Oh, to ditch Overwatch‘s crude gunfights for a night at the opera. To push culture, not payloads. Capture hearts and souls, not control points. Ah, well, the latest challenge event for Blizzard’s hero shooter might not be picking up a fiddle anything soon, but it will let you pretend you’re the sort of person who frequents the concert hall with Sigma’s Maestro Challenge – dressing up Overwatch’s gravity-defying egghead for orchestral bombast

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“Are you ready for your new knitting obsession”, EA asks, knowing full well it is the height of summer. Nevertheless, the next The Sims 4‘s stuff pack is, indeed, Nifty Knitting – adding a full wool wash worth of knitted goods for your Sims to weave, wear, and (eventually) monetise, all from the comfort of their sturdy rocking chair come July 28th. Just, maybe stick to knitted vests instead of sweaters, aye? It’s still sweltering out.

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Theological battle arena Smite‘s gone all Nickelodeon on us today. Those Avatar: The Last Airbender skins Hi-Rez Studios announced last month have arrived, packed inside their own bespoke battle-pass added to the god-smashing MOBA today. They might not be full characters in their own right – instead, possessing three of Smite’s existing mythical warriors – but if you’ve ever wanted to batter Zeus as a child-like cartoon demigod, now’s your chance.

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Grab your pitchfork and put on your sturdiest boots, readers – it is once again time to reap the pastoral delights of small-town farm life. Story Of Seasons: Friends Of Mineral Town, Xseed Games’ same-subtitled remake of the 2003’s Harvest Moon release, is now out on Steam. One to watch out for, if you fancy Stardew Valley‘s mix of farming, fishing and romancin’ with more of a cutesy chibi flair.

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Despite being delayed, then later moving entirely online due to the ongoing Covid-19 pandemic, Summer Games Done Quick is still preparing for some awfully fast gaming next month. The schedule for this year’s event has just gone up, kicking off the annual week of charity speedrunning on Sunday, August 16th. Expect your usual bouts of boundary-breaking and donation shouting, of course, but can you really call it GDQ without the couch banter?

Yeah, probably.

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Just ahead of the new American Truck Simulator‘s launch, developers SCS Software have injected a touch of nitro into the game engine with screen space ambient occlusion (SSAO). This technique for making shadows more realistic is not a mega-fancy and drastic modern technobell or cyberwhistle, but it is a welcome one. The scenery just feels more… present. So simply by downloading a patch, my game has become prettier. Nice.

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AMD have announced a fresh free games bundle for would-be graphics card buyers today, letting you pick up World Of Warcraft’s recent Shadowlands expansion and Gearbox’s upcoming Destiny-style “looter-slasher” Godfall for free. The bundle will run from now until October 3rd (the same date as their ongoing free Assassin’s Creed Valhalla bundle for new Ryzen CPU buyers), so read on below for how it all works.

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The small Playerunknown’s Battlegrounds map of Sanhok is being revamped as part of Update 8.1 next week, developers PUBG Corp announced today. Numerous locations have been rebuilt, and an interesting new mini objective has been added. Autonomous Loot Trucks will be driving around the island, dropping crates of gear as they’re attacked, and awarding particularly fancy gear when they’re destroyed. Chasing a robopiñata in my tuk-tuk while the laaads in the back blast away sounds great fun. Today’s announcement also brings a big boast: the battle royale shooter has now sold over 70 million units.

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Following its PlayStation debut last year, Death Stranding is now out on PC too. This is the latest game from Metal Gear Solid maestro Hideo Kojima and his studio Kojima Productions, and stars Norman Reedus as a post-apocalyptic postman traversing the wastes of the USA. Something’s spooky has happened, see, so Norm needs a baby in a bottle to help protect himself from extradimensional ghosties. In short: some sneaking; a little action; lots of Kojima-y names and exposition; and loads of walking around lovely landscapes trying not to stack it and smash your packages.

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We’re almost spoiled for choice when it comes to great 2560×1440 gaming monitors these days, but the BenQ EX2780Q is another strong contender that’s worthy of your consideration. For starters, it’s one of the few gaming monitors I’ve tested that actually has a built-in (albeit very tiny) subwoofer to accompany its pair of 2W speakers, but it’s also got a super accurate IPS panel, a high 144Hz refresh rate, AMD Freesync Premium support and one of VESA’s DisplayHDR 400 certifications for low-end HDR. In short, it’s got pretty much everything it needs to challenge my current [cms-block] for 1440p champion, the AOC Agon AG273QX.

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