The Maw: what's new in PC games this week?
It's a S.T.A.L.K.E.R. 2 vs Microsoft Flight Simulator prizefight, basically
Live
Happy this week, you people! The sky is a washed eggshell blue, the air smells of circus straw, and all the fallen leaves have eyes that glitter mischievously and mouths that screech underfoot like dial-up modems. The Maw must be feeling festive. Let's see if there are any new PC games we can feed it.
Monday 18th November is a day of crafty auto-battling care of Seer's Gambit. On Tuesday 19th November, Into The Breach meets Tails Of Iron in Toads Of The Bayou. There's also Threshold, for people who love trains, stress and grimy pixelation, Microsoft Flight Simulator 2024, for people who love planes and pretty clouds, and Towers Of Aghasba, for people who love village-building and off-brand Avatar. On Wednesday 20th November, the actual, no-foolin' release of post-apocalyptic shooter S.T.A.L.K.E.R. 2: Heart Of Chornobyl. Stardew lovers may prefer Luma Island. On Thursday 21st November, "grand RTS" ICBM Escalation wants to have a word about those nukes you're stockpiling in Norway. And on Friday 22nd November, the choice of Hard Chip, an extremely nerdy puzzler about semiconductor chip design, or Toastercide, in which you try to launch a toaster into somebody's bathtub using Spider-Man grappling and time control. Not actually about killing toasters, then, but I guess "Peoplecide", aka plain old "Murder", isn't much of a game title.
As ever, there may be other and better games on offer that only you, the debonair RPS cognoscenti, can find. Our comments thread awaits your insights. Well, assuming it doesn't shove them into automod purgatory (pulling the Automod's teeth is top of my to-do list this week). There's also our weekly news liveblog below, in which sporadic journalism may occur between music recommendations and notes-to-self about replenishing my stocks of mold cleaner. Hope you have a good one!
Virtua Fighter 5 is coming to PC this winter. It's a remaster with 4K graphics, higher resolution textures, and rollback netcode support for better online play. Ta, Eurogamer.
In Dante's Ring (they will regret calling it that, if they aren't already), you search an erupting volcanic island for survivors while reckoning with "your own inner demons" and "deep-seated human beliefs". Sounds fancy. You also get a propellor-powered sled, among other retro gadgets.
Also passed on by PCG, a short documentary about the making of Infinity Nikki, the open world gacha dress-up game.
Dragon Age: The Veilguard's latest patch lets you rebind arrow keys for movement, as reported by PCGamer.
Time for the full release of Kura5: Bonds Of The Undying, a fangame remix of Hideo Kojima's old solar-sensitive Boktai games for the GBA. Find it on Itch.
Don't Wake The Beast appears to be a fine blend of Spelunky and Thief. It's a stealthy procgen dungeon crawler with the twist that there's a very large dragon at the bottom, and if you wake it up, it'll destroy everything pursuing you.
DuneCrawl is a bit like Sea Of Thieves, but 1) top-down, and 2) instead of ships, you get a bunch of crustaceans. Scorpion-riding, is it? I think there's a proverb somewhere about that.
STREET FRIDAY MAW
Fighting Game pun week started well enough but has gone downhill rapidly. No time to worry about that, for the Maw must be fed. Fill the supertankers with condensed Tekken effluence! Full steam ahead!Guntouchables is a 1-4 player co-op roguelike shooter from the Deep Rock devs. It casts you as a bunch of wobbly sausage men fighting mutants in angled top-down view. I know, I know - you've played a lot of roguelike shooters, but this has a certain style.
Itch.io now require developers to disclose that they've used generative AI tools, be it for graphics, sound, text and dialogue, or code.
Empyreal is a new action-RPG from Silent Games and Secret Mode in which you, a star-faring mercenary, explore a huge alien monolith. "Venture inside the Monolith and face the automatons that yet remain, remnants of the impossibly ancient civilisation that built this unknowable structure," explains the Steam page. "Survive and uncover revelations that transform our understanding of humanity itself." Also loot. Lots of loot.
One we missed from earlier in the week: Overwatch 2 is getting a new tank hero, Hazard. There's going to be a playtest this weekend.
GSC Game World have posted on Elan Misk's Ailing Algorithmic Cabaret about plans for STALKER 2, now it's out. Beyond the initial hotfixes, there will be larger updates that add things to the game. We'll hear more in December.
THE KING OF THURSDAYS
Terrible. Terrible! FEED THE MAW.A big update out of the blue for wibbly physics brawler Gang Beasts. It now has a crane you can drive and birds who'll pick you up and fly away.
Shiren The Wanderer: The Mystery Dungeon Of Serpentcoil Island has been announced for PC release via Steam. I played one of the Shiren games on DS many years ago - it's a banger catacomb-crawler, with all sorts of weird props and knock-on effects. But don't take it from me - take it from Immortality developer Sam Barlow.
Microsoft Flight Simulator 2024 is experiencing pretty severe launch difficulties, with reports of massive download times and login delays. Microsoft have said "whoops" and "let me get on that".
Undeterred by the brutal paddling administered to the first Minecraft movie trailer, Warner Bros and Legendary pictures have released a second one. Highlights include bees, child Jack Black, and the OG Minecraft score. This movie is going to make a trillion dollars and we'll all look like chumps for insisting that it looks rubbish.
IGN has a report on the disagreements between the three Disco Elysium successor studios who all revealed themselves on the same day a few weeks back. There's talk of a cancelled Disco Elysium sequel on a USB stick, and claims about one particular studio head sharing around pictures of his ex-wife in a bikini.
MAWVEL VS CAPCOM
Thanks to Fighting Game pun week I have learned that "footsie" is both a romantic practice and a series of techniques for keeping your opponent at the optimal range. What do you mean, they're both the same thing? FEED THE MAW.Reflector Entertainment, the studio that last month released third-person action adventure Unknown 9: Awakening, is seeing an unspecified number of layoffs, reports Ethan Gach of Kotaku.
Foxhole, the MMO wargame Graham will not shut up about, has been treated to a major update. "Prepare for a major revision in Foxhole's infantry gameplay, designed to be more team-oriented and tactical," reads the Steam announcement. "This update introduces deeper suppression gameplay, weapon shouldering mechanics, and a stamina overhaul, alongside other features to make the entire infantry playspace more impactful on the persistent battlefield."
I pretty much never write about VR these days (I only have an original PSVR headset, which is currently being used as a draught excluder) so please be upstanding and clap your hands for this brief aside that VR game Alien: Rogue Incursion is out on 19th December.
BLAZBLUESDAY
Quarter-circle around the flanks! Lay down a suppressive bombardment of kamehamehas and hadoukens! FEED THE MAW.
Thrilling but maddening spelunk-o-dystopia Lorn's Lure has been updated with an Explore mode that makes certain parts a fair bit easier.
SeekerX has another game for the Maw - train detective sim Loco Motive, out 21st November, which Katharine liked.
Via PCGamer, BioWare art director Matt Rhodes has shared a bunch of concept arts for the next Dragon Age project after Inquisition, way back in 2014. Always find it interesting to compare concept art with the final game.
Ratatan is a new martial rhythm extravaganza from Tokyo Virtual Theory and Patapon creator Hiroyuki Kotani. It sure looks/sounds Patapony.
GTA: The Trilogy – The Definitive Edition was comprehensively updated last week, and rather strangely, port developers Grove Street Games have been removed from the opening title screens (they're still mentioned in the final credits). Grove Street's Thomas Williamson appears unhappy about this.
MAWTAL KOMBAT
Can we do a fighting game-themed pun week? I sure hope we can. Break out the Obsidian Wordplay Oscillators and FEED IT, FEED IT.