The latest brand to advertise to children through Fortnite Battle Royale is Nike, slamming and jamming in a new event mode that sends players sliding and grinding through a downhill obstacle course. Grab coins, basketballs, and sneakers to score points, do fancy tricks using Impulse Bombs, hurl Boogie Bombs to screw with rival ravers… it’s pretty fun, if pretty wonky for being smooshed into Fortnite. The mode also brings challenges to unlock decorative skateboards to wear on your back, the kewlest accessory of all.

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Playing a Total War game has always been a bit of an uphill battle on PC. With their detailed maps and densely-populated armies, they’re some of the most graphically-intensive games around today – and if you’ve read any of the graphics card reviews I’ve done here at RPS, you’ll know that Total War: Warhammer II is one of the regular games I use for benchmarking. Well, now we have a new big Total War in the form of Total War: Three Kingdoms, and man alive it’s one fierce opponent on the old graphics performance front.

But worry not, PC foot soldiers, as I’ve gone and hurled every last one of today’s best graphics cards (plus a couple of oldies) into battle to see what kind of performance you can expect from Total War: Three Kingdoms, as well as how to get the best settings possible to help bring that elusive frame rate of 60fps within reach. Together, we are stronger. Now we fight!

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Mordhau’s selection of shields is remarkably diverse both in size and in terms of their potential for completely shaking up Mordhau’s magnificently elaborate combat system. This Mordhau shields guide is, I think, a necessary addition to our Mordhau series, because not only have I seen many players asking what the point of shields is as they appear far too weak and cumbersome, but I’ve also heard the outcries of many a player who have come up against a seasoned shield-user and don’t know what they could possibly have done to beat them.

This guide will walk you through each type of shield on offer in Mordhau and how they all operate, before moving onto some in-depth tips and techniques both for using shields to the best of your ability, and for countering shield-users and abusers.

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Pathologic 2 is cursed. And me too, because I m saddled with reviewing the follow-up to a cult favourite. Pathologic was a first-person plague doctor simulator that was badly broken and refreshingly unusual. Depending on your sensibilities, you ll be glad to learn that this reboot is also a godforsaken mess littered with interesting ideas, none of which will be appreciated because it is hobbled by a pervasive crappiness. After only nine hours, I m on day three of a twelve-day story and my character is dying. I m infected, I m starving, and I m exhausted. This isn t a description of a tough-but-interesting time I m having in a bleak world. It s a reference to the three meters in the corner of my screen (infection, exhaustion, hunger) which have convinced me that, despite a townload of spookiness and intrigue, those nine hours are more than enough. Thanks, Pathologic 2, but no thanks.

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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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