The heartbreakingly human androids of Nier: Automata today returned, sadly not with a sequel but in a Final Fantasy XIV crossover. Bully for you if you play the MMORPG, I suppose. For me, well, I suppose it makes me a little more sad – and isn’t that what Nier is really all about? You’re having an inferior Nier experience if you do play the new raid, frankly. The update also added new main quests, added quests for anime baby pixies, improved the tools for playing musical instruments, adding a trombone… lots of things. Me, I’m interested for the lost little robots.

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Night School Studio s follow-up to the fabulous Oxenfree is finally out. Afterparty sends two friends to Hell, which is not somewhere you d expect to find the drinks flowing, not unless they re filled with maggots and an off-brand coke. But flow the drinks do, because the only way to get out of there is to out-drink Satan and his relatives.

No need for a wristband, no need to prove who you are, and no need to bribe a bouncer. You re in, and you want to get out.

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A whole lot of haunting hits Destiny 2 today, with the start of its Halloween event and the launch of a new dungeon. Festival Of The Lost is for all players, sending us back along branches of the Infinite Forest to mash monsters and grab sweeties to swap for rewards. Destineers who own the Shadowkeep expansion get even spookier treats: a new dungeon diving into Hive horrors as well as a new Exotic weapon quest for an insect-powered machinegun. Candy, monsters, bug gun, gotcha.

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When Imperator: Rome was released in April this year, I really enjoyed it. My colleague Ghoastus absolutely loved it. To be honest, both of us were happy with it as it was. Nevertheless, in response to a good deal of player roaring on launch, Paradox have been working hell for leather to rebuild whole sections of the game, and after two big free patches, we’re now looking down the barrel of a third before the end of the year – along with a content pack (also free) about the Punic Wars.

As of September’s 1.2 “Cicero” patch, The Monarch Power resource, which many people referred to as “mana”, is gone. Instant population upgrades are gone. Sad times as your boats have nothing to do: also gone. Despite retaining everything I liked about it in the first place, it’s a wildly different experience now – and patch 1.3, “Livy” is going to shake it up even more. The headline change is the new mission system, which introduces both scripted objectives for Rome and Carthage as part of the Punic pack, and procedurally generated missions for everyone else. But there’s a whole amphora full of other improvements too, including a revamped character experience system, and new tactical gameplay which – among other things – includes finding dinner for elephants. And once again, like bread hurled from a tribune’s balcony, it’s all for free.

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Electronic Arts are returning to Steam after a long hiatus. The first game to come over to the dark side is, appropriately enough, Star Wars Jedi: Fallen Order on November 15. It’ll be followed by the EA big guns of FIFA 20, Battlefield V, and more next year. And they’re bringing their subscription service, EA Origin Access, which is a real surprise.

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Having weapons is cool and all, but The Outer Worlds also has some hidden science weapons that are worth seeking out. They’re the most unique weapons in the game, capable of shrinking foes, or making them fight each other.

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Halloween has arrived in Fortnite Battle Royale with a honking great cooperative boss battle in an event mode like something out of an MMORPG. The Storm King LTM sees the big boy and his undead armies rise again and sends a few dozen players out to stop him. I’ve had a few cracks myself and been surprised by quite how tough the fight is.

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A minute into this developer playthrough of GTFO, a co-op alien shooter full of dark corners, future tech, and flickering lights, and I m sold. The little team of four opens a door and spots an alien scout inside. Then they close it and reconsider their options. A game about carefully avoiding conflict as a team and then making a democratic decision on how to proceed? Sign me up.

They resolve it by making alien jam with hammers, which I also fully support.

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In addition to launching the GTX 1660 Super today, Nvidia’s latest GeForce driver brings some neat new features to their GeForce Experience app. Chief among them is built-in support for ReShade filters, the popular post-processing shader tool that modders often use to enhance or change the overall look of a game. Instead of ‘injecting’ or installing them manually into each individual game, you’ll now be able to apply them straight from Nvidia’s Ansel or Freestyle overlays.

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In March and April of this year, Nvidia released their excellent GTX 1660 graphics card and their slightly less impressive GTX 1650. While the latter wasn’t much cop compared to AMD’s existing RX 570 GPU, the former went straight in as our best graphics card choice for 1080p gaming. Now, for some reason, Nvidia have decided to replace those cards with even shinier Super editions, just six months after they first came out.

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