I've griped before that Warhammer 40,000 Darktide hides satisfying challenges behind tedious grind, but another interesting challenge is easily missed and forgotten at the opposite end of the scale. Darktide is hard when you start a new character, with weapons that barely scratch some foes and no talents to back them up. It's a challenge unlike the official high difficulty levels, which lean towards drowning you in special enemies. So after hitting level 30 on all four classes and grinding out great gear, I've started a new character who'll never learn skills or get a good gun. She's quite bad, and that's quite fun.

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Chymicalia is an adventure game and/or visual novel "about causing chaos in a small Yorkshire town with unlicensed alchemy". Hey, I'm from a small Yorkshire town originally! I recognise that chip shop with the palsied neon sign! And hey, that looks like the underpass they told us kids to stay away from! And the textile mill they eventually turned into an old folks home! And the teleporting sentient potion shop where we used to hang out and play pogs! Wait, scratch the last one.

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Today I learned that ‘Wanko’ is Japanese for dog, rather than just being Aussie slang in the vein of ‘smoko’ or my favourite, 'bottle-o', which is what they call an off-license. I learnt this because of Doronko Wanko, a lovely free game about a dirty pomeranian where you try to score as high as possible by doing actual, financial damage to your owner’s home.

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Activision have revealed what's coming to Call Of Duty: Modern Warfare 3 and Warzone 2 in its upcoming Season 3 update. For Modern Warfare 3, there's a slew of new and remastered 6 vs 6 maps, new modes, and Zombies story additions. As for Warzone, highlights include the return of fan-favourite Rebirth Island, biometric scanners, new perks, and four new weapons. Let me break the details down for you, like how I used to break my friends' spirits by sprinting at enemies without communicating my intentions, going down, then spectating as they attempted to pick up the pieces.

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Stardew Valley, one of our favourite RPGs despite coming out almost a decade ago, still has an attentive steward in the form of developer Eric Barone. After the recent 1.6 mega-update to the game, which added a whole bunch of stuff, Barone (better known in his developer form as ConcernedApe) Xeeted out a list of fixes in the now-available 1.6.3 update. This makes tweaks to things arising from 1.6 (many of them addressing moss, a new foraging item) and fixes bugs, one of which was causing 'excess trash' to be fished.

Importantly, 1.6 added more pet animals to the game, and the mini-update has built in a case where if you don't have a pet by year two, for any reason, then you can adopt them from Marnie's. This is lovely.

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Embracer have announced that they're selling Borderlands developers Gearbox Entertainment to Take-Two Interactive, owners of 2K Games and GTA 6 developers Rockstar, for $460 million in Take-Two shares. Three Gearbox Software studios - the flagship studio in Texas, together with Gearbox Montréal and Gearbox Quebec - will change hands as part of the deal. Take-Two will also acquire the Borderlands and Tiny Tina's Wonderlands franchises, together with Homeworld, Risk of Rain, Brothers in Arms and Duke Nukem.

Embracer will keep and rename Gearbox Publishing San Francisco, previously known as Perfect World Entertainment. They're also hanging onto Cryptic Studios, who went through a round of layoffs in November, together with their MMOs Neverwinter Online and Star Trek Online. They're also clinging onto Borderlands 3 support studio Lost Boys Interactive, who went through a round of layoffs in January, plus 3D scanning and reconstruction outfit Captured Dimensions. Last but not least, they'll keep the publishing rights to the Remnant series, Hyper Light Breaker and "other notable unannounced game releases".

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Sonic Dream Team developer Hardlight and Total War studio Creative Assembly have been hit with a round of layoffs by publisher SEGA Europe, affecting around 240 roles across Creative Assembly, SEGA Europe, and Hardlight, via IGN.

Staff were notified by an email sent around this morning from SEGA Europe’s managing director Jurgen Post, alongside the news that Relic Entertainment, makers of Company of Heroes and Dawn of War, would be sold. As IGN point out, SEGA Europe studios Sports Interactive and Two Point Studios, makers of Football Manager and Two Point Hospital respectively, were not mentioned in the email.

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The time is nigh for this month’s RPS Game Club liveblog, where we’ll of course be discussing Warhammer 40,000: Darktide. We’ve already had some good pre-chat, and now at 4pm GMT today (March 28th), we’ll reconvene right here for a proper 41st Millennium natter.

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More than three years after former Dragon Age lead designer Mike Laidlaw was revealed to have joined forces with fellow games industry veterans behind the likes of Assassin’s Creed under newfounded studio Yellow Brick Games, the developers are finally teasing their first game. And yup, it’s definitely a fantasy game!

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You can now explore one of Ukraine’s most iconic natural landmarks - and the largest salt mine in Europe - in Minecraft. The virtual replica of the Soledar salt mines and their surrounding town, occupied by Russia troops for the past year in real life, has been led by the wartorn country’s government in an effort to help rebuild a school destroyed during the conflict.

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