Another impressive month of deals in the Humble Monthly – I’m impressed at how consistently good Humble’s subscribe-o-bundle has been this past year, and the next set headlines with a trio of gems. Northgard, Mutant Year Zero: Road To Eden and Absolver cover a wide spread of genres, but all three games are united by one common thread; they all got free expansions recently. You can snag all three together for a mere $12 (roughly 9), and you’ll get an extra sack-full of mystery games at the end of the month. See some trailers and thoughts on the three games below.

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There’s been a glut of good city-building games lately, but the prehistoric Dawn Of Man flew under my radar until it launched today. Developed by Madruga Works (formerly of space-coloniser Planetbase), it has players leading a tribe of early humans through the ages, hunting wooly mammoths in the Neolithic era and eventually evolving into an Iron Age society. It looks rather clever, and not overly cluttered with numbers and graphs – contrary to what The Flintstones may have taught us, stone-age statisticians were rare. Check out the launch trailer below.

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Co-op space dwarf sim shooter Deep Rock Galactic is free to try out for the weekend, celebrating an eventful full year in early access. Ghost Ship Games have poured a lot of love and effort into this odd blend of Minecraft and Left 4 Dead, adding a new introductory campaign, improving single-player and adding scads of new caverns, monsters and guns since its debut. It’s come along so well that they reckon they’ll be increasing the price near the end of the month, but players can still get in cheap if they like what they play free now. I recommend giving it a try, even if you play solo.

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It is the season for what the hell is going on out there>? Do I plant my garden now? Are we going back to normal late-winter murderfrost or what? Lord, we’re all doomed. If I didn’t have a cold I’d have no tether to normality at all.

Unknown Pleasures is, you may be aware, our round up of the best indie games on Steam that, more often than not, hardly anyone is talking about. It’s a bit good, you know. There are loads of solid indie games these days languishing in obscurity. Support your local bedroom dev and try out this week’s siftings.

Harbingering the end times but trying not to think about it this week: questing meeces, quad-jumping ball bouncers, and jazzy shootouts. (more…)

Fortnite’s Season 8 has struck, introducing a variety of map changes, bug fixes, and renewed interest into Epic Games’ beast of a battle royale. Now more than ever, there’s a lot to learn if you’re just jumping into Fortnite now – not just a great deal of weapons and locations with which to familiarise yourself, but a whole host of interlocking systems from building and editing to the Fortnite Storm, and much more besides.

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. We’ve also got tonnes of advanced, high-level and little-known strategies for experienced players to learn and master, so even if you’ve a hundred wins under your belt, take a look at our guides and see if you find out a few things you never knew before!

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It’s finally here! Season 8 of Fortnite has arrived at last, bringing with it a plethora of changes, some of which were definitely expected but others of which certainly were not. Whatever the case, there’s a lot of ground to cover with this new season, so let’s get started!

Our Fortnite Season 8 guide will walk you through everything you need to know about the new season and all the changes it has wrought upon the Fortnite island and its unceasingly warring inhabitants (that’s you!). We’ll go over new locations such as Lazy Lagoon and Sunny Steps, along with the new Pirate Cannon weapons, vaulted items, the introduction of a very Apex Legends-esque contextual Ping system, and much more.

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90s-as-heck aliens ToeJam and Earl have returned in ToeJam & Earl: Back In The Groove, one of the more surprising fruits of the recent retro revival crowdfunding craze. The designer of ye olde original ToeJam & Earl from Sega Mega Drive in 1991, Greg Johnson, took this follow-up through Kickstarter in 2015 and now it launched this morning. TJ&E is… a roguelikelike actually inspired by Rogue, except it doesn’t have much fighting, and you collect loads of random items with weird effects, and it’s funny, and it’s silly, and it has hot jams, and it still can’t be easily compared to another game after 28 years, which speaks to how curious it is.

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Season 8 of Fortnite has arrived at last! Packed with all sorts of new content, from various map changes and new mobility items to a suspiciously familiar contextual Ping system – the V8.00 Patch Notes for Fortnite are Epic Games’ most concerted attempt so far to wrest control of the battle royale genre back from its rising competitor, Apex Legends.

Our Fortnite Patch Notes page helps you keep track of every update, every set of patch notes, all in one place. What’s more, we’ll break down the latest changes with in-depth practical analyses and tips on how each adjustment changes the game and what you can do to stay ahead of the curve with Fortnite: Battle Royale.

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There are asteroids clanking against the hull. I can t see them because my spaceship s cockpit doesn t have a window. But I know they re out there. The radar says so. There goes another one. Clank. The computer bleeps at me sadly. Light hull damage, it says. Finally, the clanking stops and my jaws unclench. We ve cleared the asteroid field. Time to deliver some rare vids to a shady art dealer called Ezra, who’s waiting for me on a nearby space station. This is Objects In Space, the low-poly space sim that leaves early access today. I ve been a well-behaved pilot so far, delivering oxygen for pennies and taxi-ing passengers from station to station. But Ezra is about to make a scoundrel out of me. Because Ezra has a disgusting amount of money.

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If Peggle-era PopCap (Gawd rest its consumed soul) had survived into the era of survival, I reckon they’d have made something a lot like Astroneer. Where other sci-fi don’t-die-’em-ups are soundtracked by the angry buzz of e’er-encroaching death, Astroneer’s is all endorphin-inducing rising notes, delightful popping noises and the happy whirr of toylike tractors.

Slowly asphyxiating to death in an unforgiving alien wasteland has never been so joyful.

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