Welcome to the middle of October and a slight shift in pace, as this coming week has multiple big releases, albeit no AAA launches. Our top pick for this week involves strapping yourself into a massive, walking machine of destruction in a franchise that kicked off all the way back in 1989. This is followed by some galaxy conquering, a friendly wolf and its human friend, you starting up human civilization on a new planet, a Roman style city builder, silence please and something unknown that's waking up.

MechWarrior 5: Clans / This week's major release / Thursday 17 October
In MechWarrior 5: Clans, players take on the role of a newly graduated pilot from the Smoke Jaguar cadet program, thrust into the heart of the Clan Invasion of the Inner Sphere during Operation Revival. This pivotal moment in the MechWarrior universe sees players leading a five-mech "Star" squad across numerous planets with diverse biomes, engaging in an expansive campaign filled with immersive gameplay and intricate combat encounters. Armed with customizable BattleMechs featuring cutting-edge technologies, players explore a wealth of tactical options and strategic possibilities. Steam link

More than 600 games and applications feature RTX technologies, and each week new games integrating NVIDIA DLSS, NVIDIA Reflex and advanced ray-traced effects are released or announced, delivering the definitive PC experience for GeForce RTX players. This week, THRONE AND LIBERTY and Until Dawn arrive with DLSS 3 and Reflex. Next week, Starship Troopers: Extermination also launches with DLSS 3 and Reflex. And later this month, DLSS 3 and Reflex launch in The Axis Unseen and MechWarrior 5: Clans.

THRONE AND LIBERTY Launches Globally Today With DLSS 3 & Reflex
NCSoft's THRONE AND LIBERTY is a free-to-play MMORPG that takes place in the vast open world of Solisium. You can scale expansive mountain ranges for new vantage points, scan open skies, traverse sprawling plains, and explore a land full of depth and opportunity. Adapt your fight to survive and thrive through strategic decisions in PvP, PvE, or both, as you encounter evolving battlefields impacted by weather, time of day, and other players. There is no single path to victory as you seek to defeat Kazar and claim the throne while keeping rival guilds at bay. From solo play to large-scale battles, THRONE AND LIBERTY provides a wide spectrum of content, along with guild content that seeks the unique enjoyment of playing together, exclusive to PC MMOs.

NVIDIA has released its latest GeForce graphics drivers, the GeForce 565.90 WHQL Game Ready drivers. As a new Game Ready driver, it provides optimizations and support, including NVIDIA DLSS 3, for new games including THRONE AND LIBERTY, MechWarrior 5: Clans, and Starship Troopers: Extermination. The new drivers also add support for CUDA 12.7 and enable RTX HDR multi-monitor support within the latest NVIDIA App beta update.

NVIDIA also fixed several issues, including texture flickering issues with Final Fantasy XV and a frozen white screen and crash issue with Dying Light 2 Stay Human. When it comes to general bugs, the new drivers fix corruption with Steamlink streaming when MSSA is globally enabled, as well as a slight monitor backlight panel flicker issue when FPS drops below 60.

DOWNLOAD: NVIDIA GeForce 565.90 WHQL Game Ready

Paradox Interactive (Paradox) and Harebrained Schemes (HBS)—developers of the Shadowrun trilogy, BATTLETECH and The Lamplighters League—have decided to part ways on 1 January 2024. The separation is the result of a mutual agreement, stemming from each party's strategic and creative priorities. Paradox will retain ownership of The Lamplighters League and other games developed by the studio. HBS will seek new publishing, partnership, and investment opportunities.

"Paradox has refocused its strategy towards its core niches within strategy and management games with endless qualities," said Charlotta Nilsson, COO of Paradox. "We and HBS' leadership have been discussing what would happen after the release of The Lamplighters League, but a new project or sequel in the same genre was not in line with our portfolio plans. Hence, we believe that a separation would be the best way forward. We're very happy that this talented, gifted studio has the chance to continue and can't wait to see what they will make next."

Microsoft's gaming division has historically had a hard time with the expansion of its Xbox console userbase in Japan, due to the continued dominance of rival Sony PlayStation and Nintendo systems. The Series X and Series S have bucked past trends to some degree (maybe not all that impressive)—the higher-ups at Microsoft probably consider Japan to be an emerging/growth market, so Phil Spencer & Co. were recently dispatched to 2023 Tokyo Game Show. Xbox's Chief and Sarah Bond (Corporate Vice President) participated in an IGN-organized Q&A panel, where they were asked about reviving dormant first or third party franchises.

Bond was nudged into answering first—her choice was Blizzard Entertainment's sci-fi RTS series; StarCraft. She based this selection on fan feedback—apparently Japanese gamers have expressed plenty of interest in a potential threequel. Microsoft could have a major say in goings-on at the Californian development studio, once their acquisition of Activision Blizzard goes ahead. Spencer had more time to mull over his pick—in his opinion, MechAssault deserves a revival—with emphasis on it being a personal preference rather than any indication of an official announcement. The more action-oriented spin-off of FASA's MechWarrior series (set in the BattleTech universe) debuted exclusively on the original Xbox console back in 2002—Spencer was working as general manager of Microsoft Game Studios at the time. A sequel, Lone Wolf, was released in 2004.

Piranha Games revealed MechWarrior 5: Clans today, a new stand alone MechWarrior game coming to PC, Xbox and PlayStation consoles next year. MechWarrior 5: Clans, while retaining the MechWarrior 5 designation, represents a transformative step forward in the MechWarrior 5 franchise. MechWarrior 5: Clans linear campaign will be an evolution of gameplay and storytelling in the MechWarrior series, experienced from the perspective of Clan Smoke Jaguar in the pivotal conflict known as the Clan Invasion starting in the year 3050.

MechWarrior 5: Clans follows Piranha's 2019 hit, MechWarrior 5: Mercenaries, which was a campaign-based, open ended, procedural experience, selling more than 1.5 million units with a current 9/10 Very Positive ranking on Steam from more than 7,500 user reviews.

Razer, the world leader in high-performance gaming hardware, today announced a partnership with Piranha Games and Infinite Game Publishing for the highly anticipated next installation of the MechWarrior franchise, MechWarrior Online. The collaboration culminates in the Razer Artemis, a concept controller crafted to give gamers a competitive edge as they stomp and destroy their way to victory in the dog-eat-dog BattleTech universe.

The BattleMech inspired Razer Artemis concept controller puts gamers into the cockpits of their favored hulking metal behemoths, fully immersed and focused on the dangers of the battlefield, claiming wins for their chosen Great House. With fully-programmable, fine-tuned controls, the ergonomically adjustable Razer Artemis concept controller makes piloting a Mech more efficient and lethal in combat.

MechWarrior Online is beginning its closed beta this week, and developer Piranha Games and Infinite Game Publishing have announced a "founder's program" to give eager players early access to the game. The founder's program is being called "Operation Inception," and it will go on sale June 19. Players can buy one of two tiers of early access, which will grant separate rewards. The $30 Veteran Founder's Package gives you $40 of in-game currency, a one-month premium membership for bonus XP and C-Bills, a Founder's Tag to set you apart, and early access to the game and Founder's assets on July 17. If you want to shell out more for the $60 Elite Founder's Package, you'll get a special "Founder's BattleMech" which boosts earned C-Bills for life, $80 of in-game currency, a two-month premium membership, and the founder's tag and early access.

The prices are about on-par for a retail game. However, for those who don't mind waiting, the game will be free-to-play when it fully launches. A release date is unannounced so far, but it probably won't be too far behind the early access July 17 date. You can still register for beta access and reserve your pilot name at the official site.