What did you play last week?

Tom Senior has been playing chess, but not any old chess: battle chess. And more specifically, the Warhammer 40,000-themed chess-with-orks game Regicide. It's a goofy mix of actual chess rules and special abilities, where taking a piece with another in traditional style results in an autokill but you can always plink away with your boltgun for a few points of damage at that space marine bishop instead.

Emma Matthews has been playing Hyper Scape, the team-based battle royale from Ubisoft now in beta. If you thought Apex Legends had some fancy weapon animations they're nothing on Hyper Scape's distracting guns, which deconstruct themselves like Tediore weapons in Borderlands 2. There's apparently a fresh take on BR beneath the flash, but as Emma notes it's an uphill battle getting noticed there.

Jonathan Bolding has been playing Shadow Empire, a strategy 4X on a hex grid that Jon calls "a wargamer's wargame". It's got a lot of detail to its simulation of sci-fi worlds, complete with plate tectonics, civilian economies modeled finely, and extensive customization, but it's all either locked off or hidden away.

Harry Shepherd has been playing Assassin's Creed Odyssey and Far Cry New Dawn for the thrill of cleaning up, experiencing the joy of tidying the markers in an open world even more while under lockdown. Anecdotally I've heard a few other people say the same thing, that they're in the mood for comfort food and open-world completionism provides plenty.

Graeme Meredith has been playing Going Under, a roguelike set in an office. You survive at the bottom of the unclimbable corporate ladder by fighting "joblins" in a roguelike fashion, like Enter the Gungeon in a suit.

Jody's first computer was a Commodore 64, so he remembers having to use a code wheel to play Pool of Radiance. A former music journalist who interviewed everyone from Giorgio Moroder to Trent Reznor, Jody also co-hosted Australia's first radio show about videogames, Zed Games. He's written for Rock Paper Shotgun, The Big Issue, GamesRadar, Zam, Glixel, Five Out of Ten Magazine, and Playboy.com, whose cheques with the bunny logo made for fun conversations at the bank. Jody's first article for PC Gamer was about the audio of Alien Isolation, published in 2015, and since then he's written about why Silent Hill belongs on PC, why Recettear: An Item Shop's Tale is the best fantasy shopkeeper tycoon game, and how weird Lost Ark can get. Jody edited PC Gamer Indie from 2017 to 2018, and he eventually lived up to his promise to play every Warhammer videogame.