‘Valorant’ 4.0 patch notes – new Agent Neon, map updates, and more

This Week in Games is a weekly column where Vikki Blake pulls apart the biggest stories in gaming each week. This week, she addresses the industry’s growing uneasiness about Xbox Game Pass and similar subscription services. For us, it’s a bit of a no-brainer. Instant access to hundreds of...

Prime Gaming for June is set to include six free games and a hoard of exclusive content for other titles on PC. Announced today (May 26), as of June 1 six titles will be available for Amazon Prime subscribers throughout the month, and these include:. Far Cry 4. Escape From...

2K Games‘ BioShock: The Collection is the free Epic Games Store title that was previously being teased on the website. For the month of June, the first mystery game of Epic Games‘ free giveaway service has been revealed to be BioShock: The Collection. Players are able to head over to the store right now and download the game for free until June 2 at 4 PM BST / 8 AM PT / 11 AM ET.

Animal Collective have cancelled the remaining shows on their current US tour after Avey Tare and Deakin tested positive for COVID-19. The band are out on the road in support of their 11th studio album ‘Time Skiffs’, which came out back in February. As Pitchfork reports, Animal Collective...

Sniper Elite 5 takes the established third-person stealth gameplay of its predecessors and adds even more options for its players. Killcam has been improved, offering slow-motion takedowns with everything from sniper shots, to melee executions and landmine trap kills. Developer Rebellion has really opened up the maps too, adding more areas to explore, traverse and scout as you complete your objectives.

Nintendo Switch Online subscribers now have access to additional SNES titles as well as another NES game. The games in question are 1992’s Congo’s Caper, 1992’s Rival Turf, and 1984’s Pinball. Developed by now-defunct Data East Corporation (DECA), Congo’s Caper is a 2D action platformer featuring...

Hangar 13 has been hit with another round of layoffs, this time affecting 50 employees. Beleaguered 2K subsidiary Hangar 13 has suffered multiple setbacks since launching Mafia 3 in 2016. The studio already lost staff in two rounds of layoffs in 2017 and 2018, their former studio head Haden Blackman resigned this month and now the studio is letting go more staff from its Novato office in California.

The Sims 4 developer Maxis has given the game’s Goth family a visual update, though fans are divided on whether the new look works. Yesterday (May 25), Maxis shared a before-and-after clip to reveal a makeover for The Sims 4‘s Goth family. “Grab the fruitcake & welcome wagon...

Jerry Hook, who worked as head of design on Halo Infinite, announced on May 25 that he has left 343 Industries. The announcement came via a tweet by Hook, which reads; “Today marks my last day at 343i, Microsoft and Halo. This journey has been filled with creating new worlds, platforms and products from Xbox, Xbox Live to Halo.”

Playing Sniper Elite 5 involves a sense of delayed gratification. The stealth shooter has long been the best place to go if you want WW2 commando antics, but with this fifth edition it’s taken a step up as probably the best current-gen stealth game out there, taking clear inspiration from titles like Hitman and Metal Gear Solid 5.

Epic Games has revealed when Chapter 3 Season 2 of Fortnite will come to an end, with Collision – the season finale event – set to take players on a “wild ride”. In a blog post shared yesterday (May 26), Epic Games announced that the Collision event will take place on June 4, at 9PM BST / 10PM CEST / 4PM ET.

It’s been confirmed by Blizzard that Diablo Immortal will not be released in the Netherlands or Belgium – two countries with strict rules about loot boxes. According to Tweakers, the communication manager of Activision Blizzard Benelux has confirmed that Diablo Immortal will be unavailable due to “the current operating conditions in these countries.”

“Protect and Survive” is a term well known to those growing up in 1970s Britain. A public information campaign with a particular focus on nuclear conflict, its logo of a family of four is seared into memory for many. The link between British atomic culture and “Protect and Survive” is inseparable, which is why Fallout: London – a DLC-sized mod for Fallout 4 – uses the campaign alongside other British wartime iconography to sell what London, and the UK as a whole, could look like in the Fallout universe.