Every time I sit down to write, the first thing I do isn’t open up a blank document, it’s find some nice video game music to listen to. And loads of it can be found free on YouTube. Ambient music from Skyrim, relaxing compilations from Animal Crossing, lo-fi Legend of Zelda remixes Sometimes, work or study just can’t get done without my 10-hour loop of Chrono Trigger’s Corridors Of Time.

Looking at the millions of comments, uploads, and views these uploads get, it’s clear that I’m not alone. If you’re reading this on a PC right now, there’s a statistically decent chance that YouTube is currently open and playing some video game tunes in another tab. And it’s only possible because YouTube doesn’t treat video game music as it does other popular music.

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In case people haven’t yet heard or don’t believe that staying home when possible is pretty sensible right now, the UK government have launched a partnership with several video game companies to spread the message into games. Sniper Elite studio Rebellion say they’re going to put messages echoing the government’s “Stay At Home, Save Lives” instructions onto game menus, and Dirt Rally 2.0 has already raised warning banners on in-game tracks.

“I’m delighted to see the UK’s brilliant video games industry stepping up to strongly reinforce this message to gamers across the UK,” culture secretary Oliver Dowden said.

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In Mount And Blade 2 Bannerlord, you can potentially command large armies in big battles, but you’re first going to have to win them over. Keeping their loyalty, feeding them, and upgrading them to stronger troop types will be the key to conquering the land. It’ll take a lot of work, so we’ll explain how to do it here.

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Movement is make or break for VR games. A convincing, non-nauseating solution is vital, and Half-Life: Alyx does an admirable job of navigating through that. Valve have explained how they got there, in a new video that brings up sound design, pathing fiddliness, and why they had to ditch a certain system because tall testers kept hitting their virtual heads on low-hanging pipes.

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Slick is such a brilliant word for describing Dead Cells, Motion Twin’s marvellous roguelite Metroidvania. It immediately gets across that we’re dealing with a clever, fast-paced, and relentlessly satisfying game. But there’s also a wetness to the word that perfectly matches the oozing pixel effects, the bioluminescent lighting, the squish of a heavy broadsword through dungeon-dwelling flesh.

So, quite definitively: Dead Cells is one slick goddamn game.

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Tactical Breach Wizards is back to show off gameplay from a more updated build than the last video we got a look at. Coming from the maker of Gunpoint and Heat Signature, the modern day wizard cop tactics game looked swell already, but a meatier look at combat abilities is worth pulling over for. It looks to allow for lots of tinkering about with your turns, hemming and hawing over moves as you rewind time to try another option. Also, lots of cop jokes.

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During the main quest in Mount And Blade 2 Bannerlord, you’ll meet a couple of influential people who want to steer you in a certain direction. Whichever person you decide to side with out of Arzagos or Istiana, the other person will try to thwart your plans later on. There is a lot of confusion surrounding these quests, so let’s talk about what’s happening in each one.

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Survival MMO Last Oasis has had a rough launch week, but it looks like things might settle soon. After taking the servers offline to address stability issues that were making the game largely unplayable, it’s now back online and allegedly on better footing. Donkey Crew say that they won’t be shutting down servers or wiping player progress again now that they’re once again publicly available.

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Holy Hogwarts, look at this entire dang Harry Potter-themed RPG built inside Minecraft. This mod has been in the works for a while, building on a huge Hogwarts Minecraft build from several years back. What I enjoy most is how reminiscent it is of the (not great, as I remember) Harry Potter games of the earliest aughts. The entire modded adventure is now available to play alone or with pals.

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As with many other events in the year of Covid-19, Now Play This—the yearly exhibition on experimental game design—transitioned to a virtual space last weekend. Although not every planned part of the exhibition could be shown off in the new format, they still appeared to get up to some neat stuff that you can now watch back yourself. Game designer Gareth Damian Martin took players on a photography hiking trip in No Man’s Sky while Robert Yang leads a tour of Half-Life by way of the Sven Co-op mod.

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