I still cannot tell you why Battlefield V‘s battle royale mode is not named Battlefield Royale, but I can tell you that this so-called ‘Firestorm’ has launched today. It’s a battle royale game, right, but in Battlefield – and with a swish ring of fire closing around you, an inferno on the horizon that eats through buildings in that pleasing Battlefield destruct-o-tech way. I wouldn’t say I’m motivated solely by cool explosions, but don’t video games exist primarily because at a certain age it’s considered inappropriate to chase your pal with Roman candle, put a Catherine wheel on your bike’s wheel, or launch bottle rockets from your shoulder out a length of copper pipe you found down the back of the garden?

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There are many things I like about working from home, but having to play games in my office at the weekend because that’s where my gaming PC lives isn’t one of them. Instead, I want to be downstairs playing games in our living room, where I’ve got easy access to the kettle / biscuit tin and can actually spend some time with my husband and fellow RPG vid bud Matthew instead holing myself up in our lonely back bedroom for a large chunk of the day.

Of course, playing games in the living room is quite different to playing games at a desk. For starters, the desk doesn’t exist, and unlike the myriad of console boxes sitting under our TV, Windows 10 isn’t really designed to be used with a controller. Instead, you need> a mouse and keyboard, whether it’s for simple things like logging into Steam and firing up a game, or actually using them to play said games. Corsair’s K83 Wireless entertainment keyboard is one way of doing it, but a proper lapboard such as the Roccat Sova is definitely the way to go if you want to replicate that full best gaming keyboard experience from the comfort of your couch.

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To celebrate a quarter-century of Elves, Daedra and cat-people with bafflingly complex lore, Bethesda are giving away The Elder Scrolls 3: Morrowind today (March 25th) only, so snap it up quickly here. You’ll need a Bethesda.net account and their launcher to grab the game, too. A bit of a hassle, but you’re getting a sprawling adventure through a deeply alien corner of Tamriel, filled with giant insects, inscrutable demigods and enough Cliff Racers to drive any adventurer to distraction. If you’ve never played what many consider the best Elder Scrolls game, now’s the time.

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With The Division 2, as with most loot-n-shooters, you’re only as good as the weapons you carry. And when you can only keep two primary weapons and one sidearm on your person as you stalk the streets of a dilapidated Washington D.C., it’s best to know what to expect with each gun. Our The Division 2 weapons guide will walk you through the stats and behaviours of every weapon you can find through every class tier level, from the common and worn all the way up to legendary Exotic weapons such as the Ruthless Rifle and the Lullaby Shotgun.

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>On a Tuesday this February, I fell in love with Jenny Jiao Hsia and her upcoming game Consume Me, one of the titles showcased at the V&A s Videogames exhibit Design/Play/Disrupt. The prototype of Consume Me was the first game in a while that made me giggle manically, even though its subject matter, dieting and Hsia s personal fraught relationship with it, isn t necessarily a laughing matter.

As I frantically tried to find the perfect combination of foods to stack onto Jenny’s plate, Tetris-style, I thought that this — finding ways to highlight the absurdity of some of the actions we treat as normal — was the perfect way to make a non-combat activity into a game. While that in itself warrants a look at Hsia s other creations, what prompted me to finally do so was a depressive episode. (I try to talk about depression the same way people tell you they re allergic to dog hair or don t like onions all that much. It is what it is, I m working on it, I m navigating life with it, there s no reason not to talk about it.) This is how I discovered Wobble Yoga, a body physics game that reminded me of depression.

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Pretty puzzles provide peaceful piecing-together in Glass Masquerades 2: Illusions, a jigsaw puzzle game which came out last month but I’ve somehow yet to post about for RPS despite selling Alice Bee on it in the treehouse. Hello, here’s that post now. So, Glass Masquerades 2 is a jig ’em up with a ‘dark fantasy’ vibe in the vein of Tim Burton’s Alice, American McGee’s Alice, and Insane Clown Posse. Dumped with a load of odd-shaped shards of stained glass, we have to assemble them into a circular picture and the shards shimmer and glimmer and glow in a pleasing way and it’s nice, okay.

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Light the beacons of Gondor, there s a new licensed Tolkien game on the horizon. Lord Of The Rings Gollum will be an action-adventure game featuring everyone s favourite Ring-obsessed creature, and is being made by Daedalic Entertainment, the makers of the Deponia series and The Pillars Of The Earth. It’s still in the extremely early stages of development, and is aiming for a 2021 release date. Ask us anything,” joked Carsten Fichtelmann, Daedalic CEO and founder, “but we re not sure if we can answer any questions.” Still, that didn’t stop him from later telling me that they want to create a game as timeless as the books and the films.

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The release of Apex Legends brought us eight varied and colourful characters to get to grips with, and the release of Season 1 brought a ninth – Octane, the so-called High-Speed Daredevil. But that’s likely not the only new character we’ll see this Season, with numerous rumours, easter eggs, and leaks coalescing into a blurry-but-ever-sharpening image of Wattson – the tenth Legend to enter King’s Canyon. Our Apex Legends Wattson guide will walk you through everything we know about this electricity expert, and how she might bring something new to the table with her abilities and skillset.

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John had the presence of mind to take today off, after flying back from San Francisco on Sunday. Young Matt and I got a red eye that took off on Friday night and landed on Saturday afternoon. I didn t sleep for 30 hours, then slept for 12, was wired for the next 16, and then slept for another four. Which brings us to today, when I am writing these charts, unsure which meal I should be having next and shaking off a lingering dose of The Fear, which I get from long haul flying more than I ever did from hangovers.

With that in mind, it s me, back once again with the ill behaviour, to fill in doing the Steam Charts. I m very much flying by the seat of my pants here, so let s see what I come up with, shall we?

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Splendid streamlined strategy game Into The Breach was almost our favouritest favourite game of 2018, delighting with its honed focus on big robots smashing bugs in turn-based tactical action. It was once a far bigger, more complex game than that, mind, with a sprawling metagame of research trees and rebuilding the last cities of Earth and… it didn’t work. These work-in-progress versions worked so badly that creators Subset Games have revealed they almost gave up on the game entirely. Thankfully, in this timeline they cut all that back down and successfully finished making the game.

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