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I love secret languages in games. I’m too slow to decipher any of them myself, but I enjoy seeing a game’s community pick apart foreign symbols to uncover a game’s deep mysteries (Tunic’s musical language was especially fun.) Fortunately for me, players have already deciphered the ‘Indecipherable’ text log in the new Dead Space remake, revealing a poem that potentially hints toward the series’ future. Naturally, spoilers within.

Footage purporting to be from Horizon Forbidden West's multiplayer alpha has appeared online. The leak surfaced on Reddit over the weekend, claiming to be from a "very old alpha" build from summer 2020. It's an interesting watch, as while the world and robo dinos look like classic Horizon, the characters jumping around fighting them look a lot more stylised than their hyper-detailed mainline counterparts.

I spent the past weekend flicking between the Dead Space remake on my PC, and the Dead Space remake on my Steam Deck. It’s a belter of a refurb, and for me personally, has been like getting dessert after being forced to finish my Forspoken vegetables. Still, some lingering performance woes on the Deck mean I’m probably going to continue Isaac Clarke’s first and worst job on desktop alone.

To be fair, the remake is playable on Valve’s handheld. It’s not outright broken, despite having been so on launch day, with problems ranging from drastic FPS dips to outright hard crashes. Following some impressively fast work from Valve themselves, focusing on hotfixes for SteamOS’ Proton compatibility software, Dead Space’s Deck performance has become more or less manageable. But worthy of the best Steam Deck games? Nope, nein and non.

Keyboards are eternally horizontal, and moving or rotating them outside of their designated comfort zone feels like an affront to all that is good and right with the world. But that's precisely what makes Ludipe’s alt-ctrl game Tie Simulator 2020 so wonderfully weird. As many RPS Treehouse members found out at EGX 2022, it's a game that sees you holding your keyboard vertically, and pressing buttons to (sort of) tie your tie onscreen. Now, Ludipe's back with a new co-op sequel called Back Scratching Simulator 2023 where you're once again doing terrible, but brilliant things with a vertical keyboard.

Every weekend, indie devs show off current work on Twitter's #screenshotsaturday tag. And every Monday, I bring you a selection of these snaps and clips. This week, my eye has been caught by so very much! Come check out immersive sim piano-playing, hand-drawn and stop-motion art, alien horror and pandemic horror, dogfighting planes, and loads more!

Lara Croft has seen her fair share of live-action adaptations, but this time she’s raiding the small screen with a Tomb Raider TV series and a film in development at Amazon. THR reported that the Emmy-winning Fleabag writer Pheobe Waller-Bridge is set to pen (and executive produce) the upcoming show, though there's no word on who's attached with the film. THR states that Amazon is looking to "build out a connected world of Tomb Raider, with the video game, TV series and film." This sounds a little ambitious, considering that Crytal Dynamics' game is already in production, so we'll have to wait and see how the adaptations interact with the games.

I went to Berlin not long ago to sample the emotional highs and lows of Like A Dragon: Ishin, a remake of a spin-off that was previously only released in Japan back in 2014. Aside from almost crying and racing chickens, I had the chance to interview Ryu Ga Gotoku Studios' chief producer Hiroyuki Sakamoto, who revealed his favourite thing about the game: Goro Majima's undeniable sex appeal.

Sundays are for curling a mic away from your mouth, so your friends don't hear you crunching down on some Pringles. Before you bend, let's read this week's best writing about games (and game related things).

American Truck Simulator hasn't yet received its already-announced Oklahoma DLC, but work is underway on the state that will follow it: Kansas. You'll find a reveal trailer filled with grassy fields and grain silos below.

Battlefield 2042's update 3.2 will arrive next week, which is notable because it will revive Battlefield's traditional class system. If you were one of the many players to be frustrated by 2042's Specialists, then 3.2 is your chance to once again don the roles of Assault, Engineer, Recon and Support.

Barotrauma is a co-op scifi submarine sim, which is a great thing to be. It's been navigating the murky depths of early access for the past three years but is now prepping for a 1.0 this spring. Prepareations in this case mean "pre-patch" with "final fixes and changes" the development team wanted to make before the big release day comes, and a price increase in two weeks time.

Overwatch 2 players haven't been happy with the way its ranked matches have worked since launch. Blizzard agree, it seems, although they're not going to be reverting back to how things were in Overwatch 1. Instead they'll be implementing changes in season 3 and season 4 "aimed at creating more clarity in the system."

Please do say goodbye to news reporter CJ as he descends the ladder from the RPS treehouse one final time, if you haven't already. Then return to tell us all what you're playing this weekend. Here's what we're clicking on!

Steam's various discovery hubs are normally designed to steer you towards new games you might like to buy. The latest experiment from Steam Labs, however, is a DLC Discovery Hub. It offers up a tailored list of additional content you might be interested in for games you already own, and prioritises those you've played recently or played most.

HBO's adaptation of The Last Of Us has been renewed for a second season, after just a handful of episodes have aired. If you haven't seen any of it so far, you can also now watch the entire first episode for free via YouTube.

Risk Of Rain Returns is a remaster of the 2013, side-scrolling roguelike, but it's adding plenty that's new. The latest 'dev thoughts' video from developers Hopoo Games demonstrates some of the new alternate attack abilities available for every character, from sniper shots to turning your enemies into food.

Sad news, folks. Our news reporter CJ is leaving for pastures new today, making this his last day at RPS. Please come and join me in wishing him a fond farewell.

Dead Space returns today with just a few tweaks from devs Motive Studio, and among these are a bevy of accessibility options. One noticeable standout is the option to receive a warning when something potentially sensitive or disturbing is about to happen during Isaac Clarke’s Necromorph-filled trek around the derelict, deadly USG Ishimura. Players are even able to hide any disturbing scenes, if they want. It’s an interesting option to provide in a full-on horror game.

I'm one of those people who thinks there should be National Service, but only for making everyone work in a customer facing position in retail before they're 25. You might think "Alice, it seems like you're making the time a guy shouted at you and threw jeans on the floor because they were too long for him everyone else's problem, do you think you have some lingering resentment?", and my response is that you've made a really specific assumption there, I have no idea what you're talking about. Anyway, if working in retail was like running the shop in Kardboard Kings, then everyone would love it.

You know what’s guaranteed to make me laugh every single time? A good visual gag in a cartoon. A little freak reading a newspaper, for instance. A hyper-realistic close-up of a character’s face. A weird rat, perhaps. Maybe it’s smoking a cigarette? Whimsical. I love it. This is the main reason why I keep returning to Pizza Tower, a 2D platformer by Tour De Pizza that released on Steam yesterday. It’s a bizarre homage to Nintendo’s lesser-known Wario Land series (specifically its fourth entry) that's jam-packed with goofy little drawings that make me laugh. It’s good, but not without its issues.

Ubisoft are working on two new Far Cry games, according to a new report, including the next mainline entry, Far Cry 7, and a standalone multiplayer offshoot from the series. Sources told Insider Gaming that the pair of games were originally just one project, but have since been split into separate single-player and multiplayer games. What could become Far Cry 7 is reportedly being referred to as Project Blackbird internally at Ubisoft, with the multiplayer game going by the moniker of Project Maverick. Both games are being developed with input from veteran Far Cry series developers Ubisoft Montréal.

It turns out Forspoken has bigger problems than some badly-landing bantz. The PC version absolutely brutalises low-end hardware, an issue compounded by its high yet often unhelpful system requirements, and framerate drops and stuttering remain common even on some of the best graphics cards around. Your best chance of a smooth ride in Forspoken lies in lowering some graphics options, so I’ve been trying them all out to see which are the best settings to cut down – as well as which ones you can afford to keep high.

We kick off 2023's inaugural episode of the Ultimate Audio Bang, by doing some - rare - forward thinking. That's right, Hayden gets genuinely excited over a couple of his most anticipated FPS games of the year, and I realise that I'm less "excited" and more "intrigued" by what's on offer. The consensus? We hope there are some strong surprises.

And we've started two new things! We're breaking the pod into two segments for the foreseeable future, with one half focused on current FPS stuff, and the other on games less-travelled in the space. Our first target? Deer in theHunter: Call Of The Wild.

Ooh, I'm glad this made it to a full release. Power of Ten has rattled around my PC since ... I want to say "a year ago", but that could turn out to be any time in the last three years if I actually check. It didn't quite push me over the "Article Threshold" back then, but having given it a proper go now it's out of early access, it's time.

You're a little spaceship, with a simple but intriguing backstory, who's appeared near an inhabited planet. A transmission asks you to repair their defensive shield before "the Deadeye" arrives to genocide them, which, uh, okay I think I know whose side I'm on here, game.

Our Dead Space remake review and the associated excitement has me wanting to check out the sci-fi survival horror again, but not quite enough to pay £50 for a new version of a game I already own. So I reinstalled the game I already own. Turns out, after a few vital (yet easy) tweaks and fixes, the 2008 game is still perfectly playable. If you too wish to once again to CUT OFF THEIR LIMBS and are uncertain about ponying up £50, here's how to get the original working well on PC.

Spooky indie pinball hit Demon’s Tilt passed me by in 2019, so I’m pleased the devs have decided to build on their bumper success with a sci-fi-flavoured sequel. Xenotilt transports the silver sphere action from the occult cathedral surroundings of Demon’s Tilt to a floating space hulk called the Samaritan. Forget any thoughts of friendly assistance to rack up a high score though, because this game’s subtitle is Hostile Pinball Action. You can see just how hostile Xenotilt can get by watching the trailer below.

Above the Berlin Samurai Museum's gift shop and flanked by ornate helmets of fearsome warriors of a bygone era, I played a few hours of Ryu Ga Gotoku Studio's remake of historical Yakuza spin-off Like A Dragon: Ishin this week. The original was a Japanese-only release back in 2014 on the PlayStation 3, but what a fever dream it was to be dropped into Chapter 3 of the story and let loose on an Edo period Kyoto as none other than Ryoma Sakamoto (multiverse Kiryu). I almost cried, I raced chickens, I caught a big eel, and I've come away with a warm fuzzy feeling inside.

From what I've played of the game's earliest portions, it's Yakuza through and through, to both its benefit and detriment. I don't expect it to convert those who dislike the series, but if you're a fan or a newcomer, it's looking like it'll both be a celebration of its cast, and a remake that feels like an old-school spin on the excellent Yakuza 0. In other words, the perfect introduction point to this mad, but beautiful action series.

Cast your mind back to December's The Game Awards and you may remember post-apocalyptic FPS Meet Your Maker giving us a closer look at its intriguing combo of raiding and building. Now, developers Behaviour Interactive have announced the FPS will see an open beta from February 6th to February 13th on Steam, ahead of its release in April. You’ll need to construct your own outpost to ward off other intrepid players who’re after your genes to splice, and set off on your own incursions to try the same yourself.

HBO’s take on Naughty Dog’s shroomocalyptic game series The Last Of Us has been praised by critics as the best video game adaptation ever, but the show’s co-creator doesn’t think both games can be squeezed into a single season each. Craig Mazin discussed his hopes for the TV version of The Last Of Us while guesting on an upcoming episode of The Playlist Podcast. Mazin seems to think the second game would have to spread out across multiple seasons, like the tendrils of an infected.

Dead Space’s Isaac Clarke is clearly a man of many talents. He’s a systems engineer by trade, so he knows his way around the dense innards of space vessels. He’s also handy around a toolbox and is more than familiar with high-risk equipment like the Plasma Cutter. Oh, and he’s remarkably good at slicing and dicing necromorphs into juicy squelchy lumps. What a resume!

But did you know that our favourite space engineer also has lots of secret talents too? When Dead Space originally came out in the back end of 2008, his corporate overseers at EA sent Mr. Clarke to do all sorts of odd jobs before he popped off on the believeable, but bleak USG Ishimiura. Golf caddy, professional skateboarder, even a part-time dragon slayer. Heck, he's recently been back on the second gig train with his stint in Fortnite just earlier this week. The poor dude is in desperate need of a vacation. Until then, though, come and marvel at Isaac's many talents and see what a hard worker he is.