One of the VIP missions in GTA Online's Executives and Other Criminals expansion tasks you with stealing a tank from Fort Zancudo, the game's high-security military base. After numerous failed attempts where the tank got blown up by police helicopters or someone's internet stopped working, we were convinced we had an inventive solution that made the most of Rockstar's sandbox tools. Here's what happened. 

Samuel: Here's what goes down in the 'Hostile Takeover' mission: once you're in Fort Zancudo, you've got to steal the tank, which is inside one of the hangars inside this sprawling military base. Soldiers open fire on you from everywhere, with shotguns and machine guns. If you manage to get to the hangar where the tank's stored, there are more guards at vantage points who open fire on you. 

Phil: Our previous attempts have gone…OK? We can shoot our way to the tank. We can steal the tank. We can even drive the tank out of the base. What we haven't yet been able to do is drive the tank from the base to the drop-off point. The police response is so fierce that the tank always explodes, usually on a bridge somewhere. I have a plan, though. On a trip to Blaine County's airfield, I noticed a Cargobob had spawned. It's a transport helicopter with a hook that lets you pick up and airlift vehicles. Vehicles like a tank, maybe? Let's find out.

Samuel: Rather than look up whether this is possible or not, we decide it's best to try it, just because the moment we lift a tank into the air could potentially be hilarious and rewarding.

Phil: I'm piloting the Cargobob, Samuel is our man on the ground. We also have additional support from PCG contributor Tom Hatfield. He owns a Buzzard armed with homing missiles, and so will be providing air support.

Samuel: Parachuting into the base from Tom's chopper isn't getting me very far, because the soldiers are ready for action before I've even landed. Plus, because I'm only half-decent at GTA, it's tough to land without braining myself on the side of the hangar. That's making the approach to the base rather hard, so we figure out a better strategy. Tom also owns an armoured car. How about we lift this car in using the cargobob, drop the vehicle off the hook, and I'll drive into the hangar unscathed?

Phil: I am very much into this plan. One thing: picking up cars with the Cargobob is trickier than I thought. Anything heavy weighs the chopper down. 

Samuel: Starting again, Tom spawns the car in the airport, and I hop in. The Cargobob hooks on, and Phil carries me over the city. I do seem to be quite close to the ground while dangling from the helicopter, and come very close to smashing into Vinewood Hills at one point. But you've got this, right Phil? 

Phil: Yup, we're good. Do not think too hard about those buildings that you're swinging perilously close to, Sam. Eventually I do get the hang of things, but it's slow going—and this car is definitely lighter than a tank.

Samuel: Eventually we arrive at Zancudo, and Phil drops me off from a great height. The car slams down and I rev towards the hangar, knocking down a soldier who means only to serve his country on the way, and arrive inside without losing any health. Since the car is bulletproof, I can kill all the guards with my SMG without even leaving the driver's seat. This is working beautifully. With the hangar cleared, I climb into the tank and take it. I make a break for the runway, where Phil's going to pick me up.

Phil: It's my time to shine! Just…just hang on a second while I get this hook positioned. No, that hasn't done it. Er...? This is a lot of grinding on your roof for very little reward. I don't think the Cargobob can lift a tank. Oh well, time for Plan B. We do have a Plan B, yeah?

Samuel: This is...embarrassing. What an absolute non-event. I've been reversing the tank back-and-forth for ages trying to get Phil's damned hook onto it, while under heavy gunfire from gathering soldiers. We later learn the Cargobob was nerfed some time ago, and that this strategy isn't viable. Oh well! Guess I'll just have to drive this thing out the front entrance and take the freeway. It'll be crucial that the other two guys keep the helicopter fire off of me.

Phil: My Cargobob is now useless, but, as CEO of a corporation, Tom is handing out helicopters like they're redundancy packages. He spawns one on a nearby beach, and, as Sam shoots his way out of the army base, I awkwardly land my 'Bob, and climb into a lighter, faster, gun-ier chopper. There's now two of us providing air support in Buzzards, which should help with the police helicopters that have thwarted our previous attempts.

Samuel: I take as many police cars out from the ground as I can with the turret, but the tricky part is the bridge along the escape route, which is always barricaded by a ton of law enforcement. Phil and Tom have done a solid job of keeping the choppers off of me, and Tom heroically lands a rocket on one of the barricades as I leave the tunnel, clearing the way. At this point, I'm nearly at the drop-off, and the tank's still in good condition.

Phil: I shoot a few helicopters down, but the amount of police fire is overwhelming. I explode in a hail of gunfire and rockets, and respawn under a bridge. I run back to the road, but stealing a car is difficult when there are so many cops on the ground. I use my rocket launcher to bring down any stray helicopters between respawns, but otherwise Sam's on his own.

Samuel: It's all down to me, but the police presence has calmed down as I reach the objective marker. By this point in the mission, the tank is usually on fire, or making a sound to indicate it's going to explode. This time, everything's intact thanks to the guys keeping those choppers off of me. I reach the objective marker. It's done!

Phil: Hey, we did it. I celebrate with the lads over Skype as yet another policeman shoots me in the head.

Samuel: As the mission ends, the police back off from me immediately, despite the tank being parked right in front of them. Classic. This mission took us about six attempts, and pays out no more money than any other grind-y mission in GTA Online (something like $20,000), but damn, raiding Zancudo is still the most fun thing you can do in GTA. I definitely want to try this mission again, maybe with Tom or Phil in the tank, and me trying to ward the choppers away with a Hydra jet (which is harder than using the helicopters, since the AA guns in Zancudo make it hard to steal a plane). 

That was easy for the first time, because the strategy was sound and the game let us use the tools effectively, even if we sadly weren't able to use the Cargobob's hook. It was a classic GTA set piece. 

When I excitedly explain what we did to my girlfriend later—that we tried to steal a tank with a helicopter, and when we couldn't, we instead lifted an armoured car into the military base to get the job done—her response was withering. "I don't want to buy into gender stereotypes, but that's such a boy thing to do." A fair point.

GTA Online's getting another sports car that'll take me hours to afford in this week's update: the Ocelot XA-21. It will set you back a mere $2,375,000 from Legendary Motorsport and is available in-game now. 

It's also shiny and therefore tempting, but I've got last week's HVY Nightmask now, which has machine guns on the front. I'm very attached to it.

Until August 21, you can get double GTA$ and RP payouts on a couple of adversary modes, Sumo and Slasher. If you're not in the mood for strictly competitive play, though, you can get the same bonus on money and experience by completing Gunrunning sell missions. Beating just one of these will bag you a free in-game t-shirt (see below).  

You can also save 25% on the Route 68 bunker if you don't have one of those yet, and a number of military vehicles are discounted on Warstock, including the Hydra, which you can now pick up for a slightly-more-reasonable $2,250,000. The HVY APC, Vom Feur AA Trailer, Valkyrie and Phantom Wedge are also discounted this week. 

All of these updates are live in the game now. 

Jamal Rashid's ambitious and impressive Grand Theft Auto 5 NaturalVision Remastered visual overhaul mod is stunning. We spoke to the modder otherwise known as Razed about his tireless creation last week—which now looks even better following an extensive update. 

As detailed on the mod's GTA5 Mods page, a new optional add-on that targets brighter evenings has been introduced, alongside a non-compulsory No Third Person Lens Flare setting. Vehicle headlight distance has been increased, police car lights have been improved, and light flares now reflect the same colours as their source (and are no longer exclusively blue). 

As the images featured below outline, a number of shadow and lighting effects have been tweaked—the most impressive of which is perhaps revamped lightning strikes in thunderous weather conditions.

Full details of the mod's update can be found here, including installation instructions. 

I've been getting into GTA Online's Overtime Shootout, which launched this week. It's nearly identical to Super Monkey Ball's excellent minigame Monkey Target, where you take it in turns to launch off of a ramp, hover towards a numbered target using a parachute-equipped car and try to get the highest score possible for your team with a careful landing. It's a more chilled version of GTA Online's existing competitive Overtime Rumble, and playing it has offered some of my most immediately satisfying moments of GTA yet.

It also only requires about one minute of your attention out of every ten, if you're in a full server where everyone has to take a turn. And I love that. Right now, a lot of people are playing Overtime Shootout for the reason I am: it's paying out double experience and money. 

I'm usually switched off by grinding in games, but the commitment-to-payout ratio here is decent, plus Overtime Shootout is great fun when you're actually playing. Even if you just have one shot a game, you can earn $20,000 or $10,000 at the end, regardless of the result. It's the easiest way to earn good money in GTA, at least until the end of today.

By only demanding such a small fraction of my time, GTA Online is solving another problem: a lot of the TV I enjoy doesn't require my full attention either. Some shows do—The Handmaid's Tale and The Leftovers, for example—but Netflix's Iron Fist? Well, it's a bit pants. I want to watch it before Marvel's The Defenders starts next week so I know what's going on, but I don't want to exclusively watch it. 

Overtime Shootout and Iron Fist are therefore a curious match made in heaven: one minute of parachuting in a car is followed by nine minutes of a deeply boring man fighting ninjas in a warehouse. Repeat, until bedtime. Perfect.

Unsurprisingly, I'm far from alone in enjoying TV on my second screen, and I expect more of you do this now than ever. PC Gamer's Phil Savage only survived reviewing boring MMOs like Firefall by rewatching The West Wing on his second monitor. I asked people on Twitter if they enjoyed games while watching something on a second monitor, and they explained that they do this with various games: WoW, Hearthstone, Elite Dangerous, Stardew Valley, Rimworld, Darkest Dungeon (because they'd heard all the dialogue before) and some strategy games. Anything that's repetitive by necessity seems to be a good match. 

Second screen entertainment is one of the modern ways in which we enjoy PC gaming. When games command your full attention with detailed worlds, systems and story, that's great, but it's also nice to get the most out of your precious spare time by multitasking. 

Certainly, it's all the Netflix adventures of Danny Rand deserve. 

Despite how the header image above may be construed, "England vs Scotland" as featured in KieranMerrilees' GTA 5 Project London mod pertains to the national football (soccer) teams and not an inter-British Isles battle royale. 

The mod itself is a work-in-progress project of Merrilees' that's been in the works for the past several months. At present it recreates famous London landmarks in Grand Theft Auto 5, but in time hopes to "eventually do a full map overhaul… with British textures [that] give it a London look." 

For now, Project London includes Heathrow Airport, St Thomas Hospital, The Royal London Hospital, a few London Fire Brigade stations, Great Ormond Street Hospital, Chelsea and Westminster Hospital. 

Some of those feature in the following screens: 

Further down the line, Merrilees aims to finish creating Heathrow, and introduce London hotels, London bus stops, and "many other things" in their quest to reimagine the UK capital in the sprawling open world sandbox. 

More information, including installation instructions and mods which compliment Project London, can be found in this direction. And since we're talking mods, check out our extensive list of the best GTA 5 mods via that link.  

When Rockstar and Take-Two shuttered OpenIV earlier this year, thousands of player-made Grand Theft Auto 5 mods hung in the balance. For self-taught hobbyist modder Jamal Rashid—who goes by the pseudonym Razed—this potentially meant sacrificing 1,200 hours of unpaid labour on his ambitious, and at that stage unfinished, NaturalVision Remastered project. 

"I really panicked for a while," Razed tells me. "I'd been working on the project for so long and was like: What if this shuts down, how am I going to get it out? I started thinking of other options, and I wanted people to be able to install it easily. I did think of a few examples but I'm just really glad that everyone spoke up in the community and we still have it."

Rockstar and Take-Two have since rescinded their OpenIV ban so far as single-player mods are concerned—a move which, much to Razed's delight, has seen projects like NaturalVision Remastered reach completion. 

Inspired by the realism forged by games like Forza Horizon 3, Watch Dogs and even Grand Theft Auto 4, this ambitious and impressive visual overhaul mod is the result of extensive research. Beyond its 1,200 hours (50 full days) of work, for example, Razed studied over 40 hours of video footage, hundreds of photographs, and wandered down the real life streets of Los Angeles and neighbouring settlement Salton Sea—portrayed in-game as Los Santos and Blaine County, respectively—via Google Street Maps more times than the creator is able to recall. 

"I'd take a look at it, and get a feel for the general area," says Razed. "I'd go on Flickr and search the same location. The game's Blaine County is based off of Salton Sea and where Trevor's actual trailer is situated is off of Bombay Beach, also in Salton Sea. Google Street View hasn't actually accessed that area, so I'd have to look up pictures and YouTube videos of people who'd actually been there, recording vlogs and things like that. 

"But it's no good focusing on just one perspective—each person would use a different camera, some cameras are misconfigured, or they'd take oversaturated shots, or have too much contrast. I had to do a lot of research on that, watching tonnes and tonnes of videos over and over and over again. I had to find a balance and had to decided on what colour saturation, gamma, tone mapping to use, so that it looked as good as possible. And it was exhausting."

The result is pretty spectacular, but it came at a cost. Razed's sleep schedule suffered throughout development, he put his job on hold to focus on seeing his pet project through, and, while creating builds for beta testers to pore over on a daily basis, worked ten to 12 hour shifts seven days a week. Regular beta testing was an integral part of this process, affirms Razed, as he valued multiple perspectives against his own personal outlook. In turn, what began life as a less complex reshade mod, NaturalVision Remastered took on a life of its own while becoming one of the prettiest and most sophisticated GTA 5 visual overhaul mods the community has to offer.   

Unlike much of its competition, NaturalVision Remastered doesn't require ReShade and instead serves to highlight what's possible by virtue of both learning the game's time cycle and leveraging the tools Rockstar already provides. Razed took issue with certain aspects of similar mods like Redux—"the sky, for instance, doesn't have a gradient or fade towards the horizon"—and learned that only by furthering his own work could he fully realise his creative vision. 

"I saw other mods that didn't appeal to me and wanted to create something that no one has ever done," adds Razed. "Something that looks realistic, everything from the sunset to sunrise, whether it has clear weather, clouds, I wanted to make something unique."

Against the OpenIV closure scare, it seems somewhat ironic that creating NaturalVision Remastered's sunsets proved Razed's biggest challenge. The final version of sundown that occurs around 9 pm in-game required between 36-40 hours work alone, he reckons, however a huge amount of iterating and reiterating took place in the weeks leading up to launch.   

"It took a lot of back and forth before I managed to nail it," says Razed. "All the details that I looked at for sunsets were, for instance, having to slope around the sun, making sure it's not too dim, making the sides of the sun look realistic—there was a lot to consider. I'm very happy with how it turned out in the end. 

"There is some stuff I'm hoping to improve going forward, though, like smog weather for example. I didn't touch foggy weather at all—I want to go back and do that one. I felt like it was low priority, there was already so much that I was doing and not a lot of people use fog weather. I've been working on blizzard weather too, taking inspiration from the Forza Horizon 3 Blizzard DLC. That's turning out pretty well."

Like all hobbyist projects, Razed admits development occasionally came close to overwhelming and that, without remuneration, quitting also crossed his mind from time to time. But positive feedback from early testers, from commenters on Flickr, and from the GTA 5 modding community as a whole pushed him forward. 

Hailing from Florida, over 2,500 miles away from LA, the way NaturalVision Remastered intersects reality and GTA 5's faux California is exceptional—something made all the more impressive given Razed has never set foot in the City of the Angels. A future real life trip is in the pipeline, as is implementing blizzard weather conditions in-mod and the option to increase brightness at nighttime. 

Razed also points out that his work wouldn't have been possible without CP's esteemed VisualV mod. Not only did its creator inspire Razed to begin modding Grand Theft Auto 5 in the first place, NaturalVision Remastered requires VisualV to function. The cherry on top for Razed, then, is that the latter's creator is a big fan of the former. 

"I talked to CP when NaturalVision Remastered came out," says Razed. "He told me that it actually looks a lot better than VisualV in a lot of places and I really appreciated that. Not every modder will tell you that your mod looks better than theirs."But I guess they do when your mod looks as gorgeous as this.

NaturalVision Remastered is out now. More information can be found over here, and Razed Steam Community gallery can be viewed here.  

GTA Online's latest update adds a new variant to the game's Overtime Rumble Adversary mode, called Overtime Shootout. This is a turn-based version of the target range mode, where players alternately use their vehicles to try and land the highest score. Playing Overtime Shootout from now until August 14 will bag you double GTA$ and Rockstar Points. 

You can also save 25 percent off mobile operations centers until then, too, which will set you back a leaner $918,750. Initial purchases of MK. II ammo is also 25 percent off until August 14.

Most excitingly, though, is the new vehicle pictured above: the HVY Nightshark, a double machine gun-equipped truck that's just been added to Warstock. Every new military vehicle that arrives in GTA Online prompts me to think 'I want one', and this is no exception. The HVY Nightshark will set you back $1,245,000 of GTA money. 

It looks nice, and it comes in optional pink, but long-term, I've still got my eye on the rocket launcher-equipped Ruiner (a mere $5,745,000), which I'm in love with after testing it out in one of the gunrunning missions. 

These updates are live now. 

Our assumption is that big publishers are looking at the success of PUBG and working out how they can take a piece of it for themselves. In a lot of cases, the potential exists within games that are already out there—pretty much every open world game with a competitive element could borrow the format of a shrinking competitive space, randomly distributed weapons and dozens of players, to variable results.

Some would suit it better than others, though. Here are nine games where we think a battle royale-esque mode could be explored to great effect. We'd love to hear your suggestions in the comments, too. 

Metal Gear Solid 5: The Phantom Pain

MGSV has the tools, maps and precise combat for a great battle royale game. The layout of both open worlds has a variety of towns, roads, cliffs, tunnels and open areas that would lend themselves well to large scale firefights with a shrinking combat radius. There's a huge variety of weapons that could be taken from the game's upgrade tree, alongside unusual MGS novelties like the Hand of Jehuty. The more open layout of the Angola-Zaire border map would probably be a better fit than the tunnel-y Afghanistan environment.

Perhaps using the Fulton system could bag you bonuses, like vehicles, temporary AI companions, helicopter support or weapon drops. You could be rewarded for taking down targets without killing them, or for sneaking up on enemies. There's a bunch of potential, there, and all of this sounds better than signing into MGSV for the first time in three months to find out which of your FOB bases have been robbed.—Samuel Roberts

Assassin’s Creed 4: Black Flag

Okay, the open world component of Black Flag isn't multiplayer, but imagine if it was. Imagine having that gorgeous set of islands and glittering blue oceans in a battle royale contest. Do you steal a boat and try to keep to the open waters, sniping other players with mortars? Perhaps you would prefer to stalk Black Flag’s intricate islands where you can air-assassinate players that get too close. I like the idea that the shrinking danger zone would force players into different modes of traversal across land and sea. You lose the thrill of looting houses for hats, but the thrill of being a pirate and thus having a cool hat already surely makes up for it. Perhaps the boats-only, multiplayer-focused Skull and Bones can scratch the itch.—Tom Senior

Dark Souls

PvP duelling in Dark Souls is already excellent and Lordran is a fascinating interlinked map. The shrinking boundary system would be difficult to implement in Dark Souls’ twisting, tiered map, but you could switch off zones in waves. Being told to get out of Darkroot in five minutes would be a good test of your map knowledge, and it would push you into desperate scraps with other fleeing knights. I like the idea that the final duel could take place in Lordran, The Undead Burg or—god save you—the narrow walkways of Blighttown.—Tom Senior

GTA Online

I can't think of a game that would suit a battle royale mode more: empty out Los Santos, spread players across the map, then dot weapons behind buildings, drop cars in the middle of empty streets where players can fight for them, and make military helicopters so rare and hard to reach that tens of players die just trying to steal them. And yes, the shrinking combat zone would be perfect with this backdrop: you could isolate the final showdown to one city block, or to the beach, or to Vinewood Hills. There's even an existing Freemode Event, Penned In, that shrinks the play space as competitors try to force each other out of it in vehicles.

I'm convinced Rockstar will add this to the game's roster of Adversary Modes eventually, if they can make it work on the technical side. Every Bullet Counts shows how they've been thinking more about survival-type modes for GTA Online. Surely a full-on battle royale mode is how one of the biggest multiplayer games in the world gets even bigger.—Samuel Roberts

Far Cry 5

This is another one that I think is likely in some form, maybe as DLC, since the game's still in development. Far Cry 5's easy movement, wilderness-meets-small-town setting and range of vehicles would be spot on. In my hands-on with the single-player at E3, I sent one of my AI companions up to the top of a church to man the tower as a sniping spot. Approaching a point like that in a battle royale mode would be incredibly tense. Depending on the size restrictions, you could even let players throw in their own arenas via the game's map editor.—Samuel Roberts

Ghost Recon Wildlands

Ghost Recon is still awaiting its 4v4 PvP mode, so anything approaching a battle royale-type option seems unlikely in the near future. Like MGSV, though, Wildlands has the tools and vehicles to create some interesting open world encounters, even if you might need to resize the map a bit to make it work. The existing co-op format of Ghost Recon would really suit squad-based play, too.—Samuel Roberts

Neptune's Pride

This competitive real time strategy game is probably brutal enough without the inclusion of a battle royale mode, but if I was going to move the battle royale format into a different genre, this is how I’d do it. As the hours pass the constricting death zone forces players to invade each other’s territory, and you have be ready to abandon your planets and move your forces at a moment’s notice. Admittedly this favours players who happen to own the territory that becomes the final showdown zone, but other players fleeing the border would naturally pool resources to take out the embedded player. It could lead to some frantic, climactic final battles and creates a high-stakes end game that strategy games tend to lack.—Tom Senior

The Division

In reading about The Division's existing survival mode, I stumbled across this nice and sincere petition to get a battle royale mode added with version 1.8 of the game. Alas, this hasn't happened yet, but the existence of such a petition does suggest that at least 200 players would love to see what this would look like in The Division's abandoned Manhattan city blocks.

It seems like a reformatting of the existing survival mode would do it, too—a shrinking combat region that pushes all the players closer together for a final showdown can only add more energy to the game's PvP options.—Samuel Roberts 

Dear Esther

You linger on the shore of a hebridean island and meditate upon the exact positioning of a stone. The narrator speaks poetically someone's childhood memories of riding buses in Islington. The story is inane but you detect an underlying note of tragedy in the narrator's delivery. As you look out on the infinite dark ocean sirens break the silence. "Proceed to a safe zone immediately or face obliteration," says the narrator. You amble very slowly up a gentle walkway in an attempt to scale the cliff face and move inland, and realise with horror that there is no run button. The shriek of the sirens is overrun by the drone plane engines. The attack planes are coming. “Why can’t I go faster!?” you scream at the monitor. “I just want to listen to a bit of poetry and some nice music!” Dear Esther battle royale does not care what you want. Heavy machine gun fire tears into the beach. The end is here.—Tom Senior