Latest Articles (Page 30)

If you’ve read my duology on spending far too long queuing in Hitman, you’ll know I’ve a predilection for the virtual people watching of NPCs in games that have some sort of schedule system. "It’s a wholesome pursuit of game design knowledge!" I stammer, as the guards approach. "It gives me a greater appreciation for the obscure details lurking in the hidden corners of virtual cities!" I protest, as I’m clapped in chains after being caught staring through a blacksmiths window for four hours watching him eat the same heel of bread, rubbing my hands together and grinning manically. Imagine my glee, then, when an early quest in action RPG Dragon's Dogma 2 not only condoned my weird hobby, but actively encouraged it.

Alfred is bardic beggar you’ll likely first encounter by Vernworth’s city square water feature. He’s doing a spot of medieval busking, spinning some brilliantly localized rhyming yarns to whoever will listen. He also periodically asks for beer money, even if you think he’s shit, which is a great pitch. Onlookers come and go, but after listening to him gas up the nobility with tall tales for a spell, you’ll likely spot a particularly enthusiastic permanent fixture off to the side. Have a chat, and he’ll tell you he reckons there’s something fishy about Alfred. He never sees much patronage from busking, but he never seems short of coin. Follow him around for a bit and see how he makes his money, won’t you? My annoyance that I’d just given Alfred several hundred gold immediately dissipated at the prospect of some quest journal-sanctioned stalking.

While the PC release of Horizon Forbidden West: Complete Edition has effectively made my PS5 ownership pointless, I can’t stay mad at it. Besides being a sumptuous, endlessly satisfying sci-fi romp with one of the prettiest open worlds in gaming, it’s also a very respectable porting job, with stable performance that scales well on aged PC hardware all the way up to glistening 4K rigs.

There are some imperfections, but generally, this shouldn’t be a repeat of Horizon Zero Dawn’s need for a post-launch patch regimen. On all the hardware I’ve tested, Forbidden West looks good to go, especially when choosing the right settings can smooth out performance even more.

Swashbuckling third-person action-RPG Flintlock: The Siege Of Dawn is, amongst other things, a gentle homage to New Zealand, developer A44 Games's country of origin. You do have to look for it, mind you. The game's art direction at large is an elegant hodgepodge of inspirations that deserves to be unpicked carefully after release.

Main character Nor Vanek - who is on a mission to massacre various escaped underworld gods - is kind of a Napoleonic superhero. Rakishly attired in braided frock coats and knee-high boots, she can use sparking "blackpowder" pistols both to inflict damage and to double-jump or dodge while performing snappily choreographed, one-handed sword and axe combos, straight out of God of War. As regards locations, there are pale medieval citadels with stained-glass windows, coffee shops run by eerie, many-armed "Hosts" that glean from the ambience of Turkish bazaars, and certain other fantastical areas and characters - including Nor's spectral fox sidekick Enki - that are influenced by ancient Mesopotamian mythology.

Troubled city building game Cities: Skylines 2 is getting a little less troubled, as new patch 1.1.0f1 adds various performance and bug fixes alongside the main event: much requested mod support and tools in the form a nifty editor. We got a first look at the new editor tools last October, which looks to simplify the process by combining what was previously several different separate editors into a single application. It was later available only to some closed beta testers, but is now released for everyone. Emphasis on everyone, actually, since the tool looks refreshingly approachable, even for those with basically no modding experience.

Maintaining the thrum of a finely-tuned citybuilder has to be one of the most satisfying acts of video game plate-spinning around. Nursing that constant flow of foot traffic, produce and profits, all of them teetering on a carefully honed knife-edge, that's the good stuff right there. Of course, it's not always the threat of imminent and total collapse that fuels these mighty engines of urban planning. Sometimes it's the simple pleasure of building itself, watching a scrub of dirt track rise up into an advanced superhighway of architectural wonder. The best of these more relaxed kinds of citybuilders - your Dorfromantiks and your SteamWorld Builds et al - still involve plenty of plate-spinning; it's just that they won't ever fall over if you take your eye off the ball for a moment.

Bulwark: Falconeer Chronicles sits at the citybuilding crossroads of 'relaxed' and 'something more'. It wants to be an easy-going kind of builder, as nothing fundamentally bad happens when the wheels stop turning for a moment. For the most part, you're free to build where and however you please, constructing imposing fortresses jutting out into the ocean from mere scraps of rock. But it also gets more bogged down in the minutiae of resource flow, worker management and conquest and expansion via muddy, ill-defined combat procedures than it probably should. It always feels on the precipice of becoming something bigger, bolder and more boisterous than it ever really achieves, dipping its toes into the murky waters of its lonely Ursee without truly ever getting its feet wet.

Yesterday I posted a story about Helldivers 2 game master Joel, which showed him delivering an unreleased vehicle to a random group of players before vanishing into the ether. But this morning came a thunderous plot twist. Someone on team RPS was contacted by a verified source with first hand knowledge of Joel's shady activities. The source has confirmed that APC-deliverer Joel isn't anything but an imposter, a fake, a generous fraud. The Real Joel, it seems, isn't so brazen with his actions.

Journey developer thatgamecompany have announced the PC early access release date for their social MMO Sky: Children Of The Light. Having already built up a substantial community on both mobile and consoles, PC players will now be able to join in on April 10th on Steam. There will be some special PC-themed goodies available to celebrate the occasion, too, including a Companion Cube prop from Portal, a Journey cosmetic pack, and double rewards for sending Heart gifts to other players.

Palia, a cute-looking life sim MMO inspired by e.g. Stardew Valley, has been in beta since last year, but now it's officially out on Steam, where many more people can download and play it. With this launch comes a pretty substantial update - Patch 0.178, full notes here - which adds a new questline and Temple to explore, new furniture, and a bunch of new spring flowers and trees to grow in your garden. There is also a giant plushi frog, listed under 'Adjustments'. The patch notes say simply "What does he want? Does he come in peace?" which makes him sound way more sinister than I think he is, but as you can see from the screenshot, he isn't not sinister.

Look up to the skyline, and tell me what you see. It is me, standing on a hill, uttering firmly with my dying breath: Mass Effect: Andromeda was pretty good. For anyone currently gathered around the hill, searching the pockets of their N7 hoodies for more heavy objects to fling at me, however, here’s some good news: the as-yet unnamed Mass Effect 5 is in the capable hands of “trilogy vets”, according to project director Michael Gamble, via Le Epic Musk Zone (OP didn’t steal), formerly Twitter. The team heading up the space game franchise’s next entry comprises of veterans of the first three games in various leading roles, namely: Art Director, Game Director, Creative Director, and Executive Producer.

Remember when Ark: Survival Evolved was announced to be getting an animated series with a star-studded cast including the likes of Michelle Yeoh, Russell Crowe, Elliot Page, David Tennant and Malcolm-bloody-McDowell? I sure didn’t! That was over three years ago during the heights of a worldwide pandemic, though, so I think we can forgive ourselves a little. Anyway, Ark: The Animated Series has now arrived out of the blue, dropping its first six episodes on streaming service Paramount+.

Just over a year ago, Shinji Mikami - he of directing the original Resident Evil and Resident Evil 4 fame - was confirmed to be leaving Tango Gameworks, the studio that he had co-founded over a decade earlier to create a modern successor to his survival-horror classics, The Evil Within.

Generative AI is one of the biggest debates raging across not just video games, but art and culture as a whole at the moment. Into that debate has waded the CEO of graphics card giants Nvidia to drop a prediction that can only be described as searingly flammable: we’ll see games where everything seen on-screen is fully generated by AI, in real-time, within the next 10 years.

Everyone likes Dragon's Dogma 2, it seems. Except everyone also seems to dislike one specific part of Dragon’s Dogma 2: the fantasy sequel’s microtransactions. But that one dull spot has already been polished out by modders, who are offering more convenient (and less expensive) ways to pick up items that you’ll either need to potentially grind or cough up real money for.

Bethesda have marked the 30th anniversary of Elder Scrolls with the faintest of mentions of The Elder Scrolls 6, the faraway next game in the fated fantasy RPG series. They say they're even now playing work-in-progress versions of the game, which was announced five years ago, and are having a jolly old time revisiting Tamriel. Alright for some.

It's been nearly eight years since the launch of Civilization VI, which is the longest gap between mainline Civ entries the series has seen since the first game appeared way back in 1991. It's the perfect time for a new contender to rise and claim the historical 4X throne, and indeed, many have tried, and some have even come close. Soren Johnson and the gang at Mohawk Games struck gold in Old World by zeroing in on the ancient era and opening up the personal lives of rulers and generals as fields of play. Humankind let you fuse and blend cultures over the arc of time like a world-historic Doctor Moreau.

Millennia is perhaps the Civ-like that's clung most tightly to the genre's apron strings. It has a few new ideas that sound interesting on paper, but even as back-of-the-box features, they're clearly not meant to significantly disrupt the established order. This is a strategy game that very much wants to be like Civilization, and has a lot of enthusiasm for the subject matter. Unfortunately, it isn't a particularly good student.

Grab a pencil and start respooling, as tape-based Pokémon 'em up Cassette Beasts today revealed that the previously announced free update adding multiplayer will arrive on the 20th of May. Up to eight players will be able to explore together, as well as take part in two-player cooperative "raids" and duel each other. Also launching alongside this will be a collaboration with another Poké 'em up, Moonstone Island. Have a peek at all this in the video below.

Here’s one for all you connoisseurs of the horrific consequences of your own actions. Regicide-em-up visual novel Slay the Princess’ new update brings with it new dialogue and music, fleshing out the game with additional choices, expanded scenes, and orchestral renditions of some choice tracks. The new content takes the form of new animations and “more than 3,000 words of additional and restructured dialogue choices and conversations.” That is easily enough words to tell the Stanley Parable-esque narrator that you’re on to him and whatever mind games he’s playing, with enough left over for the other voices in your head to make you doubt your own morality with alarming frequency.

One of my favourite things about Helldivers 2 is the fact it's home to a human game master, known as "Joel", who controls the narrative. Joel's been known to leave surprises, namely mechs before they officially launched a while back. And now he's seemingly granted a group of lucky players the chance to ride about in an armoured truck outfitted with guns. Maybe, just maybe this signals their imminent release?

If ever there were a game not to play on a Monday when you've had minimal sleep and basically want to crawl under the table and eat three-day-old pizza, that game - or rather, free "tech demo" - is Fractal Sailor. The work of Struct9 founder Matej Vanco, it hands you a distressingly unwieldy and roofless hovership and cuts you adrift in a vast ocean of malevolent mathematics.

At first glance, this shadow-hopping top-downer looks like a nostalgic stealth game designed to evoke the boxy subterranean environments of the first Metal Gear Solid. But really it is a tough single-player fighting game with stealth bits attached. It is closer in design to kung-fu brawler Sifu than it is to any of Solid Snake's various mischiefs. And while this mash-up of influences intrigues me, it can also feel like a layer cake of awkwardly clashing flavours. Like that very pretty but questionable cake, Raw Metal feels a little underbaked.

Graham wrote about WitchHand last month when the game came out. He compared it to Stacklands, and I can see where he was coming from. It's a cute, deckbuilding strategy game where you're a witch building up strength to take on some horrible void-y demon-y things. It has much higher stakes than Stacklands, but most importantly, you summon cat familiars in it, and they go 'meow!'

There’s a teaser image on the wall. We stare at it and we think that’s the whole multiplayer shooter set in the Control franchise. Then, Remedy sneak a second teaser image alongside some tantalising lore snippets into their latest investor report (Thanks, resetera!) Also there’s an air fryer that turns nuggets into miniature black holes, or something. I’m not sure because, honestly, I never learned to appreciate Control’s wonderful architecture and lore because the combat made me want to gnaw my fingers off. Good news, then, for everyone except me specifically. We’ve got a few more scraps of info about its (presumably) almost entirely combat focused spin-off title, currently known as ‘Condor’.

“After the Hiss invasion, the Oldest House is under lockdown: a boiling pot of volatile and dangerous supernatural forces,” forewarns the infographic. “Trapped within is the last vestige of the Federal Bureau of Control who will need to take a stand and push back to regain control.” You can take shifts watching the full image in case it does anything untoward below.

On top of announcing the release date for Final Fantasy 14's next expansion, Dawntrail, at PAX East over the weekend, producer Yoshi-P set Final Fantasy tongues wagging even further by mentioning the words "Final Fantasy 9" and "secret" in the same sentence. Many of the pre-order and special edition bonus items players can get with the upcoming Dawntrail expansion are suspiciously FF9-themed, you see, but when pointing this out to PAX-goers, Yoshi-P said "the reason is a secret" for now, sparking fresh rumours about Square Enix's supposed Final Fantasy IX remake/remaster.

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 the feature every single video game on this green Earth should have (a grappling hook), along with waterparks, a plant knight, a chunky shotgun, a kitbashed hovercarrier, and heaps more. Check out all these attractive and interesting indie games!

GTA 6 is facing development troubles, leaving leadership “nervous” that the hotly anticipated open world crime-athon could be “falling behind’ expected schedules. That’s according to Kotaku, who were told by an anonymous source that studio heads are “worried” that the game could miss 2025 completely and not see release until 2026. Kotaku were told that the studio is still “aiming” for a Spring 2025 release date, but sources feel Fall of the same year is more plausible. However, the title could be delayed until 2026 as a “fallback plan.”

It's Monday and I'm tired, so do I really have to write out hundreds of words telling you who Nic Reuben is? You already know Nic! He's been writing here as a freelancer loads. He threw a rock through the treehouse window and were preparing to sacrifice him to appease Horace's great coils, but the endless bear spake and instead commanded us to hire him, after a rigorous interview process. Say hello to Nic in his new and official capacity here on the site! My enthusiasm has woken me up again!

Fantasy action-RPG Dragon's Dogma 2 has had a tumultuous launch week: praised by reviewers, slated for its performance issues, and berated for its microtransactions, which appear to have been stealthily added after the game was sent to critics. Now begins the labour of patching the game. Capcom have released a few hints about forthcoming Dragon's Dogma 2 updates. Their plans for the PC version include letting players acquire dwellings earlier on in the story, improving quality when DLSS super resolution is enabled, and adding the option to start a new game when save data already exists.

Days Gone is that zombie x motorbike open world game (except they were at pains to point out that Freakers weren't zombies) that Sony did for PS4 in 2019, and ported to PC in 2021 - both years after people were done with Sons Of Anarchy as a thing. As alluded to in The Maw this week, there hasn't been much news out of Bend Studios since then, but they're now hiring for a lead project manager for "crafting our next high-profile AAA title." Another clue? The successful applicant must have experience "with an emphasis on live operations" and "in leadership roles shipping AAA live service games". Hmmm.

Well, Amazon Spring sale, it’s been real, but come midnight tonight even these curated picks of your best PC gaming deals will drift away like fallen cherry blossoms. Just not as nice to look at. That’s right: it’s the sixth and final day of Amazon Spring Deal Days, or the Amazon Big Spring Sale if you’re in the US.

It's a brand new week in Computer Game Land, and right now, I am playing a nasty little survival sim called "Beating Jetlag". I landed back in the UK from GDC on Saturday afternoon, and my brain and eyeballs still feel as though they're being gently sautéed in a medicinal blend of oil and vinegar. The sun and sky bear down with a terrible, holy light and I can't seem to conjure any warmth into my elbows. In the street outside, a small dog is barking. Soon, very soon, I will catch that dog, place it in a box and FedEx it to China.