Robert Purchese

What has THQ Nordic bought today? Let's see. Today it's Wreckfest developer Bugbear and Goat Simulator studio Coffee Stain.

Artem Moskowsky was testing a web application on the Steam developer site one day when suddenly he noticed a bug: he could generate game keys - thousands of them.

The new Kingdom game Two Crowns - called so because it introduces co-op - will be released 11th December for PC, PlayStation 4, Xbox One and Switch. The game will be included in December's Xbox Game Pass.

The rumours were true: Microsoft Studios is buying Obsidian Entertainment. It's also, in an unexpected twist, buying inXile Entertainment.

The Lord of the Rings Online has hopped on the World of Warcraft Classic bandwagon and launched its own legacy - Legendary, as it's called - service.

Whenever World of Warcraft Horde warchief Sylvanas Windrunner was mentioned at BlizzCon 2018, division swept the room. Some people booed, some people cheered. Sylvanas is on a genocidal rampage, you see, and it's caused a schism in the Horde. Some people follow her - and will to the ends of the, um, Azeroth - while others openly rebel under the hashtag Not My Warchief.

For months I ran the Stratholme dungeon in World of Warcraft, over and over through the burning city, through the big gate towards the corrupted paladin lord Baron Rivendare and his coveted skeletal horse. But all the time I never really knew why. I never really knew the significance of the place, that it was the turning point for famous paladin Arthas on his path to to the dark side, to becoming Lich King. But I would have had I played Warcraft 3: Reign of Chaos*.

When World of Warcraft: Classic launches next summer, the only raids available will be Onyxia and Molten Core. It will be, in other words, as World of Warcraft was circa March 2005.

UPDATE 1AM GMT 4TH NOVEMBER: Wyatt Cheng, the lead designer of Diablo Immortal, just stepped on stage at BlizzCon 2018 and issued a personal message about the brouhaha surrounding the mobile game's announcement and Diablo 4 no-show. It was he who fended off some harsh questions on stage shortly after Immortal's reveal.

Blizzard announced 29th Overwatch hero, Ashe, at BlizzCon 2018 today. She's an old friend of gunslinger McCree, and we saw the pair have an emotionally-charged - and very entertaining - reunion in a gorgeous new animated short. We also saw another hero, called Echo, but learnt nothing more. When will they both be released? Is Echo who we know as Athena, the AI voice in our ears? And is Echo really the character we saw on that piece of art before Overwatch even released?

UPDATE 4PM GMT: Netflix has also confirmed a number of the other actors joining The Witcher cast, including the actress who'll play iconic sorceress Triss Merigold. Taking the role is Anna Shaffer, according to the Hollywood Reporter, who you may remember as Romilda Vane from Harry Potter - the girl who gave Harry a love potion. Shaffer also played Ruby Button in British soap opera Hollyoaks.

A milestone 25th expansion pack has been announced for 19-year-old online game EverQuest. It's called The Burning Lands and will be released 11th December 2018.

There's still not a lot to do in Star Citizen but thankfully there is now ridiculous technology to do it with. Face Over IP, for example - it's like voice chat (voice over IP) but it motion-captures your facial movements using a webcam and recreates them on a character in-game, in real-time. How fancy is that?!

Red Dead Redemption 2 excitement is peaking ahead of the review embargo at (high) noon UK time today and, of course, the game's release tomorrow - and video footage continues to leak.

Digital retailer GOG, which lives under the CD Projekt roof, has found itself in more Twitter hot water after insensitively appropriating the political hashtag #WontBeErased.

The first images of the Overwatch Lego sets have appeared and, goodness, they're alluring.

Thronebreaker: The Witcher Tales, the Gwent-related story spin-off, comes out tomorrow on PC, and it's excellent - I reviewed Thronebreaker and hope my enthusiasm for it comes across.

The tavern: the quintessential hub of a medieval story. The roaring fires, the frothing ale, the boisterous banter - why, a fantasy role-playing game wouldn't be the same without one. But how often have you thought about actually running one?

I had concerns about Thronebreaker: The Witcher Tales. What worried me most was the story. It's the most important thing; the premise the game is sold on, and a chance to return to the world of The Witcher. How could Thronebreaker possibly follow on from the outstanding The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt? When I first played, I wasn't sure it could. The queen whose royal sabatons I was filling left me cold. I couldn't relate to her stuffy world of advisors and generals, and I didn't like them. Her mission to reclaim gold stolen by bandits? Hardly mutant monster-hunter Geralt pursuing the near-mythical Wild Hunt, is it? But Thronebreaker gets better. It gets so much better.

The Steam-like Discord Store launches its global beta today, so everyone can try it out.

Lucasfilm has shut down Apeiron, the ambitious Unreal Engine 4 remake of BioWare's classic role-playing game Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic.

Wound up? Of course you are! But don't worry because here's a game which might calm you down. It's a phone game called Eloh and it's made by the same people responsible for Old Man's Journey, that lovely platform game about aging and facing regrets.

Someone is remaking the single-player campaign from legendary N64 shooter GoldenEye 007 in Unreal Engine 4.

Freshly buried toy-chain Toys R Us is teasing a comeback.

CD Projekt Red has announced a "long-term partnership" with a new Canadian studio called Digital Scapes, which I'd never heard of before now. But it's made up of developers from well-known studios: BioWare, Relic and Radical.