GTA Online players can earn double the normal cash rewards and RP for completing contact missions as well as the finale of the Doomsday Heist from now until Wednesday, April 24.

Call up Gerald, Lamar, Ron, Trevor, Lester, Martin or Simeon to start contact missions—you can play them solo, but if you complete them as a group you'll get some bonus cash. 

In the finale of the Doomsday scenario, you must infiltrate a mountain base to stop a nuclear warhead from launching, before escaping with jetpacks. It's a brilliant heist that the PC Gamer team worked together to finish last year.

In addition to contact missions and the Doomsday scenario, players can earn double rewards in Occupy, Hardest Target and Juggernaut. There's also a 40% discount on some items from Maze Bank Foreclosures and Warstock Cache & Carry, including the Mammoth Thruster jetpack and the Pegassi Oppressor sports bike.

Rockstar also announced that on April 25 any owners of a Biker Clubhouse will be given a $250k in-game cash bonus. To prepare for that, the Great Chaparral Clubhouse is now at an all-time low price of GTA$50K (75% off), and you can also buy the Grand Senora Desert Counterfeit Cash Factory for GTA$100K (89% off) until April 24.

For full details, check out Rockstar's blog post.

If you're after even more cash, here's our guide to making money in GTA Online.

Levelhead is part-platformer, part-level builder, and has just entered Early Access. It's the next game from Crashlands dev Butterscotch Shenanigans (one of my favorite developer names, by the way), and as you run through its platforming campaign you'll unlock new items for the level editor, in which you'll build levels and share them with the world. 

Butterscotch Shenanigans says a full release is planned within the next six months to a year: during Early Access it plans to add more level-building options—there are currently more than 100 "creative elements" in three biomes—as well as more levels to the campaign, a better-integrated story, and new algorithms to help you discover the best player-made levels. 

In the campaign, you deliver packages for the Bureau of Shipping, making your way through a series of dangerous levels while using power-ups to fly and warp through walls. You can play through the campaign solo or in couch co-op with up to three other players.

For level sharing, you'll be able to subscribe to other creators to keep abreast of their latest work, and browse levels by tags. This is where the meat of the game will be: I can see myself blowing through the campaign once and then concentrating on user-made levels.

If you want in, it costs $20/£15.50 on Steam, and Butterscotch Shenanigans plans to "gradually increase" the price as it adds new features.

It's a good time for relaxation games right now. Flower finally got a PC release earlier this year, and now indie devs Samurai Punk have released Feather. A very chill flying game about a bird soaring over an island, Feather is not the kind of game you win or lose. It only has one achievement and you earn it by playing once.

As a bird you can roll and flip and flap your wings or dive to accelerate. It's kind of like Fugl, only without the transformations. You're always a bird, and the aim is simply to enjoy the sensation of flight. On my first trip round Feather's island I saw the hoops you can fly through and assumed I was supposed to race through them one after the other. That would be counter to the relaxation Feather's trying to make you feel, however. 

Instead what happened each time I dived through a ring was that the soundtrack changed. It's a way of interacting with Feather's music and while there are some hidden hoops to find they're not tied to your victory or failure. This is a game you can't win or lose.

But that doesn't mean there's nothing to do. The island contains more than I expected, with secrets to discover including underground tunnels, teleporting portals, and fruit that hangs like lanterns from the trees and chimes when you pop it. If you miss your target and happen to collide with a tree or rock, colors drain away momentarily and you're rewound a few seconds to try again. It's the closest Feather comes to a punishment.

There's multiplayer too, of the ambient kind that inserts other players into your world. I have yet to experience it, perhaps because of the timezone I'm in, but it's possible to create private instances of the island if you want to share it with specific friends. 

It's not the kind of game you might expect from Samurai Punk, whose previous work includes multiplayer FPS Screencheat and a VR game where you try to perform ordinary tasks but can only interact with things by shooting them. I'm glad they stretched themselves to try something different, because I'm always down for a game that exists just to reduce the amount of stress in the world.

These three recent chillout games starting with the letter F (Feather, Flower, and Fugl) have all taken slightly different approaches and all embraced different amounts of "gameness", but I've found each worthwhile and effective in their own ways. I'm happy to see games like these, and Islanders and Proteus and plenty of others I'm sure will follow, finding their niche.

Feather is available now on Steam and Humble.

In a very wholesome Twitter thread where tabletop RPG players shared stories of the most impressive props they'd seen during a game, Josh Sawyer of Obsidian chimed in with the time he played in a Fallout game run by Chris Avellone during the Black Isle days. Avellone gave each player a binder full of information that was kept updated during the campaign, full of info about the people and places involved. 

As you can see in the first picture, Sawyer's character was "Arcade Gannon", a name that would be re-used for an NPC in Fallout: New Vegas years later. 

Update: Avellone nicely shared some more of his "Paper prototyping" for Fallout. Van Buren was the cancelled Fallout 2 follow-up Black Isle were working on, some of which found its way into New Vegas.

Warhammer: Chaosbane, the forthcoming action-RPG set in Warhammer's Old World, is currently having its second closed beta for those who have pre-ordered.

 New in this beta are the game's other two classes, the dwarf trollslayer and elf scout, and local or online multiplayer is available for up to four players. Players will be able to test out some of the second act, set in the city of Praag, as well as a reworked version of the first act from the previous beta.

The beta runs until April 24, and the finished game will be out on June 4.

The Mobility Mod adds wall-running straight out of Titanfall 2 to Half-Life 2. With it, you can even kill enemies by jumping on their heads. 

While a version of the Mobility Mod has been around for a while now, the modder behind it has now released a v2 that is also compatible with both of Half-Life 2's episodic follow-ups. Among the changes are new melee controls, so you can perform rocket-boosted surge attacks and multi-target crowbar slashes. Using the surge attack in the air will even let you fly, at least for a moment.

You can download v2 of the Mobility Mod from ModDB.

Thanks, DSOGaming.

Over on GTA Forums an eagle-eyed fan has posted a screenshot of a resume belonging to a 3D artist that listed, among other jobs, a position as a "Jr vehicle artist at Rockstar games". The description of their work? "Create vehicles matching with real world for Gta5 dlc and upcoming Gta6."

Rockstar have yet to announce a sixth Grand Theft Auto game but considering how it sold it doesn't take a genius to figure there's a sequel in the works. This particular leak might not be legit, however. Previous leaks and announcements have turned out to be pranks, and even the forum poster responsible for highlighting this one has said, "In my opinion he is either trolling or this is some sort of mistake,there is no way a Rockstar employee would break NDA like that."

The artist's resume no longer mentions Rockstar as an employer.

Thanks, PCGamesN.

This week's tragic fire at Paris's Notre-Dame Cathedral has inspired one No Man's Sky player to recreate the iconic building in space—and the results are seriously impressive. 

The player, posting on Reddit as user 258100, built the model out of thousands of parts using Blender, and then exported it into the game using the Base Builder Plug-in for Blender mod. 

It's just a facade, meaning you can't explore inside, and the player says it's "not great looking" if you view it from a side angle. But it's still a majestic sight, and you can see an album of images here, complete with some neat filter work. They say they'll "recreate the entire thing" if base building in No Man's Sky is improved.

You can see it for yourself if you're willing to go to the effort: 258100 shared its co-ordinates, which are ETAT:055A:0076:0E31:01D4, and you'll be able to visit if you use a mod such as the Online Location Manager.

They weren't the only ones paying tribute to the cathedral following the fire—Ubisoft has been praised for donating €500,000 towards restoration efforts, and is giving away its Parisian adventure Assassin's Creed Unity for free until April 25.

Thanks, GamesRadar.

Cuphead, the platformer with a visual style modeled after cartoons from the 1930s and 40s, got surprise free update today that adds fully animated cinematics, new animations and art, a character select option, and more. Developer Studio MDHR said that the patch, which takes the game to version 1.2, is the biggest update yet. 

Following the update, players will have the option of selecting and playing through the single-player campaign as Cuphead's brother Mugman, who was previously available as the second character in the two-player co-op mode. Support for 11 more languages has been added, with "expert calligraphers" brought in "to bring the Boss & Level title lettering to life in Korean, Chinese, and Japanese—drawing inspiration from the early cartoon works of each country!" 

Cuphead and Mugman now have multiple "fight intros" thanks to the addition of new animation and art, which also enables "dozens of other dazzling additions and adjustments throughout the game." There's also the usual array of bug fixes and tweaks that you'd expect from a major update.   

It's not uncommon for promotional feature lists to end with "and more!" as this one does, but there might actually be more to the "more" here than is first apparent. It's not mentioned in the announcement but a Redditor by the name of Electoon claimed that the update also added "new secret boss routes" to the game. 

"All I've heard so far is that the vegetable patch boss, the Dimji [Djimmi] boss fight, and the theater lady fight (I forget her name) all have routes you can take that includes new assets and boss patterns," they wrote. "More content in this update than we've been lead to believe!" 

I've emailed Studio MDHR to inquire about the claim, but it looks legit: YouTuber Juan Velasco posted a video of a "secret radish boss" that the Cuphead Wiki says wasn't used in the game, but that now appears to be active—if you know how to get to it. That lines up with Electoons claim about the vegetable patch boss fight, and makes me think that maybe there really is more going on here than first meets the eye.

Smurfing is an MLB All-Star homering off of Little League pitchers. Or it’s a risk-free way to play ranked Rocket League matches with your lower-level dad. Wait, maybe it’s a practice used to test if you’re stuck in ELO hell thanks to shoddy teammates? In that case, you’re probably just wasting your time starting a second account—trust me, you’re never as good as you think you are.

There are a lot of definitions of smurfing—basically, it's creating a new account in a game and playing against less-skilled players—and just as many arguments over how heinous it is, or if it's even bad at all. When I asked people on Twitter to DM me with their takes on smurfing, I got hundreds of responses, either passionately defending their reasons for smurfing or condemning those who do it.

"Like a Superbowl quarterback joining a high school team, even if they are playing a new position, their years of training and knowledge and skills give them and their team significant advantages over every other player on the field," League of Legends shoutcaster Jake Kelton told me. "If an MLB player wants to practice a new glove, bat, or field position during spring training, does he join a freshman college team? No, he plays against equally skilled players and has to play catch-up to return to form on his new role."

Others think it’s all about semantics: "The biggest issue with ‘smurfs’ right now is that people are wrongly equating a smurf with an alt account," a Twitter user named Mark M. said. "If I have a GM healer account in Overwatch, my plat DPS account isn’t a smurf. It’s a correctly placed alt account."

And then there’s the people who just want to utterly destroy lower level players.

"I created smurfs to play against lower ranks for memes and fun."

"In all honesty, it was fun as hell smoking people who were new to the game."

"I made a smurf account once on Counter-Strike: Global Offensive because I felt the need to just destroy silvers. I got mad when I was paired against other smurfs because I was toxic."

The majority of players told me they simply use their alternate smurf accounts to play with friends who are lower-level than them. And that’s why I do it, too. I initially bought a smurf account to see if I could place higher in Overwatch than my main account—to test if ELO hell is real. 

Nearly everyone—developers and players, professional and casual—has a different definition for what it is to smurf. And smurfing affects different games differently, making it hard to nail down when it's bad and when it's not. Still, I talked to people who make and play some of today's most popular online games, including League of Legends, Overwatch and Rainbow Six Siege, to give it a try.

Why players smurf

A major grey area for smurfing is the practice of a higher-skilled player using a lower-level account so they can play with friends. Tom Gerbicz, a 25-year-old League of Legends player, said he created his first smurf a few years back so he could play with friends new to the game. "Given the notorious community and learning curve, I thought it would help them learn to play without the pressure of playing against higher-skilled players, while still allowing us to play together," Gerbicz said.

He added that he never used the account in ranked play, playing as he normally would, but typically in a more supportive role to let his friends learn the game better. "The main distinction for me is, why are you playing at lower levels?" he said. "If it’s for the kick of an easy victory, it’s a different motivation entirely. I don’t agree with smurfing just to stomp lower-skilled players, as it cheapens the experience for everyone involved."

It was important to many of the 100 or so players who contacted me that their friends be able to play against others just learning the game too. But it’s not only for altruistic reasons: the higher-skilled player using a smurf also ensures that their main account won’t be affected by their lower-level friends weighing them down.

Some people reached out to me and felt like smurfs were a waste of time. Why pay extra money just to preserve your ranking? But for a lot of players, those numbers matter. And having an extra account, whether it’s to use to play with friends who aren't as good as you or just to play without extra pressure, can make a game feel less serious. And then it’s less stressful.

Allison Rossi, a 27-year-old diamond-level Overwatch player, has multiple accounts. Her two main accounts are ranked similarly, but reception from other players makes having separate accounts useful. "The benefit of a new account was that nobody was forcing me to play what heroes were technically my mains," Rossi said. "I no longer get comments like, ‘Oh, you have X play time on this hero, so you have to play it. If you don’t play your mains, you’re throwing.’"

Rossi said these assumptions based on her hero play time happened most on her main account when she used voice chat—players heard a woman’s voice and made assumptions that she can only play supports.

Another benefit, Rossi said, is that she’s not ruining other people’s games by trying out heroes she doesn’t know how to play. Sure, she could jump into quick play, but Rossi said it’s a "terrible" place to practice Overwatch. "There’s no coordination, communication, or team building," Rossi said. "It’s about picking whatever you want. How can I possibly learn to practice a newly-released hero in that environment?" Instead, she uses her lower-level practice account for trying out heroes in ranked games. 

Things are slightly different for professional players. "It’s almost impossible for me to play [Rainbow Six Siege] without getting recognized, meaning my teammates will never shout at me or harass me, which I’m thankful for," said Rainbow Six Siege pro player Niclas "Pengu" Mouritzen, who plays for top Siege team G2 Esports. But the bad comes with the good: "My opponents often try extremely hard to beat me, which is a double-edged sword. I like a challenge, but I don’t want the entire purpose and reward of the game to change simply because I’m in it. What about my teammates?"

Anonymity also is an outlet for pro players to try out new heroes or strategies secretly. Pengu said that it was once common in games like League of Legends for pros to smurf to try out champions without airing their test runs to the world. Likewise, pros often use smurf accounts to try out the meta a few ranks down from the top—an interesting way to develop and learn from off-meta trends in other ranks.

"Going a few ELO steps down to experience the 'off-meta' or lower ELO meta surely won’t hurt and can be learned from in multiple games," Pengu said. "Often at the highest ranks, it’s a very strict meta, [with players] being forced to do certain things simply because it’s 'better.'"

For most of us, anonymity isn’t a problem. There’s no one who wants to steal my gold-level strats. (But if any Overwatch League teams want to learn my solo Mei strategy, hit me up. It works.) No one notices when they’re matched with me in-game—unless someone recognizes my brilliance from a previous game. ("Hey, aren’t you the idiot who kept trying to lone wolf it with Mei last round?") But for professional players, the anonymity can ease some of the pressure of public life on the ladder.

How developers deal with smurfing

Not all developers are taking the same approach when it comes to dealing with smurfing. In Overwatch, Blizzard doesn't consider smurfing inherently bad. It only becomes a punishable offense when a smurf account is used to do things that are against the rules, like boosting or throwing.

Game director Jeff Kaplan wrote in 2017 that there’s a bad perception of smurfing, but in reality, it wasn't really an issue in Overwatch. Kaplan defined smurfing as "an experienced player buying a second account to reset their account progress and internal matchmaking rating."

"For example, a few weeks ago one of the pro Overwatch players created a smurf account and was streaming from it," Kaplan wrote. "We were able to watch his MMR internally and compare it against his ‘main’ account. Within 15 games, the MMRs were equal. I know there is a very bad perception of smurfing. But the reality is [that] skilled players are moved rapidly out of lower skill situations."

In Overwatch's case, a smurf mainly becomes problematic when it’s used to do things that are against the rules. Say, a high-leveled player throws games to keep the MMR low on a smurf account so they can keep crushing low-level players. Or they go on a rampage with a fresh account to boost lower-skilled players into higher tiers.

Other studios aren't as forgiving. Rocket League developer Psyonix has listed smurfing as cheating in a 2016 banning policy notice posted on its website and it is something players can report in-game.

"The length of player bans for any valid reason is also at our discretion and could include permanent bans if appropriate," Psyonix wrote. "Furthermore, the more often you are banned, the longer each subsequent ban will be, including an eventual permanent ban."

Players on the game’s Steam forum, still, are confused whether it’s against the rules or not—smurfing is hard to prove, which makes it a grey area for many. Psyonix declined to be interviewed for this article.

Riot Games has been more explicit in not endorsing smurfing in its game, but hasn't banned the practice altogether, either. League of Legends lead meta game systems designer Ed Altorfer says that smurfs are defined as something "you’re doing whenever you create a second (or third, or fourth) account to play on." Altorfer said that only a minority of players use smurf accounts to "stomp low skill games or grief without repercussions," and that there are plenty of good reasons to create a smurf, including trying out new champions or being nostalgic for the early progression of the game.

Like in Overwatch, playing with lower-level friends is another reason people make smurfs in League of Legends. League of Legends restricts low level players from playing with higher level accounts. Accounts are free, so making a new one is painless.

"Regardless of the reasons for smurfing, my opinion is that overall it makes the experience worse for other players," Altorfer said. "In a competitive game like League, we rely on matchmaking to put you into games you have a fair shot at winning. In order for us to do that, we use your hidden matchmaking rating, which is a number that describes how good you are based on all the matches you’ve played. When a player plays on a different account, we don’t have any of that information, so we have to recalculate it from scratch over many games. That hurts our ability to make fair games in the meantime, which makes games feel more frustrating and less winnable."

Public perception swings wildly in both directions, with some vehemently against smurfing—convinced it ruins all their games—and others who openly smurf for a ton of different reasons. Not all of those reasons are malicious, but there's no grey area for folks who smurf solely for personal gratification—as Pengu put it, "pro players smurfing in the lowest rank to feel good because they can 1v5."