Rune 2 – formerly known as Rune: Ragnarok – nearly ready, and now apparently signed up to launch on Epic this summer. Developed by Human Head Games, the long-standing studio probably known best for their work on Prey (the dumb fast shooter one with the portals, not the other one) are returning to their roots. Now officially a numbered sequel, it’s a Viking-themed mythological hack n’ slasher, full of beefy people swinging axes at giants, dragons and other beasties. Below, a trailer showing off some demon-bothering action as the game heads towards launch.

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Future-robosport programming game Gladiabots launches today after a trip through early access. Developed by GFX47, it’s a hands-off strategy game. You line up your squad of 4-8 killbots, painstakingly program their AI to fit the play-mode, wind them up and let them go. Intimidating as that sounds, it’s accessible even for people who have never written a line of code, with a flowchart-based programming interface and plenty of tutorials and solo challenges. Multiplayer is also asynchronous, so there’s no butting heads – just testing your code against someone else’s. See the launch trailer below.

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Always ones to have their eye on new niches, GOG – once focused on the preservation and distribution of old DOS games – have just announced that their Galaxy launcher is getting an overhaul. Galaxy 2.0, as they’re calling it, claims to keep track of your entire games library whether it’s on Steam, Epic, GOG or even consoles, and act as a universal launcher for PC games. An ambitious new feature, and if it actually works it could be a useful piece of software to have around. Sadly, we’ll be waiting a while longer, as GOG have only just started taking beta testing sign-ups for the new version here.

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Lightweight and cartoony free-to-play Monster Hunter-alike Dauntless has made the leap from a long open beta to cross-platform launch today. Releasing simultaneously on PC, Xbox One and PS4 (with a Switch version due later), players are free to use one account to play on all systems, and party up with people on other platforms. For us on PC, the biggest change is Phoenix Labs making the short hop onto the Epic Games Store, where Dauntless fits in quite nicely alongside the similarly styled Fortnite. Below, a launch trailer.

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While Bus Simulator 18 hasn’t captured my heart in the same way as American Truck Simulator, I’m fond enough of it to return to the nonspecific European city of Seaside Valley for its first expansion. Released today, it expands the map with new areas: a picturesque mountain village along winding roads in the countryside, the airport, and the city’s “tech hub” district. I will relish this opportunity to prove to techfaces that busses are great so screw your exploitative car app. Once I’m done banging and scraping the bus around trying to get a good view of the scenery.

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Look, I’m very busy again today. I’m back from being on holiday and nothing is finished, and I have to stay late tonight for unrelated reasons anyway. I don’t understand those people who are like, “Oh I made a lemon drizzle cake when I got home, because I had a spare hour.” HOW? And, when you have a spare hour, how do you stop yourself from lying on your bed watching a TV show you have already seen?

Luckily Marty Burnham The Moon Witch has nothing but> time, so I used the visit today for an extremely quick bit of attempted meditation.

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The rise of Advance Wars-alikes on PC continues later this year with Tiny Metal: Full Metal Rumble. Sequel to Area 35’s original Tiny Metal (released in late 2017), it looks like more of the same – chunky polygon graphics wrapped around a familiar light strategy formula and an overbearingly anime storyline. This time round, they’re adding big stompy warbots to the unit list. Beyond mechs making everything automatically better, the sequel boasts a campaign double the length of the original plus 77 skirmish maps, with details on multiplayer coming later. Below, an awkwardly narrated trailer.

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Last time on Wastes Of Space: The RPS crew managed to firm up their toehold in the alien hills of Horace s World, under the tutelage of their peculiar assistance droid, ODD. Survey Officer Ligz went on an ill-fated mineral-seeking expedition, Science Officer Cox decided he was a god, and the increasingly authoritarian Security Officer Crowley used all the crew s metal to make a hooning great space prison. >

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Codemasters will whip the dust sheet off their Grid racing series in September with a new game named simply Grid (technically, 2008’s series-starting game known commonly as Grid was Race Driver: Grid). It’s been five years since, Grid: Autosport, the last game in their multidisciplinary racing series.

If you want to go parp parp now, hey, 2013’s Grid 2 is free for keepsies on Steam for another few hours. QUICK!

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Fortnite’s Fortbyte challenges have been going for nearly three weeks now and today asks you to get excited about ice cream. Found west of the racetrack, the ice cream shop has been modernised a little bit, but is in the same place it’s always been. If you know where to look, and we will tell you where to look, then this should be an easy challenge to complete, but note that you will need the Battle Pass for this one. New challenges unlock every day or so, requiring some specific conditions to unlock. There are a hundred in total and I will be going over all of them. Wish me luck.

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