Riley MacLeod

Snowy battle royale The Darwin Project will be closing all but its EU and NA East servers on January 5, developer Scavenger Studio announced today. The game won’t get updates, tournaments, or bug reporting. It’s a charming free-to-play game, and though I haven’t played in a while, this news paradoxically makes me want to jump back…

Apex Legends Bans Over 400 High-Level Players For Ranked Exploit

Apex Legends’ Season 7 is here, and a wave of bans has come alongside its new map and character. Over 400 players have been banned from the game across all platforms for exploiting a glitch that allowed high-level players in the game’s ranked mode to play with—and presumably dominate—newcomers. As reported by PC Gamer, Conor…

Apex Legends Gets A New Map (And A New Season) Tomorrow

Apex Legends’ new season launches tomorrow, alongside the game’s arrival on Steam. I’ll admit this hellscape of a year has given me little time for Titanfall developer Respawn’s battle royale, but the upcoming season’s changes could entice me back in—at least until I fall off the game’s new map too many times, which I undoubtedly…

Joe Biden Has A Fortnite Island Now

It’s no giant Joe Biden hologram, but Fortnite has gotten a Biden/Harris-themed Creative island days before the US election. “Build Back Better With Biden” features mini-game challenges, easter eggs about the candidates, and voting information. Like everything about 2020, it’s more depressing than inspiring, but it’s what we’ve got. As first reported by Mashable, the…

Here’s November 2020’s Xbox Live Games With Gold

November’s Xbox Live Games with Gold aren’t super exciting, but I’ll take any promise of small pleasures this upcoming month can give me. As always, these games are only “free” if you have an active Xbox Live Gold membership. November’s Games with Gold are: Xbox One Aragami: Shadow Edition (November 1-30) Swimsanity! (November 16-December 15) Xbox…

Bugsnax Is One Of November’s PlayStation Plus Games, But Only For PS5 Owners

November’s PlayStation Plus games are a little different than usual. Alongside the two games for November, PlayStation 5 owners can also get the charming but conceptually disturbing Bugsnax. From November 12 to January 4, PS5 owners will get Bugsnax as part of their monthly Plus subscription. (The exact availability window depends on when the PS5…

Fortnite‘s Latest Patch Makes The Game Smaller

Fortnite’s patch 14.40 arrived today, bringing this year’s Halloween event and drastically reducing the game’s file size. According to the Fortnite Status Twitter account, the 14.40 patch is “larger than normal on PC (approx. 27 GB). This is to make optimizations on PC resulting in a massively reduced Fortnite file size (over 60 GB smaller),…

Mountain biking sim Lonely Mountains: Downhill gets paid DLC on October 22. The “Eldfjall Island” DLC adds a volcanic island with new trails, challenges, and outfits.

Need For Speed: Payback and Vampyr Are October’s PlayStation Plus Games

October’s PS Plus games are a weird combination, but not a bad one: I’m totally charmed by Vampyr, despite its stumbles. As always, these games are only “free” if you have an active PlayStation Plus membership. October’s PS Plus games are: Need for Speed: Payback Vampyr Both games are available October 6 through November 2.

Here’s October 2020’s Xbox Live Games With Gold

There’s a bit of a Halloween theme to October’s Games with Gold, as you’d expect. As ever, these games are only “free” if you have an active Xbox Live Gold membership. October’s Games with Gold are: Xbox One Slayaway Camp: Butcher’s Cut (October 1-31) Maid of Sker (October 16-November 15) Xbox 360 (compatible with Xbox…

BTS’ Fortnite Debut Was Pretty Cute

It’s not a point of pride for me to say I had little idea who Korean pop supergroup BTS was before this week. As Fortnite weaves its tendrils into the world of pop culture, I find myself frequently asking younger colleagues about musicians, movies, and fandoms in a way that looks less like disaffected cool…

Spelunky 2 on PC won’t have online multiplayer at launch, according to a Steam update today. However, the developer writes, “On the plus side, that will give us time to keep improving the online before you try it, as well as implement cross-platform play between Steam and PS4.”

Spelunky 2 Speedrunner Beats Game On One Point Of Health

Spelunky 2 has been out for less than a week, and while many players (like me) are still fumbling through its depths, others are kicking its ass. The latest world record speedrun clears the game in under four minutes, with the runner doing most of it on one point of health. As spotted by PC…

Apple Fires Back At Epic, Saying Lawsuit Is A Publicity Stunt

Epic and Apple’s legal tiff over Fortnite on the App Store rages on. In Apple’s latest filing, the behemoth echoes many of our own commenters by calling out Epic’s actions as a stunt to bolster Fortnite’s waning popularity. Apple’s opposition filing is a response to Epic’s initial call for a temporary restraining order that would…

Spelunky 2 Doesn’t Mess With A Good Thing

In the original Spelunky, every run is different, but it’s also always the same. Your objective never changes; enemy behavior is always predictable. In the 100 hours I’ve spent with the first game, my skills, mistakes, and choices are what make every run unique and exciting. Spelunky 2 keeps the original’s winning combination of change…

Mobile Game Crux Lets You Rock Climb Without Going To The Gym

My climbing gym reopened recently, but thanks to the coronavirus, for the first time in my rock climbing life I’m not in a rush to spend every available second there. New mobile game Crux almost scratches my climbing itch: the climbing gym simulator gives me the problem-solving fun of rock climbing, but without the sore…

Epic’s Latest Apple Argument Hints At Plans For World Domination

Epic’s latest legal response in its case against Apple rehashes many of the points previously brought up, attempting to show Apple as a monopoly and get Fortnite, with its own payment option, back on the App Store. But it also includes some intriguing insight into the developer’s future plans for Fortnite as a metaverse, as…

Ubisoft’s next Forward event will be September 10 at 3pm EDT, the company revealed today. A pre-show starts at 2pm EDT.

Fortnite’s Latest Marvel Map Change Adds A Black Panther Statue

Since Fortnite’s Season 4 started, the map has been getting new landmarks at a furious pace. The latest is a monument to the Marvel superhero Black Panther, a giant statue called Panther’s Prowl. The Panther’s Prowl monument is just west of Misty Meadows. Like many of the new Marvel POIs, it’s less of a landmark…

Tell Me Why‘s First Episode Is Too Real

In a way, the first episode of Tell Me Why wants to convince you that people aren’t as bad as you think. It’s a weird message for me, a trans man playing a video game, to hear—both video games and the people who surround them can be worse than I think, and I’m constantly braced…