Season 8 of Fortnite is set to arrive at the end of this month, and Epic are doing what they do best, ramping up the tension and the hype with minor in-game events. This time round, we’re chasing earthquakes, with cracks and fissures appearing every day or two in different areas of the map. But what does this mean for Season 8 and all the changes it might bring? And how does this tie in with the earlier Ice Storm, and those eggs below Polar Peak?

Our Fortnite Season 8 guide will walk you through absolutely everything we know about the upcoming Season 8, from release dates to earthquake event leaks, from likely themes to the map changes and new features we might expect from the new Season. So let’s get stuck in!

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The game you like isn’t as good as the game I like. When you like the game you like, you are made to look a fool!

Find out why in this week’s Steam Charts.

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This time last year, you used to have to fork out a gut-wrenching amount of money if you wanted to buy one of the best gaming SSDs, but luckily for us prices have been falling steadily over the past couple of months. As a result, it’s now a great time to think about upgrading your PC’s storage banks. If your HDD is looking a bit long in the tooth, a nice, new, nippy SSD could be just what your PC needs.

To help you pick the best gaming SSD, I’ve gathered together all my top recommendations across a range of different prices, including your standard 2.5in SATA drives as well as your fancy M.2 NVMe jobs. And don’t worry if none of those words made any sense to you, as you’ll also find our handy, in-depth buying advice right at the bottom of the page covering everything you need to know about all the different types of SSD and their various form factors, as well as what size you should be thinking about upgrading to. Whether it’s for gaming, installing Windows or the fastest speeds money can buy, here are the best SSDs available right now.

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One of the first games I picked for a Have You Played? was Zeus: Master Of Olympus. Well, Pharaoh is basically that, but Ancient Egypt. Or, if you prefer, Caesar III but Ancient Egypt.

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Sundays are for playing too much Apex Legends. Have some people written about it in the best articles about video games from the past week? Or before that, because I read some good stuff while I was on holiday? Maybe. Maybe.

For Waypoint, Yussef Cole laid out the numerous problems with Fortnite’s appropriation of dances from black artists. It’s a context I wasn’t entirely aware of, and should give anyone who says ‘oh come on, they’re just dances’ pause for thought.

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I don’t like Dream Daddy. There. I said it. A game that de-eroticises queer romance in some apolitical neoliberal mystery world isn’t it, chief.* There’s a lot to love there, but so much about its technically-indie-corporate-sheen marketing gay romance rubs me the wrong way. I’m glad the game is there for those who need it, I’m glad there’s a game where queer folks seem pretty happy, but I’m not going to sing its praises from the rooftops just because the hype around a gay driven romance suggests that I should — and the only way for things to get better is for queer folks to keep making games about them. I guess you could say I’m grumpy.

It should be pretty clear by now that I feel all sorts of ways about romance in games — not just in Dream Daddy. Let’s say that our relationship is… complicated. I want to have a complicated relationship with games! I think it is so so important to walk through life with a willingness and openness to have conversations about what does or doesn’t work for you and why. I believe that this is true of all healthy relationships. You aren’t going to always get along, your partner is going to make mistakes, and it’s good to know how to apologise.

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Alice is on holiday, so this week it’s me, Alice, filling in for Alice. We’re deep in the trenches now, the game trenches, the February onslaught of releases. Metro is only just in our rear view mirror, and Brendan is almost a broken man. Anthem is in its bizarre week of early release for people who’ll pay for EA’s special version of Origins. Apelegs is taking the Battles Royales by storm. There is too much to do, so I might not remind people to send me what they’re playing, just so I don’t have to put it in this document, because I am busy playing some of the games that we have to play. I know, what a ridiculous thing to moan about, hey?

What are you playing this weekend? Here’s what we’re clicking on!

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Fear & Hunger is a horror dungeon crawler by Miro Haverinen that makes Darkest Dungeon look cheerful and forgiving. Originally launched in December and still growing, it flew under my radar until earlier this week. It’s merciless stuff – you don’t level up. You run, as the monsters can often kill you in one hit, or leave you mangled. Dismemberment is a threat for both you and your enemies, and save points aren’t safe. It’s rough around the edges, but it’s rare that an RPG can leave me genuinely unsettled and hurt, but hungry for more. Grab the demo here or see the trailer and thoughts below.

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I know Apex Legends has shaken up the scene, but it feels a little bit on-the-nose that Fortnite Battle Royale is literally cracking up under the pressure. Epic’s all-consuming last man standing shooter is gearing up for another season, starting on February 28th, which means there’s changes coming to its ever-shifting battlefield. Such change has previously been brought about by weird inter-dimensional antics and a wandering glacier, but this one seems a little more mundane – earthquakes, shaking the entire map and leaving jagged tears in the ground.

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Anthem is out now, kinda-sorta – assuming you’ve got an Origin Access subscription. While the game fully debuts on February 22nd, subscribers can play now. Those with the cheap Basic subscription get a ten-hour trial, while Premier subscribers have been set loose on the full game. I’m also happy to say that some issues in the first hour or two aside, the servers appear to be holding up well for people playing the power-armoured loot n’ shooter. BioWare have also partly unveiled their first major update for the game, including a big space-storm to wrangle.

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