After seeing the stonking gaming speeds of AMD’s Ryzen 5 5600X at the end of last week, the Ryzen 7 5800X was always going to have a difficult mountain to climb if it was going to prove its worth as a top-notch gaming processor – especially after the rather middling gaming performance of the even more expensive Ryzen 9 5900X didn’t really leave it much wriggle room to make its mark between that and its mid-range sibling. Now that I’ve finally been able to test one for myself, the Ryzen 7 5800X succeeds to some extent, but not without hitting a few stumbling blocks along the way.

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You. Hey you. Come here. Closer. You look like someone interested in unorthodox game updates? What are you looking for? Stellaris? Right, right. Shhh. Keep walking. You don’t know me. See that guy up there, with the three arms and glowing eyes? Tell him you’re here for Stellaris mods. He’ll hook you up with some prime grand strategy space gear. We’re talking total conversions, quality of life updates… we’ve even got some aggressive new AI. Go on, you’ll like it…

And that’s how I was introduced to the Stellaris mod scene.

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All is not well in the land of The Witcher season 2. Production of the Netflix series has reportedly been put on hold after four people working on it tested positive for Covid-19. It seems they’ve had a pretty rough going of it with the pandemic – they were forced to stop production back in March due to the first lockdown, after actor Kristofer Hivju (who plays a bloke called Nivellen) also tested positive for the virus.

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Rainbow Six: Siege

is gearing up for its next season Neon Dawn and calling up a new operator for defense. Ubisoft have shown off Aruni and her tricky shock gates that will throw a wrench in attacker’s plans while letting fellow defenders pass through. You can catch an overview of her abilities and a bit about the rework for the Skyscraper map in a new video.

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Square Enix have posted the financial results from their Digital Entertainment – HD Games division, and it’s safe to say Marvel’s Avengers hasn’t been the cash flow hero they’d hoped for. From the six month period of April through the end of September 2020, the quarter of Marvel’s Avengers release saw losses of ¥5bn (£36m).

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Octane may not be the most popular Apex Legends character, but in the right hands his aggressive and highly mobile skillset allows him to wreak havoc on enemy teams. Our Apex Legends Octane guide is up to date for Season 7, and will walk you through our top tips and tactics for each of Octane’s abilities.

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I called it. I bloody called it. On Friday I asked: “What if BioWare announced Mass Effect 5 this weekend?” So you’ll imagine my surprise and delight when the devs revealed they’re currently working on a new Mass Effect game. They didn’t provide many details, it’s all very early days. However, there is an image. A teaser image with some alien silhouettes that suggests to me Mass Effect 5 will be set after the events of Andromeda.

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Among the Apex Legends characters roster, Lifeline is commonly (and rightly) thought of as the healer or support class; but despite this, she has absolutely no trouble dishing out as much damage to her foes as anyone. There are some excellent reasons to play as Lifeline beyond offering a helping hand to your teammates, and our Apex Legends Lifeline guide is the perfect place to start your journey with her. We’ll walk you through each of her abilities in turn, along with tips and info on how to use each to the best of your abilities.

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On the 9th of November, 2000, Valve released version 1.0 of Counter-Strike. The tactical shooter had started as a Half-Life mod in beta the year before, originally created by Minh “Gooseman” Le and Jess Cliffe, and became the star of the scene. It’s weird to say now, but a twitchy teamplay FPS with a grounded paramilitary setting and realistic style really did stand out. V1.0 wasn’t the end for CS though, as Valve kept expanding and updating it for years, and used it as the testbed for new tech including Steam. It set the model for ‘live service’ games as we now know them.

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Animals are delicious. Trotting all around the place on their powerful, edible legs, tumbling head over hooves into industrial mincers and having their bodies, minds and souls mechanically reformed into millions upon billions of tasty, pink breakfast tubes. This magical sense of gastronomic abundance — the unshakeable belief that every creature that scoots, slithers and sails on the wind is simply tracing an inevitable path to our waiting stomachs — is captured in Bugsnax: a cute-as-buttons puzzle adventure game populated by bugs>, who are also snacks>.

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