It looks like Epic is offering automated partial refunds on games bought via its store, which later have their price cut in a sale.

The unannounced policy was publicised by Studio Mayday founder Joshua Boggs on Twitter, who posted an email from Epic informing him he was eligible for a refund of the price difference.

"You recently placed orders from the Epic Games Store," Epic's store email explained. "The price of the game(s) you purchased were recently lowered, so we are issuing partial refunds for the difference(s)."

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Think of an action RPG like Diablo and then envisage it turn-based. The enemies and every other character won't move until you do. Stand still if you want a breather and to think. And you will need to think because Stoneshard is brutal. It might look like a child-friendly SNES game but in reality it's, well, as friendly as most SNES games actually were. Even in what ought to be beginner battles, you'll be killed, and as you only get one life, this can be a bit of a bummer. (You can reload when you die but you have no manual control over saves.)

This mature approach bores into the RPG systems underneath. There's a wonderfully involved health system which divvies your body up into individual parts and allows them to be separately damaged and maimed. Have your left arm smashed and you'll suffer penalties to using that arm, naturally, but have it mashed completely and you'll be unable to use it and drop the weapon you're holding.

Therefore you need to tend to wounds and general condition after every battle, bandaging bleeds and salving minor wounds, or putting more seriously maimed limbs in splints until they stabilise. You can even apply leeches. All of this affects your pain gauge. Let it rise too high and, again, you'll receive a negative condition - a kind of debuff - which will negatively affect how you perform in battle.

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The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt turns five years old today. Can you believe it? It's become so famous I can't recall a time before it. Heck there's even a Witcher Netflix series that has made the whole thing more popular still. And although it wasn't CD Projekt Red which created the Witcher fiction, the world and characters - those honours of course go to Polish author Andrzej Sapkowski - it was that game, that third game, which broadcast it to the world.

We've written a lot about The Witcher 3 over the years (I don't appear to have written about much else!) so we thought it fitting that on the game's fifth birthday we collect our work together and share it with you in one handy space. Here's to a wonderful adventure.

The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt review - "A majestic, earthy open-world adventure with great integrity and personality, this is the best role-playing game in years."

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Rainbow Six Siege might now be in its fifth year, but the content updates keep a-coming, and next on the schedule is Operation Steel Wave, which Ubisoft has now revealed in more detail.

Operation Steel Wave, the second season of Rainbow Six Siege's Year 5 updates, introduces two new Operators: Norwegian Attacker Ace and South African Defender Melusi.

Ace, a former member of the Norwegian Home Guard, is equipped with a throwable, stickable device known as S.E.L.M.A., which deploys its explosive arms to destroy most defensive gadgets. Additionally, it can obliterate up to 3 panels of any vertical surface that it's attached to, one after the other, in order to open up a new line of sight or entry point.

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Sometimes you're just not in the mood to rip someone's spine out of their eye socket, and for those moments when levity is preferred, developer NetherRealm has just the thing, showing off more of Mortal Kombat 11 Friendship finishers ahead of their long-awaited return next week.

Friendships first joined the Mortal Kombat pantheon in 1993, when they were featured in Mortal Kombat 2 as a tongue-in-cheek response to the controversy surrounding the series' particular brand of ultra-violence. Amazingly though, it's been nearly 25 years since Friendships last made a fully fledged appearance in a Mortal Kombat game, so their comeback is long overdue.

Mortal Kombat 11's Friendships - which are teased in the trailer below, and include the likes of a saxophone solo for Jax, a teddy bear hug for Scorpion, and a sideline in ice cream retail for Sub-Zero - arrive in the game next Tuesday, 26th May, and, better still, they're included as part of a free update for all players on Xbox One, PS4, Switch, Stadia, and PC.

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Gamescom organisers have shared more details on this year's digital-only event, which gets underway on 27th August with the return of Geoff Keighley's Opening Night livestream.

Gamescom's digital-only event replaces this year's physical show, which was cancelled in April in response to the coronavirus outbreak, and will be a slightly shorter affair than normal, running from Thursday, 27th August, to Sunday, 30th August.

An expanded version of the existing Gamescom Now digital content hub will serve as the focal point for the event, playing host to "world premieres, news, games and events", as well as programming specifically aimed at developers and other trade visitors. Additionally, there will be online areas dedicated to content creator, esports, cosplay, indies, and merchandise.

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Before it closed in 2017, Club Penguin - the official one - was a popular hangout for teens and young kids on the internet, providing a safe place to play and chat with over 200m other players at its peak. Since then, several clones have popped up over the internet using copied source code, including the popular Club Penguin Online. But while it may have provided some with a nostalgia hit, it has now been shut down by Disney due to lack of moderation, and one man involved with the site arrested on suspicion of possessing child abuse images.

As reported by the BBC, Club Penguin Online claimed it had been enjoying a surge in popularity due to the coronavirus lockdown with seven million registered players, but behind the success there were serious problems. Unlike the official version, Club Penguin Online was not removing racist content, with one player inviting the BBC into their igloo "decorated to spell out the n-word". Other players were able to send explicit sexual messages (including engaging in "penguin e-sex"), while content filters had been disabled on several servers. Disney's official version prevented players sharing personal details, but on Club Penguin Online players were able to share Snapchat, Instagram, Discord and Zoom details, along with codes and passwords.

Alongside the obvious problems with moderation, it seems there was also an ongoing flame war between the moderators of Club Penguin Online and other Club Penguin clone sites, with volunteer staff members admitting to carrying out doxxing and DDoS attacks on rival servers. The toxic community was described as "like Game of Thrones with penguins" by one server owner.

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University students unable to attend their graduation ceremony have turned to Minecraft to host an official replacement.

Students at UC Berkeley in California built a virtual version of their university campus - UC Blockley - and invited faculty and guests to host a ceremony for the class of 2020.

Lydia Winters, brand director at Minecraft developer Mojang, was one of several names from the world of gaming to give an address, alongside Twitch co-founder Justin Kan.

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Ah, Nipton. It's a town no Fallout: New Vegas player can forget, namely because it's full of burning corpses... and much, much worse. All of which gives you a good excuse to go on a murder spree against the Legion, in an episode that feels rather Heart of Darkness. Maybe that was just me.

Anyway, it looks like you'll eventually be able to re-explore the wonders of Nipton through a remake mod in Fallout 4 on PC, as the mod team behind Fallout 4: New Vegas has released a new video showing the approach up to the town.

The mod project, which has been underway since August 2017, released a clip of some gameplay in September 2018 - but we hadn't seen much since then in terms of video footage, aside from a small preview of the Anti-Materiel Rifle and a very authentic bug involving Doc Mitchell's head. This time, the mod team has shared a preview of what the remake mod's dialogue will look like, along with the new voice acting - which quite accurately depicts the sort of euphoria you probably would experience from winning the Legion's lottery. Judging by the loading of that 10mm pistol, however, I wager Oliver Swanick did not live much longer after that.

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Video games are so complex and rich and filled with promise that they can sometimes seem a bit daunting. If you're anything like me, you probably have a few genres you stick with and a few games that you return to often. Staying close to your favourites can be very comforting. It can be nice to become a sort of expert at something.

But what happens if you venture out a little? That's the idea behind a series we're running this week called Clash of Fans. The idea is simple: two of us on the editorial team will get together (virtually) and swap favourite games. Then we have to play the game we've been given and have a follow-up chat regarding what we made of it all. It's a chance to burst our own bubbles. We hope it will be fun for you to read about.

First up, Bertie asked me to play CR Projekt Red's Thronebreaker, and I asked him to play Spintires. Medieval card-battling and Soviet trucks wallowing in mud. How could this go wrong?

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