It’s been just over a month since Overwatch 2 launched to the masses, and Activision-Blizzard’s latest financial report has shown the game did damn well in those first four weeks.

We already knew that the hero shooter’s sorta-sequel had amassed 25 million players in its first 10 days (opens in new tab), already close to tripling the original’s peak daily player count. As reported by Eurogamer (opens in new tab), Activision-Blizzard’s latest quarterly report (opens in new tab) revealed that the game managed to add another 10 million players on top of that count throughout the rest of October, “including many who were new to Overwatch.” The report also said that “player investment is also off to a strong start,” presumably talking about sales of the battle pass and cosmetics. Overwatch 2 appears to have managed to maintain its near-triple daily player count compared to its predecessor throughout the month, too.

Kickstarted MMO Crowfall (opens in new tab) is shutting down this month after launching just over a year ago. Developer Monumental shared the news with players on Monday, giving them only a couple of weeks to make the most out of the game before it goes dark on November 22. This is not unusual on its own—it’s a tragically common fate for online games. But what makes this instance stand out is that the team isn’t calling it quits. 

“One of the biggest challenges has been the sheer amount of development effort required to build new campaigns and keep the game running daily,” reads the announcement (opens in new tab). “In order to refocus our efforts from live operations to development, we have decided to take the Crowfall live service offline for the time being.”

We’re only a few weeks away from Black Friday proper and I’ve got to say, it’s going to be tough for the Black Friday gaming monitor and TV deals to top what’s already on offer. Black Friday itself is officially on November 25 but the sales season kicks off earlier and earlier each year and the discount frenzy has already started. So, if you’re in the market for a new gaming monitor or TV, it pays to start looking right away.

Now really is a great time to go big, adopt a speedier refresh rate, or grab an HDR display that’ll make your games pop. If can you find the trifecta, all the better. The good news is that gaming monitors have come a long way recently, meaning you’ll get a lot more for your money than you did even just a couple of years ago.

It’s time to re-evaluate your five-letter vocabulary skills: The New York Times is shaking up the Wordle rules.

As reported by Polygon (opens in new tab), the daily word puzzler is getting a dedicated editor and a few rule changes as a result. By and large, the newspaper has kept the formula the same since buying Wordle from original creator Josh Wardle (opens in new tab) in January for a seven-figure sum. As far as we know the word pool has remained unchanged, though that didn’t stop people from theorising that the NYT had made the game more challenging following the buyout.

Now, as written in an NYT blog post (opens in new tab), things are changing. Former crossword editor Tracy Bennett is becoming Wordle’s first dedicated editor. The core gameplay—guess the five-letter word in six tries—will remain the same, with answers “drawn from the same basic dictionary of answer words,” there will be “some editorial adjustments to ensure that the game stays focused on vocabulary that’s fun, accessible, lively and varied.”

So what does that mean? Wave goodbye to easy plurals. “Plural forms of three-or four-letter words that end in ‘ES’ or ‘S'” are being pulled from the six-year-long answer list, originally curated by Wardle himself alongside partner Palak Shah. Irregular form plurals like “geese” or “fungi” will still be knocking around. 

The football season is steaming towards winter, as managers up and down the country are covering their three-piece suits and tracksuits with fancy cashmere coats and fleeces embroidered with club insignia. As has been customary for years, the latest iteration of Football Manager arrives to warm fans up through the cooling months, and deliver the most detailed iteration of the deepest football management sim in the world.

Of the showcase new features in Football Manager 2023, it’s hard not to start with the glitzy UEFA Club Competition licensing, which means that should your team make it into any of the three big European competitions – the UEFA Champions League, UEFA Europa League, or UEFA Europa Conference League – you’ll have all the presentation and experience you’d get watching the matches live on TV. There are  unique walkout cutscenes, those starry branded match balls, authentic trophies, and, of course, the iconic competition anthems, giving those special weeknights the sense of occasion they truly deserve.

Of course, not everyone can be expected to compete in the upper echelons of European competition right away. Whether you’re trying to get your local hometown into the Football League or managing a team in the Polish Ekstraklasa, there are meaningful improvements this year that everyone will benefit from.

Let’s start with matchday AI. Both AI managers and players on the field have been upgraded by myriad variables when making those big decisions on the pitch. Things like cup ties, playing against in-form teams, and relegation battles, will all have an impact on managerial AI decisions, making each match feel like more of a duel with the man in the other dugout. On the pitch, meanwhile, goalkeepers have a greater arsenal of saves at their disposal, defenders are more adaptable and read interceptions better, and those first touches up front have been given some extra polish (among countless other fine-tunings).