Rockstar's pushed back the PC release of by another few weeks, but at least Online players finally know when they can get their sweet heisting action on. Rockstar also released a bunch of high-resolution screenshots showing off the new Heists, which you can see by clicking through above.

GTA 5 will release on PC on April 14 worldwide, both in retail and for download. It was originally set to release on January 27, about two months after it hit PS4 and Xbox One, though it was pushed back to March 24 a few weeks before then. Those who pre-ordered the PC version will receive an extra $200,000 for use in GTA Online. Taken together with the other pre-order bonuses, that's quite a nest egg.

Speaking of GTA Online, multiplayer criminal enthusiasts can finally embark on long-awaited Heists starting on March 10. The initial slate of Heists will include five separate 'story strands', each with multiple missions for four-player teams to undertake in pursuit of big payouts.

Rockstar says it will reveal more details about the launch of Heists and associated features in the coming weeks.

Just when you thought it was safe to go back in the asylum/figment of your imagination, Bethesda's narrowed down the start date for season pass to March. Though Tango Gameworks has kept you waiting for a while, it sounds like the new episodes will give you an illuminating new look at the main campaign's mysterious events.

Don't worry about poor Sebastian Castellanos - his partner, Juli Kidman, will be suffering in his stead in the first two episodes. And you'll even get to see things from the Keeper's point of view in the third one... Well, not literally, since his point of view is somewhat obscured by the safe. Want to know more? Make sure you check out the teaser trailer below and click on for more details.

Kidman's first starring episode, The Assignment, will release in March on PC, PS3, PS4, Xbox 360, and Xbox One. Game director John Johanas has said that that it will put Kidman in 'more dark, lonely, and claustrophobic' circumstances than Sebastian Castellanos encountered… which doesn't sound good for her, considering that Castellanos' story was hardly a trip to the beach. On the other hand, her unique perspective on the surreal events gives her room for 'a bit of banter and commentary'.

Kidman will also star in The Consequence later this year. You probably have a few questions for Kidman after her role in the main campaign, but don't expect the DLC to tie up every last loose end - it will raise a few questions of its own.

The third and final piece of The Evil Within's season pass will star the villainous Keeper - you know, the guy with a lockbox on his head and an oversized meat tenderizer in his hands. Bethesda is keeping mum about how and why players will carry out his grim business until closer to its release.

That's all we know about The Evil Within's DLC plans for now. Are there any burning questions you'd love to see answered in Juli's episodes? Let us know in the comments!

Make sure you check out our review of .

Do you ever find yourself getting a little bit sidetracked in games? Some journey needs embarking on or some nefarious tyrant needs toppling, but you just can't summon up the interest to slog through the grand ordeal. On the other hand, helping this dude you met on the side of the road find his lost goat sounds pretty damn compelling.

Games like Chrono Trigger have awesome side stories that let you literally reshape the world just by checking out some stuff that's off the beaten path. Still, the journey to destroy Lavos was pretty epic itself. Instead, this week's Top 7 is dedicated to games with campaigns that couldn't help but be a little bit overshadowed by their tremendous side quests. Just make sure you read them all before you start the final mission, or else you're totally gonna miss out.

Lots of folks complained that the ending of Mass Effect 3 was too impersonal, that it boiled three games worth of choices and relationships down to a handful of color coded options. Whether you feel that way or not, you definitely can't say the same about Mass Effect 3's Citadel DLC, which adds a fairly involved side story concerning a plot to assassinate Commander Shepard. Fortunately, Shepard's made a bunch of friends along the way - and they're all quite happy to help him deal with his would-be killers.

That's not really the point of the sidequest, though - the point is that you get to throw a massive party at the end and invite everybody you've ever fought alongside (and hasn't been blown up/shot by Collectors/killed by Cerberus yet). It's cheesy, sappy, and fan-servicey, but it's exactly what you need to break up Mass Effect 3's apocalyptic despair. Plus, you can have a one-night stand with Vega and let him cook you breakfast in the morning. Turns out he's good for something other than coming up with shitty nicknames.

World of Warcraft is full of stories - literally, that game has about a bazillion quests, even if most aren't much teresting than "bring me 10 murloc heads". But there are some seriously eye-opening events hidden in that huge pile-o-narrative, and my favorite is the sad tale of Tirion and Taelan Fordring.

For tragic reasons (those are kind of a theme with this guy) that I won't get into here, Tirion is banished from his home and family in Hearthglen. He stays nearby to watch his son Taelan (who thinks Tirion's dead) grow up and follow in his footprints as a paladin. Unfortunately, without his dear old dad to show him the ways of the world, Taelan joins the religious zealots of the Scarlet Crusade. That's where you come in - by collecting artifacts of Taelan's childhood, you can convince him that his father lives, allowing him to abandon the crusade and reunite with his long last pappy. Expecting this to end with a tearful reunion between father and son? Well, you're half right…

There are so many different angles to consider about Tenpenny Tower that I'm still amazed it's entirely optional - just make sure you look for the tall (and oddly well preserved) skyscraper standing a few miles west of the ruins of Washington DC. Tenpenny Tower spins a subversive story of haves and have-nots in the nuclear apocalypse which makes the campaign to restore Project Purity seem one-dimensional.

Unlike almost everywhere else you go in the Capital Wasteland, the tower is pristinely maintained and reassuringly secure. That's because the owner only lets a select number of rich residents stay - even though there's enough clean water and electricity to house dozens more. A group of ghouls would like to see that policy changed, and helping them talk their way into the Tower seems like the obvious, goodie-two-shoes thing to do. Until you come back a few days later, at which point you'll find all the human residents gone. The ghoul leader mentions a "disagreement" and, oh yeah, don't worry about that rotten smell coming up from the basement. Whoops.

The Riddler's always been a bit of a second-rate Batman villain. Unlike the Joker, the Penguin, and the other stars of the evil menagerie, he's more preoccupied with proving he's smarter than Batman (spoiler: he's not) than taking over Gotham. His endless schemes endanger some civilians here and there, but ol' Edward Nigma is usually as much of a threat to himself as he is to anybody else.

His talents finally get a fitting spotlight in Batman: Arkham City, where players can spend the entire game searching for hundreds of trophies that he's hidden in various nooks, crannies, death traps, and hostage situations around the chaotic streets and desolate buildings. You may think Arkham City is about taking down Dr. Strange's nefarious schemes for the city, but it's actually about collecting Riddler trophies. And when you finally get them all, you get to track down the Riddler and subject him to his one of his own sadistic schemes before taking him out. I'll take that over concept art any day.

If you try to play Persona 4 like an old-school JRPG, charging into a dungeon at every opportunity, grinding up your stats, and collecting all the Personas, you'll probably have a pretty awful time. It's all perfectly competent, but there just isn't enough to unravelling the mystery behind the Midnight Channel to keep you coming back for dozens of hours. What will really keep you playing are the Social Links.

Yeah, going out for steak skewers or attending basketball practice does come with a sort of XP system and some video gamey rewards. But that's not what makes Social Links fun. They're a surprisingly poignant metaphor - it's up to you how to spend the little time you have in Inaba (or in life, man) and you're going to get out what you put in. So let the next dungeon slide for a little while. It'll be there when you're ready for it. Until then, while away some afternoons hanging out with Yosuke and the gang.

The main quest of Skyrim is fine, if you like prodding at dragon corpses and getting wrapped up in the fictional politics of fantasy Swedes. But it still can't hold a candle to all the other crap you can do in that game, particularly the crowning non-critical path that culminates in the assassination of the emperor. Yup, the real emperor of Tamriel (though you do mistakenly kill his double first), not some podunk twerp who will be written off from the canon either way. But you've got to join the Dark Brotherhood if you want to do the deed.

Rising through the ranks of the brotherhood starts with taking a contract from a little boy to kill his cantankerous orphanage headmistress, and it only gets more twisted from there. You aren't just joining an order of assassins - the Dark Brotherhood has some seriously freaky stuff going on, of which you'll be well aware by the time you spend a night in a sarcophagus next to a shriveled, telepathic corpse. Y'gotta do what y'gotta do if you fancy some regicide.

Majora's Mask is unlike any other Zelda game, partially because its main campaign is a bit… more compact. While Ocarina of Time has eight huge dungeons between you and the credits screen, Majora's Mask only has four. But if you take the time to explore Termina and help out its many residents, this quest feels no less grand and yet immensely timate. After all, could you help a couple face the end of the world together in Ocarina of Time?

The process of reuniting Kafei and Anju is long and involved, requiring keen observation and multiple trips through the three-day cycle. Once you finally bring the young lovers back together, you're reminded that this is still just a side quest… and the mad Moon is still going to destroy everything. There's no grand redemption through the power of love (even if it is tougher than diamonds and richer than cream), just the comfort of gazing into oblivion side by side. You want to shout at them to keep fighting, but it's midnight on the final day and there's nothing more to do but wait. It's sad, happy, frustrating, satisfying, and a more compelling conclusion than a thousand dead Ganons.

Those are some of my favorites, but video games have definitely made a habit of overshadowing their main stories with awesome offshoots. What side quests have kept you amused long after the thrill of the campaign wore off? Let me know in the comments!

Looking for more distraction? Check out .

Before I get to describing Overrun, the fourth piece of DLC for Far Cry 4, here's a reminder: the game does, in fact, including a competitive multiplayer mode. Said mode will be of utmost importance to your enjoyment of Overrun, since it adds a new mode, more maps, and a dune buggy to your online battles. It may be the only expansion for Far Cry 4 multiplayer that we know of, but at least it looks like a pretty cool one.

First off, the eponymous mode sees the Golden Path and the Rakshasa squaring off to control one of three king-of-the-hill style locations. There's a twist, though - at some point, the location will shift, meaning both teams had better get their butts in gear to claim the new spot. And how better to plot a course through four new maps than in the comfort of your own personal dune buggy? Once you're done joy riding, make sure to click on for more Far Cry 4 DLC details.

By this point in the Far Cry franchise, you either want more Hurk, or you don't want anything to do with Hurk. The third Far Cry 4 DLC pack is better suited to the former kind of open-world shooting enthusiast. Ubisoft released the Hurk Deluxe Pack on January 27, adding five new missions which star the globetrotting good ol' boy for both single-player and co-op. As you can probably guess from Hurk's starring role, things get weird.

The pack also introduces several new weapons, including Hurk's beloved harpoon gun. The Hurk Deluxe Pack (we've officially passed the point where 'Hurk' begins to sound less like a character and more like a choking sound) is available on its own or as the third part of the Far Cry 4 Season Pass.

Far Cry 4's Escape from Durgesh Prison isn't content to throw a new weapon or ability your way and let you go to town on familiar enemies - y'know, the standard DLC shtick. Instead, it takes the opposite route: protagonist Ajay Ghale and his co-op buddy Hurk find themselves locked up in the eponymous prison, completely stripped of all their weaponry. But that's not the worst of it. With no friendly places to mend his wounds nearby, if Ajay gets taken out, he's done for.

That's right, Escape from Durgesh Prison introduces permadeath to the open-world shooter, meaning you'll have to play cautiously and learn from your mistakes if you're ever going to complete your grand exodus.

Clearly, the developers are having some fun with this one. Valley of the Yetis has quite the involved backstory: our hero Ajay has crash-landed onto a Himalayan ridge, which from the sounds of it will be a much harsher, colder climate than Kyrat. You'll have to set up camp to survive, upgrading it with scavenged tools so that you can ward off crazy cultists at night (sounds like the snowy version of PC horror game The Forest).

Of course, if the name didn't give it away, this DLC sounds like it'll pit you against hordes of Yetis, like the one hilariously mimicking Pagan Min's signature box art pose above. I'm picturing something very similar to the Wampa scene in Empire Strikes Back. You can explore the Valley of the Yetis in single-player or co-op, which sounds like a brilliantly bizarre way to cap off the season pass.

That's the score on the Far Cry 4 DLC for now. Was it tempting enough for you to invest in a season pass, or are you happy to wait and see? Let us know in the comments below!

If you want to know all about Ajay, Pagan Min, Hurk, and Kyrat at large, be sure to read up on everything we know about .

Get your handcuffs ready - no, not those handcuffs - because Battlefield Hardline's open beta is set for February 3 to February 8. And it's gonna be a big one: full access to three modes and three maps, and a "first look" at a fourth mode which should be exciting for fans of Commander mode in previous battlefields. The beta will be available on all of Hardline's platforms (PC, PS3, PS4, Xbox 360, and Xbox One), though only PC and new-gen can jump into 64-player Conquest battles on the Dust Bowl map.

The other two main modes are Hotwire and Heist, which respectively see criminals trying to claim high-value cars or escape from a bank with cash in tow as cops go into full excessive-force mode in an effort to stop them. Players will also get a look at Hacker mode, in which one player per team can exploit security cameras positioned across the map to designate targets and areas to focus on. Want to brush up on the details before beta kicks off? Click on for more of our Battlefield Hardline impressions.

If the title didn't give it away, Battlefield Hardline's hotwire multiplayer mode is all about stealing cars. Though, during my play session, no one really gave a damn and just ran around shooting each other (myself included). If we HAD been playing for the objective, we would have needed to control certain vehicles for as long as possible to earn victory points. The longer you control those vehicles - which are all horribly cumbersome vans and tanker trucks - the more points you earn for your team.

Also featured in my demo was the new glades map. And while It was certainly big, this map was essentially a giant oval with some dilapidated buildings in the middle. I think there might have been a ramp at one point. This meant that when someone DID bother to hop behind the wheel, all they could really do was drive in a circle. Ideally, the other players would pile in the back of another vehicle and give chase, but in practice it was just pure chaos.

Visceral is taking the stern, world-ending military situations involving nukes and evil Russians, and trading that for more small-scale conflicts like bank robberies and heists. Instead of the hardened soldier, the developers are saying they will introduce characters like cops that don't play by the rules or slick criminals that you'd see in a TV police drama. So, you can expect characters to be line with Battlefield: Bad Company's troublemaking squad of misfits.

Visceral isn't sharing any concrete details on the single player story yet. What the developer has said is that the solo mode will incorporate the tactical choice of the multiplayer gameplay, and that the single player will include the tools, gadgets, and vehicles you see in the competitive game. As far as single player goes, that's all we've got, but there is another reason to play Hardline.

Yes, Hardline will have multiplayer. Even though the setting has changed, you're still going to get dozens of guns, heavy vehicles, and massive maps that the Battlefield series is known for. You'll spawn into your squad, capture objectives, and mount a mobile turret to take down the opposing faction, but thanks to the relatively confined, urban environments, and some clever game modes, the gameplay feels distinctly unique from the other titles in the series.

You won't see the open tank fields of the militaristic battlefield games, but you also won't be forced into the stringent, tactical mentality of a close quarters-fighting SWAT team. From what we've played, the game strikes a good balance between giving players the space they need to create the "did you see that?" Battlefield moments and keeping the action contained to one (or several) action-packed areas of the map.

Like its predecessors, Hardline gives players four classes to customize, leaving each to function as a valuable member of a squad. Enforcers are armed with light machine guns and ammo packs. The Operator carries a standard assault rifle, health packs, and can revive allies (you can also take health and ammo from teammates by pressing the interact button next to them). The mechanic can repair any vehicle if he has a repair tool on hand. Lastly, the Professional is your long-ranged sniper.

The classes all sound like carbon copies of their militarized brethren from previous games, but once you start earning cash for better weapons and gadgets (more on progression later) you can customize your urban soldier to play many different, vital roles for your team. How? Well, by equipping some of the new gadgets...

The most prominent new items you can equip to your cop or criminal are stun guns, gas masks, blunt melee weapons, gas grenades, grappling hooks, and ziplines. Most of these items are fairly self explanatory, and when you use them by themselves you don't really get much out of them. It's when you combine multiple items that things start to get interesting.

For example, equipping your Operator with an ammo bag, gas grenades, and a gas mask lets you flood enemy defensive areas with an unlimited number of vision clouding, accuracy-screwing gas canisters--making opponents easy kills in the maps' chokepoints. Stun guns, blunt weapons, and grappling hooks make it easier to sneak up on perching snipers. Just shoot a hook up a ledge behind the sniper, climb up, and incapacitate them with a stun gun or police baton. Interestingly, you're then free to interrogate them (which gives you their allies' locations).

To get all of those lovely new gadgets, you'll need to earn experience and cash. Experience works the same as it has in previous games. You'll get points for every kill, assist, and support action for your team. Each class then levels up its own progress bar to earn medals and higher ranks.

By bringing in cash as well as experience, Hardline gives you more flexibility when it comes to class customization. With the money you earn from killing cops or arresting criminals you can buy new weapons and equipment whenever you want. So, you won't necessarily have to wait until you're rank 120 to use the gun you want. You can just buy whatever items you like, save up for specific attachments and equipment, and build your unique class.

Just because you're playing as a bunch of cops and robbers doesn't mean you won't get to ride in some heavy vehicles. Along with police cruisers, four-door sedans, and motorcycles, you'll also be able to jump into armored cars with machine guns mounted at the top.

We haven't seen tanks yet, but the existing armored ground vehicles are formidable to say the least. And for those flyboys out there, you'll also get a chance to pilot various machine gun-mounted helicopters. Only, the skyscrapers and narrow flight paths will surely weed out the pilots lacking skill very quickly.

In keeping with the fresh setting, Hardline will introduce a number of exciting new modes. In the two we played, the focus is on successfully holding giant bags of loot. The Blood Money mode challenges both teams to grab money from a central location and bring it back to their vault--which the opposing team can also steal from. Even if you're behind on the loot grab, good teamwork and coordination in defending the money drop and vaults can lead to a victory. The Heist mode has even more of a cops and robbers feel. The criminals start the match by blowing up two armored trucks carrying tons of cash, which land in two separate locations. From there the criminals need to breach the trucks and take two money bags to two separate locations while the cops try to stop them. The result ends up feeling like Rush and Capture the Flag, all mixed together.

Battlefield 4 made completely destroying the map a thing in the Battlefield series, and that trend continues in Hardline. In the High Tension map, you can set a few breaching charges on a construction crane's support cables, bringing it crashing down. On the way it knocks into buildings and brings tons of debris down with it. In the aftermath, the collapsed crane makes a handy bridge shortcut for the criminal team, allowing them to move from their spawn point to the center of the map with ease.

Apart from the huge levolution events, there's still the little bits of destruction that make the battle feel more realistic. Low eaves on the sides of buildings can be blown down to make a handy ramp to higher levels, bullets chip away at concrete barriers, and underground road supports can be destroyed to make a sinkhole shortcut.

Those are all the details we have so far about Battlefield Hardline. Are you ready to step into the urban war zone come March 17 in North America and March 20 in the UK? Let us know in the comments.

Want more on the future games coming soon? Check out our list of the .

By this point in the Far Cry franchise, you either want more Hurk, or you don't want anything to do with Hurk. The latest Far Cry 4 DLC pack is better suited to the former kind of open-world shooting enthusiast. Ubisoft released the Hurk Deluxe Pack on January 27, adding five new missions which star the globetrotting good ol' boy for both single-player and co-op. As you can probably guess from Hurk's starring role, things get weird.

The pack also introduces several new weapons, including Hurk's beloved harpoon gun. The Hurk Deluxe Pack (we've officially passed the point where 'Hurk' begins to sound less like a character and more like a choking sound) is available on its own or as the third part of the Far Cry 4 Season Pass. Make sure to check back in for more details on the rest of the game's downloadables, including the Overrun multiplayer mode and the mysterious Valley of the Yetis...

Far Cry 4's Escape from Durgesh Prison isn't content to throw a new weapon or ability your way and let you go to town on familiar enemies - y'know, the standard DLC shtick. Instead, it takes the opposite route: protagonist Ajay Ghale and his co-op buddy Hurk find themselves locked up in the eponymous prison, completely stripped of all their weaponry. But that's not the worst of it. With no friendly places to mend his wounds nearby, if Ajay gets taken out, he's done for.

That's right, Escape from Durgesh Prison introduces permadeath to the open-world shooter, meaning you'll have to play cautiously and learn from your mistakes if you're ever going to complete your grand exodus.

Clearly, the developers are having some fun with this one. Valley of the Yetis has quite the involved backstory: our hero Ajay has crash-landed onto a Himalayan ridge, which from the sounds of it will be a much harsher, colder climate than Kyrat. You'll have to set up camp to survive, upgrading it with scavenged tools so that you can ward off crazy cultists at night (sounds like the snowy version of PC horror game The Forest).

Of course, if the name didn't give it away, this DLC sounds like it'll pit you against hordes of Yetis, like the one hilariously mimicking Pagan Min's signature box art pose above. I'm picturing something very similar to the Wampa scene in Empire Strikes Back. You can explore the Valley of the Yetis in single-player or co-op, though it's not clear how you'll see other players if you're playing as Ajay. Either way, this should be awesome.

That's the score on the Far Cry 4 DLC for now. Was it tempting enough for you to invest in a season pass, or are you happy to wait and see? Let us know in the comments below!

If you want to know all about Ajay, Pagan Min, Hurk, and Kyrat at large, be sure to read up on everything we know about .

If you already own planned for Dark Souls 2: The Scholar of the First Sin on PC, PS4, and Xbox One (aside from improved visuals, naturally) were simultaneously confirmed as planned updates for the original versions.

Now the date for the patch and its planned changes have been revealed, and boy howdy, it is a doozy. The update will roll out across PC, PS3, and Xbox 360 on February 4 (a few days before the new-gen version releases) adding everything from new characters to new items to mechanical refinements - check the for a more detailed rundown. Be sure to click on for some screenshots of the new stuff you can expect to encounter after the update.

The Battlefield Hardline multiplayer beta will operate just like the ideal criminal justice system: fast, thorough, and fair to all participants regardless of where they come from. In theory, anyway. EA says the upcoming test will be conducted across all of Hardline's planned platforms (that's PC, PS3, PS4, Xbox 360, and Xbox One) and will include both the new Hotwire mode and the tried-and-true 64-player Conquest mode across two maps.

The beta won't impose a level cap (aside from the progression limits of the full game, anyway) and players will be free to unlock as much gear for their favorite cops-n-criminals loadouts as they can manage. Even though we don't yet know when the beta will begin, it likely won't be too much longer - Battlefield Hardline is set to release on March 17, and it's clear that EA wants a much smoother launch than what it got with Battlefield 4. Click on for fo about what you'll get in the beta and what you'll have to wait for the full release to see.

If the title didn't give it away, Battlefield Hardline's hotwire multiplayer mode is all about stealing cars. Though, during my play session, no one really gave a damn and just ran around shooting each other (myself included). If we HAD been playing for the objective, we would have needed to control certain vehicles for as long as possible to earn victory points. The longer you control those vehicles - which are all horribly cumbersome vans and tanker trucks - the more points you earn for your team.

Also featured in my demo was the new glades map. And while It was certainly big, this map was essentially a giant oval with some dilapidated buildings in the middle. I think there might have been a ramp at one point. This meant that when someone DID bother to hop behind the wheel, all they could really do was drive in a circle. Ideally, the other players would pile in the back of another vehicle and give chase, but in practice it was just pure chaos.

Visceral is taking the stern, world-ending military situations involving nukes and evil Russians, and trading that for more small-scale conflicts like bank robberies and heists. Instead of the hardened soldier, the developers are saying they will introduce characters like cops that don't play by the rules or slick criminals that you'd see in a TV police drama. So, you can expect characters to be line with Battlefield: Bad Company's troublemaking squad of misfits.

Visceral isn't sharing any concrete details on the single player story yet. What the developer has said is that the solo mode will incorporate the tactical choice of the multiplayer gameplay, and that the single player will include the tools, gadgets, and vehicles you see in the competitive game. As far as single player goes, that's all we've got, but there is another reason to play Hardline.

Yes, Hardline will have multiplayer. Even though the setting has changed, you're still going to get dozens of guns, heavy vehicles, and massive maps that the Battlefield series is known for. You'll spawn into your squad, capture objectives, and mount a mobile turret to take down the opposing faction, but thanks to the relatively confined, urban environments, and some clever game modes, the gameplay feels distinctly unique from the other titles in the series.

You won't see the open tank fields of the militaristic battlefield games, but you also won't be forced into the stringent, tactical mentality of a close quarters-fighting SWAT team. From what we've played, the game strikes a good balance between giving players the space they need to create the "did you see that?" Battlefield moments and keeping the action contained to one (or several) action-packed areas of the map.

Like its predecessors, Hardline gives players four classes to customize, leaving each to function as a valuable member of a squad. Enforcers are armed with light machine guns and ammo packs. The Operator carries a standard assault rifle, health packs, and can revive allies (you can also take health and ammo from teammates by pressing the interact button next to them). The mechanic can repair any vehicle if he has a repair tool on hand. Lastly, the Professional is your long-ranged sniper.

The classes all sound like carbon copies of their militarized brethren from previous games, but once you start earning cash for better weapons and gadgets (more on progression later) you can customize your urban soldier to play many different, vital roles for your team. How? Well, by equipping some of the new gadgets...

The most prominent new items you can equip to your cop or criminal are stun guns, gas masks, blunt melee weapons, gas grenades, grappling hooks, and ziplines. Most of these items are fairly self explanatory, and when you use them by themselves you don't really get much out of them. It's when you combine multiple items that things start to get interesting.

For example, equipping your Operator with an ammo bag, gas grenades, and a gas mask lets you flood enemy defensive areas with an unlimited number of vision clouding, accuracy-screwing gas canisters--making opponents easy kills in the maps' chokepoints. Stun guns, blunt weapons, and grappling hooks make it easier to sneak up on perching snipers. Just shoot a hook up a ledge behind the sniper, climb up, and incapacitate them with a stun gun or police baton. Interestingly, you're then free to interrogate them (which gives you their allies' locations).

To get all of those lovely new gadgets, you'll need to earn experience and cash. Experience works the same as it has in previous games. You'll get points for every kill, assist, and support action for your team. Each class then levels up its own progress bar to earn medals and higher ranks.

By bringing in cash as well as experience, Hardline gives you more flexibility when it comes to class customization. With the money you earn from killing cops or arresting criminals you can buy new weapons and equipment whenever you want. So, you won't necessarily have to wait until you're rank 120 to use the gun you want. You can just buy whatever items you like, save up for specific attachments and equipment, and build your unique class.

Just because you're playing as a bunch of cops and robbers doesn't mean you won't get to ride in some heavy vehicles. Along with police cruisers, four-door sedans, and motorcycles, you'll also be able to jump into armored cars with machine guns mounted at the top.

We haven't seen tanks yet, but the existing armored ground vehicles are formidable to say the least. And for those flyboys out there, you'll also get a chance to pilot various machine gun-mounted helicopters. Only, the skyscrapers and narrow flight paths will surely weed out the pilots lacking skill very quickly.

In keeping with the fresh setting, Hardline will introduce a number of exciting new modes. In the two we played, the focus is on successfully holding giant bags of loot. The Blood Money mode challenges both teams to grab money from a central location and bring it back to their vault--which the opposing team can also steal from. Even if you're behind on the loot grab, good teamwork and coordination in defending the money drop and vaults can lead to a victory. The Heist mode has even more of a cops and robbers feel. The criminals start the match by blowing up two armored trucks carrying tons of cash, which land in two separate locations. From there the criminals need to breach the trucks and take two money bags to two separate locations while the cops try to stop them. The result ends up feeling like Rush and Capture the Flag, all mixed together.

Battlefield 4 made completely destroying the map a thing in the Battlefield series, and that trend continues in Hardline. In the High Tension map, you can set a few breaching charges on a construction crane's support cables, bringing it crashing down. On the way it knocks into buildings and brings tons of debris down with it. In the aftermath, the collapsed crane makes a handy bridge shortcut for the criminal team, allowing them to move from their spawn point to the center of the map with ease.

Apart from the huge levolution events, there's still the little bits of destruction that make the battle feel more realistic. Low eaves on the sides of buildings can be blown down to make a handy ramp to higher levels, bullets chip away at concrete barriers, and underground road supports can be destroyed to make a sinkhole shortcut.

EA has confirmed that Battlefield Hardline will release on October 21, for the Xbox 360, Xbox One, PS3, PS4, and PC. It appears that the yearly release cycle for the Battlefield series is in full swing, and you won't have to wait long to play the next entry. In fact, you can download the beta on PC and PS4 right now--first come, first served.

Those are all the details we have so far about Battlefield Hardline. Are you ready to step into the urban war zone? What do you think of the series' new direction? Let us know in the comments below.

Want more on the future games coming soon? Check out our list of the .

Far Cry 4's Escape from Durgesh Prison isn't content to throw a new weapon or ability your way and let you go to town on familiar enemies - y'know, the standard DLC shtick. Instead, it takes the opposite route: protagonist Ajay Ghale and his co-op buddy Hurk find themselves locked up in the eponymous prison, completely stripped of all their weaponry. But that's not the worst of it. With no friendly places to mend his wounds nearby, if Ajay gets taken out, he's done for.

That's right, Escape from Durgesh Prison introduces permadeath to the open-world shooter, meaning you'll have to play cautiously and learn from your mistakes if you're ever going to complete your grand exodus. It will release on January 13, 2015 as part of the $29.99/£23.99 season pass, or on its own for $9.99 (UK price TBA). The Season Pass also unlocks access to The Syringe single-player mission, a mini-campaign starring Hurk, and a new PvP multiplayer mode. But take heed, for it hides an abominable secret...

Clearly, the developers are having some fun with this one. Valley of the Yetis has quite the involved backstory: our hero Ajay has crash-landed onto a Himalayan ridge, which from the sounds of it will be a much harsher, colder climate than Kyrat. You'll have to set up camp to survive, upgrading it with scavenged tools so that you can ward off crazy cultists at night (sounds like the snowy version of PC horror game The Forest).

Of course, if the name didn't give it away, this DLC sounds like it'll pit you against hordes of Yetis, like the one hilariously mimicking Pagan Min's signature box art pose above. I'm picturing something very similar to the Wampa scene in Empire Strikes Back. You can explore the Valley of the Yetis in single-player or co-op, though it's not clear how you'll see other players if you're playing as Ajay. Either way, this should be awesome.

That's all the Far Cry 4 DLC we know about so far. Do you think you'll invest in a Season Pass, or just wait and see what these missions are worth? Let us know in the comments below.

If you want to know all about Ajay, Pagan Min, Hurk, and Kyrat at large, be sure to read up on everything we know about .

As you can see above, your apartment is now decked out with a Christmas tree and stack of presents, but what else is new? Click through the following slides and all will be revealed.

You've made it this far, so presumably you like GTA yeah? Have you seen our ? Go check it out!

In the months since its impressive debut, things went radio silent for the next entry in the Battlefield series. There was the E3 debut, the open beta, and the planned November release, but then the cops and robbers alteration of the Battlefield formula got delayed into "early 2015." Thankfully, EA has since given us the much more concrete date of March 17, 2015 on PS4, Xbox One, PS3, 360, and PC.

Hopefully EA and developer Visceral pushed the game to deepen the single player and multiplayer, and also improve stability (a real issue for Battlefield 4). We're keeping our fingers crossed that’s all been dealt with. So, as Hardline joins the already crowded early 2015 launch schedule, you may be in need of a refresher on the title. Read on to learn all about this over the top take on fighting crime, including our latest hands-on impressions with the hotwire multiplayer mode.

If the title didn't give it away, Battlefield Hardline's hotwire multiplayer mode is all about stealing cars. Though, during my play session, no one really gave a damn and just ran around shooting each other (myself included). If we HAD been playing for the objective, we would have needed to control certain vehicles for as long as possible to earn victory points. The longer you control those vehicles - which are all horribly cumbersome vans and tanker trucks - the more points you earn for your team.

Also featured in my demo was the new glades map. And while It was certainly big, this map was essentially a giant oval with some dilapidated buildings in the middle. I think there might have been a ramp at one point. This meant that when someone DID bother to hop behind the wheel, all they could really do was drive in a circle. Ideally, the other players would pile in the back of another vehicle and give chase, but in practice it was just pure chaos.

Visceral is taking the stern, world-ending military situations involving nukes and evil Russians, and trading that for more small-scale conflicts like bank robberies and heists. Instead of the hardened soldier, the developers are saying they will introduce characters like cops that don't play by the rules or slick criminals that you'd see in a TV police drama. So, you can expect characters to be line with Battlefield: Bad Company's troublemaking squad of misfits.

Visceral isn't sharing any concrete details on the single player story yet. What the developer has said is that the solo mode will incorporate the tactical choice of the multiplayer gameplay, and that the single player will include the tools, gadgets, and vehicles you see in the competitive game. As far as single player goes, that's all we've got, but there is another reason to play Hardline.

Yes, Hardline will have multiplayer. Even though the setting has changed, you're still going to get dozens of guns, heavy vehicles, and massive maps that the Battlefield series is known for. You'll spawn into your squad, capture objectives, and mount a mobile turret to take down the opposing faction, but thanks to the relatively confined, urban environments, and some clever game modes, the gameplay feels distinctly unique from the other titles in the series.

You won't see the open tank fields of the militaristic battlefield games, but you also won't be forced into the stringent, tactical mentality of a close quarters-fighting SWAT team. From what we've played, the game strikes a good balance between giving players the space they need to create the "did you see that?" Battlefield moments and keeping the action contained to one (or several) action-packed areas of the map.

Like its predecessors, Hardline gives players four classes to customize, leaving each to function as a valuable member of a squad. Enforcers are armed with light machine guns and ammo packs. The Operator carries a standard assault rifle, health packs, and can revive allies (you can also take health and ammo from teammates by pressing the interact button next to them). The mechanic can repair any vehicle if he has a repair tool on hand. Lastly, the Professional is your long-ranged sniper.

The classes all sound like carbon copies of their militarized brethren from previous games, but once you start earning cash for better weapons and gadgets (more on progression later) you can customize your urban soldier to play many different, vital roles for your team. How? Well, by equipping some of the new gadgets...

The most prominent new items you can equip to your cop or criminal are stun guns, gas masks, blunt melee weapons, gas grenades, grappling hooks, and ziplines. Most of these items are fairly self explanatory, and when you use them by themselves you don't really get much out of them. It's when you combine multiple items that things start to get interesting.

For example, equipping your Operator with an ammo bag, gas grenades, and a gas mask lets you flood enemy defensive areas with an unlimited number of vision clouding, accuracy-screwing gas canisters--making opponents easy kills in the maps' chokepoints. Stun guns, blunt weapons, and grappling hooks make it easier to sneak up on perching snipers. Just shoot a hook up a ledge behind the sniper, climb up, and incapacitate them with a stun gun or police baton. Interestingly, you're then free to interrogate them (which gives you their allies' locations).

To get all of those lovely new gadgets, you'll need to earn experience and cash. Experience works the same as it has in previous games. You'll get points for every kill, assist, and support action for your team. Each class then levels up its own progress bar to earn medals and higher ranks.

By bringing in cash as well as experience, Hardline gives you more flexibility when it comes to class customization. With the money you earn from killing cops or arresting criminals you can buy new weapons and equipment whenever you want. So, you won't necessarily have to wait until you're rank 120 to use the gun you want. You can just buy whatever items you like, save up for specific attachments and equipment, and build your unique class.

Just because you're playing as a bunch of cops and robbers doesn't mean you won't get to ride in some heavy vehicles. Along with police cruisers, four-door sedans, and motorcycles, you'll also be able to jump into armored cars with machine guns mounted at the top.

We haven't seen tanks yet, but the existing armored ground vehicles are formidable to say the least. And for those flyboys out there, you'll also get a chance to pilot various machine gun-mounted helicopters. Only, the skyscrapers and narrow flight paths will surely weed out the pilots lacking skill very quickly.

In keeping with the fresh setting, Hardline will introduce a number of exciting new modes. In the two we played, the focus is on successfully holding giant bags of loot. The Blood Money mode challenges both teams to grab money from a central location and bring it back to their vault--which the opposing team can also steal from. Even if you're behind on the loot grab, good teamwork and coordination in defending the money drop and vaults can lead to a victory. The Heist mode has even more of a cops and robbers feel. The criminals start the match by blowing up two armored trucks carrying tons of cash, which land in two separate locations. From there the criminals need to breach the trucks and take two money bags to two separate locations while the cops try to stop them. The result ends up feeling like Rush and Capture the Flag, all mixed together.

Battlefield 4 made completely destroying the map a thing in the Battlefield series, and that trend continues in Hardline. In the High Tension map, you can set a few breaching charges on a construction crane's support cables, bringing it crashing down. On the way it knocks into buildings and brings tons of debris down with it. In the aftermath, the collapsed crane makes a handy bridge shortcut for the criminal team, allowing them to move from their spawn point to the center of the map with ease.

Apart from the huge levolution events, there's still the little bits of destruction that make the battle feel more realistic. Low eaves on the sides of buildings can be blown down to make a handy ramp to higher levels, bullets chip away at concrete barriers, and underground road supports can be destroyed to make a sinkhole shortcut.

EA has confirmed that Battlefield Hardline will release on October 21, for the Xbox 360, Xbox One, PS3, PS4, and PC. It appears that the yearly release cycle for the Battlefield series is in full swing, and you won't have to wait long to play the next entry. In fact, you can download the beta on PC and PS4 right now--first come, first served.

Those are all the details we have so far about Battlefield Hardline. Are you ready to step into the urban war zone? What do you think of the series' new direction? Let us know in the comments below.

Want more on the future games coming soon? Check out our list of the .