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Forza Horizon is a series that has always managed to deftly balance accessibility and complexity. It takes the realistic driving mechanics of Forza Motorsport but ditches the intimidating nature of professional racing and ruthless competition. Instead, it uses vibrant locations and positive vibes to amplify and celebrate the joys of driving–the giddiness of speed, the awe of vibrant scenery, and the spectacle of shiny cars. Forza Horizon 4 upholds this tradition. Meaningful changes add interesting gameplay considerations and improve progression flow, on top of its already accommodating difficulty options, a smorgasbord of vehicles, and a beautiful open world overflowing with activities. With Horizon 4, Playground Games continues to excel at making the act of virtual driving exciting, approachable, and entertaining without sacrificing complexity.

Horizon’s fourth open-world locale is a version of Great Britain that amalgamates and condenses iconic regions of England, Scotland, and Wales, offering some fantastic terrain to explore. The rolling hills of the English countryside make cross-country driving more thrilling, the Scottish Highlands offer breathtaking highway routes, and the city of Edinburgh’s windy, hilly streets serve as an interesting location for street races.

But the biggest change to Horizon is the introduction of seasons. Horizon’s Britain cycles between summer, autumn, winter, and spring–and the weather in each season affects the world in tangible ways. These range from the obvious, like bodies of water freezing over, to the near-imperceptible, like the change in temperature affecting your tires. But seasons truly require you to adapt both your technique and your vehicle, and this variety produces a unique dynamic–the same dirt course you drive in summer will be boggy after an autumn rain, and asphalt roads will get slicker during the winter snow. In the first few hours of Horizon 4, the seasons will change after you’ve completed a number of activities, and this quick cycle reveals how necessary it is to consider and adjust your driving. But once you complete a whole cycle, the implementation of seasons changes: They’ll then be tied to an online server, synchronized for all players, and will rotate every seven days.

Online functionality has a larger emphasis in Horizon 4–when playing solo, the game will discreetly connect you into an online session with up to 72 other players. You can also form a convoy of up to 12 people, as well as compete in ranked or unranked team adventures for seasonal prizes. It’s still easy to focus on playing solo at your own pace, and you can still go offline completely and drive against AI. But Horizon 4’s expanded online functionality does offer worthwhile activities to encourage you to connect with other people. Head-to-head races are more interesting against actual human beings, and the weekly change in weather comes with a selection of limited-time, season-specific races and championships as well as challenge missions.

Horizon also features recurring “#Forzathon Live” public events, which puts the call out to players in a session to gather together and cooperate to hit a combined score pool in a certain activity. You’ll earn currency to spend in an exclusive Forzathon shop if you’re successful, but these events become tedious quickly, as you’ll be running the same activity–like a single drift zone or danger jump–repeatedly until the group hits the score target.

But the missed opportunity of Forzathon Live events is just a tiny scuff in Horizon’s otherwise comprehensive and inviting gamut of activities. Irrespective of online seasonal events, there are a large number of vehicular disciplines to pursue, the majority of which allow you the great flexibility of shaping a race around your vehicle of choice–though you’ll still need to use your best cars to perform well in things like speed and drift challenges. You’re also now able to create your own custom courses, and the series’ more creative pursuits return with story missions–which feature things like stunt driving and nice homages to other racing games–and the entertaining, if highly choreographed, showcase races against things like planes, trains, and Halo‘s Warthogs.

Progression has changed from Forza Horizon 3–you no longer expand multiple festival sites to uncover activities. Instead, each discipline has its own corresponding progression meter. Participating in a particular kind of activity enough times, win or lose, will eventually level up that discipline, reward you, and unlock more activities of that kind on the map. It’s an exciting and friendly system that stretches you out to the furthest reaches of the world quickly, makes it feel like something new and interesting to do is always nearby, and rewards you no matter what you decide to participate in and how you perform. Even after hours and hours of play, Horizon 4 kept revealing surprises by introducing brand-new styles of activities, keeping the game’s flow feeling fresh.

It always feels like there’s a reward in reach, too. With both individual meters for disciplines and an overall progression meter, you’re often just a couple more races away from earning a level-up prize. The slot machine-style wheelspins also return, now with a variant that lets you pull for three prizes, and thankfully they still remain siloed from any real-world monetary transactions. Horizon 4 has a larger variety of potential rewards, too. The bigger focus on online interactions means driver customization is a big deal, which throws hundreds of unisex clothing options, quick chat phrases, and dance emotes into the pool. This means you might occasionally get a boring prize like a pair of shoes, but the pace of compensation is steady enough to make this negligible and also makes the rare occasion of nabbing a free car all the more satisfying.

Horizon 4 boasts 100 more vehicles over its predecessor, with a total of 450 in the base game. While Japanese car enthusiasts will definitely notice the absence of Mitsubishi and Toyota vehicles (no more Initial D Sprinter), Volkswagen has held over from Motorsport 7 (bringing classic Beetles, Kombis, and Golfs), as have a few new vehicles like racing trucks. Once again, Horizon features an array of tinkering options for enthusiasts, as well as auto-upgrade options and a number of accommodating driving assists for those who’d rather only think about accelerating and turning.

Regardless of how you drive, vehicles feel weighty, handle believably, and each one now has its own individual perk tree. Earning skill points while performing both reckless and prudent driving maneuvers will allow you to unlock nodes that add buffs to your skill point accumulation, or earn one-off rewards like wheelspins or influence (the game’s experience measure). It’s a great change from Horizons 3’s global skill tree, because it encourages you to stick with a vehicle, get to know it intimately, and have the advantage of a higher rate of reward. Skill points come readily if you’re driving at least somewhat competently, and you’re free to use points you earn on any vehicle, which makes swapping your go-to car less of a blow to your progression if you’ve already banked some extra points.

Horizon’s global perks have been transferred to another new feature, Properties, which replace festival sites as your garage and customization hubs. Finding and buying properties around the map is relatively expensive, but the perks some contain are useful, and properties all act as valuable fast travel points. Fast travel still costs you in-game currency, at least until you find and break all 50 fast-travel boards, but Horizon 4 does make other very welcome improvements in the interest of accessibility and quality of life, including the ability to change cars for free and at any time.

There’s such a diverse range of activities stuffed into every corner of Horizon 4, and meaningful changes contribute to smart driving dynamics and a more consistent sense of achievement. Everything you do in Horizon feels valuable, no matter how big or small–from the basic thrills of speeding a fast car down a gorgeous mountain highway to spending time tinkering with your favorite ride to manage seasonal road conditions to just hanging out with friends and strangers online and goofing off in friendly games. The charm of the Horizon series is as palpable as ever, a winning, all-inclusive recipe that celebrates the joy of driving above all else.

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The second episode in Telltale’s The Walking Dead final season season arrives on schedule this Tuesday, but with the massive layoffs from last week, will episodes Three and Four ever release? They might. Telltale announced today that “multiple potential partners” have come forward to “express interest” in helping Telltale release the final two episodes.

However, Telltale said it “can’t make any promises.” And even if a deal is secured with one of the potential partners, it may only be to complete and release the games “in some form.” You can read the full statement below.

Telltale shared no details on who the “potential partners” might be. And the wording about releasing the final two episodes “in some form” is less than encouraging. Whatever the case, Telltale said it hopes to “have answers for your other questions soon.”

Telltale’s “majority studio closure” was announced on Friday, and it resulted in 225 of the studio’s 250 people losing their jobs. In the wake of this announcement, many wondered what would happen to Telltale’s The Walking Dead and other franchises.

Given that The Walking Dead: Final Season was already in progress, fans were understandably concerned about if they would get to see how the story wraps up. There is also the matter of refunds. Players who pre-bought the season pass to get all the episodes may want a refund.

The character Clementine is at the heart of the story in The Walking Dead’s final season. Her voice actress, Melissa Hutchinson, said on Twitter that she was sad about Telltale’s closure and what it means for the fate of The Walking Dead. Hutchinson said she thought Telltale would release Episode Two and “that will be it.” This is a developing story, so things are changing all the time, it seems.

A new update for Star Wars Battlefront 2 has addressed some of the game’s multiplayer concerns. The most notable change patches the Squad System, but the update addresses a few other concerns and also adds new content.

If you’re playing with a group of friends, you will be automatically placed in a squad together. The new Squad System promises to load you back into your group more quickly after your soldier is killed. Upon death, you will be able to toggle between all your surviving squad members to decide who you want to respawn on. If you’re playing solo, you’ll just be thrown into a random squad, but you’ll still be able to choose who you spawn on between each death. The new Squad System also allows you and a friend to play in private two vs. two Hero Showdown matches.

More Clone Wars-themed content has been added to Battlefront 2 as well. You can now change your Republic Army soldiers to appear as the Jedi Master Windu’s 91st Mobile Reconnaissance Corps or Jedi Master Plo Koon’s 104th “Wolf Pack” Battalion. The former was first seen in Star Wars The Clone Wars animated series, while the latter first appeared in Revenge of the Sith before also appearing in The Clone Wars. Wolf Pack’s leader, Commander Wolffe, also appeared in Star Wars Rebels.

Additional details about changes to the Squad System and new Clone Wars content can be found on Battlefront 2’s blog, including how the game will handle ping site connections going forward. We’ve outlined the major bug fixes included in the new update below.

Star Wars Battlefront 2 is available for Xbox One, PS4, and PC.

Battlefront 2 September Update Patch Notes

Features

• Added ability to get into squads and spawn on squad members on Galactic Assault and Strike
• Improved screen flow for quicker spawning in all modes where Squad Spawn is not present

Quality of Life

• More dynamic change of characters shown on the Home and Career screens, due to implementation of backend ability to change those in a live environment
• Implemented various stability fixes for the End of Round (EOR) Matchmaking
• Improved the way the game client looks for an online game, by adding an automated Default option for the best Ping site, as well as simplifying the choice of sites in the menu.

Hero Changes

Leia Organa

• Fixed an issue where Leia’s Alternate Fire ability could damage a player piloting the AT-ST

Vehicle Changes

U-Wing

• Fixed an issue where the “Repair” ability would not properly activate

Lando’s Millennium Falcon

• Fixed an issue where the Tactical Jammer ability would have no effect on Lando’s Millennium Falcon

Classes & Special Units Changes

Officer

• Fixed an issue that would prevent the Disruption ability to trigger in sync with the animation

Heavy

• Removed the ability of Ion Turrets to lock and fire on troopers, as requested by the community
• Reduced the damage done by the Ion Torpedo for better balancing

Game Mode Changes

Galactic Assault

• Implemented backend timers that allow tweaking of the objective duration on Galactic Assault in a live environment

Hero Starfighters

• Added animations to further enhance the look and feel of the game mode’s widget

Strike

• Fixed a spelling issue in one of the objective texts

Map Changes

Jakku

• Fixed an issue where heroes could hide or get stuck behind metal barriers on Jakku

Endor

• Fixed an issue that would leave players stuck between tree and mountain assets

Takodana

• Fixed an issue where the chicken near the East Turbolaser would not be fleeing from the player

General Changes

• Added Ewok Hunt and Extraction-based challenges to the list of Daily Challenges
• Removed Hero Showdown-based challenges “Perfect Together” and “Vader and Kylo”, based on player feedback that they are too hard to achieve in an online environment
• Fixed an issue where Iden’s character and description text would be missing from the Campaign’s spawn and customization screen
• Fixed an issue where players would not be able to change their Clone Trooper appearances during the pre-round screens on games taking place on Kashyyyk and Kamino
• Added additional UI effects when unlocking an Emote, Victory Pose or Appearance from the menu
• Increased the maximum numbers of players in a group to 20, and the maximum number of players who can play together to 8
• Fixed an issue where the button to get more Crystals would not show up in the Emotes and Victory Poses screens
• Adjusted the “Saviour Kill” stat, so that it tracks relevant kills from the whole team and not just the squad members
• This update will automatically disable CrossFire functionality for players with AMD Graphics Cards running on Windows 8 / 8.1, due to lack of support for multi-GPU with the specified operating system and GPU vendor.
• Fixed an issue where the Resourceful Star Card wouldn’t correctly lower the ability cooldown when used.

Dying Light had a simple three-step method to its fun in its derelict, zombie-infested world: parkour antics, fast-paced first-person melee combat, and a deep and rewarding crafting system. It was popular enough to warrant a sequel (which is in development), and now there’s a spin-off in Steam Early Access: Bad Blood. This stab at the battle royale genre embodies some of the best parts of Dying Light while adding new ideas to the genre. It’s radically different from what you might be used to, with a lower player count and prevalent PvE encounters immediately setting it apart. But its current lack of depth makes Bad Blood more of an entertaining distraction than a viable player in the competitive battle royale market.

If you played the original Dying Light, Bad Blood will feel familiar. The tower that once acted as your primary mission hub in the original game stands tall in the center of the new bright and colorful map, surrounded by rooftop running routes and derelict rooms primed for scavenging. Though there are numerous twisting alleyways and dangerously exposed roads, it only takes a handful of matches to become comfortable with your surroundings.

Unlike most battle royale games, Bad Blood doesn’t start with a race to the ground from an airdrop. Instead, you and 11 other players (yes, that’s a total of just 12 in a match) are spawned straight into the action at random. After that, it’s a routine battle royale start. Rooms and buildings remain fixed, but their lootable contents change each match, and the opening seconds are generally a race to amass an inventory full of weapons, gadgets, and supplies. Cricket bats, crowbars, sickles and more make up a large arsenal of weapons, each of which can be upgraded with a single lootable item to augment attacks with bleeding, freezing, or electric damage. Bad Blood streamlines crafting and inventory management to keep you out of menus entirely, limiting your weapon and gadget slots to just five and four spaces respectively.

Bad Blood also doesn’t feature a shrinking circle to force players together and instead has a point total that each player needs to work towards. Once one player has collected enough points (called samples), a helicopter is summoned to a point on the map for evacuation. All players are made aware of the landing zone and the player attempting to evacuate, creating a tense conclusion where everyone is drawn to a singular area for an all-or-nothing final fight. You gather points from Hives, randomly placed locations around the map that are protected by zombies of varying sizes and strengths. Smaller Hives offer less of a challenge but fewer points to reward, while larger ones feature gruesome bosses to overcome but a greater possible contribution towards your goal. These AI-controlled foes are just as likely to kill you as other players are, forcing you to treat them with the same amount of caution and preparation.

You’ll need points to secure victory but also to level up and improve your overall health and damage output each match. Hunting down Hives is a logical and alluring prospect at the start, offering a quick way to collect points and level up. Your entire strategy can be moving between Hives and engaging only with the undead, avoiding other players entirely. But their ever-present threat can’t be understated. Other players can startle you in the midst of a fight around a Hive, picking you off in the chaos and stealing your amassed points. Bad Blood excels at never letting you catch a breath, while also rewarding players that manage to shift their principles from lonely scavenger to lethal predator at a moment’s notice.

Dying Light’s signature parkour platforming enables this, giving Bad Blood an exhilarating sense of verticality to its gameplay. Players won’t be picking you off with sniper rifles from a distance, but instead leaping down from rooftops onto your head for an instant kill. Using the twisting rooftops to pull off a daring escape is just as adrenaline-pumping as catching a foe after an extended chase, and Dying Light’s straightforward control scheme makes this boundless running about as easy as it is gratifying.

Disappointingly, though, the chase in Bad Blood is far more thrilling than the killing blow. While Dying Light’s tried and tested melee combat is still satisfying when you’re dismembering zombies limb by limb, it’s not yet as robust against other players. PvP encounters feel messy, with wild swings and tricky blocks making each skirmish feel less about skill and more about luck. While Bad Blood’s surrounding activities are engrossing, direct encounters lack the depth needed to maintain its momentum to the end of the match.

Bad Blood is exciting at first simply because of how different it is, a quality which is solidified by its exhilarating movement and additional focus on PvE play. But it’s a formula that wears thin fast. Without strong PvP play, the opportunities to continue learning with each match diminish quickly, not urging you to continue playing to understand it any further. Bad Blood is still in Early Access, and its future could drastically change what is available today. But right now, it’s more a reminder of how good Dying Light’s established gameplay is without anything truly compelling to keep you engaged for long.