The Maw: what's new in PC games this week?
All the PC game news from 24th June-1st July 2024
Live
Happy Monday all! Yes, I wrote that with total sincerity. We all deserve a happy Monday - perhaps video games can help with that. As you'd expect, Elden Ring's recently released Shadow Of The Erdtree DLC remains this week's Big Kahuna, with no obvious mega releases in the offing to break its chokehold on the discourse, but I have dipped my latex-gloved hand into the gestation pools and fished out a few promising oddities.
Monday 24th June kicks off with bone-throwing dungeon solitaire Dice & Fold. On Tuesday 25th June, we've got the remake of mystical 90s point-and-clicker Riven - now with real-time 3D environments, shock - together with magic realist high school visual novel Until Then and Argentinian folk horror Pomberito, in which a farmer must survive five nights while investigating a local beastie. Skipping forward to Thursday 27th June, there's some Orpheus DLC for RPG musical Stray Gods, and the early access launch of 30 player last-person-stand 'em up Battle Crush. On Friday 28th June, there's the early access release of tornado-chasing simulation OUTBRK, which has you monitoring rogue weather on a 625 square kilometre map.
Here at the RPS Treehouse we'll be spending a fair bit of the week feeding the Maw freshly-hewn pieces of Erdtree, but we'll also be running our mitts over a co-op anime shooter I won't spoil, dredging up long-forgotten Aliens games, and possibly finding time for a stylised retro FPS or two. The Maw would typically consider this spartan fare, but there's so much molten Elden Ring DLC running through its cyclopean veins I think we'll get away with it. Even the Maw needs time to digest.
The whale is dead. We have One Million Checkboxes, yet we could not save a single whale.
Sound the klaxons, Capcom have announced that you can play two whole hours of Dragon's Dogma 2 for free via Steam from now till 19th July.
You can now see the most popular games played on Steam deck, thanks to a new store page created by Valve. Elden Ring is there. And oh look, Stardew Valley. And there's Hades 2! It's a who's who of good games to play with a large rectangular flashlight.
The fascinating mass ticking and unticking of One Million Checkboxes continues. A third faction has emerged in the passive aggressive war between checkists and the uncheckists - the artists. Here is an image of a whale.
Update: The whale is being drowned.
Decade-old sim Universe Sandbox is getting a big graphics update. Look at those moons go.
The Long Dark's new Cougar has been temporarily removed. Seemingly this comes down to a couple of quibbles: people don't like the reliance on HUD notifications to communicate its movements, and people don't like that it's a scripted event rather than an in-game entity they can hunt down.
Via WCCFtech, CD Projekt RED are promising through their tears that thanks to setting up a whole new studio in North America, the next Cyberpunk game will finally get the manhole covers right.
As announced by Yves Guillemot in an Ubisoft.com interview, Ubisoft are working on several Assassin's Creed remakes, in a neat continuation of Assassin's Creed's own premise of history eating itself.
ES IST FREITAG
FÜTTERT DEN SCHLUND.Survival citybuilder Frostpunk 2 has been delayed until September, so that its developers can address the beta feedback gathered earlier this year.
After four years in the wilderness of expired licenses, Alpha Protocol returned to GOG back in April. Now it's back on Steam as well.
The Steam summer sale is now live. Try to resist the siren song of FOMO, and remember all the games you already own but haven't yet had the time to play.
Payday 3's new update arrives today, adding a much-requested "solo mode", but alas it still requires an initial internet connection.
Aspyr are remaking Star Wars: Bounty Hunter, one of the quintessential 6/10 games, which my brother played so much the Gamecube disc became entirely non-reflective. I think he's now using it to prop up a wonky desk.
Popular survival game Medieval Dynasty has gotten a co-op mode, so you can now catch and eat wild birds with mates.
Ari Buktu and the Anytime Elevator (Steam link) is a side-scrolling 3D platformer in the spirit of 80s Hollywood action films, which is being directed by Jeff Ashbrook, one of the minds behind Disneyland's Millenium Falcon ride. The trailer doesn't wow me that much, but I'm curious about the overlap between game design and themeparks.
This morning's Great Updating continues with the release of a sizeable Palworld patch, featuring a new island, new Pal skills, the promised multiplayer Arena mode, junkyards, meteorites and crude oil.
This is an older story, but - Call of Duty: Black Ops 6 is introducing something called "omnimovement", for which the summary appears to be: what if your character could move in all directions at the same velocity like an ice hockey puck. Wesley Yin-Poole of Ian Games says it "turns COD into Max Payne".
Crusader Kings 3 has revealed a few more details about their next big DLC due in September called Roads To Power. They usually make a free update to coincide with these DLC, and this time it will include a small but incredibly useful change: the ability to deeply customise how all messages appear. Don't want to be pestered about every little pregnancy your spouse has? Set that message type to "Never"!
SeekerX says: Huh -- February's release Islands of Insight is trying a Content Warning manuever to drum up hype, and is free to keep on Steam for the next 24 hours? That's maybe a worse sign for a $30 puzzle game than for an $8 streamer-friendly co-op horror game, but I'm not one to look a gift horse in the mouth.
I saw this one go past at launch and liked the concept, but the art direction seemed a little too bright and busy.
Also as noticed by Ed, there's a new Dragon's Dogma 2 patch, which looks to improve performance, nobble a few bugs and introduce a couple of quality-of-life options such as being able to sell and equip items from storage.
Hark, a new Strange Scaffold game. It's called Clickolding, and is about sitting in a motel room clicking a tally counter. There is a strange hooded man with glowing eyes who just wants to watch. Also featuring "weird jazz" and "a locked bathroom door".
As noticed by Ed, Hades 2 got a brand new bag (patch). It seems copious.
As noticed by Nic, Valve have launched automatic background Steam game recording into beta.
E' GIOVEDÌ
NUTRIRE LE FAUCI.Palworld devs Pocketpair apparently heard “nothing at all” from the creators of Pokémon despite widespread accusations of plagirism and everyone calling the survival game 'Pokémon with guns', according to the studio's CEO.
Atari 50’s already generous retro time capsule will add 39 new games in an Expanded Edition this October, offered both as DLC - bringing the total number of games to over 150 - and a new standalone collection.
Final Fantasy XIV is gearing up for this week's arrival of new expansion Dawntrail by polishing the MMO's graphics, hiding quest-giver crowds and making stealth quests less annoying in its latest 7.0 patch.
Here's a bit more on that Dead Rising remaster, as Nic shared a lil earlier!
While not confirmed for PC (or any platform), a "Deluxe Remaster" of innovative and, dare I say, very good zombie game Dead Rising has been announced by Capcom. Teaser trailer below, though it's very light on detail. If they mess with the time limits I will riot.
Sword of Convallaria is a Final Fantasy tactics-em-up, with a focus on twisty political machinations. There's a demo on Steam and a trailer below
Hex-strategy Shields of Loyalty has a new trailer ahead of its 1.0 release. It looks neat and complex, and Steam reviews suggest a well-regarded game, if one with a small audience.
I like the looks of Mystiques. Bio: "a game about the four worst women you've ever met running a failing antique store. also it is haunted." Check out that Polly Pocket inventory system.
The original Resident Evil 1 from 1996 is now once again avilable on PC via seller of ye olde games, GOG. If you wish to be terrified by polygonal dogs with mishapen heads, it's selling for £9/$10.
Arrowhead are most pleased with the speculation surrounding Helldivers 2's recently added black hole. They've put together a community update on Steam which includes highlights from Joel the Game Master's time as interplanetary Machiavelli alongside the revelation that there will be fewer and bigger Helldivers 2 updates in future.
The Nightingale devs have popped up a video with their current plans for the early access fantasy survival sim. Topics covered include a grapple ability, charms of brawling, online to offline mode migration, a Steam Deck offline mode and Steam cloud saves.
ES MIÉRCOLES
ALIMENTA LAS FAUCES.Groundpounding paint 'em up Disney Epic Mickey: Rebrushed has got a release date. So burp publishers THQ Nordic in a trailer for the remastered platformer. It's coming to PC on September 24th, they say. Good news for those who want to replay Warren Spector's best-selling game.
Payday 3's long-awaited solo mode arrives in beta form on 27th June.
Ahh! Slitterhead, the upcoming horror game directed by former Silent Hill head Keiichiro Toyama, confirms it is definitely inspired by his other previous game, PlayStation 2 horror Forbidden Siren (or just "Siren" for US readers). “[The] fundamental concept is to reinterpret Siren as a modern action game,” he said in a press event as translated by Automaton. He also promised you can't hurt the dog.
In the event that live service support for Helldivers 2 is pulled, Arrowhead will take steps to ensure it remains playable, studio CEO Johan Pilestedt has said.
The Steam Summer Sale is going to begin this week, say the bargain astrologers at Valve. They decree on Xitter that it begins on Thursday at 10am Pacific Time / 6pm British Summer Time.
As commenter Durkonkell pointed out last night, Valve are running a rare sale on the original, LCD-screened Steam Deck, knocking 15% off both the 64GB and 512GB models. Looks like they're both out of stock in the UK, but still up for grabs via the US store.
Chinese martial arts RPG Wandering Sword is getting a chunky update including paid mounts and free story DLC. We didn't get round to this one, but it's mustered an enthusiastic following. It looks a bit like Octopath Traveller.
Voice chat is "on the list" for Ubisoft shooter XDefiant.
Original Fallout producer Tim Cain has posted a video about the cancellation of Project van Buren, aka Interplay's Fallout 3, in the early noughties. As summarised by PCGamer, Cain (who had by that time left Interplay) describes being invited by the studio's vice president to play a WIP build and give thoughts on whether it could be completed in half a year: "He thought it couldn't be done in six months; I just confirmed that to him."
C'EST MARDI
NOURRIR LA GUEULE!As Edwin shared earlier: Diablo 4’s Season 5 will add a roguelike horde mode. It's called Infernal Horders and you can give it a go from tomorrow in the Public Test Realm.
War Thunder developers Gaijin Entertainment have apologised for using a picture of the real-life Challenger shuttle disaster, in which seven people died, in artwork promoting its latest update for the aerial combat MMO.
There’s no new FIFA game just yet, so of course they’re hosting a World Cup in Rocket League instead. It'll be held later this year, will feature 16 teams and you can sign up now if you think you're a good enough car-footballer to represent your country.
Diablo 4 is getting a wave-based rogue-lite Infernal Hordes mode in Season 5 - more here.
Klei's Invisible Inc turns 10 this week. To celebrate, you can get the full game plus the soundtrack and Contingency Plan DLC for the practically invisible price of £2.30, $3, or 3€.
Erstwhile Days Gone creative director John Garvin is back on the horn with tweets about his pitch for a sequel, which game director Jeff Ross has said will "never happen".
Via PCGamer - yes, there are actually two dudes wearing that horrible lion costume in Elden Ring: Shadow Of The Erdtree.
Post-apoc city-builder New Cycle, which Sin wasn't wholly convinced by, hath a new early access roadmap. "Cormac McCarthy's The Roadmap", they should call roadmaps for post-apoc games. Planned additions include *squints* "luxury consumer goods"? Apocalyptic indeed.
Slay The Princess devs Black Tabby Games have said they're OK with you pirating their game if you can't afford it. The game is currently enjoying a boost thanks to a Markiplier video over the weekend.
Bamco have some advice for struggling Shadow Of The Erdtree players.
IT IS MONDAY
Time to draw our breath in pain and distribute the news. FEED THE MAW.