Akamai have all sorts of servers around the globe, spreading the load of downloads and letting people get faster speeds from servers in their area. With so many kept at home by the Covid-19 pandemic, more people are jacking in for work and entertainment and using a lot more bandwidth than usual. It’s now a concern for some that huge game downloads are gobbling up a lot of bandwidth and causing problems for everyone - which is particularly a problem for online medical services....

“This is the next step in building an industry-leading first party studios team, a commitment we have to our Xbox community,” Xbox head Phil Spencer said in today’s announcement. “With the addition of the Bethesda creative teams, gamers should know that Xbox consoles, PC, and Game Pass will be the best place to experience new Bethesda games, including some new titles in the future that will be exclusive to Xbox and PC players....

The trailer is sparse, only giving us glimpses at the creepy side-scroller between its logo, but we won’t need to wait long before we can experience the full game. In the meantime, Jumpship have been posting concept art from the game the entire month, if you physically can’t wait for more. Sommerville was first announced all the way back in 2017, with Playdead’s ex-chief working on the game as a producer....

The main goal of this deck is to get around the deck building restriction by minimising the actual minions in your deck and summoning them with spells instead. You all know Token Druid, right? This plays in a pretty similar way. You’ve got a ludicrous amount of card draw in this deck too, so you’ll want to be ramping up, playing spells, and repeating as much as possible. Here’s how....

It is wild to think the original Spelunky came out 12 years ago, and its remake eight. It’s seems both too long ago and too recent. Our Graham, who has never stopped playing Spelunky in the same way he’s never stopped breathing, called this “a worthy successor to a classic” in his Spelunky 2 review. Sure, it’s familiar, but it brings a fresh sense of mystery, discovery, and shame (with the aforementioned daft deaths) by adding new moving parts to the complex system of Spelunky....

Quite nice, aren’t they? Five differences in each scene doesn’t sound a whole lot, but I suppose I’ll also spend a fair while just admiring the wee scenes as I rotate and zoom to inspect them. I do like dioramas and doll houses an awful lot. Tiny Lands is coming to Steam on the 22nd of January, made by Hyper Three Studio and published by Maple Whispering. It’s set to cost $7, though it will have a 10% discount at launch....

Explore the galaxy. That, right there, is a premise that space games have always tended to fall short on over the years, and I’d forgotten how badly I wanted it fulfilled. Speaking bluntly, science fiction is one of the biggest things in my life. Exploring the galaxy is a big deal to me, and yet, the experience space games have delivered in the past has never quite been the one I’ve been after....

Valve previously laid out what you can expect from Next Fest this time around. Game demos on offer are all upcoming (not trials for ones currently on sale) and must be planning to launch prior to January 2022. Delays do happen, of course, but in theory you should be trying out things you’ll be able to get your hands on in the next six months. They’re all fresh too, as Valve say only games that haven’t appeared in their prior demo events are eligible....

Paradox say they’ve had requests for a less challenging difficulty setting following a series of adjustments to the game’s AI over the past few updates. The new Civilian difficulty setting is intended to address that, which gives players higher bonuses to resources from jobs and station, naval capacity, stability and trade value than if they play on Cadet (which is still the default difficulty setting), plus a bonus towards completing First Contact....

The first new playable character is revealed in the trailer above as Estel Aguirre, a Special Forces Officer who appears as one of the bosses you fight in the base game. I don’t think she slaps you with a giant swordfish in Streets Of Rage 4, but that’s apparently one of the new weapons you can pick up, as shown in the trailer above. Alongside the DLC, Streets Of Rage 4 will also get a free update to add a New Mania+ difficulty, a new training system and new colour palette options....

In its initial early access state, Torchlight III has two acts, four classes, crafting, pets, and other Torchlight-y things, as well as a fort home base you can customise. It is only playable in multiplayer, mind - a singleplayer offline mode will follow later in early access. This dev post explains a lot more about its current state. The plan is for early access to last “at least a few months” while they finish the endgame, add offline, and generally polish....

The Conformist is set in the middle of political turbulence. Sordland’s civil war is over, but unrest still dominates the country, as the resistance and the newly formed military government duke it out. There’s no footage to gawk at yet, but developer Torpor Games hint at the tough political decisions we’ll need to make, saying that “the players will either side with the government or the resistance against them to influence the upcoming election while trying to protect their family and themselves in the dangerous streets of Holsord....

And here was this first-person point and click game, set in an intellectually formidable surrealist landscape, about stealing a famous jazzman’s saxophone and getting sucked into a shadowy world where all was not as it seemed. Our Adam Smith described Off-Peak’s predecessor, The Norwood Suite, as being about discovering the secrets behind a hotel, but really being about “learning about music and the creative process”. I knew I was going to hate it, not because it was going to be bad, but because it was going to expose me for the idiot I was....

It sounds too good to be true, right? But two years after Awaceb’s trailer debut, I’ve gotten my hands on a preview build to see whether a nine-person dev team’s tropical island exploration game is pie in the sky. Turns out, it’s the opposite; my hands on time suggests Tchia will deliver on everything it promised and more. The preview begins a couple of hours into the story, but an introductory video explains via narration that Tchia’s father has been kidnapped by a mysterious man, and to get him back she has asked the malevolent tyrant of the island, Meavora, for help....

Speaking under condition of anonymity, the staff allege that “the company has recently been shedding team members, as many are fed up by low salaries, long hours, and concerns around HR and upper management.” Part of their complaints relate to the company’s plans for NFT. Staff say they weren’t warned about the announcement before it happened, were left to deal with public harassment during the backlash, and haven’t received an apology in the wake of its cancellation....

After releasing what was supposed to be the game’s final update Journey’s End and then yet another update called Journey’s Actual End, Re-Logic now say “the momentum for Terraria has never been stronger than it is right this moment.” So if they cave and do yet another update will it be named Journey Never Ends? Re-Logic give a big thank you along with the big numbers in their announcement post....

The term “visual novel” is a broad church indeed, because you can tell almost any story in this medium. They’re a lot like regular novels that way, believe it or not. Romance and mystery are among the more popular genres (again, they’re much like traditional novels in that regard), but sort for “visual novel” on your favourite PC gaming storefront and you’ll find a bit of everything, really. Especially once you’ve filtered out all the porn....

To help you find the best anti-Prime Day PC gaming deals, I’ve rounded them up into their respective product categories below. You can either click the links to go straight to the component in question, or just carry on reading the whole thing. Best Anti-Prime Day PC gaming deals Best SSD deals Best gaming monitor deals Best mouse deals Best keyboard deals Best headset deals Best gaming laptop deals...

With our Mom build, we push these supportive capabilities to the limit. Mom won’t be able to match more combat-focused characters like Walker when fighting the undead, but she’ll definitely pull you back from the brink of death and defeat. This guide will show you how to make the best Mom build in Back 4 Blood. Best Mom build in Back 4 Blood Mom has a lot of possible playstyles, but she is very clearly geared towards a support role....