Steam Charts: Open Your World
The hit parade
John is missing. He flew out to GDC last week stowed inside Brendan's suitcase to save money, I'm sure you'll remember, but on the return journey Brendan's bag has gone missing. Vanished. Didn't flop onto the luggage carousel. The airport have no idea. John took a few cans of pop and bags of gross American chocolate in with him so I'm sure he'll be fine, but where is he? Amsterdam? Boise? Hong Kong? Honolulu? I'm sure he'll turn up. For now, here I am, I am taking over the Steam Charts for another week.
If there's one lesson to learn from last week's 10 top-selling games on Steam, it's that fancy open-world games are quite popular.
10. Final Fantasy XV Windows Edition
Boys, boys, boys, they're looking for a good time. And saving the world? Mostly looking for a good time. I've still not got around to this myself because I've been deep in other games, but I am still excited to venture on this road trip. Alec and Katharine fussed over the technical side of things last week, with him poking at HDR and her looking at graphics card performance.
9. Counter-Strike: Global Offensive
What's up with CS this week? Valve are tinkering with the Negev again, still trying to turn the joke of a machine gun into a viable support weapon. Those wild-eyed dreamers.
8. Ni No Kuni II: Revenant Kingdom
"It's tempting to indulge the cliché and say that Ni no Kuni 2 is more than the sum of its parts, but that’s not entirely accurate either. Rather, Revenant Kingdom is essentially just the sum of its parts and nothing more," Stephen T Wright said in his Ni No Kuni 2 review. "They're nice enough parts, and they mesh together to create one of the better JRPGs I've played over the past few years, but as I watched the credits roll by, I could already feel the experience seeping from my memory like a sieve."
A really pretty sieve.
7. Assassin's Creed Origins
Following the recent launch of its mummylicious final DLC, AssCreed Oranges has now been on sale with a 40% discount bumping two of its three editions into the top 10 this week. I'd imagine one is the regular edition (still £30 for another few hours) and the other is the DLC-crammed Gold Edition (down to £45). But which is which? Valve don't say, which makes this the true mystery of the pyramids.
6. Far Cry 5
Ubisoft's latest open-world murder simulator is still not out but climbing even higher in the charts, up from 10 last week. Reviews and big lumps of gameplay footage are all over these days, mind. From what I've seen, sure, I'm up for this. The story Ubisoft present front and centre in their marketing seems whatever but the explore-o-larking looks fun. And it has a bow. AND co-op. Cooperative archery.
5. Assassin's Creed Origins
You again!
4. Far Cry 5
You again, "You again!" Well, if you want some fire and brimstone...
3. Grand Theft Auto V
After a week away, Grand Theft Auto V comes roaring back into the top 10. And it's been a pretty rubbo week for GTA V, really. Following a small patch tweaking the new Super Sports Series update, a large number of players have reported being temporarily banned for no apparent reason. Sure, cheaters will always say they didn't cheat, but this is a whole lot of people all at once. Rockstar are, as you'd expect, saying nothing.
I would poke around but my own account was suspended only and wiped a few days earlier. I think it's due to me messing something up when writing that post about diorama mods. Joke's on me. I like GTA Online a lot but, once my ban is up, will probably never play it again. Fair to say I'm slightly miffed but it might be my fault? No idea? Anyway, if I'm done with this dress-up crimeworld, I shall, for posterity, declare this my final Los Santos spring/summer fashion collection:
2. Warhammer: Vermintide 2
Rats! Some might tell you that it's polish and variety that's made the 'Left 4 Dead with rats' first-person shoot-o-smasher so much more of a success than Fatshark's first attempt. I put it to you that, in fact, Vermintide 2's success comes from introducing Chaos Marauders to the enemy pool because people felt too bad killing those lovely scurrying ratmen.
Here's a suggestion, Fatshark: Ikaruga-inspired weapon-switching action, where one hand swings an axe out to decapitate the forces of Chaos and the other scritches Skaven under their furry chins so they fall asleep. And heaven help anyone whose stumbling fingers coochie-coo a Chaos Spawn.
1. Playerunknown's Battlegrounds
Ah here we are and here we are and here we go
All aboard and we're hitting the road
Here we go, Plunkin' all over the world
I am curious to see more of the small new map coming to Plunkbat later this year. 4x4km should make for an interesting change of pace. To be honest, I'm hung up on the flora seen in those teensy short preview clips, trying to figure out where it's set, which trees all those are supposed to be, and why it isn't lusher. Well, I'm fairly sure the answer to that second question is that the game couldn't do forests well and the map is still in alpha so everything is placeholder or unfinished. But, y'know, trees.
