Back in June, amid the hubbub of E3, Ubisoft announced that it was preparing to launch its own PC games subscription offering, Uplay+. At the time, a library of more than 100 titles was promised for launch, and the publisher has now confirmed the full list of games that will be available when the service arrives on 3rd September.
A Uplay+ subscription costs €14.99/$14.99 USD a month (an official UK price is yet to be confirmed) and provides access to Uplay's full PC games library, which, as you'd expect, includes all of Ubisoft's blockbuster franchises - so the likes of Assassin's Creed, Watch Dogs, and Far Cry are, unsurprisingly, accounted for - plus all of the publisher's upcoming titles, including Gods & Monsters and Watch Dogs Legion.
There's ample representation of classic series from Ubisoft's enormous back catalogue too - Rayman, Splinter Cell, Prince of Persia, and The Settlers get a good airing, for instance - alongside the Steeps, Starlinks, and The Crews of this world.
Microsoft has announced a fresh batch of titles coming to its Xbox Game Pass subscription service this month, on both Xbox One and PC, including the likes of Metal Gear Solid V: The Phantom Pain, and Killer Instinct: Definitive Edition.
Working in chronological order, 17th July sees the arrival of intriguing "non-linear, narrative-driven noire investigation" mystery Night Call on PC. A day later, on 18th July, Metal Gear Solid V: The Phantom Pain comes to Xbox Game Pass on Xbox One, and The Banner Saga 3 - the final entry in Stoic Games' critically acclaimed Viking series - arrives for Xbox One and PC.
Rounding off the month, on 25th July, are Shinji Mikami's survival horror classic Resident Evil 4 (Xbox One), superb tabletop RPG rogue-like For The King (PC), and Killer Instinct: Definitive Edition - which includes all 26 characters from Seasons 1-3 - for both Xbox One and PC.
The Netflix gods heard your cries and are giving the people what they want - a first look at Roach in upcoming The Witcher series.
Unsurprisingly, they've cast a horse that looks like Roach from the game to play Roach in the series. However, there might be a bit more to this teaser image than meets the eye.
Executive producer of the upcoming show, Lauren S. Hissrich, tweeted out the image of Geralt sat on Roach with a follow up, telling users: "Squint and you'll see something else in this picture."
Reigns, the medieval monarch simulator controlled like Tinder, is being turned into a tabletop game.
Rechristened as Reigns: The Council, this version will launch in the "imminent" future and transform the fast-paced ruling simulator into an asymmetric party game for three to six players.
Just as in the original Reigns, one player will act as monarch and decide which suggestions from their council they will support - and which ones they will turn down.
The brilliant Tetris Effect - Eurogamer's Game of 2018 - will arrive on PC next week via the Epic Games Store. It'll be the first time it has been available anywhere other than PlayStation 4.
As on PS4, Tetris Effect is also designed for VR - and it'll arrive with both Oculus Rift and HTC Vive support ready to go.
This PC version will also offer extra graphical options - resolutions 4K and up are supported, with an uncapped framerate, ultra-wide monitor support and more.
The wait is nearly over for console owning Tropico fans, as Tropico 6 will be released on PS4 and Xbox One on 27th September.
After multiple delays the console release was originally slated for this summer, but players will have to wait just a little bit longer to get their hands on the game, which has been playable on PC since the 29th March.
Xbox players are able to try the game right now in Game Preview, where it has just received a major update to fix bugs and introduce the random map generator.
Is PES fighting back in the football licensing war? Konami has announced PES 2020 has Italian super club Juventus as an exclusive - but this isn't like the recent deal it signed for Manchester United. PES has a proper exclusive on the club, which means Juventus will not be in FIFA 20.
Konami's deal with the Serie A giant means FIFA - and any other football game for that matter - has to use a generic team name and not Juventus. Player names are not exclusive as this is negotiated through a separate licence (so Cristiano Ronaldo is still in FIFA 20). But Juventus' kits, crest, stadium and, crucially, name are all exclusive to PES 2020.
This is obviously massive for Konami and PES, which has struggled to compete with EA Sports when it comes to football licenses in recent years. As for EA Sports, while it still retains a vice-like grip over the licenses the majority of fans want, it's just suffered a surprising bloody nose from its underdog rival.
UPDATE 5.01pm: Following Famitsu's earlier reveal, Sega has now shared official word on its upcoming Monkey Ball revival.
As previously surmised, the publisher has opted to resurrect its beloved precision platforming series with a remaster of the somewhat less beloved Wii launch title Banana Blitz. The new version is called Super Monkey Ball: Banana Blitz HD, and it's coming to Switch, Xbox One, and PS4 on 29th October. A Steam release is due some time during "Winter 2019".
This enhanced version of the 2006 Wii title promises updated graphics and "uniquely optimised control schemes for each platform" across the game's 100 single-player stages.
Over the past few days, what should have been a positive PR stunt for Watch Dogs: Legion has evolved into a rather messy debate surrounding the exploitation of artists. The controversy began when Joseph Gordon-Levitt announced his company HitRecord would once again partner with Ubisoft on a community collaboration project allowing fans to submit music contributions to Watch Dogs: Legion, with winning compositions being awarded $2000 ( 1600) for each song selected for inclusion.
Since then, however, the initiative has received a significant amount of backlash on social media, with the main concern being artists are essentially being asked to contribute "spec" work (submitting examples or complete work without an agreed-upon fee). This means artists run the risk of composing work for the game and receiving no payment for their efforts should their song not be chosen. Ubisoft's previous collaboration with HitRecord for Beyond Good and Evil 2, for instance, had drawn over 11,000 contributions as of November 2018 - but it's unclear exactly how many of these submissions will be used, and whether their artists have yet received any money for their work (via Variety).
Concerns have also been raised about the amount of money awarded to each artist, as the $2000 is split between all contributors for that particular song - meaning individual composers could end up with significantly less than that total figure. It also creates a messy situation regarding rights to the work: as noted by Jeff Ramos for Polygon last year, while artists retain the rights to their own contribution, the collaborative nature of HitRecord means individual composers do not own the rights to the entire piece - and the finished song becomes a unique product HitRecord owns the rights to sell.
Content warning: This review and the game include mention of suicide.
Playing Lucah is like being swept along by a great dark river. While broadly a hack-and-slash game, it is always dragging you beyond such labels and into something more lively, tormented and fluid. There may be solid ground beneath your feet but the world appears unfinished, transient, its linework writhing and shivering against a pure black plane, as though unhappy in its own skin. You wander for a while amid the stark eruptions of trees and scribbles of barbed wire, searching for a door key or a checkpoint. You fight a few bladed, cloudy apparitions, tearing their guts out with serrated words of power. And then you find something - a person, a precipice, a peculiar tangle of light - and the water closes overhead. Solidity blinks out, and you are tossed on the flow with a host of memories, bursting open before you in bald white type.
Letters have different sounds. Sometimes, they squeak like fingers on glass. Sometimes, they clatter like gunshots. Between passages you'll catch glimpses of seabirds, dead suns and screaming faces, after-images snatched from the dark like mouthfuls of air. These memories, written in first or second-person, are only loosely tethered to characters and don't fit neatly into a plot; all have some basis in the Roman Catholic upbringing and emotional travails of the game's creator, Colin Horgan.