At the heart of Fallout 76, there s always been friction between what people wanted it to be, and what it actually is. To begin with, this manifested as an apprehension over whether an online Fallout game was the right move for the series. Over time, it grew into other concerns about the game s business model and Bethesda s perceived mismanagement of the Atomic Shop.

Now, Bethesda have released Fallout 1st, a subscription service for players that costs 12/$13/ 15 a month, or 100/$100/ 120 a year. It offers benefits such as private servers, an unlimited in-game storage box, and a monthly allowance of Atoms (76’s microtransaction currency), and the community is once again in debate. In as much as Reddit should be a barometer for anything, a quick glace at r/Fo76 reveals players making heated arguments both for and against the service. There are suggestions popping up that players who subscribe to Fallout 1st are subject to harassment for it. But feelings on the issue are more complex than the shouting on the internet might suggest

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From today, Counter-Strike: Global Offensive‘s loot box keys can no longer be resold on Steam’s marketplace. Valve are putting a lock on their keys because of the global gangs of evil-doers who were using the keys to launder money. From now on, any key bought will be bound to the purchaser’s account.

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Castle Shotgun has been ringing with the sound of spells, explosions, and squelching purple monsters thank to the chaotic mountain-delving nightmare that is Noita

It is, of course, a game that we Can’t Stop Playing this month. It’s also a roguelike. You get one save, and once you’re dead, that’s it and you start again from the beginning with a new level. Well, you> do. Me, though? I have saved games. I will always have saved games. I will copy and paste the entire game if necessary. I will never be stopped.

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I am truly a masochist for deciding to write about Defend Your Castle. I mean, who on earth would willingly subject themselves to the task of typing an article, when their fingers and wrists have been mangled beyond repair in just five minutes spent reacclimating to this diabolical browser-based Flash game? This harbinger of repetitive strain injuries? This annihilator of tendons and ligaments and souls?

I now realise there was a reason I hadn’t played Defend Your Castle in about 15 years.

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Dear fireteam,Last night we finished Destiny 2: Shadowkeep‘s Garden Of Salvation raid for the seventh time, and once again I held everyone up while I paused to take screenshots. I am sorry. Ish. Sorry-ish. As I told you when I paused beneath the vast paddlewheels churning up canals of liquid consciousness to take snaps of a cherry tree, it was definitely necessary for work. See, look, here’s a post about how the technorganic garden is so very pretty, sharing some of my photos of vast landscapes for people who can’t or won’t visit it themselves. It was for work.

Yours spacesincerely,A

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As I was lurching around my neighbourhood, dressed like a scary poll tax collector, I banged on a door and readied myself for my traditional Halloween scare-a-thon. To my surprise, it was Terry Cavanagh s mansion. He gave me a hearty laugh and tipped a new Halloween-themed Dicey Dungeons update into my plastic pumpkin. His cute deckbuilding roguelike is now 100% more Halloweeny for the next week, all for free! Let s see what he gave me, shall we?

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If you’re short of something spooky to play this Halloween week (Halloweek?), hit Steam and GOG to see what’s going cheap in their spooky sales. Launched today, they’ve got oodles of ooky discounts between them. Since almost everyone else has gone home for the day and I’m the one writing this post, I’ll drop a few recommendations of my own then shuffle off.

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Star Wars: Battlefront 2 is a game so nice, they used its name twice. Not to be confused with the DICE-developed (and still growing) Battlefield-esque shooter, the Pandemic-developed original incarnation is still considered the pinnacle of pick-up-and-play Star Wars fun by many. A messy team laser-fight with a slew of game modes for both solo or online play.

But with Pandemic’s demise sinking fan’s hopes for a sequel, it has fallen on the community to keep the game and its multiplayer servers afloat, and they have done so with aplomb. Here are the mods you’ll need to jump into online play, and a few wilder picks, including Tron and Mass Effect-themed total conversions.

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I spent a good part of the weekend exploring The Outer Worlds. Just pottering about, as you do, looking for space adventures and feeling bad about the dead sprats (until I met a large and angry one, and now they all need to die). I also spent some of that time changing the game to my liking, and what I couldn t do in the settings, I did with some ini tweaks. I have cast aside my intro videos, debloated the HUD, and given mouse acceleration the old heave-ho.

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Sometimes stealth is the answer for completing a quest in The Outer Worlds, but how do you get around without being seen? Sneaking behind boxes can only go so far and in space, cardboard boxes and cheaply made disguises won’t cut it. You’ll need the highly experimental holographic shroud.

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