If you live in the UK, you may have noticed that this week is shy a working day. Credulous fools attribute this to the existence of a "bank holiday" on Monday 26th, but true initiates like ourselves know the sobering truth: the Maw has eaten one of our weekdays. We have dispatched our finest gastronauts equipped with extremely long pairs of tweezers to retrieve the missing Monday from the Maw's bowels. We can only hope it hasn't been digested yet - imagine living in a world with a four-day working week? The horror. Anyway, here are this week's PC game releases of note.
On Tuesday 27th August, an unholy gnashing of teeth and the early access release of mytho-MOBA Smite 2. Also, the launch of cat-in-hell metroidvania Crypt Custodian, together with sitar-playing Middle Eastern action-platformer The Land Of The Magnates. On Wednesday 28th August, a ribald smacking of lips and the release of Supermoves, aka multiplayer Mirror's Edge, aka first-person parkour royale. Also, immersive first-person-melee RPG Corpus Edax and apocalyptic anime girl rhythm game Kamitsubaki City Ensemble. On Thursday 29th August, a mighty sneezing and the launch of Square Enix's latest RPG Visions Of Mana. Also, the retro side-scrolling of Shadow Of The Ninja - Reborn, the deck-building base defence of Warcana, the defensively-inclined action of Bloodless, and the self-explanatory Squirrel With A Gun. And on Friday 30th August, an uncontrollable giggling and the release of Star Wars Outlaws. Also, office-based RPG Dale & Dawson Stationery Supplies, billed as "a covert battle of productivity versus procrastination". My goodness, they made a game just for me.
As ever, these are just the PC games that jump out as noteworthy while my brain spins up to its standard operating threshold of 15 RPM. There are probably some decent ones I've missed - please sing out about it in the comments. You can keep track of what we fondly call "our journalism" in the news liveblog below. Have a fun week! And yes, cross your fingers for the safe return of Mondays.
See if you can guess this week's theme. Shouldn't take too long. FEED THE MAW.
– Edwin Evans-Thirlwell
A Nintendo Direct broadcast will air today at 3pm UK time. "What's a Nintendo," you scoff, but look, they're promising third-party announcements. Probably, some of the games concerned are also coming to PC.
– Edwin Evans-Thirlwell
IGN has a great, if very disturbing report about an accessibility advocate who may have faked the existence of several disabled people for clout.
– Edwin Evans-Thirlwell
Supermassive and Behaviour Interactive's horror collaboration The Casting of Frank Stone has a demo on Steam.
– Edwin Evans-Thirlwell
Speaking to PCGamesN, former Tango boss and Resident Evil director Shinji Mikami has said he'd like to "stay away from survival horror for a while".
– Edwin Evans-Thirlwell
World of Warcraft's latest expansion/reworking The War Within is now live, adding a new flight system, a new continent, new "bite-sized" Delves for groups of up to five, and a new campfire character select screen, amongst other things.
Adult Swim-ified resource management Debtor's Club launched yesterday. I'm not 100% sold on the humour, but the crude, vibrant art drew me in big time.
– Nic Reuben
This House Eats People is a short, PSX-inspired, browser-based horror game in which you take photos of a nice house which I'm sure won't eat you.
– Edwin Evans-Thirlwell
TheVoice says: >If you live in the UK, you may have noticed that this week is shy a working day.
Not quite, Scotland's was three weeks ago. :)
I apologise for my UK-means-England bias. You have to remember that we're all a bit dim south of the border.
– Edwin Evans-Thirlwell
Keanu Reeves is indeed Shadow The Hedgehog in the next Sonic movie.
Black Ops 6 system requirements have been unredacted. Find them on the official site.
– Edwin Evans-Thirlwell
Balatro is getting a free update that lets you swap regular face cards for faces from well-known games, such as The Witcher. Sadly, it's a cosmetic flourish - you don't get to see how Geralt actually works in a poker hand.
City builder Carpark Capital will either fill you with instant revulsion or nostalgic intrigue.
– Nic Reuben
"Simultaneous-turn-based competitive" Mecha Simultactics has mechs and parrying. I'd say "for a change" but I still can't get enough of either of these things.
This risks teetering into journo navel-gazing, but Remedy's comms director Thomas Puha has been thinking about why it's useful to send review codes early enough for reviewers to play through without going nuts. I suspect the elephant in the room here is Star Wars Outlaws, a fairly large game for which we received review code last week with a Monday embargo. Sadly, that's far from the worst I've seen as a reviewer.
Review codes. Whenever we got a game in production, I tell production I want two weeks for the review code, always knowing I'll get less. It depends on the game of course, a week is a lot of time, IF you have time to dedicate that to review, but most press are swamped with work…
Metal Gear Solid 4 on PC is looking likelier, according to Ian Games. “We definitely are aware of this situation with MGS4. Unfortunately we can't really say too much at the moment with Vol. 1 containing MGS 1-3 dot dot dot… you can probably connect the dots!" said Konami producer Noriaki Okamura. I must admit, the prospect of having all the games in one place is far more appealing that actually having to play MSG4 again, though.
– Nic Reuben
Lost In Random was a charming, Nightmare Before Christmas reminsicent platformer. I missed this announcement last week, but it's getting a roguelike spin-off.
It is Thursday, isn't it? The bank holiday week has thrown me off something fierce. I had this down as Wookie Wednesday before - thankfully nobody seems to have noticed. Anyway, FEED THE MAW.
– Edwin Evans-Thirlwell
Long-forgotten 90s PS1 platformer Croc is being remastered by a newly revived Argonaut Games.
As noticed by characterful RPS tribute band PCGamer, Discord server member lists on desktop now showcase a member’s recent activity.
– Edwin Evans-Thirlwell
The Witcher 4 team are "maintaining the right scale to enter the production phase very soon", CD Projekt joint CEO Michał Nowakowski has revealed in the company's latest financial results.
– Edwin Evans-Thirlwell
Speaking to GamesIndustry.biz, Dying Light's franchise director Tymon Smektała has said that shorter spin-offs like Techland's recently announced Dying Light: The Beast (which began life as Dying Light 2 DLC) are "the future of the industry", making the familiar argument that developers and players are too obsessed with production scale and playlength.
– Edwin Evans-Thirlwell
A new Dino Crisis game isn't particularly high on Shinji Mikami's list of desires, according to a recent chat the veteran horror game creator had with our pals at Eurogamer. And it's all Monster Hunter's fault.
"The awesomeness of dinosaurs and the stuff you can do with dinosaurs, that's been kind of really nailed down by Monster Hunter in recent years," he said. "So even if I were to decide to make a remake or a new version of Dino Crisis, I don't really feel like there's a whole lot of space for that kind of game right now, just since Monster Hunter has become such a big game."
– Brendan Caldwell
Raven Software workers have filed a complaint with the NLRB, accusing parent companies Activision Blizzard and Microsoft of “bad faith bargaining”.
– Nic Reuben
Larian's publishing director is of the opinion that video game prices (specifically, for big releases like Star Wars Outlaws) have fallen behind the cost of development, and need to rise.
– Edwin Evans-Thirlwell
Against The Storm is getting a new species of townsfolk - frogs! Also fishing, a raised level cap, and new buildings, all of it via free update. Read more here.
– Edwin Evans-Thirlwell
Jack King-Spooner's next project Judero - a "madcap stop motion action adventure game" set in the mythical Scottish borders - has a new trailer and release date: September 16th
Loop-decking, deck-looping adventure Demon Loop is out now in early access. The presentation is a bit clean for my liking, but it has a certain spark. I've made this comparison before, but it's sort of Loop Hero but more of a narrative-driven RPG, with no autobattling.
Remedy and Annapurna Interactive are teaming up to co-finance Control 2. Annapurna will also work with Remedy on some potential Control and Alan Wake film and TV projects.
Apogee co-founder and former Duke Nukem dev George Broussard has xeeted at length about the state of point-and-click adventures, describing the genre as too much in thrall to the classics.
There's a sad state of affairs in regards to point and click adventure games.
The genre needs to survive and do well. It's core strength is one of storytelling mixed with exploration and some puzzles, all without being reflex based, so it has the potential to be a much larger…
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– Edwin Evans-Thirlwell
According to Bloomberg, NetEase are cutting staff at Visions Of Mana developers Ouka Studio with a plan to shut it down. Visions Of Mana released just yesterday.
– Edwin Evans-Thirlwell
Demonschool's release has been delayed from 13th September into 2025. According to developers Necrosoft Games, "delaying allows us to add more life and liveliness to the world, so it's more of a game you can hang out in, aside from smashing demons of course." Plans for the extra time include adding a quiz, more minigames, and more "relationship stuff".
– Edwin Evans-Thirlwell
Konami have released Castlevania Dominus Collection, which bundles up PC ports of Castlevania: Portrait of Ruin, Castlevania: Dawn Of Sorrow and Castlevania: Order Of Ecclesia, all originally released for Nintendo DS.
– Edwin Evans-Thirlwell
Darkest Dungeon 2's Kingdoms mode - a boardgame reinvention of the main game's roguelike Cthulhuing - will launch in three parts. The first Beastmen-themed chapter lands in Q4 2024 - between 1st October and 31st December. Read more here.
Frontiers of the Mind is an interesting experiment recreating the vibes of old CD-ROMs. Explore the main menu of a cursed TV game show, and learn its mysteries and tragedies while checking the different content. Available for free on Itch. pic.twitter.com/u1Lo4nQWm8
