Rock, Paper, Shotgun - contact@rockpapershotgun.com (Lauren Morton)

Red Dead Redemption 2

Online just got a new update earlier this week adding the Naturalist role, but that certainly won’t stop folks from digging up secrets planned for future updates. My instinct is to holler “stop peeking at your presents and enjoy the update you just got!” but I’ll admit I’m very partial to in-game Halloween events so even I’m distracted by these rumoured leaks. (more…)

Rock, Paper, Shotgun - contact@rockpapershotgun.com (Katharine Castle)

Finding a good gaming laptop for under £1000 / $1000 can be difficult when there are so many different specs out there, so we’ve put together this list of all the best budget gaming laptop deals you can buy right now to help you find the right one for you and your budget.

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Banners of Ruin - contact@rockpapershotgun.com (Lauren Morton)

In any situation where you can choose to have animals on your team you should definitely pick bears, which is part of what looks lovely about turn-based deck-building game Banners Of Ruin. You assemble a team of six grim-faced animal warriors, presumably meaning that I could pick six bears if I were so inclined—and oh am I ever inclined. Banners Of Ruin is now out in early access, so you can pick your own squad of furry fighters. Obviously I recommend the bears.

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Rock, Paper, Shotgun - contact@rockpapershotgun.com (Nate Crowley)

A weird, colourful Minecraft landscape made of strange floating pyramids.

A lot of people, quite reasonably, didn’t pay much attention to April Fool’s Day this year. I certainly didn’t, so I only vaguely noticed Mojang announcing a Minecraft update that would give the game infinite, Enter-The-Spiderverse-Style dimensions to explore. It was cute, I figured, but not really the most convincing fake announcement. Alas, though, it turns out I was the April Fool all along: not only was the promised update completely real, but you can still play it, and it’s utterly astonishing.

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Rock, Paper, Shotgun - contact@rockpapershotgun.com (Lauren Morton)

Well look at that, your favorite 90s action amphibians finally have a release date for their return to headliner status, after that 2018 teaser and a couple cameos (in games including Obsidian’s recent effort Grounded). Your resident Battletoads Zitz, Rash and Pimple are back at last, whackin’ up baddies to their own tune on August 20th.

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The Sims™ 4 - contact@rockpapershotgun.com (Alice Bell)

A screenshot of the Sim I randomised for playing The Sims 4 Nifty Knitting. She is wearing a knitted sleeveless blouse top, and is sitting in a rocking chair attempting to knit herself. She is looking at the needles with a confused expression.The Sims 4

seems to be pivoting toward content that is, firstly, tailored specifically to my interests, and, secondly, designed to allow the creation of strange and reclusive weirdos. Whilst EA’s attempt at a new reality show about playing The Sims rumbles on in the background, and after the Eco Lifestyle expansion pushed me towards creating a stinky, trash-gobbling Oscar the Grouch, here comes new Stuff Pack Nifty Knitting.

Stuff Packs are sort of mini-expansions, and Nifty Knitting is all about, well, knitting. Somehow – whether by bugs that are not yet smoothed out, or by design – the Nifty Knitting Stuff Pack has perfectly recreated the slide from “oh, knitting is kind of cool”, into the creation of wool mailbox covers and jumpers that have scarves built in. I played for a few hours, and in that space of time my Sim evolved naturally into a hunched yarn hermit, rocking incessantly on her new chair and eschewing everything in favour of more knitting>. Including food, sleep and conversation. It is the closest The Sims has yet come to allowing me to create myself. And it is too real.

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Rock, Paper, Shotgun - contact@rockpapershotgun.com (Imogen Beckhelling)

There’s a sneaky-sounding new faction joining the fray in Call Of Duty: Modern Warfare and Warzone next week, and they’re bringing some new weapons and operators with them. They’re called Shadow Company, which is a name you may recognise if you’re familiar with Modern Warfare 2. I’m not really sure what the lore implications of that are, but hey, even if there aren’t any, they’re at least bringing along three new characters for you to play when Season 5 launches on August 5th next week.

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Rock, Paper, Shotgun - contact@rockpapershotgun.com (Imogen Beckhelling)

Imagine you’re having a scuffle in Blizzard’s funky little FPS, Overwatch. Most of the enemy team is here, except one of their tanks is definitely missing. That’s when you see it – a drop pod hurtling down from the sky. It crushes your teammates upon landing, before the gentle giant mech Orisa emerges from it. According to the Overwatch devs in a recent Q&A, this is what Orisa’s ultimate could’ve looked like in early development.

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Fae Tactics - contact@rockpapershotgun.com (Sin Vega)

An isometric, cartoony tactical RPG, set in a magical-ish forest, net to a lake. Humans and monsters are fighting, there are menus with stats, and dramatic text calling out attacks like "Back attack!" and "Combo!"Fae Tactics

is a turn-based tactical RPG with a ‘modernised retro’ vibe.

You play as Peony, a magician who’s looking for her mother and perhaps inevitably ends up having to save the world. It has a pretty art style, some promising ideas, and lots of lovely spell and attack effects. It’s out later today, and there’s a trailer too.

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Rock, Paper, Shotgun - contact@rockpapershotgun.com (Katharine Castle)

Graphics card deals

If you’re after a new graphics card for your PC and can’t wait until Nvidia and AMD reveal their next-gen GPUs at the end of the year, then have I got some great graphics card deals for you. There have been big price drops for Nvidia’s RTX 2070 in the US this week, and a tasty UK discount for AMD’s RX 5600 XT, which is currently my top graphics card pick for those after excellent gaming performance at both 1080p and 1440p alike.

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