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Rainbow Six Siege has enjoyed an incredible comeback, as Ubisoft’s strong support for the game has not only kept players coming back but actually increased the size of its player base over time in a way we rarely see. That support will continue in the upcoming Year 3 of Siege, with two new Operators set to shake up the game’s meta once again. But perhaps more exciting than the more traditional additions we’re seeing in the Operation Chimera update is Outbreak, a limited-time PvE game mode.

Ahead of its release next month, we got to go hands on with Outbreak and found it to be a great deal unlike anything else in Siege. Ubisoft has delivered an update to the PC version’s technical test servers, giving players an early look at not just the new Operators, but also Outbreak. In the video above, you can check out the opening cutscene for the mode, as well as three others where Ash talks to another of the game’s characters. Her conversation with Doc shows him wanting to find a cure, while Tachanka is looking for a Russian connection. Thermite, unsurprisingly, just wants to blow things up.

Outbreak is played out on three new maps that have been made specifically for the mode. They’re more open than the standard PvP maps and feature some degree of progression, while still seeking to provide multiple paths and ways for Operators to use their respective gadgets. Only certain Operators can be used in this mode–including Recruit, if you don’t have access to any of the supported ones. This is because Ubisoft limits players to Operators whose gadgets make sense in the context of these maps. That presumably explains why Chimera’s new Operators–both of which are usable in Outbreak–are attackers, rather than the usual arrangement of each new expansion adding one attacker and one defender.

The Chimera update–and Outbreak along with it–debuts on March 6. Outbreak is accompanied by a new set of loot boxes you can purchase to gain exclusive cosmetic gear. These will only be available for the duration of the event, which runs until April 3. After that, the mode will disappear.

Rockstar’s Grand Theft Auto V continues to receive new content for its online mode. The newest weekly update for GTA Online is out now, and it adds a new vehicle and offers sales and discounts on a number of items. Starting with the new vehicle, you can now purchase the Karin 190Z from Legendary Motorsport.

As you can see in the video below, it’s a classic-looking sports car that has a classic, cheeky Rockstar description. “As elegant as the most refined Grotti and as classy as the suavest Ocelot, this Sports Classic is a cup of piping hot sake in the face of fifty years of complacency,” reads a line from the description.

In terms of sales, Rockstar is offering 25 percent off Biker Business upgrades and supplies, while Special Cargo create are marked down by 25 percent this week. The sales go further still, with discounts available on vehicles, clothing, tattoos, yachts, and more.

Here is a rundown of what’s on sale in GTA Online this week:

YACHTS, MOCs & MORE

• All Yachts – 30% off
• Yacht Renovations – 30% off
• Mobile Operations Center Cabs – 30% off
• Mobile Operations Center Renovations – 30% off
• Bunker Renovations – 30% off
• Aircraft Workshop – 25% off

HIGH-END VEHICLES

• Ocelot Pariah (Sports) – 30% off
• Ocelot XA-21 (Super) – 30% off
• Coil Raiden (Sports) – 30% off

CLOTHING & TATTOOS

• The Doomsday Heist clothing – 25% off
• Import/Export tattoos – 25% off

GTA Online is also offering double GTA$ and RP for some Smuggler’s Run missions, while Biker Business sales will pay out 25 percent extra GTA$ this week. We have also learned this week’s Premium Race and Time Trial event; the Premium Race is “Damned,” featuring the Ruiner 2000 vehicle, while the Time Trial is “Calafia Way.” As always, the Premium Race rewards the top three finishers with GTA$, while everyone gets triple RP. For the Time Trial, you will earn double GTA$ and RP if you beat the par time.

One more thing to be aware of that is that everyone who plays GTA Online before February 26 will get GTA$ 250,000 just for logging in. Additionally, you can get up to 1 million in GTA$ through a rebate program that you can read more about here.

Nintendo Switch owners may soon find themselves unable to use some of the console’s online features for periods of time. Nintendo will once again be performing maintenance on Switch servers this week, which will take place over the next few days and affect various games and services.

The first round of server maintenance takes place tonight, February 20. It begins at 5 PM PT / 8 PM ET and is scheduled to conclude at 7:30 PM PT / 10:30 PM ET. Nintendo didn’t specify which games and services will be impacted by this bout of downtime, except that online features for some titles “may become unavailable.” While no specific games were singled out, it’s safe to assume that online titles like Splatoon 2 could be impacted.

A second round of maintenance is slated to follow that later tonight, this one specifically for Minecraft. The maintenance is scheduled to begin at 9 PM PT / 12 AM ET and runs until 10:30 PM PT / 1:30 AM ET. During this window of time, “all network services” for the game will be unavailable.

Another maintenance period is scheduled to take place tomorrow, February 21. This round will last longer than the previous two, beginning at 8:50 PM and running until midnight PT. This will likewise impact online play for some unspecified titles.

One more round of maintenance will follow that on Monday, February 26. That is scheduled to run from 5-7 PM PT and will impact the Eshop, specifically players’ ability to use credit cards to make purchases. You can read more about this week’s scheduled Switch maintenance below and on Nintendo’s support website.

Nintendo Switch Online Maintenance Schedule

Tuesday, February 20

Nintendo Switch / 3DS

• From 5 PM – 7:30 PM Pacific Time
• “Certain network services” may become unavailable

Minecraft

• From 9 PM – 10:30 PM Pacific Time
• All network services will be unavailable

Wednesday, February 21

Nintendo Switch

• From 8:50 PM – 12 AM Pacific Time
• “Certain network services” may become unavailable

Monday, February 26

Nintendo Switch Eshop

• From 5 PM – 7 PM Pacific Time
• Using credit cards unavailable

The upcoming Sonic the Hedgehog movie now has an official release date–and it’s a bit later than originally expected. The film, which is coming from Sony’s Paramount film studio, will come to theatres on November 15, 2019, which is just before Thanksgiving.

The release date news comes by way of The Hollywood Reporter. When the film was originally announced in 2016, Sega said it was expected in 2018, so this is a delay. The last we heard, the untitled movie is expected to mix animation and live-action, though details about the plot and cast are being kept under wraps for now.

Sonic Forces

Jeff Fowler is directing the Sonic movie, making his directorial debut for a feature-length film with the project. He has experience and has captured acclaim with animated projects before, however. He directed the 2004 Oscar-nominated animated short Gopher Broke, the animation for which was done by the prolific and celebrated video game effects studio Blur.

The Fast and the Furious producer Neal H. Moritz is producing the Sonic movie. The Sonic movie’s script is being written by Pat Casey and Josh Miller, the duo who created the Fox show Golan the Insatiable.

2016 marked the 25th anniversary of the Sonic franchise. The latest instalments in the series were Sonic Mania and Sonic Forces, both of which were released in 2017.

While you have to wait a bit longer for the Sonic movie, the new Tomb Raider movie starring Alicia Vikander as Lara Croft is coming out in March. You can watch the newest trailer for the movie here.

The Discovery Tour mode in Assassin’s Creed Origins isn’t the only new thing available in the game today, February 20. Veteran players looking for something new can check out the New Game + mode, which was added to the game on PlayStation 4, Xbox One, and PC today.

Once you beat the main story, you can create a NG+ save and keep all of your existing progression, including things like weapons and outfits, along with abilities, XP, inventory items such as crafting materials and tools, and of course your character level.

Of course, some things won’t carry over such as all of the maps and discovered territories, as well as quest competition status and Senu’s perception level. Activities tied to progression are reset, so things like Trials of the Gods and the Hippodrome won’t be available until you unlock them as part of normal gameplay progression.

Additionally, you’ll find the experience more difficult as the difficulty level will go up one notch compared to your previous campaign. So for example, Easy will go to Normal and Normal to Hard, etc. Enemy scaling is on by default in NG+, but you can deactivate it.

There will be a “unique reward” for when you beat the NG+ version of the game, but Ubisoft is keeping this a surprise for now. For a full, detailed breakdown of the NG+ mode, check out this FAQ on Ubisoft’s website.

The second and final expansion for Origins, The Curse of the Pharaohs, is coming in March for all platforms. However, an update on February 27 will include a new quest, “Lights Among the Dunes,” that serves as an introduction before the full expansion lands on March 6.

The battle royale game mode isn’t exactly new, but its current mainstream spotlight can be attributed to the virality of PlayerUnknown’s Battlegrounds. After it sold tens of millions of copies on Steam during its early access period alone, there was bound to be a wave of games trying to capitalize on the genre’s exploding popularity. As of now, though, Fortnite: Battle Royale is the frontrunner in challenging PUBG’s dominance. And while many have dubbed Fortnite’s rendition a PUBG clone, there are just as many stark differences as there are similarities between the two.

A drastic contrast in presentation will hit you first. PUBG has a realistic, military-inspired look that’s layered on top of the already nerve-racking concept. Fortnite looks like a cartoon; it’s bright, colorful, and animated in a way that takes the edge off the imposing battle royale mode. Oddly enough, both games use Epic’s Unreal Engine 4 despite the divergent graphical styles. These games were also born out of disparate foundations.

At its core, PUBG shares much of the same DNA as its predecessors. Brendan “PlayerUnknown” Greene himself helped create the original battle royale mods for Arma, and through several iterations these mods eventually led to H1Z1: King of the Kill, which became the premiere battle royale game just before PUBG came onto the scene. However, PUBG offers a more accessible and streamlined experience than its forebears while retaining the military sim framework that taps into your tactical instincts.

This begs the question: How did Fortnite, of all games, become the one to go toe-to-toe with PUBG? Fortnite has its own tumultuous development history, but its initial vision was a mashup of Gears of War‘s Horde mode and Minecraft‘s construction mechanics, driven by a loot grind to hook players. At first, a game that controls fast and loose, almost like an arena shooter, doesn’t seem ripe for battle royale. However, Epic was able to adapt Fortnite into its own battle royal mode early on and capitalize on the trend, carving out its own piece of the pie.

There are a number of things that make each game unique, but the ultimate goal is to be the last one standing.

Fortnite also had two key advantages over PUBG when its battle royale mode launched: it was both free to play and available on PlayStation 4 and Xbox One. PUBG recently hit the Xbox One in an early access phase, but it has a long way to go to match how smooth and stable Fortnite runs. Even on PC, you’re likely to run higher framerates and have a lower chance of experiencing game-breaking bugs.

When it comes to the overall concept, PUBG’s influence on Fortnite is clear. In both games, a 60-second warm-up takes place on an isolated island off the shore of the main island. 100 players are crammed into an air vessel and parachute down to the main island where a single-life deathmatch takes place. You’re continuously forced into smaller zones at random via a lethal circle as the match progresses; you’ll never know exactly where the final firefight will take place, either. Everyone scrambles for weapons, ammo, and health items across the map’s numerous towns and structures. You can either do this alone, as a duo, or with a squad of four, but it ends the same: the last person or squad standing is declared the winner. Conceptually, these games are the same, but in practice, they play very differently.

Regardless of your weapon of choice, you have to be precise. PUBG is all about precision.

The founders of Call of Duty: WWII studio Sledghammer Games have left the company to take new, executive-level positions at Activision HQ. Sledgehammer Games confirmed in a statement to GameSpot that Michael Condrey and Glen Schofield are moving on, with Sledgehammer veteran Aaron Halon named as the new studio lead. A founding member of Sledgehammer, he most recently served as Director of Product Development.

In a statement, Activision thanked Condrey and Schofield for their contributions to the Call of Duty franchise over the years. Sledgehammer, an Activision subsidiary, was founded in 2009. The studio had an idea for a third-person Call of Duty game set in the Vietnam War, but instead were brought on to co-develop Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3 with Infinity Ward after a major shakeup at that studio resulted in numerous developers walking out.

Sledgehammer released Call of Duty: Advanced Warfare in 2014, before going on to enjoy its biggest success to date with the massively popular Call of Duty: WWII in 2017.

Condrey and Schofield are industry veterans. Before setting up Sledgehammer, they were part of the team at the now-shuttered Visceral Games that created Dead Space. It is not immediately clear what spurred the decision to leave Sledgehammer, but moving up the ranks to an executive-level position at Activision sounds like a nice move.

In a statement, Schofield said the new opportunity, which will involve “exploring new game ideas” for Activision, was something that he “couldn’t pass up.” In addition to working on video games, Schofield is an artist whose paintings have included portraits of people like Barack Obama, Lady Gaga, and Gandalf.

As for Condrey, he said in his own statement that working at Sledgehammer was the “greatest experience of [his] professional life.” He added that he’s excited about the “new chapter” of his career at Activision, but he did not provide any specifics or even teases for what he’ll be doing in his new position.

Kotaku first reported the news.

Condrey and Schofield are leaving Sledgehammer as Call of Duty: WWII’s DLC season is still going on. The first expansion, Resistance, came out at the end of January for PS4, while the three upcoming packs will be released later this year. The next Call of Duty game, meanwhile, is rumored to be Call of Duty: Black Ops 4. Just recently, Activision confirmed that Treyarch will be developing Call of Duty 2018, which lends credence to the rumour.