Category: Rock, Paper, Shotgun

I regularly go against my best consumer instincts and check out the yearly iterations of sports games. It’s not something I’d likely be doing without some Steam press account magic letting me dodge the yearly cash sacrifice for a game that usually shares a huge chunk of DNA with its direct predecessor; a sense of deja vu is inevitable, unless you’ve been sensible enough to either let a few years pass or wait until you’ve spotted a new feature that piques your interest.

With NBA 2K26, there was one such addition in my mind. As someone who’s been keen to see 2K’s ball-to-basket series get rid of the invisible wall it’d put up between its simulations of men’s and women’s basketball for a good few years, the first-time addition of WNBA players to one of the marquee male-dominted modes caught my attention. Granted, it was MyTeam, the depressing pit in which you fork over either real money or fake money – acquired across hours of grinding – to buy trading cards that may or may not be dished out via something resembling a slot machine.

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I bring ill tidings from the land of folks who’re usually busy stressing about their heirs, sire. Crusader Kings 3‘s paid Coronations DLC has arrived alongside the Ascendant update, and I regret to inform you that the little expansion’s immediately been put in the stocks. The rotten tomatoes doth fly towards its bonce, and the resulting juice has turned its Steam reviews a mostly negative shade of crimson.

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Microsoft have announced plans to roll out a policy which will mandate that staff return to working from the office at least three days per week, with a first phase of it set to come into force as of February 2026.

In a memo about the move shared by The Verge, Microsoft executive vice president and chief people officer Amy Coleman asserted that it’s “not about reducing headcount”. The mandate comes just a couple of months after the company’s mass layoffs which saw about 9,000 employees let go and several games cancelled. The bloodletting hasn’t stopped since that point either, with The Seattle Times reporting this week that Microsoft have laid off a further 42 employees, bringing the total to 15,000 since May.

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In my experience, there are two kinds of tank in Battlefield games. There are the ones driven by other people, which are cut from solid granite yet move like ballet dancers. And then there are the ones driven by me, which are made out of candy floss and handle like shopping trolleys. Possibly, this reflects some kind of underlying “skill issue”, but come now, that’s speculative reporting that flies in the face of logic. Clearly it’s a balancing issue. Here’s Battlefield 6 lead producer David Sirland with a little more, based on learnings during the new shooter‘s multiplayer beta.

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When was the last time you turned the radio on? I imagine for some of you younger readers, the answer is probably never. To be clear I’m not judging you here if that is the case, or even if it’s just been a while, it’s a format that feels hard to reckon with when its main point – listening to a range of pieces of music – is made borderline moot in the era of streaming services. All of which makes Omega Point, a game where you control a mech but the only thing you can do in it is change which radio station you’re listening to, all the more interesting. A severe epilepsy warning is needed for this game as it has a lot of flashing images.

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Earlier this year, Bungie revealed a Destiny 2 expansion that I can still only describe now as a head scratcher. It’s called Renegades, a Star Wars inspired expansion (quite literally as it’s been made in collaboration with Lucasfilm) that was shown off properly for the first time in a livestream earlier today. Oh, and there’s a release date for it too!

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Keep your hands at 10 and 2, drivers, as Ironwood Studios has just offered up a first look at Pacific Drive’s first big expansion, Whispers in the Woods. Where the survival game has a sort of Stalker-but-you’re-in-a-car kind of feel, this DLC looks like it’s fully leaning into some horror vibes. The first half of the trailer has some real ’70s era, found footage horror vibes, which feels laser targeted at my artistic proclivities.

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Jump Space! It’s a game with a name that’ll have you thinking, “wait, that’s not what it was called, was it?” And you’d be right about that, as due to some trademark problems, the game was rebranded from Jump Ship to its new name Jump Space back in August. Later that same month, developer Keepsake Games announced the game would be launching into early access September 19th. And now, as in today September 9th now, Keepsake Games have shared an early access roadmap for the game, as well as how much it’ll cost you.

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I want to give Hollow Knight: Silksong a thrashing. A fully suited C-suite bollocking. I want to verbally repay unto it every cruel death, every pernickety jumping puzzle, every time-thieving runback it’s inflicted on me across the past five days.

But I can’t. For every moment of frustration, there are five of relief, of joy, of beauty even. As in Hollow Knight, Silksong stretches itself over a vast Metroidvania map, and yet its intricacies – its narrowest tunnels leading to grand new regions, its more acrobatic and tailorable combat movesets – make for constantly rewarding exploration, as well as some thrillingly free-flowing bugfights. There have been a couple times when I never wanted to play it again, and many more when I wish I never had to stop.

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Dune: Awakening has received its first “major” free update, a continuation of the MMO survival game’s story following the revelations of Act 3. What revelations were these? Honestly, lads, I never made it that far. My character is presently a furry chunk of worm jerky, crammed into a half-built shack after accidentally encasing herself in the furniture, so I couldn’t spill the beans even if I knew. But I can reveal there are “gruesome murders” to investigate from this point on, and further opportunities to dig up the misbegotten secrets of Arrakis. Here’s a trailer.

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