Microsoft has confirmed that it will not be involving Minecraft creator Marcus "Notch" Persson in the game's official 10th anniversary celebrations, due to his controversial "comments and opinions".

Notch released Minecraft to the public on 17th May 2009, and Microsoft - which bought the rights to the game in 2014 for $2.5 billion USD - will be celebrating the blockbuster's first decade next month. It's set to host a special press event at Minecraft developer Mojang's Stockholm studio on 17th May, focussing on the "past, present and exciting future".

Although Notch has had no involvement with Minecraft since selling the game five years ago, some wondered if Microsoft would be extending an invitation to the man responsible for creating the global phenomenon on its 10th birthday - particularly in light of events last month, when Microsoft appeared to be taking steps to distance the Minecraft brand from its maker.

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Phenomenally popular farm-life sim Stardew Valley's next major update is on the horizon, and developer Eric "ConcernedApe" Barone is starting to open up about what's in store - including a new farm map and more.

Stardew Valley's forthcoming update, if you haven't been keeping track of your version numbers, will be known as 1.4 (1.3, you might recall, added a very-long-awaited multiplayer mode to the game) and Barone describes it as "a big one".

Part of its various additions include a brand-new farm map titled Four Corners, which will be available both in multiplayer and solo games. And if you're curious, there's the tiniest glimpse of its layout in the screenshot below, first shared on Barone's Twitter feed.

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A raft of deals awaits in the Green Man Gaming Spring Sale, including decent discounts on the likes of Nioh and Darksiders 3 and plenty of titles under 10 - and even beneath 5. Lets take a look at the best PC games deals in the Green Man Gaming Spring Sale, with prices descending from top to bottom.

First up, brutal, mythic adventure Nioh: Complete Edition is half-price currently at 20. As one of Green Man's Best of the Sale titles, you can also nab an extra 15 per cent off with code BESTOF.

You can also enjoy homicide and murderous fish with Hitman 2 for 31.49 - a slight departure from its usual 45 price tag.

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When the Carlton dance was refused copyright approval back in February, I thought we might finally be free of the Fortnite emote lawsuits. And yet here I am, writing about yet another case against Epic Games.

Instead of copyright claims, however, this one's a little different - with the focus this time being on misappropriation of identity.

Leo Pellegrino, who's the saxophonist of brass house group Too Many Zooz, is known for his zany dance moves while performing. You can take a look at these here:

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Humble has teamed up with board game legends Asmodee for a raft of dice deals. As a result, you can nab 10 top-notch digital board games for under a tenner over at the Humble Store for the next eight days.

This includes the likes of Scythe, Carcassonne, Ticket to Ride and Mysterium. Let's take a look at the splendid games available as part of a Humble bundle right now.

For a mere 78p ($1) you can build a vast railroad with the legendary Ticket to Ride, lead your family members to the sweet respite of death in the blackly comic Gloom: Digital Edition, strategically seduce a princess in Love Letter and duke it out during the Cold War with Twilight Struggle.

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Who would win in a fight out of Zeus and a mammoth? Minotaurs against halflings? Snake archers against potion sellers? They're the showdowns society yearns for but history denies... no longer! Now we have Totally Accurate Battle Simulator.

It's not accurate, of course - no one describes anything as "totally" with a straight face. And TABS, as everyone calls it, doesn't have a straight face. It has a googly-eyes and lollops like a drunken marionette. It is a raspberry in the face of serious army-commanding games and I love it for it.

TABS is so simple to play. You spend points to build an army, place it, then sit back and watch the fight - you don't control anything in real-time other than the camera. What's in your army depends on how many points you have to spend. You might spend 2230 points on a mammoth, for instance, or use the same amount to buy four flying Valkyrie - they're a bloody nuisance. Or you might spend 4000 points on two Zeus-es, or 4200 on three scarecrow, which are better than they sound.

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In many ways, FromSoftware games are inextricably intertwined with speedrunning and challenge runs. Perhaps it's the fact they're designed to be difficult that makes series veterans long for an even greater challenge, or maybe players create almost insurmountable obstacles purely for the sake of their viewers' entertainment. Either way, Dark Souls and Bloodborne have retained their relevance for years post-release thanks to these self-sacrificing runners. It's no wonder, then, the speedrunning scene in Sekiro is already shaping up nicely.

Souls veteran LobosJR has been running FromSoftware games for years, even having completed runs without healing or levelling up. Although he's a talented speedrunner, he's perhaps best known for his challenge runs, during which he outlines a strict list of rules he must abide by. One of the most iconic examples of this was when he completed Dark Souls using only his character's fists.

"What I love about From's games are their core combat mechanics, and Sekiro has taken these to the next level," Lobos explains. "By basing the combat on 'deflecting', the equivalent of parrying in Souls, fighting has evolved to fast-paced back and forth with an enemy... mastering the combat is trickier than ever, and trying to learn enemy AI is more intriguing."

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Mortal Kombat 11 has been out a week, and PC gamers have found much to love - and much that's frustrating - about NetherRealm's latest fighting game.

One of the things that's frustrated PC gamers is a 30fps cap for specific parts of Mortal Kombat 11, including the menus, the fight intros, Fatal Blows (high-damage cinematic combos) and Fatalities.

Mortal Kombat 11 runs at 60fps during fights across all platforms, including Nintendo Switch (for more on this, check out Digital Foundry's report), but the frame-rate drops down to 30fps for Fatal Blows and Fatalities so, as NetherRealm has previously explained, the developers can craft better-looking moves that are consistent across all the platforms the game is available on.

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What's that? Minecraft villagers are sleepy, boring characters peacefully living out their lives in little hamlets? Not so, thanks to the latest Minecraft Village and Pillage update, which has given the citizens of Minecraft a new lease of life thanks to some significant AI changes. They're perhaps taking the title a little too literally, in fact, as villagers are now breaking into homes to steal player beds and crops.

Update 1.14 now allows villagers to sleep in beds, and also gives them schedules to follow - which includes sleeping in said beds at nighttime. Seemingly the villagers are so determined to stick to these schedules they will stop at nothing to reach their destination.
As spotted by Kotaku, several Minecraft players have taken to Reddit seeking advice on how to evict their pesky neighbors.

"I was checking out the new 1.14 update when this villager somehow wandered over to my house from the village over 100 blocks away and he's now claimed my crops as his own," one player opined. "How do I get him to leave without hitting him?"

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PlayStation 4-exclusive Days Gone has secured the biggest physical sales launch of the year so far in the UK.

Impressively for a new intellectual property, Days Gone beat the sales of Capcom's Resident Evil 2 and Ubisoft's Far Cry: New Dawn and The Division 2. However, Days Gone's launch sales come in under those of fellow PS4-exclusives God of War and Spider-Man.

Elsewhere, NetherRealm's fighting game entered the UK physical sales chart in second place, while last week's number one, World War Z, drops to number 10. Mortal Kombat 11's physical launch sales are almost half those of 2015's Mortal Kombat X, but it's worth noting download sales are a much bigger piece of the overall sales pie these days (Chart-Track's data does not include download sales, so sales for games on the likes of the PlayStation Store and Steam are not included). More relevant, perhaps, Mortal Kombat 11 launch sales are a tad up on 2017's Injustice 2 - NetherRealm's other fighting game series.

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