The Maw - 17th-22nd June 2024
This week's least pestiferous PC game releases, plus our weekly news blog
Live
Beloved friends, hated enemies - last week, we let the side down. Due to a shortage of hands at the pump and persistent clouds of Geoff Keighley activity, there was no weekly Maw liveblog, and this has bred disaster. Shaken, stirred and finally ignited for want of two-sentence updates about Dragon Age, the Maw emitted a full 13% of its cosmo-puissance into Mundus and took a grievous bite out of the ailing and fearful lasagne of reality itself. Hated friends, beloved enemies - I am very sad to say that the proud nation of Dimplexland is no more.
Never heard of Dimplexland? Ah, but this is what happens when the Maw escapes containment and gets its infinitesimal, polychromatic fangs into something other than a news story about video games. Whatever the creature devours is stripped from the empirical realm and becomes the merest fantasy, be it a person or an entire country with 15 ethnic groups, a prosperous silver mining industry, and a royal family that traces its history back to the early 1200s. Why, I could almost have made Dimplexland up while writing this post, based on the logo of the radiator behind my desk! Pray for Dimplexland. You shall be avenged, just as soon as I've had my coffee.
Let us strike the drum and proceed to this week's most ravishing new PC games releases with an air of appropriate solemnity and despair. Actually, let's not do that, because it's a pretty attractive haul this week. On Monday 17th June we've got El Dorado: The Golden City Builder, one of Alice B's (RPS in peace) ones-to-watch, whose name very much sums it up. On Tuesday 18th June, we've got The Chinese Room's Still Wakes The Deep, a game about Scottish oilmen dealing with an undersea threat in the 1970s, together with the early access launch of Pax Dei, which Matt Cox describes as "an attempt to pull off EVE Online in medieval Europe", and the Forges Of Corruption expansion for cherished Space Marine shooter Warhammer 40,000: Boltgun. Wednesday 19th June brings Scars Of Mars, a first-person real-time RPG which looks like Ultima Underworld put through the teleporter with Cosmic Encounters, and Murky Divers, which looks like Lethal Company but underwater. On Thursday 20th June, there's a regular meteor strike in the shape of Elden Ring: Shadow Of The Erdtree. Assuming there's any games industry left after Erdtree makes landfall, we'll be simmering down on Friday 21st June with offworld newspaper intern sim Times And Galaxy and cyberpunk citybuilder Dystopika.
As ever, it's possible these are not in fact this week's most important new PC game releases. It's possible I am abysmal at this job, and there are a bunch of other games that deserve your attention. Go on, there's the comments thread. PC game news aside, there will be a two minute silence in memory of Dimplexland at 2pm today. If you're participating, please wear the official Dimplexland colours and use the hashtag #Dimplextinguished.
Balatro creator localthunk xeeted this earlier (Balatro already contains two banana Jokers, the Gros Michel and the extremely hard-to-obtain Cavendish). If I didn't know better, I'd say this is a reference to a certain other banana game that has been doing the rounds on Steam lately.
There’s something in the water (19th-century literature, clearly), as PowerWash Simulator’s trippy Alice in Wonderland DLC arrives on July 2nd. You'll be able to douse down five new maps - including a dapper frog - dressed in a fresh outfit, gloves and water gun.
Southfield, the physics-y farming game perhaps best described as Gang Beasts meets Stardew Valley, has delayed its release date three days before launch in order look after its devs’ ‘health and wellbeing’.
I have been enjoying Champion Shift, an early access Vampire Survivors-like that lets you play as King Arthur (and other mythical figures) and transform them into cars with machine guns, for the last few weeks. As it happens, it's now hit 1.0 on Steam, too.
As Edwin shared earlier, Elden Ring is suffering a new bug on Steam Deck that makes the game inoperable if left inactive too long - watch out if you're playing Shadow of the Erdtree!
Here, have a live action turtle pope, courtesy of yet another Elden Ring trailer:
The Guardian's Keza MacDonald has an interview with Hidetaka Miyazaki which digs a bit deeper into Miyazaki's preoccupations than some of the other recent interviews. One standout is that he thinks (to paraphrase a bit crudely) the world today feels more like a Souls game than it did when he started making Souls games: "I don’t think what we’ve been doing in our games has changed, but perhaps the world has come closer to that type of feeling." Try hope.
Via Reddit, Sony appear to have leaked a new Helldivers 2 stratagem. It's some kind of quad-barrel launcher thingy.
X4: Foundations update 7.00 is the space sim's "most comprehensive evolution" yet, according to the devs, with new ships, an observation deck module for your capital craft, accessibility features and technical improvements. It accompanies a new DLC pack, Timelines, with a new storyline following border trader Harper Donel. Nic was ambivalent about the game's depth of simulation back in 2018, noting that "it provides a framework for a good time if you approach it completely dead set on having a good time, but you’re going to have to do much, if not all, of the work yourself". I wonder how it's come along since? Fanks to PCGamesN for circulating.
Via PCGamer, you can get all three existing Dragon Age games for $10 or £8.50. The fourth game, Dragon Age: The Veilguard, is out later this year.
Via VGC, Beyond Good & Evil's 20th anniversary remaster contains a mission that connects to the long-awaited Beyond Good & Evil 2, which Ubisoft offer as proof of their "enduring commitment to the franchise".
There's some manner of Elden Ring Shadow Of The Erdtree bug out there that stops the game accepting inputs if you leave it alone for five minutes.
PVKK: Planetenverteidigungskanonenkommandant is Papers, Please, but instead of a rubber stamp you have an orbital defence cannon.
FRIGEDÆG AGAIN
Goodness writing the day names in Old English sounded like such brilliant japes at the start of the week but it has been such a pain tracking them down and capitalising them, argh. FEED THE MAW.Comicbook have alerted me to the reannouncement of 1C SeaWolf's Captain Blood, a hack-and-slash pirate game originally revealed for Xbox in... 2004. "The game underwent several iterations throughout the 2000s and was last showcased in 2010 before vanishing for years," reads a note from publisher SNEG on the Steam page. "Now, we are excited to bring it back, combining its original glory with a series of modern improvements for today's gamers."
Bamco have popped up a Steam post about today's pre-Erdtree Elden Ring patch, notable for its free hair. Look, "a new tab called "Recent Items" has been added to review recently obtained items"! By gawd, these are the kind of gnomic asides I play FromSoftware games for.
Rusted Moss, a nice-looking twin-stick Celeste-o-shmup we haven't covered much before, has received a chunky update with an estimated 7-8 hours of new stuff.
Ubisoft have started yanking Beyond Good & Evil from digital stores ahead of an announcement about the 20th Anniversary Edition of the game today, Thursday 20th June. As VGC points out, this suggests they're going to release the new edition (which was accidentally released early to certain players last year) today. But what about the legendarily long-in-development Beyond Good & Evil 2?
Elden Ring Shadow Of The Erdtree has got a final trailer in the run-up to launch (11pm tonight UK time on PC.) It does show what looks very much like several bosses and distinctive enemies though, so gaze into it at your own peril.
ÞUNRESDÆȜ DAWNS
The Maw's outermost appendages are engaged in a slowly escalating game of "rock-paper-X" with three of our wiliest cosmo-engineers. The current variation is "rock-paper-Gjallarhorn". Keep your distance. But also, FEED IT.As Edwin shared earlier, Call of Duty is following Fortnite in adding Fallout skins - and they're out this week. Anything except news on Fallout 5, eh Todd?
Final Fantasy 14 is bracing for new expansion Dawntrail's login queues with plans to limit travel and crack down on AFK players, promising that “precautionary measures” have been taken since Endwalker’s gruelling launch almost three years ago.
A new Marvel vs Capcom collection is bringing all-time fighting game great MvC2, plus six more classic brawlers - including the first home port of The Punisher's arcade game - to PC with rollback netcode later this year.
It looks like the original Resident Evil - the 1996 classic, not its later remake that was remastered in 2015 - is headed (back) to PC, per a recent PEGI rating.
Another slice from that MrMattyPlays interview with Todd Howard that's been doing the rounds, via PCG - Bethesda have no plans to remake the first two Fallout games. Quoth Howard: "I could argue that some of the charm of games from that era and the original Fallout is a little bit of that age. I would never want to sort of paste over some of that with, 'Well we changed how this works so it's more modern.'"
This is what Dragon Age: The Veilguard's skill trees look like, care of Game Informer.
caff says: Bey Edwin! Bad Viking, creators of the much-loved-around-these-parts Strange Horticulture, have recently put up some info about a successor - Strange Antiquities.
I had a poke around earlier and couldn't find anything mega-new beyond this brief Steam update about the game's mysterious cat, who is apparently based on Robin Jarvis's demonic moggy Jupiter from the Deptford Mice books - which I adore.
Call of Duty has "teamed up" with Fallout in the shape of some Fallout bodysuit COD skins.
Square are remastering Romancing SaGa 2, one of the heroic high fantasy RPGs I spent approximately 30 minutes with back in the 90s. I'm sure I'll find time to play it now, ho ho.
NOW FOR WODNESDÆG
The Maw? The Maw. FEED IT.Valve have shared Steam's most popular Next Fest 2024 demos. There are a few surprises.
A video about the future direction of space sim Nebulous: Fleet Command, which I think is stonkingly good, and also, very hard.
Via MrMattyPlays, Todd Howard has responded to Starfield player upset over Bethesda selling a DLC mission for $7. "We need to evaluate both pricing, what we put out for free, how we communicate what's in something, and really hear from the community there," he said. Wait and see, then.
Bandai Namco have suddenly released the Steam version of their Baten Kaitos 1-2 HD Remaster compilation. Plenty of RPG to get your teeth into there.
TĪWESDÆG ALREADY?
Dimplexland 5evaStarfield will get at least one more expansion after Shattered Space, Todd Howard has confirmed - as Edwin shared earlier - but don't expect the DLC to answer every question from the sci-fi game's universe.
Remember that A Quiet Place video game, based on the pretty-good horror films, announced back in 2021? Me neither, but it's resurfaced under a new name and new developers, with a first look at its sneaky survival-horror gameplay and plans for a release in 2024.
As Edwin shared earlier, there's a third Lords of the Fallen - after the original Lords of the Fallen and its reboot, Lords of the Fallen - on the way in 2026. It'll probably be called Lords of the Fallen.
I haven't played much of Exogate Initiative, but "Stargate base management sim" is a combination of words that surely yanks my crank, and now they're adding 4X-style mechanics to the game in the form of alien races who have bases of their own.
PCGamer call our attention to this 8-bit demake of Baldur's Gate 3, which you will seemingly need a TRS-80 Model 100 to run.
According to a CI Games investor release passed on by PCGamer, there's another Lords Of The Fallen on the way - it's chalked up to launch in 2026.
There is at least one more Starfield expansion on the way after cosmic horror outing Shattered Space, according to Bethesdabossman Todd Howard via YouTuber MrMattyPlays and Eurogamer.
The shadows (our friends in PR) whisper of a Steam demo for Leximan, which Katharine (RPS in peace) played in 2023 and found scintillating. It's something to do with words and wizards and nutritional slime.
Some more Dragon Age: The Veilguard intelligence, care of a Discord Q&A with BioWare which I believe some of you sat in on. Some highlights: there's a max of two active party members this time, there's no campaign progression blocker akin to Inquisition's power mechanic, you'll be able to revisit areas, and you can pet the griffin.
Shovel Knight is getting a Definitive Edition for its 10th anniversary this year, named Shovel Knight: Shovel of Hope DX. Dig the trailer below.
IT IS MŌNANDÆG
Ionise the parapets and FEED THE MAW.