Latest Articles (Page 2)
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More Xbox studio cuts likely to follow Tango and Arkane Austin, and Game Pass looks like the culprit
Studios spread thin like “peanut butter on bread” says Xbox president Matt Booty
Like us, you’re probably still reeling from Tuesday’s news that Hi-Fi Rush studio Tango and Prey’s Arkane Austin are getting shuttered by Microsoft. According to Bloomberg, these closures were just a part of a “widespread cost-cutting initiative” that’s still underway. All signs point towards more cuts to come, basically. ZeniMax studios seem to be the main target.
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ColePowered Games "currently seeking a fix for these less than accurate shooters"
A recent update for procgen whodunnit sim Shadows of Doubt added "Sharpshooter Assassins" with high-powered rifles to the game's glowering alternate-1980s cities, with players having to work out the killer's vantage point by deducing a bullet's trajectory, before proceeding to a secondary crime scene to search for a murder weapon and witnesses. The prospect of snipers certainly adds menace to the game's forensic sandboxing. The trouble is, the shooters aren't always as sharp as they could be.
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Darkest Dungeon 2 should start rolling out its long-awaited mod support soon
Arriving in a series of updates, with custom items by the end of June and whole new characters later on
It’s coming up on three years since the sequel to Darkest Dungeon hit early access, and over a year since it exited early access into 1.0. That means, however you count the days, it’s been a long time coming for one of the original game’s features to find its way into Darkest Dungeon 2: mod support.
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“Our teams have listened to the community [and] learned valuable lessons,” says EA CEO who couldn’t pass the Voight-Kampff test if he tried
The next Battlefield game after the underwhelming Battlefield 2042 will continue to lean on the series’ evolution into a live service offering, the CEO of EA has said, while revealing that the largest development team in the series’ history is currently working on the upcoming shooter.
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Yes, really
Ready for a sentence that could only apply to the everything-but-the-kitchen-sink pop-culture smorgasbord of modern-day Fortnite? Here we go! A rucksack containing Star Wars’ Yoda has been temporarily banned from the battle royale game, after crashing games when players wearing the green Jedi master on their back do the Zoidberg Scuttle emote from Futurama.
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Windstorm: The Legend of Khiimori gallops onto early access in September
Despite being hugely allergic to horses - my eyes once swelled up so severely at a local fair my wife had to guide me home - I continue to be absolutely spellbound by the animals. I’ve been rewatching The Lord of the Rings this week and I’ve been genuinely gripped by watching professionally trained horses galloping across the vistas of New Zealand, rearing up against tennis balls representing CGI orcs and charging down the incredibly steep slope next to Helm’s Deep. Not to mention my love of just riding endlessly in a direction on horseback in Red Dead Redemption 2 and Assassin's Creed Odyssey (helped by Kassandra's wonderful command of "Phobos!" to summon her mount).
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Remembering Prey, Arkane Austin’s masterpiece
Un-mimicable
Confident design is one thing, but there is confidence, and then there’s the almost reckless certainty required in both your game’s sturdiness and the player’s curiosity to trust a feckless, glitch-hungry, poking-and-prodding player with Prey (2017)’s GLOO Cannon. Here is a first-person game set in a sprawling, multi-tiered, metroidvania-esque space station - one boasting multiple-bathroom verisimilitude - which then immediately gives the player a gun that lets them bypass the level gating by letting them make their own ladders up keycard-locked grav-elevators.
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Dragon Age: Dreadwolf set to arrive by next March, according to report
Over a decade since Dragon Age: Inquisition
Dragon Age: Dreadwolf, the next entry in the series of beloved dating sims with rpgs crudely affixed with Blu Tack to their walls, is set to arrive by the end of March next year. That’s according to an updated product slate released as part of a recent quarterly earnings report, as spotted by VGC and given the Jeff Grubb seal of approval.
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Supporters only: From Glory To Goo is full of loveably horrible little glurbs
Purple reign
It's not, strictly speaking, a goo. From Glory To Goo's enemy isn't a sinister gunge, but that minor disappointment didn't last long.
Its monsters are individual, blobby little (mostly) purple nasties, but they act as a flood anyway, taking great exception to your base and the resources it pipes back and forth (much like in Creeper World), but coming mostly in waves like They Are Billions. But the thing with FGTG is that there's always a little bit more to deal with than you think.
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Gray Zone Warfare may be the new FPS hotness, but my experience with it left me cold
I don't think it's for me
As I write this, Gray Zone Warfare is sat at fourth place in Steam's top sellers list. I've seen loads of vids from big FPS YouTubers pivoting to it as the next big thing, especially for the Escape From Tarkov-likers. So I gave it a whirl, both as someone who wanted to see what these more hardcore extraction shooters were like and to play a video game that worked. Unfortunately for me, the game barely functions on my rig to the point where it hurts my poor eyes.
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Review: Crow Country review: my first Resident Evil (complimentary)
Less survival horror and more puzzle horror, but still a great time
Tangle Tower was a weird and cute point and click murder mystery set in a big weird tower full of colourful characters, so what better way for the devs to fill time before the sequel comes out than by making a creepy retro survival horror set in a regional theme park? Crow Country is like if Resident Evil was made out of Duplo: more chunky, less threatening, and easier than playing with a fully motorised K'Nex ferris wheel, but darn it, it's still a good time.
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Highly ant-icipated
Even as Nic spent this morning writing lovingly about frogs, I was watching trailers of frogs disintegrating beneath an unstoppable ant tsunami. The game in question is Empires Of The Undergrowth, an RTS from developers Slug Disco and Manor Lords publisher Hooded Horse. The 1.0 version launches on June 7th, after almost eight years in early access during which Empires Of The Undergrowth has accumulated positive user reviews with truly antlike meticulousness. Here's the release date trailer, which you should not watch if you dislike seeing various larger insects and small animals getting eaten alive by ants.
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How multiplayer horror Killer Klowns From Outer Space: The Game does away with downtime
Kno Klowning around
Upon learning of the existence of asymmetrical multiplayer horror Killer Klowns From Outer Space: The Game, from Friday the 13th and Predator Hunting Grounds’ Illfonic and Teravision Games, you’d be forgiven for having, well, questions. The first of which, understandably if you don’t happen to carry a burning penchant for cultishly adored but undeniably niche 80’s schlock, is simple: Why? First, why get invested in another asymmetrical multiplayer game from a studio that has a bit of a history with limited shelf lives? And why, of all the licenses, have they chosen one so relatively forgotten, at least in comparison to Predator, Ghostbusters, and Friday the 13th?
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Disgruntled Helldivers 2 fans start petition to bring back fired community manager
Review bombing causes fallout
Fans of Helldivers 2 have started a petition asking developers Arrowhead to reinstate a fired employee in charge of community management. The employee, "Spitz", was let go following the fiasco in which Sony told PC players they would need to link their Steam and PlayStation Network accounts to continue playing the shooter. Sony and Arrowhead changed their mind about that after player backlash in the form of 100,000+ negative reviews on Steam. The kicker? Community manager "Spitz" was low-key encouraging players to continue the review bombing. This doesn't seem to have gone down well internally.
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Excellent fantasy RPG Wildermyth is turning into a roguelike via DLC
But don't worry, roguedislikers, there's also a story about some dragon's ballroom
Excessively brilliant fantasy RPG Wildermyth is getting a new DLC pack which both embraces the fad for adding roguelike modes to games, and tugs against it in the shape of what the developers are calling "our most extensively written campaign, by far". The pack is called Omenroad, and if nothing else, it's an opportunity to remind you that if you like campfire yarns and droll webcomics and haven't played Wildermyth then you should get that seen to immediately.
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Destiny 2 gives all players access to three expansions as The Final Shape draws closer
Like tokens and orbs? You can get loads of them for free now
As Destiny 2's The Final Shape expansion hovers ever closer like someone gently nudged an absurdly large dodecahedron towards us in zero gravity, Bungie have gone and made three expansions free until June 3rd. For about a month, all players now have access to The Witch Queen, Beyond Light, and Shadowkeep along with the past four seasons of quests and things. Hey, that's pretty cool.
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A Redfall offline mode was imminent before Microsoft shut down Arkane Austin, according to report
Swathe of DLC and updates follow the studio into the grave
Vampire shooter Redfall was to receive an offline mode via update this very month before Microsoft staked creators Arkane Austin, according to a report. To spell it out, the cancellation of the offline functionality means that Redfall will now be officially playable for only as long as Microsoft run the servers. Another win for videogame preservation!
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Ribbet me this
Brain ostensibly useful. But sometimes, brain not good, and brain want activity where not required. Therefore: Frogs. Fortunately, frogs both bound and abound in Croakoloco, an idle management game where you make the mossy climb from singular frog ownership to a sprawling empire of hopping green slime nuggets. As I type, they hop freely in a minimised window, earning me the passive income promised by unscrupulous internet gurus who each possessed not a jot of the charisma and sheer radiant power emitted by a single resident of my frog kingdom.
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The Return To Grace competition celebrates the Shadow Of The Erdtree DLC
You know what will really set off your soft furnishings and put further strain on your relationship when you're already worried your girlfriend is more angry about you leaving crumbs around the toaster than she would be if all were well? A 10-foot-tall statue of a video game character to cram in the corner of your living room! To celebrate the impending release of massive gloomy RPG DLC Elden Ring: Shadow Of The Erdtree, Bamco are running a competition for players to edit together a cool trailer. Best trailer overall wins Big Messmer - the lad in the header image up there. I'm sure he'll make a great home for many happy spiders and their cobwebs.
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Narrative driving adventure Heading Out is out
Fork in the road
Heading Out is a driving game not about finishing first or delivering freight. Instead, you're on a road trip across America's highways in which your collisions, detours, and police chases shape your story and the characters you meet along the road. It's out now.
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Remedy and Tencent's co-op multiplayer game Kestrel has been cancelled
Remedy to focus on "existing franchises"
Remedy have called it quits on the project codenamed Kestrel. The co-op multiplayer game was an original IP being made with the backing of Tencent, but now Remedy say they've cancelled it to allow them to focus on "other games in our portfolio", all of which are based on "existing franchises".
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The Witcher 3's REDkit mod tools launch May 21st, enabling a new era of ambitious overhauls
Someone will stick Hatsune Miku in it, and why not you
After a month or so of testing, The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt's offiical mod tools REDkit will launch on May 21st. It'll make it easier for players to make new quests, items, weapons and so on for the nearly nine-year-old RPG.
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Microsoft are shutting down multiple game studios including Redfall developers Arkane Austin and the creators of Hi-Fi Rush, Tango Gameworks. The news was delivered via an email to staff from Xbox boss Matt Booty which has since been seen by IGN. Booty calls the decision a "consolidation of our Bethesda studio teams, so that we can invest more deeply in our portfolio of games and new IP."
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Review: V Rising 1.0 review: one of the slickest survival games gets even slicker
I'd bat for this one
You won't be surprised to know that after two years in early access, V Rising's 1.0 launch hasn't seen Stunlock Studios drastically change the V for "Vampire" to V for "Venetian Blinds" or "Vienna Sausage". From a top-down view, you still play as a newly awakened vampire on PVE, PVP, or private servers, and you're still tasked with becoming the most powerful bloodsucker around. It has, however, streamlined some things and added in an endgame zone. All of this combines to form a survival game that was great back then and is even better now, with thrilling MOBA-esque fights and little in the way of faff.
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Gray Zone Warfare is deploying hotfixes, but performance remains grim
Surprise Steam hit is still stutters galore, even on lowered settings
Hardcore tactical FPS Gray Zone Warfare is proving to be yet another of 2024’s unexpected successes, shifting over half a million copies when it launched into early access last week. Unfortunately, in its attempt to eat Escape from Tarkov’s lunch – a timely one, given that game’s self-inflicted DLC misery – it’s currently choking on the wishbone of some truly dire performance issues. Even players with tip-top graphics cards are seeing heavy stuttering while out in the field, and none of the updates released thus far, including today’s Hotfix #3, have done much to soothe it.
Said hotfix does include some fixes for other widespread problems, including a second attempt at preventing players from becoming headless when rejoining a server (an amusing though resilient glitch, given a previous hotfix had also tried to nix it). But having played a bit of this third patch on a usually reliable RTX 4060, there’s clearly an awful lot of work left to do before Gray Zone Warfare performs acceptably.
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Metaphor: ReFantazio features seven party members, a giant sandworm, and a high difficulty
My excitement only builds
A little while back we were graced by 25-minutes of Metaphor: ReFantazio footage, from which I gleaned some chunks of info. Honestly, a new press release doesn't unveil a whole lot of hotness we didn't catch a glimpse of before, but it does give us a better idea of how the battle system works in Atlus's upcoming JRPG.
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A bunch of us at RPS have been blattering our way through the underworld of Hades 2, which came out in early access yesterday. Naturally, our favourite gods and goddesses are emerging from our evenings of hacking and/or slashing. For me, Nemesis provides a lot of chuckles. Not because she's bright and jokey (she is frownier than a wet bulldog). But because she's determined to put the player in their place and to beat you at your own roguelike. Narratively, she fulfills a role similar to Meg in the first Hades, that of closest frenemy. But in gameplay terms, Nemesis won't stoop to something as trite as a boss battle. Oh no. She's out to mess with your build.
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Leila is a dreamy puzzle adventure with shades of Gorogoa
The unmapped mind
I'm not sure how to classify Leila, a hand drawn, sort of point and click, sort of puzzle adventure out this summer. I'd say it's maybe a Gorogoa-like, but the demo is also a series of little vignettes that sort of reminded me of Edith Finch, but way less in depth. It's about a middle aged woman navigating her past and present by taking a closer at her mind, which means sorting through a load of magical realist meldings of memories. It's very pretty, and I liked the demo a lot.
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This bodycam mech shooter has a slick rainy day look and Zelda-like vehicle construction
Like tears (of the Kingdom) in the rain
Got some nice rain for you today. Second-Loop is an upcoming sci-fi shooter featuring mechs, physics puzzles, and at least one freaky umbilical-corded being struggling against the confines of a horrific laboratory womb. Video games! All of that sounds interesting. But it's the moody reflections on the rain-slick surfaces and the game's bodycam-style presentation that's really got me going "oooooo". Don't you want to say "oooooo" too? C'mere and see.
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This week's most scintillating game releases, plus our weekly newsblog
LiveIt's a short week 'cos we all had a Bank Holiday yesterday, and Edwin isn't here today, which means I have donned some thick leather gloves and am standing well back to throw some sticky gobbets at The Maw. The gobbets in question? Some tasty game releases this week! Plus whatever else we think might be interesting enough in PC gaming news to appease it - and you.