GTA Online is no longer officially supported by Steam Deck, thanks to the introduction of some anti-cheat software which can, in fact, be made compatible with Steam Deck. Say what now?
]]>As a somewhat deflating example of the money-churning might of GTA Online becoming the sole focus of Rockstar’s Grand Theft Auto 5 efforts over the last decade, the actor who played Trevor in the ridiculously well-selling crime epic has teased some details of planned story DLC that would have turned the controversial protagonist into a James Bond-style spy. The pack supposedly got as far as shooting with the actors, only to end up cancelled and folded into a GTA Online heist.
]]>The first week of January is always one of my favourite times of the year. It's a time for making plans, setting goals, thinking about all the cool new games I'll be playing over the next 12 months (while also looking nervously at the pile of games I missed over the last 12 months and placing them very, very gingerly on the teetering and totteringly tall pile of my backlog). And, of course, making some new year's resolutions. Traditionally, I don't often set myself too many resolutions - I always give myself a reading goal (35 books is what I'm aiming for this year), for example, but the rest I usually play pretty fast and loose with - more 'nice to haves' rather than 'musts', I'd say.
This year, though, I do have a few gaming-related resolutions on my list, and in discussing them with the rest of the RPS Treehouse, it turns out we all have some games-themed goals this year. So I thought it would be fun to share them with you all below. And if you've also made some gaming resolutions for 2024, tell us about them in the comments. We can hold ourselves accountable together, like that big curtain of eldritch eyeballs up there in the header from good game Norco.
]]>We’re mere hours away from the first trailer for Grand Theft Auto 6, the simple teaser image for which has already sparked an internet-wide meme and thrown infinite fuel on the ever-burning GTA 6 rumour fire. Big questions remain, of course. Not least: when will GTA 6 actually be out? Yet some eagle-eyed internet detectives reckon GTA 6’s release date has been staring us all in the face - and nips - for months.
]]>When first I played GTA Online back in the Xbox 360 days it felt like an afterthought, a chance to play some random good-for-nothing in GTA 5's sizzling alt-Los Angeles, securely cloistered away from the events of the all-important singleplayer story. Having built yourself a no-name crim, you galloped around cranking out cash and XP by means of glorified sidequests handed down by headliners such as Lamar. Skip forward to 2023, and as Alice0 observed when we discussed Rockstar's GTA 6 announcements this morning, GTA Online is effectively an MMO with ten years of updates, expansions and community projects under its belt. The no-name crim has become the star attraction.
]]>A few weeks ago I wrote about Grand Theft Auto players describing the movement of planes in random GTA promotional art as evidence of a forthcoming GTA 6 reveal, timed to intersect with the waning gibbous moon. I thought that the furore might die down after GTA 6 failed to materialise in accordance with the lunar cycle, but it turns out this rabbit hole has no bottom.
Come now, gaze upon the above, just-posted Rockstar promotional image for a new Red Dead Online outfit. To my eye, that picture looks like a weird dude in a mask, gazing at you through piles of skulls. Standard Halloween gamer fare. But it turns out that when you draw lines on it using MS Paint, you end up with the below.
]]>Rockstar are about to properly announce Grand Theft Auto VI, going by some hectic speculation surrounding a TwiX image for GTA Online's upcoming in-game Red Happy Moon Tee festival. A child in the ways of the internet might glance at said image and merely conclude that if you play GTA Online at any point this week, you can scoop up a seasonal cosmetic. But look again with unclouded eyes, young one. What does your heart say to you?
]]>A single GTA 5 mod has rekindled the age-old shouting match about the precise legality and contribution of videogame mods, in the eyes of developers, publishers and players - while also threatening to trigger fresh debate on the use of large language models, aka AI, in game development. The mod in question, "AI Powered GTA V: Story Mode with AI NPCs" sees you investigating a cult of weirdo AI worshippers, with characters who speak AI-generated dialogue. It's now been struck from several sites by GTA 5 publisher Take-Two Interactive.
]]>Dan Houser, the co-founder of Rockstar Games and former head writer at the company, has founded a new company called Absurd Ventures. Houser left Rockstar in 2020, after co-writing some of the company's biggest games including GTA V and Red Dead Redemption 2. He's now returned with Absurd Ventures, headquartered in Santa Monica, California.
]]>A fix is on the way for the security vulnerabilities discovered earlier this week in Grand Theft Auto Online, Rockstar have said today. Players began efforts to alert Rockstar to the issues en masse over the weekend, after some nefarious types took advantage of the issues to disrupt the game for other people. Rockstar Support have tweeted that a security-related update is coming, but didn't give a specific timeframe for it yet.
]]>Grand Theft Auto Online players on PC are reporting corrupted accounts and being locked out of their games due to remote code exploits that are being abused by modders. Rockstar-focused Twitter account Tez2 highlighted the issue at the end of last week, before news of the situation spread onto the GTA Online subreddit. Rockstar Support hasn’t officially acknowledged any potential the exploits have to affect GTA Online players and their accounts, although Tez2 claimed that the company were already aware of what was going on.
]]>Grand Theft Auto Online’s been around for the best part of a decade, but you can now become a taxi driver at long last. You’ll probably need to do some light robbery to afford to buy a taxi from Warstock Cache & Carry for the most authentic cab driver experience. Still, it’s relatively straightforward to start your latest, and uncharacteristically honest, money making venture. If you don’t have a taxi then you can still start taxi work jobs, and completing 10 in a row unlocks the cheaper trade price to nab a legit taxi. You can even call a cab from your iFruit phone to fast travel, if you don’t fancy driving your own.
]]>You know that bit in The Matrix where Neo says he needs lots of guns, and racks of them pop out of nowhere? Well, Grand Theft Auto Online’s latest addition is the Gun Van, and it’s going for a similar vibe. You can flag down the entrepreneurial van driver to buy pieces from a weekly rotating selection of what Rockstar calls “top-of-the-line weapons, ammunition, and armor”. It’s pretty much just the GTA equivalent of an ice cream truck, but for guns. Witness a short snippet of the Gun Van in action below.
]]>Before our Christmas break, I left you with a big winter decision, and I return to see that you have dynamic snow is better than seasonal events. Having hugely enjoyed recent real-world snow but not really done much in terms of seasonal events, yes, this feels correct. Well done. Now our hunt for the best thing resumes, with a choice between rill rill and cold steel. What's better: calling found phone numbers or giant swords?
]]>Hear that? Christmas bells are ringing, carolers are caroling, and GTA Online players are being pounced on by an atrociously-named Grinch parody. He's one of several Christmas treats now stocked on the streets of Los Santos, which also pack snowmen to destroy, rooftop shootouts and, for some reason, superpowered beasts getting chased by serial killers.
]]>GTA Online has kicked off the Los Santos Drug Wars, launching six new story missions where you help some hippies chase down the equipment they need to set up a mobile acid lab in their truck. I say hippies, I mean bloodthirsty thugs who happen to like psychedelics.
The update has also increased security for the popular Cayo Perico heist, which was one of the main ways people earned their money, so folks are understandably grumpy. Maybe they can sell some acid instead?
]]>Rockstar have teased a new story update coming to GTA Online next week, which pits players against a ramshackle bunch of rival drug dealers. The Los Santos Drug Wars kick off on December 13th with the first part of the update. The short post on Rockstar’s Newswire blog isn't exactly awash with details at the moment, but it does give an idea about the kind of dodgy characters and shenanigans you’ll get to encounter, including an angry looking luchador and the return of GTA 5’s Nervous Ron.
]]>Grand Theft Auto Online players are forbidden from using the game’s roleplay servers for “commercial exploitation”, according to new guidelines set out by developers Rockstar which includes selling loot boxes, virtual currencies, corporate sponsorships, and anything to do with cryptocurrencies and NFTs. Sorry, crypto bros. The ban on crypto and NFTs echoes Mojang’s statement from this summer scuppering players who wanted to incorporate the controversial technologies into Minecraft.
]]>GTA Online’s month-long Heists event concludes on November 30th, and Rockstar are setting the game’s community a challenge to steal a total of $2 trillion in-game over the next week. That would be double what GTA Online players managed during the last Heists Challenge two years ago, when the target was set at the much lower amount of $100 billion. Rockstar are promising a “special reward” later this year if the community hits that $2 trillion total in stolen cash. Buy out Twitter in time for Christmas, maybe?
]]>How time flies, eh? We were so busy putting together The RPS 100 last month (including the first ever Reader Edition), that we clean ran out of time to do another RPS Time Capsule. But fear not! Our written repository of games we've deemed worthy of saving from the eternal hell bin of the future has returned, and this time it's a good 'un. The year is 2015, folks, and cor, has there ever been a better year for video games? Of course, with only 11 slots to fill in our RPS Time Capsule, it also means we're having to say goodbye to some real gems. Come and see what's transcended to the higher plane of Capsule existence.
]]>The 17-year-old suspected of hacking Rockstar Games and leaking footage of Grand Theft Auto 6 has pled not guilty to the charge of computer misuse. He has reportedly pled guilty to breaching bail conditions however and is now being held in a youth detention centre.
]]>Most 'realistic graphics' mods make games look worse, but that's not the case with NaturalVision Evolved. The long-in-development Grand Theft Auto 5 mod is a comprehensive revamp of lighting, textures, models and much more, but it remains faithful to the art direction of the base game.
You can now download a Single Player Beta of the mod - and even if you don't plan on doing that, it's worth watching the trailer below.
]]>It’s a good time to be bad. At least, that’s what GTA Online’s Criminal Enterprises update coming July 26th would have us think. Not only does the update offer some fresh opportunities to make money for all kinds of criminals, but there’s also some changes requested by the GTA Online community inbound too. Check out your options by watching the trailer below.
]]>The game I've done the most virtuacycling in is named after a whole other form of transport, but it is also a great place to ride a bike. When I'm visiting Grand Theft Auto Online for funsies, just to watch mayhem unfold, I like to do it atop a BMX. Sure, everyone in Los Santos wants to murder me, but players are a little friendlier when you're pulling sikk tricks. A little.
]]>A modder working to overhaul GTA V, Red Dead Redemption 2 and Mafia: Definitive Edition with VR support says he’s received an unexplained DMCA takedown notice from publisher Take-Two Interactive. Known as LukeRoss, he says the DMCA will force him to remove all content relating to games produced by Take-Two's subsidiaries such as Rockstar and 2K, including his VR mods. However, he also states the notice provides no clarification from Take-Two about how he's actually breaching their copyright.
]]>One of the coolest mod ideas is GTBike V, which basically lets you turn Grand Theft Auto V into Zwift, pedalling a bike in the real world to ride a virtual bike around Los Santos. Now a new version has added multiplayer, letting you trundle around the same city independently or join up for group rides. It almost makes me want to get the kit to hook my bike up.
]]>It’s been 45 minutes since we started our attempt to access the new co-op missions in Grand Theft Auto V and my friend is hiding behind a car while he furiously Googles a solution. He’s on the cusp of figuring out the next required step when he’s incinerated by a rocket launcher.
Every few months we hop into GTA Online with the intention of checking out some Hot New Content. Last time, we ended up running each other over with go-karts while the party leader tried to set up a mandatory LLC and email a tax return to Rockstar. We never did reach the High Octane Bank Heist.
]]>Eight years after the launch of Grand Theft Auto V, Rockstar Games have finally confirmed yes, they really are making a new GTA. For eight years they've focused on adding new content to the MMO-y GTA Online mode, which seems a licence to print money by selling in-game cash for real cash. This has made some fans ornery, wondering if they'll just keep on plugging away at GTAO forever, especially with GTAV coming to next-gen consoles this year. But no, really, Rockstar say they really have been making a new one.
]]>Ever since Grand Theft Auto V launched eight years ago, fans have pleaded for Rockstar to release a singleplayer expansion, and received only multiplayer additions. Well, they still haven't announced more singleplayer GTAV, but today they did announce one of the singleplayer stars will return in multiplayer. The next GTA Online update, named The Contract, will focus on campaign co-star Franklin, now running a 'fixer' agency and needs our help dealing with a big client, Dr. Dre. Yup, it's the D-R-E, and he's bringing unreleased new music with him.
]]>Despite being released eight years ago, Grand Theft Auto V can still use help with performance. It’s just that sort of game. You can use the in-built upscaler (running the game at a lower resolution than your monitor's native resolution then upscaling to the correct size) to do so, but the image quality definitely suffers from it. Thankfully, a better method has appeared in the form of AMD's DLSS-alike, FidelityFx Super Resolution (or FSR). It's been ported over to GTA V by a fan, and when you compare the two side-by-side AMD’s image quality definitely wins out.
]]>What are Rockstar launching this week? No, it isn't Grand Theft Auto V on another platform. It's also not another nightclub inside of GTA Online, but that is warmer. Rockstar have actually partnered with club music event hosts CircoLoco to launch CircoLoco Records. Yes, in real life, not in GTA. The label's first compliation record, Monday Dreamin’, releases on July 9th but they've already debuted the first track off the album.
]]>Yesterday saw the release of Mass Effect: Legendary Edition, a remaster which used AI to upscale many of the original game's textures so they look better at 4K.
That's nothing compared to what Intel are working on, however. In a video called "Enhancing Photorealism Enhancement," embedded below, Intel show Grand Theft Auto 5 after it has been run through a neural net to make the streets of Los Santos look more photorealistic. It works.
]]>Yesterday afternoon, Rockstar's games suddenly weren't available to buy on Steam. Were Rockstar pulling out in a big store scloosie hullaballo? Had Ian Gun, the inventor of guns, finally sent in his lawyers to demand royalties? Naw, looks like it was one big daft mistake. It did have one bright side, though. When Grand Theft Auto and the rest returned, so did Midnight Club 2, the racing game they actually had intentionally pulled from sale in 2018, giving people a fleeting opportunity to buy it again.
]]>The seemingly endless loading times of GTA Online will soon become less loathsome, because Rockstar have confirmed they're implementing a fix for an issue found by a player. At the end of February, someone known as "t0st" had a good rummage in GTA's code to figure out why Online loaded so much slower than singleplayer, and came up with a solution that made it 70% faster on their PC. Well, Rockstar say they've investigated, confirmed the issue, and made some changes we'll see in a future patch. Amazing scenes.
Update: It might now be live? Surprise!
]]>GTA Online has historically been a stingy game. Making money s largely a grind to afford better tools to grind more efficiently, with the dream of one day maybe actually buying something fancy just for funsies. That grind became a bit friendlier in December with the launch of the Cayo Perico Heist, a mission to rob the party island of drug lord Juan "El Rubio" Strickler. It's so lucrative that many players can now buying the game's novelty superyachts, and as thanks (or insult to injury?) to El Rubio, some name them in his honour. Not a huge thing, but always makes me smile.
]]>While I do occasionally dabble in GTA Online, the problem keeping me from playing more isn't the endless grind for money, it's the endless wait for loading. Five minutes or longer on an SSD seems ludicrous. While many (myself included) have assumed the wait is related to its peer-to-peer lobbies, one intrepid player has been rooting around in the code and discovered it might actually be something quite different. And their tweaking supposedly managed to cut load times by 70%. I'm wary of jumping to conclusions, but god I'd kill for faster loading.
]]>During an earnings call, Take-Two CEO Strauss Zelnick was asked, given the likelihood that many Grand Theft Auto 5 players had never played earlier games in the series, what the company's view was on possible remasters of older GTA games.
Zelnick dodged the question, and so I am bringing it to you: would you want remasters of older Grand Theft Auto games? I would not.
]]>The hot meme in Los Santos right now is replacing character models with folks from other games and across pop culture, giving Grand Theft Auto V cutscenes a very weird energy. Folks are focused on the scene where Lamar roasts Franklin, swapping in all sorts of characters and voices for silly effect. But in a video game full of dickheads, the one that most warms the cockles of my heart is Yakuza's Kiryu popping up to serenade Franklin with a song. Even in sweary memes, Kiryu is the goodest boy.
]]>A whole new Caribbean island has arrived in GTA Online with the launch of The Cayo Perico Heist today, inviting us to completely rinse the drug lord El Rubio. Yes, sadly, his party island is only for the heist, not a place we can visit any time. It's an intriguing heist though, and one we can actually complete solo for once. And we get our own submarine. Also, Dr Dre pops up for like 30 seconds.
]]>Grand Theft Auto Online players are in store for another heist next week that'll take you off to a warm island crimecation. Rockstar have revealed more about the Cayo Perico heist in a new trailer proving that this island does indeed conform to the one true purpose for privately-owned islands: hosting absolute ragers for dudes with more money than sense. You'll be captaining a new submarine to launch your heist from when it arrives next week.
]]>Rockstar have finally tipped their hand on the big, new heist they have planned for GTA Online, which they've previously said would take you crime lot to a whole new location. No, it's not Vice City, but you will be leaving Los Santos. The Cayo Perico Heist will send you off to a drug lord's private island and you can even fly solo if you like.
]]>It's great fun to pootle around GTA Online, taking in the sights and doing casual crimes. It's less fun to grind the millions of virtuabucks you need for cool crimetoys and hot crimefashion, especially when Rockstar also sell the in-game cash for real money and it can sure feel like they're pushing you to buy. But, good news: this week they're offering a chance to get one million in-game dollars for free, just by logging in. It's worth doing even if you're not currently playing, what with the "biggest ever update" promised later this year.
]]>2K's Borderlands 3 still costs £50. Rockstar's seven year-old GTA V costs £25. Just some food for thought. Anyways, Take-Two Interactive, the mega corporation who own the likes of 2K and Rockstar, think they're charging players a lot less than their games are worth.
"We deliver the highest quality experiences in the business, and we charge much less for them than we believe they're worth to consumers," CEO Strauss Zelnick said in Take-Two's earnings call yesterday.
]]>Rockstar have announced today that, as was previously rumored, they have indeed acquired Ruffian Games, makers of Crackdown 2 and helping hands on Halo: The Master Chief Collection. Ruffian is getting less ruff, adopting the new corporate family name Rockstar Dundee. Both say they look forward to working together on future projects, though they've not said yet just what those will be.
]]>It seems that Rockstar Games, the makers of Grand Theft Auto and Red Dead Redemption, have snapped up Ruffian Games. The Dundee studio are known for making Crackdown 2, and most recently helped out with Halo: The Master Chief Collection. While neither Rockstar nor Ruffian have announced anything publicly, records filed with Companies House say that Rockstar parent company Take-Two Interactive now own at least a majority stake in Ruffian. Apparently they're now renamed to Rockstar Dundee, and I'm disappointed they didn't give a nod to Rockstar North's office down south in Edinburgh by taking the name Rockstar Norther.
]]>Ever since I squeezed my face into David Braben's Rift hole (humblebrag), I've been a VR convert. I've moved house three times since then, and each time I've managed to tether up some sort of VR system, from the pokiest of rooms to my reasonably spacious home office. That last one is not a humblebrag, as I'm far too humble to do two in one paragraph. It's just a brag.
I've been using VR for a long time, so I thought I'd ask myself what people might be worried about before committing to it themselves. What about those awkward tangibles, like wires, space, and PC power? Or troublesome intangibles, like what you look like when you watch a John Travolta movie in VR.
Here's what I've learned in the past eight years.
]]>I don't know what's more surprising: that someone has set up a Kinect to control aeroplanes in Grand Theft Auto V by holding his arms out like a kid pretending to be a plane on the playground, or that he didn't make speed controlled by how loudly he shouted "Nyoom!" This is the latest work of Eric "Insert Controller Here" Heckman, a YouTuber known for his weird custom controllers (including one to ragequit by pouring literal salt). Now he's here T-posing, pretending to be a plane through Microsoft's motion sensor. And yes, absolutely he's planning to do this for Microsoft Flight Simulator too.
]]>With the "biggest update ever" for GTA Online still promised for later this year, Rockstar today released a smaller content update to tide crimers over. The 'Los Santos Summer Special' update, now live, adds news bits and pieces across existing modes and activities rather than something entirely new. That still includes new cars, new F1 race tracks, new PvP maps set inside the Diamond Casino, and more. Some handy quality-of-life changes too, like the Casino's Lucky Wheel saying when you can next spin again.
]]>Rockstar have opened up a little about future plans for GTA Online, saying that later this year they will launch its "biggest ever update" including "our latest take on Heists in an entirely new location." That's mega-vague but potentially quite exciting. You could read a lot into that, dreaming that they'll be adding Liberty City. Or you could guess it'll be, like, adding a new bank to Los Santos. I'll wait before getting too excited but I am glad to hear Rockstar have big plans ahead.
]]>From an early age, humans know that if they want to be taken seriously, they must learn how to deliver a convincing car noise. Vrrrrummm, they might say. Or perhaps: brrrrrr-bp-brrr. These are the nascent efforts of the budding speed freak, and they must be respected. But once again the realm of videogames encroaches upon the germinal life of the human with pitiless velocity. Car games put a stop to make-believe noise, and introduce fully realised cars on a screen, ready for the racing, shiny bonnets and vrrrrummm noises included. Thus, the imagination dies, and these, the 10 best cars in PC games, are born. Beep beep.
]]>Sony opening their big E3 pressblast last night with the news that Grand Theft Auto V is coming to PlayStation 5 was perhaps a damp squib for them but good news for us on PC. With the game now confirmed for next-gen consoles, Rockstar have committed to continuing content updates for them - and PC. They're also making a standalone version of GTA Online, though it's not yet confirmed for PC. As for the new crimes we might get up to in future updates, ah, Rockstar aren't saying yet.
]]>Wow. Look at that summer sun slapping the face of the planet, like a big 12-hour camera flash. So hot, so clear-skied. A blessed day of walks in the park, trips to the beach, picnics by the litter bins. What a glorious day for wasps it is out there. Let’s all go to the...
Oh right. Forget I said anything. Go back inside, lock the doors, and consider some of these perfect virtual holiday destinations. Please, trust us with your fake vacation. After all, what is a games journalist but a sort of really dodgy travel agent?
]]>Oh sure you've played Dark Souls with your Donkey Konga bongos and Untitled Goose Game with a goose costume, but this new weird controller mod could give you a serious workout. Someone has modded Grand Theft Auto V so you can ride its bicycles by pedalling your actual real bicycle, using one of those smart bike trainer kits with sensors. It's a bit like virtual races in Zwift except you'll race round fake Los Angeles instead of generic Yorkshire, plus you might get hit by a car.
]]>Rockstar have finally managed to get GTA Online back up, after a weekend where the game was basically unplayable due to overwhelming numbers of new players. The Epic Games Store is giving GTA V away free at the moment, see. So many people came to claim it that Epic's own servers collapsed during at the start the giveaway, so I guess it's only fair that Epic players crash Rockstar's servers in return. Having spent some time sat staring at error messages hitting retry myself, I admire the ingenuity of the person who built a wee robot to keep hitting the spacebar for them.
]]>As expected, the Epic Games Store is giving away Grand Theft Auto V for free this week. Unexpectedly, this attention-grabbing act was to kick off another Mega Sale with some big discounts and more coupons. And perhaps predictably, the offer of free GTA apparently raised enough interest for Epic's Store and client to fall flat on their cyberfaces. The sale does sound well worth a look once the Store does stand up, with discounts including 50% off Control, 35% off The Outer Worlds, and 40% off Red Dead Redemption 2.
]]>Keep your eye on the Epic Games Store today: the next free game they're giving away is almost certainly Grand Theft Auto V. That's a real solid get for free. Epic have been playing it coy, teasing a mystery game instead of announcing the next one as they usually do, then they seemingly blew the surprise by tweeting the announcement early. Welp. The freebie should be with us in only a few hours.
]]>Did you get Grand Theft Auto 5 for free on the Epic Game Store? If you're just looking to mess around in the world of Los Santos, there are plenty of cheats that can be used in the singleplayer part of the game. You can do a whole host of different things, such as spawning cars from the ether, to enabling "super jump" to leap over buildings.
]]>Inviting chaos into GTA Online, Rockstar today started giving away free green and purple alien bodysuits. Over the past few weeks, Los Santos has been invaded by violent aliens. First, gangs of players dressed as green aliens were jumping unsuspecting people with baseball bats and pool cues. Then, gangs of purple aliens started fighting the green aliens in sprawling street brawls. But the invasion was somewhat contained because suits are not cheap. Now anyone can be an alien at no cost - and pool cues are free too. Watch your back.
]]>Play GTA Online any time during May and Rockstar will wang you $500,000 of in-game cash within a few days. While that's not a huge amount of money on the scale of things, but it's a decent chunk for doing nothing. It won't buy you a new business or a top-end car but could help you save up. Or... you could use that free cash to buy an expensive alien bodysuit and join the delightfully daft alien beatdown gangs and green alien vs. purple alien wars that are raging across Los Santos this week.
]]>The hottest craze amongst GTA Online players is donning a green alien suit, picking up a baseball bat, and riding around with their alien friends in a van looking for people to beat up. In a game where death usually comes from some walloper on a hoverbike raining missiles, it's delightfully silly. But aliens could never hold the streets of Los Santos forever. While attempts to fight them as Men In Black (in black suit with the black Ray-Bans on) haven't really caught on, a surprising credible opposition has emerged: other aliens. Purple alien gangs have arrived, and they have come to rumble. I dropped into an alien street war myself today.
]]>Aliens are terrorising the streets of Los Santos, bursting out of vans to beat players to death with baseball bats, pool cues, and their little green fists then fleeing the scene. This isn't a new GTA Online expansion, it's the hot new craze amongst players. Over the past fortnight, as videos of alien van gangs have spread online, more and more players have bought the silly green alien suit and joined up with other pranksters for old-fashioned beatdowns. I've not yet encountered the visitors myself but am enjoying watching everyone's close encounters.
]]>I've found myself oddly envious of pigeons lately, watching them strut around without a care, and I feel fully vindicated after becoming a pigeon myself in GTA Online. For funsies, Rockstar have re-enabled the peyote plants which let players transform into random animals, from dogs and deer to pigs and pigeons. My favourite so far is becoming a cougar, burly enough to bowl pedestrians over without even attacking, though the stingray had a nice 'nature documentary' vibe rippling around beneath the waves.
]]>An obscenely rich teenager throws his VR controller across the room in a fit of blind panic while playing Half-Life: Alyx. It leaves the window of his bedroom at 5m/s. It falls 10m vertically and hits his neighbour’s greenhouse, smashing the glass. How many metres did the controller travel horizontally before coming to a stop in the tomatoes? Use a kinematic formula to determine your answer and show your wor--
UGH, physics. Here are 10 games where physics is not boring, but good.
]]>On the highways and flyways of GTA Online, no vehicle more clearly flags a player as a potential dickhead than the Oppressor Mk II. This jet-powered hoverbike can whizz round streets, fly high over the city, and rain homing missiles, making it a top pick for the sort of wrong'un who wants to grief everyone. Bad news, gang: the Oppressor Mk II has a 30% discount this week, meaning we'll be seeing more of them over Los Santos. Brace yourself.
]]>A legally-distinct series of races which are definitely not Formula One featuring no official F1 vehicles arrived in GTA Online, and it's as messy as you'd expect from an open-world murder simulator. Up to 16 murderers can compete in the new Open Wheel Races, whipping around at tight tracks at 120mph while fighting their honed instincts which scream to ram and kill everyone. At least, that's what I imagine other players are experiencing when I see six cars pile up at the first corner. While you can buy an F1 car for keepsies, the races will provide one so all are welcome. Ish. Welcome-ish. Unless you get in my way.
]]>It's said that the aerodynamic design of Formula One cars generates so much downforce that you could, theoretically, drive one upside-down. In reality, nobody seems willing to risk vehicle and vertebrae to attempt this stunt. But in GTA Online, we're mere bytes so of course driving on the ceiling (oh what a feeling!) was one of the first things people tried when the first F1 car arrived last week. It is possible, and it's great fun. I won one myself and frankly am now more interested in F1 stunting than the F1 races launching this week. Come see.
]]>A series of Formula 1-y races are coming to GTA Online on February 27th, Rockstar announced today. I say 'Formula 1' because that's the one I know, but I suppose the upcoming Open Wheel Race Series could be inspired by F2, or IndyCar, or... look, it's those weird cars shaped like fighter jets, okay. While those races don't start until next Thursday, crimepeople do have the opportunity to win one of its new cars now. The Progen PR4 is the grand prize on the Diamond Casino's free-to-spin prize wheel this week, see, and that's the only official way to get it before the launch.
]]>This week in GTA Online, the shiny Dewbauchee Vagner supercar has a tidy 35% discount. I've heard it's a good car and, being flush with cash from the recent giveaways, I thought I'd treat myself to one. Oh! Yes, that's a good car. That's a really good car. That's great. I've never driven a good car before. If I'd known GTA Online's expensive cars were actually great, not just flashy, I wouldn't have spent literal years of ill-gotten gains on novelty cars and wacky trash. I have amassed sensible family cars, crapmobiles, and racing hearses when I could have been travelling with style, speed, and luxury. And yet, I am still proud of my garage of garbage and wish to show you what I've been suffering through.
]]>Everyone loves a good action game. It's the driving force behind so many of our favourite PC games, but only a few can lay claim to being the best action games of all time. That's why we've compiled this list - to sort the pulled punches from the bestest biffs that PC has to offer. Whether it's the joy of pulling off a perfect combo, riding the wave of an explosive set-piece or the hair-raising thrill of dodging enemy attacks in slow-motion that gets you going, there's an action game here for you.
]]>After 21 years as a Rockstar Games big cheese, Dan Houser will leave the company in March. He's co-written almost every Rockstar game since 1999, including Grand Theft Auto from London through to V, Bully, Max Payne 3, and the Red Dead Redemptions. That's made him a big influence on the tone of Rockstar's games. I wonder how that might change once he's moved on. Where he's going and what he'll do next, we don't know. He can probably afford to eat pizza while watching Heat on loop the rest of his life, to be honest.
]]>Across the next fortnight, GTA Online players can claim $2,000,000 of crimecash for free just for logging in, while Red Dead Online players can scoop a free Bounty Hunter license as well as some free guns and ammo. Rockstar announced the freebies today while crowing about "another record-breaking holiday season" for both multiplayer modes, spaffing all sorts of claims against the digiwall. For example: December 2019 was GTA Online's "largest month ever in terms of player numbers," which is pretty impressive considering how old it is. But mostly I'm here for the free stuff.
]]>Playing games with other people is one of the beloved traditions of liking video games at all, and if you're the friendly type like us at RPS, then you'll enjoy games where you work with others, rather than against them. That's why we've put together our list of the best co-op games on PC for you to find common ground with your besties. Whether you want to shoot monsters together, shoot robots together, or get a divorcing couple to work together as they run around their own home as tiny doll versions of themselves, then you can find something to enjoy on this list of co-op games.
]]>There's always a man, a lighthouse, and a city. Sometimes, those cities are sucked from 2002 and splatted into modern videogames, like the Vice Cry: Remastered mod that takes the Grand Theft Auto: Vice City map and plops it into Grand Theft Auto V. Bet Ayn Rand didn't see that one coming.
]]>It's beginning to look a lot like Christmas in the Online modes of Grand Theft Auto V and Red Dead Redemption 2. Rockstar started the Christmas events yesterday, dressing the sandbox worlds in Christmas finery, placing presents under our trees, and firing up the snow machines. I have already won a GTA Online snowball fight to the death while dressed in my Christmas warms so my season is looking very merry indeed.
]]>The writing was on the wall when the Diamond Casino & Resort opened in GTA Online in July. A casino in a city of thieves was always going to be a target, and Rockstar have just crafted a new heist for players to rob the place. From today, you can take part in the Diamond Casino Heist, which Rockstar are claiming is their "biggest, most audacious, most complex criminal operation ever."
]]>It's been an eventful decade for PC games, and it would be hard for you to summarise everything that's happened in the medium across the past ten years. Hard for you, but a day's work for us. Below you'll find our picks for the 50 greatest games released on PC across the past decade.
]]>Minigames are the coffee Revel of videogames. They are harmless, infrequent and unpleasant to think about. We accept their presence, yet no one has ever eaten a pack of Revels and wished for more coffee nuggets. Nobody completed Final Fantasy X and thought: “Needs more Blitzball”. That minigames exist as a mild distraction inside the glowing guts of other games is itself ridiculous. Imagine you were on a golf course, and hole 12 turned out to be its own 8-hole pitch ‘n’ putt. “This is stupid,” you’d think, and then you would play pitch ‘n’ putt for the rest of the day in a mindless stupor.
Here are the 7 most gratuitous minigames - but do they all deserve to be here?
]]>This is, really and truly, the last ever Steam Charts.
Which, I realise, is something I've said before. More than once. But this time it's really true!
Erk, I'm not really sure how to convince anyone of this. I'm the boy who cried last ever Steam Charts.
]]>The next phase of Grand Theft Auto V’s PC glow-up is coming, like a beautiful high schooler in a teen movie taking their glasses off to reveal they were even more beautiful all along. Scheduled to launch in December via GTAV-mods.com, a massive update to the astounding (and free) NaturalVision mod will overhaul the game’s already age-defying looks. We’re talking a remodelled sky, reworked shadows, enhanced textures, transformed lighting (both interior and exterior), and realistic window reflections, amongst plenty of other juicy additions.
So who makes this mod, and where do they get off releasing it for free? To find out, I spoke with NaturalVision creator Razed, real name Jamal Rashid. The 28-year-old Miami native has been working on NaturalVision’s latest update in his spare time for the past 12 months, having spent over three years on the project in total. He and his three-person team do it purely out of passion.
]]>The results are in! The links between the longevity of Steam Charts and the decreases in violent crime, the improvement of sanitary water supplies, and sudden global drops in serious health issues, are no coincidence at all!
To quote from the paper recently published in Nature, "Causal links have been shown connecting Rock Paper Shotgun's Steam Charts articles to a remarkably number of positive worldwide trends, with strong suggestion that a global dependence on the column has been established, such that its weekly appearance is vital to humanity."
]]>There is nothing worse for a world-leading chartologist (PhD) like me than a Steam sale. All sense is lost, all decorum thrown to the wind, as the same few games come stamping all over everything like an uninvited six year old whose parents let him go to bed whenever he wants. And we're entering Sale Season, people. It's going to get stampy.
]]>Everything you thought you knew to be true has been undermined by the Great Revelation. Please read on to learn about your new role in society, and how this affects the games you will be allowed to play.
]]>Has your account been hacked? Have your favourite game's servers been compromised, revealing private data about you and your family? Are your bank details at risk?
]]>What’s Another Thing You Could Buy Instead Of GTA V Again?
]]>After Rockstar launched their new wee store client doodad this week, folks who wanted to play Grand Theft Auto V offline on PC were finding themselves unable to. Did Rockstar sneak in a new DRM measure when wedging the new Rockstar Games Launcher into the game's guts? Naw, they say it was a bug, and now it's fixed. The fix does involve going online one last time, mind.
]]>Just when the Epic Games Launcher seemed like it might have been the final salvo in the launcher wars, along come Rockstar Games with a launcher of their own. The imaginatively-named Rockstar Games Launcher lets you launch Rockstar Games games, and also buy them. Okay? And? Why would I want that? Well, Rockstar are hoping to tempt people to install it by initially offering 2004's Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas as a freebie.
]]>We've had a few people asking how to get these stupid annoying articles out of the news feed for their favourite games on Steam. Read on to learn more...
]]>Exciting news! Steam Charts is proud to announce it's to be an Epic exclusive! From now on you can read your favourite article about the top selling games on Steam exclusively on the Epic Store!
But don't worry, long-term readers - you'll still be able to read the articles right here on RPS, after just one year. Everyone's a winner!
]]>URGENT: Disparaging words have been said about the game you like by people who like the other game you don't like.
]]>Why, what's this? Oh I say, a Steam Charts you say? How intriguing.
]]>Hi, it's me! Yeah! No, nothing's wrong, all's good. I was just calling to see if you wanted some Steam Charts? ... STEAM CHARTS ... Yeah, that's right. No, no it's not. You don't? Oh, um, I already sent them over.
]]>Hello, I'm high school sweetheart, John Walker. Welcome, if you can, to Steam Charts.
]]>Rockstar Games have paid £0 in UK corporation tax over the last ten years, despite making Actual Billions in profit, according to a report released by Taxwatch UK.
Rockstar's parent company Take-Two Interactive are using the Video Games Tax Relief provision to legally save an estimated £42,313,047 in corporation tax. Which is what it's for. Sort of.
]]>It's never a good sign when Skyrim's back in the Charts. It means mischief is afoot. And not the good kind. In this case, it's Bethesda's Quakecon sale, meaning a whole bunch of the dreariest of usual suspects return to droop our eyelids and weary our souls. And Nier and Flibble Glibble Pants are both on sale yet again. In fact, this week's top 10 features precisely one game released in the last TWO YEARS.
So this week I think I shall describe to you the feelings I feel when I see these games appearing once more.
]]>The Diamond Casino & Resort opened in GTA Online today, bringing new cooperative story missions and new ways to gamble away your ill-gotten gains. It's a social space along similar lines to the nightclubs, only dealing cards rather than pulling shapes. If you live in certain countries, mind, you'll be blocked from playing the casino games, presumably because of gambling laws. The casino also sells fancy penthouse apartments we can decorate more than other homes, slapping up pictures and slamming down sculptures.
]]>Here's a fascinating fact: Steam Charts has never won an award. I KNOW. If there's nothing else that demonstrates the corruption of the entire system, it's this. High quality, groundbreaking, Woodwardian journalism, are just some of the terms I use to describe this most esteemed of columns. And yet the silverware shelf gathers dust. It's a disgrace.
]]>It has always amazed me that Grand Theft Auto Online (and its parent game, Grand Theft Auto 5) hasn't had a casino until now, what with it being all about a life of vice and high-stakes action. Next week on Tuesday the 23rd, Rockstar are fixing that, and opening the doors to the Diamond Casino & Resort. As with other GTA Online expansions, players will have to buy in with in-game money to access its new story missions and high-stakes tables. For everyone else, there'll be a bundle of new minigames to play, including poker, blackjack, roulette and betting on horse races. Below, the update trailer.
]]>It's another dire old week in Chartland, with the last breaths of the Summer Sale ensuring, with the exception of spots #4 and #5, that all the usual suspects dominate. But we won't let that change us! We're better than this! We're going to have fun anyway!
]]>Yes, yes, it's me. I know, I know, but calm down. While it's obviously very exciting to have a celebrity as handsome and excellent as me writing you some Steam Charts, I'm still just a regular ordinary guy underneath it all. I leap into my trousers both legs at once, same as anyone else.
]]>I think I have everything necessary for an ace Independence Day beach bash.
☑ Sexy Uncle Sam outfit. ☑ As many beers as can fit into the pockets of a Sexy Uncle Sam outfit. ☑ Stars & stripes face paint. ☑ Stars & stripes monster truck. ☑ Flare gun. ☑ Homemade firework launcher.
So why am I being riddled with bullets, bumped by hoverbikes, and crushed by my own starry striped monster truck? Ah, it's just another Independence Day in Los Santos.
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