It’s nice to see Microsoft and 343 Industries being so open about Halo: The Master Chief Collection’s progress. No need to worry about spoilers, or embargoes, or anything that generally accompanies modern game development. Their monthly Halo blog digs fairly deeply into what they’ve been working on. Reading this month’s, I learned that campaign progress will carry over between platforms, they’ve ported an extraordinary number of custom maps from their in-game editor, and just what specs you’ll need to hit the magic number of 52 FPS.

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As we now know, the upcoming Marvel’s Avengers is set in a time where the superhero team has been disbanded and it s up to Kamala Khan (aka Ms. Marvel) to grab Thor, entice Iron Man, and unsulk the Hulk. Basically she s reassembling the Avengers, trying to bring them together to fight off the evil organisation that’s taken over in the vacuum the Avengers left behind. And when she does, you can add a few personal touches to each hero.

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I wonder what the last “AI does a thing” headline will ever be. The one Google DeepMind are imagining, on their quest to create a genuine general intelligence, is something like “AI can do everything far better than you, nuh nuh”. By their measure, their AI AlphaStar has climbed one more rung towards that goal by reaching Grandmaster level on StarCraft 2‘s European servers. That means it can’t beat the very best, but it is “within the top 0.15% of the region’s 90,000 players”.

That’s impressive, especially considering the greater limits on its perspective and actions per minute since the last time DeepMind sent it to do battle. This version can play all three races on any map, and is limited to a camera perspective in a similar way to a human player. It’s a neat accomplishment, but I’m glad I got the chance to talk to the team and poke a caveat or two out of them.

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Indies desperately tweak lines of code. Food trucks heat up industrial vats of chips. A collection of anime body pillows hang on the hooks, like that wall of the punished from The Handmaid’s Tale. It can mean but one thing: EGX Berlin is upon us. And if you can t make it – which you really should try if you can – the RPS Video Team have you covered. Today we re hosting Indies Uncovered, a seven hour live stream featuring 15 of our favourite games from the show floor.

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There are two types of ray tracing game that have emerged over 2019. On the one hand you’ve got your big, bombastic feast-for-the-eyes type games like Minecraft RTX, Control and Metro Exodus, and on the other you’ve got your subtle, squint-and-you-miss-it jobs like Battlefield V and Shadow of the Tomb Raider. Call of Duty: Modern Warfare and its ray traced shadows fall squarely into the latter camp, although at least its campaign has the added benefit of taking place mostly at night so you can be doubly sure you don’t miss them.

But what exactly does Modern Warfare’s RTX support add to the game, and is it worth switching it on if it means taking a hit to your PC’s performance? In my Modern Warfare RTX guide below, I’ll take you through exactly what Call of Duty’s ray tracing looks like, as well as what kind of performance you can expect to see across all of Nvidia’s RTX graphics cards.

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Halloween didn t really used to be that big of a deal in the UK, back when I were a kid. But now it is, so most people go to Halloween parties, or spooky club nights, or some other similar kind of terrifying celebration. I like to keep things traditional though, which means staying in on October 31st and kicking back with some Video Game Entertainment. Also I m COO of The NoSleep Podcast, and since we ve been working on Halloween content since around July, I think I deserve a break by the time it hits October s end.

So if, like me, you re after some video game recommendations in order to spend Halloween night alone, or even something to play after the festivities, then look no further. I ve compiled a list of thirteen (ooh>) of the best horror games to be had this year.

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Gaming headsets are all well and good for barking at your mates when you’re playing games online, but I’m willing to bet a fair few of you have a separate favourite pair of headphones for listening to music with as well. After all, even the best gaming headsets aren’t often fit to be seen in public, nor are they necessarily compatible with any of your other music devices.

Wouldn’t it be great, though, if you could just use those favourite headphones of yours for absolutely everything>? Enter the Antlion ModMic Wireless, a detachable microphone accessory that can snap onto any kind of headphone without the need for any pesky wires. Here’s wot I think.

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Night School Studio’s new game, Afterparty, just came out, and since it involves you drinking your way around literal hell, it would seem every bit the fitting Halloweeny treat. But taking a look back at Oxenfree, the point and click mystery that was the studio’s first outing, it’s impressive how much it stands up as its own spooky experience. It’s not just spooky either, but funny, thoughtful, unnerving, and outright terrifying.

Early on in the story, deep trauma is revealed, relating to grieving and touching most of the central characters: Alex, the protagonist, lost her brother Michael, while her new stepbrother Jonas (who is now occupying Michael’s old room) lost his mother. Both appear to be dealing with their respective losses as well as can be expected. But there’s a lot there – and it’s at the heart of the game. Because while Oxenfree has its supernatural elements, its horror doesn’t come from traditional jump scares or big toothy monsters. It comes from how the weirdness that transpires teases and pulls at these complex, bottled feelings.

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The upcoming Netflix show The Witcher is not based on the games, Netflix insist, but rather the same Andrzej Sapkowski books that inspired the games. That doesn’t mean that they’re not influenced by the games, mind. I suspect they’d never be making this if CD Projekt Red hadn’t made Geralt a star. Netflix today released a trailer announcing a December 20th launch date, and the influence of the games is clear: Geralt in a bath. The iconic image of CD Projekt Red’s games is Geralt in a tub, and now Netflix have him in a bath? QED, pal.

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Over a century has passed since the Kushan discovered the secrets of interstellar travel, buried beneath the crust of a backwater world. It is a fallow period for tales of galactic adventure. Having wrested their birth planet, Hiigara, from the Taiidan Empire, the Kushan have re-established their old clan households and embroiled themselves in petty rivalries. Homeworld: Cataclysm, a standalone expansion created by Barking Dog Studios, puts you in charge of one of these clans. It’s a sidestory, but like many a B-team spin-off (see also, Black Ops), it gets at something weird and elemental about the mainline sci-fi strategy games. Homeworld, it turns out, offers a surprisingly rich foundation for horror.

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