Call of Duty: Modern Warfare almost had a feature called “buddy boost”. But the feature was cut from Modern Warfare because, as multiplayer map design director Jeffrey Smith explained, “it’s really hard to get some random person to cooperate with you. Apparently they didn’t just pull the buddy boost out, but altered the maps as well with the aim of making them more interactive. Call of Duty: Modern Warfare is out on October 25. The PC early access beta starts September 19, while the open beta st

The partnership means NetEase will be bringing all of the historical Total Wars to China, along with a brand new game. Total War: Elysium is a CCG featuring, judging by the art above, historical generals duking it out on the table. Though it’s launching in China first, Creative Assembly says it hopes to “bring it to players worldwide before too long”. Also teased was the surprise resurrection of Total War: Arena, against exclusive to China. Creative Assembly and Wargaming canned the multiplayer

It isn’t the best gaming PC on the market by any means, but it is a very respectable starting point. If the specs above sound like gibberish to you, that AMD Ryzen 7 2700 CPU is a solid foundation on which to build your gaming system (it features on our best CPU for gaming list, in fact). Meanwhile, the graphics card—a mid-range AMD Radeon RX 580—will manage games like Fortnite, Apex Legends, or Overwatch with ease. To begin with, be sure to check out our list of the best gaming keyboards and in

After a stint languishing at Atari, the rights to the formative fantasy 4X game have been acquired by Slitherine, the publisher also responsible for bringing back the similarly ancient Fantasy General. Despite having a rocky start, Master of Magic carved out a comfortable spot for itself in the history of the strategy genre, inspiring plenty of 4X games and consistently appearing on nostalgic ‘best of’ lists. While it doesn’t feature on our own best strategy games on PC list, its influence is st

Photo resized, license link: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0/)Kevin McCarthy, the Republican Party House minority leader, has said that videogames are partly to blame for mass shootings in the US, following the deaths of 29 people in two shootings in El Paso, Texas, and Dayton, Ohio. A lone gunman killed 20 people and injured 26 more in a shopping center in El Paso yesterday in an incident that officials are treating as “domestic terrorism”. In an interview with Fox News in the wake

According to the latest Roblox blog, it has 100 million active users every month. For comparison’s sake, when Minecraft figures were last made public in March it had 91 million users (thanks for pointing that out, PCGamesN). Popular games within Roblox include Jailbreak, in which some players are criminals trying to escape from prison and go on rampages like a low-poly GTA Online while other players act as the police. Since the “Robux” earned by creators in Roblox can be exchanged for real-world

(Image credit: Capcom)A new Resident Evil game is in the works and a select group of fans will test it next month, according to a Capcom email sent to members of the Resident Evil Ambassadors program in Japan. The email, shared and translated by Resident Evil site Biohaze, says series developer Capcom Division 1 is “recruiting testers for a game that’s in development”, and that the test will occur on either September 8 or 9. It’s not known whether the test is for Resident Evil 8, or a remake of

We’ve had a go at Call of Duty: Modern Warfare’s multiplayer, tried out its new corner-mounting mechanic, and seen a more deliberate take on the Call of Duty formula. But the question remains—will this Call of Duty have a battle royale mode, as well as the regular multiplayer? IGN asked Infinity Ward’s multiplayer design director Joe Cecot, whether it would and he replied that though the designers are “big fans of battle royale” that’s not what they’re working on. “We really focused on Modern Wa

(Image credit: Team Ladybug)The next game based on the Record of Lodoss War franchise, a set of Japanese novels that sparked a popular anime TV series, is heading to Steam Early Access this year and is targeting a spring 2020 release date. The game, simply called Record of Lodoss War, is a 2D action platformer starring the high elf Deedlit. It will be the first game based on the franchise since 2016 MMORPG Record of Lodoss War Online—which was mediocre, judging by the Steam reviews. The MMO was

(Image credit: Team17)Alongside some Madden NFL 20 goodies, Twitch Prime members are getting four games as part of their subscription this month, including recently-released automated cooking puzzler Automachef and shapeshifting Metroidvania Mable and the Wood. Twitch Prime membership is automatically bundled with Amazon Prime, and if you’ve signed up you can grab the games here—scroll down to the bottom of that page. Automachef, released late last month, looks the pick of the bunch, and its Ste

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Developer Koei has announced the 14th installment in its Romance of the Three Kingdoms grand strategy RPGs, and it will come to Steam early next year. Koei said Romance of the Three Kingdoms 14 will help return “classic gameplay” to the series by using the ruler-based systems from the 9th and 11th entries, which means all actions take place on a single, hex-based map. The aim is to gather and manage land during the fall of the Han Dynasty in ancient China, using diplomacy or force as needed. “Wi

From 2010 to 2014 Richard Cobbett wrote Crapshoot, a column about bringing random obscure games back into the light. This time it’s Wrecked, one of the silliest edutainment games in the history of mankind. An edutainment platform game about the dangers of drugs . Wrecked was released as shareware by a group called Healthwise, promising… and I’m quoting the Readme file directly here… “5 levels, 12 drugs and hours of Stoned action!!!!!!!” “Wrecked is a game about drugs,” the intro warns.

(Image credit: R. Talsorian)199315,000 die when a tactical nuke is set off in New York, with blame placed on Colombian drug lords. 2007The Second Corporate War begins when SovOil and Petrochem come to blows over newly discovered oil fields in the South China Sea. (Image credit: R. Talsorian)2013The Soulkiller virus, which can digitize and erase a person’s mind, is developed by Alt Cunningham. (Image credit: R. Talsorian)2021War at sea between Aquacorps CINO and OTEC over an acquisition of the ba

Our weekend question is this: Do you keep doing sidequests after you finish the main story? The Elder Scrolls, the Far Cry series, the GTA series, the Fallout games. The world always feels a little different, somehow, when the main quest is done. But in most games, I take the procrastinator approach: I meander off the main path and do everything in the game I could possibly want to before begrudgingly finishing up the main quest. The main exception is The Elder Scrolls series, probably because t

Zachtronics is easily best known for puzzle games like Opus Magnum, which we were quite impressed with back in 2017. Eliza, named for the in-game AI, is a visual novel about an artificial intelligence counselling program. It looks as if the Eliza program will show a deep amount of data on its subjects as you talk with them—heart rate, respiration, vocal distress, and more. An AI-directed counseling program may not be so far off in our future. Would AI counseling be an equalizer that helps those

(Image credit: Mega Crit)Rogue-like deck builder Slay the Spire, one of the best games of the year so far, and Early Access multiplayer shooter Squad are the two early unlocks for the latest Humble Monthly Bundle, and you can grab them both right now for $12. Considering Slay the Spire’s lowest-ever price is around $10 and Squad’s is around $18, you’re saving a pretty penny, here. Slay the Spire is the kind of game everyone should play, even if you don’t like deck builders. Even with its current

(Image credit: Capcom)When E. Honda, Lucia and Poison were prematurely revealed as the next Street Fighter 5 DLC characters this week, it appeared someone at Capcom had got a bit over-excited and posted the trailer on Steam early. The trailer includes the major reveal of Poison, Lucia, and E. Honda as characters joining the fighter roster,” a Valve representative said on Steam. We are fans of Street Fighter ourselves and we’re sorry for the error.” Street Fighter 5 is currently offering a free t

(Image credit: Valve)Team Fortress 2’s in-game economy went haywire last week when a bug showered players with rare, Unusual quality hats. It has ruled that players can trade the first bugged hat added to their account. Refunds will go live in “about a week”, Valve said yesterday. Some players actually deleted the hats because they were worried they’d done something wrong by opening a bugged crate, Valve said. “We apologize for the inconvenience of this incident, and we’ve added safeguards to pr

(Image credit: Epic Games)Fortnite’s Season 10 added, among other things, a two-person mech called a B.R.U.T.E., and it’s tearing players to shreds. Some players want it nerfed, some want it removed entirely, and others want it moved to its own limited time mode. Most players on the subreddit seem to be happy for the mechs to remain in the game, but only if they’re moved to their own limited time mode. “The mechs literally make me not wanna play and I’ve played since the inception of Fortnite,”