On 27 August the whole of gaming did exactly one thing: watched Jason and Lucia finally move, shoot and talk. The Extended Look pulled everyone in front of a screen at once, and by morning the internet had already taken those 26 minutes apart frame by frame, line by line, HUD icon by HUD icon.We went through the footage, the previews from the outlets Rockstar flew out to Edinburgh, and

Ubisoft announced a remake of Heroes of Might and Magic III at Gamescom Opening Night Live. Same game, rebuilt from scratch: the fixed overhead view is gone, replaced by a proper 3D world with a camera you can swing wherever you like. The package includes the original alongside Armageddon's Blade and The Shadow of Death, all nine factions, online play for up to eight, and the return of Hot Seat.

On 24 August 1996, Gabe Newell and Mike Harrington walked out of Microsoft and registered a studio of their own. No shipped game to their name, no engine, no plan that reached any further than the first project.Thirty years later their launcher sits on almost every gaming PC on the planet, and the rest of us argue about every decision the company makes. Valve has released maybe two dozen games

Skins in your inventory. Stickers on your gun. A line in the HLTV ranking. Your own agent in matchmaking. Free entry to the game itself. All of it feels like the baseline Counter-Strike has always run on. None of it existed fourteen years ago.Valve released Counter-Strike: Global Offensive on 21 August 2012, and the reception was frosty. Half the scene was still on 1.6, the other half on Source, and