Last week, 2K revealed this year's WWE entry is coming to PC in October—on the same day as its console counterparts for the first time ever. We then learned the ins and outs of its season pass, and now the publisher has affirmed paid microtransactions will not feature in the incoming installment.

NBA 2K18's focus on virtual currency was not received well by would-be players, and left many to assume the latest WWE venture would follow suit. It won't, so told 2K via Twitter, before linking to the game's official website.

The wording there is pretty explicit. The above featured link, however, takes you to the game's official site wherein loot cases are discussed in relation to the game's MyPlayer, MyCareer and new Road to Glory modes. They're discussed thusly:

Along with upgrading your MyPlayer comes deeper customization. This year, you’ll be able to unlock hundreds of moves and Superstar parts to customize your MyPlayers as you see fit. 

Unlocks can be earned through loot cases and progression in both MyCareer and Road to Glory. Most Superstar parts and moves are locked from the start. Once an item is unlocked, it is then purchasable with VC. 

There are three levels of loot cases: Bronze, Silver and Gold. You have a higher chance of unlocking more rare items in Silver and Gold cases. You can purchase loot cases in MyPlayer, MyCareer and Road to Glory. You will also earn loot cases through progression in both MyCareer and Road To Glory.

That last paragraph is a little misleading in that it seems to suggest two ways for unlocking loot cases. But 2K's tweet is nevertheless clear.

WWE 2K18 is due on October 13, 2017. 

Warframe's much anticipated Plains of Eidolon update, which adds a huge new MMO-esque open world to the otherwise corridor-y shooter, may launch within the next 10 days, according to Digital Extremes. Writing in a new update, the studio specifies that it's a "goal" rather than a "guarantee", but it's still something.

"The goal is to launch within the next 10 days - when the official Hub site launches there will be more information there," the studio writes.

Meanwhile, a map of the Eidolon plains was rolled out (you can see it below), as well as info on The Quest for Gara. That's going to be delayed. 

"Glassframe has a name and it's Gara - inspired by the Design Council submission of 'Garasu'. Since Mirage's release we've strongly favoured releasing a Warframe's free path with quests. Gara's release will be no different," the update reads.

It continues: "However the quest for Gara is likely going to be delayed by a week, due to a scheduling conflict with one of our key Ostron actors… however, because Gara is ready, she will be in the Market for those able to support us. If you cannot, that’s fine too - we’ll be adding Gara’s parts to the Cetus reward tables to give you a head start for when her quest does release.  We will follow with Gara's story as soon as it's ready if it doesn't make the release! 

The full post is over here. Check out the map of Eidolon below:

For those of you who don't yet have enough Humble Bundles in your lives, the new one from Stardock is really quite good. For a minimum of $1, you'll get Sorcerer King: Rivals, Fallen Enchantress, The Political Machine 2016, and The Corporate Machine. That's a really good deal for a dollar. But it's only the beginning. 

Beating the average price, which for now is still well south of $6, and you'll also claim Sins of a Solar Empire: Rebellion, Galactic Civilizations 3, and Fallen Enchantress Ultimate Edition. And for $15, Offworld Trading Company, Galactic Civilization 3: Crusade Expansion Pack, and Ashes of the Singularity: Escalation will be piled on top.

It's obviously a strategy-heavy bundle, but it's a heck of a deal if that's your cup of fun. Picking it up will also net you ten percent off of a new Humble Monthly subscription, if you're not already signed up to that program. The Humble Stardock Bundle will be available until October 24. 

Some online stores give us a small cut if you buy something through one of our links. Read our affiliate policy for more info.

Playerunknown's Battlegrounds has suffered some serious server issues of late that have left players struggling to connect, or to get to the menu screen when they could. We thought for awhile that the problems had been cleared up, but it quickly came to light that our analysis was a little over-optimistic. For now the issues persist, but the PUBG development team says it's doing its best to fix things up. 

"First of all, we would like to sincerely apologize to everyone for the recent server issues which resulted in long waits and any inconveniences," it wrote. "Our development team has been continuously upgrading the service architecture to address the increasing concurrent player numbers and tackle any emerging issues. Despite our daily efforts, there were some unexpected issues during peak times and we were unable to resolve some of the issues as fast as we would have wanted to." 

The central issue is that the developers anticipated about one million concurrent users during the game's early access period, but that number was surpassed long ago. PUBG Corp, as it's now known, is working to build a new and more robust server architecture, but the concurrent user numbers have grown so quickly—from one million less than a month ago, to 1.5 million last week, and a new peak of nearly 1.7 million two days ago—that it just can't keep up.   

The rapid uptick in concurrent users also caused server crashes in Asia: PUBG Corp said the cloud service it was using wasn't able to handle the load, so it tried to compensate by roping in servers from another cloud service, "without sufficient testing." Exactly what went wrong apparently isn't clear yet, but "some servers overloaded, which caused frequent crashes. Our development team is investigating the issue in order to prevent it from happening in the future." 

"The entire development team is doing their best to make sure all PUBG players in the world can play PUBG smoothly whenever they want. Again, we would like to sincerely apologize to all the players who experienced any inconveniences due to server problems or connection errors," the developers wrote. "Please rest assured that we have doubled our efforts to improve the quality of the service. On a side note, we have been continuously working on optimization and doing our best to make gradual improvements."

I spent most of Sunday playing the CoD:WWII multiplayer beta, and I didn't want it to end. I haven't enjoyed CoD multiplayer this much since World at War or the first couple Modern Warfares. 

I had answers for hopping SMGers and quickscoping snipers that I didn't feel like I had in Infinite or Advanced Warfare. It may only be half-a-second, but there's more time to think in WWII. There's no zipping from one side of the map to the other, no jetpacking into windows to score a quadkill. For those of us who can't score midair quickscopes, stripping all the futuristic junk from CoD's already hyper-fast shooting is a boon. Plus we get the deeply satisfying ping of an M1 Garand ejecting its clip again.

That said, I'm not necessarily going to recommend CoD:WWII when it releases next month. Whether it's set in the future or the past, Call of Duty is still old fashioned and overpriced. You can get both Day of Infamy and Rising Storm for less than CoD's base price, for instance, and both are very good multiplayer WWII games. I'm much more interested than I was before the beta, though. To elaborate, here are a few of the things I really liked about CoD:WWII—followed by a few things that sucked, including one problem that must be addressed if CoD has any chance of a PC revival. 

Good: Three-lane maps 

Without claiming encyclopedic knowledge of every map in every yearly CoD, the maps in the CoD:WWII beta felt more rectangular and symmetrical than I'm used to from the series. The back-to-the-basics approach succeeds so far.

Aachen in particular has a classic structure: it's a single road flanked by ruined buildings, with spawns at either end protected by conveniently-placed trolley cars blocking the view down the road. The left and right lanes through the buildings are vulnerable to crossfire over the road, and are the most popular spots to hang out. Though if a sniper isn't camping in the enemy's trolley car, the road itself is a surprisingly viable way to move up, because so much focus is put on protecting building exits.

The other maps are similarly structured—spawns separated by three lanes—with varyingly complex center areas. The goal in team deathmatch is typically to break through one of the three lanes to cause havoc in the enemy spawn. (As an example, the gif above takes place in the enemy spawn on Aachen, where I'm using a Bren with the Rapid Fire upgrade.) Either that, or you master and patrol a section or two of the map, exploiting a thorough knowledge of its entry points, the best cover, and the most common mistakes players make.

I was pleased by how quickly I was able to build a basic mental map of these attack lanes, sniping spots, and flanking routes so I could get straight to countering them. Within a few hours I'd built myself a small library of repeat situations and how to deal with them.

There's always someone camped at the end of a certain hallway in the apartments on Aachen, for instance, and the area near the armored truck on Gibraltar is great for playing hide-and-go-seek and provides coverage of a few popular entry points (see that in the gif above). Each area is purpose-built to create problems and provide solutions depending on your equipment, and I caught onto at least a dozen common scenarios within a day of play. I've hardly mastered any of them, but the ease at which I understood all the threats I needed to adapt to in any given section speaks to a clarity of vision in the design of these maps.

Good: Location barks

CoD:WWII introduces some automated voice chatter, in that teammate characters will bark out the locations of enemies they spot, eg, "They're coming through the library!" It's the concise tactical information you'd want a teammate to actually shout out, but this being Call of Duty, I muted all real voice chat by my third round so I wouldn't have to hear anyone screeching into their mic. It's a great help, and I earned several kills by paying attention to my teammates' involuntary teamwork.

Good: The M1 Garand

When I started playing Medal of Honor: Allied Assault back in the early 2000s, the M1 Garand rose to the top spot on my favorite weapons list, tied with Quake 2's railgun. The Garand rapidly spits out bullets like an SMG, but each shot is a click, a calculation, rather than part of a spray pattern produced by holding down the trigger of an automatic weapon. You choose at what point in the recoil animation to fire next, and that's always made it a captivating weapon for me.

As fully-automatic weapons and one-hit-kill sniper rifles tend to dominate Call of Duty, I was worried that its version of the Garand wouldn't be viable. But it is, providing a nice middle ground between the two. It can be fired about as rapidly as you can click, and two hits above the belt scores a kill. In close-quarters situations, if you're using the Infantry Division, it's equipped with a bayonet which can catch hopping SMGers at some range. For those who like precision, but aren't pro quick scopers, it's a thoroughly enjoyable gun. I feel especially satisfied with myself when I catch someone running laterally with one shot, then another just before they disappear behind cover—to me, that's way more gratifying than spraying a Grease Gun a step in front of them.

Just OK: War mode

Call of Duty's new objective-based mode is precisely 'alright.' In the one War map included with the beta, one side had to capture a building, build a bridge, plant a bomb, and escort a tank while the other defended. Call of Duty doesn't provide enough tools or enough room to move to make each stage more than a slaughter, though. When the teams get to the bridge, for instance, the attacking side throws smoke grenades on the objective, and then themselves, while a few stick to the corners to pick off defenders. The defenders on the other side of the bridge take to a few buildings, or just stand in the street to pummel anyone who gets close to the bridge. 

It's just waves hitting each other and canceling each other out, again and again. Without the wide-open spaces and big, potentially coordinated teams of Rising Storm or Battlefield 1, and without the movement and healing and crowd control abilities of hero shooters like Overwatch, Call of Duty's take on point capture and payload defense mostly just felt like a good way to level up your favorite gun.

Bad: Incendiary shotguns 

Getting blasted by a shotgunner as they leap around a corner is always annoying. CoD:WWII makes it even more annoying by letting them set you on fire while they're at it. Screw that. I'm sure I'd get crushed by shotgunners either way, so it's mostly just a thematic complaint: incendiary ammo feels like magic, out-of-place and distracting. (I'd be fine with shotguns being removed entirely, to be honest.)

Bad: Basic menu functions

I like the cleanliness of the menus. It's all very attractive, and the progression system has been simplified and streamlined. That said, there are a few irritating interface problems. I have a controller plugged in for Rocket League, and every time I started the beta it asked me if I wanted to use controller prompts. Why would I want to use a controller? If anything should be buried in the menu in a PC shooter, it's controller support, yet what's actually buried is quitting the game. I took to using Alt-F4 to quit, because the route there is Options > Main Menu > Confirm > Quit > Confirm. The beta also insisted on starting in windowed mode, though I never played it windowed. These are trivial complaints, but it seems like it ought to be relatively trivial to keep my settings between sessions and give me a button that quits the damn game without asking me to confirm twice that, yes, I would like to stop playing Call of Duty now.

The worst: Cheaters

Even though it was just a beta, there were already cheaters. I ran into one who had the gall to advertise their cheat website while cheating. If Call of Duty: WWII will be at all worth playing, it needs to finally solve the plague of auto-aimers it attracts. That they were in a weekend-long beta doesn't inspire confidence.

"If at first you don't succeed, try, try again. Then quit. There's no point in being a damn fool about it." Here at PC Gamer we have very much taken W.C. Fields' advice to heart. With ever-expanding Steam libraries and another sale always on the horizon, it's never been easier to walk away from a game in search of new thrills. But limitless choice doesn't entirely explain why our writers chose to give up on some of the most critically acclaimed games on the PC.

Here, they try to pinpoint the exact moment they knew it was over… 

The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim

Shaun Prescott: I’ve tried to finish Skyrim three times. Each time I start enthusiastically, deliberating over my build, sightseeing Riverwood, eager to stop and read the in-game books. Then, as the hours roll on, I get impatient: I get sick of swiping rudely and blindly at dragons, and I get even sicker of the damn stupid ugly idiot horse(s) you have to ride around. I use fast travel at every given opportunity, and I spam through dialogue while browsing Twitter on my phone. 

The thing is, I don’t think Skyrim is a bad game: it’s stigmatised by circumstances. Back when it released in 2011, it was meant to be the RPG of the year. Except Dark Souls released a month beforehand and, having played that game religiously, finally getting hold of Skyrim felt like a huge anti-climax. I bounced right off this game, and every time I try again I encounter the same hurdles: snow is boring, ye olde fantasy dialogue is boring, the combat sucks and you can’t ride dragons. If this game had released at any other time I might have loved it (I love all of the Fallout games) but Skyrim just reminds me of that peculiar emptiness one feels after finishing Dark Souls. So basically: as soon as the combat starts requiring a bit more than a good ol' spam of the sword, I give up on this game.

Nier: Automata

James Davenport: I really admire Nier: Automata’s dedication to telling such a cyclical, sad story. I do not admire the combat, especially some of the boss battles. During what I hear is the final circuit through the game, you take control of an extremely badass new character. They’re an empowering fighter with stylish, swift combos that’d make a an EVO champ cry. And after two routes through the campaign, something like 20 hours in, taking control of what appears to be Nier’s take on god mode during a surreal sprint to the finish feels well deserved. 

But then you have to fight a big-ass worm robot in the desert. It’s an indistinct necklace of massive spheres and lasers that isn’t particularly difficult, but the sucker has so much damn health that a simple mistake here and there is enough to take you out. The fight is boring, drags on too long, and killed me just enough times to drain my momentum. I stopped playing and haven’t looked back. A few more tries and I know I would’ve made it, but in my eyes, Nier’s strength and my interest is in its storytelling, not in its weak Bayonetta impression. 

Metal Gear Solid 5: The Phantom Pain

Tim Clark: For context, I've loved all things MGS since Sons of Liberty and my days on a PlayStation 2 magazine. I haven't got the patience or brainpower to absorb the deep lore (read Dan Dawkins for that), but with each new entry I was happy to strap myself to Hideo Kojima's surreal rocket and enjoy the ride. Snake Eater will always be my favourite—especially the sniper duel vs The End—but The Phantom Pain runs it a close second. Thanks to the blend of actual open world gameplay, some neat base management stuff, and a typically barmy plot that mixed contemporary politics with more outlandish stuff like parasites that attack based on language, MGS V was a fitting swan song for Kojima's esoteric stealth series.

And yet I didn't bother finishing it. Instead, I did what I've done to a number of big games, which is peaced out as soon as I realised we were gearing up for the final boss. This urge to stop tends to come when I've over-levelled myself and know that there's no more stuff to collect, and only big health bars and longer cut scenes remain ahead of me. The Witcher 3 was an exception, and I think that's because I felt uncertain about how it would close out the relationship between Geralt and Ciri. But in other big games, as soon as the character progression ends (and here I mean unlocking new perks and equipment, rather than anything fancy like an actual narrative arc) so does my interest. Even with my beloved XCOM 2, I finished the campaign out of a sense of obligation to the troops, but really once I'd researched and built everything and had the whole squad at max rank I considered my work done.

Assassin's Creed 2

Jody Macgregor: By the time I decided to give the AssCreed series a shot the second one was already out, but I dutifully went back and played the first. The recycled activities wore me out, and to be honest I gave up on that one too. Everybody told me the second was better, and that I should have skipped straight to it. They were right, because Assassin's Creed 2 has a lot more variety. But it achieves that by, alongside its new additions, reusing activities from the first game I was already sick of. The same citizen-saving and viewpoint-climbing and etc.

I was on the wrong foot from the start. The jarring shifts in tone, from jolly lighthearted adventure to gritty revenge drama, put me off even more. And then, the final straw came. I was escorting Ezio's mother and sister away from Florence, where our father had just been executed alongside my brothers, when we met another family member on the road. 

It was Uncle Mario. "Don't you remember me?" he said. "It's-a me. Mario!"

I quit out of Assassin's Creed 2 and haven't played it since.

The Evil Within

Samuel Roberts: How is it possible that I've finished Resident Evil 4 seven times but can't even get through one bloody playthrough of The Evil Within? I know I'd probably enjoy it if I pushed on, but after completing three chapters I was chased by a large man around a village then gave up forever. I knew I was down for the long haul in Resi after reaching the village, but nothing about the characters, worlds or scares really interested me in The Evil Within—with the exception of the save room area, which was nice and unsettling.

Again, The Evil Within is far from a bad game, and Joe Donnelly hit the same point and gave up. He later returned, though, and said he didn't regret doing so. I just felt like I'd played that game before, in a universe I felt more engaged by. With the sequel coming up, though, it seems outrageous that I've got an entirely unplayed Shinji Mikami game sat in my Steam library.

Far Cry 3

Wes Fenlon: I love the idea of Far Cry 3. Gorgeous tropical setting. Freedom to explore, as loud or as stealthy as I want, from land to sea to air and back again. But my most earnest attempt to play it completely stalled out almost as soon as I finished the opening tutorial mission. There I was, getting my first taste of freedom, ready to go shoot up some outposts or hunt some animals… and then I looked at the minimap. It was inundated with markers, signalling points of interest all around me. I started picking up plants and materials and looking at all those choices, and that volume of stuff just sucked the joy right out of it for me. Why do I care? What's the point, anyway? Life's too short.

Maybe someday I'll give Far Cry 4 a shot. I'll just have to remember to turn off most of the minimap icons first.

Share the biggest games you've quit on (and why) with us in the comments below. 

The Dota 2 Midas Mode Tournament is as clever as it is simple. Teams are given equal amounts of virtual money called "Moonbucks"—named after Moonduck, the outfit that came up with the idea—which must be used to finance every action they take over the course of the tournament. Judicious money management will enable teams to make the right moves at the right times, but blowing it on bad calls will leave them struggling to compete with a no-budget lineup of Dota chumps. 

Each hero will be assigned a cost based on its capabilities and popularity, which can change from match to match depending on its performance. But it's not just drafting a lineup that costs money. Want to ban a hero? Pay for it. Want to choose a side of the map? Pay for it. Want to pause the game? Pay for it. Everything has a cost, and so everything must be considered within the big strategic picture. 

"Shit gets lit," as the video puts it, when a team blows its budget: They'll have to choose heroes from "a basket of peasants—the worst of the worst," or live with the results of a randomized draw. And of course they won't be able to make bans or pauses, putting them even deeper in the hole. It is possible to earn more money, however, by completing community-suggested "bounties." Teams can also wager their Moonbucks on matches they aren't taking part in.   

The structure of the tournament hasn't been revealed, but the lineup of participating teams is impressive: Evil Geniuses, Immortals, Digital Chaos, and OpTiC for Team America, and Liquid, OG, Natus Vincere, and Mid or Feed for Europe. Midas Mode was originally announced in February and was expected to take place in April, after the Kiev Major. That didn't work out, but the schedule has now been nailed down to November 18-28. Find out more (although that's the extent of it for now) at midas.moonduck.tv. 

Divinity: Original Sin 2 is a big, beefy game. It's also one that you can, if you are so inclined, play from start to finish in not much more than a half-hour. And if you don't believe me (which would be an entirely reasonable position to take), then watch this video of a guy named Onin actually making it happen. 

This is probably the worst possible way to play an RPG but it's also very typical for speedrunning, as Onin takes advantages of exploits and his obvious familiarity with the game to get through it very quickly. At around the six-minute mark, for instance, he goes after a group of large crocodiles, but only attacks the one that's carrying a particular pair of gloves he needs. He uses invisibility and manages his action points so he can kill and loot the required croc in a single turn, after which he plays dead to end the combat sequence (he's playing as Fane) and then uses the waypoint system to zap back to Fort Joy.   

It's a terrible way to enjoy the sights and sounds of Rivellon, but if you're looking to check games off of your "must play" list, this is how you get it done. But as fast as this time is, Onin may be able to cut it even further: The run shaves more than ten minutes off the 48:25 mark he set last week. 

For those of you who haven't sunk quite as much time into Original 2 as Onin obviously has, we've got a Beginner's Guide here to help you get started, and a rundown of the best mods currently available—including one that expands the maximum party size, so you don't have to miss out on any NPC personal quests. 

Thanks, Eurogamer.

Despite launching over four years ago, over 50 new Gone Home videos were uploaded to YouTube yesterday. That's according to distribution data site SteamSpy, who also reckons Fullbright's latest game—Tacoma, which was released just over two months ago—had just three. 

Fullbright's Steve Gaynor has now described Tacoma's reception as "a very different experience" from Gone Home's 2013 launch—one which has provided he and his team with "a much more realistic version of what launching a game is really like." Gaynor tells me that the videogame landscape has since shifted considerably, and that Gone Home's runaway success met the demands of a then shifting industry: away from violent videogames into more experimental territory.  

As our Andy explained in his review, Tacoma is a great game yet it's reception against its forerunner has been lacking—a fact underscored by Gone Home's 700,000+ sales, and Tacoma's ~10,000. Even considering the difference in age, this is a big gap, and while Gaynor acknowledges the evolving nature of the business, he also reckons Tacoma has been in some ways hamstrung by Fullbright's previous success. 

"I think it's a very strange place to come from to be making a follow-up to something that's well known and well received," says Gaynor. "To some degree I think it's developed some amount of cache or status around it in the intervening years. This means that Tacoma in a lot of ways couldn't be judged on its own. There was no review that didn't start about Gone Home for a while before then talking about Tacoma." [in Andy's defence, Gone Home is mentioned just twice, very briefly, in his review.]

Gaynor continues, suggesting that this singular datapoint outlook makes perspective difficult. He describes a Gone Home's launch as lightning in a bottle, and that personal identification played a huge part in its appeal.   

He adds: "It's an unknowable mental exercise: If someone just totally encountered this thing blind, how would they feel about it, versus, 'I remember playing Gone Home, let me have that as my starting point'. That's something that I think is more true of some players compared to journalists. There's probably more people who are running into Tacoma either for its first time, or they've heard of Gone Home but haven't played it, or they've played it or it was a while ago. 

"It's a very strange place to be like: well, what would people have thought of this if it didn't have a precedent? If it theoretically came out in a different year or under different circumstances, or whatever. That's impossible to judge, but it's very much a factor which is something that's inescapable.  

"I feel like it's a learning experience for us. I think that it is much harder to be one of the indie games that breaks through in a massive way now. Also, we have more overheads now and need to do more with the money that comes in so far as running a company is concerned. I would say that I would have loved for Tacoma to be make more of a massive runaway splash, but I also recognise that I'm also coming from a 2013 point of view on that. That's something that's really interesting—I think Steam both drives and responds to the game buying environment."

Our full interview with Steve Gaynor—wherein the Fullbright head honcho chats about the above in more detail, the challenges of creating Tacoma, and Gone Home's plumbing—will be live in the coming days. 

Since the launch of Skyrim Special Edition, thousands of user-made mod creators have updated their projects to handle the jump from the original game. The Skyrim Script Extender finally entered its alpha phase last month, and now SkyUI has launched an "unsupported alpha version for testing."

The Skyrim Script Extender, for those unsure, is a mod that expands Skyrim's scripting capabilities, and is one that many popular Skyrim mods rely on. SkyUI is one such mod—a wonderful project that applies PC-friendly UI and menus to the base game's otherwise console-focused aesthetic and functionality.  

So what does "unsupported alpha" actually mean, and, given the fact its creators warn we should "use at [our] own risk", is it safe to do so? Nexus Mods user schlangster—who uploaded SkyUI to the site's Skyrim Special Edition page—offers the following breakdown:

• SkyUI requires SKSE64, which is currently still in alpha, so SkyUI simply inherits that state.It is a feature-complete release.
• All features of the non-SE version should be working.
• There are no installation instructions yet.
• If you need help settings things up, you should wait for a stable release.
• Only short-term testing was done, so there might still be undiscovered bugs.
• Please report any issues you find.
• Updates might not be backward compatible.
• If everything goes well, they will.
• But if not, be prepared to go back to an earlier save.

More information, including installation instructions, can be found in this direction.