The 4X genre (eXplore, eXpand, eXploit, and eXterminate) continues to thrive, with pillar franchises continuing to fill PC gamers’ desire for domination. One of the most recent shining stars of the genre, Galactic Civilizations III, is about to get even bigger.

The game has been updated a number of times since its 2015 launch. In February, it will get its first major expansion.

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If green is your gaming color of choice, you have four new games to look forward to in February. You’ll be able to start grabbing the new games on Monday.

Hand of Fate - February 1 through 29Styx: Master of Shadows - February 16 through March 15

Sacred Citadel - February 1 through 15Gears of War 2 - February 16 through 29

Nintendo has announced that all the network functionality of Super Mario Maker will be down until tomorrow.

According to the company, the outage for server maintenance will last until tomorrow, January 28 at 7 PM central time.

Until then you're still free to enjoy any of the game's offline features.

For those attending E3, walking into one of the massive halls has meant an enormous booth full of EA’s upcoming games. That space at the Los Angeles Convention Center will be occupied by another group, as the mega-publisher has opted to move offsite.

EA has announced EA Play, which will be open to the public at its own venue. The three-day event, from June 12 through 14, will be held at Club Nokia at LA Live, right near the convention center.

Those across the pond won’t be left out. A one-day London event will be held at The Mermaid.

Perhaps you're like me and you're not intimately familiar with tessellation and anisotropic filtering; that's fine, because this video for Rise of the Tomb Raider will show you exactly how and why the PC version looks better than the one already out on Xbox One.

As the video below amply demonstrates, the improvements come in areas such as lighting, textures, and surface detail.

The PC version of Rise of the Tomb Raider is available on January 28.

EA has dropped the patch notes for Star Wars Battlefront's January update, and they include a variety of rebalances and tweaks. Players who have grown fond of one of the galaxy's most notorious bounty hunters should brace themselves, as Boba Fett is a little less deadly.

Along with Han Solo, Fett's weapon damage over distance has been lowered. That's not all, however. His missiles no longer lock on, so players will need to pay more attention to aiming. The explosive radius of Fett's wristlaunchers has shrunk from 4 to 2.5 meters, though the area in which it deals out max damage has slightly increased (by .2 meters). Even Slave One has taken a hit, with its health decreasing by 20 percent. In short, he's not quite as powerful as he was before. Look at the bright side: It still beats fumbling your way down into a giant mouth.

Other highlights include Hoth outfits for Luke Skywalker and Solo, which were previously available in a holiday community mission, private-match functionality, daily challenges, and a host of new spawn points and measures to prevent spawn camping. 

Sony hasn’t yet announced the PlayStation Plus games for February, but we have a good idea of what’s coming to PS4. A banner popped up early on the PlayStation Store giving us a hint of what to expect.

If the image nabbed by Reddit users is accurate, we’ll be getting Helldivers (our review) and Nom Nom Galaxy on February 2. The image (captured by PlayStation user “BloodErgo”), taken from the Polish version of the store, promises these games are coming to the service soon.

We’ll update with the complete, confirmed list as soon as we are able. For now, don’t forget to grab your January games. 

Dying Light's upcoming The Following DLC has all kinds of additions, and a new one was revealed today – a new difficulty.

Nightmare Mode has longer nights, stronger enemies, stamina and XP restrictions, and no more Easter egg weapons. There are a few other tweaks the the game to make it harder (and more rewarding) and you can learn about them in the video below.

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The time to offer your own submission of who should stand alongside games like Pong, Pac-Man, Super Mario Bros., Tetris, Doom, and World of Warcraft is now.

If it wasn't clear, the list above are the games that are already part of The Strong Museum of Play's World Video Games Hall of Fame, but it is currently taking submissions for new entries here. The window for submissions closes on February 29. Finalists will be announced on March 29, and then and the inductees will be revealed at a special ceremony on May 5.

For more on the Museum and the Hall of Fame head here.

Insomniac has a new game in the works, and the studio is offering some hints. A new teaser promises a full reveal coming later this week.

We don’t know a name or platforms, but it appears this game will be taking us underwater. We’ll find out for sure at 8:30 a.m. Central (6:30 a.m. Pacific / 9:30 a.m. Eastern).

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