A screaming goat once told me that October is the BEST month. Not just because it's full of pumpkins (yum!) or because all the skeletons in my save file finally fit in (aww!), but because Minecraft Live is back on October 15, and this year it's bigger and blockier than ever! If you've never watched our epic, once-a-year livestream before, then you are in for a treat. Not only do we spend an hour talking about Minecraft (our favorite topic), but we dive into news from Minecraft and Minecraft: Legends; share snippets of what you can expect in the future, and reveal the winner of the hotly anticipated mob vote!

Minecraft Live returns on October 15! Tune in at 1pm EDT for news, sneak peeks, the mob vote, and more! Once the mobs have been revealed, you'll be able to cast your vote via the Minecraft Launcher, Minecraft.net, or the special event server on Minecraft: Bedrock Edition from October 13. You can even challenge yourself to mob-tastic mini-games while you're there!

As we're about to enter the second half of April, we have a pretty busy week of new game releases to look forward to, many of which are family friendly. This week's AAA title is all about Zombies, but we also have two AA titles, one that's related to Minecraft and the other with Disney. The rest of this coming week's releases are a mixed bag that includes pets, fountains and tin hearts of all things.

Dead Island 2 / This week's AAA title / Friday 21 April
This thrilling First-Person, Action RPG takes players across a brand-new playground - a hellish vision of LA (or HELL-A, as we like to call it). Dead Island 2 is stylish, vibrant and flooded with zombie infection. Explore iconic, gore-drenched Los Angeles. Meet larger-than-life characters. Slay countless foes in exquisitely bloody detail. And evolve to become the ultimate Zombie Slayer! Epic Games Store exclusive, not available on Steam.

Mojang has recently announced that they will be shutting down their Augmented Reality Minecraft Earth mobile free-to-play game on June 30th. This decision comes as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic limiting movement and collaborative play which are vital for the game. Mojang plans to re-allocate its resources and invest in areas more valuable for the Minecraft community. The game will receive one final update today which removes all in-app-purchases and reduces time requirements for in-game tasks. Players who made any purchase in the game will receive a free copy of Minecraft Bedrock Edition.

MojangMinecraft Earth was designed around free movement and collaborative play - two things that have become near impossible in the current global situation. As a result, we have made the difficult decision to re-allocate our resources to other areas that provide value to the Minecraft community and to end support for Minecraft Earth in June 2021.

Mojang has recently announced that the first of two planned DLC's for Minecraft Dungeons will launch in July. The Jungle Awakens DLC is set to bring three new missions based in a distant, dangerous jungle along with introducing an assortment of new weapons, armor, and artifacts. The Minecraft Dungeon Hero Pass can be purchased with the game or as an upgrade and includes both the Jungle Awakens DLC along with the second planned Creeping Winter DLC pack.

Microsoft has committed to continued free content upgrades for all owners of the game regardless of what edition they purchased, however, the contrast to the years of free updates for the original game is clear. Microsoft has also committed to bringing cross-platform support to the game which is available on all major consoles and PC.

In a recent Microsoft blog post, Mojang Studios announced that Minecraft has sold over 200 million copies to date, with 126 million active monthly players. This achievement comes 11 years after the game was originally released in May 2009 as a Java applet on an online forum. To this day Minecraft has remained as one of the world's most popular games from being the most-watched game on YouTube in 2019 to getting released on almost every device imaginable and still actively receiving updates.

NVIDIA today released GeForce software version 445.87 WHQL. The drivers come game-ready for "Minecraft with RTX" beta. Optimization is also added for "Call of Duty Modern Warfare 2: Campaign Remastered," "Saints Row: The Third Remastered," and "SnowRunner." Among the issues fixed are a BSOD noticed with "Rise of the Tomb Raider" in DirectX 12 mode, a black flickering in "Doom Eternal," some DirectX 11 games failing to launch with Image Sharpening being enabled, and a graphical corruption when waking up a notebook display from sleep. Grab the drivers from the link below.

DOWNLOAD: NVIDIA GeForce 445.87 Game Ready DriversThe change-log follows.

Millions of Minecraft gamers across the globe will get to experience their self-created worlds more vividly than ever before when Minecraft with RTX moves to open beta on Windows 10 this week and introduces realistic shadows, lighting and vibrant colors to the best-selling videogame of all time.

"We teamed up with Mojang Studios to bring next-generation ray tracing and AI to Minecraft and the results are truly amazing," said Jeff Fisher, senior vice president of gaming at NVIDIA. "There is a ton of excitement from the community for Minecraft with RTX, and we can't wait to see what they create."

Players of Minecraft on PlayStation 4 rejoice! Minecraft is now getting an update on the PS4 platform that enables all PlayStation users to gain access to cross-play features, so they are now able to play with millions of other players on Xbox, PC, Switch, iOS, Android, and even Samsung Gear VR platform. In the so-called "Bedrock Edition" update that arrives today, Microsoft will push new features to Minecraft and connect millions of players.

In the words of Microsoft's game studio boss Helen Chiang: "One of Minecraft's core missions is to connect players across devices and provide the best experience regardless of platform. We continue to fulfill that mission here today by welcoming PS4 players to Minecraft on Bedrock and growing our cross-platform multiplayer community".

In what will likely hit more than a few PC gamers hard, Telltale Games- the studio behind The Walking Dead, The Wolf Among Us, Tales From The Borderlands and more- will be closing. The studio currently maintains only a skeleton crew of 25 out of what once was an estimated 250 employees at peak. Sadly, the employees that were let go received no severance pay, while those remaining have been tasked with completing a single final project. Reports as to the final project are conflicting, but it appears to be the Minecraft Story Mode project for Netflix. Either way, it is the studio's last gasp as it attempts to fulfill various obligations. Meanwhile, projects like The Walking Dead final season, The Wolf Among Us 2 and others have been outright canceled.

With the whirlwind of activity surrounding the closure is still ongoing, the hashtag #TelltaleJobs on Twitter has currently begun to take off with offers from various studios letting former Telltale staff know they should apply. These studios include, but are not limited to ZeniMax Online Studios, Sony Santa Monica, PUBG corp, Gearbox and many more. While Telltale Games have been experiencing some troubles over the last year or so, its closing was still unexpected. More pressing is, what happens next for those that purchased the entire final season of The Walking Dead- with only one episode out, there is no word yet on what will happen to those that purchased it.

Update:One of the major reasons behind the closure can likely be traced to falling sales, likely leaving the company in a tough position.

Shacknews is reporting a new adventure game from Tim Schafer, Ron Gilbert, and the rest of the Double Fine Productions gang is on its way, having hit its funding goal of $400,000 only eight hours after launching a crowd-funding plan. What's more, Double Fine is now having "a lovely chat" with Minecraft creator Markus 'Notch' Persson about his offer to fund a Psychonauts sequel.

"If I were to go to a publisher right now and pitch an adventure game, they'd laugh in my face," Schafer said in a video for the KickStarter project. So Double Fine turned to its fans, seeking $300,000 to fund a new adventure game and $100,000 for video game documentary team 2 Player Productions to record its progress. The project launched at 6pm Pacific on Wednesday, and reached the $400,000 mark a touch over eight hours later.

Yes, after 2.5 years in the making and over 4 million sales, Minecraft has finally gone gold. This is the game with the charmingly blocky graphics where the player builds their cartoon world out of blocks and must hide from monsters at night. It will be officially released at the inaugural MineCon event in Las Vegas this Friday. Developer Markus "Notch" Persson head of studio Mojang announced it had gone gold on Twitter:

So, yes. Minecraft has gone gold.