This weekend, all eyes will be on the CS:GO ELEAGUE Major as the world’s best teams battle it out in Atlanta for their chance to win $1,000,000. There’s plenty to watch, from top-tier Overwatch to the League of Legends EU and NA Spring split. We even have some top quality from the Heroes of the Storm: Global Championship. All the details on this weekend’s events can be found below. Have a great weekend!

CS:GO: ELEAGUE Major 2017

The CS:GO ELEAGUE quarterfinals begin today as Natus Vincere and Astralis take to the stage. We expect flamie will bring the firepower Navi needs to beat Astralis in the upcoming match, but we’ll have to see if his precise bursting and multi-kill capabilities are enough to stop their onslaught. The competition has already been extremely fierce as teams battle not only for progress, but survival. The schedule can be found here, while the event will be streamed live via the ELEAGUE channel on Twitch.

Overwatch: Winter Premiere

NGE's Winter Premiere tournament now has its top four teams, who will be advancing to the live LAN finals at PAX South: Immortals, Kungarna, compLexity and Luminosity Gaming. Many fans are excited to see how Kungarna handles themselves against some of the more established teams, as they are considered to be the underdog going into the semifinals. However, every team will be looking to snag their share of the $100,000 prize pool and claim this year’s title. Semifinals kick off today at 10:00 PST / 19:00 CET, while the finals start the following day. The event can be watched over on Twitch.

League of Legends: 2017 EU LCS Spring Split

Once again, H2k and G2 clearly showed their dominance and as they prove they have what it takes to battle it out at the grand finals. G2’s offseason training had greatly improved their performance on the Rift and this was shown when they defeated Fnatic and ROCCAT in week one. However, teams like Fnatic, UOL, Misfits and Giants have yet to improve and show their fans that they can challenge the top contenders. The full schedule and stream can be found over on LoL Esports.

League of Legends: 2017 NA LCS Spring Split

Both Cloud9 and OG Cloud9 AKA FlyQuest are currently sitting at the top of the table after what seemed to be a repeat of last year’s events. Echo Fox struggled to close out games and Counter Logic Gaming nearly gave their fans multiple heart attacks. However, most eyes were focussed on the rookie NA junglers and Korean import top laners who made their debuts in this year’s LCS. We’re even starting to see just how OP Camille is. The full schedule and stream can be found over on LoL Esports.

Heroes of the Storm: Global Championship

Week one was arguably Misfits most challenging week of their entire season. The team had spent a lengthy amount of time out of the public eye and no one knew how the team would perform, especially against Team Dignitas and Fnatic. However, Misfits managed to come out on top, proving to critics and fans alike that they’re still a top contender. Tempo Storm will face Team Freedom today at 14:00 PST / 23:00 CET. The full schedule and stream can be found here.

Sun-kissed Sapienza is easily the best level of Hitman's now concluded episodic first season—something which prompted Phil to catch up with developer IO Interactive and discover its origins thereafter. The stealth-meets-murder game's third bonus mission is set to return to the Roman coastal town this coming Tuesday, where Agent 47 is tasked with aborting a wealthy businessman's political career. And its 19th elusive target is heading for Paris. 

Named 'Landslide' and due January 31, the bald butcher will head after Marco Abiatti—a rich right-wing politician with ties to organised crime who has his sights set on becoming mayor. You've to stop this from happening, basically. "Agent 47 must ensure this would-be patrician does not become mayor," publisher Square Enix reaffirms.

By making a quick jump to Paris you can also pursue Hitman's latest elusive target—Walter "The Blackmailer" Williams, an up-and-coming fashion model with a history of blackmail. The same rules as the previous 18 elusive target ventures apply in that the target is only available for a limited time, they don't appear in Instinct Mode, and failure results in immediate termination of the mission. 

This particular mission's objective are two-fold: first, assassinate The Blackmailer; second, retrieve a valuable memory stick. Over to the mission briefing: 

Hitman's third bonus mission Landside is due January 31, while the 19th elusive target is live now through Monday February 6 at 1pm GMT/11am PT.

Those familiar with the first Endless Space will recall the Horatio as the rather eccentric race of egg-headed clones whose leader was into eugenics. As promised last November, Endless Space 2 has now launched its second of three proposed major pre-release updates, which sees the return of the deceptive doppelgangers as the turn-based strategy's newest playable faction.

The update also brings with it a couple of new minor factions—the Gnashast's Scavengers, and the Tikanan's Eusocials. A new technology tree, some reworked game menu options, and five new victory conditions are also among the most significant changes. The latter adds Supremacy, Conquest, Science, Economy, and Wonder; while two new galaxy shapes by way of 4-disks and Ring await players too. 

Here's developer Amplitude discussing that and more at length: 

A number of tweaks and adjustments have been made to how the game plays, its battle sequences, diplomacy, UI and AI—not to mention a range of bug fixes—the sum of which can be found this way. 

Amplitude notes that saves from update one are not compatible with this latest version of Endless Space 2, however previous saves can be accessed via the 'Beta' tab should you wish to play on minus the latest changes.

Official Civilization 6 mod tools and Steam Workshop integration aren't ready yet, but they are still on their way. Firaxis's Pete Murray reconfirmed during a multiplayer livestream today that "the team is working on those, and when we have more information to share with you, we will be sure to do so." You can watch the statement in the Twitch clip above, posted to Reddit by user ConsiderableNames.

Murray also included multiplayer teams in that list, which is another hotly requested item among the multiplayer community. We had previously heard these features were coming, but Firaxis hadn't given too much information recently about the status of them. So in this case, no news is good news as it means nothing was canceled.

Of course, the lack of official mod support hasn't stopped people from making great Civilization 6 mods, but the community hasn't grown in the way Firaxis's other hit XCOM 2's mod scene did by having mod and workshop support at launch. Obviously they are different teams working on the two games, but given the lush history of Civilization 5 mods one would think support would have arrived sooner. Still, it's always nice to see big developers support the mod community at all. 

Before Resident Evil 7 came out, there wasn’t much incentive to care about whether or not I could play with an HTC Vive or an Oculus Rift on our PCs. After the disaster we call Resident Evil 6, I think we all just wanted it to be good. Now it’s out and not just good, but intensely great. Andy called it ”tense and refined survival horror with a brilliantly bleak, grimy atmosphere” in his review. So for those with access to VR headsets, the inability to step into that grimy world ‘for one year’ thanks to an exclusivity deal feels more like a hard kick in the shin than a simple missing feature. 

I replayed the first three hours on a borrowed PSVR headset to see what PC players are missing out on, and even on lesser hardware, Resident Evil 7 is the first fully-featured game that doesn’t feel compromised by VR design. If not for the low res textures and jagged edges, I’d step away from the PC version and play the rest of RE7 with a headset blotting out the rest of the world. Best of all, despite directional movement detached from my body, I didn’t get motion sick once like I normally do, and I’m incredibly sensitive to VR games.

Spoiler warning: I mention events from the few hours of the game beyond this point.

Why it works

The first 30 minutes of Resident Evil 7 feel built for VR. From the garish, low-res foliage on your initial walk into the house to the numerous up-close skirmishes with your mangled, bloodthirsty girlfriend, you’re driven forward through a series of haunted house surprises feel too contained and slow on the PC. But in VR, watching her rip through your wrist with a chainsaw or old man Baker try to pry your mouth open with a knife—well, it’s extremely disturbing. Giving scale and dimension to otherwise flat (literally, as in on a screen), goonish characters takes a bit of instinctual and emotional recalibration. They stop feeling like videogame enemies the moment your brain interprets that hunched man power-walking your way as a genuine threat.

Wearing the headset, I naturally became one of those stupid teens from a horror movie, constantly looking over my shoulder, crouching around a corner to catch my breath, and peeking around to check for danger before—here’s the part where you’d yell at the screen—heading directly into it.

The controls work well too, even though I prefer to not play first-person games with analogue sticks. Lucky for us mouse-and-keyboard trained, weapon aiming is tied to where you look. It feels as accurate as any mouse, but does require a bit more effort to move around. And if someone is behind you, there’s a quickturn option that dulls the edges of your screen with darkness so you don’t get dizzy spinning around to take on enemies behind you.

All sorts of other accommodations have been made to stave off VR sickness, and the most jarring might be the incremental turn controls. By default, turning happens in degrees. One tap of the analogue stick left or right snaps your character 10 to 20 degrees in that direction. There are options to change the increments in which he moves, and you can turn it off for a smooth movement, which typically makes most people sick, including myself. But it doesn't in Resident Evil 7.

Sprinting, hectic combat encounters, and UI juggling has yet to make me feel even the slightest bit sick. According to our friends at GamesRadar, some reviewers still felt ill while playing, so the PSVR version isn't a completely safe bet yet. A PC version could stave off sickness further with a higher refresh rate and better resolution, but the PSVR version is still impressive. I’m usually clutching my stomach and done for the day after 10 minutes in similar VR games. I’d be impressed that the PS4 can maintain such a high refresh rate if not for the obvious hit RE7's graphics take to sustain it.

Graphic content 

That scene where Mia saws off your hand? On the PC, the depth of focus shifts in and out to a stump spurting out quarts of blood by the minute. In PSVR, it’s just a dull, bloodless nub. Shadows meant to have smooth edges cast in serrated zigzag patterns, and intricate wall and floor textures, are so blurry they only imply what they are. Wood. Wallpaper. Blood maybe?

Note: the video captures footage as the hardware renders it, not the image as you'd see it in a headset, which would be much closer to the eye. Aliasing and texture resolution are worse than they appear as a result. 

When you're moving around, the low-res textures are easier to dismiss than normal due to the sense of space in VR, but because the Baker plantation is such an interesting, detailed setting its overall power is wasted in PSVR. As soon as you stop to examine a room the disgusting props and the story they’re trying to tell blend into a noisy backdrop of muddy textures and thorny aliasing. The PS4 just isn’t capable of giving Resident Evil 7 its due in VR, and knowing that capable PCs and headsets could is a huge disappointment.

By the time VR support does arrive on the PC for Resident Evil 7, the majority of fans will have played it by then. And while any excuse to give it another go is welcome, I’d rather have the opportunity to remember the Baker house as a novel, unknown place rather than a videogame level. As is usually the case, modders are working on ways to implement VR functionality with or without Capcom’s support. Progress is slow—the limited FOV and stereoscopic vision is still an issue, but modders always find a way.

For the VR enthusiasts that can weather a year of waiting, much respect. That’s real survival horror.

Obsidian Entertainment's recent bout of Twitter teasing has now been officially unveiled as Pillars of Eternity 2: Deadfire, the sequel to the studio's hit 2015 fantasy RPG. The studio also launched a new crowdfunding campaign today on Fig, with an overall goal of $1.1 million. 

Pillars 2 begins with the return of Eothas, the god of light and rebirth, who's not quite as dead as everyone thought. After inhabiting the stone titan buried beneath the keep at Caed Nua, he breaks free, trashes the places, and leaves you for dead. Naturally, there's only one thing to do: "To save your soul, you must track down the wayward god and demand answers—answers which could throw mortals and the gods themselves into chaos." 

"Our goal for Pillars of Eternity 2: Deadfire is to improve on what fans loved about the original while adding features our fans want to see," Obsidian CEO Feargus Urquhart said. "Truly living cities, more freedom to explore the open world, and pushing what we do best at Obsidian—letting players define and play the role they want to play."

Lead designer Josh Sawyer echoed that sentiment, saying that the focus of the new game will be on "refinement, pacing, and overall quality."

"We're still making a huge game, but it's more important for our content to be high quality than it is for us to have a gargantuan 200+ hour game," he said. "Many players criticized us for having too many mob/filler fights in Pillars. It's something we tried to address in patches, but it's a larger focus for the sequel. Not every fight is a setpiece encounter, but it's okay for us to have more areas that are simply for exploration, environmental storytelling, and down time." 

Deadfire will feature familiar faces from the first game, plus new companions with their own unique stories that will change based on the choices you make throughout your journey. That's also true for quests, which may "present different opportunities depending on when and where characters and environments are approached." 

Sawyer said that it's too early to commit to anything specific, but "broadly speaking," Pillars of Eternity 2 will be comparable in size to the original. Players who come into Deadfire without prior Pillars experience will be given a recap of events, but "there's no substitute for playing through the first chapter," he added. And if you did, you'll have the option of carrying your progress over into the sequel. 

"You will be able to import your endgame saves from Pillars of Eternity—at the very end of the game, Pillars creates a 'complete' savegame," Sawyer explained. "However, if you don't have a save to import or if you simply want to set your own start states, there will be a cool way for you to do so." 

Obsidian's Pillars of Eternity 2: Deadfire crowdfunding campaign is live now and runs until February 24. Check out some screens below. 

The Road to Eternity is a feature-length documentary detailing the making of Obsidian's fantasy RPG Pillars of Eternity. It was initially offered as a reward to backers of the Pillars Kickstarter, and then, at the end of 2015, released for sale (for $1) on Vimeo. But now you don't even have to pay that, because the whole thing is up—and free—on Obsidian's YouTube channel. 

The documentary, featuring Obsidian mainguys Feargus Urquhart, Adam Brennecke, and Josh Sawyer, starts off on a bit of a bleak note, after a canceled project forced layoffs and even consideration of the studio's outright closure. Obviously, that didn't happen: Pillars of Eternity was a hit, and Obsidian's future looks to be secure. In fact, it's recently been teasing a mysterious new project that will be unveiled to the public tomorrow. What could it possible be!

While most of us are still tip-toeing our way around the Baker estate, speedrunners are blitzing through Resident Evil 7 in mere hours. Twitch streamer 'Stirliing' currently holds the world record at 1:51:02, but runners will likely trim that time significantly as the competition and strategies begin to solidify. Right now, I'm just enjoying watching a new speedrunning scene emerge.

Stirliing's world record run is interesting to watch for several reasons, like how humorous it is to see him effortlessly sprint through areas that caused me a great deal of anxiety in my own playthrough. A lot of this has to do with the fact that he is playing on new game plus, which starts him off with an Albert-01 pistol—a veritable hand cannon that trivializes some of the early fights. Jack Baker, for example, usually takes almost an entire magazine of pistol ammo to stun for a few minutes.

Much of Resident Evil 7's length comes from poring over documents littered about and solving extra puzzles, which Stirliing avoids entirely. His core strategy at this point seems to be "run the hell away from everything that moves"—which I also do except he doesn't end up whimpering in a corner. It's amazing how well he's been able to map out the house in his mind in just a couple of days, as some areas are confusing as hell. Throughout the run, Stirliing remarks that he's been streaming nearly constantly since Resident Evil 7 launched, over 14 hours or so at the time of his run. That's dedication.

There's no denying that at this stage RE7 speedruns are messy and full of little mistakes that cost seconds. I'm looking forward to seeing how things tighten up in a few months once runners begin to figure out the best routes through each level. If skips and glitches are found (and who are we kidding, of course they will be) we could see even bigger cuts to time. Remember, this is a game that took Andy around nine hours to beat when he reviewed it.

If you want to give speedrunning Resident Evil 7 a try for yourself, there's an achievement for beating the game in under four hours, which is a sensible place to start. Intrepid wife-saver James Davenport also has a guide for tackling the butcher room boss fight, which should help you shave some seconds off of your time. You can also join the community at speedruns.com to get the latest updates and tips. 

Have you become too good for your own good at Hitman? Is your unfailingly excellent execution taking away the fun that can only come from a balls-out bungling? Do you ever wish that maybe some of these goons and bodyguards were just a little bit more on the ball? If you answered "yes" to any or all of those questions, then the upcoming Hitman January update might be just what you're after. 

Included in the update will be a new Professional difficulty level, which will "create an entirely new experience for all players," Io Interactive said. It will be selectable for all season one story missions, but must first be unlocked, separately for each location, by reaching Mastery Level 20 in that location. So, for instance, to be able to play at the Professional level in Paris, you must first reach Mastery 20 in Paris. Elusive Targets and Escalation Contracts will not be affected, however, and will only be playable at the default (now called "Normal") difficulty.   

Io Interactive said that full patch notes for the January update will be released sometime in advance of the console launch of Hitman: The Complete First Season on January 31. Ahead of that, here's a look at what Professionals have in store. 

Already done with Jack, but having trouble with the second boss? We have a guide for that.

Resident Evil 7 is an incredible game that will likely stand among the best in the series once the initial relief that it's not another Resi 6 settles. But it’s not without flaws, and the boss battles are among them. Because of the first-person perspective, the one-on-one butcher room chainsaw duel with Jack Baker might look cool as hell, but it’s not very fun encounter.

You might be confused or frustrated, and rightfully so—the battle doesn’t telegraph itself too well and goes on for a bit too long—but by keeping a few things in mind, it becomes a cinch.

Get the shotgun

The more tools at your disposal the better. While the shotgun won’t exactly make the fight a breeze, but having more methods for knocking Jack to ground is definitely a good thing. First, you’ll need the Scorpion Key, which is located beyond a blue gate in the Processing Area of the house in the basement. Once you get it, head back upstairs to where you likely found the Mia tape earlier. Face west, and you’ll see a door with a scorpion on it. Take a guess at what unlocks that. Inside is a broken shotgun. Grab that, head down to the main entrance hall and replace the statue’s working shotgun with the broken one. Boom. There’s your boomstick.

Shoot his knees with the pistol 

Like Resident Evil 4, if you shoot Jack in the knees you can stagger him, which is especially helpful if he’s charging you or wielding massive chainsaw scissors that block his face. Once staggered, he’ll kneel down and present his shiny bald dome to you. If you have the chainsaw, you know what to do. Otherwise, get our your knife and slash. If you’re feeling confident and have deep ammo reserves, keep the pistol out or bring out the shotgun for more damage.

The chainsaw can block most damage 

Don’t forget about your block ability, especially once you’re able to grab the chainsaw. With good timing, you can blot out most of the damage from Jack’s swings, the exception being his charge attack. This doesn’t mean you should stay in his face the whole time though. Block only if you have no other choice. Otherwise, back up and wait for an opening.

There’s an extra health tonic hidden in the corner 

Be sure to explore every nook and cranny before the fight and craft as many tonics as possible, but if you end up running out anyway, don’t fret quite yet. There’s another tonic hidden in the corner of the arena. Just make sure to pick it up during a safe window of time.

Most importantly, be patient

Like a Dark Souls boss, rushing in to take a jab before Jack has finished up a moveset means you’ll die quickly. He has a few moves he always telegraphs beforehand. The battle goes on for a long time too, so even if you're on a fifth attempt and need to go to the bathroom, don't rush the process. Exploding a man takes time.