In a new virtual ‘fireside chat’, Blizzard head honcho J. Allen Brack has given an update on the success of their anti-toxicity systems. They’ve been using machine learning to help combat abusive chat and bad behaviour in Overwatch and Heroes Of The Storm for a while, and recently brought the system to World Of Warcraft’s public channels. It sounds like a success there too. Brack also announced that the next BlizzCon, which is online-only, will be free for everyone to watch.

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While next year’s Awesome Games Done Quick won’t be held in-person, the charity speedrunning event is still going ahead, and it looks like it has some brilliant runs in store. AGDQ 2021’s game list was revealed over the weekend, and oooh January can’t come soon enough. From the new mythological roguelike Hades and charmingly difficult platformer Celeste, to old favourites like Half-Life and Left 4 Dead 2; there are some absolute belters in the lineup.

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Once upon a time, seven dwarves set out into the jungle with the simple dream of constructing an underground chimp jail. You can’t write sentences like that about most games. But in the context of Dwarf Fortress, the legendary world simulator under permanent construction by programmer Tarn Adams and his brother Zach, it is a perfectly reasonable statement.

Dwarf Fortress is my favourite game. And since it’s essentially a machine for generating weird fantasy stories, it’s even more fun to narrate than it is to actually play. Hence my previous diary series – The Basement Of Curiosity – which concerned the aforementioned chimp zoo. After a lengthy 25-episode run, the Basement finally came to an end on camera, at this year’s EGX Digital event. And while I won’t spoil its conclusion, I strongly recommend you watch it for yourself, right here. The ending will… surprise you.

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Spoiler alert for the Sky Larsen storyline in Watch Dogs: Legion coming up, so don’t read on if you don’t want to hear about it. Upon meeting Nowt, you’ll start digging into the backstory of Skye Larsen. This culminates in the Into The Void mission, which gives you a choice at the end. Here’s what happens when you upload or kill Skye Larsen.

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Ah, N7 Day. A time for Mass Effect fans to come together and be sad because there hasn’t been a new game in the series since 2017 (even then, we don’t particularly like talking about that one). This year could be different, though. On Saturday the 7th November, a couple of BioWare developers and a bunch of voice actors from the Mass Effect trilogy are holding a “very special” panel.

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I’m convinced everyone at Supergiant Games were watching old episodes of Gladiators on the ITV Hub when they were making Pyre. I get the basketball comparisons, obvs, but it reminded me so much of powerball that I couldn’t help but wonder why referee John Anderson wasn’t asking me if I was ready at the beginning of every match.

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Watch Dogs Legion

may be set in future London but it’s not short on contemporary celebrity cameos. Ubisoft themselves announced before launch that you can find Stormzy in Watch Dogs Legion, but players have now spotted another cameo collection. Political podcast “Oh God, What Now?” have provided their writing and voices to some political analysis over the radio in Legion.

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Do you suppose Gabe Newell himself has earned the Half-Life 2: Episode 2 achievement for carrying a garden gnome to the end of the game? He’s planning to snag a real-life achievement, apparently, and has partnered up with Rocket Lab to blast a real Gnome Chompski into space. Not for nothing, Newell is planning to donate to Starship Children’s Hospital based on the number of folks to tune in to watch the launch.

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Steam accidentally cooked up something truly frightening for the end of its Halloween sale. At some point today the store’s payment system appears to have crashed, preventing users from making purchases around the time the sale was scheduled to end. Sorry to you last-minute shoppers. The ability to purchase games through their store seems to currently have mixed results.

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Red Dead Online

went on a bit of a dry spell earlier this year before its Naturalist role was added this summer. Rockstar have now said players won’t be waiting too long for another update. This time around they’ll be focusing on an action-oriented update to a current role, which sure sounds like Bounty Hunting. With RDO’s Halloween event still ongoing, it’s good to hear Rockstar already talking about what’s next.

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