Ancient Frontier [official site] is a hexy thing. It’s a space strategy game where you and your ships blast through other fleets to the backdrop of a story about warring factions and intergalactic intrigue. I’m a sucker for hex-based battlefields so I’m looking forward to seeing how it turns out, and developers Fair Weather Studios are trying to let the story drive the game, with two campaigns that have fully-voiced dialogue. I don’t have long to wait as Fair Weather have confirmed a release date of September 21st.

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Early access survival game Conan Exiles [official site] added a new chilly region called the Frozen North this week. It brings with it new weather types including rain and snow, alongside a temperature system that will affect the whole game: you’ll have to wrap up warm in the new area and strip off in the game’s desserts.

There’s shiny weapons to swing at new beasts, including wolves, bears, frost giants and mammoths, fresh dungeons to crawl and new materials to find and cobble together into shelters and items. Plus, you can now summon an Avatar (Exile’s versions of embodied Gods) called Ymir: Lord of Storm and War, who is a giant frosty dude with a big beard, antler horns and a huge axe that can level whole towns.

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The video game adaption of Steve Jackson Games’ wargame Ogre [official site], which is about battles between super-powered AI war machines rather than man-eating giants, is coming out on 5 October, developers Auroch Digital have announced.

I haven’t played the tabletop version, but a glance at the rules reference sheet tells me that one player controls a single, immensely powerful Ogre and the other tries to fend it off with armoured hovercraft, big tanks and infantry. The video game version expands that formula with multiple units on both sides taking part in turn-based strategic combat on a hexy battlefield. The Ogres are still as scary, mind (there’s one in the bottom right of the picture above).

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Chop a zombie’s head off with an axe, grab the skull and chuck it at one of his ghoulish friends, all using your own, real-life hands. That’s the kind of thing you can do in Killing Floor: Incursion [official site], which is out now and brings combat based on the excellent Killing Floor games to virtual reality. It’s exclusive to the Rift right now and requires the Oculus Touch to play, so there’s a big barrier to entry, but if you’re already kitted out then it could be a go-er.

The combat looks intense, and you can shoot through the hordes on your own or with a friend in co-op. The Touch gameplay means you can slash your knives in whatever direction and angle you want, or chuck a shotgun to a friend so they can blow the head off a zombie that’s getting too close. Plus, it looks bloody terrifying: the Killing Floor games weren’t exactly scary but being in VR means there’s no escape. Gulp.

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I thought the style looked familiar! The Norwood Suite [official site] is the new game from Off-Peak creator Cosmo D. Off-Peak, you might remember, is the surreal train station experience Alice and I played which I’d tend to describe as an experiential collage more than a game, if you’re into that categorisation. You should definitely play it if you’re looking for a curious project for the weekend – it’s free.

The Norwood Suite seems to have a similar style and is set in the same universe but is about a secluded, mysterious hotel filled with secrets. It now has an official launch date too so Alice and I can pencil in some time to play it simultaneously over the phone! October 2, if you are thinking of doing the same with your pals…

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I had thought Blizzard were about done with big StarCraft II balance changes, or at least had decided which units should be in the game, but nope! This week they announced a load of changes for all factions in multiplayer, redesigning some units and outright removing one. Blizzard explain, “This time around our general focus is to address underused units and abilities while also trying to reduce sudden game ending moments.” The changes are now live for public testing but won’t launch properly until after the current season ends in November. They’ve got a lot to test and think about. Read the rest of this entry »

In a nice confluence of events I was wondering what had happened to laser puzzler Archaica: The Path Of Light [official site] which I wrote about years ago and a quick web search revealed that it’s launching in a few weeks on 8 September and has a launch trailer! Read the rest of this entry »

Delightfully unpleasant top-down survival horror Darkwood [official site] has finally escaped early access and launched in full. I’m a big baby where jump scares are concerned but Darkwood looks like exactly the sort of horror I crave: surreal, unsettling, often slow, and with some friendly-ish faces but so many more awful things. The bits I’ve heard from certified brave man Adam make Darkwood sound wizzo, so I’m glad it’s finally properly out.

Here, look at the launch trailer showing the terrible things that happen when you receive something as simple and pleasant as an invitation to a party: Read the rest of this entry »

The Sims 4‘s Toddler Stuff Pack (stuff packs being the tier of paid DLC that adds cosmetics and objects and things around a particular theme) is how I found out I have opinions about ball pool physics and ball pools as represented in games. I have frequented many a ball pool – sometimes even a ball lido – and I know that The Sims 4 is eliding many a problem with ball pools.

For one it’s entirely possible to perform a ball pool bellyflop and significantly injure yourself but here it’s all fun and games. Actually, I’d say it’s harder to dive or jump into a ball pool and make it look like a fun experience than it is to do so and really hurt yourself. It’s also impossible to confine balls to the ball pool area. Oh, and there’s not a single frame of the trailer showing an adult having to clamber through a ball pool searching for and then hauling out their recalcitrant toddler. Further objections include the fact that you can’t keep adults out of a children’s ball pool and, somewhat relatedly, that I find it objectionable that EA seem to be taking a stand against a grown woman’s right to enjoy a ball pool.

They do manage to recapture an actual argument I had with my brother over who had the right to play with a plastic dinosaur, though. (My argument was: “I’m older and I want it more” and his was “but it is literally my toy dinosaur”). Read the rest of this entry »

The build-your-own-warcmhine battling of Robocraft [official site] is almost ready to launch in full, after three years in early access. It’ll hit version 1.0 and launch on August 24th, developers Freejam Games have announced. If you’re the cautious sort who’d rather not play even a free-to-play game until it’s done, hey, it’s almost here. Read the rest of this entry »

Can I lodge a complaint with the Advertising Standards Authority about how the PS4 version of Fishing Planet [official site] got a trailer that was approx one billion times better than the PC trailer? I am FURIOUS right now. We get moody water shots and easy listening and theirs is all TENSION AND FISH AND HYPE AND EXCITING RIFFS AND YES YOU’D BETTER BELIEVE THERE ARE MORE THAN 70 SPECIES OF FISH AND OBVIOUSLY COMPLEX FISH AI IS HAPPENING AND ARE YOU READY FOR THIS BECAUSE I DO NOT THINK YOU ARE READY FOR THIS. Read the rest of this entry »

Back in 2014, the RPS treehouse shook with everyone thundering around pretending to be trucks stuck in squelching mud. Such was the captivating magic of Spintires, a serious simulation of simply trying to drive across rough Russian terrain. But ongoing development got bogged down by a drawn-out spat between developer Pavel Zagrebelny and publishers Oovee Game Studio, and Spintires seemed to be left to rust in the cybermud. Well! In a surprising and confusing twist, Spintires is back with a new edition coming from another studio and a different publisher (update: with Zagrebelny still leading it). Focus Home Interactive today announced Spintires: MudRunner [official site], an enhanced and expanded edition of Spintires coming in October. Read the rest of this entry »

As the song goes, in space no-one can hear you party like it’s one-hundred-and-ninety-nine. Which is a shame given update 199 for Astroneer [official site] contains a whole bundle of things. It’s not content-heavy/content-at-all-y which I know is a source of frustration for people who are playing it through Early Access. For people like me who pop back in every few months it’s fun to see how the development process is moving, though.

In this instance it sounds like developers System Era are making some meaningful changes on the engineering and stability side which is good. If you’d prefer to know about future content stuff skip down to the part about Prototyping, otherwise join me as I get excited about the ability to change the colours of beacons – no longer will I roam the land assuming I’m going in one direction and then realising I confused one identical beacon with another…

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