Come on in, readers. The water’s free. Giant Squid’s chill dive ’em up Abzû is once again opening its waters for free on the Epic Games Store. Someone must’ve thought it pairs well with the horrors of war, mind, because it’s joined this week by Rising Storm 2: Vietnam. Both will be free to download and keep for the next week, at which point they’ll be replaced by pigs and monarchs.
Eddie Van Halen, song writer and lead guitarist of iconic rock band Van Halen, passed away this week. Across the internet, tributes have poured out for the legendary rocker, including a rather surprising one from Sea Of Thieves developer, Rare. They’ve made a pirate shanty cover of the song Jump. It’s a bit weird, but you know what? It’s really sweet, too.
Gather ye longswords and witchy hats, stumble chums. Ye olde bean-basher Fall Guys just got a whole lot more medieval with the arrival of the game’s second season. Charging into wibbly wobbly battle today, Mediatonic have freshened up their fumble royale with a king’s bounty of new stages, costumes, features and more, each flaunting a frightfully feudal flair.
Alice Bee is back from holiday in time for a massive CRPG to enter early access, so this episode is supposedly about our favourite companions in games, but is really mostly about Baldur’s Gate III, Larian’s massive new Dungeons & Dragons-themed, reawakening-a-classic fantasy game. She and Matthew have both played a bit of it (Matthew a lot more than her), but we have a chinwag about it and the characters in it nonetheless.
We do also get to chatting about our actual favourite companions from other games, though. There are mentions for some old reliables that I bet some of you already knew were going to come up, as well as some surprise entries from new up and comers. We like to keep things fresh here at the Electronic Wireless Show. Just don’t hit your head on all the digressions, or in this week’s Cavern Of Lies, which is a lil’ D&D treat.
Western Digital have announced their first PCIe 4.0 SSD, the Black SN850. With sequential read and write speeds reaching a maximum of 7000MB/s and 5300MB/s respectively, the Black SN850 is set to be even faster than the recently released Samsung 980 Pro, which topped out at 7000MB/s read and 5000MB/s write. More importantly, it’s going to be cheaper, too, with the entry-level 500GB non-heatsink model starting at £130 / $130 when it launches at the end of October, just squeaking in under the 980 Pro’s current price of £139 / $150
Growing stronger, tougher, and more murderously deranged with each appearance, John Rambo will continue his ascent to godhood by joining the spine-ripping fights of Mortal Kombat 11. John Rambo, the Vietnam War veteran with PTSD who just wanted to be left alone, will join the war between gods and dimensions as one of the next DLC characters. This new character pack will also be rolled into the newly-announced Mortal Kombat 11 Ultimate edition, with all the other DLC.
Of all the series that I reckon would suit a battle royale-style game, Worms is certainly one of them. Worms Rumble is Team17’s new take on the worm murder simulator, moving away from its turn-based roots, and instead plonking players into a… shooter. 32-player deathmatches and last-man standing modes are what Rumble has to offer. You won’t be waiting much longer to give it a go, either, because it’s getting an open beta test starting November 6th, ahead of its launch in December.
I don’t watch much horror myself, so forgive me. But you know those trailers? The ones where there’s a cabin in the woods and a group of smiling high schoolers descend upon it? They flip up the trunk of their car, eagerly fling their suitcases on the wooden decking, and chortle about how they are going to have a rad time. Tropicana in the morning, red cups and beer pong in the evening. Then someone learns the murderous great grandfather of Tommy used to live here and poor Sarah spots an eyeball through a floorboard.
This is the feeling I got from puzzle adventure game Bugsnax. It is cutesy and whimsical at first glance, but there’s clearly something up, something simmering under the surface. I spent an hour with the game’s opening portion, and throughout my hair follicles were semi-hardened, primed but unsure of whether to fully extend or not.
There’s been a surge of great gaming laptop deals for under £1000 / $1000 in the last week or so, which is good news for anyone looking for a more portable way to play their favourite PC games around the house that doesn’t break the bank. While most laptops in this price range will find it difficult to play games on max settings, there are still a couple of RTX 2060 laptops to be found here, as well as plenty with high refresh rate displays and good specs. So, to help you get the best budget gaming laptop deal, we’ve put together this list of what we think represents the best value for money. Whatever you’re after, these are the best budget gaming laptop deals happening in the UK and US right now.
Larian Studios slapped a wee hotfix on Baldur’s Gate 3 last night, addressing some of the more pressing technical issues. Most notably, it fixed a number of crash bugs in the fantasy RPG. This is only the first patch on another journey through early access for the makers of Divinity: Original Sin 2.
“We never imagined such a huge influx of players in what we had envisioned being a relatively modest party of Early Access players,” Larian said. “But we’re up to the challenge, and we’ve been listening!”