I have mentioned before how much I love the big buff mercenary gal of Assassin s Creed Odyssey, Kassandra. She is a holy terror and can crush anyone who steps to her, like a toddler squeezing play dough in their fist until it all squishes out the sides between their fingers. Kassandra stands a full head taller than most regular citizens of Greece, because she is superior to them in every way.

Thus, I relished the chance to do more adventuring as Kassandra in the new DLC, The Fate Of Atlantis. This one adds a whole brand spanking new area to run about in, which is ideal because my Kassandra had long since monstered every island Ancient Greece had to offer. So off we went to the fields of Elysium.

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As cheapskate circus owner Larson E. Whipsnade famously said, you can’t cheat an honest man*. You also can’t cheat Respawn Entertainment, because they will find out and ban you from Apex Legends. Or so they say: that’s the main takeaway from their wee developer update on cheaters and spammers, who Respawn have been cracking down on like a lion loose in a hot-air balloon. I dunno. I don’t watch many films.

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Project Hospital is a very realistic hospital game that looks a lot like Habbo. But the problem is, hospitals aren t very fun places to be, are they? Which is why games like Two Point Hospital make them humorous and less realistic, because depending on the reason you re in hospital, they tend to exist for bad things, right? Not always, I mean you could be having a child I suppose, or some life-changing surgery, but I ve never been to a hospital for something good. Last time I was in hospital was for an allergy test. Having tiny little needles pricking your arm, and then hanging around and waiting for a reaction is not the most fun I ve had (turns out, I m not allergic to anything, despite an horrific reaction to something> a few Gamescoms ago).

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Money clearly doesn’t make the world go round, because industrial tycoon game Rise Of Industry is made entirely out of chunky, angular polygons. Developed by Dapper Penguin Games and launching out of early access today after four years in production. It’s a game all about supply chains and keeping production up to match demand, like a more zoomed-in Anno game. Instead of building cities, those grow naturally around you, as little invisible computer people offer fat sacks of cash for goods. Players build the transportation and production chains that allow those goods to be made. See how it works in the launch trailer and v1.0 dev summary below.

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Alien-mashing strategy sequel The Red Solstice 2: Survivors is due out later this year, and is far along enough in production now to show off. The first Red Solstice was based directly on the Night Of The Dead mods for Warcraft 3, a tactical squad monster mash that could be described as a one-sided MOBA these days. Ironward’s upcoming sequel is broadening its scope, offering similar real-time co-op (or solo with slow-mo) tactics, but attaching it to a dynamic campaign map inspired by XCOM, with your forces trying to push back a tide of mutant biomass devouring Mars. See the trailer below.

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World War Z doesn’t have an original bone in its body, but I think that’s okay, because it’s a shameless Left 4 Dead tribute in a world that’s been waiting for a sequel for a decade now. As with its primary inspiration, Saber Interactive have some big free updates planned for the game, including new missions, difficulty levels, game modes and features. I admit that I’m a little surprised at how successful the game has been, considering how little interest people seemed to have in the lead-up to launch, but it’s good to see the studio committing to a protracted zombie siege.

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Matthew Holland never planned to add his dogs to Divinity: Original Sin 2. It happened on a lark, but turned into a wholesome story about his two canine companions. Holland worked as a scripter at Larian, the studio behind the fantasy RPG. While they were designing Fort Joy, an introductory island prison, the team came up with a quest about two separated dogs who wanted to find one another. At the time, their names were just “Dog A” and “Dog B”. While brainstorming with lead writer Sarah Baylus, Holland jokingly pitched the names of his two dogs, Buddy and Emily. The names stuck and Buddy became the lonely dog on the beach at Fort Joy who was missing his partner, Emmie. Although they planned a golden retriever modeled after the real Buddy, it turned out that a golden dog on a white beach wasn’t so easy to see. Buddy became a black labrador in-game, but his personality stayed golden.

But Divinity: Original Sin 2 is not the only game to immortalise its developers pets. It turns out videogames are full of cat cameos and designer s dogs. Some are sentimental tributes to pets that have died while others are loving takedowns of catty behavior, but they are all lasting memories of some furry best friends.

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If you own Final Fantasy XIV on the Square-Enix store (as opposed to Steam), you can claim the increasingly popular MMORPG’s first expansion, Heavensward, free here until June 27th. FFXIV is gearing up for the release of its third major expansion, Shadowbringers, but thanks to the game’s commitment to a linear story, unless you don’t care about the plot (you should) you’re best off getting the expansions in order anyway. Today is also the last day that Twitch Prime subscribers (and free trial users) can claim a ‘free’ copy of the base game here, compatible with this giveaway.

Note: You may need to pick your Square-Enix store region to see the giveaway. Click the flag button in the top right corner of the page. Also, if you do buy an expansion later, the upcoming Shadowbringers comes with Stormblood (required to access it) free.

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If you’ve been thinking about upgrading your graphics card recently, you’ve probably been watching Nvidia’s new budget-oriented GTX 16-series pretty closely. Based on Nvidia’s new Turing GPU but without all the expensive RTX gubbins like DLSS support and dedicated ray tracing cores, the 200 / $220 GTX 1660 and 260 / $280 GTX 1660 Ti have both become quite formidable cards over the last couple of months, with the latter occupying multiple spots over in my best graphics card list.

But now there’s a new 16-series card in town: the even cheaper GTX 1650. Priced at just 139 / $149, this GTX 1050 and GTX 1050 Ti successor is a 1080p card through and through, offering 60fps on Medium to High settings in a range of today’s biggest and most demanding games. This won’t be for those after the best speeds on the very top quality settings at this resolution, but if you’re not fussed about having the shiniest polygons and don’t want to spend more than 150 / $150, the GTX 1650 could be what you’ve been waiting for.

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Today Marty Burnham The Moon Witch, and consequently I, am/are/is contemplating her place in the universe. I’m not prepared for the existential wallop of doing that, to be honest.

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