The Maw - 27th November-2nd December 2023
Our weekly news liveblog
Here’s the very first of RockPaperShotgun’s new weekly news liveblogs. Read more about the thinking behind them in our announcement post, if you dare.
A few PC game releases coming up this week that have our curiosity, perhaps even our attention: historical locomotive RTS Last Train Home (29th Nov), timeloop puzzler Orten Was The Case (29th Nov), first person mage 'em up Wizordum (29th Nov), futuristic Robin Hood-inspired action game Gangs of Sherwood (30th Nov), and city-building dungeon crawler SteamWorld Build (1st Dec).
This week's soundtrack is Low Roar's I'll Keep Coming, from the Death Stranding trailer.
Our live coverage of this event has finished.
(Tom Clancy's) The Division: Heartland has been rated PG-15 in Taiwan, which implies that it might be out soon, as Eurogamer notes. It's been given that rating for violence, "inappropriate language" and for being "anti-society".
Bloober Team have requested that people looking forward to their Silent Team 2 remake have "a bit more patience", reassuring the Hillians in a social media post that development is "progressing smoothly".
The Like A Dragon developers have told Game Informer that they are not "particularly conscious" of having to maintain a balance between real-time and turn-based combat, saying that each LAD game is kind of its own thing, and that choice of narrative tends to decide the approach to combat.
Katharine suggests that the aforesaid Bloober post about their Silent Hill 2 remake could be designed to get ahead of any complaints about the absence of a Game Award or PC Gaming Show: Most Wanted announcement.
Valve kingpin Gabe Newell has been ordered to give an in-person deposition regarding the antitrust lawsuit brought against Valve by Wolfire Games, as reported by GamesIndustry.biz.
Retro Commander came out over the weekend and seems to be Command & Conquer with campy "Bond meets Advance Wars"-style visuals.
A quick aside from our guides writer Jeremy: "cool site if you want to look at classic box art".
BloodDome99, out 4th Dec, is a satirical Survivor 'em up about deathgames in an alternative Reaganite USA. The satire is a bit too heavy-handed for me, but I quite enjoy the visuals.
As spotted by PCGamesN, Inscryption creator Daniel Mullins appears to be teasing a new game. Here's a video.
Reader subedii would like us all to show more love for Roboquest, which went 1.0 this month, and is "a well polished and thought out rogue-light shooter, with sort of Borderlands stylings". Imogen (RPS in peace) really liked the early access release back in 2021.
A longer write-up about the new Daniel Mullins project.
Footage of a new Tribes game from a recent playtest? Don't mind if we do. Ta, Eurogamer.
FlyKnight is a free, short and atmospheric King's Field-style first-person dungeon sim in which you are some kind of "knight fly", or possibly a "fly knight". Thanks for spotting, Dominic!
A little more about the new Tribes game, which is seemingly called Tribes 3: Rivals. I feel like giving it a number and subtitle will be ruinous for promotion, after such an interval between games - why not just do a Lords of the Fallen on the sucker, Prophecy?
Ubisoft are giving away a free copy of Assassin's Creed: Syndicate, which is the London one where you get bushy sideburns and a stovepipe hat. The catch, as often with these big-name giveaways, is that you'll need to sign up to Ubisoft's Connect service.
A quick insight from one of the developers of NightDive's Turok 3 remaster, explaining the effects of calculating joint collision boxes on performance.
Good evening! I'm manning the RPS news cannons for the evening. And Edwin has left me the pleasure of sharing this fairly-goofy-looking-but-in-a-fun-way (I think?) Attack on Titan fan game.
I can only assume it's a knowing attempt to satiate me, personally, after what I felt was a very disappointing ending to the anime. This, by comparison, looks to be a very silly take on the best bits of AoT: zipping around, hitting big naked giants with swords.
Still, it's got tough competition in the excellent ODM gear from Fortnite.
Elsewhere, Reuters is reporting that ByteDance plans to exit the games scene, including stopping development on planned games at its games division Nuverse and "divesting" from those already out.
Most notably, Nuverse is behind Marvel Snap - which by all accounts is a pretty damn good digital card game, but apparently struggled to make the money required to keep its parent company in the market.
The decision will also affect hundreds of staff, it's claimed, continuing a thoroughly rotten year for anyone making games.
Bungie has confirmed that Destiny 2's Final Shape expansion will now release next June (thanks, EG), as previously reported by Bloomberg during the studio's recent spate of layoffs.
Some more details on that delay for Destiny 2's The Final Shape expansion, including what to expect in the meantime.
And here's the full story on the reported retreat from "mainstream games" by TikTok makers ByteDance, owner of Marvel Snap publishers Nuverse.
Marvel Snap devs Second Dinner have responded to the reports by assuring that the game isn't going anywhere.
A closer look at that promising Attack on Titan fan game!
I'm sure AoT fans will have zero problems with my feelings on the ending, no siree
Frontier - makers of Elite Dangerous, Planet Coaster and this year's Warhammer RTS Realms of Ruin - are doubling down on management games after what's been a rocky few years for the UK developers.
They recently confirmed layoffs as part of an organisational review, following the shuttering of their third-party publishing arm Frontier Foundry over the summer.
TUESDAY IS HERE. By the gods, it's hideous. Back! Back! FEED THE MAW.
There's a demo out for SpaceKraft, a 2D space construction sim which looks like a much, much more easy-going ΔV: Rings of Saturn.
There's an on-going furore over Geoff Keighley defending Dave the Diver's nomination for Best Indie at the TGAs, despite it being funded by a billion-dollar publisher - VGC has more.
There's a big Dragon's Dogma 2 showcase today during which Capcom will officially announce the release date (according to a PEGI listing, it's 22 March 2024).
Big fan of this week's planned Baldur's Gate 3 update, or at least, of the amazing slowdown bug it's designed to fix - basically, the game has been burdened by second-hand guilt about your undetected crimes.
Bethesda customer support have been getting into it with Starfield haters on Steam, as spotted by JuiceHead on Xitter. The game still has a Mixed user review consensus, with over 80,000 reviews posted.
A post about the aforesaid Bethesda vs Steam reviewers palaver. Did you know that you can put points into different characters? Did you know that planets are supposed to be empty? (I do have a bit of sympathy for some of Bethesda's points.)
Asteroids With Bad Music is exactly what it sounds like and slightly more. At the risk of sounding condescending, I think it's very sweet. Not so much a game as an opportunity to meet somebody. Be sure to play for a bit after you think you've finished.
I'm going to give Siheyuan a try over lunch. It's a tile-based "minimalistic test of coordination" that is "inspired by the historical courtyards of Beijing, China".
Eurogamer are reporting layoffs at Chorus developer Fishlabs. Best of luck to everybody affected.
Here's our story on the Fishlabs layoffs, which have now been confirmed.
The Maw shouldn't eat right before bed, and yet it hungers. Just-announced cyber-slasher Quantic River looks quite nice and has a Steam page.
Cyberpunk 2077 is a noir and therefore "no place for happy endings", says CDPR's senior writer responsible for the Judy Alvarez storyline in a new interview. I agree. Phantom Liberty crushed me and I loved it.
Old_Man_Gaming says: What flavour?
Chicken & Mushroom. The only flavour. (King sized.)
It's cute that Edwin thinks he can soundtrack the entire week. I'll be using their creation of the theme music of the new Scott Pilgrim show to dive into Necry Talkie again, a Japanese band I've loved for a couple of years. Try this.
Over on Aftermath, Gita Jackson wrote about the short memory of games journalism and a new anthology of that seems oblivious to the prior existence of "writing about video games from the personal, emotional perspective." New Games Journalism is referenced (Don't mention the war. -Ed), as is RPS.
Chet Faliszek says he "will never do Early Access again" after The Anacrusis due to inaccurate player count reporting making it difficult to change the narrative around a small game. The Anacrusis is due to launch on December 5th.
One of the worst interviews I ever did was with Faliszek. It was over the phone, around the announcement of Left 4 Dead 2 for a PC Gamer cover feature. Fans of Left 4 Dead 1 were threatening to boycott the sequel due to how soon after the original it was announced, and I opened by asking about the boycott in what I'd imagined was a jovial way. Faliszek's response was something along the lines of, "Really? You want to talk about that?". I was mortified - although the rest of the interview was fine. Faliszek recently did a TikTok where he spoke about the misery of that fan reaction and of only being asked by journalists about the boycott when he wanted to talk about the cool new game. It was a good lesson for me, back in 2008, to better empathise with an interview subject and, if I'm going to approach a negative topic, to at least do it sensitively.
Old_Man_Gaming says: Nice. I was 10ish, I was ill on holiday and my Mum bought me a pot noodle to make me feel better. Not sure pot noodles have any reported clinical efficacy but I did feel better. The Chemicals! It was a long time ago but I think it was curry flavour, in the way of the 19??s, that curry had a single flavour.
Lovely. My fondest memory of being off school is spending day after day watching Red Dwarf, media with a real anti-Pot Noodle bias.
Dragon's Dogma 2 will launch on March 22nd, 2024 and there's a new trailer.
I will leave you for the night with Reiwa Type V, a just-released soundtrack EP to an imagined 2023 racing game in the vein of Ridge Racer Type 4, from Kohta Takahashi, the original composer of Ridge Racers 4, 5 and 6.
IT IS WEDNESDAY. Zounds, the beast is almost fully manifest! Power up the Lucent Archive and FEED THE MAW.
Well, it's no wonder the Maw is so lively today - Graham has been feeding it pot noodle and New Games Journalism. Keep this up and you'll give it indigestion and we'll have to write about Fortnite skins till the Maw settles down.
Development of The Witcher 4 proceeds apace - as spotted by IGN in the latest CD Projekt earnings report, almost 330 people, or just under half of the studio's development staff, were working on the game as of 31st October.
VGC sources claim that Embracer may close Timesplitters studio Free Radical on 11th December, just in time for the holidays.
Vanity Fair has some shots of Amazon's forthcoming Fallout TV adaptation. The feature includes some chat from Todd Howard about how the show fits in alongside the games.
Genvid founder Jacob Navok has fiercely denied claims that Silent Hill: Ascension was written using large language models or other recent "AI generation" techniques, as reported by PCGamesN, calling it a "veiled insult" to the interactive drama's writers.
Red Dead Redemption series writer Michael Unsworth has joined Rockstar co-founder Dan Houser at Absurd Ventures, which Houser founded in 2020 with a view to "building narrative worlds, creating characters, and writing stories for a diverse variety of genres" across a range of entertainment media - thanks EG.
Falling Frontier, a moody space strategy game in which you can hide fleets behind celestial bodies, has been pushed back to 2025. I am sad about this. Here's the most recent trailer.
Sony have teamed up with Guild Wars publisher NCSoft to "collaborate in various global business fields, including mobile." Sony president and CEO Jim Ryan says that “partnering with NCSOFT advances our strategy to expand beyond console and broaden PlayStation’s reach to a wider audience." Spare some love for PC, Jim?
More tasty space simulation #content: it's the system requirements for Homeworld 3.
Graham also cracked wise last night about my weekly music recommendations. FINE - we'll switch to daily ad hoc reccs. On which note, here's one from Panzer Dragoon Saga.
Here's our story on the Witcher Polaris news, in which I try to decipher various CD Projekt codenames.
I done wrote up that Quantic River game from last night - it's a thoroughly non-whimsical cyborg katana combat sim.
Unity have cut 265 jobs as part of a company "reset" that will also see them ending their partnership with Peter Jackson-founded digital effects company Weta FX.
A PSA from Leaf, the founder of Itch.io: somebody's posted an AI-generated scam page for Dead by Daylight in a bid to spread malware. I'm not sure if there are any other such scams in circulation on Itch right now - tread cautiously.
Sam says: Boy, Panzer Dragoon Saga OST posting; this WAS a good a idea.
It's all downhill from here - my work playlist is a dank cocktail of dad rock, Sonic Adventure tracks and anime OPs.
There's a bit in this Sega earnings presentation where an executive discusses how the publisher adopted a strategy of accelerating the growth of Sega studios amid "the favourable winds of the early Covid-19 period" - a move that hasn't panned out well for Creative Assembly, who recently cancelled their online shooter Hyenas and are facing layoffs. Hmmm.
Here's our report on the Unity layoffs.
Jarvis here, checking in for the evening shift! And I can't let a good music debate slide, so I'll offer that my yearly stats for a well-known music platform offered little more than confirmation that I listen to a lot of lofi and Final Fantasy soundtracks while I'm working, so my whole algorithm now just wants to offer up synthwave at every waking hour. (The rest is anime OPs and K-pop.) The TPR covers of FFIX are especially lovely, mind.
Anyone in the comments manage to sneak into the Beyond Good & Evil Anniversary Edition that slipped out? I'd crack a joke about how the 20th Anniversary release might arrive just in time for the 30th anniversary, if folks weren't already somehow playing.
Ah, there's that Netflix Grand Theft Auto game that was rumoured a while back - it's a re-release of the trilogy that you can play for free if you're a subscriber. Just for mobile for now, it seems!
(Edwin here, sliding in before Matt notices to say that I wrote up that Wizordum game.)
After cancelling their ambitious shot at making an extraction shooter earlier this year in Hyenas, Creative Assembly are apparently going back to what they're best at (or what Sega reckons they're best at, anyway): "offline RTS games". In other words, expect a lot more Total War games.
Here's the deets on that Beyond Good & Evil remaster too, which is due out in early 2024.
So expect it sometime in 2025, if series history holds.
Seems that Cult of the Lamb's Sins of the Flesh will feature, err, sins of the flesh, as devs Massive Monster look to make its 'sex update' meme a real thing.
It's, ahem, coming next year.
Things are looking increasingly grim for TimeSplitters devs Free Radical, as it's reported that the resurrected UK studio could be closed before Christmas.
THURSDAY IS NEAR. All News Writers gain +5 Loathing. FEED THE MAW.
Rockstar co-founder Dan Houser's new studio Absurd Ventures have announced their first projects: a graphic novel and an audio drama, both launching in 2024.
Microsoft have launched a Compact Mode for the Xbox PC app that provides "a more intuitive user interface on smaller screens" i.e. handhelds.
JimTheReader says: The lack of Slay the Princess coverage is saying a lot about RPS' opinion on monster ****ers. Then again that game kind of up in itself. Looking forward to more sex updates in games.
It was on our radar! I played an old demo yonks ago and loved it. But then we had Other Stuff To Attend To and the full release fell through the cracks. I am keen to return to it.
Today's warm-up music is the Chainsaw Man OP - Kenshi Yonezu's "KICK BACK".
The latest Humble Bundle is all about JRPGs - to be specific, Symphony of War: The Nephilim Saga, Mato Anomalies, Edge of Eternity, Bug Fables: The Everlasting Sapling, Nexomon: Extinction, Eiyuden Chronicle: Rising and Dark Deity. I'm not sure there are any outright bangers in there, but I'm happy to be corrected in the comments.
As reported by Gamesradar, Bungie have yanked an eye-watering $15/£12 Destiny 2 Starter Pack from Steam following a player revolt against overpriced microtransactions.
Nightdive's Turok 3: Shadow of Oblivion remaster is out today.
Studio Wildcard have briefly turned off ARK: Survival Ascended crossplay on PvP servers for Windows users while they work on anticheat measures. Private servers and singleplayer are apparently unaffected, and they're hoping to re-enable everything next week.
As spotted by PCGamesN, free-to-play battle royale Naraka Bladepoint is getting a roguelike mode in today's big update alongside a slew of other adjustments.
Those crazy Capcom people are trying to charge $69.99 / £53.98 for Dragon's Dogma 2 - it's the publisher's first $70 game, and follows a Capcom executive's remarks that game prices are "too low" (thanks VGC). Get 'em, lads!
Sam says: Eiyuden Chronicle: Rising is something I've been getting on with pretty well since it dropped on PS+ but it is for "gather 10 of x" sidequest sickos.
I've not played it but I like the art, and any new RPG series that styles itself "a spiritual successor to Suikoden" is an automatic wishlist for me.
As noted, Capcom is selling Dragon's Dogma 2's base edition for $70/£54-ish. It's a no thanks from me.
Hey, how's about a new vampire...house-building sim? It's Vampire Dynasty, announced this week for 2024 release.
In case you're wondering, we're currently prepping some Stuff that will go up in a couple of hours, which is why things are a bit quiet on the site right now.
The first DLC for Wartales has been announced. I'm blogging this mostly to remind myself to play Wartales, because people keep saying very nice things about it - the writer and designer of Citizen Sleeper is a fan.
Open world survival-crafty Victorian Fancy Hat simulator Nightingale is getting an online stress test early next year - here's how to sign up. This is the one from ex-BioWare devs.
Baldur's Gate 3 just got patched in a big way - there's a new epilogue, modes and some performance fixes for Act 3 specifically.
That mad attempt to make Solium Infernum into a polished, mid-budget, accessible strategy game is coming in February 2024.
What is it with puzzle games being set on islands? Islands Of Insight is a "shared world" puzzle game and it's also coming in February of 2024.
Dwarf Fortress's Steam release is finally getting Adventure mode next year, with changes to world maps, combat and brand new portraits to support it. I played the original Adventure mode back in 2014 if you want the flavour of it.
This was my most played song on Spotify this year and that seems justified to me.
Homeworld 3 finally has a specific release date: March 8th, 2024. There's a making-of documentary coming this December too and a short clip to watch now.
Vehicular spook 'em up Pacific Drive now has a release date of February 22nd, 2024 and a new trailer:
Bloodlines 2's third clan has been revealed, the somewhat stealthy Banu Haqim, via a trailer mostly using previously released dialogue footage. Very odd:
It's FRIDAY, it's FRIDAY. One last push! FEED THE MAW.
Today's "getting it done" music is Sonic Adventure 2's Green Forest theme. Won't stop, just go!
This could be interesting: Activision are planning to do a bit of talking about skill-based matchmaking systems in Call of Duties old and new, after lots of spicy feedback from players about SBMM in this year's Modern Warfare 3.
Build A Rocket Boy's accessible game development tool Everywhere (previously described by Graham as "metaversal porridge") has new in-game footage, from a livestream last night. This is the one that's being made by a team led by ex-Rockstar people, including former GTA lead developer Leslie Benzies.
Trailers, trailers, trailers! Here's one for Kepler's Flintlock: The Siege of Dawn, which reminds me of Respawn's Jedi games, except that instead of the Force you have a big demon cat.
STALKER 2: Heart of Chornobyl has entered the final stages of development, and GSC Game World have put out a new trailer to celebrate.
The creator of Whisperer in Darkness, which Adam Smith (RPS in BG3) wrote about way back in 2016, is releasing a new visual novel today, FLIES FLIES FLIES. Premise: "One day, Finn Flynn wakes up in the body of a housefly".
If you're one of those sickos who likes playing videogames on a telephone, Downwell has come to Apple Arcade, as reported by VG247.
Speaking of sickos - nautical commerce 'em up SeaOrama: World of Shipping has a release date: 14th December. I don't play many sims like this but I'd love to read a diary play of this one.
A couple of RPS trailer-and-release-date write-ups: one for Pacific Drive and one for Flintlock, both of which seem promising.
And so it begins: GTA 6's first trailer has a release date and time. What do you all make of the teaser art, here? I can't work out whether it's brand new or adapted from GTA 5. It could be designed to suggest arriving in a new city - or leaving one.
Capcom still have more Resident Evil remakes on the way, according to IGN. We're surely getting to the point where the remakes will come out before the original game, and the games industry will turn into a version of the Four Yorkshireman sketch from Monty Python.
Warhammer 40k FPS Darktide will drop the second part of its free The Traitor Curse update before the year is out. Expect a bunch of new items (Stimms!) and a couple of new bosses to take down in the form of the Karnak Twins.
Oh, there's a combat shovel in there, too. I dig it.
Some fairly obvious but still pleasing news: expect another Resident Evil remake at some point in the future.
RE5 (with, uh, some changes, probably), Code Veronica or Zero, perhaps? What would be on your wishlist?
EA making more of their accessibility patents free for anyone to use - and including readymade code for a photosensitivity analysis tool - is a very cool thing to see. More of this, games industry!
Prepare for a new Solid Snake Butt Controversy, as it looks like the Metal Gear Solid hero is headed to Fortnite - alongside Family Guy's Peter Griffin, no less.
Ark devs Studio Wildcard have turned off crossplay in PVP servers until "early next week" in an effort to combat widespread cheating, which has led to PC players zipping around and killing players through walls.
The latest Indiepocalypse features a pretty nifty-looking danmaku-style shooter, Touhou: Lonely Lovely Bonfire. "A uniquely circular bullet hell" that reminds non-genre-expert me a little of Resogun.
Cyberpunk 2077 is getting a fully functioning metro system in update 2.1 on December 5th, so you can finally live out your E3 2018 trailer dreams. The update also adds, uh, lots: repeatable car races; dynamimc gang car chases; romantic partner hangouts; revised boss fights...
Stardew Valley continues to be updated because its developer considers it his "life's work" - and progress is going well on update 1.6.
Remedy are teasing a New Game+ mode for Alan Wake 2, possibly to arrive later this month.
Momodora: Moonlit Farewell, the latest installment in the series of action platformers, now has a release date of January 11th, 2024 and a new trailer. I have been intending to try Momodora: Reverie Under The Moonlight for several years and never got around to it.
If you've been on the internet since the '90s, you might remember some of the rectangular, often animated 88x31 pixel website links collected here. You'll find all sorts among the archive, including plenty that are vide game related - from Blue's News to a couple dozen Quake modding sites.
Sometimes, it gets a little hectic out there, but for now The Maw retreats, swell and fat. Until Monday...
The Maw is dead; long live the Maw - here's the new liveblog for the week 4th-9th December.