A queue? I haven't queued to play an MMO since World of Warcraft in 2005. But earlier this week I had to wait half-an-hour to get into Amazon's New World closed beta because more than 300 people were ahead of me at 3pm. I know it's the school summer holiday but still. And that was just one European server - there are many.

I was surprised. I didn't think an MMO could create buzz like this in 2021. I thought battle royales like Fortnite had taken over for good. But there were more than 200,000 concurrent New World players last weekend. Perhaps I was wrong.

You can feel that popularity in the game, too. Queues mean full servers, which means there are lots of people in the game, so towns bustle with life, hunting spots are busy and chat is noisy. New World seems to be teeming with life, and there's an excited feeling because of it - a feeling that this could be the next big thing.

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Ember Lab's action-adventure title Kena: Bridge of Spirits has been delayed once again, with the game now due to release on 21st September.

The developer cited the need to "polish the game across all platforms" as the reason for the delay.

"The team has been working extremely hard and we feel the extra time is critical to ensure the best experience possible," Ember Lab said in a statement on Twitter. "We know many of you are eager to play and we appreciate your patience as the team continues to work on delivering the best version of Kena.

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James Bond's iconic 1963 Aston Martin DB5 is now in Rocket League.

The car will come with the authentic engine audio and a unique set of wheels and decal that can only be equipped with this car.

You can get your hands on it for 1100 credits in the Item Shop for a limited time.

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There's a lot of chatter these days about how my generation would deal with the Second World War. I can't answer that one for you (and, honestly, I don't really care), but if Hell Let Loose is anything to go by I personally would handle it by climbing into an empty tank, getting lost on the way to the front line and then driving into a tree.

Hell Let Loose is carnage, and it's brilliant. Ostensibly it's an ultra-hardcore WW2 shooter, a lot like renaissance roleplaying gem Holdfast: Nations at War, which I loved in equal measure, but with an extra twist. On top of the slower, more grounded approach to moment-to-moment combat is a simplified real-time strategy layer that can only be fully seen by your team's commander, and it's only the team that manages to balance those two sides effectively that's going to win.

So, how it works: you join a server like you would in Battlefield. Each match is two teams of 50, one commander each. Each squad - again, think Battlefield - automatically gets one Officer, or squad leader. The commander can see a full tactical map, and has the ability to use things like bombing runs and smoke cover to help their team advance, but they can only communicate, via voice, in the officer's channel. The squad leaders meanwhile can communicate in both the officer's channel and their own squad's channel, and then their squad members can just communicate there (or via proximity to anyone nearby, which is where you get a lot of "medic please!" and "thanks!" and "grenade!"). There's also text-based options for team and squad chatter but it's rarely used.

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Nearly 500 current and former Ubisoft employees have signed an open letter in solidarity with Activision Blizzard staff following a recent lawsuit that called the World of Warcraft and Overwatch studio "a breeding ground for harassment and discrimination against women". The letter also slams Ubisoft leadership's "empty promises" in response to allegations of "systemic discrimination, harassment and bullying" within the company, and proposes an industry wide collaboration to agree a set of "rules and processes for handling reports of these offences".

Addressing Activision Blizzard staff, the open letter, shared by Axios reporter Stephen Totilo on Twitter, begins, "We hear you and want to loudly declare our solidarity with you. Over the past week, the games industry has once again been rocked by revelations that have long been known by too many of us. Revelations that a year ago many were hearing about Ubisoft."

"It is clear, from the frequency of these reports," the letter continues, "that there is a widespread and deeply ingrained culture of abusive behaviours within the industry. It should no longer be a surprise to anyone: employees, executives, journalists, or fans that these heinous acts are going on. It is time to stop being shocked. We must demand real steps be taken to prevent them. Those responsible must be held accountable for their actions."

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Organisers of today's staff walkout at Activision Blizzard are pressing ahead with the protest, saying the statement released by company boss Bobby Kotick overnight "fails to address critical elements at the heart of the employee concerns".

Activision Blizzard employees announced strike action last night, in protest against the company's response to a recent lawsuit from California's Department of Fair Employment and Housing which alleged a "frat boy" work culture that created "a breeding ground for harassment and discrimination against women".

Activision Blizzard immediately went on the offensive when news of the lawsuit initially hit the headlines, calling it "irresponsible behaviour from unaccountable State bureaucrats that are driving many of the State's best businesses out of California". Senior company executive Fran Townsend later doubled down on the attack in an email to all employees, describing the legal action as "truly meritless and irresponsible".

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Microsoft has run up against questions about Xbox Game Pass' financial viability ever since it launched the subscription service.

Is Xbox Game Pass too good to be true? That's the question Eurogamer's Chris Tapsell asked in a recent feature, speaking to developers and Microsoft executives to try to find out the answer.

Despite all the insistence from Microsoft that Xbox Game Pass makes sense for the bean counters in Redmond, I've had my doubts. How can something so good value, something that offers all Microsoft's first-party games and an increasing number of third-party games day-and-date, make financial sense? When you consider you can get in on Xbox Game Pass for a quid, it really does seem too good to be true. Like Epic with the Epic Games Store, I assumed Microsoft was burning through millions of dollars trying to get Xbox Game Pass off the ground.

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A new studio has been formed by veterans from the Santa Monica dev scene, taking in talent from Infinity Ward,, Naughty Dog and Sony Santa Monica, with a $100 million investment from South Korean publisher Smilegate helping them make an all-new single player AAA adventure.

That's No Moon's new project will see Taylor Kurosaki - formerly narrative design lead at Naughty Dog and studio narrative director at Infinity Ward - as creative director, with The Last of Us' lead game designer Jacob Minkoff working as game director.

Offices will be split between San Diego and Los Angeles, with talent from Bungie and EA also on board. Don't expect to see what the team's working on anytime soon, though - the announcement comes as part of a recruitment drive, with That's No Moon looking to ramp up to 100 staff in 2022.

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Chernobylite may look like it's a cheeki breeki away from being a full-on S.T.A.L.K.E.R tribute act, but The Farm 51's shooter isn't quite a retread of irradiated ground. While aesthetically the two games are interchangeable, sharing core stylistic motifs like mutants, anomalies, oppressive weather, and a certain nuclear power plant that had a bit of a mishap in April 1986, structurally they've mutated in quite different ways.

Where Stalker uses a now-familiar open-word shooter template, Chernobylite has more in common with Metal Gear Solid 5. Its semi-open world is split into several locations that you revisit frequently, environments and enemies evolve over time, and the whole experience is threaded together with an extensive base-building metagame. It's an unusual structure, and it's simultaneously Chernobylite's most interesting feature and the source of all its flaws.

You play as Igor Khymynyuk, a physicist who was employed at the Chernobyl NPP at the time of the disaster on the 26th of April 1986. Also present was Igor's wife, Tatyana, who vanished on the night of the catastrophe. Fast-forward 30 years, and Igor returns to the Exclusion Zone to search for Tatyana after he begins to see visions of her in and around the power plant.

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The next instalment of Hitman 3's Seven Deadly Sins expansion has been released.

Central to the update is a brand new Escalation contract set in the Berlin nightclub map. The Lust Assignation Escalation tasks Agent 47 with collecting intel on a secret admirer. Collect the clues and observe everyone on the dancefloor to identify the secret admirer and the Pretenders. Each time you start the contract, the admirer will be randomly selected to make each playthrough different and put all of your sleuthing skills to the test.

Completing the contract rewards you with three rewards. First, the Scarlet Suit, a red snakeskin suit complemented by matching driving gloves and sunglasses. Second, the Serpent's Bite, a remotely detonated explosive that looks like a snake. Third, the Serpent's Tongue, a unique crossbow loaded with blinding darts.

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