Elder Scrolls Online is now accepting pre-orders including a digital standard edition ($60) and Imperial Digital Edition ($80). Both are must buys for those that need the extra five days of early access prior to the April launch, and include quite a few goodies to make being an early bird worthwhile.

You can check out the full details of the deal on their site… or at least you can try. The demand seems to have overwhelmed and broken their page at the moment so you might need some dedication to get in this morning!

To celebrate the start of 2014, Eutechnyx’ free-to-play online racing game and car community, Auto Club Revolution, today released the majestic Watkins Glen International track and a special challenge to its players, as well as a developer diary giving racers everywhere a behind-the-scenes look into the creation of this famous location. Known to avid racers worldwide, the New York-based track has played host to nearly every type of major road racing event since it was founded in 1948, including F1, NASCAR and Indycar.

Eutechnyx has selected three of the most popular Watkins Glen courses to include in-game, but only one – the speedy, NASCAR-style Short Route – will be available to drivers today. Giving the community added incentive to race together toward a common goal, the ACR team has issued the ‘Race to Release’ challenge, which will unlock the remaining Watkins Glen paths when completed. In order to unlock the two longer routes – the Watkins Glen Classic Boot and Watkins Glen Boot – the community must collectively race 100,000 miles at the track. Players will be updated via social media and the ACR forums as key milestones along the way are met, as well as through a unique progress tracker bar on the ACR website.

Based in Newcastle, UK, the development team, including its executive producers and track designers, worked around the clock for 12 weeks to carefully recreate Watkins Glen as accurately as possible, combing a vast sea of reference pictures, telemetry data and videos. Beginning with placing the initial track layout in the ACR virtual environment, ‘The Glen’ underwent time checking and tweaking based on camber heights and the width/length of curbs in various places to ensure that the virtual track matched its real-world counterpart. Once the layout was completed, assets were fully produced, ranging from crowd seating/stands, trees, road markings, and buildings – even portable toilets! Eutechnyx’ talented concept and environment artists worked together to add the final touches, polishing it off before working with the Quality Assurance team to ensure the track was bug-free. After final sign-off, detailed videos were sent to the track officials for approval, guaranteeing complete authenticity to the renowned Watkins Glen International.

Paradox Interactive, a publisher of games and a connoisseur of mead, has added a wide variety of new character-creation content to War of the Vikings, the upcoming close-combat game from Fatshark. Currently available via Steam Early Access, players of War of the Vikings now have the ability to design a Viking or Saxon of their own from a selection of visual components and character build options, with more choices to come when the game is released. A level progression system has also been added in the update, allowing players to unlock additional character loadout slots and more as they prove their courage in battle. War of the Vikings can be played now in Early Access; learn more by visiting warofthevikings.com

With the new in-game customizer, players can start exploring the various options that will be available when War of the Vikings is released. Combatants will have access to all in-game weapon types and a limited selection of character perks, with more weapons and perks to come at release. Visual styles can also be customized, with full access to cloak and armor patterns, shield customization including patterns and colors, and a limited selection of helmets, taunts, and – most importantly – beards. In addition, the new level progression system will allow players to advance up to level 20 (with a higher level cap coming in the release version), and unlock up to four customization and loadout slots.

War of the Vikings is available through Steam’s Early Access program now.