Anno 1800 – Ubisoft Blue Byte’s latest in the resource-shuffling city-building sim series – has gotten a little bit off course, and won’t make its original February 26th release date. The developers have announced that it’s been shuffled back to April 16th for additional polishing and tuning. Thankfully, this shouldn’t affect the game’s planned closed beta test next week on January 31st. You can still sign up for the upcoming tests here, though it oddly requires you to manually submit an application by email. Take a look at a beta trailer below, and some of the game’s big new features.

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Those who have plumbed the depths of Subnautica‘s oceans will have some chilly new waters to explore very soon. Standalone expansion Subnautica: Below Zero launches on Steam, Discord and the Epic Store on January 30th, albeit in early access. There’s frosty new biomes to survive, strange new alien flora and fauna to eat (or be eaten by) and more to do on the surface. There’s even going to be alien penguins (called Pengwings – yes, really), which would be adorable if a quarter of their body wasn’t an enormous, vertical spike-lined clam shell.

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I’m admittedly a little burnt out on battle royale shooters, but I’m still going to be trying Stormdivers because it’s by Housemarque, masters of explosions, lasers and arcade shooters. This weekend (starting 1pm GMT on Saturday, January 26th), they’ll be running a short open beta for duos. Grab a buddy, sign up for a free key here and hopefully I’ll see you on the future space-battlefield tomorrow. Check out the trailer below, which unsurprisingly contains some very swooshy particle effects and big zappy laser weapons.

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Assassin’s Creed Odyssey and its latest DLC chapter raised some hackles last week. The story shoehorned its protagonist into a relationship to produce an heir, whether or not the player had decided their hero was straight, gay, or just disinterested in the lover the game had picked out. After players complained, Ubisoft apologised, admitting they’d dropped the ball on writing that particular segment. In a statement on the Ubisoft forums yesterday, Ubi announced that an upcoming patch would partially alter a cutscene, some dialogue and the naming of an achievement, reportedly after consultation with LGBT media advocacy group GLAAD.

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Game development conferences are a great way for creators to share information, vision and push the medium just a little bit further, if you can get to them. International travel isn’t cheap, immigration authorities are increasingly suspicious, and it’s time-consuming, too.

Being organised by Rami Ismail (Vlambeer), Sarah Elmaleh, and a crew of independent and international creators, Gamedev World is a new ‘virtual’ conference and will be broadcasting free and worldwide in eight different languages. Its inaugural show goes live on June 21st through to June 23rd, and they’re looking for speakers. Check out their official page here.

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Tricks! I am big into tricks. Blue Magic decks, teleportation, messing with people till they can t tell their ups from their downs. That s me.

Breach is an asymmetric multiplayer dungeon-runner that entered early access early this week. It pits four adventurers against a Veil Demon, who lays traps and hops about possessing the sort of demonic hordes you’d find in Diablo. That demon has some of the best tricks in the biz, but it’s trapped in a laggy mess of a game that I can t recommend you go near – yet.

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Pack a picnic, shout “Shotgun!”, hop in the car, hit the road, and come back ten minutes later just to double-check you turned the oven off. It’s almost time for a road trip through 1990s China in Road To Guangdong, announced this week for an early access launch in May. Fresh-faced graduated Sunny is off through the province of Guangdong with her Aunt to save the family restaurant, meeting relatives and collecting recipes along the way – and trying to keep the car running. Yup, a bit like in Jalopy, it’s a long journey and the car might not be up to it. Have a look in the announcement trailer below.

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Fortnite is a game that requires a great deal of practice and skill to consistently win matches. Players need to familiarise themselves not only with the game’s many weapons, items, and locations across its gigantic map, but also a whole heap of interlocking mechanics such as health and shields, building and editing, escaping the Storm, piloting vehicles, and much more.

We’ve spent a lot of time assembling this Fortnite guides series, packing it with all the most up-to-date information on how to get set up, how to build and edit like a professional, weapon stats, best locations to drop, in-depth explanations of weapon classes and weekly challenges… All with the ultimate goal of equipping you with the knowledge to improve your game ten times over.

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One of the most challenging aspects of Playerunknown’s Battlegrounds, for new and experienced players alike, is keeping track of the vast array of guns to choose from, how they differ from one another, what attachments you can equip onto each weapon, and whether anything has changed since the last time you played. PUBG features nearly forty guns to choose from, each with specific stats relating to damage, range, recoil, bullet drop, and much more. It’s a hell of a learning curve, no matter whereabouts you find yourself on it.

In our PUBG weapons guide, you’ll find a comprehensive overview of every weapon in PUBG, from bogstandard pistols and SMGs to coveted air drop-only weapons like the AWM and the M249, and even map-exclusive variants such as the G36C and the QBZ. You can take a look and find the stats of each weapon, as well as our personal opinions on how the guns perform under different circumstances. You’ll also find a handy table of attachments at the bottom of the page.

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I’ve enjoyed the look of Atomic Heart since its announcement last year and after watching a new ten-minute gameplay video I’m glad to say yep, I still don’t understand its whole ‘strange Soviet sci-fi theme park turns into horrorhell’ thing. That’s good. This is a place I want to find strange and confusing at first, with its terrible medical robomannequins, its wee walking buzzsaws, its railway of spinning gondolas, and its miracle goo. Here, see those and more in the video below, which I’d guess is from right around the start of the game.

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