare will also be getting full ray tracing support, and in the case of Call of Duty, adaptive shading support as well.

That ray tracing games list is still pretty small, admittedly, and the number of games you can find it in right now> can almost be counted on a single hand. Indeed, a lot of confirmed RTX games are yet to receive their ray tracing and performance-boosting DLSS support, so the list below is more of a complete ‘this is how many games will have it eventually’ kind of thing than ‘these are all the games you can play with ray tracing right this very second’. Still, if you’re currently on the fence about buying one of Nvidia’s RTX 2060, RTX 2070, RTX 2080 or RTX 2080 Ti graphics cards as opposed to one of the new [cms-block] GPUs, this guide should hopefully help you decide whether ray tracing is something worth investing in. Here’s every confirmed ray tracing and DLSS game we know about so far.

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Quake II - contact@rockpapershotgun.com (Katharine Castle)

With the arrival of Nvidia’s new GTX ray tracing driver, the number of graphics cards that can now take advantage of the tech giant’s fancy new lighting tech has grown exponentially. In addition to the four new [cms-block] cards, everyone with a 6GB GTX 1060 and up can now get a taste of that ray tracing magic. Sort of.

Alas, the number of confirmed ray tracing games is still pretty small. There have been a couple of new, notable additions to the list in recent months, including Vampire: The Masquerade – Bloodlines 2 and Wolfenstein: Youngblood, but even now the number of games you can find it in right now> can be counted on a single hand. The same goes for Nvidia’s performance-boosting DLSS tech, which is still only available on the RTX 2060, RTX 2070, RTX 2080 and RTX 2080 Ti. So I thought I’d do the hard work for you and put everything in a nice, big list, detailing every confirmed ray tracing and DLSS game we know about so far.

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