Warhammer: Vermintide 2 will launch for Xbox One on 11th July, developer Fatshark has announced, with an Xbox Insider open beta available from today. Vermintide 2 will also be an Xbox Game Pass game, so if you pay the £8 monthly sub, or regional equivalent, you'll be able to play the game from 11th July for free. But what about PlayStation 4? "Yes, the PS4 version is coming," a Fatshark spokesperson told me this morning. "We don't have a date for it yet, but will communicate that soon. We don't expect it to be too far away, but we want to do one system at a time to be able to maintain the highest quality of the releases."
Video games aren't that good at friends. Oh sure, they can be great for making them. Various multiplayer games have facilitated very real and valid friendships, but the games themselves scarcely contain an ounce of the same stuff in their characters. Bonds of friendship in-game are generally left to barks and grunts of command. Vermintide 2, despite taking place in the grimmest, darkest fantasy land there is, somehow manages the impossible and gives us a party of unlikely heroes whose bond feels terribly sincere. Vermintide 2 does a great job of forcing players to work together no matter which hero you choose to play as. No weapon or class reigns supreme and only a combination will see you survive the hordes of rat-men. This isn't the first co-op game to, well, encourage cooperation. What makes it special though, what makes it so memorable and pleasant on every visit is the banter between characters. In the fiction of Warhammer pretty much all these characters should be at odds with each other, forced only by circumstance to work together. The first game saw them working out the kinks in their relationship, but this sequel shows them having bonded, veterans of the perpetual apocalypse. Snarky remarks and in-jokes linger, they rib each other plenty as all good friends do. Equally though, they constantly throw compliments to each other. Hearing "Look at the elf go!" from the party's witch as you tear into a horde of baddies is the sincere encouragement that puts a little smile on your face.
The Elder Scrolls 6 location possibilities are... pretty vast. Or at least they are on first inspection of that super brief E3 2018 teaser trailer we saw - but we actually think it might be possible to narrow them down. Below, we're going to run through a series of potential locations and settings for the Elder Scrolls 6. We'll rule some out - at least in principle - and highlight some others that we think are particularly likely, and then finally, further below, we'll go through a quick rundown of everything else we know about The Elder Scrolls 6 - like its platforms and potential release date - so you've got all the information in one place. Do bear in mind though that, really, this is a bit of fun - even if we do start to get quite into it as we go...
- both a beautiful game and beautiful collaboration with Native Alaskans to show a culture we otherwise wouldn't see. It touched hearts, it won awards, and now creator E-Line Media is back with something new. This something grew from from a creative discussion with the BBC during the making of nature documentary Blue Planet 2, which is brilliant go watch it. This turned into a collaboration and the something became Beyond Blue. Beyond Blue is a near-future ocean exploration game where you lead a team of scientists, equipped with tech we haven't quite reached in the real-world, in making groundbreaking discoveries about the deep waters of our world. There'll be a story as well as a strategic element as you juggle resources and pick missions based on your priorities.
It is, if nothing else, quite the double act. There's Id's Tim Willits, diminutive in stature yet towering in presence, and a man that, if you'd let him, would surely happily never stop talking. He's pacing to and fro around a meeting room on the upper floors of Avalanche's main studio, asking everyone assembled if they've got any good jokes about Stockholm, putting on a short one-man show before rattling his way through a presentation on Rage 2, the game his own studio Id is assisting Avalanche with. And then there's Avalanche's Magnus Nedfors - a towering man whose height is topped off by long, greying locks, yet his laconic, laid back demeanour can make it seem like he isn't there at all. They're an odd couple, this two, but in the partnership they've forged there may well be something approaching magic.
The next big single-player game from Skyrim and Fallout maker Bethesda Game Studios will be Starfield, the company's first new IP in a staggering 25 years. Bethesda's charismatic director and executive producer . "We also thought since we're all here together tonight and it's so special maybe we'd do something a little different too," he said on stage, "and tell you what we have coming beyond this year, in the future. We have also been working on a brand new, next-generation, single-player game, but this one is in an all-new epic franchise. Our first wholly original franchise in 25 years. We're excited to announce our next adventure." We were then shown a Starfield teaser trailer where sunlight slowly appeared from behind a planet in space, producing the bright ring effect you see during a solar eclipse, before the camera panned down to reveal a satellite, and then warped our view to blackout. Then the Starfield logo appeared.
Microsoft has added a trio of UK-made games to the Xbox One backwards compatibility list. Sensible World of Soccer, Grid Autosport and Fable Heroes are all available to play on Xbox One from today. Sensible World of Soccer is the HD remake of Sensible Software's classic 90s football game . Grid Autosport is Codemasters' 2014 racer . And Fable Heroes is a hack and slash Fable spin-off developed by Lionhead and released back in 2012. (.)
Call of Duty: WW2 gets its - and alongside it players on all platforms get a major update that adds a cool new division. The Cavalry is an objective-focused class described as "the true team-play division". Cavalry soldiers use the Cavalry Shield, which you can use to protect yourself against enemy fire. Cavalry soldiers also have improved objective capabilities, including capturing Domination flags faster, planting bombs in Search & Destroy quicker and swiftly building and destroying walls in War mode. Additionally, the Cavalry gets more score from objectives, and every two assists equal a kill. And the Cavalry can get back to the objective quicker - ramming enemies along the way - by entering Shield Charge while sprinting.
Right now, you can get an extra 10 per cent off a variety of stuff at two entirely separate retailers in what appears to be weirdly coincidental special offer timing. Head to and use the code PICK10 to get 10 per cent off your purchase, or try to do the same there. Looking at Argos' offerings first, you can get yourself a , (or the ), an , , and more. Of course, Argos sells things other than games, so you could also get everything from an to .
Rockstar will once again expand the world of Grand Theft Auto Online next month with the launch of another new update - Los Santos: Nightclubs. Due at some point in July, the free expansion will let you open and manage your own nightclub, customise its setup, look, staff and promotion, and fill it with real-life music acts Solomun, Tale Of Us, Dixon and The Black Madonna. Here's a teaser:
Warning: this article assumes you have finished Rime. If you haven't, you should! It's only at the end you understand something very important about the game, which makes it very special - Rime is much more than the serene Mediterranean adventure it seems. If that sounds like a spoiler to you, look away, but please come back again when you're ready for more.
On a porch warmed by the Mediterranean sun, Raúl Rubio Munárriz, creative director of Rime, tells me the moment which changed his life forever. "It's pretty stupid," he says. "One day I nearly drowned." He was dating a girl who wanted to swim off the coast of Spain and, eager to impress her, he agreed. And so they started swimming, and swimming and swimming, into the sea. Soon they were one kilometre out, but Rubio was out of his depth. "We are very far," he called above the water, his body getting tired. "We should go back." But the girl was unfazed. "Oh come on," she answered. "Let's reach that buoy and then go back."
Car football game Rocket League is getting its own version of Fortnite's Battle Pass, named the Rocket Pass. It works in much the same way - developer Psyonix will sell a pass for each new in-game season of content released throughout the year. If you pay up you'll get extra cosmetic rewards as you play. There's a free version of the Rocket Pass as well, which everyone gets. It includes customisation options, banners, titles and decryptors.
Activision has announced Call of Duty: WW2's third DLC pack - United Front. United Front, which comes out on 26th June on PlayStation 4 ahead of other platforms, includes three new multiplayer maps: Stalingrad, Market Garden and Monte Cassino. There's also a new War Mode mission called Operation Supercharge, which sees you push across North Africa, and a new Nazi Zombies experience that stars four new heroes who are sent across three locations to transport and defend the final pieces of Emperor Barbarossa's sword.
I have far too many amiibo on my desk to complain about dolls, but there's something oddly Chucky-like about this new, officially-licensed Xbox product. If you're not US-based then you probably aren't familiar with the - not that there's much explaining needed. It's a doll range. And there's now a set of official Xbox accessories to go with it. Included in the Xbox Gaming Set is a dinky Xbox One S and controller, a faux-leather gaming chair, wireless gaming headset and two "fun game discs" and cases. The two games are named "Bloks" and "Dance".
PlayerUnknown's Battlegrounds' third map, Sanhok, comes out this Friday, 22nd June. Sanhok is a lot smaller than PUBG's other two maps. It's 4km x 4km (one fourth the size of Erangel or Miramar), and so games tend to end more quickly on the tiny island. Still, every game features 100 players, as is battle royale standard. Because Sanhok is a small map, certain settings have been tweaked to fit its design. For example, faraway players and vehicles aren't rendered in the same way on Sanhok, which the developers said improves server performance.
Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3 is finally backwards compatible on Xbox One. Infinity Ward's 2011 first-person shooter was one of the most-requested games to be added to the Xbox One backwards compatible list - a fact the people behind the Xbox UK Twitter account had some fun with last night. To coincide with the launch, Modern Warfare 3 is on sale as part of Microsoft's Deals With Gold promotion - £12.49 down from £24.99. (Expect a 10.75GB download if you're grabbing Modern Warfare 3 from the Xbox Games Store.)
Sea of Thieves' latest update is now live and marks the start, at long last, of Rare's regularly scheduled live events and smaller-scale activities for the piratical multiplayer adventure. With The Hungering Deep now over, and the ancient megalodon now returned to the depths of the ocean, the , which were briefly introduced in the last update, have now become a fully fledged faction in Sea of Thieves - joining the likes of the Merchant Alliance, Gold Hoarders, and Order of Souls. The Bilge Rats work slightly differently to the base game's Trading Companies, however; rather than offering a never-ending supply of quests for purchase, the Bilge Rats present one activity to complete for a fixed duration, with new activities being introduced every week or two. As you progress through the current activity, you'll earn commendations, titles, and a new currency: doubloons - which can be spent on items in the Bilge Rats' store.
Fans of faintly absurd bonus characters can breathe a sigh of relief today; Capcom has confirmed that both Hunk and Tofu will be returning for the Resident Evil 2 remake on PlayStation 4, Xbox One, and PC. For the uninitiated, Hunk and Tofu were bonus characters present in horror classic Resident Evil 2 - appearing in their own mini-missions, and unlocked if various criteria were met. Hunk, a mysterious gas-mask-wearing Umbrella operative, featured in the 4th Survivor mini-mission, and was unlocked by completing the Leon and Claire scenarios with an A rank. Tofu, a knife-wielding lump of coagulated soy milk, appeared in the unlockable Tofu Survivor mode - a tough reworking of Hunk's mission, accessed by completing any combination of scenarios six times with an A rank in under two and a half hours.
, but never has the issue seemed as petty - and yet also as big - as it has this week. I'm talking about if trying to log in using an account which has ever played Fortnite on PS4. To reiterate: this isn't even cross-play, this is simply logging in. Even if you've only played Fortnite once on PS4, and play the majority of your Fortnite on PC or mobile (these platforms are compatible), you will still be blocked from using your account on Switch. Your only option is to create a new account to play.