It's Christmas! So developers across the land are adding virtual seasonal gubbins to their games as a service. Treyarch is no different. It's kicked off a Christmas event in Call of Duty: Black Ops 4, and as part of that snowballs are in Blackout, the game's battle royale mode.

Snowballs in most games are just for messing about, but in Blackout they pack a punch. In fact, players are already using them to kill players.

Piles of snowballs are now dotted around the Blackout map. They occupy the same slot as a grenade would, so using them puts you at something of a disadvantage because you're not using, for example, a smoke grenade. But it's Christmas. Snowball fights are on - and they do something like 20 points of damage! Oh, and you can break glass with them!

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Blizzard is cutting back on Heroes of the Storm - shrinking the game's team and cancelling its big esports events.

Staff will be moved to other internal projects, Blizzard said in a blog post today. There's no word on how many people will be left working on the MOBA.

Blizzard said it was a hard choice - repeatedly, using the phrases "very difficult decision", "tough choice", and "we don't make these decisions lightly" - but the game's staff were now needed elsewhere.

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Katamari Damacy is a special sort of game. So special in fact, that it sidetracked me from writing this several times, playing the game in an absent-minded daze, marvelling at how 塊,the Kanji for katamari, already looks like a small prince rolling stuff up. It worms itself inside your brain by giving the mundane a unique sort of whimsy.

Whimsy, silliness and fun on first glance seem like something unrestrained and purposefully difficult to capture, but Katamari's game director Keita Takahashi made these feelings into substantial pillars of the design philosophy that informs all of his games. Katamari is meant to convey novelty, ease of understanding, enjoyment, and humour, all in a neat little package.

At first glance, there doesn't seem to be much to Katamari Damacy. You and your katamari (Japanese for "clump") are dropped on a random map where you then roll over items to add them to your little ball. What items? Any items. The absence of restrictions is very freeing - if you see something on screen, odds are you can roll it up at some point. The few limitations that do exist make sense: you can't roll into something bigger than yourself, that would ruin the whole equilibrium of your ball. If you bump into any obstacle full force, items are inevitably going to break off of your katamari. Maybe it's an odd core idea for a game, but the mechanics and aesthetic aspects of Katamari are the equivalent of a gentle shrug, the very essence of "why not". Roll with it.

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Microsoft has announced a new initiative to raise money for the World Wildlife Fund through Minecraft, starting with the launch of the new Paws and Claws costume pack.

Paws and Claws' release follows the recent arrival Minecraft's latest update, which adds bamboo blocks, scaffolding, and, more importantly, pandas and redesigned cats. The costume pack (or "Cosplay Pack", as Microsoft would have it) features 17 cat and panda skin, and all net proceeds on every sale - that's 62.5% - will be donated to the WWF until December 11th, 2021.

Additionally, Microsoft has pledged to donate another $100,000 USD to the World Wildlife Fund once players have managed to place a total of 10 million bamboo blocks in Minecraft. This follows a similar event last year, in which a donation was made to The Nature Conservancy after Minecraft players laid down 10 million coral blocks.

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Tim Schafer's classic point-and-click biker adventure Full Throttle is currently free on GOG.

Released back in 1995, Full Throttle was Schafer's first solo project at revered point-and-click developer LucasArts, having previously co-designed Day of the Tentacle with Dave Grossman and co-written The Secret of Monkey Island and its sequel with Grossman and Ron Gilbert.

While Full Throttle retained the comedy abundant in Schafer's previous work, it was considerably less romp-y than its forebears, mixing its humour with a touch of post-apocalyptic grit - although it's technically only set in a more desolate version of our world.

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Daybreak Games has announced PlanetSide Arena, a battle royale take on the PlanetSide franchise.

PlanetSide Arena launches on PC on 29th January 2019 priced €16.79. At launch, it includes a first-person shooter battle royale that comes in three types: solo for 100 players, teams of three for 102 players and a 250 versus 250 player mode called Massive Clash. It's all set on a huge 8k x 8k, four square kilometer map called Echoes of Amerish, which is based on Amerish, the third continent added to the world of Auraxis for PlanetSide 2.

Three classes are available at launch, each with their own abilities, utilities and passives. All classes have jet packs and all can summon a vehicle to zip around the map at any time. Because of this, there's a freedom of movement to proceedings. But, countering this is a longer time to kill than in most other battle royale games, fuelled by a shield system that can make characters feel tanky.

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If you're into your Minecraft you may have heard of Hypixel - it's one of the biggest Minecraft servers in the world and home to some seriously dedicated creators.

Today brings the announcement of Hypixel Studios, a new indie team made up by the Minecraft server's co-founders to develop an entirely separate game, and backed by League of Legends maker Riot Games, among others.

The game is named Hytale - and here's a trailer:

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Metro Exodus comes out a week earlier than announced, on 15th February 2019, to be precise.

The shift in timing means the game no longer launches on the previously-planned date of 22nd February, which would have placed Metro in competition with BioWare's Anthem. Instead, Metro now shares the same release date as two other big games: Crackdown 3 and Far Cry New Dawn (that new one with the neon pink and yet another post-apocalyptic landscape). Talk about jumping out of the frying pan and into the fire! Although judging by what we've seen of Metro Exodus so far, I have high hopes for the title.

Along with the news concerning the shift in dates, we also got a look at the rather chilling opening title sequence for Metro Exodus, which paints a harrowing picture of frozen post-apocalyptic Russia. Looks like we'll all be playing a fun game of "is that a person, or a snowman?"

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I've been staring at the cursor flashing on my screen for a while now, silently aggrieved by its cheerless, eyeless blink. I'm perilously close to my deadline, but I'm trapped in a mindless cycle of typing, hesitating, reading, grimacing, deleting, and starting over. What I want to say about Gris isn't coming to me in fully formed sentences; it's just snatches of sentiment coming in dreamy, ethereal wisps, a warm, gloopy mess of incomplete sensations and emotions. There are disparate words I can use - soft, delicate, fragile, beguiling, soothing, melancholic, hypnotising - but strung together like that, I know they're unhelpful. I know I'm not making much sense. Which I guess is kind of fitting because, on paper, Gris doesn't make much sense, either.

My god, it's beautiful, though; beautiful to look at, beautiful to listen to, beautiful to play, although in truth, Gris isn't played as much as it's experienced. I know; I don't like it when people say that in reviews, either. But for every hundred words I type here, I can show you a screenshot that'll instantly convey so much more. It's a truly masterful blend of form, flair, and function pinned in place with languid visuals, an evocative journey that sends you spinning through a story that never says a word.

Gris is a barely-there tale balanced on delicate mechanics that should, in essence, be dull to play but somehow isn't. Initially, this world is cold and inhospitable, bereft of life and colour, hence its name ('gris' is Spanish for 'grey', Google kindly informs me). Sadly, so is our titular protagonist, too. Each step is sluggish, her pain physically and spiritually weighing her down.

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Street Fighter 5's in-game ads went live this week - and they make a mockery of the series' famous character design.

According to Capcom, this sponsored content appears in-game "to remind you about costumes, bundles and the Capcom Pro Tour". Well, it certainly does that.

I'm not too bothered about the "supported by" image you get when a match is loading. This doesn't feel intrusive and doesn't mess about with any Street Fighter design I care about at least. It looks like this:

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