On PC, The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt can import a Witcher 2 save file to "impact your playthrough" of the third entry, but on consoles CD Projekt is taking a different approach. In a roundtable interview Level Designer Miles Tost told Joystiq that The Witcher 3 will look to simulate world states based on decisions taken in an in-game conversation.

"The way how it works is that the game on the consoles will ask you whether you want to simulate a specific state of the world, coming from previous games," Tost explained. "If you choose 'yes,' then you will get a special conversation at one part of the game - I don't want to spoil where it happens. It's basically a conversation with a character and the conversation is about the adventures of Geralt of Rivia. And you can basically deny or confirm whatever [the character] has heard of whatever tales of [Geralt.] It's actually kind of a cute mechanic. If you don't want to simulate the state then this conversation doesn't take place."

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Following a reveal earlier this month, developer Iron Galaxy has issued a proper trailer for Omen that, like past Killer Instinct character trailers, is nearly overshadowed by a cameo at the end.

The walking mass of rocks and shrubs that crashes onto camera and squishes Orchid is named Golem. Whether or not words can hurt you is irrelevant, as Golem brings both sticks and stones - two items notorious for bone trauma - to the Xbox One-exclusive fight. Unfortunately, beyond that brief footage, none-too-surprising name and the pun about sticks and stones, we know nothing about this new fighter. Outside of this brief footage, Iron Galaxy has yet to reveal any useful information on Golem.

We can tell you, however, that Omen will join Killer Instinct later this week. On January 30, the character will be available for owners of Killer Instinct Ultra Edition, while those with Killer Instinct Combo Breaker Edition will be waiting until February 5.

Destiny designer Luke Smith recently addressed concerns over Bungie's future updates for the game. Namely, Smith said "the mistakes [Bungie] made with the DLC1 reward economy will not be repeated," in a NeoGAF thread, admitting the developer's previous attempts at expanding the first-person shooter with add-on content resulted in a few problems for players. Smith claims the developer will avoid mistakes such as "vendor gear invalidating the effort of [Vault of Glass] Raiders" and exotic gear upgrades resulting in a talent reset.

"Our philosophy about rewards/loot continue to evolve as we see how players play and react," Smith wrote. He noted that item drop rates appear to be "much improved" in the Crota's End DLC compared to Vault of Glass, and that Bungie plans to "improve acquisition stories and frequency" as well as "lessen the grind and get players to the fun parts of their arsenal faster." It issued a hot fix for Destiny in December to boost the drop rates for the Crota's End raid mission.

Alongside its "early 2015" PC, Mac and Xbox One debut, publisher Daedalic Entertainment has announced that lovely, snowbound adventure Silence: The Whispered World 2 will be released on the PlayStation 4.

A sequel to 2010's The Whispered World, Silence: The Whispered World 2 casts players as Noah, a 16-year-old boy attempting to find his younger sister in the ethereal world of Silence. The duo enter Silence in an effort to escape from a war in their world, but quickly find that the wondrous land of Silence is also embroiled in conflict (not to mention populated by nasty beasts and self-serving political factions). It's sort of a Chronicles of Narnia situation, only with fewer Christian allegories in the form of sage predatory felines.

Though the original Whispered World featured 2D graphics, Silence: The Whispered World 2 employs 3D models and a method the developers call "camera projection" that "allows [the artists] to maintain the high detail level of our hand-drawn art, while still being able to use the benefits of 3D game design."

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GLAAD (Gay and Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation) has given a special recognition award to Dragon Age: Inquisition. The 26th Annual GLAAD Media Awards, which has a laundry list of award categories, including comics, singled out the BioWare RPG from the video game pack.

David Gaider, lead writer for the Dragon Age series at BioWare has spoken in the past about the "hump of assumptions" involved in creating and including lesbian, gay, bisexual or transgender characters in video games. Inquisition featured the first "fully gay" characters in the series. Straight and bisexual characters have been a BioWare standard for over a decade.

Bioware parent company, Electronic Arts, has also repeated received a 100 percent rating from the Human Rights Campaign's Corporate Equality Index. The publisher earned the achievement again in 2015.

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I'm calling it now: the Kickstarted Adventures of Pip from developer TicToc Games is going to win cutest game of 2015. I don't care that we're not even to the end of January; Pip is so cute that I want him in a kids' TV show. He's so heart-meltingly precious that I want plush figures and a breakfast cereal themed after him.

Pip is so gawl-darned lovable and sweet that it makes me deeply, deeply angry.

The game's charming aesthetic masks a sinister beast. For despite the playful bounce of our square-shaped hero and the bright colors that surround him, this is a world looking to commit straight-up pixelated murder.

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Guru Games isn't afraid of having their recently-announced game, Magnetic: Cage Closed compared to Portal. In fact, that's where it started: a school project designed as an homage to both Valve's famous, meme-producing first-person puzzler and lesser-known horror/suspense film, Cube.

Magnetic takes place in an alternate history version of the 1960s, where inmates sentenced to death can be sold for scientific testing. Such is your fate, as you are a prisoner charged with testing the D27 Magnetic Propulsion Device – or, in simpler terms, a magnet gun.

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Wandering the halls of PAX South, a pattern begins to emerge: the 8-bit style resurgence has well and truly ended. While '80s nostalgia still rumbles throughout the booths of small developers, '90s style is what's playing on the screens. For newer players exhausted of blocky pixels in every other cult hit of the past five years, the chunky, dense neon of this 16/32-bit inspired games will be as welcome and vibrant as they were to players 25 years ago. To players of that era, games like Gunsport feel like home.

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Following a raid by local authorities, informants at publisher EA were compelled to give up detailed information on the multiplayer maps and game modes included in the upcoming cops versus robbers shooter Battlefield Hardline.

The nine maps included in Battlefield Hardline all seem either ripped from a Michael Mann heist film or from one of the earlier, military-focused Battlefield games. Bank Job centers around an imposing financial institution that must be relieved of its cash, Hollywood Heights is populated by expansive houses likely belonging to media moguls and hip hop artists and Riptide is an ocean-front map that continues the Battlefield series' long-running fascination with gun battles set against a tidal backdrop. There's also a map called "Growhouse," but we're guessing you can figure out what happens there. A full rundown on each of the maps can be found on the game's website.

Battlefield Hardline will include seven gameplay modes, ranging from the classic to the wholly novel. Conquest is a Battlefield mainstay mode that pits teams of players (up to 64 in total) against one another in a battle to see who can control certain areas of the map. Blood Money, by contrast, is a new mode where both cops and robbers attempt to swipe money from the opposing teams' vault while gunfire rages all around. Perhaps the most intriguing new mode is Hotwire, a vehicle-focused addition in which the criminal team attempts to steal a list of cars while the cops try to stop them with extreme prejudice, leading to the sorts of high-speed gunfights pictured above. Full details on the game modes found in Battlefield Hardline can also be found on the game's website.

Battlefield Hardline is slated to launch on PlayStation 3, PlayStation 4, Xbox 360, Xbox One and PC on March 17.

Free-to-play PC MMO All Points Bulletin: Reloaded is coming to consoles, thanks to a collaboration between publisher Deep Silver and developers Reloaded Games and The Workshop Entertainment.

Barring catastrophe, APB: Reloaded is planned to launch on the PlayStation 4 and Xbox One in the second quarter of 2015. The game will be free-to-play on both consoles, and while APB: Reloaded will be available for download to all PlayStation 4 owners, only those Xbox One owners with valid Xbox Live Gold subscriptions will be able to join the massively multiplayer game's perpetual crime spree.

For those who don't keep tabs on mid-tier MMOs, APB: Reloaded began life in 2010 as APB: All Points Bulletin, a sort of mashup of World of Warcraft and Grand Theft Auto 3, under developer Realtime Worlds. Only a few months after APB: All Points Bulletin launched, Realtime Worlds went into administration (think of it as the European equivalent of bankruptcy) and the game's servers were shut down. Eventually the property was purchased and relaunched with a new developer (Reloaded Games) and new title. According to Deep Silver, since its rebirth in 2011, the PC version of APB: Reloaded has been downloaded more than five million times.

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As promised late last year, developer Redlynx has added online multiplayer gameplay modes to its stunt-platforming motorcycle game Trials Fusion in a new, free update.

According to publisher Ubisoft, the new online multiplayer options support up to eight players, and include three gameplay options. Online-X Supercross pits eight players against each other in a series of three races, while Private Game and Private Game With Spectator allow players to alter race parameters, ranging from track to speed and handling to the strength of gravity, before the event.

Additionally, Ubisoft has announced that the fourth Trials Fusion DLC pack, entitled "Fire In The Deep," will arrive on January 27. Described as the "biggest downloadable content pack yet," Fire In The Deep will include "11 new tracks, five new achievements and trophies to unlock, 27 new track challenges and dozens of new editor objects." Like all Trials Fusion DLC packs, Fire In The Deep is priced at $5, but can also be found among the five DLC packs included in the $20 Trials Fusion Season Pass.

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It's easy to forget the Xbox's place inside the Windows empire. The bespoke platform is hinged on games and entertainment, looming over the console world but still living in its own fiefdom under Microsoft. The Xbox 360 and Xbox One are seen as instrumental to the software giant's goals, but their reach is about a billion behind that of Windows. Microsoft wants to dismantle the barriers within itself now, unifying games, productivity and phones under the banner of Windows 10.

The Xbox One will host new universal apps – programs designed to run on both Windows devices and Xbox architecture – alongside a Windows 10 update later this year, but that's a lesser gesture compared to what Microsoft announced on Wednesday during its Windows 10 event. Even having the Xbox and its games there, on stage, represents a change in the Windows message.

Head of Xbox, Phil Spencer, took that stage to announce a PC version of Fable Legends, the latest entry in developer Lionhead's long-running and lovably lighthearted fantasy role-playing series. Not only is the game coming to Windows PC players, but it's coming in a way that allows them to play and chat with Xbox One players through Xbox Live. According to Spencer, it's the first game of several first-party Xbox games coming to PC.

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