I couldn’t tell you what’s going on in FFXIV’s plot these days. But if Patch 5.3’s done anything, it’s given fence-sitters like me a hell of an excuse to try out a massive portion of the game without spending a penny. To get through a whole ’nuther expansion, FFXIV’s has also removed playtime restrictions from its trial. Additionally, free players can now also work their way up to level 60, have access to three more jobs (Dark Knight, Astrologian, and Machinist) and can choose to play as the Au Ra, a race comprised of sexy demonfolk....

It worked on me, right? The stream introduced me to a load of games I hitherto knew nothing about but am now interested in. Whomst among us could not find something to intrigue us in the line-up, which includes a game where you play in-game versions of 80s Japanese PC games, or one where a lone girl lands her airship to explore a mysteriously empty town, or a game about making low-fi music beats in the proximity of a nice cat....

In The Fermi Paradox, you’ll guide alien civilisations “from the stone age to their distant future”, overseeing their evolution, technological breakthroughs, wars and everything in-between. The devs say it’s a “choice-driven” game in which you’ll craft “a complex intergalactic narrative”. Mitsoda and Ellison (who also worked on Void Bastards and, well, RPS) are joined by Jana Sloan van Geest (who worked on Assassin’s Creed: Origins) and Jedidjah Julia Noomen (a narrative designer on Alt-Frequences)....

Arriving in an update earlier today, performance mode allegedly offers “significant performance gains” by cutting further on things like texture quality, draw distances and detail objects to save memory usage and lower CPU and GPU loads. Here’s a provided example of what it all looks like in-game: It’s a bit rougher, with distant scenery looking particularly “soft”, but Fortnite’s cartoon aesthetic helps carry the lack of detail. Honestly, as someone who kinda exclusively does their Fortnite’ing on Switch these days, it looks perfectly playable....

Here’s the event as captured by “OrangeGuy” (also the source for that ↑ picture): That’s mighty fancy, that. Definitely one-up’s last year’s Marshmello concert, though that was definitely going for more of a concert vibe than this music video sorta thing. “Over 12.3 million concurrent players participated live in Travis Scott’s Astronomical, an all-time record!” say Epic Games. The Astronomical event will run another four times. In the UK, those times are: 3pm Friday; 5am Saturday; 4pm Saturday; 11pm Saturday....

Matthew did a good job of celebrating it in this video: To me, Forza Horizon 4 is the successor to Burnout Paradise: an open world racing game that’s more committed to the fun of throwing cars around than the reality of motorsport or physics. You’ll smash into farm walls and won’t slow down. You’ll race against hovercrafts and fighter jets and trains. New cars are unlocked via races or through barn finds, and you’ll quickly amass a vast car collection, but it never feels like the gaudy wealth porn of the modern Test Drive games....

Forza Horizon is one of the few big budget mainstream series I still have room for in my heart. I’ve gone back to Forza Horizon 4 multiple times over the past few years, and I’m looking forward to speeding around its recreation of of Mexico on November 9th. Football Manager, meanwhile, is a series I’ve been returning to irregularly since I was 10-years-old. I don’t love every iteration of the series - by which I mean, I don’t become unhealthily obsessed with every iteration - but its continuation remains a comfort even if I am sick of its terrible press conferences....

Expect these biomes to come with their own challenges. The seamless transitions between the areas could make for some interesting, lengthy races. Simply taking a shortcut through a jungle leads you through a dense and misty race space that abuts a more serene farmland biome. The map tapestry also includes canyons, tropical and rocky coasts, arid hills, sandy and living deserts, swamps, a city and, most interesting of all, a volcano....

Here’s the video shown during tonight’s Xbox showcase: That track is Maple Valley, a favourite from past Forza Motorsport games stretching back to the original. It was specifically chosen to show how far the series has come in terms of visual fidelity, with time in the trailer spent dwelling over rocks and trees that do, indeed, look better than before. I just wasn’t as wowed as the slow pans over concrete seemed to imply I should be....

The most immediately obvious change is that Site 113 is quite green before the freeze. There’s grass and evergreens and only the threat of snow to come rather than an omnipresent white blanket of death coating civilisation. Your task is to complete construction on the giant, central generator that provides warmth and power to your citizens in the original game story. The Last Autumn changes quite a few fundamental systems from Frostpunk’s main campaign....

“We’re happy to share that our cloud streaming service has added more support for GOG,” Nvidia said in their latest blog post. “As part of our continuing open-platform strategy, members who own games from The Witcher series on GOG can now play those versions across their devices.” Support for more GOG games will be coming further down the line, too, with Nvidia stating they’re “planning even more events in cooperation with GOG in the future....

2002’s Geneforge was the first of an interesting series of story-heavy RPGs, set in an original and carefully thought out world dominated by Shapers, powerful wizards who can create and control sentient creatures to do their bidding. They gave players a lot of options in resolving the plot, and some nuanced moral considerations along the way. We could use more games like them even today, so this is welcome news....

Well, now Denuvo has been re-added. The patch notes for the update make no mention of Denuov’s removal. Instead, they focus on the fixes to UI and localisation issues, some crashes, and problems with joining co-op partners. Over on Twitter there was no mention of Denuvo, either. The account did tweet that they are “aware that players on both PC and console have been experiencing performance challenges,” and that they were working on “a large patch to improve performance overall”....

Dropping from its recent price of £56, that’s a decent saving of £14 you’re getting here, and only just a couple of extra quid more than the £38 250GB model. That’s a fantastic price for a 500GB SSD, and I’d be surprised if we saw it fall much further next week during Prime Day proper. And heck, even if it does, it can’t fall that much further, surely, otherwise it would end up being cheaper than the 250GB model....

For the story expansion, here’s what Spiders have to say about the new adventure: “Navigate a web of lies, manipulation and secrets, as you unravel a nefarious conspiracy that threatens the balance of power,” they say. “Explore an uncharted region of the island, battle strange new beasts, upgrade your equipment with new gear and face off against a villainous new enemy faction in your hunt to uncover the truth.” Uncharted by the protagonists, perhaps....

The second biggest change is that headline addition of a live-action story mode. Channeling Codemasters’ own TOCA Race Driver 2 from 2004, there are cutscenes before each of the races in Story Mode, as you join the struggling Seneca racing team and take on long-time rivals Ravenwest with their star driver, Nathan McKane. It’s great to put a face to that name after all these years and he’s suitable greasy....

Now, the launcher is back, but the Definitive Edition remains unavaiable to buy or play while Rockstar “remove files unintentionally included in these versions.” It was tempting to wonder, when the remasters disappeared, whether it was due to them being a glitchy, ugly mess. That’s not the reason Rockstar gave via Twitter: “The Rockstar Games Launcher is now online, but GTA: The Trilogy – The Definitive Edition is unavailable to play or purchase as we remove files unintentionally included in these versions,” says the message....

This week’s GTA Online Podium Vehicle (9 February - 15 February) The current Podium Car is the Albany Roosevelt. At full-price, this 1920s-style limo would set you back $750,000 from Legendary Motorsport. The vintage car can hit fairly high top speeds, but the acceleration is hampered by the extra armour plating that’s fitted to the bodywork (to protect from the fuzz in the prohibition days). Handling and suspension is, as you’d expect, lacking compared to more modern vehicles, but adjusting the ride height helps....

Our Hades Boons guide will offer an overview on how Boons actually work, before delving into the strongest Boons in the game and finishing off with a full list of every Boon offered by every God. So, let’s jump in! On this page: Hades Boons overview - how do they work? Hades best Boons Hades Gods and Boons list Aphrodite | Ares | Artemis | Athena | Demeter | Dionysus | Hermes | Poseidon | Zeus...

The full list of PC games arriving in August is: Curse Of The Dead Gods - August 5th Dodgeball Academia - August 5th Katamari Damacy Reroll - August 5th Lumines Remastered - August 5th Starmancer (game preview) - August 5th Art Of Rally - August 12th Hades - August 13th Microsoft Solitaire Collection: Premium Edition - August 17th If you’re already sick of Hades, Curse Of The Dead Gods is a fair alternative....