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  • New action roguelike Guntouchables scores 2 million players with free giveaway

    New action roguelike Guntouchables scores 2 million players with free giveaway


    Giving your newly launched game away for free is a bold strategy, and it’s led to some dramatic results for co-op action roguelike Guntouchables. Built by Game Swing and published by Deep Rock Galactic studio Ghost Ship, it’s a vicious apocalypse survival shooter about a group of preppers trying to fight back against an evolving mutant horde. Bringing together elements of Enter the Gungeon, The Binding of Isaac, and Hades, it was available totally for free on launch day. During its 24-hour giveaway period, it racked up an incredible two million players, and the good news is that you won’t need to break the bank to join them.

    “The entire world has fallen and the surface has been overrun by a hostile and aggressively evolving horde of mutants.” As one of the ragtag Guntouchables, you’ll blast your way through ever-more-dangerous enemies, grabbing all manner of guns and upgrades to meet the challenges ahead. These come via the ‘choose between three things’ method familiar in many of the best roguelikes, and Game Swing says it plans to build on this moving forward. “Guntouchables is designed to be a heavily and easily expandable experience, and any content additions will increase the possible outcomes and combinations exponentially.”

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    “Launching for free for 24 hours was a huge bet for us, and we are thrilled to announce that more than two million players claimed the game,” Game Swing reveals. It says the response “has blown all our expectations for getting the game off the ground.” If you’re having a good time with Guntouchables so far and want to contribute something, there is a supporter pack DLC available for $4.99 / £4.49 that gives you special outfits for its main characters.

    Sad that you missed out on the free giveaway? If your friends are calling on you to try the co-op game with them, don’t worry. At just $4.99 / £4.49 for the base game, you still won’t be too out of pocket. Game Swing says its current priorities are additional server regions for Asia and Australia, and the ability to select a preferred region in the server list. Then it will work on introducing the option to play co-op without bots if you have two or three players, improving the in-game communication options, and fixing inactive players blocking the flow of games.

    If you’re after more things you won’t need to pay for, here are the best free Steam games in 2025. For more high-octane thrills, try the best action games.

    You can follow us on Google News for daily PC games news, reviews, and guides. We’ve also got a vibrant community Discord server, where you can chat about this story with members of the team and fellow readers.



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  • Borderlands 4 map and collectibles revealed by Pitchford who tells players to “quit clutching your pearls”

    Borderlands 4 map and collectibles revealed by Pitchford who tells players to “quit clutching your pearls”


    Borderlands 4 artwork
    Image of Paul McNally

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    Published: Jul 14, 2025 11:55 am

    We are only a couple of months out now from Borderlands 4’s September 12th release date, and lively Gearbox CEO Randy Pitchford has gone ahead and released the game’s map and the locations of over 200 collectibles on a post on his X account.

    The collectibles will be scattered across the map and will take some getting to nab them all, with Pitchford saying, “I had challenged Andrew Reiner, who some of you know spent nearly 30 years at Game Informer Magazine, to find those unreachable spots and, well, reach them. The goal was to discover all the places that we never expected players to visit and, well, visit them.”

    From there, Borderlands 4 designers were tasked with making these areas look great and then adding collectibles to them, to make it worthwhile for players who took the chance to visit them. We at The Escapist think that is pretty cool.

    Borderlands 4 map

    Pitchford also took the opportunity to show off the map for Borderlands 4, too, a move which angered some fans who accused him of revealing too much of the game before its launch.

    Complaints flew in with fans asking why Pitchford had given away the locations of all 200 collectibles months before the game had even been released.

    Pitchford replied, “Quit clutching your pearls. Literally all the information will be instantly accessible with simple internet searches. If you want to enjoy the challenge, don’t look at or search for walkthroughs. Also, even with the map you’re looking for needles in haystacks. Good luck!”

    Pitchford’s gonna Pitchford. Borderlands 4 is set to be a huge success following on from the incredible games in the lineup previously, but more recently from the shocking movie.

    The Escapist is supported by our audience. When you purchase through links on our site, we may earn a small affiliate commission. Learn more about our Affiliate Policy





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  • Is it time for players to tell the gaming industry that enough is enough? Do most people even care?

    Is it time for players to tell the gaming industry that enough is enough? Do most people even care?


    I am not sure anyone was shocked this week when a multi-billion-dollar company carved its way through the videogaming arm of its workforce, laying off thousands of people who, until that point, had been diligently coding the games it had approved.

    Minutes later came the mealy-mouthed soundbites about restructuring, innovating, and an exciting future for all. All released to the background of thousands of resumes being hurriedly and worriedly emailed to the recruiters of the three jobs that are available.

    “We continue to implement organizational changes necessary to best position the company and teams for success in a dynamic marketplace.”

    10,000 jobs cut in 2023, another 9,000 now. How’s that positioning going Microsoft?

    Xbox head honcho Phil Spencer was also at it, “I recognize that these changes come at a time when we have more players, games, and gaming hours than ever before. Our platform, hardware, and game roadmap have never looked stronger. The success we’re seeing currently is based on tough decisions we’ve made previously.”

    The desks were emptying at studios such as Rare, King, and Bethesda, among many others, as he spoke.

    The elephAInt in the room

    Executive Producer at Xbox Game Studios, Matt Turnbull, will be wishing he hadn’t posted his advice on LinkedIn to those booted out to load up ChatGPT and get it to help you with the recruitment process. He’s now removed it, and I feel a bit sorry for him as he was trying to be helpful. And LinkedIn is a dumpster fire at the best of times, but still, if you still have your job when colleagues are losing theirs, my advice would be to keep your head down.

    It’s not clear if or indeed any of the job cuts are as a direct result of Microsoft’s love-in with Artificial Intelligence. It would be silly to presume there is no connection, and this is the way the world is headed wither way. But we don’t have to like it

    The thing is, and I have said this vociferously before when industry layoffs occur, that all that ever happens is that you get a few media outlets – many themselves often under constant fear of staff cuts, highlighting the problem, and then some bleating on Reddit from players who were looking forward to a particular game coming out that has now been canned, and that’s it. Rinse and repeat.

    Seemingly ad infinitum.

    Nothing new

    I interviewed a long-standing CEO of a prominent publisher not long back – an interview you will be able to read in full on The Escapist in the near future and he told me he thought the games industry had always been a mess. And he has been in the game for decades.

    He also said that perhaps it is time to start looking at things the way the movie industry does. There, you don’t so much work for a company but on a project. When the project is complete – ie, the movie gets released, that’s it. Job done, and you move on to the next one. If a movie gets canned, same thing.

    It’s just a different perception and maybe the way things are already going, even if it’s not being outwardly stated.

    Do most people care that the gaming industry is so dysfunctional?

    Nobody objects for more than a few hours. Nobody is held to task. Corporations gonna corporation, and we just accept it. There’s no, “well, you sacked all those Perfect Dark devs, so we will hit you in the pocket by letting you stick your next Call of Duty where the sun don’t shine”.

    Speaking of Perfect Dark, that’s another area where we should be outraged. I, like you, saw the gameplay trailer only a few months back and thought, yeah, that looks pretty cool. Now the game is canned for being in “poor shape,” and we are thinking, ‘but hang on, it looked alright to me.”

    The cancelled Perfect Dark

    Now we find out that “demo” was somewhere between a fake and a load of sections frantically duct-taped together to hold it in one piece for the one minute the trailer lasted before presumably bursting into flames the second recording stopped.

    Just stop lying to your audience.

    Or at least if you continue to lie to us, and we find out, then there will be consequences for your profit and loss sheet. Which, let’s face it, is all they really care about. If it’s a “vertical slice”, tell us it is. But the push to see all the latest trailers at the same old games festivals means that companies feel the need to do this stuff.

    Should we be bothered?

    In the main, the games industry is not a cosy cottage industry. It is a behemoth full of corporations and money guys trying to extract the most cash from you. Some of you may be young enough not to remember it being any different, but it was. And it was better for it. But that version of the games industry couldn’t exist today. It is naive to think it could.

    The cottage industry aspect survives in the form of (some) indie studios, but the world of the triple A (or even the AA or, just the bloody A) can be found north of Disaster Town. And then these companies have the gall to tell us we don’t own the games, only rent them. What happens? We complain for a few hours, then pre-order the next one so we can play it 48 hours early.

    Maybe it really is all our fault in the first place.

    The Escapist is supported by our audience. When you purchase through links on our site, we may earn a small affiliate commission. Learn more about our Affiliate Policy



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  • Looking for engaging standard deck card games for 2 players [closed]


    I’m looking for 2 player card games that need only a standard deck of 52+3. Something with a bit of strategy and conning would be perfect.

    I enjoy playing Texas Hold’em poker in larger groups but poker scales terribly down to 2 players. I’m looking for something with a similar charm — with complex strategy that involves fooling your opponent.

    Also would like a game that’s easy to bet on. I mostly play socially with acquaintances, so let’s not make the game too convoluted to explain to someone, and let’s allow conversation to flow in a slower paced game.



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  • How could an online Checkers players to use AI to cheat in real-time?


    I’ve been playing Checkers on CardGames.io, and I’ve noticed some players make perfect moves instantly, almost as if they’re using a bot or AI to assist them.
    I understand that AI solvers for Checkers (like Chinook or web-based tools) require you to input the current board state before they return the optimal move. But this takes time — so how are these players seemingly:

    • Reading the board state immediately
    • Sending it to a solver
    • And executing the move without any delay

    How could a player be getting AI solver moves so quickly?

    For example, are they using browser extensions, scripts, or something else to automate the reading of the board and feeding it to an engine? How technically difficult would it be to pull off without the site detecting it?



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  • Exactly how does casting another players spells work? (Aeon’s End)


    There are a couple of ways in which Player 1 can end up with the option to cast spells prepped by Player 2.

    At the start of the game this is very simple – P1 casts a spark that P2 prepped, and deals 1 dmg. Great.

    But as the game progresses this gets more and more complex, and it doesn’t really specify exactly how this works?

    Things like:

    • Which Breach is being used? Do you get Breach 3/4 bonuses?
    • If the spell text refers to "you" then who does it refer to P1 or P2?
    • If the spell lets the player discard/destroy, then is it the owner or the active player?
    • If another spell/card cared whether "you had cast a spell" … then who cast that spell?
    • Where does the spell go after casting?



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  • “Protec the lil’ uns!” As Helldivers 2’s CEO takes a victory lap around the latrines, players have already fallen in love with their new SEAF buddies

    “Protec the lil’ uns!” As Helldivers 2’s CEO takes a victory lap around the latrines, players have already fallen in love with their new SEAF buddies


    Helldivers 2‘s Galactic War arrived on Super Earth earlier today, with the Heart of Democracy update deploying the divers on their first missions to defend the mega cities of their home planet. So far, it’s all going down well with players, especially one new feature – the AI SEAF squads.

    To be fair, you can see why. With the latest major order requiring folks to casually kill 2.5 billion Illuminate as they work to activate the cannons they’ll need to see off the squids’ invasion of the planet, every helping hand on Super Earth’s side is a welcome addition.

    Before we get into all the SEAF love, Arrowhead CEO Shams Jorjani has made it clear this was the thing he was talking about when he teased something was coming to the game that would lead players to defecate in their drawers. Sticking his head above the pulpit in Helldivers 2’s Discord server not long after the update went live, the exec simply asked: “What’s the pant situation soldiers????”

    “Evaporated” was one of the first responses he got.

    Shams Jorjani asking what the Helldivers 2 community's pant situation is like.
    Image credit: VG247

    Naturally, it’s the new biomes and big war twist that’ve done a lot of that evaportating, but if you take a look at the game’s subreddit right, you’ll find the AI SEAF squads folks can run into as they run ops on Super Earth getting a load of love.

    Basically, they’re members of the Super Earth Armed forces you can find running around the streets and enlist to help you take on the Illuminate of you chuck out the right emotes. Naturally, if you drop a salute, they’ll salute back, and they can even be persuaded to follow you around. Depending on who you ask, they’re either surprisingly effective in combat – below is a clip on one helping someone take down an Illuminate Fleshmob – or just cannon fodder.

    Players like them so much that there are already calls for Arrowhead to give us the ability to arm the SEAFers with support weapons, become bunker door opening buddies with them, and drop a Warbond that lets folks dress in their trademark blue armour.

    As one player with the handle Excelsus328 put it: “I don’t care if they showed the SEAF dying to friendly fire in the trailer, anyone who shoots these soldiers gets the kick”. “Oh god, now I want an emote to sing [the] Super Earth anthem and have them sing it with us like in Earth Defense Force,” added another going by Deathzeis.

    Has Helldivers 2’s Heart of Democracy update filled your breeches with something super stinky yet, or are you waiting on tenterhooks to dive in later? Let us know below!





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  • How long does a normal game of Monopoly, with 4 players, last?


    I recently had remembered that at the end of the rule book of Monopoly that it says the rules for a short game and then says (60-90 minutes) in the header. At the back, it says the rules for a game that has an hour of termination decided. And there are "house rules" and I have no clue what those are. Bt in the instruction booklet, it doesn’t state how long a regular game of Monopoly last, with the normal rules.

    I used to watch my family play and they normally had 4 players. And they didn’t use house rules (granted I was 6 so I don’t really remember but no one in my family knows what those are.)

    My question is, how long does a normal game, with 4 players, last without a definite hour of termination and without house rules?



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  • Do cards I give to other players keep their +1/+1 counters?


    If I have Laelia, the Blade Reforged with 12 +1/+1 counters on it, and a player gets it through Illicit Auction, does Laelia, the Blade Reforged keep its +1/+1 counters?



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  • Wahey, Helldivers 2 players have finally stopped the Meridian death ball’s advance towards Super Earth, and the Illuminate have responded by rage quitting the war for now

    Wahey, Helldivers 2 players have finally stopped the Meridian death ball’s advance towards Super Earth, and the Illuminate have responded by rage quitting the war for now


    Panic over. At least for now. Sort of. Fresh off of the news that Helldivers 2 is getting some fresh content in May, April’s closed with the Illuminate’s planet-eating death ball being stopped in its tracks – something players have been working towards for ages.

    Yep, this is not a drill. The Illuminate have gone into hiding too. Take that, the colour purple! I’m sure this relative peace will last forever, and that “more exciting news to come” not long after the next Warbond won’t have a chance of kicking off more squid shenanigans.

    If you take a glance at the Galactic War map right now on April 30, you’ll see no trace of the faction the divers have been going at it with on the reg for the past few months – there are only Automatons and Terminids left, because those two old foes will never totally die out. Though, as Arrowhead explained in its latest briefing, neither have the Illuminate.

    “The Meridian Singularity has come to a halt,” this briefing reads, “The Illuminate have disappeared completely; Ministry of Defense analysts have concluded this is likely explained by too few remaining to present a significant threat. The enemy is likely attempting to evade detection in order to survive a second total annihilation.”

    So, the big wormhole thing that was on its way to try and add the Helldivers’ home planet of Super Earth to the list of worlds it’s blown to smithereens has stopped in its tracks, and the squids have made a tactical retreat. Nice.

    This is Helldivers 2 though, meaning the fighting’s never over and there’s still a fresh major order. “The Terminids and Automatons remain significant threats,” Arrowhead continued, “In the Illuminate’s final hours, they dealt significant damage to the defenses of multiple strategic sites across both battlefronts, granting the opportunity for our foes to capture formerly well-defended territory.” Damn. It can never be easy, can it.

    So, players are now taking on the task of holding on those weakened sites – the planets Fenrir III, Turing, Claorell, Mastia, and Achernar Secundus. As of writing, the latter two are being battled for, while the first two are currently held by Super Earth with just over five days left on the order. So, by the time it runs its course, that next Warbond reveal on May 8 will be just around the corner.

    Are you glad to see that the death ball has stopped rolling towards your Super loved ones? Let us know below!





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