Counter-Strike 2 - contact@rockpapershotgun.com (Katharine Castle)

I’m sure everyone’s feeling a bit of Black Friday fatigue by now (trust me, I want this all to be over just as much as you do), but in the interests of those after that one, last, final deal to end all deals, I present to you our newly refreshed Black Friday and Cyber Monday PC gaming deals hub. I’ve cleared away all the deals that have been swept into oblivion by the almighty wave of discount-grabbers, leaving you with the best of the best PC gaming deals that are still available. Whether you’re after a new graphics card, monitor, SSD, gaming headset or even a new CPU, mouse and keyboard, your deals herald will provide. Here are all the best Black Friday and Cyber Monday PC gaming deals you can grab right now.

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HITMAN™ - contact@rockpapershotgun.com (Katharine Castle)

Black Friday is almost over here in the UK, but the deals train is still going strong for all you folk over in the US. It seems like forever ago that I boarded at Deals Station Central, but there’s still a fair old time before we all reach our final destination that is the culmination of November’s online deals frenzy, Cyber Monday. Thus, it falls to me, your ever faithful deals herald to continue striving away at the deals-based coal face to bring you the best Black Friday and Cyber Monday deals around.

Now, I’m not saying you should just spend a load of money for the sake of it. Indeed, you should only really partake of Black Friday / Cyber Monday deals madness if you really need to upgrade to something. I ended up buying a laptop today, not because it was cheap (although that was certainly a factor), but because the battery on my current workhorse is practically bursting out from beneath my touchpad. Or at least I think it’s my battery. Either way, it’s getting on a bit and I could do with a new one. So, if you are> thinking about upgrading your PC, Black Friday and its accompanying deals jamboree Cyber Monday can be a great time to pick up some deals on the cheap, whether it’s a new graphics card, CPU, SSD, headset, or mouse and keyboard. So let’s dive straight in and see what bargains this year’s Black Friday has to offer.

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HITMAN™ - contact@rockpapershotgun.com (Katharine Castle)

Can you taste the Black Friday deals turkey yet? (Happy Thanksgiving, by the way, to those celebrating) Can you smell those sweet, sweet discounts wafting through the cracks in your screen that tell you, yes, it is> time to buy a new gaming monitor, and maybe find a deal on a new graphics card, CPU, SSD and literally every other PC component under the sun? Yes, you say? Me too! And have I got the best PC gaming deals for you this fine Black Friday eve.

For I, your trusted deals herald, have been beavering away this past week (month, year, it seems so long ago) to bring you the best Black Friday deals the internet has to offer. You’ll find everything here for building a new PC, including all the best Black Friday graphics card deals, monitor deals, SSD deals, gaming laptop deals, CPU deals, headset deals and please send help because I actually can’t stop saying the word ‘deals’ (DEALS).

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HITMAN™ - contact@rockpapershotgun.com (Katharine Castle)

Despite it being only Wednesday, the Black Friday deals jamboree is well and truly under way. With more deals than you can shake a stick of RAM at, now is the time to get some tasty PC gaming deals on the cheap, especially if you’re after some nice new hardware. To help you make sense of all the deals madness, I’m here to help, as I’ve gone and gathered up all the best PC gaming Black Friday deals I can find, including deals on graphics cards, gaming monitors, SSDs, laptops and more. Yes, my soul is now nothing more than a withered husk, but at least it saves you the trouble of trawling through the internet yourself in search of the best savings. On that note, let’s get down to the business of all them deals, shall we? Here are the best Black Friday deals the internet has to offer.

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The Red Strings Club - contact@rockpapershotgun.com (Sam Greer)

Even before its recent public gameplay unveiling, Cyberpunk 2077 was the target of a very particular piece of criticism. Perhaps sparked by the transphobic joke made by the game’s Twitter account, many online have been calling out 2077 for presenting yet another future that, despite its overt themes of transhumanism and body modification, falls strictly into the gender binary. Despite the gender diversity already prevalent in our own world and time, players in 2077 are asked to choose between a strictly male or female character. Many online have been saying that this is at odds with the very genre from which the game gets its name and ideas. Cyberpunk shouldn’t be cis! is more or less the argument. This criticism has dogged the game for weeks now and will probably follow it all the way to release. Yet it doesn’t quite ring true to me.

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BATTLETECH - contact@rockpapershotgun.com (Alice O'Connor)

The first expansion for BattleTech will arrive in November, publishers Paradox announced today, with a new type of story mission chain and new mechs including… wait, this mech carries an axe to chop other mechs to pieces? Hatchetman, I want you. Come meet this robolad and his huge chopper in the trailer below. Oh, and learn about those new missions and mechs and whatnot for the turn-based strategy game too I suppose. But mostly axe.

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The Council - contact@rockpapershotgun.com (RPS)

We’re just about halfway through 2018 (which has somehow taken both too long and no time at all). As is tradition, we’ve shaken our our brains around to see which games from the last six months still make our neurons fizzle with delight. Then we wrote about them here, in this big list feature that you’re reading right now this second.

And what games they are! 2018 has been a great year so far, and our top picks run the whole range, from hand drawn oddities made by one person, to big mega-studio blockbusters that took the work of hundreds. And each of them is special to us in some way. Just like you are too. Click through the arrows to see the full spread of our faves so far. Better luck next year to the games that didn’t make the cut this time.

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BATTLETECH - contact@rockpapershotgun.com (Alec Meer)

Turn-based giant mech argy-bargy BattleTech doesn’t officially support mods, but it doesn’t officially not support mods either. Though we’re denied the ease of clicking a ‘subscribe’ icon in the Steam Workshop, that ol’Nexus is littered with smart and ridiculous remixes of BattleTech’s ten-storey war songs. For the time being, most aesthetic overhauls are ruled out – a great shame, as I’d love to see more diversity of planet and to field a few more luridly hot pink mechs – but digging into the files that control the rules, flow, camera and even the structure of the campaign and missions is not.

I found myself a little directionless after beating the main missions, but wanted a good excuse to start over without repeating myself. Thanks to the below mods – just a few selected highlights from the growing mass of ’em – it’s almost a brand new game. (more…)

Dota 2 - contact@rockpapershotgun.com (Alec Meer)

biggest-steam-games-2018

We’ve just passed the half-way point of 2018, so Ian Gatekeeper and all his fabulously wealthy chums over at Valve have revealed which hundred games have sold best on Steam over the past six months. It’s a list dominated by pre-2018 names, to be frank, a great many of which you’ll be expected, but there are a few surprises in there.

2018 releases Jurassic World Evolution, Far Cry 5 Kingdom Come: Deliverance and Warhammer: Vermintide II are wearing some spectacular money-hats, for example, while the relatively lesser-known likes of Raft, Eco and Deep Rock Galactic have made themselves heard above the din of triple-A marketing budgets. (more…)

DEFCON - contact@rockpapershotgun.com (Alec Meer)

An entirely objective ranking of the 50 best PC strategy games ever made, now freshened up to include everything from 2017 and 2018. From intricate, global-scale wargames to the tight thrills of guerrilla squads, the broad expanse of the genre contains something for everyone, and we’ve gathered the best of the best.

The vast majority are available to buy digitally, a few are free to download and play forever. They’re all brilliant.

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