A lot has happened since I last wrote about Sekiro, where I'd survived the brutal encounter against Genichiro Ashina and learned how to actually play the game. Not only did I finish From Software's latest—after, I'd say, 30-40 attempts to kill Isshin the Sword Saint, the game's final boss—but I've reached Isshin again on New Game Plus. I've killed the Demon of Hatred, the optional, bullshit boss, in both playthroughs. I've killed Owl (Father) in the alternate version of Hirata Estate. I've killed every anus-snatching Headless, and every bullshit purple warrior guy, mostly because I took someone's advice and bought the Lilac Umbrella. I can now bully most of the bosses who used to bully me. This was the first From Software game I ever played for more than a few hours. I adored it.  

I probably won't play it again after this, because it's been over 70 hours and I'm ready for something else. The experience of mastering Sekiro has been incredibly rewarding, though—not just learning how to parry perfectly or take apart complicated bosses, but in my interactions with other people who are playing the game on Twitter. Even though I've seen a storm of elitism on the internet around Soulslike games, captured in depressing detail by the internet garbage 'You cheated not only yourself' meme that followed James's Sekiro mod piece, in my bubble, at the very least, I've had so many good interactions around Sekiro.

Photographer Gareth Dutton, who makes the Making Games is Fun podcast, has been one of my Sekiro dads. He coached me through the Lady Butterfly fight, arguably the game's first big hurdle. 

He weighed in every step of the way after that, too. And so did my other Sekiro dad, Sam Smith, who I once hired as a writer on an old PlayStation magazine, and who used to bang on about Dark Souls in the office. 

When I beat the Demon of Hatred—a giant boss with wide sweeping attacks who's probably the hardest in the game—Gary advised that I 'Don't get upset' fighting the game's final boss, which showed he knew exactly who he was dealing with. 

I've built up a solid little community of old friends and Twitter peeps coaching me through the game—one of my followers, AlexofAlexia, taught me how to take down some of the tougher magic sub bosses in the game. I've been running a parallel journey with some players, like Patrick Carlson of Hinterland Studios (and former PC Gamer writer), who's been moving through the game at the same pace as me. 

A whole bunch of people congratulated me when I finally defeated the end boss. It's the most positive experience I've had on both Twitter and in games for the longest time. It even made me think I should've streamed Sekiro and taken it that one step further, but in retrospect I'm glad no one saw my tantrums during hour four of my attempts to beat the Demon of Hatred. 

When I reflect on playing Sekiro, sharing that journey with people has enhanced the game for me. That kind of 'we're all in it together' spirit has had me interacting with people I would never normally chat to on social media, and exclusively in a pleasant way. The 'Git gud' thing is commonly associated with the Dark Souls crowd, and I'm in no doubt that elitism exists—but there's also so much room for encouragement, advice on getting the most out of the game, and coaching people through games they otherwise might not believe they can enjoy. Sekiro's Reddit community is rife with posts that echo this: curiosity and honesty is rewarded by thoughtful answers from people as fascinated by the game as they are. 

I went from being utterly convinced Sekiro is not for me to loving it. Maybe I'll finally move on to Dark Souls next time.

Rallying is the best kind of auto racing because it's basically a slightly faster version of bombing down fire trails to get to a big bush bash: The roads are treacherous, you don't know where you're going but your buddy's giving you directions, and if you get there before everyone else you get first crack at the refreshments. All of which is to say that even though I don't actively follow World Rally Championship or other circuits, I like the style a lot and I think the minimalist racing game Art of Rally, announced today, looks like it could be a lot of fun. 

Developed by Absolute Drift creator Funselektor Labs, Art of Rally is set in "the golden era of rally" from the 1960s to the introduction of the super-fast, super-dangerous Class B cars in the early '80s. More than 30 cars from the era will be available, with racing taking place across 50 stages in Finland, Sardinia, Norway, Japan, and Germany. A career mode will be offered, and there will also be daily and weekly challenges with leaderboards. 

The game is highly stylized visually but it sounds like the driving element is being taken seriously: Handling and car physics have been "completely overhauled" from Absolute Drift, damage modeling will impact performance, and developer Dune Casu said he's driven 1990s-era WRC cars in New Zealand and also attended the DirtFish driving school "to gain a better understanding of rally cars and also the learning process that goes into learning how to rally."   

Art of Rally is listed on Steam and expected to be out sometime this year. A closed beta that you can sign up for through the Discord server is set for later this summer.

Mordhau isn’t really set up to be fair. Its marquee PvP modes, Frontline and Battle Royale, both pit disorganized, flailing hordes of buff battle boys against each other. It is brutal, chaotic, and often hilarious. But that chaos can also be frustrating when you’re just trying to enjoy a fair fight. Steven’s guide to playing Mordhau like a bastard is all about how to adapt to Mordhau’s unfair battlefield, but I’m after a purer, more idealistic Mordhau. I want honorable fights unblemished by rogues looking for easy kills. I thought I was out of luck, but then I found my people—the wholesome folk of Mordhau’s duel servers.

Duel servers are a truly wonderful respite from the rest of Mordhau. The servers rotate through a pool of smaller maps suited to lower player counts, and stepping into the open is a feast for the eyes—a landscape of people beating the snot out of each other in organized private duels. Some are watching others fight, waiting for the chance to challenge the winner. Others are adding to the drama of a brawl with some lute music.

“Duel” isn’t a special mode within the game, though it definitely should be. Mordhau players quickly began renting custom servers to set up their own rulesets for dueling. Within just a few days, a proper subculture had formed around a few constant rules: 1v1 duels, no RDM (random deathmatch). Challenges are handed out nonverbally using the “flourish” emote. If your opponent flourishes back, the duel has been accepted, and the battle begins. After a fight, duelists crouch to let challengers know they need time to heal before the next bout. 

We're now a few weeks after launch, and there are always plenty of duel servers running near capacity.

The duel server social experience is the polar opposite of a match of Frontline. Not only do people largely respect the rules of honor (lest they be banned), but they're just nice. I’ve played against so many polite combatants. Even if I’ve just brained an opponent with the hilt of my sword, they still drop a “gf” (good fight) in the chat and even commend me on my chambering skills.

That politeness extends to how duels are fought, too. In Mordhau, mismanaging your stamina to zero forces you to drop your weapon. Usually, this is the opportune moment for another fighter to take an easy kill shot. Stamina management is part of Mordhau’s meta, so it’s fair enough to expect a swift death in the chaos of battle. One time on a duel server, instead of taking off my head with his executioner's blade, my opponent stood still and waited for me to pick up my sword.

I couldn’t believe it. They didn’t want to win that way. They wanted a 100 percent even fight. That is some next-level honor. In our second bout, I came out on top. The win felt a little hollow after he'd had me dead to rights, but I made sure to thank him for his honor.

Duel servers have really helped me hone my general fighting skills. Private 1v1 fights are where I practice different fighting styles and weapons I haven’t mastered yet, getting used to their animations outside the confusion of bigger battles. But duels can also be brutal. In every server, there are at least one or two players far better than everyone else.

They know how to drill right into my mind. They can bait out a foolish attack, punish it with a brutal headshot, and immediately fake their next hit to finish me off. It’s useful to have a quiet space to fight better players and learn their ways. But hey, if I don’t feel like losing eleven humiliating duels in a row, the beauty is that I never have to fight them. Duels require consent from both parties, so I can pick my fights carefully.

Protected by the server’s rules, I've noticed players feel free to try new things and embrace the roleplay. My favorite interaction was only a few nights ago, when I found someone had cordoned off a small corner of the map into a micro arena using the game’s builder class. Pieces of player-made cover lined the perimeter of the fighting area, and a man in a black and white-striped referee uniform was officiating 1v1 fights. Lined up outside of the ring were eager fighters waiting to take on whoever came out on top. Naturally, I jumped in line.

We peered through gaps in the wall to watch the fights unfold. When it was finally my turn, I was up against an intimidating level 31 halberd user who had won the past four fights with barely a scratch. The body of the last challenger, a sword user like me, was still warm at my feet. The ref called on our flourishes to ready up and banged their staff on the ground to launch the duel. I put up a good fight, even got a solid hit in, but the brute successfully baited a badly-timed block from me and I eventually took a fatal hit to the chest.

With emotes, the small crowd of spectators cheered and laughed for my foe’s victory. As I respawned, though, chat gave me a nice little ego boost. A few people said it was a great fight, and that I “almost had them!”

This is my perfect little corner of Mordhau.

We're big fans of Path of Exile. It's a great action RPG and one of the most generous free-to-play games in the world. However I've always found that the combat lacked impact compared to its genre stablemates, especially in close quarters. That could be about to change with update 3.7, which reworks core animation systems, adds more detailed hit detection, and boosts melee stun to make close combat snappier.

The changes are covered in detail in a cheerful chat on the Baeclast with studio cofounder and technical director Jonathan Rogers. With the god-like powers of the command console Rogers shows how in future movement and attack animations can cancel into one another. 

It sounds like a small detail, but it will have a big effect on the way the game feels for melee characters. Currently when you activate a strike the entire animation plays out from start to finish and you can't react to get away from enemy attacks. It sounds like the devs have had to reach deep into PoE's code to adjust these fundamentals.

"For quite a long time I would say, really since the beginning, melee has just not really been as good as we'd hoped, and I think that a lot of the reason for that is because we needed to go down to a pretty low level of the game with animation systems, action system, targeting system, all these different things" says Rogers.

Enemy animations and attacks are also being reworked to have longer wind-up motions. Ideally this gives players cues to use defensive skills. New movement skills are going to be added and melee skills rebalanced to make fighty builds more viable and fun. 

The new animation system will also register hits against multiple adjacent enemies if your weapon passes through them, and targeting ought to be easier. The whole rebalance seems designed to help players pick up some arcane swords and get away from powerful AoE ranged builds. It's a good move. Path of Exile has vast character-building systems and there's loads to do in each season, it's a good time to focus on the way the game actually feels to play.

The changes are due to arrive as part of the June 7 Legion update, which also lets you teleport into frozen battlefields. Hit the enemies you want to unfreeze, and then squash them for loot. Judging by the official trailer, that's going to be a good time.

In Path of Exile's June expansion, Legion, players will trot around the world to find Timeless Monoliths that reveal battles stuck in time between the titular Legions and their ancient leaders. You'll be able to free them from their eternal brawl by beating them up and getting lots of lovely loot.

These Monoliths are dotted around Wraeclast, and once they're activated, you have a short window of time to untether monsters and chests, which you'll then be able to fight and loot once the timer ends. The more powerful the enemy, the better the reward. Some of them will have symbols revealing what they'll drop, so you can determine the best ones to free and fight. 

Legion enemies also drop items that can be turned into an Emblem belonging to the Legion. Plonk down two or more of these Embers in a map device and you'll be able to enter the Domain of the Timeless Conflict, where all five Legions fight in the infinite war. 

Unique Legion jewels, 12 new items, 14 Divination Cards and an early-game monster rebalance are all coming, along with new build archetypes. With the Blood and Sand Gladiator archetype you can use new reservation effects to switch between two different stances that modify existing skills, like transforming Bladestorm into the bleeding Bloodstorm. The Rage Berserker can use new attack skills to generate Rage, a stacking buff that offers attack bonuses and no downside. There are new defensive and mobility skills, too, so it might be time to play with some new builds. 

Legion also includes the big melee combat overhaul. Attack animations can now be cancelled after they do damage, movement skills are instant, most classes are getting new low-level movement skills and all melee attacks can hit multiple enemies. Grinding Gear promises an "entirely new combat experience".

Path of Exile is one of the best ARPGs around, but the combat isn't quite as smooth as some of its contemporaries. Once you've started working your way through the impossibly complex passive skill tree and finding some powerful gems, you can become a deadly, apocalyptic whirlwind, but starting out it can feel a bit sluggish. Being able to hit more enemies more often is a welcome change, then, and there's an animation system overhaul to look forward to, as well. 

Path of Exile: Legion is due out on June 7. 

Just Cause is getting a movie adaptation with John Wick creator Derek Kolstad writing. Constantin Film acquired the rights from Avalanche Studios and Square Enix and is apparently hoping it will just be the start of a series. There's always another island full of stuff to blow up. 

I doubt there's going to be much need to tweak things to get Just Cause to fit the action movie mould. According to Deadline, it sees Rico Rodriguez once again trying to stop the Black Hand, a mercenary group that's shown up in three of the four games. And like the games, expect him to use his grappling hook, wingsuit and penchant for causing mayhem to help him take down the mercenaries. 

The last game was full of spectacle and weaponised weather, but the series is starting to feel a bit creaky. Check out Robert Zak's Just Cause 4 review.   

"Just Cause 4 still taps into that need for reckless abandon that resides in all gamers, but its impact is softening," he wrote. "I have a good several hours of tethering tomfoolery left in me, but once I put it down, I can't see myself returning to this series until it gets the refurbishment it deserves."

It's the weakest of the series, so this probably isn't the most auspicious time for a movie, but with Derek Kolstad involved there's maybe a chance it could be watchable. The John Wick trilogy is the best thing to happen to modern action movies, and it's getting an adaptation, too, in the form of turn-based tactics game John Wick Hex.

Most of the time, when it comes to Humble Bundles, I tell people to stop being so damn cheap and just buy the whole thing. In the case of the new Humble TinyBuild Bundle, however, I will make an exception. The full collection is a good deal, as usual, but if you're really only willing to spend a single lousy dollar, then this is the place to do it. 

That $1 will get you The Final Station, a Russian post-apocalyptic zombie survival train ride that I absolutely loved: It's weird and dark and intense and just a little bit janky, and when it was all over I had a lot of ideas about what might have happened but no definitive conclusions about what actually happened. It's really good stuff, and for a buck it's well worth the price of admission on its own. But it's not on its own: You'll also get Punch Club, Diaries of a Spaceport Janitor, and Speedrunners, all very good games in their own right. 

Beat the average and you'll add Hello Neighbor, Streets of Rogue, Cluster Truck, Party Hard, and the Party Hard: High Crimes DLC, or max it out at $13 and tack on Party Hard 2 and Graveyard Keeper, the game that enabled Chris to plumb depths of depravity he previously didn't realize he was capable of.

The Humble TinyBuild Bundle is available until June 4. Check out The Final Station launch trailer from 2016 (because that's really what I'm here for) down below. 

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As racing games go, Grid is good: Grid 2 earned an 82/100 review score in 2013 and Grid Autosport got 86/100 a year later for delivering "magnificent racing stemming from a refinement of Grid 1s greatness." And then, for whatever reason, that was it for the series—until today, when developer Codemasters announced that another one is on the way.

Drivers in the new Grid will take GT, Touring, Stoc, Muscle, Super-Modified, and other car types through multiple modes on circuit tracks, ovals, and out on the streets. Damage modeling will impact the car's performance and handling, and too much contact with one racer will make them "a nemesis who will stop at nothing to get their revenge in the race"—Mozu take the wheel! 

Past Grid games have been detailed and authentic, but also managed to maintain an easygoing level of accessibility, which is what I really appreciate about them: I like racing games that make me feel like a super-pro wheelman, not demand that I actually be one. The new game aims to continue that tradition, "with a learning curve that appeals to both casual arcade gamers through to the core simulation racers." 

"The game offers so much variety and depth, from the number of modern and classic cars through to the locations and race options," Grid game director Chris Smith said. "Renowned for its handling, the game will appeal to all types of player, from casual drivers who want a lean-in challenge, to sim drivers who want some serious fun." 

It will also feature two-time Formula One world champion Fernando Alonso, who served as a consultant on the game and will appear in it as well. Players will take on Alonso's FA Racing team in different classes of races before meeting the man, and his world-beating Renault R26, in a final showdown event. 

The new game will be called simply Grid—the first in the series is actually called Race Driver: Grid—and is scheduled to come out on September 13. 

The world has fallen into darkness, and only a 29-year-old who yells about memes and makes videos called "I Broke My Ass" can save it. The setup of Pew Dew Redemption is honestly pretty funny—this free Steam game turns Pewdiepie's competition with Indian music channel T-Series into a dark, rainy, apocalyptic battle for the freedom of the internet and the implied fate of all humanity. It's a bad game, a mealy beat-em-up in which you hit a bunch of robots with a large studded letter P (for Pewdiepie, see). In the 20 minutes or so it took me to finish it, I couldn't decide if I was more entertained by its absurdity or disturbed by Pewdiepie's cult of personality.

The existence of Pew Dew Redemption is not surprising. Pewdiepie's 96 million Youtube subscribers mean he has a massive fanbase, undeterred by the occasional racial slur or antisemitism. "Undeterred by" might be less accurate than "encouraged by"—he's gained something like 25 million subscribers in just the past few months as his "9-year-old army" fought to make sure he stayed the king of Youtube. T-Series was catching up fast—what perfect drama for a fan game to harness!

But boy, does it get weird. For starters, the game's developer, who goes by the handle Enki, immediately inserts himself into the game, laying out the backstory for Pewdiepie with some ethereal voiceover.

"The Great Subwar ended a long time ago. The struggle of the content creators however never came to an end. The company has taken over the whole world. Their new article that has been passed will result in full censorship. Felix! You're the last independent content creator! Will you watch how the world falls apart or will you fight?"

I thought this was just going to be a crappy Unity asset store beat-em-up. I wasn't really prepared for the game developer to insert himself into his own game in the first 10 seconds, much less cast himself as a godly figure explaining how only Pewds can save the world from a dictatorial Youtube channel.

For his part, my avatar of Pewdiepie responds with a brief voice clip, shouting "What!?" It's a fair reply.

And look, I know it's not good manners to go on a tangent before I even get into talking about this game, but you have to watch this video from the developer, Enki, titled "Day in Life of a Game Dev God," delivered in the same ethereal VO as his lines in Pew Dew Redemption.

I'm not sure if this video will help you understand more or less, but it's filled with some gems, like "I believe in fueling my body with a miniaturized star reactor" and "I've lost track of what my powerlevel is. Perhaps one decillion, perhaps nothing, power without boundaries." Then Enki's Dr. Manhattan-but-silver avatar stares at a Youtube subscriber award congratulating him on 1 billion subs (he currently has 132), right next to his Game of the Year 2021 award.

Moving on to Pew Dew Redemption: This is how the game loaded for me after the title screen. Not the most encouraging start.

After a few seconds of walking around Pewd's not-Youtube-accurate pad, I hit the "cutscene" I quoted above about being the last independent content creator. Emboldened by destiny, I head out into the rain, where I'm soon transported to the headquarters of TCRS, the evil video empire standing in for T-Series. Pewds seems worried he won't be able to take them on himself, but Enki offers this assurance:"Don't worry. I've designed this weapon of mass destruction in the forge of eternity. It has the power to kill a god."

This is the Infinity P.

From here on it's basically smacking around a bunch of robots, which you can tell are evil because they glow orange, and I'll admit that Enki has at least made a functional 3D videogame, which is not something I have ever done. It's not very fun, because the movement is stiff, it's hard to tell when hits register, and the robots mostly stand still and occasionally take a sad swipe at you. This is not quite Bayonetta-level combat.

Then again, pressing the E key unleashes my special move, which is a whirling gamer chair projectile attack. As soon as I realize I can throw a chair hadouken it's pretty much all I do for the rest of the game.

Some other strange things about Pew Dew Redemption: 

• The item pickups scattered around the levels appear to be golden Lego pieces, though they do nothing.
• It actually has some nice moody lighting
• Enki chiming in with another zinger: "You are the vessel for the endless cosmos of entertainment"
• I think the AI on these robots is broken

In the end, I wailed on a giant "Delete channel" button which apparently destroyed TCRS, aka T-Series, and saved the world. My victory feels hollow. I have no better understanding of why 95 million people love Pewdiepie, or why Enki likes him enough to waste his videogame-making skills on Pew Dew Redemption.

There's a lot of shovelware on Steam. Cash-in clickers, asset store flips, "[insert noun] simulator." So, so many hentai games. Pew Dew Redemption is certainly not the worst of them. It's even a little funny, if perhaps too desperate to hero worship a man who makes videos about memes and the drama of other Youtubers. He's not worth breaking your ass over. 

Mordhau player MiZiikE has detailed a way to escape the bounds of the Contraband map. It's a harmless trick (which is somewhat contested in the Reddit thread, but it'll probably be patched out anyway) that wouldn't be very notable if it didn't create a beautiful opportunity to confuse unaware players.

It turns out that the virtual camera which provides the scenery behind Mordhau's character select screen exists within the map, in that out-of-bounds area. That's not surprising—if you've modded anything you know these sensible tricks are common—but it does mean that, should you successfully escape the play area, you can hang out in that character select screen playing Despacito.

(If you're wondering how to play songs on the lute easily, there's a bot for that. Chris tried it out, but didn't have much success inspiring his team with Yakety Sax.)

Now play Free Bird.