Earlier this week, developer Frogwares shared more of its open-world, Lovecraft-inspired detective adventure The Sinking City, and it's looking more and more promising with each new peek. However, it's not the only Lovecraft video game on the horizon - there's also publisher Focus Interactive's Call of Cthulhu, which has now received its very first gameplay trailer.

Call of Cthulhu is, as its name implies, the official video game adaptation of the much-loved classic pen and paper RPG - and, interestingly enough, was originally being worked on by Frogwares before behind-the-scenes shenanigans saw Styx: Master of Shadows developer Cyanide Studio take over the reigns. And now we have two Lovecraft games!

Cyanide's offering, which has previously been described as "an RPG-Investigation game with psychological horror and stealth mechanics", casts players as Edward Pierce, setting them the task of investigating the mysterious Hawkins Mansion in Boston, Massachusetts, and the circumstances behind the tragic deaths that occurred within its foreboding walls.

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Frontier Developments has announced that the third of its four planned content updates for Elite Dangerous' currently ongoing third season, Beyond, will launch on PC, Xbox One, and PS4 next week, on August 28th.

Beyond's Chapter Three update is the second of two previously announced smaller-scale updates coming to Elite Dangerous this year. As such, it doesn't feature the same kind of major game-changing additions seen in Chapter One (or indeed, scheduled for inclusion in Beyond's fourth and final update due toward the end of 2018) - but, based on everything announced during Frontier's recent Gamescom event, there's still plenty to look forward to.

Aside from more of Elite Dangerous' ongoing alien invasion narrative, which is still dealing with those pesky Thargoids - now with the added help of some ultra-advanced technology courtesy of the seemingly long-dead ancient race The Guardians - Beyond Chapter 3's primary focus appears to be on delivering plenty of shiny new hardware.

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Developer Nerial has announced that its delightful swipe-to-rule monarch sim Reigns will be heading to Westeros this October, in a new series entry officially based on HBO's Game of Thrones.


As in previous Reigns titles, the core of the Reigns: Game of Thrones is built around decision making, with players swiping left or right to select a response to a never-ending procession of sometimes trivial, sometimes potentially calamitous, quandaries. Your decisions, which can have unforeseen consequences later down the line, directly impact your standing with the church, population, and military, as well as your wealth, and you'll want to keep each in balance in order to cement your position as supreme ruler.

In Reigns: Game of Thrones, the general idea is similar, but - stepping into the shoes of familiar characters such as Cersei Lannister, Jon Snow, Daenerys Targaryen, Tyrion Lannister, and Sansa Stark - you'll be juggling your relationships with Westeros' often hostile factions in order to maintain your place on the Iron Throne and to make it through a winter unscathed. "Employ ruthless tactics", says Nerial", to outwit political rivals, wield impervious charm on your fickle bannerman, and maintain the balance and favor of the people to extend your reign".

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If you've seen the recently-released Resident Evil 2 remake gameplay showing Claire Redfield's playable section, you might have noticed Sherry is more than a little different compared to her incarnation in the original.

In the original Resident Evil 2, released in 1998, when Claire bumps into Sherry Birkin in the Raccoon City police station, the young girl calls out "help me!" as she's chased by a zombie. Here's how it looks (skip to the 10 minutes and 55 seconds mark in the video below):

In the Resident Evil 2 remake, however, Claire finds Sherry hiding behind some boxes. Sherry, clearly frightened by the events she has witnessed, slowly moves into the light.

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Good news if you've got some cash burning a hole in your pocket, prefer to play your games on PC, and happen to like giving to charity - this week, Green Man Gaming is offering up a giant bundle of games with the proceeds going to GamesAid. The charity, in case you don't already know, is a UK-based charity aiming to help disabled and disadvantaged children and young people.

If you've got 50 / $50 / €50 to spare, you'll get 50 games on PC and we're not even talking an entire list of obscure indie titles. You'll find games from Bethesda, Konami, Codemasters, Curve, WB Games, Rebellion, Team 17 and more, all up for grabs.

Some choice highlights from the list include both Metal Gear Solid 5: The Phantom Pain and Ground Zeroes, the Dungeon-Keeper-meets-Bond classic that is Evil Genius, indie murder cleanup sim Serial Cleaner, The Little Acre - a point-and-click adventure from the creator of Broken Sword, maudlin but poignant survival game This War of Mine, the original Rage, one of David Cage's more questionable creations Fahrenheit and more.

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Telltale Games feels midway through a transition period. Last year saw it gain a new CEO and shed a huge percentage of its workforce, as it slimmed down its ever-running factory line of episodic games.

There are changes afoot, too, with Telltale's own technology. A report back in June claimed The Walking Dead's final season would be the last built on the studio's own aging Telltale Tool engine, with future products built in Unity instead.

At Gamescom today I sat down with The Walking Dead's executive producer Brodie Andersen to ask about this transition period and why it was so important for Telltale to change.

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Fortnite now has the Rift-To-Go item, which lets players create a rift for themselves or their allies.

When you activate it you're teleported into the sky and placed in skydiving mode. The rift remains at the location it was deployed for 10 seconds, letting other players use it. Of note: enemies can follow you through your rift, so be warned. The video, below, shows it off in action.

Rift-To-Go carries an epic rarity and drops in stacks of one, with a max stack size of two. It can be found in chests, vending machines, supply drops and loot llamas.

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World of Warcraft expansion Battle for Azeroth is still hot off the press (to find out more, be sure to check out Oli's impressions), but fans are still in a bit of a flap over Sylvanas Windrunner and the direction Blizzard is taking her in as current leader of the Horde.

Earlier in August we reported on major story developments in the World of Warcraft universe that saw Sylvanas destroy one of the game's most famous locations - murdering loads of Night Elves in the process.

Sylvanas' seemingly nonsensical, relentless rampage has been criticised by many Horde players for a variety of reasons, but chief among them is Blizzard has turned her into a onenote villain, and the Horde World of Warcraft's obvious bad guys. For many Horde players, this isn't a particularly interesting story development, especially when you consider it apes the arc of previous Warchief, Garrosh Hellscream.

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The art looks peaceful and almost cheery, but the bleached white of the rocks and cliffs and the overcast grey of the calm waters suggests otherwise. Then there's the soundtrack, muttering and worrying at strings and giving way to deep ominous booms when a dark craft appears on the horizon. And the game is almost all horizon, isn't it? Each level is a tiny Chewit of turf surrounded by ocean. You marshall your forces, send them towards the likely landfall and then you wait, completely adrift and beset on all sides by the potential for invasion.

Bad North may look sweet, then. It may occasionally feel sweet, as you use a finger to spin your current island, as if it was a tiny model on a designer's turntable. But this is about as unsweet as games get. A stripped-back real-time strategy - a handful of units to control, no base-building - with all that genre's potential to watch a single mistake blossom into panoramic catastrophe intact. Marry that with the structure of a roguelite: incremental improvements, the strengthening drum-beat of your evolving powers and abilities, all playing out across a procedural campaign and silenced by a single disaster.

Each level lands you on a fresh island with the same objective: defend the cluster of buildings huddled around you from the invaders who will arrive on your shores one after the other. It is all so sinister! They stand silent in their longboats, these invaders, masked faces unreadable but murderous intentions entirely clear. You, meanwhile, control that handful of colour-coded armies, moving them from one spot to another, slowly levelling them up over the course of a campaign so you have the likes of specialised archers, pike-men and infantry, all with strengths and weaknesses regarding things like range and the ability to attack when moving to take into account. You take out one landing, and then you scan the horizon for the next one. And then the one after that, and then the landings that occur in two places at once.

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Earlier this week, From Software revealed that Sekiro: Shadows Die Twice, its ninja-themed revenge romp, will launch on March 22nd next year. So why not while away the minutes between now and then (19 of them to be exact) with some new gameplay footage, fresh from Gamescom?

Sekiro: Shadows Die Twice is, of course, the latest game to be directed by Hidetaka Miyazaki, the mastermind behind Demon's Souls, Dark Souls, and Bloodborne. However, despite some obvious similarities - its third-person perspective and action focus, for instance - it's said to be a very different beast to any of those earlier games.

Its beautifully realised 16th Century Sengoku Japan setting is a clear departure from the gothic claustrophobia of Miyazaki's most recent games, and its tale of the titular Sekiro - on a quest for revenge against the man that severed his arm - is telling a very specific yarn about a very specific man, leaving no room for the heavy RPG-style customisation seen in Souls and Bloodborne.

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