This week in games: Call of Duty: WWII’s open beta, Planet Coaster gets spooky

That’s that. We’re putting a lid on what’s possibly the most crowded September game release calendar that’s ever existed. Dishonored: Death of the Outsider, Divinity: Original Sin II, Total War: Warhammer II, Project Cars 2…a lot of twos, actually.

But we’re done, which means it’s time to prep for October where we’ll only have Wolfenstein II, Assassin’s Creed: Origins, Destiny 2, South Park: The Fractured But Whole, Age of Empires IV, Middle-earth: Shadow of War, Evil Within 2, and more to deal with. Yeeeeeeaaaah.

This week you’ll find new trailers for a few of those games below, plus (finally) a new look at Red Dead Redemption 2, details on the Dark Souls community event “Return to Lordran,” a bunch of free games and free-to-try games, and a taste of Call of Duty’s funny Gesture Warfare mode. This is gaming news for September 25 to 29.

Time wasters

Publishers continue to fill your weekends with free games, provided you don’t already have a backlog a mile long. This weekend plays host to Call of Duty: WWII’s open beta, though judging from the Steam reviews it’s not going too well. Optimization is the complaint I’m seeing most often, so hopefully a patch or two can sneak through this weekend and give people a more enjoyable time. The other common complaint is “It’s Call of Duty” which…well, yeah.

There’s also Lawbreakers. No, it’s not free-to-play. (Not yet at least.) The game and its high-flying aerobatics are free to try this weekend though, seemingly with the hopes that you’ll be hooked into buying it and bolstering its floundering online community. We’ll see.

And then there’s Fortnite, or rather Fortnite’s new PUBG-”inspired” Battle Royale mode. The original Fortnite mode will continue to be sold, but this Battle Royale crossover is free-to-play. You can check it out here.

Where the buffalo roam

Hard to believe it’s been almost a year since the first Red Dead Redemption 2 trailer and we’re only now getting a second look. That is indeed the case though, as Rockstar released “Official Trailer #2” this week, featuring a chili-sipping cowboy, some gorgeous vistas, a sun-soaked cemetery, swinging horse testicles, and more.

It’s unknown if RDR2 is coming to PCs, but fingers crossed.

Frontloaded

Enormous info dump on Star Wars: Battlefront II this week, as John Boyega talks you through space battles, singleplayer, the class system, splitscreen, and more. This trailer is basically “Here’s five minutes of all the stuff the first game was missing,” and that’s a-ok with me. Oh, and there’s a multiplayer beta set for next weekend, from October 6 to 9. (October 4 if you preorder.)

Need for Speed: Horizon

The new Need for Speed: Payback continues to look like a Forza Horizoned version of Need for Speed, and provided it turns out okay I’m totally fine with that. Fingers crossed.

Big blue

I know you’re all planning to play Sonic Forces because of its deep and gripping story, so here’s a pertinent trailer. The game looks maaaaaybe good too, which is more than I can say about most modern Sonics.

The souls are back in town

Dark Souls is sort-of one of those “If you weren’t there, you missed it” games. Sure, you can still go play it and experience the wonders of Lordran, but without other people playing the game, invading other player’s worlds to either help or hinder, there’s an aspect that’s lost.

One group of fans is trying to change that though, running an annual “Return to Lordran” event that gets people on the servers all at the same time and recreates some of the magic. The second iteration starts October 4, so if you’ve been looking for that perfect time to start playing Dark Souls, better clear your October calendar.

A tribe called warmonger

After last week’s live-action trailer I thought we were done with the whole new-Shadow-of-War-orc-tribe-every-week thing, but apparently not. This one’s the Warmonger Tribe.

Self-righteous

The Evil Within 2 is the other game that’s been pushing the “Trailer of the Week” marketing button for a bit too long now. Looking forward to this one’s release on October 13, if only so my weekly round-ups can cut back on the amount of gore.

So…Warcraft IV?

This one’s more “No News” than news, as Blizzard community manager Nevalistis took to the Battle.net forums this week to say Diablo will not be featured at BlizzCon this year. No news, no updates, nothing. And definitely no Diablo IV. Probably.

Thanks to PC Gamer for the spot.

Rollercoaster horror picture show

I thought at first this new Planet Coaster “Spooky Pack” update was free like the others, but alas, no such luck. You’ll have to pay $11 to add Halloween to your amusement park. It does look like some great DLC though, adding frightful new rides, effects, signs, scenery, and so on to what’s already the best themepark builder money can buy.

Finger guns

We started with Call of Duty, so might as well end on it too right? It’s been a while since I really got hooked by Call of Duty multiplayer, and last year’s Infinite Warfare certainly didn’t do it for me. That said, this weekend the game featured a “Gesture Warfare” mode—death match, but you can kill people with emotes by crushing their heads, giving them the ol’ finger guns, and so on. (Brief) trailer below, though I recommend looking up some matches on YouTube for the full experience.