Sundays are for finally figuring out how much money your pals owe you, after recoiling from the task for the past six months. Never buy Edinburgh Fringe tickets for your friends, kids. Here’s the best writing about videogames from the past week.

For PC Gamer, Chris Livingston convinced Santa from Sim 4 to move into his horrible raccoon house. I’m a bit late to the party on this one but it’s marvelous and goes places.

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This week, Slay The Spire added its fourth character, Star Wars Jedi gave everyone the pre-order shinies, and Destiny 2 added a big new secret – but spectacularly failed to fix a balance problem. Read on for more of the week s PC gaming patches in The Weekly Updates Update.

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Pop quiz, readers. If I say Ubisoft, what’s the first thing that comes to mind? Massive, systemic open worlds? Towers wot you climb to unlock the map? Extensive skills trees and an apolitical approach to politically charged themes? France? For the last 20 years, everything that makes a Ubisoft game tick has been decided by a Paris-based editorial board.

As it happens, having a select group of designers and producers in a France deciding your multi-national publisher’s every move results in a bunch of games that may feel a little too familiar. In an attempt to fix an arguably tired formula of sneakin’, climbin’ and stabbin’, Ubisoft are revamping their editorial team to give their catalogue a shake-up.

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Buckle up, 2020. It’s time to wade neck-deep back into the never-ending loot box discourse. The latest contributor to the debate around videogame mystery boxes is NHS Mental health director Claire Murdoch, who joins the growing chorus of officials calling for surprise mechanics to be regulated under UK gambling laws. In a report released earlier today, Murdoch condemned the industry of pushing young people into under the radar gambling, and believes games that target loot boxes at kids should be removed from sale outright.

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My first impression of Dutch indie collective Sokpop Collective was an odd’un. Leaving a Berlin club one frozen afternoon in 2017, we were stopped by the presence of some bizarre boys. Squatting and posing and donning coats sewn together with odd pairs of socks, who was I to know that these strange lads were about to embark on a daunting new project: a brand-new game delivered every two weeks, funded by supporters on Patreon.

Two years and 50 games later, the self-professed “videogame boyband” are celebrating their second anniversary with a mic-drop, bringing their entire collection of former Itch-exclusive games to Steam.

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Like a pesky head cold that never quite clears, Left 4 Dead 3 rumours returned to clog the internet airways again this week. After all, Valve are making games again. Between the surprise announcement of Half-Life: Alyx and another wave of leaked concept art for an infectious Left 4 Dead threequel, there was fleeting hope that the fantastic co-op shooter was, perhaps, ready to make its return.

But Valve’s gone and nipped down to the pharmacy for some quick pain relief. They’ve confirmed that Left 4 Dead 3 isn’t in the cards right now – and hasn’t been for some time.

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My ten-year high school reunion was last year. I didn’t go, obviously, because I am too cool and also I live something like 3,000 miles away from my old high school. I don’t know about you, but I don’t super love remembering who I was in high school. It’s a truly terrifying time: the searing tension between becoming an independent being and desperately needing reassurance from your parents and peers that you’re doing a great job at becoming an independent being. But you know, not in an embarrassing way mom. Growing up is hard, and it never really seems to get easier.

Here are games about growth for your new decade.

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Though I’d swear blind it’s Wednesday at latest, apparently this is Saturday? Suspicious.

What are you playing this weekend? Here’s what we’re clicking on!

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There are rumours that robo-dinosaur hunting adventure Horizon: Zero Dawn is coming to PC soon, which would be the first time a game produced by a Sony-owned studio has shaken loose from its console shackles. We’ve also seen other former PlayStation exclusives developed by third-party studios make the leap to PC in the past year, such as Journey and Detroit: Become Human, and 2020 will see the release of Death Stranding.

If Sony are looking to follow in Microsoft’s footsteps by making the PC their second home, then that’s good news for us. It begs the question: what current PlayStation exclusive games do we crave most urgently?

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Hark, it’s your deals herald once again, back with the best PC gaming deals of the week. There’s a lot to sink your teeth into this week, with Humble’s Winter Sale still rolling on, offering up big juicy discounts on loads of the bestest best PC games of 2019, as well as a small saving on today’s big release, Dragon Ball Z: Kakarot.

Nvidia also formally dropped the price of their RTX 2060 graphics cards this week, taking them down to $299 – mostly so they can try and tempt people away from buying AMD’s new Radeon RX 5600 XT card that’s launching next week. A bit of a kick in the teeth for current RTX 2060 owners, but good news for anyone who’s been holding off jumping on the RTX-ified ray tracing train. Personally, I’d probably hold off buying a new graphics card until we’ve actually seen what the RX 5600 XT is capable of, but all will be revealed next week. In the mean time, let’s get on down to those sweet hot deals.

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