New World won’t be getting any more new additions following mass layoffs at Amazon

New World has seen its last content update, with Amazon Games confirming their development of the MMO is winding down. The game’s servers will be staying online in the short term. This news follows mass layoffs at Amazon, with over 14,000 roles reportedly being affected across the company and the gaming division seeing “significant” cuts.

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The Outer Worlds 2 pre-launch hotfix makes you less likely to fall through the world or have to fight a closet

The Outer Worlds 2 arrives in full today, October 29th. Ahead of the gates to Arcadia finally being flung open to those who didn’t fancy paying extra for early access, Obsidian have taken a stab at fixing some key issues and pesky bugs which’ve reared their heads so far. Good news, unless your roleplaying was set to be contingent upon being swallowed up by the ground or having to try and beat up an angry cupboard at some point in the space adventure.

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Battlefield 6’s battle royale mode REDSEC is out now and surprise surprise, there’s a new Gauntlet mode attached

Battlefield 6‘s battle royale mode REDSEC is out now, a “genre shifting free-to-play destination” that includes both the promised Fortnite functionality and a new squad-based competitive mode, Gauntlet – no, not that Gauntlet, auto-keyword tool, stop it, you’re making me look daft, UGH I don’t have time to argue with you, please just go away – together with additional gubbins for Battlefield’s Portal editor. You can find it either via your Battlefield 6 install or as a separate release on Steam.

REDSEC’s battle royale map is Fort Lyndon, pictured below, with takes place in the backyards and beaches of California, and is apparently the series’ biggest map ever. The setup is familiar: 100 players divided into squads are dropped into the world and must scrounge for pick-ups and do shooticuffs and fistibangs within a shrinking (and partly destructible) playspace.

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In Escape From Duckov, I roll great clutter Katamari of avian avarice and agony

Quack.

My flesh-coloured form tightens up beneath my body armour. The sausage fingers of my massive human hands grip the trigger of the SMG with white-knuckle desperation. The tiny eyes halfway up the huge head which forms the majority of my unnaturally lanky form spot it. A flash of green. I open fire mercilessly. Blood and bullets fly for 30 seconds. I’m still standing. Shaken, panting, and staring at a perfectly cooked bird on a plate.

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Ron Gilbert’s new Death by Scrolling RPG about “never-ending grind” and “the absurdity of social media” is out now

For too long have you remembered Ron Gilbert as the peddler of point-and-click adventure game comedies like The Secret of Monkey Island, despite his long history of forays into other genres. From now on, you are only allowed to remember him as the purveyor of Dragon Quest-flavoured perpetual motion machines that satirise bureaucracy and precarity. I’m referring to Death By Scrolling, Gilbert’s latest project with Terrible Toybox NZ and publishers MicroProse. MicroProse? This seems awfully intuitive for that brand. Barely a dial or a light-up acronym to be seen.

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US immigration enforcers use Halo art to promote mass detention, while the White House and Gamestop swap Master Trump memes

The USA’s Immigration Customs Enforcement service, aka ICE, have started using imagery of Microsoft’s sci-fi shooter Halo for recruitment posts on social media, even as Gamestop and the US administration indulge in some bantz characterising Donald Trump as Master Chief, and even as Microsoft attempt to flog a new Halo game.

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Bully Online sees modders have another go at schoolyard multiplayer mayhem, arrives in paid early access this year

Bully, Rockstar’s classic boarding school Bart Simpson simulator, is about to have another massive multiplayer mod fired at it from a slingshot. The mod’s dubbed Bully Online, stands atop the battered blazer of a previous attempt to let a bunch of folks play Bully together, and is set to arrive in paid early access this December.

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Civilization 7 will bring back the ability to play as one civ for the whole game, bypassing the divisive Age system

After much wrangling with players over Civilization 7’s Age system, which sees you taking charge of different civilizations as you progress from Antiquity into the Modern era, Firaxis are bringing back the option to play as one culture all the way to the endgame. They’re now playtesting the feature internally, and want players to help by way of a new community testing initiative, the Firaxis Feature Workshop.

Firaxis have also shared a few snippets from Civilization 7’s update 1.3.0, due in the week of November 3rd alongside the Tides of Power DLC, which will be free to existing owners of the troubled 4X strategy game over the Xmas holidays. Update 1.3.0 is all about nautical doings and conspirings, with new naval units and buildings, the addition of ranged combat to ocean warfare, and some delightfully soggy terrain features.

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