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When Quick Resume works on Xbox Series X, the effect is almost magical. A game I was playing hours, perhaps days ago, springs back to life within seconds - even if I was just playing something else.

Action-RPG Nioh 2 is making its way to PC on 5th February 2021, developer Team Ninja announced today.

This will come as little surprise to those who struggled to access Xbox Live earlier this week, but Tuesday was a really busy day for games downloads - with the Xbox Series X/S launch, Call of Duty updates and Assassin's Creed: Valhalla release combining to create a record-breaking day for internet traffic in the UK. And, you know, there's a pandemic going on. People have to do something.

Hardware accelerated ray tracing is now firmly established in triple-A titles on PC and with the transition to next generation Xbox and PlayStation hardware, consoles can now join the party. Watch Dogs: Legion is the first DXR-enabled title we've seen that also features ray tracing on consoles - which raises the question: to what extent can the new machines match up to existing PC hardware? What kind of compromises are required to bring RT to consoles - and what happens when we retrofit those cuts to the PC version? Let's just say that the answers are illuminating.

Ahead of its release, there was confusion over Assassin's Creed Valhalla's default option which has you play as both male and female versions of main character Eivor at various points.

For the first time, Pokémon Go currently lets you trade with other players remotely - albeit with some caveats.

PlayStation exclusive Ghost of Tsushima has now sold more than 5m copies, Sony has announced.

Have you ever seen those Sherlock Holmes films by Guy Ritchie, the ones with Robert Downey Jr in? Oh they're not that bad, come on. Guy Ritchie's Holmes has this ability to plan out fights before they happen. He imagines all the blows he's going to land, mentally weighing up their pros and cons, then chooses the best option, performing it in a blur of precise strikes. He barely raises a sweat as his systematically destroyed opponent crumples in a heap on the floor. It's very cool.

Some might say that Xbox Series S is the anti-Digital Foundry console. Out of the gate, its mission statement is specifically not to deliver the state of the art in its visual presentation. Instead, the pitch is something very different - to enable next-generation gaming without having to shell out $500/£450 to indulge your hobby. Combined with Xbox All-Access, or as a standalone purchase with the value-rific Xbox Game Pass, it's a machine designed to enable access to the games of today and tomorrow without having to wait a couple of years for the latest and greatest console hardware to drop in price - something that Microsoft says may not happen anyway.

Last month, Ubisoft announced it would be combining its long-running Uplay and the Ubisoft Club services into one free uber-service, called Ubisoft Connect; with the arrival of Assassin's Creed Valhalla, the service (with its flagship cross-play and cross-progression features) is now in full swing, and, in case it wasn't clear given Ubisoft's previous vagueness, cross-progression isn't restricted to a single console family, but works across all platforms - with caveats.

Big things are happening in developer Frontier's long-running space sim Elite Dangerous next year - big leg-related things - and if you'd like to get in on the intergalactic jet-setting action well in advance, you can grab the game for free next week, courtesy of the Epic Store.

Half-Life: Alyx - Valve's stellar return to its infamously long-dormant first-person shooter series - has just received a new update, this one adding an in-game developer commentary designed to offer behind-the-scenes insights into the making of the game.

Forza Horizon 4 isn't just one of the best Xbox exclusives, it's also one of the greatest racing games ever made. A couple of years back, we lauded excellent Xbox One, One X and PC versions - and loved the way that Microsoft's enhanced console offered the option of 1080p60 racing, a first for the series. With the arrival of Xbox Series X and the junior S, 60fps is now the standard. Advantages for the new version are plain to see across the board, but surprisingly - and disappointingly - there are some visual cutbacks too.

Imagine my surprise when clicking on the trending Dua Lipa hashtag brought me news not of new music, or an album announcement - but that Dua Lipa would apparently be making her way onto the virtual football pitch in FIFA 21. This year keeps on giving.

It's the sheer size of The Pathless that I love. And I mean size in a very specific sense. You can race through this whole adventure and be done in four hours, probably less. But when you're on the ground or in the air the game often feels endless: clear and spacious, slopes and contours and steppes in every direction. Such echoing realms of grass and rock. Such volumes of cold air. It's thrilling.

Tetris Effect: Connected is one of the greatest single-player games ever made with multiplayer (and an unlikely Xbox Series X and S launch killer app). It's an easy sell to someone like me, who adores Tetris Effect to the point of never really shutting up about it. But its timing couldn't be better.

Look, I know there's been some big news about Mass Effect recently, but you're going to have to wait a while for that remaster and new game anyway - so why not try out this Fallout 4 mod with voice acting by Commander Shepard in the meantime? Oh, and it's also pretty great if you're into your Fallout lore.

It's not been an easy year for football, and that means it's not been an easy year for the people who make Football Manager. In fact at times it's been "incredibly painful," as Sports Interactive's studio head Miles Jacobson put it to me, referring to the features that had to be postponed, and the decisions that had to be made. Football Manager is a rare game that's tied very closely to real life, and real life's been a mess.

A big change is coming to FIFA 21: the game will soon let you impose strict limits on the amount you play and spend.

Assassin's Creed Valhalla is off to a good start, it seems, judging by the enthusiastic Ubisoft press release which dropped into my email inbox.

Microsoft has trumpeted the release of Xbox Series X and S as its biggest Xbox launch ever, though not provided any specific sales figures.

I don't know how it originally started, but I think I was around 11 years old and an older cousin of mine was staying over. Among the plethora of junky fast food ordered in for the evening was a tuna pizza. It was magical and it's something I make every now and again at home, smothered with veggies and turned into a beautiful, towering mess. There's something equally fulfilling when tasked with making similarly loaded pizzas in Off-Peak City, whether you use mushrooms or glowing worms.

It's sort of odd how next gen has arrived without that launch staple, the flagship first-party driving game (though Dirt 5 does represent with its fun arcade excess) - though there's no shortage of decent driving games to play for Xbox Series X or PlayStation 5 on day one. In fact, if you're up for something a bit more sim-minded, two of the best examples to grace a console aren't just there waiting for you - they're a damn sight better than they were last time around, with one of them showing off the amazing potential of the DualSense to boot.

Treyarch has nerfed Call of Duty: Black Ops Cold War's sliding just in time for launch.

Following a period of pre-release scrutiny via its Public Test Server, Obsidian's inch-high survival adventure Grounded has finally released its koi pond update - which introduces a host of new underwater-themed creatures and mechanics - to all on Xbox and PC.

Developer Whoop Group's thoroughly charming sandbox builder Tracks: The Train Set Game has a Switch release date, and will be pulling up to Nintendo's platform on 24th November.

It's an unexpectedly eventful week for us Sam & Max fans; not only is Telltale Games' Sam & Max Save the World confirmed to be getting an unexpected - but wholly welcome - remaster, there's new footage of the wise-cracking anthropomorphic crime-fighting duo's previously announced VR adventure This Time It's Virtual.

Once again, the internet is full of conspiracy theories and rumours about the Xbox Series X overheating - but now that consumers have their hands on the console, this time we're getting some dubious video footage claiming the new Xbox is (quite literally) smoking hot. At least two videos appear to show "smoke" rising from the top of the Xbox Series X, and are now being widely shared around the internet.

Developer Mojang's perky, procedurally generated dungeon-crawler spin-off, Minecraft Dungeons, will be introducing its previously promised and long-awaited cross-platform multiplayer support next Tuesday, 17th November.

UPDATE 5.35pm UK: We've heard back from Sony and the dialogue line referencing Square Enix's Avengers will still in Spider-Man Remastered when it releases this week after all.