I've had one eye on ambitious Doom 2 mod Trench Foot for a while, though it was, admittedly, my weaker eye that requires me to wear corrective lenses. I had assumed Trench Foot was a total conversion set in the First World War, but it turns out it's much weirder than that. It basically combines World War One chic with medieval religious zealotry and a gothic ostentation that wouldn't look out of place in Warhammer 40,000.

Notionally, Trench Foot has you play as a master Templar of the one true faith known as the Canonicate, on a mission to wage "apocalyptic holy war" on the heretics who cower in the sprawling trenchworks of the wartorn nation of Cretu. With 14 unique weapons to wield and 15 enemy types to blast into ludicrous gibs, Trench Foot sounds utterly preposterous in the best way.

Unfortunately, the mod has hit numerous stumbling blocks over the course of its development. Some of these were design hurdles typical to mod making, but others were external factors such as the Doom modding's sudden sourceport shift from GZDoom to UZDoom. Developer TrenchWork has addressed these issues on several occasions. But the project has finally borne some fruit, albeit not what fans were likely expecting.

Out of the blue, TrenchWork has released a three-episode mini-campaign called Butcher's Summit, which acts as a prequel to the events that will ultimately be portrayed in the mod. Playing as a knight in the Templar order, you're tasked with eliminating a heretic surface-to-air battery dug deep into the peaks of a vast mountain range. With three maps spanning an estimated two-hour run time, the prequel features multiple weapons and "over 40 new monsters", which sounds like a lot more than was initially planned for the full mod.

In an article revealing the mini-episode, Trench Foot lead L0kken explained what's gone on. "It's no secret that the development of [Trench Foot] Chapter 1 has had its ups and downs," he writes. "During one of those slower phases of development, I decided to use the free time to begin work on a new project. I wanted to make something with a smaller scope that wouldn't require the efforts of the whole team to complete."

I took a very quick Tour of Trench Foot's opening level, and my initial impressions are that it's pretty tasty. The mod throws into the action almost immediately, with you pushing through a quasi-World War One frontline as you fight through axe-wielding cultists and deadly suicide bombers with revolvers, rifles, and your own mighty fist. The levels are large and open for a Doom-based game, with moody battlefields wreathed with fog and dusted by snow.

It seems impressive even at a fleeting glance, but L0kken is nonetheless keen to stress that Butcher's Summit "does not represent" how Chapter 1 will play. "I made a few decisions to keep the project as simple and expedient as possible," L0kken points out, adding that they opted for "A single difficulty option and kept cinematic moments to a minimum, prioritising gameplay and exploration."

Regardless, I reckon Trench Foot's prequel episode is well worth trying. You can download Butcher's Summit over on ModDB. While the mod is based upon Doom 2, it's also wholly standalone, enabling you to launch it straight from the file with no additional tinkering required.

New Blood has revealed that Ultrakill's next major addition, Hell's eighth layer of Fraud, will be added to the early access FPS next week. Fraud was initially set to release at the end of 2025, but suffered a minor last minute delay.

We don't know the exact day the update will drop, but New Blood advises fans to "Skip school. Call out sick from work," because "It's finally happening. And we're not lying."

One of the coolest things about Ultrakill is that each layer of Hell pretty much has its own art style: Lust is a dreamy metropolis, Gluttony is a Jabu Jabu's Belly-style situation, Greed is a freaky golden desert filled with the monuments of humanity, it's rad as hell.

Fraud looks like a real heater, with the unifying theme seeming to be illusion, funhouse tricks, and the sort of physics-defying spaces you can only explore in a videogame.

New Blood's early access projects⁠—Gloomwood, Fallen Aces, and Ultrakill⁠—continue to simmer like a fine gumbo. The long waits will be well-worth it in the end, I think: All three have been surprising me with their scale and ambition.

Each new update unveils new layers (figuratively, in addition to Ultrakill's literal layers of hell) of depth and complexity that genuinely excite me⁠. Gloomwood's monster transformation serum system is a great example. The feeling kinda reminds me of that point we all reached in Elden Ring in 2022 where it was like "Oh, the map keeps going? What is this game?"

Ultrakill seems the closest to a full 1.0 release, with just one more layer to go after Fraud: Treachery. On the smaller side, New Blood is also set to launch a grid-based, Grimrock-style spinoff of Dusk sometime this year, Dungeons of Dusk. Ultrakill is already a great value at $25, but you should wait to buy it if you haven't already: Fraud's launch will coincide with New Blood's customary anniversary sale from February 23 through March 2.

Battlefield 6 is pretty awesome, unless you happen to be in a jeep. The LGT (light ground transport), Battlefield 6's most plentiful vehicle, is a failure on every level.

"It is so bad at its one job—safely transporting—that it's not unusual to watch your team ignore a fleet of free jeeps and choose to hoof it across the map instead," I wrote in October 2025. "With four seats, one turret gunner, and absolutely zero protection from bullets or mines, taking a ride in Battlefield 6's sole transport car is like announcing to the entire server that five free kills are vroomin' their way soon."

Over four months later, the LGT remains as useless and undesirable as the day Battlefield 6 released. Nobody bothers using one for its intended purpose, and when the exception that proves the rule decides to brave the danger, they usually get blown to bits or bail within seconds. So when I sat down to speak with two DICE developers about Season 2, I politely demanded to know when jeeps wouldn't suck.

The short answer? DICE is aware that light vehicles are death traps, and now getting around to doing something about it.

"I'm going to take the light vehicle feedback with me to the team from you today," DICE hardware producer Kit Eklöf told PC Gamer. "But I also want to promote that there's a Battlefield Labs test coming up where we're going to test some vehicle improvements around this issue, specifically because we've heard the feedback that vehicles are death traps. We are going to try a package of vehicle improvements on Labs very soon, so keep an eye out for that."

Sounds promising, but it also stings to learn another important improvement for Battlefield 6 is, at minimum, weeks and weeks away. I can live with that, and I'm glad DICE has this Labs platform to thoroughly test stuff, but I'm going to go out on a limb and claim even a half-baked payload of buffs for the LGT pushed live tomorrow would leave it in a better place than it is now.

I hope tank buffs are part of the package too, because armored vehicles across the board behave like they're made of somewhat thick cardboard. The unbelievable number of rockets that engineers lug around these days, and the popularity of the SMG-equipped class in general, has cut the expected lifespan of even a decent tank driver to anywhere between two minutes and "exploded like a July 4th firecracker as soon as you get in."

It's rough out there for vehicles, which is a strange thing to have to say about what are supposed to be vital power weapons in Battlefield 6.

There's been a surprisingly strong run of Half-Life total conversions of late, by which I mean there have been two of them. November brought us Diffusion, a massively ambitious sci-fi adventure with some truly eye-popping environment design, especially considering the age of its tech. Yes, it featured some terrible AI generated text-to-speech. But its creator is working on fixing that and recently revealed some of the human cast for its English dub.

Now, the GoldSrc engine has been given a lick of black paint in the pulp noir thriller The Last Goodbye. Created by Half-Life mod team Guild of Inventors, The Last Goodbye puts you in the stiletto heels of Lucille, a gun-for-hire nicknamed The Banshee who takes on a job to assassinate the deadliest gangster in the City of Prava, a cigar-chomping criminal mastermind known as Bullseye. Between you and your target is an army of pipe-wielding, pistol toting goons desperate to wrap their lips around the barrel of your shotgun.

While The Last Goodbye clearly has Half-Life in its DNA, its creators say the mod is as much of a puzzle and exploration game as it is a shooter. The Last Goodbye places a big emphasis on storytelling, featuring both in-game dialogue and cutscenes relaying the tale. The latter have a hyper-specific inspiration, namely Tele-snap reconstructions of missing Doctor Who episodes.

Naturally, though, the game sees you get involved in plenty of scrapes, using pistols, shotguns, and even dynamite to thin the ranks of Bullseye's henchmen. Combat's designed to be challenging, with Lucille lacking the protection afforded Gordon Freeman by his HEV suit. Lucille seems a bit more nimble than Gordon, however, and is also capable of socking enemies in the jaw with her fists.

The trailer above shows the mod in action. I'm a big fan of the Tim Burton-era Gotham City vibe that Prava has to it, a moodily-lit blend of Victorian gothic townhouses and art-deco skyscrapers drenched in sultry neon lighting. I'm also impressed the modders managed to create a convincing looking cat out of GoldSrc-era graphics. Hammering those polygons into place must've taken some effort.

You can download The Last Goodbye on ModDB, although currently the build only includes one of a planned three acts. The modders say that development of act two is "already well under way, with levels and models being prioritised at the moment", and will bring three new enemy types and two new weapons.

And if act one of The Last Goodbye isn't enough to satisfy your cravings, you could always give Bloodlines 2 a shot. While The Chinese Room's sequel isn't a great RPG, it does spin a compelling noir detective yarn, with your Malkavian brain-companion Fabien proving excellent company even in the game's weakest moments. Alternatively, you could just play Max Payne 2 again, which is never a bad decision.

When Valorant launched back in 2020, it was pitched as Counter-Strike with added superpowers, a combination that proved irresistible for shooter expert Morgan Park in PC Gamer's Valorant review. Over the last few years, however, the emphasis has gradually shifted to the point where Valorant has turned into superpowers with added Counter-Strike.

This problem came to a head last year, with Riot promising to cut back on supplementary utility powers to reorient Valorant back around gunplay. This initiative is set to continue through 2026, with Valorant's latest patch introducing a new gun as Riot promises more extensive weapon reworks in the future.

That new gun is called the Bandit, a semiautomatic pistol designed to fill the gap between the silenced Ghost and Valorant's high-powered revolver, the Sheriff. The Bandit gives players a higher rate of fire than the Sheriff and superior damage compared to the Ghost, able to deal instant kills on headshots against lightly armoured players. Riot believes this should add some extra spice to those early, pistol-heavy rounds.

While the Bandit's addition is the only major weapon change in the update, Riot says it's indicative of the studio's broader plans for Valorant in 2026. "Since we started putting the emphasis on gunplay in 2025, we're going to use 2026 to take a holistic look at our arsenal and core combat loop, to make adjustments where needed," says Riot's product manager for Gameplay, Tiffy, in a video detailing the update.

Elsewhere, the update brings a substantial overhaul to one of Valorant's maps, Breeze. Riot says that player feedback indicated Breeze's open design was a little too open, so the developer has sprinkled in more cover and closed off some of its larger spaces to tighten up combat encounters. Two other maps, Haven and Corrode, have also been tweaked slightly to make wall penetration more predictable.

The update also introduces a new, temporary mode with the highly inelegant name "All Random One Site". This appears to be designed as a fast-paced, highly reactive mode, with players spawning as random characters and battling in small, closed off areas of each map.

The last major change Riot highlights is to Match Making Rating, or MMR. While Riot doesn't go into too much detail here, it says the changes are designed so MMR will more accurately reflect player skill, therefore helping ensure that matches have better balance for 2026.

I certainly prefer it when shooters put the shooting front and centre, rather than relying on secondary gimmicks to power the experience, so these changes sound like the right call to me. But if these tweaks are tempting you back into Valorant, make sure your motherboard BIOS is up to date first, otherwise you might find yourself unable to play due to Riot's latest anti-cheat measures.