The Hunt: Showdown 6.0 update is now live, and that means that the Assassin, a new boss announced at the beginning of April, is now roaming free in the Louisiana swamps. The Assassin is a fast-moving creature made from rags and bugs—a bit like Ragman, from the sound of it, but without the chiseled pecs or rigid moral imperative—that uses vertical surfaces to enhance its mobility and can temporarily clone itself to cause twice the headaches for hunters. 

"The Assassin is the product born from a lot of investigation into what bosses mean to Hunt in its current state, since the previous two boss targets were created, the game has shifted a lot to build a better core experience," developer Crytek explained. "With this in mind, we wanted to approach the issues that came out of the other bosses and see where we can build a benchmark that offers a few things; a challenge to new and old players, a balance between boss PvE engagement and the ever looming PvP, and something unique to set each boss apart." 

Early iterations of the Assassin behaved much differently from the final version, as ideas that sounded cool in theory proved "unreadable and annoying to play" when the bullets actually started flying. Crytek ultimately opted for something dangerous but also reasonably manageable: It "will use its behaviors in specific ways to punish the unprepared and reward those who keep calm and pay attention to what is about to happen," the developers wrote. 

Also included in the update are new weapons including the LeMat Mark II revolver and Lebel 1886 bolt-action rifle, the Bomb Lance (basically a huge spear that also fires explosive harpoons), a couple of trip mines, and placeable ammo boxes. Three new character traits are also now on tap: 

• Ghoul: With the Ghoul trait, players instantly heal 50 hitpoints when looting a dead Hunter
• Vulture: The Vulture trait allows players to always loot dead Hunters they come across, even if they had already been looted by other players
• Adrenaline: Adrenaline enables players to instantly start recharging stamina when their health is critically low

There's the usual big pile of bug fixes and updates as well, including one interesting-sounding change that prevents "burning or burned-out" hunters from being looted, which Crytek described as "an attempt to introduce more choice into existing player actions."

"Now players will have to consider whether it makes sense to burn a downed player. If they burn them, they lose the chance to loot the body. If they don't, that player's partner might have a chance to go for a revive," Crytek said. "Burning should no longer be the given default choice"

Similarly, looting downed hunters is now a "hold interaction" that takes four seconds to complete, the same length of time required for a revive: "Looting is just as risky as reviving, preventing players from looting a downed hunter quickly and then setting the body on fire anyway."

The Hunt: Showdown 6.0 patch notes are available in full on Steam.

No expansions have been announced yet for Sekiro: Shadows Die Twice, but FromSoft's previous games, Dark Souls and Bloodborne, have received important story expansions. They tend to tie up a lot of dangling story points (while delivering some exceptional boss fights and beautiful new areas), and Sekiro certainly has plenty of mysteries to explore. Let's take a guess at some new places a Sekiro expansion could go. Fingers crossed there's one in development!

Warning: the following contains a ton of spoilers for all of Sekiro: Shadows Die Twice.

To the past, to visit Tomoe

Hat tip to the Sekiro wiki for the video.

You hear about Tomoe quite a lot throughout the game, in ability descriptions and booze chats, and in Genichiro’s second form when he uses Tomoe’s lightning techniques. She was a powerful warrior, almost able to outclass Isshin, and she either found a way to reach the Fountainhead Palace or originated from there. She appears to be dead during the events of Sekiro: Shadows Die Twice, but as the Hirata Estate area shows, From games can easily travel through time. 

Dark Souls and Bloodborne's expansions both served as prequels. There's clearly a lot of history between the Owl, Lady Butterfly, Isshin and Tomoe that a Sekiro expansion could really dig into, but Tomoe is the most mysterious of the bunch. Was she a human who managed to reach the Fountainhead Palace, or one of the Okami? Why did she teach Genichiro her arts, and what was her clan like? What was her relationship to Takeru and why did he take the branch to the mortal realm? An expansion could tie a few of these questions up, and Tomoe would probably make for a great boss fight.

To the era of Isshin's prime

If you side with the Owl when he asks you to betray the young lord, you learn that Isshin and Emma are obsessed with killing Shura. Shura are individuals who have fallen into a killing frenzy and are on a path to demonhood. If you reach one of the longer endings you discover that the Sculptor's visions of rising flames were a prophecy forseeing his transformation into a fiery demon of hatred. In the Shura ending Sekiro's left arm catches alight and he goes on to kill thousands throughout Japan.

This is interesting because Isshin makes several references to having faced Shura before. He's also credited with building the Ashina clan up and squashing rebellions during his prime. Who were the shura that Isshin hunted in this era? In the main game you can wheedle a few secrets out of him if you give him enough booze, but I'd take an expansion that explores his past in more detail.

To the west

In one of Sekiro's endings the Wolf leaves Japan with the Divine Child and makes for the west to "the birthplace of the Divine Dragon". That's a great setup for a sequel, but an expansion could cover it too. The setup has obvious parallels to  Journey to the West. Could we see Sekiro travel to China?

'The west' is rarely mentioned in the game, except for one curious description explaining that the Divine Dragon came from the west and put down roots in Japan (perhaps because of the area's rich earth, which supposedly attracts gods). Before you fight the dragon's full form you chop through dozes of corrupted, vomiting dragons of the old tree. Is their dragon's sickness caused by the infestation you fight throughout Sekiro, or did the dragon bring it from the west? Why did the dragon travel to Japan in the first place? Why is it, too, missing its left arm? 

An expansion could also do more to explain how the Divine Heirs work, and reveal how immortality, the Palace waters, carps, and Fountainhead nobles all fit together. Failing that, an expansion could always go deeper into the Divine Realm, which would mean more gorgeous palaces and cool gods to fight.

For more on the game, check out our roundup of the best Sekiro mods, and catch a glimpse of the upcoming Sekiro manga spin-off, which looks excellent.

Wibbly-wobbly physics puzzler World of Goo is free on the Epic Games Store now, and in a couple of weeks it will be followed by spooky narrative experiment Stories Untold. 

World of Goo has been around for so long now and has been part of so many sales and bundles that I can't imagine anyone not owning it for multiple devices, but maybe there are still a few of you. You can get it for free between now and May 16. It's good! I mean I don't think I have the energy to play it yet again, but if you've missed it, it's a cracking physics puzzler with loads of character.

Stories Untold is a bit more exciting, though. No Code's eerie compilation is a clever, unique romp that you're absolutely better off experiencing blind. You'll get to fiddle around with archaic machines and in text adventures across four stories, always interacting with chunky bits of tech, from CRT monitors to old radios. Check out Andy's Stories Untold review for more. You'll be able to grab it in a fortnight.

No Code's also working on the intriguing Observation, where you'll play a space station AI that spends it days watching the station's inhabitants. It's due out in May on the Epic Games Store.  

In a frank post on Reddit, Grinding Gear Games co-founder Chris Wilson wrote about the Path of Exile studio's workload, the disappointing Synthesis league and how he won't make the team crunch just to cram more improvements and fixes into a patch. 

"Some studios make their teams work 14 hour days to pack every patch full of the most fixes and improvements possible. Sometimes when we read our own Patch Notes threads and community feedback, we feel that we are being asked to do the same. I will not run this company that way."

Wilson acknowledged that some optional paid overtime is necessary near league updates, but that the majority of the development cycle leaves the team with a "great work/life balance". The result, he explained, was that some improvements take longer to be made. 

The topic of crunch was raised not just because it's something that's being discussed more openly by various studios and individual game workers; Grinding Gear Games also has a pretty full plate and an intimidating schedule. 

The Synthesis update ended up being more work than the team anticipated and wasn't up to the studio's usual standards. Improvements have been made since launch, but Wilson's decided not to merge it into the core game in the next update, which will be revealed in three weeks. 

3.7.0 will introduce a new league with a focus on "repeatable fun", apparently, as well as revamped melee combat. That's what the team's focusing on at the moment, aiming to get the fundamental stuff nailed down as early as possible in the development cycle. Then there's the 4.0.0 mega-expansion, which is taking up a lot of Grinding Gear's time. It's a critical update, explains Wilson. 

On top of the future updates, there's the ExileCon convention due later this year, which will be used to properly announced 4.0.0, and then the game's launch in Korea. 

"All of these areas, from 3.7.0 through to the eventual release of 4.0.0, are going to make massive and lasting fundamental improvements to Path of Exile," Wilson added. But not at the cost of the team's health. 

While players have been critical of Synthesis, the response on Reddit to Wilson's post has been overwhelmingly supportive.

Frontier is swapping roller coasters for slightly more unruly attractions in its latest park management game, Planet Zoo. Instead of just making sure you guests are suitably impressed by the latest high-speed ride, you'll need to care for animals and and their environment. Find out more in our exclusive cover feature.

With Sekiro: Shadows Die Twice now battering and bruising us, we celebrate by getting nostalgic about Dark Souls in our five-part feature. Elsewhere this month, Jeremy Peel chats to Grinding Gear about how the studio created its massive ARPG.  

Joining our early look at Planet Zoo, we've got previews of Shenmue 3, Ancestors: The Humankind Odyssey, Afterparty and more. And there are plenty of reviews this issue, including Sekiro: Shadows Die Twice, Imperator: Rome, Anno 1800 and Heaven's Vault. A lot of fantastic games this month. 

On top of that, we've got your hardware needs covered with our graphics options explained feature, our CPU group test and our buyer's guide. And there's the latest entry in Rick Lane's Dishonored 2 diary, Borderlands 3's reveal and loads more. This month's gifts are an Infernal Axe for Path of Exile and a 32-page retro special, celebrating great moments in PC gaming.

Issue 331 is on shelves now and available on all your digital devices from Google Play, the App Store and Zinio. You can also order direct from My Favourite Magazines or purchase a subscription to save yourself some cash, receive monthly deliveries and marvel at our exclusive subscriber covers. This month's is fierce:

This month

• Andy Kelly visits Planet Zoo in our exclusive-access feature.
• Our five-part Dark Souls celebration.
• The making of Path of Exile. 
• Shenmue 3, Afterparty, Ancestors: The Humankind Odyssey and more previewed.
• Sekiro: Shadows Die Twice, Imperator: Rome, Heaven's Vault and more reviewed.
• Our hardware buyer's guide, CPU group test and graphics options explained.
• And much more!

There are games that leave a lasting impression—stories that will live on in memory for the rest of my life. Rage is not one of those. I couldn't remember anything about the game other than it involved vault-things called Arks being buried in the earth to survive the impact of an asteroid, which of course didn't work out as planned. When Rage 2 was announced, I decided to go back and replay Rage as a refresher. I finished the game when it was new, but besides being surprised that there was no real "big bad boss battle" climax, the main thing I recall is that Rage was the showcase for the id Tech 5 engine.

A big talking point for id Tech 5 back in the day was megatexturing. From a purely technical perspective, megatexturing (or virtual textures) wasn't even new in id Tech 5—it was also used in id Tech 4. But id Tech 5 allowed for textures up to 128Kx128K instead of 32Kx32K in id Tech 4, and more is always better, right? The main goal with megatexturing is to allow artists to build a world without worrying about hardware limitations like VRAM. The game engine streams in the textures as needed (and at quality levels that fit into memory). Every surface can have a unique texture, so you don't get the repeated textures so often seen in other games.

Rage apparently uses 1TB of uncompressed textures, which is a massive figure when you think about it. That's like a single 524288x524288 texture, and I could use up my entire monthly bandwidth allotment just downloading that much data. Rage didn't use a single overarching megatexture—there were multiple 128Kx128K megatextures, each containing the artwork for specific areas like Wellspring, Subway Town, the outdoor desert environment, etc. The problem is that an uncompressed 128Kx128K texture is still 64GiB in size, so HD Photo/JPEG XR is used to heavily compress the megatexture, and then pieces are transcoded on the fly into a usable texture.

Ultimately, Rage ended up being a 20GB install (with 17GB of textures), at a time when 5-10 GB games were the norm. It's use of (mostly) unique textures for every surface made for a more visually interesting environment at times, and even now, eight years later, Rage looks decent. But while the scenery can look good from afar, getting up close to the textures shows some limitations.

The compression lends everything a somewhat grainy look, which is perhaps part of the Rage aesthetic. Look at a wall from across the room and it's not too bad, but get up close to most objects and there's a ton of blur and fuzziness. Character faces and some other objects get higher quality textures, but there's no way to store high resolution textures for every surface (without modern 50GB and larger HD texture packs, at least), and in Rage a lot of objects probably ended up with a 64x64 or even 32x32 slice of the megatexture.

But Rage also forged new territory in other ways. Rage would dynamically scale texture and scene data based on your PC's capabilities, aiming for a steady 60fps experience. I remember playing it on a GTX 580 at launch, and even at 2560x1600 with 8xAA it would run at a steady 60fps. It would also generally run at that same resolution and 60fps on far less capable hardware—though it might not look quite as nice. Today, armed with an RTX 2080 Ti, Rage will still run at 60fps at 4k, and it will also do 60fps at 4k on just about every other dedicated graphics card currently sitting in my benchmark cave (it's like a man cave, for PC hardware nerds).

This got me wondering: How does Rage run on Intel's current integrated graphics? I fired up my trusty Core i7-8700K test system, sans graphics card and using Intel's UHD Graphics 630. Capturing the framerate data was a bit difficult as Rage appears to lock out the keyboard shortcuts for starting/stopping frametime logging (for FRAPS, OCAT, and PresentMon), but I got around that by switching to the desktop, starting the PresentMon capture, and then switching back.

The short summary: Rage is completely playable even on Intel's integrated graphics, running at 1080p and "maximum" quality settings. I get around 48fps on average, and even 1440p plugs along at a reasonable 30fps. Minimum fps does dip into the low 20s at times for 1440p, and 4k drops to 16fps average, but I can't feel too bad. As a comparison point, Borderlands (released two years before Rage) only averages 28fps at 1080p max quality using Intel's UHD 630.

Of course, it really isn't that surprising that Rage works okay on Intel's UHD 630. After all, that's a 1200MHz part with 24 EUs (192 shader cores), which means 460.8 GFLOPS. The PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360 both have about half that level of theoretical performance. Time is the great equalizer of performance.

How does Rage look running on integrated graphics? Only slightly worse than on a much faster GPU, the most noticeable difference being the streaming in of textures when you turn quickly, and that only lasts for a fraction of a second.

I mean that literally: I captured a video of Rage running on UHD 630 while spinning quickly outside, because I couldn't snap screenshots fast enough. It takes at most about five frames to go from the blurry initial image to the "final" image shown in the above gallery (note that a lot of additional compression artifacts are visible in the above gallery because I had to resort to using screenshots from a video source). On a modern dedicated GPU, it's 1-2 frames at most, and usually only the first time you see a texture.

Ultimately, for me Rage was more interesting from a technical perspective. It was the first id Tech 5 game, but its implementation had some clear flaws. Later id Tech 5 games would remove the fps limit, or at least increase it (eg, Dishonored 2 has a 120fps cap, though you can get around that with Nvidia cards by forcing vsync off). id Tech 5 was also the last of John Carmack's engines, as id Tech 6 was developed after his departure and changed many elements of the engine, though megatexturing remains. Ultimately, like other id Tech engines, id Tech 5 didn't see widespread use.

Perhaps more surprising is that Rage 2 will ditch id Tech completely and go with Avalanche Studios's Apex engine, from the Just Cause series. That should be good for the open world gameplay, and I'm planning to run a full performance analysis when it arrives on May 14.

Update: After some confusion over whether Rocket League will be removed from Steam later this year, Epic has told USGamer "We are continuing to sell Rocket League on Steam, and have not announced plans to stop selling the game there. Rocket League remains available for new purchasers on Steam, and long-term plans will be announced in the future." 

In a tweet, Psyonix said that "anyone who owns Rocket League through Steam can still play it and can look forward to continued support."

Original story: Epic Games is in the process of acquiring Rocket League developer Psyonix, the companies announced today.

Before any of my fellow Rocket League players panic: This doesn't mean Rocket League is leaving Steam, where its entire PC playerbase currently lives. In the short term, nothing is changing, and Rocket League is still available for purchase on Steam.

The long term picture is a little different, but still nothing to panic over right now. Rocket League will release on the Epic Store later this year, and after that, "it will continue to be supported on Steam for all existing purchasers." The wording there suggests that, at some point, newcomers to Rocket League will have to buy it through the Epic Store, but us Steam folk can stay put. (Note: As per the update above, it may actually continue to be sold on Steam indefinitely—it's not clear yet.)

If Rocket League were to cease Steam sales but continue to be supported there, I wonder how Valve would feel about that deal. Valve would continue to make money from existing Steam players who spend money within Rocket League—buying keys for the premium Rocket Passes, for instance—but it'd still be a weird situation. We'll have to wait and see how that develops. 

It isn't stated in the press release, but we can also expect Epic's cross-platform friends and matchmaking system to be implemented so that Steam players can play with Epic Store players, along with all of the console players we can already play with.

In a Q&A on the Rocket League website, Psyonix states that the gameplay won't be changing—not that I'd expect it to because of the acquisition—but that the new ownership should bolster the competitive scene with new resources for esports events.

Psyonix will stay in its San Diego studio, where it currently employs 132 people. The developer has a history of working with Epic—as the press release mentions, it worked on the Gears of War and Unreal Tournament series—so perhaps this shouldn't come as a surprise. (I'm a little surprised!)

My hope for my favorite game is that Epic's resources will be used to improve the servers. When I'm partied-up in Snow Day (the best mode) with friends scattered across North America, we either end up on a west coast or east coast server—there aren't any central servers, so one player ends up with a much worse ping than the others. Fingers crossed that Epic's considerable Fortnite infrastructure can be put to use in that respect.

The deal isn't quite settled yet, but all that's left are formalities, it sounds like. "Epic and Psyonix currently expect to close the acquisition at the end of May or early June 2019, subject to customary closing conditions," reads the press release.

Automachef approaches the art of cooking like an engineer. It's a cooking puzzle game, though quite a bit different from its fellow Team17-published culinary experiment, Overcooked. To make all these salads and burgers, you'll need to build a manufacturing behemoth evocative of Factorio and Big Pharma, programming machines to do all the dirty work. 

While you're plonking down machines and linking them together to conjure up a meal to tantalise the taste buds, you'll also have to keep an eye on your ingredients, watch energy consumption, make good use of limited space and try to stop things from catching on fire. You also need to tell all these machines what to do, using assembly code to give them commands. 

It sounds like a lot of work to make some fast food, but it's good to see that humans still have a role, even in robotic kitchens. When kitchens learn to programme themselves, that's when we might as well just accept extinction.  

Alongside the campaign, you'll be able to build a business in Contracts mode, and then there's the Test Site mode for when you just want to experiment. And if you create a particularly excellent production line, you'll be able to save it and plonk it down in another kitchen.

Frankly, I'm shocked to discover that there's more to a kitchen than a filthy microwave and many surfaces upon which I can place half-empty pizza boxes. I feel like a whole new world has opened up for me, and thankfully it's still one where I don't technically need to do any cooking myself. Perfect. 

Automachef is due out in the summer. 

Halo: The Master Chief Collection's public testing phase has been pushed back, but in the meantime 343 Industries and Splash Damage have revealed a great deal about what they're working on and their aims for the PC version. While the "core gameplay" is being left alone, there's still going to be plenty that's new, including an overhauled UI, lots of control options and a progression system inspired by Halo: Reach. 

"Our philosophy is that a straight port from console to PC just doesn’t cut it," writes Tyler Davis 343's community support coordinator. "MCC needs to be authentic to Halo and the PC platform. The team has greater ambitions and we know PC gamers demand, and expect, more than that."

Transforming it into a PC game has, at times, proved to be more challenging than expected. It's one of the reasons testing has been delayed. 

"Even though the games are older, there’s still a lot there: eight game releases, and over 7 terabytes of data," explains senior producer George Wright. "There are multiple game engines, even non-Halo specific engines, with their own differing programming styles, and contributions have been made by various dev teams over the years. This means that there’s a lot of complex content to analyse before we could properly get started."

A lot of progress has been made despite the complexities, according to the devs, with the input system and UI being a major focus. Expect remappable controls, minimal input latency, reworked menus and text chat, along with other new features.  

One of these new features is a progression system. It will be straightforward, promises Wright, and will let players track their progress and unlock rewards. The team has more plans for progression, too, but it's not giving much away. Design director Max Szlagor adds a few more details, however, and says that the goal is to "deliver a system that captures the spirit of progression in Halo: Reach but delivers it in a more modern way." That will include levelling and seasons. 

It's a meaty developer update, so give it a read while we wait for testing to begin. Unfortunately, there are no dates yet. 

Update, 5/1/2019, 10:00 am, PDT: I've received a statement back from Marko Grgurovic of Triternion that better outlines Mordhau's server issues and how the team is addressing them. 

"Part of our server infrastructure couldn't handle the large amount of requests involving rewards, so it got slowed down to a crawl. We've been doing maintenance and upgrades and optimizations throughout the whole day and night, and it's doing much better now. Of course at the same time we also hit a new all-time high of concurrent numbers, so it can be a bit of an uphill battle, because we're a tiny studio with only two programmers on the team. The rewards have been top-priority, so we've lowered the official 64 player servers to 48 while we work on that, it helps keep them under control, but not entirely (some regions fare better) -- servers will be tackled next and once we get them in order we will be bringing them back up to 64 players as well as adding more. I wouldn't be able to give you an exact time on these, we're more or less working nonstop on getting them resolved and monitoring the situation."

To summarize, Grgurovic says Triternion's first priority is to fix the rewards and progression bugs, then improve the server stability to eliminate lag spikes and bring the player counts back up to 64 players. Finally, it'll begin working on matchmaking and server browser improvements.

Original story: Mordhau, a first-person medieval combat game where you can decapitate one another with polearms, is a very fun game. It's also very laggy. Since it launched yesterday and has crawled up to become Steam's global top seller, Mordhau's servers are buckling under the weight of all those would-be knights trying to stab one another. It's really spoiling the fun of its extremely deep combat.

Developed by indie studio Triternion, Mordhau is a lot like Chivalry. Its best mode is a 64-player team death match with a series of objectives to fight over and a very funny battle royale mode that inevitably comes down to who can get a horse first. But unlike Chivalry or Mount and Blade's multiplayer modes, Mordhau also offers extremely robust character customization and very fatal combat with a variety of weapons. Also dismemberment. Lots of dismemberment.

As you can expect, nuanced first-person melee combat—where a single well-timed swing can lop your head off—requires a stable internet connection to work well. But, right now, Mordhau's servers just aren't up to the task. Since it launched yesterday, servers have been plagued by excessively high and constantly fluctuating ping and some bugs that weren't awarding players with gold or experience points.

Triternion has acknowledged the issues and released several hotfixes, including one that temporarily has dropped the servers down to 48 players instead of 64. But after playing a few rounds this afternoon, things still aren't good. My connection is far more reliable, but the high latency still makes combat often feel unresponsive and weightless.

It's gotten to the point where I'm a bit frustrated with Mordhau. There's clearly a good game here and the few times I've been on a server with good latency has been really fun. Someone hit me with a throwing axe and I pulled it out of my chest and threw it back at them. The subreddit is also overflowing with amazing clips of gory beheadings or hilarious shenanigans. But until the servers start working better, I think those who haven't yet bought Mordhau should wait to see if it improves.

The good news is that Triternion seems to be making progress very quickly. The difference between launch day and today are noticeable, so I hope tomorrow things are even smoother. But until we know for sure, buyer beware.

I've reached out to Triternion to get some clarity around the server issues and timeline for expected fixes. I'll update this post if I hear back.