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The Maw: what's new in PC games this week?

Space Engineers 2, The Stone Of Madness, Spider-Man 2 and maw

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A stylised colourful interpretation of an 18th century monastery seen from an elevated angled cutaway view, from the game The Stone Of Madness. There are guards in corridors and a player character hiding in the shadows of a corner.
Image credit: Tripwire Presents

Continuing last week's Maw merchandising roll-out, may I introduce by popular demand the first official Maw-endorsed letter opener. Now now, don't act coy! I know some of you are old enough to know what a letter opener is, or even to own one. Statistically, most of the RPS readership are Lich Lords. The Maw letter opener differs from regular letter openers in that when you open a letter with it, you will encounter not a letter but a perfect copy of yourself opening a letter in the opposite direction. The two of you must now fight to the death to decide who is the letter-opener and who is the letter. It's yours for a piffling three pints of any available body fluid, but if you don't want to buy a letter opener you can always buy one of this week's new PC games instead.

On Monday 27th January, a properly asymmetrical pairing: the 4K puncheroos of Virtua Fighter 5 R.E.V.O. versus the wanton bulkhead husbandry of Space Engineers 2. On Tuesday 28th January, there's occult monastery escape sim The Stone Of Madness (pictured), cuddly critter murderer Tails Of Iron 2: Whiskers Of Winter, and the acrobatic wizardry of Eternal Strands. On Wednesday 29th January, we've got manky twilight zone shop sim Kiosk, "the first rogue builder" Cryptical Path, and one of the few, if not the first, JRPG worldmap builders, KAMiBAKO: Mythology of Cube. Oh, and Slavic village mystery The End Of The Sun, which reminds me of Everybody's Gone To The Rapture. On Thursday 30th January, there's the PC release of Marvel's Spider-Man 2 together with Sniper Elite: Resistance, Rebellion's latest WW2 headshotter, but perhaps you'd rather play Cloverfield cameraman in co-op horror frolic Headliners, or grow an underground cult in Whispers Of The Eyeless. And on Friday 31st January, it's time for dicey sci-fi RPG Citizen Sleeper 2: Starward Vector.

Assuming you haven't been slain by some letter-opening doppelganger, you may read this list and feel the delicate vertigo of disappointment. Fine, do your own round-up. I'm not Santa Claus and it's the wrong time of year for that guy anyway. Look out for our latest live newsblog below and have a joyous week, whether it involves video games or letter openers or simply a nice walk in the park. Walks are underrated!

Key points
A short, free PSX-style horror game for you - Scauage. "Play as a scavenger looting an abandoned house, uncovering its dark secrets and collecting hidden treasures while facing what lurks within."

Edwin Evans-Thirlwell

A big Steam post from Firaxis detailing how victories work in Civilization 7, together with bits and pieces about post-launch plans and less concrete ambitions.

Edwin Evans-Thirlwell

Wayne June, the voice of the Ancestor in Darkest Dungeon, has passed away.

A message from Darkest Dungeon developers Red Hook announcing the death of Wayne June, the voice actor for the game's Ancestor
Image credit: Red Hook

Edwin Evans-Thirlwell

We begin the death march to the next Keighley emergence, Summer Game Fest. It'll run on Friday 6th June at 10pm UK time, 5pm Eastern and 2pm Pacific.

Edwin Evans-Thirlwell

Deadrop developers Midnight Society have closed four months after a wave of layoffs. This was the studio co-founded by Guy "Dr Disrespect" Beahm, whose Youtube channel was suspended last year following Beahm's admission of "inappropriate" behaviour with a "minor" - the suspension has now been lifted, as reported by Kotaku.

Edwin Evans-Thirlwell

RAINY FRIDAY

There's a gutter somewhere in my block that goes tap-tap-tap-tap when it rains and no, it isn't irritating at all. FEED THE MAW.

Edwin Evans-Thirlwell

The Video Game History Foundation have launched their digital library - "more than 30,000 curated files (with lots more to come) of industry ephemera" including magazines, assets and more.

Watch on YouTube

Nic Reuben

Mandragora: Whispers Of The Witch Tree is a side-scrolling metroidvania that looks appealingly unholy, and is out 17th April.

Watch on YouTube

Edwin Evans-Thirlwell

cpt_freakout says: Oh and I saw the announcement of this in the wild on Xitter: https://store.steampowered.com/app/3139120/THREE_VERSES/. Looks like something the tree would be into!

"Having shed your corporeal form, you must now escape purgatory by completing the simple task of delivering verses from deities to struggling poets." I'M. VIBRATING.

Edwin Evans-Thirlwell

Minecraft is getting firefly bushes, fireflies being a mob that was cut from update plans back in 2022. Also, "howling desert winds".

Edwin Evans-Thirlwell

Come get your airships: it's an overview trailer for Lost Skies, successor to Worlds Adrift.

Watch on YouTube

Edwin Evans-Thirlwell

CLEAR THURSDAY

If only it felt as warm as it looks. FEED THE MAW.

Edwin Evans-Thirlwell

Edwin Evans-Thirlwell

In Do No Harm you are a 19th century village doctor treating eldritch diseases. Reminds me a bit of Strange Horticulture.

Edwin Evans-Thirlwell

As reported by PCGamer, Destiny 2's new episode next week will bring back Oryx's Dreadnought from the first game's Taken King DLC. I dimly remember this being a high point in Destiny's career, the point at which it slipped the surly bonds of 7/10s and became an all-timer for many players. Oryx, meanwhile, is "back in some capacity", according to Bungie.

Edwin Evans-Thirlwell

Having been taken offline as part of the now-lifted US ban on Tik-Tok, Marvel Snap has found a new US-based publisher, Skystone Games, to ensure it isn't caught up in any future skirmishes between the US government and the Chinese tech industry.

Edwin Evans-Thirlwell

Creepy monochrome dungeon crawler Repose has found a publisher in Akupara.

Watch on YouTube

Nic Reuben

Here's Sniper At Work, which looks a bit like Commandos, a bit like Hitman.

Watch on YouTube

Nic Reuben

GOG have gone done a Dino Crisis 1&2 bundle, which is just nice. It's just a nice thing to do.

Nic Reuben

SeekerX says: RPGFan tells me that on Wednesday 1/29, the "Oops all druids" Diablo-like about shape-shifting and becoming a mount for your party members Coridden will be out. After playing the demo last year, Edwin liked the idea of bringing Horsey to a co-op experience. https://www.rockpapershotgun.com/coridden-is-an-action-rpg-with-shapeshifters-in-which-you-can-ride-your-friends

This was a contender for the round-up. Sadly, it's getting trickier and trickier to muster a full RPS RPG party :(

Edwin Evans-Thirlwell

Titus Groen says: https://danielben.itch.io/dragonsweeper Dragonsweeper, a free minesweeper variant on itchio (sadly on works on desktop browsers ATM), has been eating both my time and lunch for the past week. I played for 3 hours tonight and never even realized it. Do yourself a favor and don't look up hints about the logic behind the layout of the monsters, it feels so much more rewarding when you start figuring things out! Last note: the music has no right being such a BANGER.

Got this on the go in a browser tab. "Fear the Mimic", eh? Will report back.

Edwin Evans-Thirlwell

SUNNY WEDNESDAY

Summer surprised us, coming over Lac Célavy in a shower of rain. FEED THE MAW.

Edwin Evans-Thirlwell

Do not go gentle into that good night, for Techland have "multiple unannounced projects" in the Dying Light universe, sprinkled across various forms of media. Perhaps one of them is a poem.

Edwin Evans-Thirlwell

Someone's already modded Doom: The Dark Ages weapons into classic Doom, via PCGN.

Watch on YouTube

Nic Reuben

JDM: Japanese Drift Masternow has a release date and a handsome trailer to prove it: March 26th, 2025. The free prologue, which tells a separate story from the main game, is still available, too.

Graham Smith

Virtual pet game Yolk Heroes is getting an in-game virtual pet game so your pets can have petttttttttttttttttttttttttttttsssssedwin.exe has stopped working

Edwin Evans-Thirlwell

Dauntless and Fae Farm developers Phoenix Labs are laying off most of their employees "as part of unfortunate but necessary changes to our operations".

Edwin Evans-Thirlwell

Old-timey Gears Of War collaborators People Can Fly are helping out The Coalition with development of Gears Of War: E-Day.

Edwin Evans-Thirlwell

Kotaku report that PC remasters for The Sims 1 and 2 will be announced and, indeed, released before the end of the month.

Edwin Evans-Thirlwell

MARSHY TUESDAY

Aren't they always? Tuesday is the working week's Blighttown. FEED THE MAW.

Edwin Evans-Thirlwell

Invariant is a first-person shooter from Croatian team Faros Interactive in which you explore an Antarctic drilling site for munsters. Definite Thing energy, but the trailer is oddly light-hearted.

Watch on YouTube

Edwin Evans-Thirlwell

Had a quick look in the spam folder. If anybody wants to buy any oil from Kazakhstan let me know. Also got an offer for a "Metal Product Enamel Bracelet/Pin/Badge/Keychain/Medal/Toy".

Edwin Evans-Thirlwell

Les Echos claim that Saudi Arabia's Savvy Games investment group are funding Ubisoft to make further DLC for Assassin's Creed Mirage, despite Ubisoft having previously said there were no plans for any significant expansions.

Edwin Evans-Thirlwell

As passed on by PCGamer, Heart Machine are trying to patch Hyper Light Breaker back to goodness after some dismal early access verdicts. The latest patch takes particular aim at community feedback.

Edwin Evans-Thirlwell

Edwin Evans-Thirlwell

One Million Stars is a psychedelic procgen shmup in which you do genuinely have to collect one million stars.

Edwin Evans-Thirlwell

As reported by Eurogamer, 1989 point-and-click horrifier Last Half of Darkness is getting a remake, care of original developer Bill Fisher.

Edwin Evans-Thirlwell

WINDY MONDAY

It's absolutely howling through the treetops round these parts. What's the weather like there? FEED THE MAW.

Edwin Evans-Thirlwell

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