Today brings Fortnite's biggest Star Wars crossover yet, with new content from the galaxy far, far away in all of the game's four main modes.

Access to play most of this content is free, including Lego Fortnite's major new Star Wars world, but there's also more than £60 of new cosmetic items to splash your cash on, should you fancy.

In terms of skins, there's a new version of Luke Skywalker available featuring his Return of Jedi swamp clothes - and most notably, featuring Yoda as a backpack. The Dagobah Luke bundle includes the Jedi apprentice and wizened Muppet master for 1800 V-Bucks (around a tenner). I feel like this really could have been a new style for the existing Luke skin, especially as Yoda is available separately (for 1000 V-Bucks). Epic Games may be hoping you cough up for Yoda then choose to grab the new Luke bundle to get his skin for just 800 more.

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May the fourth be with you! Microsoft has announced a free five hour gameplay trial for Star Wars Jedi: Survivor.

This trial was announced as part of Xbox's long-running Free Play Days promotion, which is available for all Xbox Game Pass Core and Xbox Game Pass Ultimate members.

However, unlike other Free Play Days additions, Star Wars Jedi: Survivor's five hour gameplay trial will be available to all Xbox players.

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A year after the release of Redfall and some players are still awaiting promised DLC.

The Bite Back Edition, costing £99.99 and still available on the Xbox store, includes the Redfall Hero Pass that promises "two future heroes". The content for this edition is also available separately for £29.99.

However, Bethesda is still yet to deliver this DLC (as spotted by Kotaku), following the game's release on 1st May last year.

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One of the hallmarks of a great studio - I'm deciding this as I type it, but it definitely sounds legit - is that they can take on surprising themes and topics and genres and still feel like themselves. This week's game of the week had to be a Roll7 joint, and while I could have picked literally any of the team's games - they never made anything that was less than glorious - I've gone for Not a Hero, which was published by Devolver Digital back in the day.

For players expecting another skateboarding game after the first two OlliOllis, Not a Hero was both a genuine surprise and something that ultimately felt just right. It's an action game - there aren't many games that cram in more action - and it plays out in a side view as you race through various locations, smashing windows, taking cover, picking your moment and blasting enemies to pieces.

Yes, it's an action game, but it's also a sports game, of the same strain as the OlliOllis that preceded it. You're racing against the clock, but you're also following, or trying to uncover, that magical thread that will take you from the start of the level to the finish. The rules are very clear and the fail states are very obvious. Picking up ammo and stuff like that triggers a little timer, while your rechargeable health is there to separate a one-off mistake from an approach that is just a terrible idea. OlliOlli is yet another one of those action games - there are a lot of tactics games in this category too - that really reminds me of American Football. The full-ahead approach, but with a bit of thought to it. The precision use of non-precision aggression.

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Helldivers 2 publisher Sony has today announced that players on Steam will soon be required to link to a PlayStation Network (PSN) account. And, the news isn't going down well.

The PlayStation maker said this linking requirement was only made optional on launch due to technical issues. However, that initial "grace period" for Helldivers 2 players on Steam is now over.

In a new post, Sony explained that, starting 6th May, new Helldivers 2 players on Steam will be required to connect their account to a PSN account. Meanwhile, those who already play the game on Steam will begin to see a mandatory login from 30th May. Then, by 4th June, all players will be required to have linked their Steam and PSN account to keep playing.

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The Knuckles TV show has set a streaming record for Paramount+ on its opening weekend.

The Sonic spin-off show starring Idris Elba in the titular role debuted last weekend on 26th April and, over that weekend, amassed over 4m hours streamed. It is also the most watched kids and family title ever on Paramount+.

"The Sonic the Hedgehog fans came out in full-force," said Jeff Grossman, executive vice president, programming, at Paramount+. "We're so thrilled with the record-breaking performance of Knuckles and the incredible lift the whole Sonic universe has experienced following Knuckles' premiere."

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Hello! Welcome back to our regular feature where we write a little bit about some of the games we've been playing over the past few days. This week we've gone with a bit of a theme: matchmaking. We've pulled on some of our most memorable matchmaking experiences from games we loved. Can you remember any of yours?

If you fancy catching up on some of the older editions of What We've Been Playing, here's our archive.

RuneScape is a game with a lot of grinding and, in many cases, this means a lot of standing around. Be it Woodcutting or Fishing, you'll find yourself fixed to one location where the only movement is between skill-spots or when it's time for a bank run to deposit your goods. (Unless you're a litterbug who just dumps everything on the ground.) Due to this I, and many other RuneScape players, have partaken in the long standing tradition of chatting away as your XP slowly climbs to the next level.

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If, like me, you haven't been paying that much attention to Bloodstained: Ritual of the Night since the buzz around its release started to fade, you might be surprised to see developer ArtPlay has just shared a brand-new post-launch roadmap - providing a date for the game's final two Kickstarter stretch goals - some five years after leaving early access.

It's now been a little under nine years since Bloodstained: Ritual of the Night smashed its Kickstarter target, securing $5.5m in funding, and it turns out ArtPlay is still ticking off its promised campaign stretch goals. The end is in sight, however; Bloodstained's 1.5 update - which Artplay is calling the "final update to the game" - launches on 9th May (the Switch version arrives a little later on 16th May) and adds the final two stretch goals promised to backers in all the way back in 2015: Chaos and VS. modes, which were, at one point, set to arrive in 2020.

Chaos Mode, as per ArtPlay's announcement, supports solo and co-op play (online and local) and sees players battling through a series of randomised rooms to defeat demons and bosses. VS Mode, meanwhile, is a "special PVP mode" that pits two players against waves of demons. Souls earned by defeating enemies can be used to purchase attacks that will negatively affect a player's human opponent, with victory going to the player that survives the longest.

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A little under a month after Nintendo successfully brought an end to open-source Switch emulator Yuzu, the company has managed to wipe out 8535 Yuzu GitHub repositories - containing code from the original emulator - all at once with a single DMCA takedown notice.

As reported by TorrentFreak, the culling occured after Nintendo filed a DMCA (Digital Millennium Copyright Act) notice with GitHub earlier this week, in which the company specifically targeted a number of repositories it claimed "provide access to the Yuzu emulator or code based on the yuzu emulator [which] illegally circumvents Nintendo's technological protection measures and runs illegal copies of Nintendo Switch games".

And that single takedown notice has had a domino effect. As GitHub explained in its public response to Nintendo's DMCA submission, "Because the reported network that contained the allegedly infringing content was larger that one hundred repositories, and the submitter alleged that all or most of the forks were infringing to the same extent as the parent repository, GitHub processed the takedown notice against the entire network of 8,535 repositories, including of the parent repository."

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Larian Studios has warned of a further - if hopefully short - delay for the Xbox Series X/S and North American PlayStation 5 versions of its fancy Baldur's Gate 3 physical Deluxe Edition, caused by unspecified "production issues".

Baldur's Gate 3's Deluxe Edition was unveiled last December promising an assortment of appealing tat, including a double-sided map, cloth patches, a mind flayer poster, stickers, a soundtrack, a digital art book, and a variety of in-game items - all crammed into a big old box.

The PC Deluxe Edition began its journey to purchasers in March, and Larian initially expressed hope it would be able to get the PS5 version out the door at the same time. However, after running into a number of "production issues", it announced shipping for Xbox Series X/S and PlayStation would begin between April and May.

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Ubisoft's Tom Clancy-adjacent free-to-play shooter XDefiant has - after several delays last year - been given a release date, and launches for PS5, Xbox Series X/S, and PC on 21st May.

XDefiant - a 6v6 mash-up of Splinter Cell, Ghost Recon, and The Division - was initially revealed as Tom Clancy's XDefiant back in 2021, but Ubisoft later announced it was dropping the prefix following criticism from Tom Clancy fans who felt XDefiant's flamboyant action strayed too far from the franchise's more serious military themes and formula.

Since then, it's seen numerous closed Insider tests and open sessions, but hasn't quite managed to get its foot out the door. It first missed a planned summer launch last year, then received another delay in October, due to "inconsistencies in the game experience".

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As the season of summer showcases creeps ever closer, THQ Nordic has announced its annual digital event will be returning this August with a look at its upcoming games, including the Gothic 1 remake and Titan Quest 2.

Specifically, the THQ Nordic Showcase 2024, as it's imaginatively being called, airs from 8pm BST on Friday, 2nd August - or 9pm CEST/12pm PDT/3pm EDT if you live elsewhere - and will be streamed via YouTube, Twitch, and Steam.

As for what we can expect to see, THQ Nordic is being relatively coy, only confirming appearances from its Gothic 1 Remake (which was confirmed to be in development all the way back in February 2020), alongside Titan Quest 2, and "much more".

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SteelSeries' Arctis Nova Pro Wireless is more than a good gaming headset for all consoles plus PC - it's our current top pick overall, beating out names like Corsair and Logitech, thanks to its combination of sound quality, comfort and convenience. This week SteelSeries announced a hardware revision to that DF-favourite design, with a tweak to the placement of the internal mics needed for the headset's ANC functionality, as well as a new white colourway.

SteelSeries were kind enough to send out the new iteration of the headset in that new white colour, and it's clear on close inspection that this is a relatively minor hardware revision. One of the few downsides to the original design were that the ANC nubbins inside the earcup could touch the ears of some people in an annoying and potentially uncomfortable way, and it's this issue that the new revision is designed to address.

You could work around the original problem with third-party ear pads with thicker designs, such as these great-looking options from Wicked Cushions, but it's good to see that SteelSeries has taken the feedback on board and hopefully eliminated the issue for good on all Nova Pro headsets going forward. I didn't find the ANC mic touched my ear on the original model, but it's clear even from a surface inspection that the new design is a little less prominent and therefore unlikely to cause irritation.

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It's getting cold in here, so put on all your clothes. So says Helldivers 2 developer Arrowhead, which has just debuted its latest Warbond: Polar Patriots.

The game's next premium Warbond is set to arrive on 9th May, and offers up a number of new weapons, armour and capes (including one called Dissident's Nightmare, which sounds, erm, yeah...). All of this upcoming clobber looks suitable for the Star Wars planet of Hoth. There is a real deep-freeze energy to the whole collection.

As for cost, it is likely that Polar Patriots will set Helldivers back 1000 Super Credits, as with the game's previous Premium Warbonds.

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This week on the Eurogamer Newscast, following the announcement of a new Batman Arkham game for Meta Quest VR headsets, we talk about the future of superheroes in video games.

At a time when superhero films feel at risk of real burnout, could similar happen in the video game space as well? And are we already seeing that, with repeated flops such as Marvel's Avengers, Gotham Knights and Suicide Squad: Kill the Justice League? Even the brilliant Marvel's Midnight Sons failed to move the needle.

But is there hope on the horizon? With the live-service bubble burst, the next crop of games include single-player blockbusters such as Amy Hennig's Marvel 1943: Rise of Hydra plus a new Iron Man project from Star Wars: Squadrons studio EA Motive. And certainly, Sony's Spider-Man games are managing to do the numbers. Joining me to discuss this week are Eurogamer's Ed Nightingale and Victoria Kennedy.

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Shadow of the Erdtree will be Elden Ring's only piece of DLC, but that doesn't mean more Elden Ring isn't on the way in future.

Creator Hidetaki Miyazaki was interviewed by Chinese outlet Zhihu (spotted by YouTuber Ziostorm), where a few new snippets of information have been revealed.

Potential spoilers and speculation follow.

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I was stunned this morning to read about the sudden closure of award-winning British studio Roll7 by parent company Take-Two, as I'm sure so many of you were. It hasn't been officially confirmed by either company yet but there are reports out there and people talking in all-but-confirmation tones on social media. It seems beyond doubt.

But it was barely a blink of an eye ago - November 2023 - when I was sitting with studio co-founder John Ribbins, and creative director Andreas Yiannikaris, to talk about 15 years of Roll7 and what was coming next. They were each excited about new games they were directing there, with Ribbins hopeful we'd learn more about his one this year. But those games, I expect, are now cancelled. To me at the time they looked as comfortable and content as anyone in game development could be. Belonging to a big company like Take-Two, via its publishing label Private Division, looked good on them.

It makes me cringe to think we even talked about the layoffs ravaging the games industry, which have evidently continued well into this year. I didn't put this quote in my piece but it's pertinent now: when asked about layoffs and whether they'd affected Roll7, Ribbins said, "I don't think anyone feels safe, but I feel very fortunate that we became part of the Take-Two family when we did, and also very fortunate that they still back what we want to do. Obviously there's stuff we're doing we can't really talk about at the moment, because it's early, but to be in a position where that is happening when lots of places around us are struggling - in a position to keep doing what we're doing with the people that were doing it with: we're really lucky to be in that position."

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Fallout 3 is available this month for free as part of Amazon Prime Gaming.

The Fallout series is definitely having a moment thanks to Amazon's new TV show, so it makes sense to capitalise on that with Fallout 3 in its monthly lineup for May.

The full list of Free Games with Prime in May are:

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What is an enthusiast-grade mechanical keyboard? It depends on what you're into - it might be a super-fast gaming board for esports, an ultra low-profile work keyboard equally adept for Mac or Windows, or even a full-fat custom keyboard with unique switches and a compact form factor. Today we've got examples of all three, giving you an idea of what sorts of keyboards are out there and which you might prefer.

Here are three reviews then: the low-profile Mistel AirOne, the rapid trigger Meletrix BOOG75 and the custom-built Keychron Q1 Pro with MX Purple switches designed by Cherry and British keyboard maker Glarses. All are fascinating options in their own right, showing the breadth of the enthusiast keyboard market in spring 2024.

Buy:

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Sega and Creative Assembly have announced a collection of new features and cultures coming to Total War: Pharaoh as part of an upcoming free update.

The game's campaign experience will be reworked to "improve existing gameplay foundations whilst providing players with a host of new content to better experience the turbulence of the Bronze-Age collapse", the Total War: Pharaoh team said today.

This reworking will include an expansion of the campaign's map, which will soon see the Mesopotamia and Aegea regions added to the conflict. And, as you would expect, these regions will be bringing their playable factions with them, as well. These are: Babylon, Assyria, Mycenae, and Troy.

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The third Super Nintendo World location will open next year in Orlando, Florida, Universal Studios has now confirmed, and include the theme park attraction's extra Donkey Kong expansion from the off.

A 2025 opening for Super Nintendo World had long been suspected, despite earlier plans to open back in 2023.

Universal Studios Orlando made the date official today in a video posted to social media platform X, shared by Nintendo of America. However, there's no exact detail yet on when next year the park will open its doors - so maybe hold off on booking flights just yet.

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The CEO of Level-5 - the studio behind the family-friendly Professor Layton series, Snack World and Ni no Kuni - has said he hopes to one day make a darker game with more violence and eroticism.

Speaking with Denfaminicogamer in a joint interview with Grasshopper Manufacture's Goichi Suda, Level-5's Akihiro Hino said he admired "creators who can release such edgy titles into the world", calling them "amazing" (translated by automaton).

This is, of course, the kind of game Suda's studio is known for, with titles such as No More Heroes and Lollipop Chainsaw to its name.

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Game engine company Unity has appointed a new CEO, following the retirement of John Riccitiello last year.

Matthew Bromberg will be stepping into the role later this month, Unity has announced. Meanwhile, the company's interim CEO Jim Whitehurst will take up the postion of executive chair of the Unity board.

Bromberg's previous positions within the industry include group general manager of Dragon Age and Mass Effect developer BioWare. Additionally, he served as senior vice president of strategy and operations for EA's mobile division.

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Final Fantasy 7 Rebirth is the fourth top-selling game in the US so far this year, behind the likes of Helldivers 2 and Dragon's Dogma 2.

That's according to sales tracking from numbers company Circana. Helldivers 2 takes the top spot, which isn't too surprising considering its massive success - it reportedly sold over 8m copies in its first month and was PlayStation's biggest launch on Steam.

Dragon's Dogma 2, meanwhile, has "performed favourably" according to Capcom, leading to a boost in the company's expected profits. It sold 2.5m copies in under two weeks.

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A few weeks back, Mattel launched a new version of the board game Scrabble, called Scrabble Together. While it's far from the first new version of Scrabble ever made, it's a super interesting idea. Scrabble Together arrives on the back of the traditional Scrabble board, and the concept is that it's a cooperative affair. Players sit down with their own letter stacks but then work together. Each turn, everyone has to place a word on the board, but rather than using the numbers on the letters to build a score, the word must complete the conditions listed on at least one of the goal cards that's currently in play. It's the Scrabble equivalent of joining together in Monster Hunter to take down something massive.

Speaking of touchstones, these goal cards are very similar to the ongoing missions you get in a lot of mobile games. One card might ask you to play a word containing a tile worth 5 points. Another might ask you to play a six-letter word. You have three on the go at any one time, and they're replaced when they're completed. Complete 20 goals and you all win the game together. Fail a goal card - and fail after you've run out of one-shot helper cards, which do things like refresh the goal pile, allow players to trade tiles or make blanks - and you all lose the game together.

As has been widely reported, this has made some people a little angry. Fox News' Greg Gutfeld apparently said that playing a game without scoring "is anti-human", which is a fairly serious context in which to place a word game. Mattel, meanwhile, has said that Scrabble Together is for people who might find the original game intimidating. I think this is fair. And, actually, I think Scrabble Together has a very specific use that I'm extremely keen on.

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Sony has revealed a new PS5 feature that'll let players generate shareable links enabling others to quickly jump into their multiplayer sessions without needing to be PSN friends first.

Once the feature arrives - at some point in "the coming months", according to Sony - players will be able to create links either directly on their PlayStation 5 console or using the PlayStation App. The resulting link can then be shared as a simple URL or a scannable QR code via the social media or messaging platform of their choice.

Additionally, Sony is working on a Discord widget version of the link feature that, when posted into chat, will dynamically refresh to show the multiplayer session's status - so recipients can immediately see if it's still active and worth hopping into.

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Lego Fortnite, the survival crafting experience found within Fortnite itself, is adding a huge new Star Wars mode this Friday, 3rd May.

The permanent addition comes as part of a Star Wars celebration across all four of Epic Games' main Fortnite modes: battle royale, Lego Fortnite, Rocket Racing and Fortnite Festival. But it's the Lego experience which looks by far the most impressive.

A fresh Star Wars-themed Lego World will become available within the Lego Fortnite mode that offers a Rebel Village for you to build up and grow using Star Wars parts and materials, and which features unique Star Wars characters.

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Starfield's May update - that'll be the one teased by Bethesa's Todd Howard earlier this week - is now live for beta testing on PC, bringing with it the previously promised surface map overhaul, alongside a new 60fps target mode on Xbox Series X. Additionally, Bethesda has shared a brief look at land vehicles, coming to Starfield in a future update.

Bethesda's lengthy release notes kick off with some "big improvements" for those pesky surface maps - changes elaborated on in an accompanying developer video. Bethesda says the goal of its overhaul is to introduce more "utility and detail" to maps, and that includes cities now being properly represented with 3D maps featuring icons denoting points of interest. Additionally, bringing up Starfield's scanner now superimposes these icons directly onto the environment, so players can more easily find their way to a specific location.

Elsewhere, the update introduces an extensive suite of granular gameplay options enabling players to configure Starfield to better suit their tastes. These include options to separately adjust enemy and player combat damage output, to enhance or decrease aim assist, to make ammo weightless, to increase or decrease the effectiveness of healing items, to adjust instances where automatic saves trigger, and more. Additionally Bethesda is introducing an "extreme" difficulty option which sits above the current "very hard".

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PlayStation has revealed its four free monthly games for PlayStation Plus Essential subscribers this month, which will be available from 7th May.

Zelda-like adventure Tunic leads the pack across PS4 and PS5, though don't let the cute visuals fool you - this is a tricky puzzler full of hidden secrets.

May's full list of PlayStation Plus Essential games lies below:

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PlayStation is taking the odd step of removing one of its biggest first-party games from the PlayStation Plus catalogue later this month.

Horizon Zero Dawn will be removed from PS Plus Extra on 21st May, according to the game's listing on the PlayStation Store, as first spotted by reddit and verified by Eurogamer.

Specifically, this is for the Horizon Zero Dawn: Complete Edition, which includes the game's Frozen Wilds expansion too.

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Lego has revealed three new Sonic the Hedgehog sets coming this summer, including Super Sonic for the first time.

Super Sonic is the first new Lego Sonic minifigure since Knuckles, Rogue and Shadow, who were teased last October and are now all available in various sets.

As with the Sonic minifigure, Super Sonic comes with a speed sphere (in yellow, of course) to launch him at enemies and Badniks. This is as part of a set with Dr Robotnik's Egg Drillster, inspired by his iconic boss vehicle in Sonic the Hedgehog 2's Emerald Hill Zone. Careful where you put that.

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UPDATE 11.30pm: Following reports Kerbal Space Program 2 studio Intercept Games has been shut down as part of previously announced mass layoffs by parent company Take-Two, a fresh report has claimed renowned UK developer Roll7 - known for the acclaimed likes of OlliOlli World and Rollerdrome - has been closed down too.

As reported by Bloomberg's Jason Schreier, based on a note to Take-Two staff reviewed by the publication, Roll7 is the second of two subsidiaries closing as part of Take-Two's layoffs - the first being Intercept Games. Severance agreements will reportedly be offered to Roll7 employees.

Roll7 was purchased by Private Division, Take-Two's indie publishing label, in 2021. The studio released two well-received titles - OlliOlli World and Rollerdrome - the following year.

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A new game in the Batman: Arkham series is on the way, exclusive to the Meta Quest 3 VR headset.

Batman: Arkham Shadow is being developed by Camouflaj (Iron Man VR, Republique VR) and Oculus Studios, in partnership with Warner Bros and DC.

Promising a new story set in the Batman: Arkham franchise canon, it's set for release "late 2024" with more details expected at the Summer Game Fest in June.

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Valve's Steam Deck is a highly capable piece of kit, often reaching parity with last-gen consoles at ~720p, while more demanding current-gen efforts can prove quite playable as well - even including some of the top-end Unreal Engine 5 titles. The RDNA2 graphics hardware inside the Deck is even capable of ray tracing, though this support has largely been dormant in SteamOS. That's started to change over the last year, with first Vulkan and then DXR-enabled titles running under Proton with RT enabled - and RT performance has seen big boosts as well.

Today we're taking a look at the state of play when it comes to RT on Steam Deck, looking at some of the best-looking PC titles to see whether they can be playable with RT engaged. Can we get good frame-rates even with demanding ray tracing settings? And how does the Valve's handheld compare in performance terms against the more powerful ROG Ally?

The most obvious place to start is with the Steam Deck is some of the easier ray tracing workloads available - and I think Doom Eternal is a good first choice. The game runs well with minimal settings tweakery: 720p resolution, medium settings and RT toggled on. Relative to the non-RT version of the game, we get solid (if somewhat low-res and slightly ghostly) reflections on glossy surfaces, with very different material properties when RT is enabled. This makes for a transformative difference in scenes with glossy materials, though an aggressive roughness cutoff means that semi-gloss materials are largely bereft of RT treatment.

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TopSpin 2K25 players are furious at 2K as online server issues have hampered the game's single-player career mode since launch.

The tennis game, the first in the long-running series for 13 years, released last week to generally positive reviews, but its single-player career mode requires an online connection.

Unfortunately, multiple server issues mean the mode has been unplayable for some, while progress has been lost for others.

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Hello and welcome back to What To Play! We've returned from a little hiatus, which you definitely noticed and have been very sad about, of course. It's finally edging towards spring here in the UK, but don't let that tempt you into going outside, there's video games to be a-playin'!

As ever, this is where we'll round up the best games from the month gone by, and the things we're most excited to play from the month ahead - plus, any other suggestions for what might complement it. Here's What To Play This May 2024.

Availability: Out now on PC, Switch, Xbox One and Xbox Series X/S.

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Remember a couple of years ago, when Funko announced a collaboration with Jon Burton's 10.10 Games to release new big budget video games? Well, the time has come to see exactly what this collaboration has produced, and it all looks rather chaotic.

The appropriately-named Funko Fusion is described as a co-op action "extravaganza" full of more brands than you can shake a stick at: Jurassic World, The Umbrella Academy, Battlestar Galactica and Nope. The Simon Pegg-fronted Hot Fuzz is even making a big-headed showing in the upcoming game, and that's far from all the properties players can expect to see on release.

Don't believe me? Well, you can see for yourself in Funko Fusion's reveal trailer - which features more giant head decapitations than I was expecting - below:

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Supporters, we'll be recording a new episode of your exclusive Inside Eurogamer podcast tomorrow, and I want to know whether you have any questions for us. I've asked this before; you probably know the drill.

Brief aside: if you're not a Supporter and this podcast - and the chance to ask us questions - sounds like something you'd be interested in, then allow me to point you to our subs hub. Supporting us costs £3/€3/$3 a month or £30/€30/$30 a year, and for that you get an ad-free Eurogamer as well as exclusive articles and things like this podcast. Aside over.

In this episode, I'll have video producer extraordinaire Zoe Delahunty-Light with me, and deputy news editor Ed Nightingale too, and we'll be talking, primarily, about streaming. Zoe is obviously an old-hand at it, having done it for a number of years on the Eurogamer YouTube channel, but Ed's no stranger to it either. If you follow him on socials, you'll know that he streams regularly on Twitch, and that he's one half of the Swapping Joysticks gaming and streaming podcast. I'm personally keen to hear their advice for stream etiquette and how to make streams stand out, or just how to get started, because it's a topic close to my interests at the moment. But what would you like to know? If you have a question, pop them in the comments below.

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An iPhone version of Assassin's Creed Mirage will launch via the App Store on 6th June.

You'll need an iPhone 15 Pro or Pro Max or later to play the fully-fledged PC and console game on the go. An iPad version will also be available, for iPad Air or iPad Pro with M1 chip or later. (There's no word of an Android version.)

Mirage will become the first full Assassin's Creed game to launch on smartphones, following its initial release for PC, PlayStation and Xbox consoles last autumn.

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GAME has opened pre-orders for some pricey Fallout TV series merchandise, including a £200 replica of Lucy's Vault 33 backpack, and a £200 version of the Pip-Boy 3000.

The beleaguered British high street chain says it has seen a huge spike in interest for Fallout merchandise following the success of Amazon's TV show, and promises yet more collectable tie-in items will be available on its shelves in the future.

GAME has recently shifted to selling video game and pop culture merchandise as a major part of its offering, while scrapping its long-running preowned games and trade-in service. The chain is also moving to operate more kiosks in Sports Direct stores, a change that has seen the company close bespoke high street locations and move most staff to zero-hour contracts.

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Stellar Blade is set to get a Boss Challenge mode in future.

The news was confirmed in an interview with developer Shift Up's CEO Hyung-tae Kim by Korean outlet Nate (via Games Radar).

The game already received a New Game Plus mode in a day one patch, which adds expanded gear levels, new costumes for protagonist Eve, and new skills. Plans for further DLC are yet to be decided, but a Boss Challenge mode is being planned, the interview reads.

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Fallout 76 has been having a bit of a moment of late. Following the release of Amazon's hit TV adaptation, the MMO's player numbers have surged, with Bethesda recently announcing that over one million of us were all making our way around the Appalachia wasteland in a single day.

Now, following this fresh influx of players, the studio has released a rather hefty patch for Fallout 76 that takes aim at bugs, quality of life improvements and more.

First up, the file sizes for this Fallout 76 update are relatively substantial, so make sure you have all the space you need. They are as follows:

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Five of the Best is a weekly series for supporters of Eurogamer. It's a series that highlights some of the features in games that are often overlooked. It's also about having your say, so don't be shy, use the comments below and join in!

Oh and if you want to read more, you can - you can find our entire Five of the Best archive elsewhere on the site.

Every year, there are awards given to the best lead and supporting characters in games or movies, or TV shows or whatever else. They are, after all, the characters that the stories usually revolve around. But what about all of the other characters in those fictional (and sometimes factual) worlds? They might be less integral to the overarching story but I don't know if they're any less important to the feel and impact of the world. Some, of course, can go on to be so memorable they actually replace some of the main characters in our memories of the game, and that's who I want to highlight here. The question is, which minor character do you most remember from a game, and why?

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A short way into an extended hands-off presentation of Flintlock: The Siege of Dawn, and my main thought was: this feels a lot like a mix between God of War and Souls games, at which point creative director Simon Dasan described it as… more or less exactly that. "A massive thing for us was to try and take that real Soulslike field of action, and then make it more accessible, kind of bring it all together to the masses," he explained, to the sound of main character Nor slashing theatrically through an enemy grunt.

Flintlock, the next game from the New Zealand studio behind Ashen, is breezy and fluid, emphasising movement and offence where typical Souslikes might nudge you towards a more staid defensive dance. But the switch to proactivity is countered by the usual trappings of the genre: a semi-linear world, small numbers of enemies, and combat that, while flashier and faster, still seems to reward precision above all.

Arriving in a crumbling castle courtyard around a third of the way into the game, you find the area subjugated by a god. Battling through some initially typical Soulslike enemies - think zombified dudes in armour - Dasan and co demonstrated a few variations on how exactly that combat works.

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Sad news this morning with the death of Paul Auster at 77. Like a lot of people, I suspect, I discovered his books in my late teens and early 20s. I read The Music of Chance at school after I'd spotted it at the library and, of all things, found the cover intriguing. Later, at university, I had a lecturer who was a serious Auster fan and was foolish enough to lend me his signed copies of Leviathan and Moon Palace. I say foolish - I treated those books like holy objects while I had them in my house.

For a few years I read everything he wrote, going backwards mainly. I loved his strangely serious playfulness - postmodernism was big at the time and this was his response, I think. I remember thinking it was incredibly freeing the way he would just drop a character with his name into one novel, and then another. I read his autobiographical stuff, which read like fiction, and his fiction which had these long stretches that felt like real life, and had probably come from real life.

Two books stick with me though: Moon Palace, which I think is the classic Auster, compact and roving, curious and distinctly miserable in spots, wildly inventive yet moving, somehow, within tight rules imposed by the author prior to writing. And Hand to Mouth, a memoir that I remember as being largely concerned with being really skint in your 20s.

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Zynga's free-to-play 4v4 arena shooter Star Wars: Hunters finally has a release date after years of delays, with the game now set to arrive for Switch, iOS, and Android on 4th June.

Star Wars: Hunters was originally announced all the way back in March 2021, when it was planned to launch later that year. 2021 turned to 2022, however, which turned to 2023 after Zynga announced another delay to ensure the game met "the high expectations we are setting". And then, whoops, it slipped yet again into 2024.

But now, a little over three years since it was formally unveiled, Star Wars: Hunters finally has its first proper, actual release date - alongside details of what it'll include come launch day.

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Diablo 4's fourth season of post-launch content, Loot Reborn, arrives on 14th May and promises to be the dungeon-crawler's "biggest gameplay update yet".

As per Blizzard's lengthy announcement, Season 4: Loot Reborn is a little different to previous seasons; as well as delivering the expected limited-time seasonal content, it permanently overhauls "many core game systems" across both the Seasonal and Eternal Realms.

Itemisation is a particular focus, with Blizzard introducing changes to the way items "are earned, how they function, and how they improve" as players level through World Tiers during a season. "Dropped items are now simpler to evaluate," it explains "and we've moved their complexity and customisation to our new crafting systems, Tempering and Masterworking."

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Following Microsoft's announcement it's once again holding an Xbox Games Showcase this June, a new report has shed some light on what we can expect to see - including a new Gears of War game and a reveal for the next Call of Duty.

That's according to The Verge's Tom Warren, citing "sources familiar with [Microsoft's] plans". The publication reports, as has already been widely speculated, the next Call of Duty will be the focus of Microsoft's post-showcase Direct, which the company has so far only teased with the word "redacted". Previous rumours have suggested this'll be a new Black Ops game.

As for the showcase itself, The Verge says Microsoft will use the occasion to reveal a new entry in the Gears of War series - something we've known Gears studio The Coalition has been working on for a while - alongside a host of release dates for its bigger titles.

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Square Enix has abandoned a number of in-development projects, resulting in a ¥22.1 bn (£112m) loss for the financial year.

The news was shared today in a Notification of Recognition of Extraordinary Losses to shareholders detailing a decision made back in March, as the company reviews its consolidated forecasts for the fiscal year ended March 2024.

These "content abandonment losses" are part of Square Enix president Takashi Kiryu's streamlining of the company's output of games, "with the intention of being more selective and focused in the allocation of development resources".

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Form an orderly queue, as transcendent crowd puzzler Humanity is coming to Xbox.

Humanity was originally released on PC and PlayStation consoles in May last year. And now, a little over a year since its initial debut, it will also be coming to Xbox One and Xbox Series X/S.

The game will launch directly into Game Pass on Cloud, Console and PC on 30th May, the team announced during last night's ID@Xbox showcase. You can see a little trailer for it all below (and yes, you are a ghostly Shiba Inu shepherding people around).

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