“We’re building the publishing model we always wanted for ourselves when we worked with publishers,” CEO Tim Sweeney said. Epic detailed three core tenets in their announcement: As publishing deals go, that sounds like it might be alright. It’s extremely common for developers to sign away the rights to their games, meaning they can lose control over everything from sequels to ports. Remedy already have experience with that themselves, having only got the publishing rights to Alan Wake back off Microsoft last year....

Some of the announcements were already teased ahead of time, of course, but we did get some surprises in our Gamescom stockings. There were a decent amount of confirmed release dates on the table, and some open betas, which are always a welcome treat. Here’s what you missed: Saints Row - Reveal and release date As Volition not at all subtly teased earlier in the week, they came out and introduced the next Saints Row game....

As a henchman, Pyro can ignite an area around him causing fiery havoc, as well as extinguish fires with a puff of compressed air. He also brings some new side story missions that seem to revolve around picking sides between a red team and a blue team. The new paid DLC pack, Rise Of The Valkyrie, adds Doomhilda, an opera-singing viking lady who can use her voice to stop enemies or inspire allies....

This deck is full of great ways to deal damage, but you’ll have to play smart. Because you only have one copy of each card, you can’t ever be as consistent with how you play. Adaptation is the key to success with this deck. In the latest version of our Face Highlander Warrior guide, we’ve got the deck we’re going for at the start of Ashes of Outland. Select and copy the long ID string below, then create a deck in Hearthstone to export this deck into your game....

Mediatonic have given the big name brands a chance to win their way into the game. They specifically call out a few: KFC, Wendy’s, Red Bull and the like. Golly do we really need more KFC in gaming? How did we get here? I’ll not grumble when it’s for a good cause though. To earn a coveted spot as a costume, interested parties just need to pledge a donation to Mediatonic’s chosen charity Special Effect....

The 1v1 quick-fire mode, Button Bashers, is a mini-arena that splits all the players into a game against a single opponent. The goal is to bounce around the arena activating the lit buttons before the countdown ends. The person with the most buttons bashed is obviously the winner. That would be me, FYI. I’ve been the button champion of the world ever since I asked my mum if I could press the pelican crossing button....

Mediatonic told the story of Cheater Island in a long Twitter thread. They say that Fall Guys had its own cheat detection built in at launch, but they didn’t immediately begin banning cheaters until they felt confident the game wouldn’t wrongly flag innocent players. Once they were sure that sweet beans wouldn’t be confused for sour, they began handing out one-way tickets to a very special place. Players who had been caught cheating would, unbeknown to them, be queued up for Cheater Island....

“At its core, One Wasteland allows enemy creature levels to adjust dynamically so that they better match each player they encounter,” Bethesda explained in a previous preview post on the feature. “Let’s imagine you are playing as a level 300 character, and you decide to head to West Tek with a friend who is level 30. Even though you will both see the exact same Super Mutants at that location, their levels will automatically appear higher to you and lower to your friend so that they are more appropriate to your individual characters....

Here’s the jaunty new trailer that walks you through some of the sunny and spooky environments that the Fallout Miami team have created for the mod. There are beaches peppered with palm trees and tattered umbrellas going totally unappreciated by the swimwear-clad feral ghouls milling about. There are what appear to be skyscraper hotels, reclaimed shopping malls, an irradiated swamp, and—oh dear is that a bipedal alligator? Or is it a crocodile?...

“The core of the dispute is financial,” says the NYT report. “FIFA is seeking more than double what it currently receives from EA Sports, according to people with knowledge of the talks, a figure that would increase its payout from the series to more than $1 billion for each four-year World Cup cycle.” Currently the licensing deal is worth around $150 million (around £109m) a year to FIFA. It’s worth noting - and EA were keen to stress in their initial blog post - that losing the licensing deal with FIFA would not mean the loss of licensing rights to most leagues, teams and players....

Eikons and their specially chosen human wielders, known as Dominants, look like they’re going to be a major theme for Final Fantasy 16. The trailer introduces us to all the major players in the game, including the newly announced Dominants of Odin and Bahamut, the wanderer Barnabas Tharmr and the crown prince of the Holy Empire of Sanbreque, Dion Lesage. But it also touches on some deeper themes about their place in the world and how their respective kingdoms have used (and most likely abused) their cosmic powers....

“Since Adobe is no longer supporting Flash Player after the EOL Date, Adobe will block Flash content from running in Flash Player beginning 12 January 2021 to help secure users’ systems,” the company say. “Flash Player may remain on the user’s system unless the user uninstalls it.” I suppose you could create a wee memorial for FlashPlayer on your computer. Fill its folder with .txt files reminiscing about the good times....

Fortnite’s big cat probably wasn’t planned to be a memorial to the late actor, mind. Rather, it’s inclusion is likely just part of the game’s current Marvel crossover event, which has seen comic book “rifts” appear all over the island. But as Eurogamer reports, that hasn’t stopped grieving players from paying tribute via the statue. On jumping into a game for a look myself, I found at least two players kneeling peacefully at the foot of the colossal, obsidian cat - a quiet savannah ambience muting the gunfights going on a few towns over....

There are three kinds of No Sweat Quests to complete during the event. Sponsorship quests (available starting July 21st-23rd) see you wandering around with a No Sweat sign, taking part in boat races and making other players dance. Marketing quests (available starting July 24th-27th) require dancing yourself, pulling stunts with your boat, and handing out ‘sweet treats’. The final kind are Product Recall quests (available starting July 28th-August 3rd), which, well… they don’t go into details....

Dynamite already has a music video (and also a second music video?) but this new version will be the “music video choreography version” Epic Games say in their announcement for the event. Presumably that means more focus on the group dance moves. Fitting then, that Fortnite will also be getting two new emotes choreographed by BTS. If you just can’t wait for that, on Tuesday there will be a Creative Mode world based on the original Dynamite music video where you can bop around playing minigames with friends....

“In this complete remake, veterans will be able to enjoy a return to a wonderful world with updated systems and character designs along with a completely new translation,” say Xseed. “Newcomers to the series will discover the compelling farming gameplay and complex characters that made this series the standard in the genre.” FOMT has four protagonists to choose from, a gaggle of spouses to court, crops and animals to raise, and those adorably plump cows that I enjoy so much....

In August last year, Frogwares released a statement alleging that Nacon withheld payments during the game’s development, owed Frogwares around €1 million in royalties (about £900,000), and wrongly tried to claim copyright of The Sinking City. Some storefronts had already begun to remove the game due to what Frogwares believed was confusion over ownership, then the developers themselves took the game down from remaining stores to stop sales from going to Nacon....

But the drama surrounding Elite Dangerous isn’t limited to the game’s overarching story. As I gear up to chat with lead game designer Luke Betterton and senior producer Samantha Marsh, the Thargoid in the room is Elite Dangerous: Odyssey. Launched in May last year, Elite’s second expansion was, to put it lightly, not well received by Elite’s community. Complaints ranged from extensive bugs and performance issues to more fundamental criticisms about the implementation of the expansion’s on-foot exploration and FPS combat....

If none of that convinced you to part with your shrapnel, here’s your chance to grab it for free via the Epic Games Store. Add it to your account before June 10th at 4pm and it’s yours to keep. Frostpunk is a citybuilder, but rather than balancing needs and budgets within an open-ended simulation, it challenges you to survive specific, gloomy story scenarios in a frozen, post-climate collapse world. You’ll still need to keep up morale and manage resources, but your decisions lie on a gloomy spectrum between making your population’s orphans work in toxic mines, or eating them....

You can catch some preliminary info on games made by attendees in a showcase of indie games put together below. There’s a bit of everything, from a shoot ’em up featuring a dog called Proto Corgi, to visual novel dating game ValiDate, to afrofuturist strategy game We Are The Caretakers. The expo presentations are part of a ticketed event, but you should be able to catch some of the developer talks after the fact over on the GDoCE YouTube channel as with previous years....