Unity announced their intention to merge with ironSource in a $4.4 billion (£3.7 billion) in early July. The merger was seen as a controversial move among indie developers due to mass layoffs at Unity in June. ironSource is also known in the games development community for developing a malware installer in 2015. The news of ironSource merging with Unity prompted rival mobile gaming tech company AppLovin to table their own unsolicited offer to Unity in an attempt to stop it....

An industrious viking by the name of “DickDangerJustice” has created a Valheim mod called “Attack On Valheim”, that adds a grappling hook to the game. Fire it at an enemy and you’ll warp onto their backs, opening them up for a few slashes to the neck. It’s inspired by the manga Attack On Titan, which sees a group of hardy teenagers use gas-propelled grapples to hook onto huge man-eating titans, and carve them open....

And this is it really, many players aren’t aware of the little things they are doing with their moust, or the setup they’re running which could hinder accuracy dramatically. So, in this guide we’ll provide a few simple methods to help you get your mouse DPI and sensitivity settings up to scratch in Valorant. We hope that once you’ve had a read of this guide, you’ll have laid the groundwork to begin improving your accuracy in Valorant....

So, the first thing we have in the patch notes for update 1.04 are the changes to Viper’s Pit. That’s her ultimate ability where she creates a big cloud of green gas that only she can properly see through. Any enemies that walk into it have reduced sight, and take decay damage. This ability stays up indefinitely as long as Viper is inside it, and when she leaves there’s a cooldown for it starting to reduce - which has now been upped from 5 seconds to 15 seconds....

Released last month on Valve’s Steamworks Development YouTube channel, the video sees Steam’s Al Farnsworth and Alden Kroll and scroll down through the front page, explaining banners, boxes, and lists as they go. It is aimed at people selling their games on Steam, but it’s friendly enough for the rest of us to understand. For all Valve have talked about algorithms tracking everything we play, our pals play, and so on, I was surprised by how much they actively curate some parts....

Patent number 11504615, awarded by the US patent office and spotted by UploadVR, describes a motion controller with a ring of tracking elements around it. These tracking elements “may” be detected by either “a HMD to be worn on the user’s head” or “stationary tracking beacons” which are “positioned about the user’s environment.” It’s the broadest possible explanation of what the ring on the controller might be for, and in fairness, the patent here is specifically called “Electronic Controller With Linear Hand Strap Adjuster”....

Valve say that about 10% of daily Steam game sessions are played with a controller, though they point out percentages vary heavily by type of game. “In general, a lot of players like to play a large cross section of games on Steam with a controller–which is something many people, including those of us at Valve, find a bit surprising,” they say. I don’t find that particularly surprising, but I suppose it’s because I’m usually part of that 10%....

This new mode randomly chooses a character and stage for you, so you get your very own surprise. I assume that’s what they were trying to do to me with the patch announcement, so thanks for that. The absolute bloomin’ best bit about today’s 0.11.2 update, though, is the newfound ability to play as a question mark. Poncle say players can unlock a ? button in the character select that enables you to just be a ?...

Making its debut on PlayStation VR way back in March, Paper Beast migrated to PC headsets in July. Now, the cyberzoo is open for those of us without VR headsets. Paper Beast, in case you missed it, is a folded wilderness sandbox from the mind of Eric Chahi (of From Dust and Another World fame). Apparently, the deepest corners of the internet aren’t filled with garbage memes and human detritus but wonderful digital wildlife, paper creatures just waiting for a virtual explorer to come and mess with their closed ecosystems....

Indeed, Valve weren’t expecting Half-Life: Alyx’s combat to translate very well into VR when they first started play-testing. They noticed very quickly that players were “obsessed with collecting stuff”, which allowed them to get more mileage out of Half-Life’s more traditional exploration elements in VR, but “we had assumed that other things like combat wouldn’t come along for the ride as well, that we’d lose something there,” says Walker....

It may not be an easy set of jobs for Fia, as the game’s description cheerfully announces: “Features: Death!” Luckily, her immunity probably means you can’t go far wrong. “Time travel means you can try again. And again. And again,” it continues. And everyone loves being stuck in a time loop. So it’s fine! The game is set in the same universe as a few of Wadjet Eye’s other games, specifically the Blackwell mysteries and Unavowed....

Community manager Hedge made the comment in response to a player’s question asking why there wasn’t the option to buy exactly the right amount of Aquila needed to obtain Darktide’s skins. “We’re not silent on the Aquilas,” Hedge replied, “you’re honestly the first person I’ve seen to ask about it (we are hoping to add a ‘buy what you need’ feature, it’s just immeasurably complex so isn’t gonna happen over night)....

Infinity Ward’s detailed announcement image highlights a number of locations that players can expect to fight over. Shipwreck, Port Ashika, Tsuki Castle, Beach Club, Town Center, Oganikku Farms, and Residential are all marked as points of interest. The Call Of Duty account has also shared images of most of the locations, teasing some of the micro-experiences we can expect to have. Each image is paired with a (mainly functional) haiku: “Not a vacation / Don’t let cabanas decieve / Grab sand, take cover....

A clip of a familiar voice has been shared around. It’s journalist Helen Lewis dissecting the rise of fascism in Legion’s tech-y future London. For all that Legion is meant to be set in some near-ish future London, Lewis’ radio segment sure feels eerily current. Hello darkness, my old friend! Lewis isn’t the only one involved in Legion. OGWN say that Ubisoft approached them last year to create in-game political podcasts, which were created by several other contributors....

It’ll also be broadcast on Twitch, Ubisoft’s site, and in Uplay. But I prefer YouTube cos the player is less janky and you can skip back in live streams. As well as the games Ubi have said they’ll show, fingers crossed for more on those they’ve gone a bit quiet about. These include the ephemeral Beyond Good & Evil 2, pirate ship sandbox Skull & Bones, roller derby ballsport Roller Champions, the Zelda-lookin’ Gods & Monsters, and mysterious zombie spin-off Rainbow Six Quarantine....

The Section Editor’s main responsibility will be to manage all things reviews - picking the games we cover, liaising with freelancers, editing and scheduling posts, and making sure everything’s in tune with our editorial voice. Reviews are an important part of what we do here at RPS, and the growing number of games we want to write about means we now need someone to really take hold of this section and make it their own....

Code Force have since sent us a preview build, and I’ve been consumed with it for the better part of a week. I’m struggling to gauge exactly how much to reserve, because it’s had me positively cackling at my minor successes and howling in enjoyable despair at my setbacks. If they can do, ooh, two thirds of what I’m hoping in the six weeks before its release on March 10th, this could be every bit as brilliant as its predecessor, with fewer flaws....

I believe this provides a lens through which our assumptions can, nay, must be overturned. Ask not what maketh a man. Ask what maketh a Fall Guy. Fall Guys has touched us all, and I am no exception. Every wobbling step speaks to human experience, to the beating drum within us that demands we “March! Jump! Wriggle!”. To enter the arena is to enter life, yet life so stripped of suffering as to render it barely recognisable....

When it comes to big strategy games (or, indeed, big strategy-RPG hybrids such as CK3), it’s generally a lot easier to give a verdict on how they play at launch, than it is to make any sort of informed guess as to how well their initial shine will hold up over time. And since these games are all about replayability in the very long term, that’s a pretty important thing....

He’s also a potential love interest for a girl protagonist from Mass Effect 2 onwards. And Garrus appears to be a popular choice vis. alien smooching, much like how everyone just knows who is objectively the best Hollywood Chris. But though Chris Evans’ supremacy is self-evident, I cannot wrap my head around wanting to shag Garrus. The title is not a facetious question. I am a curious person and would like detailed answers from the Garrus-fanciers in the comments....