While I ve conducted a lot of interviews, I ve never had one quite like this. The developer of SKALD: Against The Black Priory [official site] asks me to use a pseudonym and doesn t tell me where he lives, but rather than being a shady character with a burner phone he is a comfortable dad with a lovely blue sweater. He leads me through a long discussion free of hyperbole, emphasising the importance of planning and project management, before concluding that he doesn t really mind if his classic turn-based RPG game doesn t make money.

But I don t think our chat was humdrum, I think it was really good. As was the sweater.

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In terms of pure visual spectacle, Minecraft RTX is hands down the most impressive ray tracing game I’ve seen to date. Unlike other RTX-enabled games where you need big green boxes or a magnifying glass to see the fancy lighting effects, Minecraft RTX puts them right in your face. It’s like having a Creeper explode point blank in your retina every time you toggle it on.

When I played it at an Nvidia demo event last week, it was quite a sight to behold all those realistic lighting effects, glowy fire blocks and transparent water surfaces in good old Minecraft. What’s more, using the toggle switch only emphasised just how flat and — if we’re honest — drab> the game’s original colour palette looked. It’s arguably exactly the kind of game ray tracing needs right now in order to make people really sit up and take notice of it. But is it enough to convince people they should be buying a 300 / $350 graphics card to do so?

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Though I played and enjoyed Tom Clancy’s Ghost Recon Wildlands, I avoided Tom Clancy’s Ghost Recon Breakpoint like it was Tom Clancy’s Ghost Recon Racist Uncle At A Party. The build-up to its release did not do a good job of making me want to wander tactically through some forests with a friend, and our review gave me little reason to overrule that.

A lot of people shared that apathy with me. Launch sales figures were “very disappointing,” Ubisoft said, but they’re at least setting out on a mission to fix it, and to create “a more radical and immersive version of Ghost Recon Breakpoint”.

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Hey you, I heard your breath smells like a fart. What are you gonna do about it? Fight me!? Excellent. I was hoping you d say that, because I ve put together a list of the 10 best fighting games on PC, and it would be fantastic if you came and had a look, gave your thoughts, and maybe elbowed me in the teeth while you re at it. Finally, a decent reader willing to dropkick me. Matchmaking is hard.

All right, let s take this outside, where the top 10 fighting games are waiting. How exciting.

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Diplomacy is a big part of The Outer Worlds. You can make or break your reputation with a faction based on decisions made, whether you were caught doing crimes, or other good and bad deeds. The game assigns statuses, but it can be a tad confusing trying to work out what each one gives you.

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Along with a new dungeon and Halloween event, yesterday’s Destiny 2 update slipped in a surprise new open-world public activity on the Moon, named Altars Of Sorrow. It is a beautiful demonstration of how, sometimes, the saviours of humanity are so drunk on loot they’ll idly blindfire into an enemy spawn point until the ground glitters with goodies. This is how Altars Of Sorrow goes. Between item drops, ammo boxes, orbs of ability energy, and Halloween candy, it soon looks like a Christmas where I’m opening gifts using an SMG. And then the game goes “Hey, you paying attention there?” and kicks you square up the arse.

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The workbench is one of the greatest tools available to you in The Outer Worlds. You’ll find one aboard your ship, the Unreliable, as well as dotted about the various regions you’ll visit over the course of your journey. Using the Workbench will ensure that you always have the best equipment for the coming conflicts by not only tinkering with weapons with bits, but also installing mods onto weapons.

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Having recently moved in a flat with rent I still find suspiciously cheap, wee new first-person horror game Stigmatized Property feels a touch too familiar. Our pal has got swish digs in the backstreets of a Japanese city but doesn’t seem to be home when we come calling, and what’s up with that? Unpleasantness is what. I’ve enjoyed gently probing that, wandering the alleys and peeking through mystery holes. Stigmatized Property feels familiar but has a nice enough walking simulator edge that yeah, for less than two quid I’m happy with it. It introduced me to my absolute best mate, a frog plant pot.

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For many – okay, fine, all> – the best part of starting a new RPG is always the character creation process and The Outer Worlds doesn’t disappoint in this regard. With its finely crafted array of attributes and skills that you can use to start carving out the path of your character before you even set foot on Halcyon. There’s something for everyone, whether you’re a bloodthirsty warrior, a slick-talker, or just want to break into things.

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From the very start of the game, The Outer Worlds gives you a variety of systems to play around with to customise and develop your character. Prime among them is the perks system, which gives you the chance on every second level-up to give your character a new Perk to help give them (and you) a slightly easier or more enjoyable journey through the game. You can also take flaws, which give you perk points at the cost of having a permanent debuff.

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