You can bag yourself a free PC copy of the acclaimed Assassin's Creed: Odyssey simply by playtesting Google's new Chrome streaming service Project Stream. You only need to play for an hour, then you'll be gifted the game.

Unfortunately, this is open to US residents only (unless you can find a way around it). It's not Ubisoft's decision: the Project Stream tech test is for US residents.

If you can find a way in, you have until 15th January to play your hour of AC: Odyssey and qualify for the free game. This will be gifted on Ubisoft's Uplay platform via your linked Project Stream account. Specific instructions are to be sent after 15th Jan. Saves and in-game items will transfer.

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Capcom has released a new character for Street Fighter 5 - and he's basically Evil Ryu.

He's not called Evil Ryu, though. He's called Kage (pronounced car-gay), "the Embodiment of the Satsui." Think Ryu with red eyes, fangs and a couple of cute little horns.

According to Street Fighter lore (yes, Street Fighter has a lore), Ryu constantly battles to control the Satsui no Hado. After the events of Street Fighter 5: Arcade Edition, Ryu overcomes the Satsui no Hado's temptation, preventing Evil Ryu from ever seeing the light of day.

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Personality goes a long way with games. Just an ounce of it can elevate a game from the crowd. And Mutant Year Zero: Road to Eden has heaps of it.

This post-apocalyptic adventure is X-Com with a dash of stealth and exploration. It's based on a decades old tabletop game simply called Mutant which was itself rebooted into Mutant Year Zero a few years ago. It's very popular in Sweden, where the game's creators Bearded Ladies, hail from. While it provided the world Road to Eden would live in, this adaptation leans on one particularly potent characteristic of the tabletop game. One thing that just stands out immediately. The X-Com trappings are as solid a foundation as you can get but it's the world and the characters that held my attention. Because there's no getting round it, the first thing you're going to notice, the first thing everybody is gonna want to talk about with this game is the badass duck man.

These mutants are rightfully the star of the show but as eye catching as they are they're more than just a pretty(?) face for Mutant Year Zero, they're the beating heart of the whole game and the reason I stuck with it for a dozen hours to the credits. Called Stalkers, they're tasked with venturing out into the zone and scavenging supplies to keep humanity's last refuge going. A thankless task if the grumpy residents of the "Ark" are anything to go by.

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The superb Subnautica is free from the Epic Games Store.

The undersea survival game is free to download until 27th December. It normally costs 19.49.

The Epic Games Store is the Fortnite and Unreal engine company's attempt to take on Steam. It offers developers 88 per cent revenue share, which is more than Valve's 70 per cent standard.

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After Epic launched its own game story offering 88 per cent of revenue to developers, Discord has stepped into the fray, saying it'll let developers self-publish games on its store in 2019 offering 90 per cent of revenue.

The war for the hearts and minds of PC gamers is hotting up, with Epic and now Discord taking on Steam, which has traditionally offered developers and publishers 70 per cent of revenue.

Discord is predominantly a chat app focused on video games, but it's branched out in 2018 to sell some video games. It seems it wants to get stuck in even more in 2019, and given over 200 million people have used Discord, it may have a chance of making an impression.

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There's a Sonic movie in the works. That much you probably knew, given the viral reaction to the film's first teaser image. Now, the Sonic movie nightmare continues with a new poster - now confirmed to be real - that does things with Sonic's legs that shouldn't be done to any one, let alone an anthropomorphic hedgehog.

The creepy poster popped up on social media this week in unverified form. It showed Sonic's legs in one of the most unnatural positions I've ever seen legs in. Also, yep, that's fur, as we knew it would be from the teaser image.

The poster is now confirmed, via a tweet from GameSpot senior social media producer Gajan Kulasingham.

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Call of Duty: Black Ops 4 Blackout gets custom games next week, Treyarch has announced.

Blackout custom games will let players drop into their own private match of Call of Duty's battle royale to explore the map, the developer said in a post on the Black Ops 4 subreddit.

You'll be able to visit destinations at your own pace and practice with teams of friends.

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Epic has pulled the Infinity Blade weapon from Fortnite for being overpowered.

Epic added the sword from its mobile game of the same name just four days ago, but players quickly found it to be ruining the battle royale game.

The Infinity Blade was a one-off item that could be picked up in Fortnite's main game mode. It gave the bearer an extraordinary advantage: 200 health, 200 shield, the ability to leap great distances and to deal 75 damage with each swing. It looked like this:

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UPDATE 15/12/18: Epic has now released an official statement to clarify why it sent a cease and desist letter to the owner of Fortnite leak outlet FNBRLeaks.

According to a spokesperson from Epic, the reason for the legal letter was to prevent FNBRLeaks from distributing unauthorised modification tools for the game.

"The owner of this account and others promoted and advertised the sale of game modification tools which violate our terms of service," the statement reads. "This is not directly related to data mining or leaking."

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Excessive and unpaid overtime, zero-hour contracts and a pervasive culture of homophobia and sexism - these are the three top issues to be tackled by a new video games industry branch of the Independent Workers Union of Great Britain (IWGB).

The new union branch, Games Workers Unite, will be the first of its kind in the UK - despite the fact the video games industry is one of the country's fastest-growing sectors, with approximately 47,000 people now involved.

Now is a great time for this in particular after the spotlight was recently shone on the working practices at Red Dead Redemption 2 developer Rockstar Games, which employs hundreds of people in the UK.

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