Ever thought of reliving the early days of the Call of Duty boon by firing up the original Call of Duty Black Ops on your Steam Deck? Chances are, you've quickly put that idea to bed after finding out that it's a hitch-filled mess. Turns out you're not alone. Lucky for you, if the latest SteamOS beta build is anything to go by, older Call of Duty games could see a huge performance boost. And the benefits aren't limited to the classic FPS franchise, either. Theoretically, anyway.

Read the full story on PCGamesN: Valve's new Steam Deck update doesn't promise much, but classic Call of Duty games could see some real performance gains

With just a couple of days to go before Hytale attempts to do what Riot Games couldn't (release), Simon Collins-Laflamme and the Hypixel Studios team continue to showcase some of the features the long-delayed crafting game will include at launch next week. Much of the recent focus has been on player creation features, with the Entity Tool - part of its larger Creative Tooling menu - being the latest.

Read the full story on PCGamesN: Hytale's creative tools let you wedge a live animal into a wall, and the implications for player-made worlds are huge

Care to kick off your new year with another potentially massive waste of time? I mean that in a good way. The best way, actually. As someone who benched their annual festive WoW Classic play for a renewed stab at Old School Runescape, if my Hardcore Ironman team doesn't materialize in the next couple of days, Dreadmyst, a new indie MMO in the style of '90s isometric point and click adventures, might become my next obsession. And with plenty more to come, it could very well be shaped into one of the best MMORPGs of the new year.

Read the full story on PCGamesN: Forget about another WoW Classic run, this new, F2P dungeon-crawler MMO is a modern take on '90s online adventures

Decided to kick off your weekend with a couple of rounds of Apex Legends and a couple of cold brewskis? Well, if you ended up heading to bed early when your Ballistic lived up to his name by slamming every bullet you own into a cliff face without your involvement, don't go blaming the ol' liquid courage. Turns out someone has managed to find a way to "control the inputs of another player remotely," says Respawn Entertainment. While the studio says it was able to curb the issue within a few hours, it's never a good thing for the reputation of one of the best FPS games with a huge competitive following.

Read the full story on PCGamesN: Apex Legends hackers wrestle control of characters from other players, but Respawn urges that it's under control

After a fairly substantial delay from June to November, the first Mount and Blade 2 Bannerlord DLC, War Sails, has finally released. But the waters it permits players to wade through appear tepid, leading to a good chunk of fans of one of the best RPGs of the last few years feeling as if they've been left high and dry after a tiring wait for new content.

Read the full story on PCGamesN: The long-awaited first Mount and Blade 2 DLC sails through choppy waters as players claim it's overpriced

Can't quite leave your block-based gaming past behind you? Do you turn down the graphics options in your military shooters so low that they tend to look like a long-forgotten '90s gem anyway? Whether you're itching to break your ties to the yearly military shooter or want to throw down with hundreds of players without throwing down a chunk of your monthly rent, an incoming update to Battlebit Remastered, one of the best FPS games for the price, is gearing up to drop Operation Overhaul. But not everyone is happy.

Read the full story on PCGamesN: Battlefield 6's low-poly rival is back, as its new update's playtest attracts an "overwhelming" number of players in just four hours

Fancy playing a poorly received game that's suddenly being recommended as an "interactive movie" that's "perfect for your Thanksgiving weekend" despite Steam tagging it as a futuristic third-person shooter? Blown all your cash on hot Black Friday bargains? Well, have I got news for you: you can now play Mindseye, one of the worst-reviewed action games of the year, for free. A small chunk of it, at least. But maybe that's enough.

Read the full story on PCGamesN: You can now try notorious action game flop Mindseye for free, because it really can only get better from here

"It's been 3,000 years..." is an iconic gif I hope has been posted in response to the official announcement that a stack of fan-favorite Fortnite skins have returned after years on the bench. Having missed the chance to make their mark in the brightly-colored recreation of Springfield in one of the best battle royale games of the lot, you can, at the very least, have Jinx and Vi, the problematic Piltover personas from Arcane, bring their chaotic energy back to Fortnite around Hawkins, Indiana, where there are stranger things afoot than Homer Simpson drunkenly pottering around in his underwear.

Read the full story on PCGamesN: After four years, two of the most requested Fortnite skins are finally back on the menu, but fans are screaming for more

I'm clicking the 'Add News' button on our site's back-end to write a news story about a game all about posting news the old-fashioned way, and I couldn't be more excited to see the Steam reviews for News Tower coming in hot off the presses, signaling the release of what's shaping up to be one of the best tycoon games of the year.

Read the full story on PCGamesN: News Tower, a pre-war tycoon game where you become a media mogul in 1930s New York, hits 1.0 to a rave reception

Do you ever wonder what happened to Tower of Fantasy? The free-to-play shared-world anime game that I fully expected to make it onto our list of the best MMOs? The one that got some good buzz on Twitch back in 2022 as a potential Genshin Impact killer? Then you might be surprised, elated even, to hear that it's getting yet another big rework in just a few days to bring it closer to the original expectation of it being a shared-world anime adventure MMORPG, while keeping it separate from the regular version that I can only assume still has some staunch defenders.

Read the full story on PCGamesN: A huge anime action game is stripping out its gacha loot boxes to be reborn as a full-fledged MMORPG, and I can't wait

Got nothing better to do this weekend than try your hand at leading a nation to victory in World War II in one of the best strategy games ever made? On the back of a new DLC entry for the nearly decade-old grand strategy giant Hearts of Iron 4, you're welcome to try out the base WW2 game for free for the next few days. And given it'll likely take you that long to figure out the menus, the sooner you start, the quicker you can fail.

Read the full story on PCGamesN: You can play colossal WW2 strategy game Hearts of Iron 4 for free this weekend, and it's cheap to keep if you love it

Pining for The Witcher 4? Sad to see the Netflix show approaching its end after all these years? Though there's nothing stopping you from starting your second (or fifth) run through The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt while you wait for something, anything new in the Witcher universe, you could turn your attention to a humble crossover event in an entirely different kind of game. Sword of Convallaria, one of the best turn-based strategy games of last year, is gearing up to welcome Geralt and his crew next week.

Read the full story on PCGamesN: The Witcher 4 might be miles away, but Geralt and Ciri are honing their blades for some turn-based tactics this month