Fortnite is unstoppable, where it was only back in January that the game was home to 40 million players, 125 million in June, and now the phenomenon has passed 200 million players.

The news comes at a time when Fortnite is seeing 8.3 million concurrent players, and it is easily going mainstream on TV shows and real-life sporting events. It's on as many platforms as you can imagine: PC, Xbox One, PS4, Nintendo Switch, Android, and iOS. The constant refinement and tweaks and new content that Epic Games is putting into it helps, as it doesn't let Fortnite players get bored.

Epic Games recently announced the $1 million Winter Royale tournament, something it has using its new $100 million injection of funds for esports tournaments for. It was only a couple of days ago mega star Drake reportedly had his Fortnite account hacked, with Twitch champion Ninja noticing Drake joined his Fortnite game, but it wasn't really Drake. The user had hacked his account and then started throwing racist remarks out, which is a big no-no on Twitch, and anywhere really.

Red Dead Online is live today for select gamers, and includes five PVP modes alongside a dynamically-layered world full of missions and content.

Red Dead Redemption 2's GTA Online-like multiplayer mode is on the horizon, but first Rockstar needs to stress test servers with a beta. The testing phase will be jam-packed full of content and comes with five PVP modes including a battle royale mode called Make It Count, which is like a minimalist BR mode. Make It Count starts players out with limited weapons like bows, arrows and throwing knives and forces players to compete in an ever-shrinking arena.

Other gametypes include: a classic deathmatch and team deathmatch combo, which has players dueling at high noon with shooting irons and other Wild West weaponry; a bounty hunter-esque mode called Most Wanted which is like Juggernaut from Halo; Hostile Territory, a land control mode that should be quite chaotic and fun; and Name Your Weapon, which has you select a personal deadly tool to use in FFA or team deathmatch action.

Industry analyst Michael Pachter has some free advice for Activision: release Black Ops 4's Blackout mode as a separate free-to-play game in 2019.

The battle royale balance of power has shifted towards Fortnite for one big reason: it's free. Anyone can play it free of charge, making it massively more accessible than $30 PlayerUnknown's Battlegrounds. Accessibility is a main pillar of proper engagement-driven live services, and with easy access comes more engagement which can then turn into more money. One analyst thinks this trend needs to bleed over into AAA gaming.

As it stands now, most AAA live games combine both free-to-play and buy-to-play at the same time. Games like Call of Duty: Black Ops 4 have a $60 entry fee despite it being a multiplayer-only game, and embrace F2P-style microtransactions for recurring cashflow. Blackout is currently tied to the full game paygate. But Activision could follow Fortnite in one key way: making Black Ops 4's popular Blackout mode into a standalone free battle royale game on consoles and PC.

Obsidian Entertainment's new unannounced RPG will probably be built with Epic's versatile and scalable Unreal Engine 4.

Now that the RPG makers at Obsidian are Microsoft-owned, the team is apparently pivoting away from its proprietary Onyx games engine in favor of a more modern and flexible solution. At a university talk, Obsidian programmer Roby Atadero confirmed the studio's next game would be powered by Unreal Engine 4. This pivot will arm the studio with powerful tech and dislodge them from an antiquated engine.

Obsidian has yet to announce its new RPG, but sources told TweakTown in 2017 that the project is led be Fallout creator Tim Cain, and that it'd be "Obsidian's answer to Fallout." Blizzard alum Leonard Boyarsky is also on board with the game.

Publishers have tunnel vision on how to monetize their games and it's holding them back, says industry analyst Michael Pachter.

Microtransactions, season passes, DLC and subscriptions are contentious points in game communities...but they don't necessarily have to be. It's possible for developers and publishers to properly monetize their games in a favorable way; Path of Exile, for example, does this with cosmetic-only purchases. There's lots of potential to engage and monetize even further without pissing off gamers, but publishers have to widen their views past the billion dollar lootbox market and pay-to-play scheme.

In order to really tap the potential for monetization, publishers have to be more flexible and be willing to give away freebies in exchange for farther reach. The current structure is rigid and typically sees a buy-to-play game accompanied by a free-to-play monetization structure that thrives on a linear but cycling formula: full game sales, engagement, and monetization (I've outlined how service games work in my Fallout 76 article).

Last week, we saw that the Star Wars Battlefront II: Battle of Geonosis official trailer released and now that the update is being pushed to the live game we have some lengthy gameplay footage released.

The above 20 minute video takes us to the frontlines of a Galactic Assault on Geonosis. We see clone troopers, Obi-Wan Kenobi's abilities, vehicles such as the AT-TE, STAP, and Barc Speeder. The video also shows General Grievous' new hero skin shattered armor and a great insight at what players will be jumping into.

Star Wars Battlefront 2 Obi-Wan Kenobi and Geonosis arrive on November 28 for the Xbox One, Xbox One X, PC and PS4 Pro. In the entirety of this post you will find each of the timestamps for the respective features that are found in the video. For more information, visit the official EA Star Wars website here.

Darksiders III is about to release and in celebration of the titles debut we have been blessed with some brand new concept art pieces as well as glorious wallpapers.

Gunfire Games, the developer of Darksiders has taken to the PlayStation Blog to release these images. John Pearl, Design Director at Gunfire Games has taken the helm of the post and gives us some insight towards the design direction artists took when creating what we will be seeing in Darksiders III. "The world of Darksiders has always been replete with outlandish beings, weaponry and environments. Interpreting planet earth's Apocalypse and its inhabitants for Darksiders III was like working inside a playground for our artists. No design direction was off-limits."

The blog post reveals some behind the scenes artistic imagery of the progression enemy designs went through, the images showcase their original concepts before they were brought to life. Not only were early concepts released, but we also have been gifted with six mobile wallpapers featuring the third horseman of the Apocalypse, Fury. We can see from the wallpapers that Gunfire has given fans four different forms to choose from. We have fire, earth, ice and storm. All of which are available to download in their full resolutions. Darksiders III will be released on November 27th, 2018 and will be coming to the Xbox One, PS4 and PC. For more information visit the PlayStation blog post here.

Amazon has announced through the Amazon Deals Twitch Stream a new Kingdom Hearts III DLC that is exclusively available to the pre-ordering the title.

Players that pre-order Kingdom Hearts III through Amazon will receive a bonus DLC titled 'Dawn till Dusk' which contains a standard Kingdom Key Keyblade. The above Twitter post showcases the pre-order package and we can see that Keyblade features symbols of the moon, sun and star. It is unclear if this Keyblade will be arriving in gamers hands with special bonus in-game stats or not.

From the announcement, this exclusive offer will only be available to those in the United States and Canada. Amazon Prime members who pre-order Kingdom Hearts III will get $10 of Amazon back-pay once that package is pre-ordered. Kingdom Hearts III will be released on January 29th, 2019 and will be arriving on the Xbox One and PS4.

Nintendo are currently under the pump as these recent Super Smash Bros. Ultimate leaks have taken over the internet, widespread copyright strikes are hitting any account that spreads information.

If you haven't heard already, full copies of Super Smash Bros. Ultimate have arrived in the hands of many users that pre-ordered the game through Mexican retailers. Nintendo are currently on a full frontal assault against these users as this leak for Ultimate is not only the biggest leak the Smash Bros. franchise has seen, but could be the biggest leak a game in general has experienced before its release.

Any users that are posting Smash Bros. Ultimate content early are being flagged and copyright striked. Admins on forums etc are having a field day with banning users that are posting these spoilers, with the abundance of spoilers being more than apparent, portions of members in these communities have temporarily left in anger. Many users that have early copies are downloading Ultimates music and re-uploading it to their YouTube Channels, these accounts are being hit with copyright strikes from Nintendo and are being taken down completely. Nintendo could now be enduring the biggest leak that the company has experienced for a game under their umbrella, I'd expect that we should hear a statement from Nintendo sometime soon regarding this complete mess.

Right now the internet is on fire in terms of Super Smash Bros. Ultimate leaks popping up everywhere, Nintendo are currently attempting to maintain the blaze with copyright strikes but it doesn't seem to be going as planned.

Just two weeks out from the release of Super Smash Bros. Ultimate we are experiencing a massive influx of leaks springing up all over Smash Bros forums and discussion groups. The leaks are originating from players that pre-ordered their copies of Smash Ultimate through Mexican retailers, select retailers have released some copies early causing numerous vital pieces of Ultimates information to be leaked online. These players that have gotten their copy early have proceeded to post images, videos and answers to questions on forums, groups and threads across the internet.

Not only is their players leaking information out to the public, but dataminers that have gotten their hands-on the full copy of Ultimate have dived into full game files, revealing crucial information such as the amount of spirits found in the game, Amiibo cap level, World of Light information, boss information, music tracks and much more. It should also be noted that many of these dataminers are mixing in fake information of their own with their leaks, so if you don't mind spoilers and are reading up on what has been released so far, don't expect everything you read to be 100% confirmed. If you want to see what has hit the internet but don't want spoilers the Leak Megathread found on the Smashbros subreddit is relatively spoiler free, view at your own discretion here.