What are we all playing this weekend?
Well?
It feels like Not-E3 only just ended and suddenly my inbox is full of Gamescom? We're going to need to rethink this 'time' thing. Yet I cannot escape time because I must ask: what are you playing this weekend? Here's what we're clicking on!
Alice Bee
is away!
Alice0
More bicycles for me! One game I'm playing at the moment is fed by Strava stats, so I'm going on a nice countryside ride with some pals. Everyone thinks I'm too serious about cycling for casual friendly rides, but I'll show them. I'll be the chillest, most laid back bike tour leader they've ever seen—and I'll have the speed, heartrate, and cadence data to prove it.
CJ
Pokémon-esque RPG Coromon was released on Switch this week, so seeing it again made me think about picking that up on PC to have a go over the weekend. Other than that, maybe starting As Dusk Falls on PC Game Pass.
Ed
Incredibly, I've got a lot of games on the go at once. Fortnite's No Build mode remains a good laugh in the evenings. Judgement on the PS5 is picking up nicely. I'm thwacking big lizards in Monster Hunter Rise and I think I get it now. I don't know what's spurred this on, but I'm enjoying bouncing between them all.
Hayden
It's post-apocalyptic pandemonium for me this weekend. I've recently dipped back into Project Zomboid after a few months away and am once again hooked. I don't usually mess with cars, but I'm planning to drive across the map on some risky scavenging runs that can only end in disaster. When my character inevitably croaks it, I'll switch over to Stray for a more relaxing take on societal collapse. I'm terrified of cats, but being separated by a screen makes the quirks of these feline fuzzballs much more adorable.
James
Eight months late but I've finally convinced some folks to play Forza Horizon 5 with me, having tempted them with a dangling Hot Wheels expansion. It's a right laugh so far, even the mission where one character seemingly reads the Wikipedia article on Hot Wheels in voiceover.
Katharine
Matthew (RPS in peace) got me the new Live A Live for my Switch as a belated birthday present yesterday, so that's my weekend sorted. Finally, a JRPG that's actually reasonably manageable. Howlongtobeat.com tells me the 1994 SNES original is only about 20 hours long altogether. Imagine! 20 hours! If only all modern JRPGs were so considerate.
Liam
I've only managed to play a few hours of Stray so far this week, but I'm keen to see it through this weekend. I'm really enjoying it and I have a feeling the ending might make me cry? Watch this space, I guess. Elsewhere, I've recently started a new playthrough of Metal Gear Solid V: The Phantom Pain on my Steam Deck. Kojima's final MGS is a perfect fit for handheld play and I have a sneaking (hah) suspicion that I’m about to become obsessed with its masterful systemic design all over again.
Ollie
I've been playing a fair bit of Dune: Spice Wars over the past week. I adore the atmosphere of that game. It really feels otherworldly, in a way that I don't think I've felt from a strategy game since StarCraft. At the moment I'm waging war as the native Fremen across the map, trying to bully my nearest rival into leaving the nearby villages alone. Not out of altruism, I hasten to add. I just want to be the one controlling those territories. It feels great, popping up out of nowhere after riding a sandworm halfway across the map at super speed, so you can strike at an out of position battalion of enemy troops before withdrawing back into the sands.
Rachel
is away!
Rebecca
The fact that Stray and As Dusk Falls launched on the same day is either evidence that somebody out there likes me and wants me to have nice things, or hates me and wants me to go broke. Nevertheless I've cooked up an ambitious plan to try to check them both out this weekend, starting with Stray (naturally).
But you, reader dear, what are you playing this weekend?