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Microsoft have announced the next batch of comings and goings We’ve just passed the middle of the month (and the year?), which means it’s time for another wave of Game Pass games to come. For starters, we have a tasty indie trio coming to the service today. Then to cap off July, one of the best platformers in recent memoryCelesterejoins the fun, while Marvel’s Avengers waves goodbye. Not an exhaustive selection but definitely a loveable one....

100% chance of an alien invasion Xenonautswas a great spiritual successor to the old-school strategy machinations of X-COM (or UFO: Enemy Unknown), back when the genre was more hyphenated. That unofficial spiritual successor now has an actual successor withXenonauts 2, which is out in early access now. Despite decades separating Xenonauts and its sequel’s 2009 setting, the world has sort of remained in limbo. The Cold War is still ongoing, international tensions are still brewing, and, yup, another alien invasion has just begun....

A new festival, more dialogue, and “???”? How manyStardew Valleyfarms is too much for one person? Well, developer Eric “ConcernedApe” Barone is daring me to start yet another one as he recently teased some of the new additions coming in the game’s 1.6 update. Baronetweetedtoday that a new festival, new items, more dialogue, more secrets, and an even more nebulous “???” are coming with Stardew Valley’s next major update. Yep, that’ll do it - my new farm is already watered and I’m ready to fight/fish/romance whatever “?...

As well as the return of Vertigo Counter-Strike 2is in closed beta while Valve test its new features, revised maps and upgraded engine. That limited test has just been updated to swap out two maps, Nuke and Office, with two others, Vertigo and a hugely overhauledOverpass, as well as to add the two-on-two Wingman mode. “We are excited to ship our first overhauled map into theCounter-Strike 2Limited Test, de_overpass, alongside de_vertigo,” tweeted theofficial Counter-Strike account....

Season 1 launches on July 20th Diablo 4’s latest patch is out now and it’s a doozy, introducing new unique items, fixing dozens of bugs, and re-balancing every class with stat increases and decreases. These changes come just a couple of days before the launch of the action-RPGs first season and battle pass. “As our community continues to battle the Burning Hells, the builds emerging from new players have shocked and delighted us,” saysthe full patch notes....

A bit more swingy armed I previously complained thatEA Sports FC 24’s"gameplay reveal" trailerdidn’t seem to contain much more “gameplay” thanthe announcement trailerreleased a few days prior. Well, now here comes the “gameplay deep dive” trailer to hopefully satisfy my appetite. Spoilers: it’s almost entirely focused on technology, animation, and heavily re-uses already released footage. The trailer runs through Hypermotion V, the new animation tech that lets them use motion capture data taken from real football matches; “Play Styles”, in which they use real world player data to make their in-game equivalents shoot or pass as they might in the real world; and the underlying Frostbite engine, which they cover only briefly because they’re saving the details for the “presentation deep dive....

Ghost in the shell When I think back on most of the cinematic platformers I’ve played recently, it’s not the latter part of their genre title I remember most, but the former. The lush camera pans of your Planet Of Lanas, the haunting backdrops of your Somervilles and the gooey, malleable monstrosities of your Insides. These dramatic moments linger in the memory much longer than their respective running and jumping, and if it’s a proper platforming challenge I’m after, I usually look elsewhere, swapping cinema for action with your Raymans, Trines and Oris....

The reprise of an Amazon Prime deal - nearly. HP’s Omen 27q gaming monitor sits right at the sweet spot for price/performance, with a 27-inch 1440p display at a 165Hz refresh rate now discounted to $209.99. That’s $80 below its normal price and a great deal for a well-reviewed name-brand monitor with these specs. For context, we saw a deal price of only $10 lower during Prime Day, making this a great choice if you missed it the first time around....

The Acer Nitro 5 comes with an RTX 3070 Ti, Ryzen 6800H and 1TB SSD. Good news, everyone! Newegg is doing a heck of a deal on an Acer Nitro 5 gaming laptop, which packs in some impressive components for a price some distance below $1000. Right now, you can pick up this configuration with an RTX 3070 Ti graphics card, Ryzen 7 6800H CPU, 16GB of DDR5 memory and 1TB NVMe SSD for $969....

Too coup for school I never thought I’d hear the words ‘roguelite’ and ‘Minesweeper’ together in the same sentence but here we are.Let’s! Revolution!is a joyous mix of bothMinesweeperand a roguelite, tasking players with hunting down a deliciously repugnant king through a series of increasingly complex tile maps to enact their titular coup. With all tiles facing down on arrival, you’ll need to hop from square to square to flip them over and reveal the king’s hiding place before progressing to the next level....

Among 11 principles to mitigate potential harm Ukie, the organisation which represents the UK games industry, have published 11 new “industry principles” regarding the implementation of loot boxes. These principles come as a response to the UK government, who last year called for greater protection for under-18s and vulnerable people from the potential harmful effects of loot boxes. The principles have been agreed by representatives from “major international platforms”, as well as from international and UK-based publishers and developers, who worked with the Department for Culture, Media and Sport, academics, consumer groups and regulators....

The evilest villain in video game history Unpackingis, for the most part, a laid-backpuzzle game. I’ve had a cosy ol’ time taking out all the protagonist’s items one by one and placing them in the various places around her rooms. From her childhood bedroom right up until her first house, I love how relaxing and gratifying it is to decorate each room. But after replaying it for this month’sRPS Game Club, there’s one section that gave me quite the opposite reaction....

The Execution Force expansion sneaks up on July 25th Strategy gameWarhammer 40K: Chaos Gate - Daemonhuntersis getting a second chunky expansion pack on July 25th, developers Complex Games have announced.Deep inhale- it’s called Warhammer 40K: Chaos Gate - Daemonhunters: Execution Force and it adds four new snazzy Assassin classes, new mission types, new map and more. Here’s our first look at the covert assassins. Your tactical turn-based battles can now get an extra boost with the Assassins Of The Officio Assassinorum (otherwise known as the secretive murder office)....