What are we all playing this weekend?

If we're to have some sort of National Video Game Day in the UK—and I assume industry bodies will one day attempt to make it happen—we should have it on November 5th to run alongside Bonfire Night. Explosions, colours, people going "ooh" and "ahh", teenagers running amok and threatening people, some sort of message that's broadly ignored or forgotten... it's a perfect match. But which video games are you playing to go with the outside explosions? Here's what we're clicking on!

Alice Bee
I've got quite into Elden Ring, although I am still bimbling around Limgrave running away from sudden dragons. My main issue is that I keep doing that thing where I get a load of runes, die, and then die again before re-collecting said runes, and then I quit because I'm too angry to play for the rest of the night.

Alice0
No time for games because I am visiting a friend in Yorkshire. I cannot do anything the easy way, so for adventure's sake I am going several hours by train then finishing the journey with several hours on my bicycle. I remember walking up some hills in Yorkshire a few years back but have never cycled there. The hills aren't there for bikes too, are they?

CJ
My daughter's rehearsing for a pantomime that's happening later this month, so we'll be hovering around to support her with that for a surprisingly large chunk of the weekend. There's also the endless cycle of children's birthday parties to attend, and both my kids are off to some this week. That might leave me with a bit of time to hop into the Frog Detective series now it's all on Game Pass, and I'm intrigued by The Legend Of Tianding and Signalis too. Other than that, Overwatch 2 and Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 beckon.

Ed
I've got a totally free weekend, which means I'll be sinking some more time into Xenoblade Chronicles 3 with my anime pals. I've had an inkling to dive back into Nioh 2 as well, because I hate relaxation!

Hayden
I imagine most of my weekend will be spent levelling up guns to unlock more guns, and then levelling those up to unlock more guns, and then levelling those to actually get the guns I want in Modern Warfare 2. It's a messy system, but I do weirdly appreciate that it's forcing me to use weapons I'd normally never touch. Until those weapons are garbage, at least. Then I hate it.

James
I fear I'm being sucked into Call Of Duty: Modern Warfare 2's multiplayer, despite past assertions that I was spent on CoD deathmatches sometime around 2014. And, much more recently, a match that was ruined by one seemingly immortal cretin running around bashing me to death with a riot shield. Team? Team???

Katharine
is on hols!

Liam
Alongside Call of Duty 19: Modern Warfare 2: 2 and Persona 5, I'll also be playing a bit of World Of Warcraft of all things. Ed and I have recently started playing it as part of an upcoming thing (watch this space!) and I'm excited to finally see what all of the fuss is about.

Ollie
I'm hoping to carve some time out of my busy Overwatch 2 schedule to try out the new Apex map, Broken Moon. From what I've seen it looks very fun - like a cross between Olympus and Kings Canyon, with the ziprail network connecting everything for high speed rollercoaster-like travel. I look forward to being haplessly set upon by third, fourth, and fifth-parties in entirely new locales for the foreseeable future.

Rachel
It's Signalis for me. I've not had time this week to check it out so I'm setting aside my entire Sunday as I'm desperate to play it.

Rebecca
It's co-op time because The Past Within is out! My partner and I both became big Rusty Lake fans over the course of our relationship but, oddly, years apart and completely independently of each other. Still, we're both caught up and fully invested now, conveniently in time to take on this creepy cube escape series' first two-player outing. So this weekend, don't talk to us until we've had our damn fine coffee and cherry pie to die for, because we've got some puzzles to solve in both the third and the fourth dimensions. (Can you tell I'm excited?)

But you, reader dear, what are you playing this weekend?