It’s been around a year since the Kickstarter that did so well for Playtonic – Yooka-Laylee – finished and in that time there’s been snippets of news from the team. Mainly though they’ve been keeping quiet to work on the game, until earlier today when they released a massive update to backers of their campaign.

Firstly we were introduced to the central conflict of Yooka-Laylee’s world – namely that a hostile takeover of company Quack Corp by Diabolical Publishing Corporation has meant that the duo are currently venturing about the corporate building of Hivory Towers to recover Pagies and unlock the mysterious Grand Tomes. Diabolical seek to control all the world’s literature and make as much dollar from it as possible, lead by villain Capital B.

Joining the cast will be the previously announced Trowzer, a snake salesman who will sell you the unlocks for certain moves which you can unlock in any order you wish; Dr. Quack who was the former head of Quack Corp and is now inventing all sorts of inventions to keep the Diabolical shareholders happy; Dr. Puzz who was Quack’s former protege, now turned helper for Yooka and Laylee and will be responsible for transformations yet to be detailed and many more yet to be talked about.

Obviously there’s still a lot more to be revealed yet, but the play style will be very reminiscent of Yooka-Laylee’s forefather game, Banjo-Kazooie. More details will be coming in the next few months, with a feature in Edge Magazine on May 26th, reports on various gaming online channels and a showing at the Electronic Entertainment Expo. Also, for those who backed the game to a certain level (and I’m one of those people), Playtonic have said that the sandbox of the game will be releasing to them in July. The sandbox is intended to be a spoiler-free way for players to get used to the platforming style that will be Yooka-Laylee’s bread and butter.

As someone who loved Banjo-Kazooie as a child and can count herself among some of the first backers of the Kickstarter, I can’t wait to see Yooka-Laylee’s full release. Even if right now Playtonic have said they’re not ready to set a date in stone yet.

If you’re looking forward to the Blood and Wine expansion that’s coming out soon for The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt but don’t actually own the base game or one/both of the last two Witcher games, you might want to keep reading.

Right now GOG is holding a sale of The Witcher series, which includes pre-ordering the afore-mentioned expansion to the game. It also includes all 3 of the games and the Hearts of Stone expansion. Take a look at the prices below:

• The Witcher – $1.50
• The Witcher 2: Assassins of Kings – $3
• The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt – $25
• The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt Hearts of Stone – $9
• The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt Blood and Wine (pre-purchase) – $18
• The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt Game and Expansion Pass – $50
• The Witcher Adventure Game – $1.50

As always with GOG, the games are DRM-free as well. The sale period will run through to the end of the month and will end on Wednesday, June 1st at 10am PST.

Following on from the trial and jailing of one Youtube prankster, others associated with the same channel have now been jailed for their part in similar pranks.

The group of men, part of the Youtube prankster group Trollstation, staged numerous ‘pranks’ including fake ‘robberies’ that one member of the group has already been jailed for at the National Portrait Gallery and the Tate Gallery.

CCTV footage has been released of the prank from the National Portrait Gallery where on July 5th 2015 shortly after 3:30pm five men burst into the building with covered faces, yelling and screaming at nearby patrons before leaving with prop framed artworks to give the impression that there had been a public armed robbery of the Gallery. The same stunt was pulled off at the Tate as well later in the same day.

Four of the five men were arrested on the day of the incident and were charged with public order offences; pleading guilty to an offence under Section 4 Public Order Act 1986, namely causing fear and provocation of violence. They were all jailed today for their parts.

Daniel Raymond Marcus Jarvis, 27 of Gravesend, Kent was jailed for 20 weeks for his role in the National Portrait Gallery incident and eight weeks for his involvement in the Tate Gallery offence. Both will run concurrently.

Endrit Ferizolli, 20 of , Brent was jailed for 16 weeks for his role in the National Portrait Gallery incident and eight weeks for his involvement in the Tate Gallery offence. Both will run concurrently at a Youth Offending Institute.

Ebenezer Mensah from SE15 was jailed for 18 weeks for his role in the National Portrait Gallery incident and eight weeks for his involvement in the Tate Gallery offence. Both will run concurrently.

Helder Gomes, 23, of Lambeth was jailed for 18 weeks for his role in the National Portrait Gallery incident and eight weeks for his involvement in the Tate Gallery offence. Both will run concurrently.

Trollstation is just one of many ‘prankster’ channels that have recently become popularised upon Youtube, with channels seemingly competing to gain viewers with ever more daring stunts. While some know where to draw the line, a worrying number of stories similar to this one have been surfacing recently of pranks that could cause worry or distress, with a few extending to much worse matters.

Recently a lot of companies have been getting stricter with players found cheating in their online multiplayer games. For example, after some well-publicized exploits within the new game The Division Ubisoft not only implemented some new detection methods but upped their ‘first offense’ penalty while keeping the ‘second offense’ the same as it had always been – perma-ban.

Now Blizzard have come out saying that anyone found cheating in their new game Overwatch will get a permanent ban as well. Difference is, Blizzard aren’t messing around and have said they will do this upon a player’s first offense.

To be totally clear the quote from the post about cheating on the Overwatch forums says that Blizzard will slap this ban upon any player “found to be cheating—or using hacks, bots, or third-party software that provides any sort of unfair advantage”. It then goes on to inform players about how they can report cheating as well as the guidelines for doing so.

Blizzard have a small history of this, having tackled cheaters in Diablo the same way back in 2012 and also banned botters in Hearthstone during 2014; although that occasion saw the bans only being temporary ones.

Check out the topic here for the full details. And make sure you behave in game when Overwatch releases on May 24th. Wouldn’t want to see any of you banned for not playing fair. 😉

In a surprise move for an age in which release dates are constantly being pushed back, Titanfall 2 has been announced to be releasing months before its previously estimated release date of before Match 2017.

While that usually means we’d be looking at maybe an early 2017 release window, GameSpot has seen an earnings report from the publisher EA in which the release date has been narrowed down to be launched during the third fiscal quarter of the year. In other words, around October to December.

This probably means that for their big sequel EA are aiming to get Titanfall 2 out just around Christmas towards the end of that quarter. They’ve another game coming out too that is similar, with Battlefield 1 having a release date of October 21st and Call of Duty’s latest incarnation Infinite Warfare from rival Activision releasing on November 4th. EA will probably want to avoid releasing too near either for the risk of losing sales due to players having to choose just one shooter genre game at the time.

Of course, this is far from a confirmation of any release date, but it’s a fair bet we’ll see Titanfall 2 being advertised as a gift for this Christmas, and it’ll be available on both Xbox One and PS4 along with PC so it’s hitting the three major platforms as well.

Hopefully it’ll be just as attention grabbing as the first game, but maybe have a little more longevity.