Welcome to the first full week of the month of May. It's another rather slow week of new game releases, or rather, there are no major game releases, as a few games that were supposed to be released this week, got pushed back to later in the year. As such, the biggest release this week is all about cats. As for the rest of this week's releases, we have an RPG where you beat up your enemies with plushies, an abyss full of knights, a pill eating yellow blob, a well full of animals and someone holding a gate closed. Next week will be a lot busier though.

Little Kitty, Big City / This week's major release / Thursday 9 May
A peaceful catnap turns into a whimsical adventure! Will you make your way home or will you explore what the big city has to offer first? I mean, getting home is obviously your main priority. Obviously. Well, it's one of your priorities. Maybe more of a guideline... It's definitely on your To-Do list somewhere! But first? Exploration. Steam Link

Get swept away in the Plunderstorm—a fun, new, limited-time, pirate-themed event of prodigious proportions lasting the next several weeks. Scour the map and try to be the last pirate standing while dashing across the Arathi Highlands to find abilities, upgrades, and loot to plunder just to survive! Plunge into a challenging battle that earns excellent rewards for World of Warcraft Modern and Classic progression realms. All you have to do is survive…and plunder. Can't seem to stay in the realm of the living? No problem. Plunderers still gain progression that helps unlock new rewards.

Set Sail for the Plunderstorm
Each match is 10-15 minutes long and has 60 players per match, with the winner being the last one standing. Level up and acquire new abilities and spells by killing creatures and enemies, looting chests, and avoiding the encroaching storm.

A recent episode of XboxEra's podcast aired some interesting insider information about "Project Tatanka"—games industry spies believe that developer, Certain Affinity, initiated development of a Halo Battle Royale project at some point in 2020. The studio is best known for its ancillary work on many Call of Duty and Halo sequels—the most recent entry on their CV is Halo Infinite, a co-production with Microsoft's 343 Industries. The rumor mill proposes that work on "Project Tatanka" has ended prematurely, although early 2023 insights allege that Certain Affinity was instructed to take the shooter in a different direction. Many news sites have cited XboxEra Podcast episode no. 194 and its hosts as the origin of fresh cancellation claims. Jon "Sikamikanico" Clarke, co-founder and Editor in Chief of XboxEra, was not amused by these allegations.

Clarke's response stated: "What's hilarious to me, and certainly a big surprise to Nick (Shpeshal_Nick), is that this was a simple conversation, on the show, where we talking about someone else's (YouTuber ColtEastwood) discussion on a podcast...What's even more amusing is I even make a joke about overreactions to a rumored game..."we don't know—it's just the scuttlebutt out there. What's really depressing in all of this is that we're discussing someone else's discussion, and all the headlines at the other end are effectively 'Nick Baker reports Tatanka cancelled.' This is factually wrong. If we had corroborated, verifiable evidence and detail on this, I think it's pretty likely we'd do a report ourselves. We don't, so we haven't. There's a reason it's just a discussion on the podcast."

As we're about to enter the month of November, October leaves us with a couple of final game releases. This week's AA release is a sequel to a puzzle game that was quite popular when it launched at the end of 2014. The remaining titles this coming week includes RPGs, something musical, something to do with leagues and legends, a cop that's a robot and some seasons greetings.

The Talos Principle 2 / This week's AA title / Thursday 2 November
Born into a new world where biological humanity is extinct but human culture lives on in a city of robots, you find yourself swept up in a mind-bending adventure involving a mysterious megastructure hiding enormous powers. The more you discover, the more you will be confronted with questions about the nature of the cosmos and the purpose of civilization. The broken promise of a better tomorrow, the fear of repeating humankind's mistakes, faith in reason or renouncing humanity altogether - the choices you make and the sides you take will determine the course of events.

As of September 21, 2023, Call of Duty: Warzone Caldera will shut down, as our teams focus on future Call of Duty content including the current Warzone free-to-play experience. We all have had incredible Warzone experiences across the Call of Duty franchise since its first launch, including those in Warzone Caldera. For those players who haven't jumped over to the current Warzone activities, expect a vast number of gameplay choices across three Battle Royale maps (including Season 04's new map Vondel), as well as Ranked Play, the DMZ Beta featuring five different Extraction Zones, BlackCell offerings, and more.

Players should prepare for even more Warzone content across consoles and PC, as well as a new era of Battle Royale on the go with the launch of Call of Duty: Warzone Mobile, which includes a shared Battle Pass and cross-progression. The Call of Duty team and Studios look forward to sharing more details soon. Regarding purchased content in Warzone Caldera - from Modern Warfare (2019), Black Ops Cold War, or Vanguard - that will continue to be accessible in those specific games.

Hello Bloodhunt Community! Bloodhunt is a game that we developed as a standout title in the popular Battle Royale genre, where we focused on creating an immersive and unique experience for players that enjoy games that are easy to learn but difficult to master. Ever since launch, we have been on a journey to excite and delight our players, however, while we have an amazing and very engaged community, we haven't been able to reach the critical mass needed to sustain development. This has led us to the decision to stop further development of Bloodhunt.

With that said, Bloodhunt servers will stay up and the game will remain available to play. Our aim is to keep the servers going for as long as we have an active player base and community. For those who enjoy the game and want to continue playing, we have worked on some solutions to ensure that the game continues to be interesting. An in-game player voting system will be deployed to regularly unlock new things and keep Bloodhunt fresh. We will share more granular details about how this system works when we get closer to releasing our next update, which will be the last planned patch for Bloodhunt. Beyond that update, patches will only be related to maintenance.

We're incredibly excited to announce that the Apex Legends team at Respawn will continue to strengthen its development team with the introduction of a brand new studio location in Madison, Wisconsin led by industry veteran Ryan Burnett. Ryan is an extraordinary leader with a proven track record in live service games and as a pillar in the massive mid-western game development community in Madison. With nearly two decades of development experience at places like Raven Software and Epic Games, Ryan has a history of inspiring the sort of creativity and innovation in his teams that is the foundation of games like Apex Legends.

It's been our belief since day one that Respawn is not a singular location but a mindset: when passionate and talented people have creative freedom, they'll achieve the unexpected. This view helped us successfully expand to Vancouver in 2019, and as the workplace evolved, it helped us continue to work with the best that the games industry has to offer, whether at the office, remote, or hybrid.

The upcoming "Battlefield 6" would mark a "soft-reboot" of the franchise in a modern-era setting; much like "Battlefield 3" was, according to Tom Henderson, a reliable source with leaks related to the franchise. He predicts that the game could even be titled simply "Battlefield" (not to be confused with "Battlefield 1"). The game (if it includes a campaign), could have a modern mechanized warfare setting, and be a marked departure from the historic (or pseudo-historic) plots of "Battlefield 1" and "Battlefield V."

Much like how Activision is handling various game modes with its latest releases of "Call of Duty," the next Battlefield could include a dedicated Battle Royale mode that's more evolved than simply being a gameplay mode within its Multiplayer. The main Multiplayer could build on the modes Battlefield perfected, including large PvP conquests with up to 128 players on the PC platform (fewer players on consoles).

Few would have predicted the Crysis franchise, the epitome of blockbuster AAA genres, to take the e-sports turn, but we live in unpredictable times. Crysis Next (working title), teased late Tuesday in a Crytek job posting, is an upcoming e-sports title in the battle royale FPS format. The game features large maps where "hundreds" of players battle in "fast-paced combat." Besides visual customization (massive character mods), you get to customize your Nanosuit through perks and powerups. Not to stray too far away from the franchise's AAA roots, its creators claim that Crysis Next will be "visually spectacular," and feature "high production value."

As for when Crytek plans to release this—don't hold your breath. Given that it's surfaced in a job posting, the game must still be in development. We know "Crysis Next" to be a working title, given that the listing also mentions "Ryse Next," which could be the next chapter to the critically-acclaimed Ryse: Son of Rome. Also listed are Crysis VR, Hunt Mobile, and Robinson 2.

Shortly after a Doritos-sourced leak on the next installment in the Call of Duty franchise, Activision has now officially confirmed the future of the Call of duty franchise. The next installment, Call of Duty Black Ops: Cold War, is being hailed as inspired by historical events. And if the title is anything to go by, players can apparently expect to take part in a web of black ops hat are, at the very least, placed somewhere alongside the historical years between 1947 (the beginning of the Truman doctrine) and the USSR's dissolution in 1991 (quick historical fact: the USSR's ultimate dissolution occurred with as much pomp and circumstance as pen to paper, with the signing of the Commonwealth of Independent States at the Belovezhskaya Pushcha, in Belarus).

It remains to be seen what - if any - changes to the Call of Duty formula this title will bring. It's being developed by Treyarch, one of Activision's three development studios tasked with bringing the Call of Duty franchise to market yearly, with a three-year development cycle. Raven Software is collaborating with the studio, and we know the title will see integration with Call of Duty Warzone: it's likely Warzone will become a Battle Royale companion to all future Call of Duty titles, added to and updated with the latest installments. Watch the announcement video after the break.

Ubisoft has recently released their free to play battle royale style game Hyper Scape on console and PC. The first-person shooter offers a unique twist in the crowded market with heavy Twitch integration which affects the outcome of each match. The games technical test appeared to be a major hit topping the Twitch viewership charts for the day but has quickly dropped to just 11,000 viewers far below the likes of Fall Guys, Fortnite, Apex Legends, and PlayerUnknown's Battlegrounds.

Ubisoft has partnered with NVIDIA to release the game on GeForce NOW with free bonus content for subscribers. GeForce NOW members can now claim an exclusive GeForce NOW Hyper Scape content pack which includes a Season One Battle Pass Token, three rare skins, and epic Boxer Shuffle Emote. This content pack is valued at ~25.00 USD. Ubisoft has considerable experience in the Esports sector with Rainbow Six Siege so it will be interesting to see if they can create that same global phenomenon with Hyper Scape.

In a typical Battle Royale game, players fend for themselves, scour the map for loot, remain in the playable area and strategically plot to become the sole survivor. Mantisco's Hunter's Arena: Legends delivers a fresh approach to gameplay: In addition to their rival Hunters, players must contend with up to 10,000 artificial intelligence (AI) enemies, bringing together into one title the best MMORPG1, MOBA2 and Battle Royale features.

Developing a game with up to 60 players and 10,000 AI enemies was a massive technical undertaking. Mantisco needed to deliver seamless gameplay with exciting battles that keep players in the middle of the action. Intel helped Mantisco optimize gameplay through Intel Xeon servers and 10th Gen Intel Core CPU utilization that allow battles to take place simultaneously across the map. Using Intel VTune Profiler, which provides detailed profile data to improve CPU and GPU computing-intensive tasks and CPU threading performance, Mantisco created continuous and explosive moments of conflict among human and AI opponents alike through a dynamic monster respawn system.

Aurora Studio is thrilled to announce that battle royale shooter, Ring of Elysium has left Early Access and is now a full release on Steam. The well-received title recently released it's latest game mode Ashen Eye which features no zone shrinking and pits players against one another in all-new gameplay. To celebrate the game's official release Aurora Studio will also be rewarding players with a new weapon skin as well as equipment appearances.

Having launched on Steam Early Access on September 19, 2018 Ring of Elysium introduced players to a dynamic weather system in which they battled it out against freezing temperatures and oncoming avalanches while taking out enemy players. The game has since evolved into a fan favorite sparking cosplays as well as an active esports community.

Apex Legends was somewhat of a sleeper hit, and it was so in many ways. A ninja introduction by EA of the Respawn Entertainment-developed game back in January saw significant interest from the gaming community, who recognized in Respawn the ability to make a great FPS. Taking advantage of the Battle Royale popularity was also a solid move, as was EA's decision to focus marketing efforts not on a long, drawn-out publicity campaign, but instead, on paying renowned Twitch streamers to play and stream their game.

Since gaming (at least when it comes to multiplayer gaming) nowadays has somewhat of a "monkey see, monkey do" dynamic for the general gaming population, this move prompted Apex Legends to the top of the streaming food chain, with a grand total of 40 million hours streamed on its first week alone. Also during its first week, the game achieved a staggering 25 million unique players, doubling that number to 50 million in the first month. However, the cash flow must die out, and as EA stopped paying streamers, so did they move on to other, more proficuous games, such as Fortnite, which has endured the Apex Legends assault in terms of viewers and players. It remains to be seen if EA will double down on the streamer investment it did on the games' launch, or if Respawn Entertainment can churn out meaningful updates and characters that can turn the tide.

Nepal yesterday moved to ban the online game PlayerUnkown's Battlegrounds, citing negative impact of the game on children and their development. Citing violent content and its effect as the primordial reason for the ban, Sandip Adhikari, deputy director at Nepal Telecommunications Authority (NTA), the nation's telecoms regulator, told Reuters that ""We have ordered the ban on PUBG because it is addictive to children and teenagers."

As part of the ban, all internet service providers, mobile operators and network service providers were instructed to block streaming of the game. Gamers might find ways to circumvent this limitation in order to still be able to play the game; or they'll simply migrate to one of the other Battle Royale games on offer, such as Fortnite or Apex Legends, instead. It's interesting to wonder whether the government of Nepal will keep on chasing the next online game fad one by one or if actual studies on the negative impact of these games are fielded by the Nepalese government.

"Apex Legends," developed by Respawn Entertainment, and published by EA, has become the fastest growing online battle-royale shooter, with its popularity snowballing to over 25 million players in just the first week since launch. The game made a splash into the crowded online battle-royale genre that's dominated by "Fortnite" and "Player Unknown's Battlegrounds" aka PUBG, among dozens of knockoffs from independent developers. Apex Legends is being appreciated by players for having a polished, well-tested presentation, slick gameplay, reasonable eye-candy, low "pay-to-win" perception among players, good performance on entry-level and mainstream graphics hardware, and offering many of the inventory-management, gameplay, and teamplaying features felt lacking in other titles. The game is free-to-play, distributed through Origin.

The launch of Respawn's Apex Legends must've caught most of the consumer base (and even much of the industry) by surprise. A silent entry into the gaming world, published by EA? Color us all surprised. The new game, which has roots on Respawn's Titanfall IP, is a free-to-play Battle Royale game that does away with Titanfall's mechs in order to sustain up to 60 players in a match, made up of 20 teams of three players. Each "Legend", as in, playable character, has unique powers, strengths and weaknesses, and a number of them have roles that complement each other.

The game was teased and announced in a record 8 hours or so, and that announcement saw the game being subsequently downloaded and played by more than 1 million unique users, all vying for a try of the next battle royale fix. While those are great numbers (the game being a free-to-play affair helped, of course), and while Respawn's Vince Zampella glowed as he shared the news on Twitter, the development of Apex Legends comes with its own piece of sad news: no, there was no Titanfall 3 in development at Respawn. For now, EA is betting hard on Apex Legends as the ongoing work for Respawn (and cash cow for microtransactions), but who knows? Maybe one day, we'll see the game introduce Titanfall's Titans in a world-breaking update. Warframe has certainly done some such metamorphic changes since its inception.

Today, Logitech G, leading innovator of gaming technologies and products, introduced a new lineup of gaming headsets, engineered to deliver the ultimate in sound science and the most immersive audio gaming experience. "Whether you're into tricking out your battlestation or tearing it up in your favorite battle royale game, we want you to get the superior audio and comfort you deserve," stated Ujesh Desai, vice president and general manager, Logitech Gaming. "We're always exploring new ways to deliver amazing gaming experiences, and that's just what we're bringing to the table with these new headsets."

HyperX, the gaming division of Kingston Technology Company, Inc. today announced it is the No.1 PC gaming headset brand in retail for two years running in 2017 and 2018. The achievement is based on total retail revenue in the United States according to the NPD Group - Retail Tracking Service. HyperX became the e-tail sales leader when it entered the gaming headset business with HyperX Cloud. Starting in 2017, HyperX exceeded revenue sales of all other headset brands sold through retail outlets. In 2018, HyperX continued to grow market share bolstered by the growth of Fortnite, PUBG, Call of Duty and Battle Royale multiplayer games.

Best known for its gaming headsets, HyperX provides a variety of PC, console, and wireless headsets including the Cloud II, Cloud Alpha, Cloud Flight and Cloud Revolver. The recently launched Bluetooth-enabled Cloud MIX gaming headset allows gamers to unplug from their gaming device and take their wireless headset anywhere for on-the-go listening. The Cloud MIX design is subtle, street-ready and popular with people who want to use one headset for both gaming and listening to music.

Valve has brought about an update to their eons-old competitive shooter CS:GO. The update brings the game to the modern, post-Fortnite era of multiplayer games, with a new Battle Royale mode named "Danger Zone". The "Danger Zone" Battle Royale mode cuts the number of maximum players to 18, though, which is a far cry from other market offerings - but has designed to mode so that each match lasts at most 10 minutes, which should bring about some escalating tension despite the reduced number of players compared to other Battle Royale game modes. The usual "save the hostages" mechanic has been baked into the mode as a way for players to make money, which they can use to purchase weapons, a la classic CS fashion.

The other move that Valve has made in order to boost popularity of CS:GO has been to make the game free to play, waiving the usual $15 entry fee. It just wasn't justifiable, it seems, to keep such a price on a game released back in 2012 - especially not when compared to the money-making prowess of Fortnite.

If Victory Royale is your mission, the EVGA GeForce Fortnite Bundle is just for you. For a limited time, when you upgrade your weaponry with an EVGA GeForce GTX 1070 Ti, 1070, or 1060 graphics card, you'll receive 2000 V-Bucks and the male Fortnite Counterattack Set. Enjoy the ultimate Battle Royale experience with EVGA GeForce GTX graphics and be the last one standing. See more details and see qualifying EVGA GeForce GTX graphics cards here.

A few weeks ago we learned that Battlefield V would have a battle royale mode called "Firestorm". PUBG and Fornite have made this game mode so popular that several games have tried to take advantage of this feature, and the latest title from EA and DICE won't be an exception. The problem is, that option won't be available at launch, and users will have to wait until March 2019 to enjoy this game feature. The roadmap for additional content has shown how Battlefield V will evolve in the next few months.

This gaming mode has been developed by Criterion Games in partnership with DICE, and 64 players in 16 squads will fight to be the last infantry squad. Before being able to play that mode users will be able to access other DLC such as "The Last Tiger" War Story, "Panzerstorm" (a new tank-focused map) and a new Practice Range mode. Between January and March we will see new content and co-operative modes such as "Combined Arms", and after that "Firestorm" and its Battle Royale mechanics will arrive. General availability for Battlefield V will start on November 20th.

PUBG is still a juggernaut of a game and Battle Royale experience, no matter how much Fortnite has been making increasingly larger waves on PUBG's pond of success. To prove that is the fact that released reports for PUBG sales during the month of June point towards a grand total of 4.7 million copies sold during that month alone. That's the second-highest amount of copies in a single month the game has ever sold - only surpassed by October 2017 - and brings the games' total sales up to some 53 million copies. The reduced, sale-level price point of $19.99 (down from the usual $29.99) helped drive sales maybe even more than the games' popularity.

A report from analyst firm Superdata has put in perspective the craze regarding Battle Royale-type games. Fortnite, developed by EPIC, is now estimated to have earned more than $1 billion in revenue since its launch last year. And it all seems to be going uphill - the game earned some $304 million in May alone solely on its in-game microtransactions, a 4% increase over the still impressive $296 million figure in April. Consider that EPIC only added the Battle Royale game mode last September, and the voracious pace of revenue increase becomes obvious - just the months of May and April account for more than half of the $1 billion being reported here.

Make no mistake: like in all things, there will be an inevitable tumble in popularity and revenue as the game ages, even if it has just now entered its fifth season. However, the rhythm at which funds are flowing into EPIC's coffers will surely enable an even bigger, more impressive experience come Fortnite's successor, which you can bet will be ready to pick up the slack once revenue slows down. It becomes hard not to justify developers' options towards developing these kinds of games over others - it really does seem to be this is where most money's at.

Earlier in January of this year, PUBG Corp threw a lawsuit at Epic Games, looking to assert its rights to the "Battle Royale" mode that game was mimicking from the original Player Unknown's Battlegrounds. It now seems that PUBG Corp has decided to throw in the towel over its pursuit of Epic Games' Fortnite as a "straight copy" of its battle royale mode - a move that came only after Fortnite had eclipsed PUBG Corp's game in concurrent players and revenue generation.

Perhaps at least part of this issue was dealt with by Chinese giant Tencent, which owns part of Bluehole Inc (PUBG Corp's parent company) and part of Epic Games - it hurts investors when two of their pots are throwing dirt at each other. Another part of the equation - and the most likely, considering the amount of time the lawsuit survived in court - pertains to how PUBG makes use of EPIC Games' Unreal Engine. I'd say it's at least slightly important to keep a good relationship with such a company.