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Battle royale and PUBG fans will soon be able to drop into a whole new experience. Krafton Inc. has released a new trailer announcing pre-registrations for upcoming battle royale game PUBG: New State’s closed alpha.

The minute-long trailer confirms that pre-registration for the closed alpha will begin “in just a few days.” The closed alpha will be available only for Android users in the United States, though the trailer does mention that pre-registrations for the full game will begin on iOS “very soon.”

PUBG: New State was first revealed in February 2021 as a “a free-to-play experience on Android and iOS in 2021.” Within a week pre-registrations for the game reached the five million milestone on Android alone, per a press release from publisher Krafton Inc. All pre-registrations at the game’s official website will receive a free vehicle skin that has yet to be unveiled.

PUBG was first released in 2017 and pioneered the battle royale genre further popularized by Fortnite and Call of Duty: Warzone among others. The game has since expanded into a PUBG Universe with multiple new games, including the upcoming survival horror game The Callisto Protocol that was announced at the Game Awards 2020 in December.

Epic is always adding something to Fortnite, like more licensed skins, more LTMs, and more weapons. But this week, Fortnite is losing something: gravity. With Wild Weeks 3 now live, Fortnite players will find themselves bouncing around with the decreased gravity of abundant Hop Floppers and Shockwave Grenades for one week only.

After previous Wild Weeks made the game fire-happy and fishier, this week’s theme focuses on getting players hopping around, which should change many combat encounters along the way. Players will want to practice their aim a bit more as things are going to get more vertical.

In addition to Hop Flopper fish being caught more often, Shockwave Grenades and Shockwave Bows will also be lying about in floor loot and within chests at increased rates, giving everyone a chance to jump around. On top of those, Bouncers are unvaulted for one week only. If you missed them in previous seasons, Bouncers are inflated launch pads that can break one’s fall–or send an opponent straight into the air.

The advent of more bouncy items also ties directly into this week’s Legendary Quest, which asks players to accumulate airtime from Hop Floppers and Shockwaves. Those looking to maximize their XP earnings this week will need to eventually rack up 500 total seconds of airtime to complete the five-part Legendary Quest as part of the Week 10 challenges. Our suggestion: Head into Team Rumble, build up huge ramps, then shockwave yourself off of them. You’ll earn five or more seconds each time, and since it’s a Legendary Quest, your Squad can contribute to totals as well.

The “Bouncing Off The Walls” Wild Weeks theme will remain in the game until next Thursday, May 27, at which time it will be replaced by the next theme. If you’ve already completed this week’s challenges, don’t miss the new LTM, Impossible Escape.

Capcom’s upcoming Monster Hunter spin-off, Monster Hunter Stories 2: Wings of Ruin, releases July 9, and anyone planning to pick it up can now take advantage of a great preorder deal available only for Steam. Right now, Fanatical is slashing nearly $10 off the price of Monster Hunter Stories 2 Steam keys, dropping the preorder price to $51 instead of $60.

Anyone who preorders Monster Hunter Stories 2: Wings of Ruin will also get a Kamura Maiden Outfit for Ena. If you pick up your preorder from Fanatical keep in mind that you’ll get your Steam key for the game via email closer to its launch. Note that only the standard edition of the game is being discounted by Fanatical.

On Steam, customers can pick up a Deluxe Edition of Monster Hunter Stories 2: Wings of Ruin that comes with more outfits for players, Ena, and Navirou as well as some sticker sets. See our Monster Hunter Stories 2 preorder guide for more details on the game’s editions and bonuses.

In Monster Hunter Stories 2: Wings of Ruin, players fill the role of a Monster Rider tasked with protecting Ena, a mysterious girl traveling with an egg containing a legendary Rathalos with enough power to destroy the world. The game’s story starts with the mysterious disappearance of all Rathalos, leading your character on an adventure to discover what happened to the species.

Rather than tackle creatures with massive hammers or insect glaives head-on in open-field fights, combat in Monster Hunter Stories 2: Wings of Ruin will be turn-based. Creatures can be found all over the game’s overworld, and running into them will start a fight, similar to Dragon Quest’s system.

Today, May 20, is Global Accessibility Awareness Day, an event meant to bring awareness to the digital accessibility struggles many still face with websites and technology. Microsoft has been making big strides to address these issues with things like the Xbox Adaptive Controller, and a new series of initiatives are designed to make the Xbox ecosystem even more welcoming.

At 11:30 AM PT / 2:30 PM ET, gaming accessibility program manager and gaming and disability community lead Tara Voelker will join Steve Saylor–a blind gamer and streamer–to discuss accessibility in gaming. It will be held on the Xbox Twitch page, which we’ve embedded here, and there will be a Q&A section to ask any questions you may have.

In a blog post on Xbox Wire, director of Xbox Accessibility Anita Mortaloni announced a new program called the Xbox Accessibility Insider League, or XAIL. This program is available to anyone with a disability and allows them to give accessibility feedback directly to both the Xbox engineering team as well as game developers. The Xbox customer support page has been refreshed, as well, making it easier to find the disability answer desk than before.

Other initiatives include a gaming and disability player experience guide, which gives game developers tools and areas to consider while designing their games. Accessibility guidelines have been updated, as well, with more guidance on things like screen narration, difficulty, UI, and captions. In the future, there will also be party chat options for both speech-to-text conversion as well as text-to-speech.

Some of Microsoft’s first-party games are getting more accessibility features, too. Gears 5’s Navigation Ping will let players with little or no vision make their way through areas using audio queues, and there are also options to disable camera shake or enable target lock. For Minecraft, the Achievement screen has been redesigned to make it easier to navigate and read–or have narrated–as well as offering more granular audio control. Ore patterns have also been adjusted to make them more distinct, which is helpful for players who have trouble differentiating colors.

To learn more about Global Accessibility Awareness Day, check out the official website. It offers resources for attending or hosting events as well as ways you can participate in projects.

Valheim continues to perform well commercially. It’s been confirmed that the popular Norse multiplayer game sold 6.8 million copies as of March 31, and it’s expected to shift a million more by the end of June.

This information came out as part of the latest earnings release from Embracer Group, the company that owns Valheim publisher Coffee Stain. “This truly amazing game continues to find new players globally,” Embracer said.

The company expects Valheim to sell 1-1.2 million additional copies by the end of the current fiscal quarter ending June 30. This would bring the game up to 7.8-8 million sales in total.

Coffee Stain CEO Albert Säfström was taken aback by Valheim’s success, saying in an interview that he expected sales to slow down, but they didn’t.

“Normally you sell the most at the beginning and then it starts to taper down. For at least the first week, every day we outsold what we’d managed the previous day,” he said in April. “It was like if you knock over a glass of water on your desk. Most of the water comes out in the beginning, and that’s what your sales are like. This felt more like if you tried to tip over a bathtub full of water.”

Valheim is still one of the most popular games on Steam, reaching more than 42,500 peak concurrent users on May 20, which is thousands above the numbers for more recently released titles from established franchises, such as Mass Effect: Legendary Edition. That game is available on other platforms, too, however.

Valheim is developed by a small team at Iron Gate Studios. The team is now hiring so it can ramp up to support the ongoing development of the game.

Despite the game’s huge success, it’s still only available on PC. The studio has not ruled out a console edition of the game, however.

A new trailer has arrived for Back 4 Blood, a spiritual successor to developer Turtle Rock’s Left 4 Dead series. This time the focus is on just who you’ll be playing as in the zombie apocalypse multiplayer game, as well as several of the enemies you’ll face. Just don’t call them zombies, as thanks to a viral worm infection, much of the planet’s populace has been transformed into what survivors call Ridden.

In the trailer above, Back 4 Blood breaks down its roster of characters, which all serve several different functions as part of the team. War veteran Walker gains increased accuracy from precision kills, team medic Doc has several healing perks, the quick-footed Karlee can sense hazards, and marksman Jim is perfect for players who prefer to eliminate Ridden from a distance.

Survivalist Hoffman can spawn ammo with every kill, the agile Evangelo can break out of grab traps, and Mom has an instant revive ability. Rounding out the cast is Holly, who recovers stamina with each kill and can hit a few Ridden heads out of the park with her modified baseball bat.

As for the Ridden, the Breaker is an infected enemy whose armor allows it to leap right into the fray of a party, the Snitcher summons more Ridden to swarm players, and the Ogre mashes several infected into “meatballs” that it throws at players. The most disturbing Ridden you’ll probably come across though is the Hag, which will literally attempt to eat a player whole. It even has a number of arms sticking out of its mouth, to make escape almost impossible.

Back 4 Blood launches on October 12 for PS5, Xbox Series X|S, and PC, as well as PS4 and Xbox One. One of its more interesting mechanics is a new rogue-lite card system that makes each run different, which some fans were concerned that it could be used to push microtransactions on players. Turtle Rock addressed the matter in a separate post and insisted that the cards will not be available for purchase via any in-game storefront or first-party storefront.