2016 will be a year jam-packed with new games and exciting experiences. Here are just two we've picked out as highlights to lookforward to for 2016 which you might not expect, and certainly add some new flavour to the gaming sphere. Mirror’s Edge Catalyst The prequel to the critically acclaimed Mirrors Edge is finally on the tip of the release tongue, with fans waiting 6 years for a new game. With the DiCE team, we know the 6 years wait will most definitely be worth it. We see footage of a familiar face, the games’ female protagonist Faith Connors gliding through the City of Glass, fighting against an oppressive police state and fighting for the people’s freedom. The original Mirrors Edge offered very strict, scripted levels, with the only mobility being a few different ways to traverse the limited environment, however, with technological advancements and the new Frostbite 3 engine, players will enter an open-world which will give the player more freedom, and opens doors to new puzzles and scenarios. The combat system has been heavily overhauled, focusing on the pacifistic narrative of Faith, removing guns as a weapons choice all together. Prepare to run across this beautiful city on May 26, 2016 on PS4, PC and XBOX ONE. Doom DOOM is a series of games which needs no introduction. The godfather of FPS shoot ’em games is set to return with a gore fueled bang this year, brought to us by id Software. The game tears away from the survival horror of DOOM 3, a game which failed to live up to the high expectations of many fans, and instead returns to a bullet storm hell scape in which you tear apart enemies with your bare hands and blast them into a thousand pieces with signature weapons. The unofficial motto of the game appears to be “”badass demons, big effing guns, and moving really fast”. The Revenant, Mancubus, and Cyberdemon return from previous games, and with slight redesigns look as scary and fun as ever. The game ignores modern cover mechanics to try and adopt a fast paced run and gun system, in an attempt to please old fans of the original games. Multiple multiplayer modes return to DOOM, such as four-player deathmatch, domination, freeze tag, and clan arena. A new addition to the game will be the Doom “SnapMap” where players can construct new game maps and modes and then share their content online with other players. The game will be hitting XBOX ONE, PS4 and PC later this year.

YouTube have introduced a Trending tab on their homepage and apps that shows a list of videos currently gaining traction. YouTube announced on their blog yesterday a new Trending feature to coincide with the release of their YouTube Rewind 2015 video, a recap of the year on YouTube. With YouTube Trending it’s now easier than ever to find the hottest new videos that are quickly gaining views. As YouTube say on their blog: “It’s the best way to catch the videos, creators, and trends that people watch, share, and talk about each and every day. See ’em as they take off and before they appear in YouTube Rewind 2016.” The Trending tab uses an algorithm that examines videos based on their comments, views and “external references”, assumably how much a video has been shared. The tab will vary slightly depending on your location, for localised content, but won’t relate to your viewing history in any way. On the YouTube Android application you can also select from a number of categories including music, gaming, and news, for specific viral videos. My personal experience of the Trending tab so far has shown a slightly mismatched feed of news clips, celebrity moments, sports and famous YouTuber’s videos. Whether this feature is likely to appeal to people is yet to be seen but whether it does or not, having only been released for a day I’m sure we can expect to see improvements especially if YouTube curate the feed to a greater extent.

A problem which most content creators encounter, and a tough challenge all of us have is coming up with that quirky yet cool video idea which will hopefully rake in the views. But others find it much harder, and more frustrating, to invent a catchy video title, which they are happy with creatively, and one which helps you appear in any search results. There is a clever trick to this which is more obvious than may first appear! Let us share this little secret trick with you. A large proportion of your video views will actually stem from user search. Especially if your subscriber count isn’t in the hundreds of thousands, you will get more views from searches than your subscribers. The trick is; to tailor your YouTube titles to what the viewers are currently searching for. This will indicate the most popular searches for your content. For instance, if your video is on a Headset unboxing, then type this into the YouTube search bar and study the results. As you can see in the image, “test”, “review”, and “microphone” are shown as some of the more popular results. To craft a title, simply take these key words to form something similar to “Tutrtle Beach X12 review an unboxing, including microphone test!”. This method will make sure you hit those key searches and incease the maximum amount of views you will receive. This next trick isn’t as vital as a good title which hits all of the buzzwords, but should help gather some attention from the user searches! This is video tags. Video tags are obviously not as vital as the title, but never forget to add them to a video. important as the title. Having a good combination of tags will lead to becoming easily searchable in user searches. A good combination of tags which follows our example would be; X12 Test, X12 review, Turtle Beach, Headset, X12 Unboxing, Headset unboxing, Turtle Beach unboxing. Make sure not to overflow your tag box with a thousand tags however. YouTube considered a long list of tags to be spam, and this goes againt YouTube terms of use and service. This can lead to a strike against your own account. Also make sure to keep tags out of the description box! This will only put off potential subscribers and will also lead to a YouTube strike. Good luck in titling your future videos, and we hope to see your channel flourish and grow!

When it comes to YouTube and being successful, watch time is one of the key metrics. Watch time is a key indicator of whether your video is performing well and how engaged your audience is. If your watch time is high, you know it is a good video, but if they abandon the video after less than 10% viewing, you know you have problems. Is watch time important? The official term for Watch time is audience retention This can be found within your your YouTube analytics. The videos which are watched the longest tend to rack up those crazy view counts and are the ones which bring the most CPM! Four ways in which your Watch time can be improved: Create high-quality, original content. This may seem like an obvious tip, but it’s one that really needs repeating! The better the quality of your content, and the more original it is will only lend to a higher view count, but more importantly a longer Watch time. Viewers will continue watching videos which are highly entertaining and of the likes they’ve never seen before. Viewers are more likely to share such content as well! Get the viewer excited! If your videos take half the run time to get exciting or interesting, the viewer will have likely clicked away before the good bits start (now isn’t that a waste of effort!). Intros should be short and sweet, and the aim of your video should kick within seconds. With attention spans being lower than ever, immediate action is key! Keeping your energy consistent throughout videos is also vital. The fastest growing YouTubers, Jacksepticeye being one example, follow these steps to a T and serve as prime examples. Never mislead the viewership. In a world riddled with click bait articles and videos with sexy thumbnails:  titles which trick viewers into clicking the video, only to find the content to not match will only lead them to click away from the video, looking for the content they’re actually after, so tricking your viewers with click bait and suggestive thumbnails will only lead to a reduced watch time, and therefore a reduced income. All of your video metadata should accurately reflect the video content and this will lead to a longer Watch time! Watch Time is the KING metric on YouTube. If you can increase your watch time rates, you're almost guaranteed to increase your viewership and revenue. Link the old to the new! After running some viewer tests, annotations correlate between watch times on older videos.  It is proven that placing annotations on videos see’s a 15% increase in Watch time. Make sure that you annotate all of your videos, and enjoy the extra views! YouTube watch time is so important and you should start working on ways you can improve it today. Slight changes in watch time can really help your videos get recommended more and you'll soon start to see them views increase! Get Inspired To keep up with all things #YouTube including tips, tricks and interesting articles, head over to to the Ritual Blog. You may even find yourself inspired to create and grow your own audience! You can also sign up for our FREE academy and get expert guidance on all things YouTube.