Admissions of hacking by three professional CS:GO players have cast a shadow of suspicion on the CS:GO competitive scene. The outed players, Hovik "KQLY" Tovmassian, Simon "smn" Beck, and Gordon "Sf" Giry each received in-game bans through VAC earlier this week. The revelations call into question the players past performances, both during online tournaments and at LAN events, where the cheat, which allegedly connects through a player s Steam Workshop, could have been used. For some in the scene, the news also presents the uncomfortable possibility that other professional players have used similar, still-undetected cheats in tournament play.

These revelations could not have come at a worse time for CS:GO e-sports—we re days away from the biggest tournament in the game s history, DreamHack Winter 2014.

Professional CS:GO players have been VAC banned before, but arguably not such high-profile players. KQLY, the most prominent player of the three, admitted in a statement on Facebook (that I ve translated from French using Facebook s integrated tool) that he had used a third-party program for seven days. KQLY denied using the program while he was a member of Titan (during the DreamHack Invitational, for example, which Titan won). As you may have seen yesterday, I was banned by VAC and unfortunately it was justified, KQLY wrote. I wanted to say that I am really sorry for all the people who supported me, I am aware that with my bullshit, my career is now over and my team in a very bad position. They did not deserve it.

When he was offered use of the program, KQLY says, the provider reassured him that many pro players were using it.

This is a cheat that doesn t have anything visible on the screen. The only way you d know if someone did it is if you caught them at the point they installed it on that machine and activated it.

KQLY has been cut by Titan, who along with Epsilon have been disqualified from DreamHack Winter 2014 by the tournament s organizers. Their expulsion is a huge blow to both organizations, who have spent weeks training for a chance to compete for the event s quarter-million-dollar prize pool. Speaking to Swedish newspaper Aftonbladet, DreamHack s Head of e-sports Tomas Lyckedal expressed surprise. "I don t think a pro player has been banned like this since 2001. Of course people have been caught cheating but it s always been semi professionals, never established players. And it s a shame it has to happen so close before the tournament, he said. I really hope that this doesn t happen to more teams, but this has to be a clean sport so if it happens then so be it.

Lyckedal also pledged that DreamHack will take special precautions at DreamHack Winter 2014. Playing in Titan and Epsilon s place will be the winners of a Last Call Qualifier organized by DreamHack that takes place on Saturday.

On Friday, Titan issued a statement condemning KQLY s actions. As it did so, Titan also criticized Valve for not working directly with teams to remedy the situation. After KQLY s ban was revealed, Titan says it contacted Valve but was eventually met with dead silence after their initial email exchange. "Valve opted for a unilateral decision, handing out collective punishment with complete disregard for team involvement in the problem solving process. I contacted Valve earlier today for comment but have not received a response.

The nature of the hack

KQLY s ban was preceded by the ban of Simon "smn" Beck on ESEA, a third-party client used by competitive players to find matches and pick-up games. According to ex-pro and HLTV.org contributor Tomi Lurppis Kovanen, Valve contacted ESEA when it learned of the cheat. The bans of KQLY and Sf that followed, it would seem, were a result of Valve updating VAC to detect the cheat that smn used on ESEA.

The cheat in question is allegedly very difficult to detect, so much so it s not out of the question for it to have been used at live LAN events. E-sports commentator Duncan Thooorin Shields took to YouTube (embedded above) to speak about the scandal—primarily to call for calm and an end to the witch hunt for other potential hackers that s overtaken some fans in the scene in the past few days—but he also gave his own explanation for the type of hack that was allegedly used.

It s a cheat that doesn t even have an extreme effect—unless you really abuse it—it has layers to it where it can just give you a slight advantage in aiming, says Shields in the video. So if you re already one of the best players in the world, it ll make it so you just look like you re having your best game. It won t even seem like you re hacking and that was an impossible movement. He continues, This is a cheat that doesn t have anything visible on the screen. The only way you d know if someone did it is if you caught them at the point they installed it on that machine and activated it.

The impact

Titan and Epsilon s disqualification from DreamHack Winter sours the excitement around CS:GO s biggest tournament of the year. For some, the bans have created a cloud of suspicion around other teams and players. Smn, the originally banned player, commented on a livestream on Friday about his ban and the incident, allegedly saying that as much as 40% of the pro scene is using hacks.

Of course, that's one person's statement, and it should not be taken as the certain truth. It remains to be seen whether more players will be VAC banned, and whether Valve will take further action, though some members of the community are already anticipating more bad news. I believe it s important to temper our suspicion and not jump to conclusions that any one team or player is guilty until there s hard evidence to suggest that they cheated.

It s been exciting over the past year or so to watch CS:GO blossom into an e-sport that draws hundreds of thousands of spectators at once. And it s been exciting to see the scene grow to support dozens of players and teams around the world. Fighting the hack-making industry, as we ve previously investigated, is a constantly evolving struggle for studios like Valve, who can t be expected to quash every single assistance program—it s part of the cost of building a popular competitive game. Valve does, however, in cooperation with leagues and teams, have the power to make the punishment for hacking so unpalatable that fewer pros and non-pros would pursue it. Whatever happens next, it s going to make for a fascinating tournament at DreamHack next week.

Back in September, CCP put out a call for EVE Online comms—recordings of the communications between pilots as they went about their business in the game. Today, at the EVE Down Under event in Australia, the studio finally revealed why, and what it's done with them is nothing short of spectacular.

EVE Online has carved a unique niche for itself in the decade-plus that it's been around, mainly for two reasons. One, developer CCP Games is famously hands-off—consider its non-response to the "Burn Jita" campaign, in which Goonswarm trashed the one part of the galaxy intended to be "safe"—and two, amazing things sometimes happen in its notoriously unregulated space.

It's often fun to read about things like the massive battle earlier this year—the largest in EVE's history— that began because somebody forgot to pay their rent and ultimately resulted in real-money losses, by some estimates, of more than $300,000. But this trailer goes way beyond that. It works on a purely emotional level, and boy, does it work. I don't play EVE, and despite all the good stuff I've read about over the years, I've never had more than a passing urge to try it—until now. Now, I'm gripped by a sudden and powerful compulsion to climb into a spaceship and misbehave.

The next EVE Online expansion, Rhea, is currently in the works and scheduled to be deployed on December 9. The update will add 100 new wormhole systems to the galaxy, new models for the Blackbird, Falcon, and Rook ships, and a new freighter called the Bowhead. But the big thrill will be the addition of Tech 3 tactical destroyers, beginning with the Amarr ship The Confessor, which will have the ability to shift between defensive, speed, and sniper modes on the fly.

It's exciting news for existing EVE players, I have no doubt, but this trailer? It's thrilling for anyone with even a passing interest in blowing stuff up in outer space. And that's surely all of us.

I don't know much about cars. I know where the gas goes. I know where the groceries go. I know where I go. I know to bring along a rubber toy so the dog doesn't chew the shifter knob off. And that's about it. But I love how they look, and how they sound, and Project CARS looks set to do a fine job of reproducing both within the safe confines of my monitor.

Slightly Mad's none-more-sexy racing game was recently pushed back into 2015, but if you don't mind the risk you can throw your money at it now on Steam. As is the way with retail pre-orders these days, doing so will get you not only the game, but also a Modified Car Pack, which comprises three "amazing limited-run custom machines" that can be used in all game modes: The Ruf CTR3 SMS-R, the Pagani Zonda Cinque Roadster, and the Ariel Atom 3 Mugen.

The bad news is that the Modified Car Pack offer is only good until March 17, 2015, but the good news is, that's when the game comes out. That means you've got four months to think about it. The trailer above (which actually debuted in October at the Golden Joystick Awards) might help with your decision, and we'll of course review it when it's out.

Each Friday the PC Gamer editorial team convenes at a secret mountain lodge to discuss the deeper ramifications of the week that was. The gl wein expenses are killing us.

THE HIGHS

Chris Thursten: Well strike me down It finally happened: I found another lane-pushing game that I like. The Smite regionals in Cologne are to blame: I went in a novice and came out wanting to give the game a try, and now my lunch breaks are consumed by Arena. This is well-timed, really: 6.82-era Dota 2 doesn t reliably fit into 45 minutes any more, whereas I can play a couple of games in one of Smite s lighter modes in that time. I m still not quite feeling brave enough to head into full 5-on-5 play, but that s partly because I m really enjoying the 80% Arena winrate that my transferrable Dota 2 skills (such as they are) have granted me.

More to the point, I like the little things that make Smite less of a fraught experience than the game I m used to: the tactical necessity of retreating to base, the rhythm of pokes and ganks, the way ults operate as much as a make play button as a oh god guys we need to teamfight we re wasting time button. I m sure the game has those elements, but at the moment it feels like a holiday in a more straightforward land. There s a chance I d enjoy League of Legends for similar reasons, but I ll never see the point in committing to a game where your account level dictates anything about your potential power in-game. Smite earns a lot of good will by dodging that, and by offering an affordable pack ( 20/$30) that allows you to unlock every character, past present and future.

Shaun Prescott: A truly disturbing shooter I haven t actually played GAME OF THE YEAR: 420BLAZEIT vs. xxXilluminatiXxx [wow/10 #rekt edition], but I ve seen enough gameplay footage to know that it s a work of art. Created by Melbourne developer Andy Sum for the recent Seven Day First-Person Shooter Challenge, watching GOTY is like listening to Lou Reed s notoriously unlistenable Metal Machine Music LP. It s a distillation of everything ugly and garish about modern blockbuster gaming: the unmitigated bloodlust, the corporate synergising, the flagrant macho stupidity of it all. While the parodic game is ostensibly funny , it s also weirdly disturbing: this is a part of our culture that seems fairly commonplace, until it s paraded before us in such a concentrated fashion.

Phil Savage: The unbearable lightness of being I recently completed a big, sprawling RPG—one that took up a solid week-and-a-bit of my life. Afterwards, I was in need of something smaller, lighter and altogether more silly. The answer, it seems, was bears.

At this point, I think I've played more of Far Cry 4's map editor than I have of Far Cry 4. It's great. More importantly, it's dumb. I'm not sure it's meant to be dumb, but the way I've been using it is. With a few clicks you can set up a ridiculous scenario, and then head into play mode and watch it play out. For the most part, I've been stacking animals. Or blowing up animals. Or blowing up stacked animals. One day, I might make a real map. More likely, I'll try to jump over a pyramid of bears with a tuk-tuk.

Tim Clark: More bear love I suppose it s uncool to admit that I m enjoying what s essentially a clever marketing campaign, but the truth is the Good Ship Cool long since sailed for me, and I m straight up loving the daily drip feed of cards from Hearthstone s Goblins vs Gnomes expansion. We got to reveal one ourselves earlier today—Hail, Iron Sensei!—and you can read my ramblings about all the recent cards here. So far easily my favourite is the Druid s Anodized Robo Cub. Not the flashiest creature in the game by any stretch of the imagination, but a wonderfully flexible early drop for a class that badly lacked exactly that. Also, the art is adorable. And if you re not choosing at least a couple of cards based on irrational love of the artwork, you re Hearthstoning wrong. 

Tyler Wilde: Goat MMO Simulator Bears are fine, but goats are where it s at this week. A new free expansion turns Goat Simulator into a (fake) MMO, where you can quest to pick up apples and infiltrate a sheep village, but mostly just headbutt people into ragdolls. I m still with Andy on Goat Simulator—it s silly and all, but I haven t found much actual entertainment out of it—but this update was too clever not to try. For one thing, you can play as a walking microwave. Just like I always dreamed. It also does a great job of simulating MMO chat convincingly enough that, for a minute, I questioned whether it was fake. Even better, it inspired a very stupid article, so I have it to thank for that.

Tom Senior: Dying a thousand deaths I have bled to death in an abandoned apartment complex. I have died of severe hypothermia in a field. I've been hit in the leg so hard I've crumpled to the ground and been mauled to death by a desperate stranger. You too can experience the panic and misery of the post apocalypse in NEO Scavenger.

This low-fi survival game only lets you carry what you could feasibly carry in two normal-sized human hands, which forces painful decisions between whether you ought to keep a shard of glass for defence, or a blanket to fend off the elements. A bag, shoes, a roof over your head—these are as gold dust in the cold plains of future Earth, and if you survive long enough to find them, you've got a shot of unraveling the mystery behind the planet's devastated state. There's horror out there in them hills, from cannibals to killer robots. It's rather good so far.

THE LOWS

Chris Thursten: Phantom controversy The tendency for hardcore games communities to transmute passion into disappointment and rage is a source of constant bemusement, for me. It sometimes feels like you re not allowed to love something unless you re also convinced that it could be ruined at any moment—that every change, or absence of change, is a disaster. This attitude gives developers no room to move, and can turn exciting reveals sour in moments.

Valve released a new hero for Dota 2 this week, Oracle, along with an event associated with a premium item for Phantom Assassin. This is the first event to substantially interact with the playing of regular matches, and as such its implementation warrants some scrutiny. But that s not what I d call the reaction on Wednesday, when a leaked list of the event s features (many of them false) caused much wailing and gnashing of teeth. The community set to building THE END IS NIGH signs over a set of assumptions that didn t even turn out to be true: such a waste of energy.

Today s the first day of the Foreseer s Contract update and people seem to be having fun with the new systems. There are even reports that the event is encouraging greater cooperation between players. Valve s tinkering might just have yielded something fun and innovative, but it was still deemed a disaster before the truth was even out.

Tom Senior: Mob-o-geddon I m in a positive mood this week, so my low is secretly a second high (shhh, don t tell anyone), in that I ll use it to express frustration that I m not playing Lost Ark at this precise moment in time. I m a big fan of the ARPG genre, but as much as I enjoyed Path of Exile s cerebral charms, I ve always wanted someone to push the genre to new heights of lunacy. Lost Ark lets you sail around the world fighting huge ghost ships. One of the classes lets you shoot huge dragons at mobs, or summon god-sized elemental beings to stomp on enemies. Watch the trailer and just look at how big those mobs are. Look at how pretty it all is. Damnit, hurry up and get on my PC.

Tim Clark: Crying foul  Continuing with Tom s definition-bending theme, my low eventually became a high. We took some flak behind the scenes this week from Ubisoft, who weren t pleased that we d referenced the recent buggy launch of Assassin s Creed: Unity when we explained why our Far Cry 4 review was late, and that in the interim buyers should probably exercise caution until the state of the PC code could be confirmed. I mean, god forbid a company s blockbuster game should be mentioned in the same breath as another blockbuster a game it released a few days previously.

In the end I think our scepticism was justified, given that the publisher had to create a live updates site to deal with the brace of patches needed on release. For the first 24 hours I couldn t get the game past the menu screen without it crashing, on a PC that ought to have been capable of handling it on Ultra without breaking a sweat. Andy had a happier time, as his review in progress notes. The full verdict will be up early next week. Here s where things cheer up for me too: With both patches applied and a new driver installed, Far Cry 4 is now running fine. Better than that, in fact, it looks absolutely sensational—as this video which the other Tom made shows. I can t wait to make the inhabitants of Kryat s acquaintance. A weekend of extreme taxidermy awaits.

Shaun Prescott: Official VR support for GTA 5 seems unlikely With the arrival of GTA 5 s first-person mode on new generation consoles, and its release for PC in January, it seemed inevitable that VR would come into the equation somehow. Indeed, it seems like the only valid reason a studio would bother retrofitting a whole new perspective into an already immensely popular game. Alas, comments this week by Take-Two CEO Strauss Zelnick seem to indicate that VR won t be officially supported (Take-Two is Rockstar s parent company). Zelnick thinks the industry isn t ready for VR yet, and while there s little doubt that enterprising modders will get it going, it s still a little disheartening.

Phil Savage: Expecting the Inquisition Last week, we successfully landed a probe on a comet. In space! This is a thing that people envisioned and built and made happen. Given this—and, while we're at it, given the entire scope and wonderment of human achievement—how come we still can't release a video game on the same day worldwide?

Dragon Age: Inquisition has only today been released in the UK. The USA and others have had it since Tuesday. A few extra days might not seem like much, but it's a story based game and the internet exists. People are rightly precious about spoilers, because discovering the story is part of the pleasure. And yet, the risks are now out there. YouTube is filled with cutscenes of late-game missions, wikis are being updated with newly learned fates, and pricks are simply being pricks. We don't communicate across national lines any more, but our media is still held back based on arcane contractual tradition. That these restrictions are so easy to circumvent reveals them for what they are: artificial restraints with no justification or benefit.

Tyler Wilde: I want to walk in Dragon Age: Inquisition I m really enjoying Dragon Age: Inquisition, but one thing is bugging me (well, aside from the stuttering, but I m hoping the latest Nvidia drivers solve that.) I can t walk. This is a big deal. Seriously.

With a controller, a light touch on the analog stick triggers the walking animation. But I am not using a controller, and there s no key to toggle walking. It s driving me crazy. I spent an hour making my character just right (she looks a bit like Mireille Enos in The Killing), and now she bolts around everywhere like an idiot. Mireille Enos doesn t run everywhere! She walks purposefully. If she s going to have a conversation with someone, she doesn t sprint into their faces, bashing nose against nose. YOU WANTED TO TALK? No. She walks. Calmly. Like a human being.

Thank goodness I m not the only one asking for walking, and Creative Director Mike Laidlaw is on the case. Unfortunately, BioWare sort of needs to make sure the game is working for everybody before addressing a design issue like this. I guess that s more important. But I can t wait for the walking patch.

Yogscast has unveiled the 2014 Jingle Jam charity drive, a special event that runs throughout December in support of five worthy causes. Last year's Jingle Jam raised nearly $1.1 million dollars, and this year the cheery casters are hoping for even more.

The Jingle Jam 2014 will feature members of the Yogscast family appearing on Twitch every night throughout December, playing games, taking on challenges, and just generally having all sorts of holiday-spirited fun. Fans who donate $5 or more to the Jam will be given a special Team Fortress 2 item, while those who kick in $25 or more will be awarded a special bundle of games through the good folks at the Humble Bundle, details of which will be revealed on December 1. Money raised through the event will go to support Mind, Doctors Without Borders/MSF, Flora and Fauna International, Special Effect, and End Polio Now.

The Yogscast 2014 Jingle Jam will get underway at 6 pm GMT on December 1 at Twitch.tv/yogscast.

Possibly just to keep me from pressing my sad face up against their office windows, the decksmiths at Blizzard have given PC Gamer an exclusive card to reveal from Goblins vs Gnomes, the next Hearthstone expansion, which is due out this December.

And here he is. Say konnichiwa to the Iron Sensei, a 3 mana rare Rogue card. The Sensei joins the swiftly-growing ranks of mech minions being introduced by the new set. He s so happy to be amongst his mech mates that at the end of each turn he ll give a friendly one +2/+2.

There s some nice potential synergy here with the other new Rogue minion revealed, the Goblin Auto-Barber. Drop both on Turn 5 with a dagger already in play and you d likely be in pretty good shape.

I like to think of the card as somewhere between a robots-only Shattered Sun Cleric and a Blood Imp, because the Sensei's buff also occurs each turn. That means he's going to be such a priority to remove for your opponent that the card might as well have Taunt too. Perhaps sneaky Rogues will start using Conceal to help keep this stats generator alive for longer. And there s also a Spare Part card which gives a creature Stealth for a turn to consider, although that'll be a lot less reliable.

Let us know what you think about the card in the comments. I ll obviously be including two copies in all my Rogue decks in perpetuity as a sign of gratitude, even if the Sensei ends up being the new Magma Rager. (Which he won t. I actually think he s pretty good value.) You can also check out some thoughts on the other recent card reveals in our gallery here.

Gemini Rue

The GOG Autumn Sale is concluding this weekend with a couple of opportunities to hit the deals you may have missed out on the first time around. All of the games featured during "flash sales" throughout the promotion are available until 2 pm GMT (that's 9 am EST) on November 23, after which all of the daily bundles will go back on sale for another 48 hours.

On the off-chance you haven't inflicted enough pain on your bank balance already, here are a few helpful suggestions on ways to inflict more pain on your wallet: Unmechanical for $2. The Witcher Enhanced Edition for $1.50. FTL: Advanced Edition for $5. Legend of Grimrock for $7.50. Divine Divinity for $3. Chronicles of Riddick: Assault on Dark Athena for $7.50. Gemini Rue for $5.

And yes, I'm obviously picking out the stuff that turns my crank, but there's a lot more than just this—16 pages of games in all. There's a "Movies For Gamers" bundle on tap as well, if you'd like to sink some time into watching instead of playing, and if you've been collecting stamps, don't forget to grab your Witcher 2 freebie. 

Some of these deals are time-limited, so if you don't want to feel silly for missing it again, I'd suggest not dawdling.

This morning, Dell  announced it is now shipping the Alienware Alpha, the company's all-in-one gaming "console" PC originally marketed as a Steam Machine earlier this year. The Alpha comes at four price points—$550, $700, $800, and $900—and ships with an Xbox 360 Wireless controller, given that Valve's Steam controller was delayed into 2015, just like the finalized SteamOS.

The low-end model features an Intel Core i3-4130T dual-core processor clocked up to 2.9 GHz, a customized 2GB Nvidia GeForce GTX 860M GPU, 4GB of DDR3 RAM and a 500GB internal hard drive. The $699 model doubles the memory and internal storage but keeps the other components the same.

The $799 model bumps the processor up to a quad-core i5-4590T clocked up to 3.0 GHz, while the top-end $899 SKU goes all out with an i7-4765T clocked to 3.0 and 2TB of internal storage. All four models sport Wireless AC and Bluetooth 4.0 connectivity, four USB ports—two 2.0 on the front and two 3.0 on the back—and connections for all your standard Ethernet, HDMI, and optical audio cables.

The console has been designed for easy upgradeability, allowing users to swap in a newer CPU or more RAM. The GPU, unfortunately, won't be upgradable. The Alpha's GPU is based off the Nvidia 860M, which is already outdated compared to Nvidia's 970M and 980M mobile GPUs released in October. The 860M should be more than capable of streaming, but it's not going to fare well against the most demanding games releasing in late 2014 and beyond. Alienware claims its overclocked 860M will be up to the task of 1080p gaming, but it's notably running on 2GB of GDDR5, unlike the 4GB Maxwell version in 860M-equipped gaming laptops. At $550, though, the Alpha is far more affordable than those laptops.

Out of the box, the machine loads up Alpha UI—a controller-minded interface designed by Alienware—but it can be configured to boot directly into Steam Big Picture mode or Windows 8.1. In other words, you can treat the Alpha like a standard desktop PC, a plug-and-play console, or something of a hybrid—whatever suits your fancy.

Frontier Developments founder David Braben says the studio will re-examine its Elite: Dangerous refund policy in the face of ongoing complaints from fans unhappy about the recent elimination of offline play. The change comes just a couple of days after Braben declared that anyone who has already played the game in either alpha or beta testing will not be eligible for a refund.

"We initially declined some people's request for refund as our records showed they have already played Elite: Dangerous online," Braben wrote in a forum post that went up yesterday. "After listening to many of the comments I received after my AMA here, we have since re-opened these requests and informed those people that we will be contacting them so that we can fully understand their individual situation before making a more informed decision. We will be contacting them each in the next few working days."

Elite: Dangerous was initially intended to support offline play, but Braben said earlier this week that it had been cut. It will still support single-player gameplay, but a constant connection to the internet will be required.

We wouldn't normally publish individual workarounds for specific game bugs, but the launch of Assassin's Creed: Unity has been ugly enough to warrant an exception. And this isn't actually for a specific bug, nor is it guaranteed to fix anything, but if you're having problems with the game crashing at the main menu, Ubisoft recommends you delete all of your game contacts. Yes, you read that right. 

The latest addition to the Assassin's Creed: Unity live update site says Ubisoft has discovered "one of the issues that may cause the game to crash at the main menu after pressing the 'continue' button." A fix is in the works, although there's no ETA at this point, and in the meantime, if you haven't been affected by the bug, there are two things you can do to keep it from making you miserable.

Step one: Do not add any "in-game recent player" as a game contact.

Step two: If you already have any game contacts, ditch them. All of them. Don't waste time apologizing. Do it now. Quickie instructions on doing so: My Brotherhood > My Contacts > Game Contacts (using RB/R1) > Focus on a Contact (LS) > More Actions (Y/Triangle) > Remove from contacts.

Getting rid of all your contacts doesn't seem like an ideal solution for a game that was billed so heavily as a multiplayer experience, but better playing alone than not at all, I suppose. If you experience crashes at the main menu even after cutting all your contacts loose, then Ubisoft asks that you please file a ticket at the official support site.