You thought it was over. You believed the year of anguish would be a memory by now. I’m sorry, you were wrong. The carousel of disharmony will never cease, and neither will the bumper car motorcade of video games. This week, the United States of America chooses a President in a logistical process entirely in-keeping with the carnival metaphor I am here constructing. Even in video games – no strangers to ineffectual binary choice – there is a more varied selection of candidates. Here are 7 Presidents other than those offered on this week’s ballot.

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Fallout: New Vegas

celebrated its 10th birthday last week. Can you believe the best Fallout game came out on October 19th 2010? 2010! To honour an entire decade of Obsidian’s brilliant-but-buggy RPG, the game’s director Josh Sawyer did a couple of charity streams to raise money for the California Wildlife Relief Fund.

Over the weekend, he managed to raise just under $24,000 (around £18,000) for the cause, all while beating up hordes of radscorpions with dynamite and answering questions about the game’s development.

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If I remember correctly, one of the bigger complaints against Fallout 4 on release was that it wasn’t Fallout: New Vegas. Obsidian’s spin-off is seen by many as the series’ last stab at proper, old-school RPG’ing before Bethesda turned the post-apocalypse into a playful sandbox. Naturally, a group of modders have been hard at work bringing New Vegas’ guns ‘n’ graphics up to date with a total recreation inside Fallout 4, showing off their spit-shined spurs in a new progress trailer this week.

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Yes, Skyblivion is still going folks. A team of volunteers are still plugging away at remaking The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion in Skyrim as a mod. Will it ever come to a close? Well, in a new developer diary, we got an insight into how it’s looking and where it’s headed. In among all the details surrounding UI and clothes and objects, I found one thing really stood out to me. They’ve nearly completed the ‘first pass’ of the overworld, and they’re injecting some extra flavour into many of the original’s dull, empty spaces.

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Update: Microsoft say they’ll “keep the commitment” to bring Bethesda’s Deathloop and Ghostwire: Tokyo to PS5 as timed exclusives. More below.>

Microsoft just announced they’ve bought ZeniMax Media, the parent company of Bethesda. The developers of games such as Skyrim, Fallout, Dishonored, Prey, Doom, Quake and all those classics are now technically Xbox Game Studios. Xbox boss Phil Spencer made a post welcoming the developers, in what he calls a “landmark step” for both Microsoft and Bethesda.

What a year.

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Regicide is once again a topic at dinner, thanks to the release of Crusader Kings III. Your aunt passes you the gravy, and asks about council matters. Your mother comments on the rise in guillotine stocks. Your father, the king, chews his mutton with a rueful and distant glare, probably thinking about war. A cloaked advisor enters and hands you a note on parchment. “The ten worft kingf and queenf in gamef,” it reads. You cough politely, put it in your pocket for later, and continue pushing poisoned food around as if you are eating it.

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What’s your favourite Fall Guys minigame? See Saw? Door Dash? That weird thing with the eggs? I, for one, prefer the one where your merry band of tic-tacs slay the elder dragon Alduin. Now I understand that’s not a very “official” route to claiming a crown or two – but thanks to modder m150, you can now traipse around The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim Special Edition with a rabble of ravenous Fall Guys at your side.

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Nowadays, I’m a Skyrim watcher and not a Skyrim doer. I used to be a doer, but that involved more than just installing the game. I’d start modding, and I wouldn’t stop. Couldn’t stop. I’d spend more time looking for lore appropriate coin distribution than shouting at dragons. Eventually, something would break, and I’d uninstall it, promising that I wouldn’t fall into that hole again.

It’s been a long struggle, but when I stumbled upon YouTube compilations of heavily-modded Elder Scrolls, I finally broke the curse. Some brave souls do the hard work for me, turning the nine-year-old RPG (or four-year-old remaster, or two-year-old VR remake) into PC melting 4K thirst traps. I don’t have time for that. Nor the PC. (more…)

If you’ve played Fallout: New Vegas a handful of times you’ve almost certainly done a double take once or twice when you recognise the voice of a character. Wait, didn’t I meet you already? You had a different face then. The voice talent in New Vegas can be spread a bit thin at times, with some actors portraying quite a few characters. This overhaul mod several years in the making is now available to fix that by adding a heck of a lot of new voice talent to the western wasteland.

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Crikey, it’s been a hot minute since we last heard anything about Skywind, hasn’t it? Nevertheless, the colossal task of bringing all of Morrowind into Skyrim is still well underway, with the modders behind the project releasing our first look at the ambitious mod in over a year, by way of a spruced-up return to The Battle at Nchurdamz. Hope your arachnophobia doesn’t extend to mechanical spiders, readers.

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