This War of Mine is a game about surviving the horrors of war, not as a thick-necked soldier with an array of guns and a can-do attitude, but rather as a civilian: hungry, sick, injured, alone, and above all else, desperate. It's obviously not the happiest simulation ever, but as we noted in our review, that's the point. And in spite of the grim subject matter, it was successful enough to earn an expansion, The Little Ones, which was released in January as part of an expanded, console-exclusive edition. Today, however, developer 11 Bit Studios announced that a PC version is on the way.

The Little Ones builds upon the ideas presented in This War of Mine by emphasizing the unique needs of children in war zones. This War of Mine: The Little Ones focuses not only on the reality of enduring war, but also the fact that even in times of conflict, kids are still kids—they laugh, cry, play with toys and see the world differently. In addition to thinking about survival, you'll have to bring back the kid in yourself to understand how to protect the little ones. Their faith, and their futures, are in your hands.

There's no release date or pricing info yet, but you can find out more about what's in store at tlo.thiswarofmine.com.

The Little Ones coming to #PC and #mobile devices! We don't have release date yet but we'll keep you updated! pic.twitter.com/IGygQUmu6i

— 11bitstudios (@11bitstudios) March 23, 2016

The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion is 10 years old, a terrifying fact that has done little but remind me that my days are numbered and senility is closing in on me like a determined mud crab. But for all that time may cloud my mind, I will never forget the quest that defined my experience of Bethesda's finest game and enshrined the RPG as the genre for me.

Paranoia requires you to exploit almost every mechanic Oblivion offers—combat, dialogue, timing, stealth and theft—resolving the story of a mad wood elf. Glarthir is convinced his neighbours are in cahoots, plotting his downfall. You can choose to take his side and keep tabs on the people of Skingrad, or you can brush him off as a total Fruit Loop. For me, a PC gaming novice at the time, this tangle of possibilities went horribly wrong.

A little scene-setting: the PC I was running Oblivion on was my very first. Consequently, I hadn't had much experience with games more complex than Pok mon or World of Warcraft, which just about ran on my parents' early-'00s monstrosity. I didn't have a full understanding of what was and wasn't possible in a PC RPG, and that made the world feel far more scary.

When you enter Skingrad, Glarthir is programmed to run towards you and engage you in conversation, triggering Paranoia. I just saw a demented elf running my way and panicked—I turned on my heel and left the city. To my horror, as I caught my breath beyond the Skingrad loading screen, what should I see emerge but the same figure who had just tried to accost me. Assuming in my heightened state that Oblivion had marked me for death, I legged it across country, looking back every few seconds to glimpse the relentless silhouette of my pursuer.

As the chase wore on, I became hysterical, at last taking shelter in Goblin Jim's Cave (I hope you'll understand the depth of my fear in the knowledge that I was more prepared to face Goblin Jim than the abomination dogging my footsteps). I hopped onto a ledge opposite the cave entrace, crouched down and drew my bowstring. Minutes passed in horrible tension, and then a figure appeared. He was unstoppable!

The string went slack; the arrow flew true. Glarthir keeled over. In my panic, I had killed an overzealous quest giver—but of course I didn't know that's what he was. Neither could I understand the message now blazing on my screen beyond a nauseating sensation that it wasn't good news.

"Your killing has been observed by forces unknown..."

Needless to say, when the Dark Brotherhood's Lucien Lachance appeared at my bedside the next time I slept, pants were dampened. By the time my heart rate returned to normal and I'd stirred up the gumption to do as Lucien bid, however, I had had a revelation. Somehow a cross-country pursuit and my own misplaced self-defence culminated in my becoming Cyrodiil's most deadly assassin. The bewildering chain of events that set me on that path was testament to Oblivion's complexity, potential and frequent shonkiness.

Oblivion felt impossibly deep, and that sensation of causality among its disparate mechanics—though it was sometimes a product of poor code—sold me on the genre like nothing else could.

Mouse problem

Back in the early days of computing, the most common way to get a computer virus was by sticking a compromised floppy disk into your PC. But in the Internet era, remote hacks are all the rage, and it turns out your wireless mouse could be yet another vector for attack.

That's the world from Bastille, a cyber security startup that believes it found a critical flaw with today's wireless rodents, Reuters reports. The flaw is that wireless mice from companies like HP, Dell, Lenovo, Amazon, and others don't take advantage of encryption.

"That makes it possible for the attacker to send unencrypted traffic to the dongle pretending to be a keyboard and have it result as keystrokes on your computer. This would be the same as if the attacker was sitting at your computer typing on the computer," said Marc Newlin, a security researcher at Bastille.

Newlin and Balint Sabeer, another reseacher with Bastille, set out to see how far away they could be from one another while still hacking the other person's system. It's farther than you might think—180 meters (~590.5 feet).

As Newlin explains it, an attacker could send data to a wireless mouse's dongle that spoofs the mouse but is actually a keyboard. If the attacker then sent keystrokes at 1,000 words per minute—easy with a macro— it could take control of the PC or infiltrate the network within just a few seconds.

This only works wireless mice that connect via a USB donglei; Bluetooth rodents aren't susceptible. Bastille says that some companies are now pushing out firmware updates to prevent these types of attacks, though the bigger issue is the need to rethink cyber security to take into account all wireless traffic.

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You weren't using it anyway

Show of hands, how many of you were using Google's Chrome app launcher on your Windows desktop? What about your Linux box? Anybody on a Mac using the Chrome app launcher?

Don't worry, we didn't hack your webcam so we can't really see if you're raising your hand, but we suspect it's not many. That's the same conclusion Google came to, so it's retiring its Chrome app launcher on Windows, Linux, and Mac.

"The app launcher makes Chrome apps easy to open outside the browser, but we ve found that users on Windows, Mac, and Linux prefer to launch their apps from within Chrome.With Chrome s continued emphasis on simplicity and streamlining browser features, the launcher will be removed from those platforms. It will remain unchanged on Chrome OS," Google stated in a blog post.

This won't happen right away—Google's drawing out the retirement over the next several months. Starting in a few weeks, Chrome will no longer enable the launcher when users first install a Chrome app. Anyone that currently has it installed will receive a notice of Google's plans around the same time. And in July, Google will remove existing instances of the launcher.

With the Chrome app launcher on various desktops, Google was trying to get away from the mental separation of cloud services for local ones. It works in Chrome OS because Chromebooks are highly dependent on Internet connections, but on other platforms, users simply preferred to launch Google's apps from within Chrome.

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It's like a nightmare. You're trapped in LA and the sun never shines and you re living out of your car and everyone keeps talking to you about driving techniques. When they re not talking to you in person, they re calling you all the time. It s hell. This is the setting for the first exclusively new-gen Need for Speed, which launched on consoles in November last year. After relatively unimpressed reactions, its developer Ghost Games has used the interim to give its PC port a tune up. 

There's now manual transmissions, additional steering wheel support, an unlocked framerate, 4K resolution, and new cars and customizables courtesy of both the Icons and Legends packs.There s a strangely heavy story component to this new Need For Speed. You play what is essentially a voiceless camera who hovers around a bunch of nocturnal street racing enthusiasts as they ignore the fact you never speak, driving from diners to bars drinking—as everyone is keen to point out—coffee. Your buddies are all depicted by good-looking people in live-action cutscenes, who talk in a vaguely convincing street racing lingo. Your hero, this floating camera, is somehow able to operate an automobile, and because your crew acknowledges you'll never know human emotions like love and joy, they instead race you for street rep . The more you win, the higher your rep, the more cars you can buy.

Handling is satisfying. Tires grip the road and motors have a heft they makes it seem bodies are really sinking into their suspension, and tune-ups, whether geared towards racing or drifting, feel markedly different. The problem is Ventura Bay. In heavily referencing LA s grid-based layout you can sometimes complete an entire race without touching the brakes, only occasionally dealing with a sudden right angle turn.

Although Ghost claims to have lessened rubberbanding AI, it sometimes feels like you re only driving at the speed they designate: grazing scenery sees you drop multiple places, but you can sometimes spontaneously leap from first to last as opponents all seemingly drive over banana peels. Winding canyons and tight docks introduce a new problem: drifting. Going sideways requires reconfiguring your entire car, and without a middle ground between driving fast and drifting well, you can t do both at the same time. Powersliding in a standardly-balanced ride demands high speed, but reaching that speed takes ages, and it's reduced instantly when you do drift. It s needlessly tricky to maintain momentum.

There are several event types, and activating them involves engaging your awful posse who phone you multiple times mid-race. Robyn calls to offer drift challenges, speedy Spike s all about point-to-point sprints, Amy doles out time trials, and silly-haired leader Manu incorporates all the disciplines into his lot. It s astonishingly seen-it-all-before, just as it was in 2012 with Most Wanted. Even import and tuning culture, the whole point of this game, boils down to customizing like you ve done in a dozen other racers. Apply decals, paint rims, tweak suspension, lament the passing of time.

There s a whiff of promise in bad boy Outlaw s cat and mouse challenges with cops, but LA s police force is terribly implemented. They ll tail every few minutes telling you to pull over, at which point you can either do so and pay a fine, or not do so, because literally why would you in an underground driving game, and attempt to outrun them. Losing hefty chunks of change if you re caught is a supreme annoyance. There are no paint-trading battles or spark-filled crashes, just an inconvenience you have to settle before moving on. They interrupt events too, which is less welcome than an ugly streaker during the Super Bowl. This is a racing game punishing you for racing.

Side activities are scant. You can hunt for doughnut spots in which you spin your car round in a little circle for points before driving off sad that it didn t involve Krispy Kreme in any way. You can also find new parts, and sniff out designated scenic views by driving up to, say, a graffiti mural and pressing the relevant button to take a picture when prompted. They re poor uses of an otherwise visually stunning world that captures LA s (sorry, Ventura Bay s) imposing gloom like few games before it, at least from the perspective of a person driving through it very fast.

The city won t chime with memories so much as it will resonate with senses. There s loose riffs on the Griffith Observatory and Hollywood Hills, sure, but it s more a tonal tribute to LA, the city at twilight after the parties have died and before the trash is collected. A pumping contemporary soundtrack adds to the urban atmosphere, and this PC version adds more tracks. While Ventura Bay is great for pictures taking, the nature of the racing also means it s uncannily empty to drive through, resulting in a lush but lifeless location.

Need for Speed, then, feels like the tutorial for a deeper racer, or the barebones bit you can play while the rest of the game downloads in the background. It s not only boring, but so bereft of ideas that it represents a series running dangerously low on creative fuel. The hazard lights are blinking.

Frontier's lavish modernisation of the theme park sim, Planet Coaster, is now available to play if you want to shell out on the early bird alpha.

In keeping with Frontier's history of charging high prices for early entry (and thus, the logic goes, getting serious testers in first) Planet Coaster will cost you 50/$75 from the Frontier store. However, it's due to launch by the end of this year, and pre-orders are going for the much cheaper 20/$30.

Andy got his mitts on Planet Coaster earlier this week and was awed by both the building tools and the simulation itself. Whether you want to run a tight ship or indulge your inner sadist, Planet Coaster could get you there.

Dark Souls 3 is out. Well, it s out in Japan. We ve had review code for a few days now, but Bandai Namco has asked that we don t release our review of the international version until April 4th. In the meantime, we have permission to talk about the earlier parts of the game.

Within 15 hours of playing Dark Souls 3, I ve encountered horrible creatures and tragic characters. I ve wandered knee-deep through a noxious swamp and stood on a high tower with a complete panoramic view of snow-capped mountains. I ve thrown both body and brain at challenging, mythic bosses to eventually emerge the victor, my heart playing an adrenal arpeggio long after the action ends. I ve studied statues, cadavers, carvings, animations and their relations to one another the same way I close read text in a novel—not just because they look great, but because every art asset is imbued with purpose. Dark Souls 3 is on track to be the most intriguing, diverse Souls game so far. It s a tight, labyrinthine fantasy dreamscape packed with secrets and subtle storytelling, and imbued with an overbearing sense of slow decay.

Lore galore

To keep the famously vague lore of Dark Souls succinct: in Dark Souls 3, the age of darkness is approaching and the Lords of Cinder awake to link the fire , or to basically reboot the world. Problem is, this kills the Lords, and most of them bail out of selfishness. It s up to your hero to seek them out, kill them anyway, and return their souls. It s some straight up mythopoetic Gene Wolfe fantasy storytelling: hard to understand, and better for it. Through defeating enemies, gathering souls, leveling up, and traversing the kingdom of Lothric, I have a hazy idea of what s going on, mostly absorbed through recurring imagery and study of the environment. It s like trying to recall a dream.

On my adventure, paths regularly lead to dead end cliffsides just to show off a painterly vista. Admiration isn t their only purpose—if I saw an area in the distance, chances are I just came from there, or was headed there soon enough. Like the first, Dark Souls 3 has a contiguous map with areas that connect in surprising, logical ways. It s not an open world game, but the cohesive design gives the world a real sense of space. The same way GTA 5 embodies Los Angeles, Dark Souls 3 succeeds in establishing itself as a lived-in dilapidated nightmare-fantasy kingdom.

It takes a bit to do so, however. Maybe I missed some paths, but the world doesn t seem to immediately branch out in the same way the previous games did, instead opting for a slow unraveling of routes to explore. The result feels more linear and a tad less threatening from the get-go. That said, I passed by plenty of locked doors I couldn t open, which suggests there's still more to see in areas I already passed through. It s all much more connected than Dark Souls 2, I just hope to see the dense level design pushed even further.

A fighting chance

Not limited by the Xbox 360 and PS3 s hardware requirements, the extra memory means Dark Souls 3 can have more enemies on screen at once. Instead of a few undead soldiers, I regularly ran into, for example, 10 armed undead villagers, a corpse dog or two, and a beefy spellcaster. With a lot to deal with at once, and very early on, I noticed myself prioritizing enemies, studying the arena, and dipping into my deep arsenal more often than normal. In this instance, I could shoot a gunpowder barrel with my pyro s fireball, skirt the edges of the arena to take out the smaller enemies, and then focus exclusively on the spellcaster. Combat moves at a quicker clip overall to accommodate the more chaotic scenarios. You re still committing to each swing and dodge roll, and shields haven t lost their importance, but with enemies rushing from every side, quicker attacks are an exciting, necessary addition.

I ve only faced a handful of bosses so far, but they ve each played fundamentally differently. From a massive rotting ent who sprouts a wraithlike fungal arm from its chest, to a shrouded magician that clones itself and sends exploding crystalline urchins your way at an alarming pace, each boss required an entirely different strategy to defeat. They take equal amounts patience, observation, and skill to defeat, but like the whole of Dark Souls, they re far from impossible. Except for the camera. It always wins.

Classic problems make a return in Dark Souls 3. The camera can get caught on walls or obscured by enemies, leading to an unfair death on occasion. Menus and inventory management don t have the most logical hierarchy or layout, which can make comparing items or equipping consumables a clumsy puzzle. Dark Souls 3 s aesthetic and mechanics also feel super familiar. I ve yet to experience the same outright wonder I did with the first game, but I also tried real ramen for the first time last week. Just because I ve checked it off the bucket list, doesn t mean I won t happily eat it until I burst. And leeches spill out. Dark Souls.

As appetizing as Dark Souls 3 has been so far, there s still a lot to see. I feel like I ve barely scratched the surface of weapon upgrades, spellcasting, or sorcery. There are also ton of items and weapons that I ve yet to find a real use for, and while the variety is always welcome in a Souls game, whether or not they re unique or lend themselves to playstyle variety remains a mystery. And with a handful of people online before release, I haven t been able to touch online play. I don t know how far I ve come or how much is left to go, so until I do, it s back into the dark.

We ll let you know how it all comes together in our final review on April 4th. 

Dark Souls 3 releases in Japan tomorrow. If you need to live vicariously until it comes our way on April 12, the Japanese launch trailer is out—in English, helpfully.

There are a number of new and properly monstrous enemies on show. Miyazaki must have been dredging the darkest trenches of his mind to come up with this roster. Should you want the full force of the horror, of course, you're better off not watching. I mean, if I were about to be cut down by a gigantic mud crab, I wouldn't want to know about it.

Still jonesing for Dark Souls 3? Read our review-in-progress.

The secret to a creating an effective bad guy is realistic motivation. Mannfred Von Carstein, head of the Vampire Counts faction in Total War: Warhammer, believes he has a legitimate claim to the Empire. You re not just spreading corruption and undeath across the Old World when you play as Mannfred—you re dutifully reclaiming what s yours. Only a fool lets minor issues such as vampirism stand in the way of good government.

This sense of righteous slaughter tempers everything I do in the preview build of Total War: Warhammer. I begin in Sylvania, a former province of the Empire, nestled at the feet of the World s Edge mountains. It s a richly twisted landscape of cruel trees and cursed soil. Obdurate dwarfs frown down at me from mountain fortresses, and The Empire lies gleaming to the west. The starkly defined cultures make me feel threatened. I want to expand, gain strength and protect my borders. More than that, I want to conquer. It feels great to be this bad.

This is a Total War game, so I begin in a position of relative weakness. I have a moderate army with some unique units, led by a powerful lord character. My first goal is to tighten my grip on Sylvania by wresting back power from my mewling necromancer neighbours. There s something deeply satisfying about bringing lesser lords to heel—ideally while drinking something red from a goblet shaped like the Devil s kneecap—and it s a great way of introducing how the Vampire Counts fight.

They re different from every other Total War faction. Like the tabletop game, your core units are literally rotten. Zombies shuffle forward with the urgency of a pensioner at the self-service checkouts, and they re equally ineffectual in a fight. Skeletons are more capable, but will still get smashed by most infantry. Vampire Counts also have no ranged weaponry whatsoever. This is a tactical kick to the gonads for me, because I m used to playing as England in Medieval 2. There s no Sylvanian word for longbow .

There is some good news, though—there s also no word for flee . Being dead, your units will never run from a fight. What could they possibly be afraid of? Instead, they crumble in situations where normal units would rout—and if your lord falls in battle, it s all over—but losses don t affect their morale. Vampire Counts also have access to the best flying units in the game. You can harass enemy artillery with giant bats, or tie-up elite infantry with the terrifying Vargheists ( the darkness in a Vampire's soul made manifest , or big bad bat-men ). This completely changes the dynamic of the army, and I love it. A groaning tattoo of flyblown infantry urges itself to battle under a sky blackened by tattered wings. Because zombies are completely expendable, you can screen more precious units from projectile fire. It s like using peasants in Medieval 2, but without the feudal disregard for human life. Maybe it s The Empire that are actually evil, and not the vampires, yeah? Think on that, humans.

A groaning tattoo of flyblown infantry urges itself to battle under a sky blackened by tattered wings.

You can t have Vampire Counts without necromancy, and this is another game-changer. It doesn t matter if your troops are dying, because you can just raise more. All existing units can be bolstered with spells, and you can unlock the ability to raise new units from scratch. What s striking is how natural it feels. You ll be thinking like a Warhammer player, but implementing strategy with the simple immediacy of Total War.

With standard necromancers, it feels right to have them hang back and bolster units from a position of safety, but you ll want to get your Vampire Lords stuck in. As in the tabletop game, they re some of the toughest lords around (they have, after all, had thousands of years to practice fighting). Unfortunately, controlling lords can feel fiddly, especially if you re used to directing the massive units of a normal Total War game. (Micromanagement is for humans, not the ageless, unspeakable and all-powerful.) It s empowering when you get the hang of it, though. Raising new units behind enemy lines feels like the first thing they teach you in necromancer school—shortly before Cackling 101—and it works exactly how you d expect. Lesser enemies panic and rout, and even the most capable foe can be outmanoeuvred. Your opponent must be as prepared for the dead beneath them as the enemy in front of them.

The deft incorporation of the Warhammer world is even clearer on the campaign map. To advance, you spread vampiric corruption by building certain structures in your settlements. The landscape changes as you progress, and your gnarled campaign advisor directs you on the correct course of action. It s satisfyingly depraved, and it gives you a real sense of control over the world. Every battle is a chance to build character and establish your place in an immersive, emergent fantasy setting. I rename some units, which makes me even more attached to them. I m genuinely sad when Nigel, my favourite Varghulf, dies (and not only because he s great at killing rival necromancers. Sleep peacefully, my leathery prince).

You get the same sense of ownership from character progression. Lords level up as you fight battles, and you can decide how they develop. Popping points into branching skill trees reminds me of the intricate character creation process in Warhammer, but instead of balancing the points value of each upgrade, your lord gradually gets more capable. Eventually, you ll receive missions to unlock legendary items such as the Sword of Unholy Power. It s a great way of adding narrative to each step of your journey. Instead of just picking from a list, you create a story about how you met your zombie dragon.

This, then, is the true joy of the game. You re not just directing skirmishes in a tale written by someone else. You re writing your own Warhammer fluff as you go. Stretch this prospect across four different races (five if you include Chaos—pre-orders for the pre-order god!), and Total War: Warhammer feels more generous than the limited roster initially suggests. You can keep your fragile humans, rowdy greenskins and dreary dwarfs, though—my Old World will be one of blood, bats and monsters called Nigel.

The graphics card is an essential component. It s the part of your rig responsible for pumping out pixels and if you re not getting the smooth frame rates you deserve in Dark Souls III or Hitman, then maybe it s time to look for a new GPU.

Our guide to the  best graphics card will tell you all you need to know about which video card is best for your needs but if you're after the absolute best graphics card deals around right now we ve got your covered with our regularly updated deals page.

• Looking for the best graphics card deals in the US? Come this way...

Some highlights this week: The battle of the 4GB mainstream GPUs dominates this week's graphics card deals hunt, with both the GTX 960 and R9 380 sitting pretty at just 156 and 160 respectively. 

We're also loving the impressively affordable 240 price of the Radeon R9 390 at Overclockers too. That's a whole lot of graphics card (and Hitman goodies) for a really good price.

- The 4GB KFA2 GeForce GTX 960 is a wee bargain in reference cooler style for just  155.99 over at Overclockers.

- If you're a little more red-blooded though the top budget GPU today, the Radeon R9 380, can be picked up in full 4GB XFX trim, with a free copy of Ashes of the Singularity, for  159.98 at Novatech.

- For that instant 1080p gaming upgrade on even the lowliest of PCs, the half-height MSI GeForce GTX 750 Ti is a great option and is just  86.01 at Dabs.

- Right now you can get the GTX 970-beating XFX Radeon R9 390, with a free copy of Hitman (and the slightly dodgy Hitman movie on DVD) for the bargain price of  239.99 at Overclockers.

- If you're after some high-end pixel-pushing for your new VR purchase though the Gigabyte GTX 980 Windforce 3X has dropped below 400 again and is just  398.99 at Ebuyer.

In our guide to the best graphics card we ve detailed the three best GPUs in terms of the overall price/performance hero, the best high-end GPU for 4K and the best budget gaming video card too. 

And here are the best prices we've found for each today...

"The GTX 970's overall performance is fantastic for the price. For most gamers, we still think this is the best value available."

"Why the GTX 980 Ti? Because at $650, it delivers nearly all of the performance of the $1000 Titan X."

"It's capable of delivering over 30 frames per second in Grand Theft Auto 5 at 1080p, 40+ fps in Shadow of Mordor and well over 60 fps in BioShock Infinite, all at ultra settings. Pretty damn good for a $200 card."

A note on affiliates: some of our stories, like this one, include affiliate links to online stores. These online stores share a small amount of revenue with us if you buy something through one of these links, which help support our work evaluating components and games.