I called out sliding as one of my favourite aspects of Arc Raiders in a launch-day write-up. It lends the looter shooter a gambolling giddiness you might not expect from its heavily laden packmule characters. In more practical terms, it makes you harder to hit and allows you to flank or retreat while regenerating stamina, the catch being that you might slide into somewhere you'd rather not be, like directly beneath a bunch of Hornets.

After a few hours spent doing migrant penguin impressions in Buried City and Blue Gate, a thought occurred: hang on, this is almost like the hypermobile ski shooting in Tribes: Ascend. I mean, not really, but perhaps if they made friction a setting on custom servers, this crouch-walking pillage 'em up could be a bona fide movement shooter.

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Like an asteroid touching down in a freshly shaken martini, Europa Universalis 5 is now available on Steam, and some players have been having trouble playing it. I don't mean the people who don't understand inflation or why they can't make friends with Greenland. I mean the people who can't even get the new 4X strategy game to launch, because their PCs are too pitifully puny for this behemoth of history. Don't fret, those people. The hardware Popes at Paradox are blessing your meagre graphics cards with a sneaky workaround.

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Awooga, awooga, the bomb's about to be dropped. Well, the anniversary edition update for Fallout 4's about to arrive at any rate. As with its next-gen predecessor, the question is how it might affect whatever established mod load order you've got in place. Helpfully, Bethesda have now specified any mods which change the game's home screen as ones you'll certainly want to disable ahead of the update's arrival.

That's right, time to kiss farewell to the image of Paladin Danse in a risque pose you've had lurking behind the start new game button. At least temporarily.

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Generation Exile is the new eco-conscious turn-based strategy sim from Sonderlust Studios, a Canada-based independent developer whose members include Nels Anderson (Mark of the Ninja, Firewatch), Karla Zimonja (Gone Home, Tacoma), and Marri Knadle (Far Cry 5 & 6). A talented gang indeed. The game puts you in charge of a scrappy band of humans living on a colony ship so huge it can harbour mountain ranges and lakes.

The ship puts me heavily in mind of the grandest and most luxurious vessels from Iain M. Banks's Culture novels, except that it's a polluted and treacherous hexagonal wilderness that is closer in vibe to Scavenger's Reign. Your job is to emerge from below decks, bolt together an outpost, and restore each sprawling biome before the colony ship completes its journey. Along the way, you'll have to reckon with personality dynamics and branching dialogue quests redolent of 11-Bit's management sims, and deal with some kind of marauding "entity" from the Earth you left behind.

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In 'Yeahhh, probably should have had that already' news, the Steam Deck and Steam Deck OLED are getting a new low-power mode that will let the handheld PCs continue any active downloads with the display switched off. It’s part of a SteamOS update that’s available right now on the Beta and Preview channels, at last closing a longstanding feature gap that’s had us all downloading games to our Decks with the screens chewing up precious battery life. Like savages>.

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After a bit of scope re-evalution over the summer, the modders behind Baldur's Gate 3 custom campaign mod Path to Menzoberranzan have set a new target in terms of releasing the a first publicly playable taste of it. An alpha build made up of a Nautiold-sized tutorial level is now pencilled in to arrive during the first half of 2026.

As we've covered previously, the original pitch for the project was a custom adventure that'd see you and a party of fresh companions travel to Minthara's hometown via some locations from previous Baldur’s Gates. According to the team, over 130 people are now working on making that a reality on what's being teased as a larger scale than originally envisioned.

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How to describe Sorath's Hyper Demon, other than by labelling it an arena score-attacking FPS from the developer of Devil Daggers? Well, imagine you're a caveman, the descendant of a forgotten tribe miraculously preserved in the remote wilds. You accidentally eat some fermented berries one day and stumble upon a billionaire's wilderness Halloween fancy dress party.

Delirious and appalled by the teeming lights and faces, you trip and wedge your head inside the giant, Cirque-du-Soleil-supplied crystal ball the guests are using to predict each other's net worth fluctuations over the next year. Then you're chased into the middle of a firework show by flunkeys dressed as vintage heavy metal album covers, while the jet setters throw jewelry and bioluminescent canapes. There you go, this is approximately the experience of playing Hyper Demon. If you don't believe me, there's now a free 1v1 multiplayer version of the game on Steam.

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Ten hours into Arc Raiders, I felt betrayal's sharp sting for the first time.

The round began with generosity. I met a fellow raider who had dropped me a rare shotgun as well as a damaged heat sink to upgrade my workbench. They asked nothing in return. It was one of many friendly encounters I've had roaming the surface of Arc Raiders' hostile maps, but I also felt my heart rate rise: when you die you lose everything you're carrying, so I knew I had to reach an extraction point quickly and quietly.

On the way, I met another player. We exchanged "don't shoot" emotes followed by our actual voices on proximity chat, agreeing to cover each other until the exit. I even dropped him some bandages.

Fool.

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