Love is in the air this week at Kotaku Towers, and the PS3-era charms of Helldivers 2 have us totally smitten. Meanwhile, the Palworld hype train charges on, but we’re still keeping an eye on old loves and frenemies like Baldur’s Gate 3 and Overwatch 2. These are the week’s can’t-miss tips and guides.

Third-person cooperative shooter Helldivers 2 recently landed on PC and PS5. Featuring intense, chaotic gun fights against alien threats across the galaxy it’s proven pretty popular—so much so that you might be struggling to get into a match right now due to server load. Assuming you can get into one, I’ve rounded up a number of essential settings tucked into the game’s options that might make for a better experience. - Claire Jackson Read More

After days of basically edging the community with videos of new kiss animations, Larian Studios has finally released Baldur’s Gate 3’s patch six. The roughly 21GB update brings new kisses for your lovers, quality-of-life improvements, and a slew of bug fixes. Here are a few of the highlights: - Kenneth Shepard Read More

The start of February brought a short list of new games to PlayStation Plus, and while it did have some underrated gems, it was lacking big hitters. The subscription service is rectifying that in a big way as it approaches the end of February by adding a slew of new hugely popular titles for subscribers. It’s an especially good collection of games for any RPG lovers in need of something they can sink dozens of hours into. - Willa Rowe Read More

This week love is in the air, but so are monstrous demons, brain-dead zombies, sword-swinging heroes, and plenty of gunfire. If you’re a Game Pass subscriber, you’ll be able to download 2020’s remake of Resident Evil 3 on February 13, and Bloodstained: Ritual of the Night on February 14. - Claire Jackson Read More

Co-operative PvE extraction shooter Helldivers 2 features a number of different enemy types, many of which you may have to take out to complete specific challenges. A recent challenge requiring players to take out 20 Scout Striders is one such, and it might be giving you a bit of a hard time if you’re not too experienced with taking on automatons. - Claire Jackson Read More

Overwatch 2’s ninth season has begun, and while most players are talking about the reworks and sweeping changes Blizzard has made, there’s a small subset of people whose most anticipated part of the seasonal drop is a heart. No, not the heart-shaped balloon Reaper pops in his Valentine’s Day emote; the heart-shaped crosshair you can now use to line up your shots. But how do you get it? Here’s a quick rundown. - Kenneth Shepard Read More

Free-to-play shooter Halo Infinite just got a long, long overdue update to one of its more troubled modes: Big Team Battle. Featuring 24 players at once, Infinite’s large-scale playlist was always beleaguered by the fact that it had too few maps. Any session spent in large brawls would inevitably orbit the same handful,often with the exact same maps and modes appearing back to back. But with the most recent update, you can set your sights on more varied violent horizons. - Claire Jackson Read More

Mario vs. Donkey Kong, Skull and Bones, and a remastered Tomb Raider collection are all dropping this week

Palworld, the animal-catching survival game available on PC and Xbox (it’s free on Game Pass), tasks you with fighting and catching creatures called Pals. That’s on top of basic survival tasks like resource farming, and maintaining bodily needs like hunger. While you can issue a variety of tasks to your Pals once caught, you can also choose to butcher surplus Pals to free up space or to source new materials. Yes, you read that right. - Claire Jackson Read More