Today I wanted to talk about a totally new type of game that’s gaining a lot of popularity. In late 2018, a totally new type of game called I’m on Observation Duty got released on Steam. Recently, these type of games are exploding on Steam. A spin-off called The Exit 8 gave a totally new spin on the formula. The games are actually a scary spin on the spot the difference style of gameplay. But, what does attract players so much into this formula? Let’s talk about a few titles, and maybe we find an answer to that in this article. Now, feel free to leave a comment in the comment section down below with your thoughts and/or opinions on these games, similar games and/or the content of this article.

Two main gameplay styles

There are actually two major styles in this genre. A lot of streamers call, one style Observation Duty and the other style Exit 8. Both styles have the same core concept. You need to first look at a room and then notice if anything changes or anomalies appear. The way how you deal with these anomalies differs in both styles.

In Observation Duty style games, the idea is mostly always that you are a security guard watching camera’s. You have to flip through camera’s and report the anomalies before there are too much present in the area. In Exit 8 type games, you play through them while walking through the rooms themselves. You have to walk one direction when there is no difference and another direction when there is a difference. The difference is that you have to make a certain amount of correct judgements in a row. One wrong judgement and you are sent back to level 0.

The gameplay is tricky to explain in words and in an article. I wanted to write this article several times, but I was unable to describe it properly. The best way to describe it in my opinion is a non casual spot the difference game.

Ever since, “I am on Observation Duty” and “The Exit 8” hit the scene… A lot of horror game streamers played through them. They gained a lot more popularity. A lot of new titles came out in a rapid pace with different spins on the genre and interesting innovations. I think it will become more clear when I talk about the games I played through or watched my favorite streamers play through.

The Exit 8 – The Platform 8

During the summer of this year, Klamath and I streamed through these two titles. The Exit 8 is one of the earliest games to my knowledge in the 3D style.

The idea is that you are trapped in a looping metro hallway where you have to reach the 8th exit. Travelers are advised to continue walking when nothing out of the ordinary happens. But when suddenly a poster changed or something else changed, you need to turn back.

Like I said in the introduction, when you make one mistake, you start at level 0 again. The first passage through the hallway is always safe. After that, you have to do 8 correct answers in a row. Now, at least 8, since if your 8th run has an anomaly, you need to turn back. You can only win if you have a hallway that has no strange thing, and you are above the 8th hallway.

Something really nice that this game does is, it doesn’t repeat anomalies. When you defeat a certain anomaly, it won’t repeat until you see all of them or reset the game. This makes the game more unpredictable and replayable.

The anomalies in this game range from extremely obvious like suddenly the hallway flooding… But others are sneaky, like a camera that moved location to the other side of the hallway. So, it was a puzzle. Is this room really the same, or did something change. Since you couldn’t go back to check. And there were various details that added to the complexity of the game.

In May of this year, we got the follow-up to this game called The Platform 8. If you thought that was more of the same, think again. This time, you are in the actual metro, and you have to survive 8 carts. The big change is that you can’t fail with an anomaly this time around since the exit door is locked if you need to find the anomaly first.

It’s a change that didn’t sit well with me at first, but I totally understand why. This game is now turned into a more tense game where you have to survive the crazy things that the game throws at you. The game is shorter than The Exit 8, but I’ll say… This game had me spooked and jump several times.

That’s Not My Neighbor

At it’s core, this game is an Observation Duty game. But with a big twist. You are a security guard at the entrance of a building. There are imposters out there, trying to look like your neighbor, and you have to keep them out.

This game tests your reasoning skills and tests you if you can look at all the clues. The best I can describe this game is: a mixture between Papers Please, and I am on Observation Duty. The added layer of difficulty is that you have a lot to keep track of. Who did you let already inside? Who is on the list and for who do you better call their apartment first?

This game is getting frequent updates with more lore and more modes. Each time I see this game being played by the streamers I watch, the new update impresses me. And I totally understand why this game got so big.

There is this extremely catchy song by longestsoloever. The amount of times I played it on repeat is just getting silly. Give it a listen if you like electronic music, but I warn you. It’s an earworm.

Confabulation

Confabulation, noun. Confabulation is a memory error consisting of the production of fabricated, distorted, or misinterpreted memories about oneself or the world.

This game does a very interesting take on the actual formula. Instead of explaining the differences and anomalies with unexplained events, in this game it’s caused by a mental illness.

The flow of each play trough of this game is the same. But, the puzzles, the changing objects amongst other things are randomized. It’s up to you to make sure that you avoid you going insane and finding the truth of what happened.

This is an Observation Duty style game, but you can walk around in the area instead of watching at camera feeds. There is an extra layer added with the puzzles that add more information and lore of what happened.

I could talk about it more, but I highly recommend you play this game as blind as possible. The story, scares and impact is that much stronger when you don’t know what’s coming and let yourself be surprised. Watch the candles since they give you amazing hints on where to look next.

ATTA -Spot the Oddities in the Strange Hotel-

What if you have to count the amount of differences in a hallway instead of deciding there is a difference or not? Well, then you describe “ATTA, -Spot the Oddities in the Strange Hotel-“.

This game is an Exit 8 type of game with multiple rooms, where you have to count all the errors in a hallway… While various strange things happen. Like a train suddenly appearing and you have to duck for cover.

The atmosphere this game has, where it leaves you with an open ending that raises more questions than it answers, is the cherry on the cake. It’s a more intense game than your usual games. It may be a short run, but it’s a wild and pleasant ride all the way through.

Hospital 666

The final game I want to talk about today is called Hospital 666. In this game, you try to escape a cursed hospital. The first level has you running down a looping hallway. The second level, has one side room open.

Now, an impressive option that the game gives you is that you can choose if you want anomalies in the hallway or not. So, if you are in the second level, you can choose if you want things in the hallway to change or only focus on the new room.

Something impressive that this game does as well, is when you make a mistake, you can go back to the hallway to see what the mistake was that you made. You still start from the lowest floor of that level, but being able to see what got you is amazing. Since this game has very crazy anomalies but also various very sneaky ones. Like one is that some smiles faces appear on the wall.

In between the levels, there is a boss fight/puzzle that separates the floors from each other. They can be a bit janky, but the developer has updated and optimized the game quite a lot, and it is a lot better. Now, he is currently creating a sequel taking place in a school. And as somebody who works in education, I can’t wait to play through that.

Final thoughts

These games are only a handful of games in the genre. I have given a quick rundown of the games mentioned in this article, but if you are interested, I’m willing to talk more in depth about these titles. My intention with this article is to promote these titles.

Each game listed here is between 5 to €10 and is an amazing ride. These games are short little romps but are bursting to the seams with creativity. I always think, now, I have almost seen everything this genre has to offer. But, then I’m surprised with a new gameplay mechanic or a new setting that changes the atmosphere completely.

So, depending on how well this article does… I might write more of these. If you found amazing titles like this, feel free to send them my way or leave them in the comment section down below. But, for now, I’m going to leave you with my usual outro. Thank you so much for reading this article and I hope you enjoyed reading it as much as I enjoyed writing it. I hope to be able to welcome you in another one, but until then, have a great rest of your day and take care.

Wikipedia – Nintendo Microsite

After the release of Tears of the Kingdom, I was afraid that we would never see a new game in the style of the 2D Zelda game. Yet, I have been proven wrong when this game was announced. To be very honest, I didn’t have very high hopes for this game. Especially since this game was announced this summer and released in late September. I felt that this game going to be a game to fill a gap while the developers are working on a much larger game. Now, the game is released, and I have played through a fair chunk of it. So, what is my opinion on this game? Well, that’s what I’m going to tell you in this first impressions article, while I all invite you to leave a comment of your thoughts and/or opinions in the comment section down below.

Renewing the Echoes

After a short introduction where you play as Link, the main story of this game is introduced. There are all consuming interdimensional rifts appearing all over Hyrule, and it’s eating various people in the kingdom.

Link gets eaten by one of those rifts while freeing Zelda and when Zelda tells her father, the king, about these rifts… A new rift appears and replaces the king with an evil clone of himself. Zelda gets thrown in the dungeon and there she meets a fairy named Tri. This fairy gives Zelda a special staff where she can summon objects into the world using echoes. With those echoes, she escapes the dungeon and sets out on an adventure to save Hyrule from doom before the land is fully consumed by the rifts.

Something I always love about the Zelda games is that there is a different core mechanic at the base of the game. In this game, we get two things. We got the rifts to another dark world, but we also got the magical staff, which we can use to summon various echoes into the world. These echoes mean you can tackle this game in various different ways. But I’ll talk more about that later in this article.

In terms of story, this game is hitting all the same beats as your typical Legend of Zelda game. It might be disappointing, to some, that in this game there is no voice acting anymore apart from the grunts and various emotional noises. Personally, I think it adds to the charm of this game. That’s because the characters in this game are way more expressive. While the story isn’t going to leave you at the edge of your seat of “what’s going to happen next”, it’s still well quite enjoyable, and the more expressive characters add quite a lot to the charm and atmosphere of the game.

Something I really like is how in this game, you are free to explore the world at your own peace. This game isn’t limiting you to go in a certain order. While this game isn’t fully open world like Breath of the Wild or Tears of the Kingdom, it’s somewhere in between. You can tackle parts in a different order. Like the first two major dungeons can be done out of order. Each area is its self-contained puzzle, and everything you need can be found in that general area.

In my introduction of this article, I said that I was afraid that was afraid that this game would be a short one where you were able to beat it in a few hours. That it was going to be a game that’s supposed to hold players over for the “next big 3D Zelda title”. To my surprise, this game is rather lengthy for a 2,5D Zelda game. It clocks in at 25 hours of casual playtime, which is, to my knowledge, one of the longest 2,5D Zelda games.

Climbing with beds

Something I find myself doing quite a lot while playing this game was climbing the area with beds. I summoned various beds stacked on top of each other to climb a wall. Since, I wanted to know if the developers hid a secret on that cliff face.

The exploration of this version of Hyrule is a blast to do. While you visit a lot of familiar places and meet your usual suspects like the Zora and the Gerudo, it’s a treat seeing them again. The only thing I missed a bit is showing the impact of the rifts. Something that this game only tells through dialogue was how things got impacted by the rifts. I wish it was shown a bit more visually. Like different animations of the characters before and after. But maybe, Tears of the Kingdom set the bar a bit too high for those expectations where each major area had a certain curse.

In terms of gameplay, this game really leans into the echoes mechanic. It also remembers that Zelda is a princess and didn’t really have combat training. So, you have to use summoned enemies to your advantage to let them fight for you. Now, you do have a sword, but you can only use it when your power meter has charge. I always reserved that for the dungeon bosses or when the situation got pretty dicey. Since recharging that meter is either done with potions or by defeating monsters from the rift world. These enemies aren’t exactly common in the overworld, and the energy bar drains fast.

In general, this game hits the same general gameplay beats as all other Zelda games. You go from dungeon to dungeon, learning a new technique or skill, defeating the boos and moving forward to another dungeon. There are also side quests in this game, that give you a nice reward. In this game, you also have a nice system to keep track of these side quests, like in Tears of the Kingdom. Something they also brought over from that game is the cooking system to a degree.

That’s something I personally feel mixed about. Maybe it’s me, but I feel the ingredients are quite rare to come by and there is no real way to farm certain ingredients like in Breath of the Wild. I have to admit that it adds a certain charm to this game, but I feel it’s a bit under implemented here. Like when you first meet the potion creators Deku shrubs, they talk about recipes… And I had a hard time finding any.

Like in Tears of the Kingdom, you can also eat most of the ingredients without cooking them. While I personally dislike the fact you have to do two clicks to consume an item, I do understand why they did it. To avoid you consuming them too much. Yet, this is a change from the two previous games and I honestly really feel it’s a set backwards. A fine solution would be to give the player an option to switch between both systems.

Grezzo playset

This game was co-developed by Grezzo. Their previous original Zelda game was Tri Force Heroes. But, this game looks very similar in graphical style to the remake of Link’s Awakening on the Nintendo Switch from late 2019.

This game looks like a plastic toy set and it looks amazing. While I was playing this game, I felt amazed at how expressive they were able to make everything without breaking the illusion that this is a toy set brought to live by our imagination. I don’t have a lot of complaints about the visuals and animations. And most of my complaints aren’t that big of a deal in the grand scheme of things.

Just like, I don’t have any complaints about the music and sound design of this game. If you take the music and sound design in a vacuum, you would say that it sounds just like very other Zelda game. It sounds like a remix of the familiar melodies we all know and love from the Zelda games. But, this isn’t a problem, since it sells the illusion that you are a child playing with a sort of Playmobil toy set of Hyrule and trying to recreate the sound effects and music of the game.

In terms of controls, this game plays like a dream. I rarely had problems with the controls and something I really like is the fact that with one press of a stick, you can see a view from on top when you feel the camera is blocking something. Now, there is one thing that I do have some things to criticize about. And that’s about the jumping.

It’s pretty difficult sometimes to judge how high Zelda can jump. I had moments in combat where I wasn’t aware I could jump on a higher ledge until I saw an enemy jumping backwards on that ledge. I also got tripped up several times with how far Zelda can jump. Her jump is shorter than I think, and the amount of times I jumped into a pit misjudging the jump is quite a lot. Something that would have helped is something a small landing shadow when Zelda was coming down. Then again, that must have been a nightmare to implement… So, maybe I should keep her shorter jump just better in mind.

Now, something else. Something I really like is how this game has two difficulty modes. I’m playing through this game on the normal difficulty setting and I have to say, I’m happy that I did. This game can lure you into a false sense of security. I wouldn’t say that this game is hard, but it isn’t a cakewalk either. You really need to keep your wits about you and think fast sometimes.

Being aware of what’s around you is also quite important since this game loves to hide things in little side area’s and using the map system is a must. I love how you can put pins and such on the map. Yet, I have to admit that I still keep notes in my phone like: “treasure in Gerudo dungeon, need to check later”.

The more I play through this game, the more I realize that the critiques I can make about this game are more on the minor side. Like how it feels like a waste of time when you are scrolling through a long list of echoes when you just want to find one. An easy solution would be to give the player an ability to favorite certain echoes. But then again, the sort function in the quick menu has “most used”, “recently learned” … So, it’s kinda that.

Now, you have two save slots in this game. So, you can play through this game and let a friend or a sibling play through a different slot. Now, this game also autosaves for you frequently, in case you forget to save. The game also keeps like several autosaves in case you want to return to an earlier point.

Something I really like is how this game also has a quick travel system. The system works similarly like an owl statue in Majora’s Mask or a water vane in Link Between Worlds. It makes it easy when you feel stumped by a puzzle and want to return later. The fast travel locations are very fairly placed all over the land.

While I went quite critical in this game, the more I played it, the more it won me over. This game is a new 2,5D Zelda adventure game I hope we were going to see again. The last new, non remake 2,5D Zelda game was released almost 11 years ago. And, I’m so happy to see a return to this style. I’d love to see a this style also making an appearance very so often since it’s clear there are still various unique ways to explore Hyrule and tell a story about the Hyrule legend without going fully 3D.

Apart from a few small complaints you read in this article, I honestly don’t have any major complaints about this game. This is a game I’m going to finish for sure, since I’m enjoying my time with this title quite a lot. If you are into the series, I highly recommend this title to you. If you enjoy exploration and playing with unique mechanics, I also think this game is for you. This game is totally worth it’s price tag and it pleasantly surprised me.

And with that said, I have said everything I wanted to say about this game for now. I hope you enjoyed reading this article as much as I enjoyed writing it. I hope to be able to welcome you in another one, but until then, have a great rest of your day and take care.

Trailer – Steam store page

Today, I want to talk about a new game that’s going to come out later this year. It’s called Cave Hikers. It’s being developed by Porcupine Parkour. This small Croatian based studio reached out to me to review their demo in July. I would have written an article about it before, but I have been suffering from a writing burnout. Thankfully, I’m slowly getting back in the groove. And I’m going to make it up to the developers by publishing an article on their game today. Let’s take a look at the demo together, shall we? And I have a small surprise in store later.

Demo review

In this demo, you get an introduction to the gameplay. If you ever played a game like My Brother Rabbit, you will feel right at home in this game. This is a point and click game where you go from screen to screen. Each screen has a small puzzle or hidden object moment for you to take part in.

This game feels like playing through a children book. The voice of the narrator sounds like a (grand)father telling a story to their children. It’s extremely charming, and the story book art style really helps to sell this story.

Overall, there is no real tutorial in this game. Yet, the gameplay is quite simple. You learn quite quickly that this game is controlled with only the mouse. The menu system exists out of icons that make the game a lot easier to localize.

The demo is rather short but gives a very good impression of the full game. This game looks like it’s something I’m going to play. It’s a charming point-and-click game with hidden objects that feels nostalgic. Since the demo is so short, I don’t have a lot to talk about in terms of feedback.

The art style, voice acting, animation is all pretty well done. I only have a few minor complaints. The first complaint is that clicking to unmute the music or sound effects can’t be done right away. It doesn’t always register right away. And the second complaint is the in some rare spots, like with the red crystal at the end of the demo, the hitbox of placing it in the crusher is too tiny.

So, the game describes itself as:

Cave Hikers is a relaxing and humorous 2D interactive cartoon mockumentary that follows three characters through a cavernous world, on a quest to find the mystical “cave with an infinite ceiling”.

And I think it fits the game pretty well. Like I have been saying, the humor and charm of this game is there, and it’s pretty clear that maybe from some very minor things, this game is going to be an extremely charming game.

Now, how interesting would it be if I asked some questions to the developers of this game? Well, I had a few interesting questions in mind, so I went and asked them. Here are their replies.

Interview with the developers

– What games inspired you take to make this one?

It was mostly HOPA style games, which are usually made by much larger companies with inexpensive artists and a pseudo-realistic and kitsch-y style. So we went more in line with our own kind of art style, with some inspiration from Amanita games.

– What’s your process in creating puzzles?

It’s a strange process. As we started making the game in our free time for fun between odd jobs and more “serious” projects, we made a number of locations, creatures and simple mechanics. First we take a look at what already exists on the screen, then we intertwine the narrative with some clicking and potential puzzle elements. Then we play around with it until we are happy with the amount of “work” the player needs to do before accomplishing the goal.

Sometimes it includes a bit of moon logic. First, we make it clearer through conversation clouds and drawings. Then, whatever is unclear or hard to find for testers, we explain further through the Narrator.

– What are the funniest bugs or whoopies that happened during development?

For a while, we had a splash screen that looked exactly like the main menu, which created a lot of confusion! That was because the engine was upgraded, and also we started working with a much better programmer, we consolidated it into a coherent menu.

As for actually funny bugs, at one point we had Valeriano’s secret twin showing up at the cutscene. It took a while to realize we accidentally put two Valerianos of which one was outside the camera view.

– What engine did you use and why?

It’s Construct 3. At first, we made this project for fun and the Animator wasn’t exactly a programmer, so he used a really simple engine. (Un)fortunately, the project got out of hand and got some funding. Now we have a real programmer, but he had to learn Construct with all its limitations, but it’s also a really simple engine so we can still make a lot of the game without much hassle.

– What are some things you learned during developing this game?

Something that we re-learned time and time again… a game is easier to build if you have the whole team and a proper plan. Because otherwise you leave a lot of work and frustration for “future you”. We also learned that Construct can be a lot stronger than we initially thought… but also that it can be really stubborn in some areas.

– How many people worked on this game?

It first started with Sven the illustrator and Zvonimir the animator. At first, we were building a completely wordless game. But some testers were a bit confused at what the characters are really doing. So we hired Tom Bennet as the narrator and also Lea Konjetić to compose original music for the game. In the last six months, Fabjan the programmer also joined the team and superpowered our development process. All in all, five people, excluding all the translators.

Final thoughts

I’m very happy that games like these are getting more attention. Hidden object games have a strange reputation of being “too casual” or “boring”. Yet, I dare to argue there is something to love in these games. Especially when a game is created with this much passion and love.

I want to apologize to the developers again for taking such a long time in creating and article about the demo. But, I’m happy I did today. Since, if you have any interest in playing this game after reading this article, go and play the demo. Or share this article with somebody you think will enjoy playing this game. The demo takes roughly 15 minutes to finish.

I wish the developers a lot of luck and success with their game and when it’s fully released, I’m going to play this game and most likely review it on my blog. And with that said, I have said everything I wanted to say about this game for now. Thank you so much for reading this article, and I hope you enjoyed reading it as much as I enjoyed making it. I hope to welcome you in another article, but until then, have a great rest of your day and take care.

South Korean publisher KRAFTON is probably best known for titles such as PUBG and The Callisto Protocol. Recently, however, in an effort to bolster their gaming portfolio, they’ve turned heads by saving studio Tango Gameworks from being shut down by Microsoft. With that goal in mind—to expand on their offerings—KRAFTON has been hard at work on inZoi: a life simulation game developed using Unreal Engine 5 and boasting a variety of creative tools. If this brings The Sims to mind, you’d be encouraged to know that the inZoi team is well aware of the comparison, the overall goal for their virtual world being to combine Sims and SimCity and add some innovative features to boot.

Having spent 5 hours playing an early build of the game, I found that what they’re trying to do rightfully sounds too good to be true. With some more polish and work on tightening its elaborate systems, inZoi might just rise up to its lofty ambitions and carve a place for itself within the genre. Nevertheless, on start-up, inZoi begins with the explanation that the player is working as a “trainee god” for an in-game tech giant.

“For now, despite some frustrations, inZoi is largely an enjoyable experience.”

According to the tutorials, referred to in-universe as the “onboarding”, being a said trainee god involves creating Zoi, the game’s name for the inhabitants of its digital world, and ensuring that they have good relationships with others and the environment. Failure to do so would result in “a meeting with the CEO”.

With this warning in mind, I began work on my Zoi in earnest, trying my hardest to make the perfect digital version of myself. The final result, I think, looks more like YouTuber hasanabi than me, but that’s not the fault of the character creation tool, which is genuinely amazing. Beyond getting the basics right, inZoi’s character creator is mindful of the details. This might not sound like a big deal at first, but put together, these small choices make for a customisable experience that already makes inZoi stand out from the rest.

This dedication to the minutiae can also be seen when it comes down to the city-building element. Whereas not as elaborate as something like SimCity, I was pleasantly surprised by what inZoi allowed me to do. To give just an extreme example, I decided that the main park in town should have a high density of cats, pandas and…crocodiles. To my great disappointment, the crocodiles, from what I could tell, had no effect gameplay-wise as they were simply content meandering here and there. In any case, after maybe 3 hours of fine-tuning, it was finally time for some action.

What took me by immediate surprise when taking control of my Zoi was that I was able to maneuver him as if he were a character in a third-person action-adventure game. I still had to issue other commands with a click of the mouse, but still, this added to my immersion. This being said, inZoi was dropping frames left and right and continued to do so during my time with it despite running it on a decent PC.

Another issue was the overall game logic, as all the Zoi I encountered were often making inexplicable decisions. My Zoi, when left to his own devices, was obsessed with deep cleaning his house even though it was brand new and squeaky clean.

To test the AI further, I decided to see how easy interactions with other Zoi were and, to my amusement, I was able to get the character I created married to someone he had just met and spent the last half of an in-game day (or about ten real-life minutes) complimenting. Now, I’m not necessarily opposed to love at first sight, but the ease with which I made this happen reminded me of the OG Sims, which reflects a bit badly on inZoi.

“Whereas not as elaborate as something like SimCity, I was pleasantly surprised by what inZoi allowed me to do.”

For now, despite some frustrations, inZoi is largely an enjoyable experience. The team over at KRAFTON have a lot of work left, yes, but what I’ve played so far is encouraging. My hope for the game, which is set to release in Early Access later this year, is that the developers remain committed to seeing through their ambitious vision. Time will tell if that will indeed be what happens.

inZoi is set to launch in Steam Early Access in 2024. Make sure to check out all things gamescom here on CGMagazine.

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Read the full article on GamingOnLinux.

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Read the full article on GamingOnLinux.

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The release date for Unknown 9: Awakening has been announced.

During Gamescom Opening Night Live, developer Reflector Entertainment along with publisher Bandai Namco revealed Unknown 9: Awakening will release on 18th October. It will be available across PlayStation 5, PS4, Xbox Series X/S, Xbox One and PC (Steam).

You can check out the live action trailer for Unknown 9: Awakening, which stars The Witcher's Anya Chalotra as the game's protagonist Haroona, below.

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Gamescom Opening Night Live 2024 is done and dusted for another year, but it's certainly kicked off this year's Gamescom with a bang - and we've got all the news, trailers and announcements right here in one handy summary. Whether you missed the show itself or just want a handy reminder of everything announced at Gamescom Opening Night Live this year, read on below.

Of course, alongside the main show, this year's ONL also had a 30-minute pre-show that was stuffed with announcements as well, which we'll quickly run through here before getting into the detail of the main show announcements below. Here, we got new trailers for Dave the Diver's latest crossovers, spooky co-op adventure Begone Beast and construction sim Roadcraft, alongside Italian Soulslike Enotria: The Last Song, Cairn (that shouty, but lovely looking climbing game from Summer Game Fest), life sim Inzoi from PUBG publishers Krafton, as well as a Terry showcase for Street Fighter 6.

There were also new game announcements in the pre-show in the form of Sniper Elite Resistance (coming 2025), the Donkey Kong-esque platformer Nikoderiko: The Magical World (with music from David Wise, no less), "first person farming horror allegory" We Harvest Shadows, the also quite spooky-looking Aila, a tease for the sequel to Journey to the Savage Planet (aptly named Revenge of the Savage Planet), action RPG Tribe Nine from the creators of Danganronpa, and the Lashana Lynch-led Directive 8020: A Dark Pictures Game.

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It's been two years since Mafia developer Hangar 13 confirmed it was working on a new entry in its open-world crime series, and the time has finally come for it to be revealed to the world. It's called Mafia: The Old Country and is heading to PS5, Xbox Series X/S, and PC next year.

While 2016's Mafia 3 shunted the series forward in time to the late 60s (the first two games spanned the 1930s, 40s, and 50s between them), The Old Country is going backward, presenting players with a "gritty mob story set in the brutal underworld of 1900s Sicily."

"Fight to survive in this dangerous and unforgiving era," teases the scant bit of blurb accompanying today's teaser trailer, "with action brought to life by the authentic realism and rich storytelling that the critically acclaimed Mafia series is known for."

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Bethesda's first big expansion to Starfield, Shattered Space, will launch for PC and Xbox Series X/S on 30th September.

We got a quick look at the upcoming addition tonight during Gamescom Opening Night Live, in a trailer that mostly focused on the REV-8 land vehicle included in August's free game update.

Ahead of launch, marketing for Starfield felt fairly sober and dramatic - it's fair to say tonight's video takes a more upbeat tone. Previously, Bethesda's Todd Howard said that the lack of land vehicles was a deliberate choice - but it's now something that's being walked (or driven) back.

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Lost Records: Bloom & Rage, the long-awaited next game from the team behind the original Life is Strange, will arrive in two parts.

The first installment launches for PC, PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X/S on 18th February 2025, with its concluding slice then a month later on 18th March.

Tonight also brings an initial look at gameplay from Don't Nod's latest teen adventure, which has a dual timeline split between 1995 and 2022, when its young protagonists are now adults - and dealing with the consequences of their/your actions.

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Indiana Jones and the Great Circle - the Microsoft-owned-Bethesda-release set to arrive on Xbox and PC this year - is also coming to PlayStation 5.

At this evening's Gamescom Opening Night Live event, host Geoff Keighley revealed that everyone's favourite fedora sporting professor will be cracking his whip on Sony's platform as well.

In addition to this news, Bethesda announced a release date for the game. Indiana Jones and the Great Circle will release across Xbox Series X/S and PC on 9th December. Its PS5 release will then follow a few months later, during the spring of 2025.

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To this day, I still hold Indy responsible for my penchant for hats. I have been enthralled by Indiana Jones ever since I was a little girl - but despite this deep affection, coming away from a hands-off preview of MachineGames' Indiana Jones and the Great Circle, I just can't let myself get overly excited about the upcoming release just yet.

While I'm still looking forward to playing another narrative-driven adventure game, with that fun 'afternoon popcorn flick' energy Great Circle undoubtedly has, my immediate reaction from this first extended demo is to worry this is all it will be, leaning just a little too heavily on fan nostalgia and a tried and tested formula, but without the innovation to truly set it apart from the rest. (And, given the game is currently set to release this year, I really hoped to see more gameplay than I did.)

The demo, which is also being shown at this year's Gamescom, begins with Indy entering a large room within the Sunsparker Chamber, a mysterious underground temple and one of "several well guarded secrets and hidden ruins" you can expect to discover. With the camera in first-person, our archaeologist - gamely brought to life by a still-recognisable Troy Baker - looks around the ancient room before gameplay switches to a cutscene. Indy approaches a statue set upon a plinth at the back of the room, in a scene immediately reminiscent of Raiders of the Lost Ark - which is fitting, given the Great Circle is set between the events of this film and The Last Crusade.

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By the time you read these words, Peter Molyneux will have taken to the Opening Night Live stage at Gamescom and formally announced his new project to the world. Masters of Albion marks Molyneux's return to the genre he is widely credited with creating. It ditches his studio 22cans' previous focus on mobile development to instead target consoles as well as PC. And it's being made with help from several of Molyneux's old colleagues at his previous studios - Lionhead, Bullfrog - whose design CVs, like Molyneux's own, include a litany of 90s and 2000s classics.

On paper, all of this should inspire a positive reception. But, sitting opposite Molyneux a week before today's announcement, in the quiet boardroom of his small Guildford development studio, the veteran video game designer is clearly nervous. Those 90s and 2000s hits are now a long time ago, and much, of course, has changed. It's been 12 years since 22cans was founded and Molyneux's Curiosity cube caught the headlines, for good and bad, and the subsequent decade has not gone smoothly - crowdfunding concerns with Godus, continued accusations of broken promises, a fractured relationship with the media, and, most recently, an odd foray chasing the NFT fad with a blockchain game unfortunately titled Legacy.

Molyneux, now 65, is visibly older, softly-spoken. Last year, on social media, he described his mental health as "fragile". As we sit down, he asks if I mind whether he vapes as we talk - a habit he tells me he's picked up due to stress. He's not been sleeping well, he says, due to the anxiety of talking to the press once again. At times, when we discuss what this new project means to him - what it potentially could still mean for the latter stages of his career - his voice slows, emotion rising. But, at others, when he's discussing game mechanics, or keen to tell me more than he's strictly allowed, his old enthusiasm shines through, at one point swinging back and forth like a child on his chair.

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ARC Raiders - the free-to-play PvPvE extraction shooter from The Finals developer Embark Studios - has resurfaced following an extended period of retooling, and is now launching as a premium title for PC, Xbox Series X/S, and PlayStation 5 next year.

If you're struggling to remember much about ARC Raiders, that might be because few details have been shared since its announcement back in 2021. It was originally set to release in 2022, but its launch has continued to slip since then - first into 2023 so Embark could focus on The Finals, and latterly while the studio continued to tinker with the title following a genre change.

But it turns out its switch from co-operative third-person shooter to PvPvE extraction shooter (its original form "wasn't really fun", Embark admitted during a recent press event) wasn't to be ARC Raiders' only notable change. It's now been re-announced as a $40 USD premium title, jettisoning its previous free-to-play form, albeit while still remaining a live-service game.

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Those Xbox players among us who have been waiting to get their hands on open-world adventure RPG Genshin Impact, I have good news.

At this evening's Gamescom Opening Night Live, the team revealed Genshin Impact will be making its way to Xbox Series X/S and Game Pass on 20th November. It is available to wishlist now on the Microsoft Store.

The news was shared along with a new Natlan gameplay trailer (below). Earlier this year, Genshin Impact was once again accused of cultural appropriation from fans and voice actors in response to the reveal of its new cast of Natlan characters.

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Dying Light developer Techland has shown off a new game in its zombie series that began life as a DLC for Dying Light 2 Stay Human.

Announced during Gamescom Opening Night Live, Dying Light: The Beast is a solo or four-player co-op experience pitched as a "tight" 18-hour ride through a fresh area of the franchise's world.

Dying Light protagonist Kyle Crane, once again voiced by Roger Craig Smith, returns here, a decade on. In-game, Crane has been in captivity, and experimented on. The upside? You have zombie DNA powers to unleash that beast on enemies.

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We already knew it was coming, thanks to a post-credits teaser at the end of 2022's The Devil in Me, but developer Supermassive has now confirmed its sci-fi horror outing Directive 8020 will launch for PS5, Xbox Series X/S, and PC next year.

Directive 8020 essentially takes one fist of Alien and another of The Thing then smushes them together, placing players aboard the colony ship Cassiopeia, where its crew must escape an alien organism capable of mimicking its prey.

"Earth is dying and humanity is running out of time," teases Supermassive. "12 light years from home, Tau Ceti f offers a small sliver of hope. When the colony ship Cassiopeia crash lands on the planet, its crew soon realise they are far from being alone... As they battle to survive, they are confronted with the hardest choice of all: to save themselves, they must risk the lives of everyone on Earth."

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Bully, Rockstar's enjoyable schoolboy adventure game, is now available as part of the GTA+ subscription on PlayStation, Xbox and "soon" on compatible iPhone and Android devices.

Rockstar announced that Bully would be coming to GTA+ earlier this year, back in April. We've been waiting for word on exactly when ever since.

It's great to have an easier way to play Bully again - though Rockstar describes the GTA+ catalogue as "rotating", so it's unclear how long it'll stick around. Also on GTA+? LA Noire, Red Dead Redemption, and Grand Theft Auto: The Trilogy - The Definitive Edition.

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Microsoft has confirmed the next batch of titles headed to Xbox Game Pass for the latter half of August: Atlas Fallen, Core Keeper, and Star Trucker.

Then there's that little known game called Call of Duty Black Ops 6. You'll be able to participate in the early access open beta when it kicks off for Xbox Game Pass subscribers on 30th August, 2024, with pre-downloading available from 28th August.

"Sure, it takes itself way too seriously and the loot chase can get monotonous, but everything outside of the monster-slaying is just an excuse to get right back to the monster-slaying. Or make the monster-slaying cooler with upgrades," we said in our Atlas Fallen review.

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Sony is pulling Horizon Forbidden West from its PS Plus subscription service in the coming weeks.

The first-party Sony game is now listed under the 'Last Chance to Play' section on PS Plus, along with the likes of NieR Replicant, Marvel's Midnight Suns and Alien Isolation.

This upcoming removal of Forbidden West comes just a few months after Horizon Zero Dawn was also removed from the service, which as Tom wrote at the time seemed a surprising move by Sony.

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Paradox Interactive's streak of game delays continues with the news its Chinese-Room-developed Vampire: The Masquerade - Bloodlines 2 is now targeting a release in the "first half of 2025", rather than its previously announced "late 2024" window.

In a post on its website, Paradox called the delay a "proactive decision" derived from its commitment earlier this year to deliver "high-quality games" to its players. "Though [Bloodlines 2] is in a good enough place that we could have maintained our planned release window," it wrote, "Paradox and The Chinese Room collaboratively decided to prioritise polish."

Paradox says the delay will "create a quality assurance buffer, giving more time between testing and launch, ensuring we release the game when it's ready." More specifically, The Chinese Room will use the time to expand Bloodlines 2's story, providing twice as many endings as its predecessor, and to "adjust certain areas" such as Fabien - the voice in its protagonist's head.

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Hunt: Showdown 1896 - the huge new update that necessitated an engine upgrade and introduced all new UI - has just hit an all-new concurrent player peak of over 60,000.

Up until the 1896 update dropped on 15th August, the extraction shooter's simultaneous player record - set back in October 2023 - sat at a modest 42,000ish players.

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Just when Geoff Keighley had started to fade from your memory, he comes rubber-banding back with a vengeance - snap! It's Gamescom week and it kicks off with Opening Night Live this evening from 7pm UK time (other Opening Night Live timings here). A pre-show with additional announcements will begin at 6.30pm UK. We'll be watching and reporting on it live, as always, right here, so you can either keep abreast of announcements while you do something else, or you can join in with your thoughtful and amusing comments. Please keep us company. Please.

What do we expect to see today? Well, probably Geoff Keighley, but also the new Indiana Jones game, Monster Hunter Wilds, and Dune Awakening. We're also expecting Little Nightmares creator Tarsier to unveil its new project, which could be exciting. On top of that: Diablo 4 expansion Vessel of Hatred, Civilization 7, hero shooter Marvel Rivals, Lost Records (the project made by the creators of Life is Strange), Kingdom Come: Deliverance 2 (which was recently delayed), and Black Ops 6. Keighley's best pal Hideo Kojima has also been tweeting enigmatic silhouetted pictures of actors who are presumably playing roles in Death Stranding 2.

And before you ask, "Yes, there will be new game announcements," Keighley said on X.

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The creator of the now-defunct Call of Duty Modern Warfare 2 mod, H2M, has opened up about what happened when Activision slapped the mod with a cease and desist, admitting, "the past couple of days have not gone to plan".

Although the mod - which upgraded Modern Warfare 2's multiplayer mode - was announced over a year ago, the cease and desist arrived the day before the mod was scheduled to be released last week, forcing the project to "shut down [...] immediately and permanently".

Shortly thereafter, unhappy Modern Warfare 2 fans jumped onto the Steam page to express their dismay.

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Netflix has given us our best look yet at its upcoming animated series, Tomb Raider: The Legend of Lara Croft.

The show is scheduled to make its debut on the streaming service this autumn, and features the vocal talents of the MCU's Hayley Atwell as Lara Croft. It's all set to take place after the events of the Tomb Raider Survivor trilogy, which comprised Tomb Raider (2013), Rise of the Tomb Raider and Shadow of the Tomb Raider.

"Following the events of the Survivor Trilogy, Lara Croft (voiced by Hayley Atwell) has abandoned her friends to embark on increasingly more perilous solo adventures," reads the official blurb. "But she must return home when a dangerous and powerful Chinese artefact is stolen from Croft Manor by a thief with an uncanny personal connection."

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MachineGames' Indiana Jones and the Great Circle will reportedly launch for PlayStation 5 in the early half of 2025, following an Xbox Series X/S and PC release at the end of this year.

That's according to industry insider Nate the Hate (one of the first people to break the news of Microsoft's multi-platform plans at the start of this year) who made the claim on social media. "MachineGames' Indiana Jones and the Great Circle will release on Xbox & PC this holiday (Dec) as a timed console exclusive," they wrote. "After this timed-exclusive window expires, Indiana Jones & the Great Circle is planned to come to PlayStation 5 in the first half of 2025."

Nate the Hate's claim tallies with a report by The Verge back in February, which said Microsoft was planning to go beyond its initial slate of comparatively low-key multi-platform releases by launching some of its flagship games on competing consoles. These were said to include Starfield and MachineGames' Indiana Jones and the Great Circle, with the latter supposedly due to arrive on PS5 "some months" after its Xbox and PC release.

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Final Fantasy 16 will launch on PC on 17th September across both the Epic Games Store and Steam.

The PC version has been long-awaited since the game was released as a PS5 console exclusive last year.

Today's news comes with a new PC specific trailer, see below. A demo is available to try out now.

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The Borderlands film adaptation will seemingly be available to watch digitally from the comfort of your home very soon.

While nothing has been officially announced by Lionsgate itself, multiple sources such The Hollywood Handle, DVD Release Dates, ScreenTime and When to Stream all have the Cate Blanchett-fronted film listed as being made available digitally from as soon as 30th August.

That's less than a month after its cinematic release, with the film only debuting on 9th August.

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A flurry of Pokémon news has confirmed a launch date for the long-awaited Pokémon Trading Card Game Pocket, and a look ahead at what's next for Pokémon Go.

Pokémon TCG Pocket, a digital version of the phenomenally-popular trading card game, will go live via the iPhone App Store and Google Play for Android worldwide on 30th October.

As previously announced, you can open two packs of Pokémon cards for free per day - just enough to get you hooked - and it's interesting to see the pack-opening mechanic front and centre in the game's trailer below.

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The upcoming Until Dawn remake for PC and PlayStation 5 will reportedly cost £60 at launch.

That's according to reliable leaker billbil-kun from Dealabs, who has also said that a physical PlayStation 5 release is also on the cards.

All versions of the Until Dawn remake will be priced at £59.99 here in the UK, billbil-kun stated. That's €69.99, or $59.99 for those in the US.

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Ubisoft has cut 45 staff across two of its North American studios, as part of its third round of redundancies so far this year.

The company has laid off workers at both Ubisoft San Francisco, the developer of XDefiant, and Red Storm Entertainment, which had been working on the now-cancelled The Division: Heartland live service game.

"Last week Ubisoft San Francisco and Red Storm Entertainment informed their teams of a restructuring that will result in 45 employees leaving Ubisoft," a spokesperson confirmed in a statement to Eurogamer.

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A new "modern camera" mod is now available for Silent Hill 3 and Silent Hill 4: The Room on PC.

Modder ZealotTormunds has developed a mod that gives Silent Hill players both a first-person perspective and a more contemporary over-the-shoulder camera.

Both Silent Hill 3 and 4 typically use fixed camera angles. By freeing up these locked perspectives, Zealot provides players with the chance to get a closer look at the game's textures, enemies, and environments.

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Just a month after its last free event, Star Citizen is free-to-play again, from now until 22nd August, 2024.

That means everyone can jump in and give the space sim a chance, as well as try out all "top 16 ships", "granting both green and grizzled pilots the ability to try out eligible ships before choosing which one to vote for" at this year's Ship Showdown event.

For the last few weeks, the community has been voting for their favourite ships and ground vehicles with their own "original creations", including videos, songs, photos, paintings, and more.

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Sega's Eternal Champions is the next video game franchise to get a silver-screen adaptation.

Whilst it's hardly surprising that filmmakers are still rooting through video game catalogues for ideas, I can't say I had Sega's 1993 fighting game on my bingo card for the next series to be getting an adaptation.

However, according to Hollywood Reporter, that's exactly what's happening, with Jurassic World trilogy writer Derek Connolly set to write the live-action screenplay.

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15 minutes of Astro Bot has once again leaked online, giving us a premature peek at what to expect when the game releases on 6th September.

In news unlikely to surprise you, the video has already been removed from YouTube (although you can still find copies of it if you're prepared to go looking), but eagle-eyed fans nonetheless managed to get a peek at the main hub, as well as a sneaky glimpse at some of the bots we can expect.

If you'd prefer to keep everything a surprise, head back to the main page now. For those excited and happy for a little head's up, read on…

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nDreams, the developer behind one of my all-time favourite VR titles, Synapse, has announced a new shooter game called Vendetta Forever during this week's VR Games Showcase.

If that wasn't cause for celebration enough, nDreams also released a short, Quest-exclusive demo for the game that I played through for this week's episode of VR Corner. In the video, you can see me play the Quest 3 version, but it will also be available on the Quest Pro, Quest 2 and the PS VR2 at some point in October.

So what is Vendetta Forever? Well the easiest way to describe it is a mash-up of Superhot and Pistol Whip, with some of the best aspects of both games cherry-picked and given a little twist to make them feel fresh and unique. The monochromatic-but-not-quite visuals are definitely more Pistol Whip-y, but the title screen is just full of those iconic Superhot reds, whites and blacks. Then there's the main menu, which is almost a carbon copy of Pistol Whip's, with mutator and level select options, alongside online leaderboards and a nice little shooting gallery area which is something Pistol Whip does lack.

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Ubisoft has updated the PC requirements for its upcoming Star Wars adventure, Star Wars Outlaws, and released a new teaser showing off what kind of performance PC players can expect when the game releases on 30th August.

Taking up a modest 65GB, the settings shouldn't be too punishing for those looking only to meet the minimum standards – although you will need to have DLSS or FSR – but those pushing for the "ultra" experience will need a decent rig.

Check out the details below:

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During Lockdown, the only thing more scarce than flour was Switch fitness game Ring Fit Adventure. It was the perfect thing at the perfect time: a game that provided a home workout in a period when you had to stay home. Strap the controller to you, grab the oversized resistance wheel thing, and get moving. Everyone wanted one, and the desire for it lingered long after Lockdown. Today, Ring Fit has sold more than 15m units - it's one of the most successful games on Switch. Nintendo sensed there was a market and Ring Fit proved it. And it's not just Nintendo: companies like Peloton, with its uber-expensive exercise bike and integrated workout platform, have shown people will pay significant amounts of money to gamify their fitness needs, and it's into this exact space a new challenger has arrived.

It's called Quell and it's currently £190, and I tried it this week and I really liked it. The topline thing you need to know is that it delivers a punishing workout. It's more intense than Ring Fit; after a short demo plus a 20-minute regular session, I was dripping sweat freely on the rug in Quell's smallish London office. There was no air conditioning - enough said. That's not to say Ring Fit can't be intense but it's generally a calmer experience. Quell is designed to push it up a notch.

The second thing to know is that Quell feels more actively gamey than Ring Fit, which I was quite surprised about. It's built with roguelike principles in mind, so you try to see how far you can get in the game but also build and customise a loadout as you go. Do you want this power or that one? That kind of thing. And then between runs, you equip the items you earned, affecting your power and statistics, adding a layer of role-playing game progression to the mix. "Real fitness. Real gaming," is the company's motto, so you get a sense of the areas it's trying to push on.

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Warhammer 40,000: Space Marine 2 is one of Digital Foundry's most eagerly anticipated games, effectively hitting the beats that made the first series entry so enjoyable. The grand scale of the environments, the dense swarms of tyranids, the absolute carnage of combat - it's all back in Space Marine 2, enhanced by the impressive technical capabilities of the Swarm engine. Focus Entertainment recently shared a preview build of the PC version of the game, and we're eager to share our impressions with you. We're liking what we see - but Space Marine 2 pushes hardware, which poses interesting challenges to the current generation of consoles, especially on the CPU side.

Saber Interactive has taken on development duties for this game, and our first impression is that it's done a fantastic job of capturing the Warhammer 40,000 aesthetic: colossal, heroic figures, massive-scale gothic architecture stretching out into the far distance and an enviable wealth of animated detail in the immediate area. The sense of density is only heightened once you get your first taste of combat: dozens of tyranids rushing you, while hundreds (possibly even thousands more) can sometimes be seen massing in the background.

Density in detail at close range also impresses, though it's not quite to the same extremes as Warhammer 40,000: Darktide. That said, as third-person game up against a first-person experience, that's not actually a bad thing. It works exceptionally well. The emphasis on detail also means that something has to give elsewhere: Space Marine 2 doesn't seem to be using cutting-edge lighting or global illumination technology, but you do get accomplished versions of mature technologies like shadow maps, screen-space reflections and screen-space ambient occlusion, while the GI solution (which does seem pre-calculated or 'baked') does give a good impression of light bounce. The quality of the physically-based materials also works well.

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The special, almost intangible loveliness of the Plucky Squire isn't down to either the game design itself or the way it's presented. It's down to both of these things, combined so thoroughly, and with such imagination, that it's hard to stir them apart.

To put it another way, it's not just that this is a fantasy-action game in which your hero receives a bow and arrow from a beautiful elf. It's that, to win that bow and arrow, the hero first has to venture across the authentic wilderness of a child's cluttered bedroom desk, and into a cardboard castle. There, at the top of a tower formed by a stack of beloved books, the hero and the elf must do battle inside the stiff confines of a knock-off Magic: The Gathering card.

This completely rules. And that's just one moment from the preview build of the game I've been playing over the last few days that has elicited such a gasp of wonder and delight. A battle inside a battling card! And then I walk away from it with a golden bow. Yes please, Plucky Squire. Yes please.

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Destiny developer Bungie says it has addressed an issue where players have had their usernames changed by its "name moderation tool".

After "actively investigating" the issue for 24 hours, Bungie advised that while it had "identified the issue that was forcing a high number of Bungie name changes", it was "continuing to investigate" what happened and how "to address player accounts that were impacted".

Although Bungie acknowledged that a "high number of account names have been changed", the studio stopped short of confirming exactly how many players were affected.

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If you cast your minds back to October 2021, you may recall the news that Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas was set to make its way to the VR headset, Oculus Quest 2. While details on the project were thin on the ground at this time, it was said to have been "many years in the making".

However, not quite three years since that initial announcement, Meta has now said work on the VR port is "on hold indefinitely".

In response to a YouTube commenter inquiring as to the whereabouts of GTA: San Andreas VR, the official Meta Quest Vr account replied: "GTA: San Andreas is on hold indefinitely while we both focus on other projects."

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The Elder Scrolls mobile game, The Elder Scrolls: Castles, is set to launch on 10th September.

The Elder Scrolls: Castles - which was quietly released into early access in September 2023 - is now open for pre-registration on both Apple and Android.

From the same "award-winning team" behind Fallout Shelter, The Elder Scrolls: Castles lets you reign supreme over your very own castle and dynasty within The Elder Scrolls universe.

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Following the news Krafton was saving Hi-Fi Rush developer Tango Gameworks from being shut down for good, the PUBG publisher has confirmed its plans to "transfer approximately 50 development staff" from the studio to its Japan subsidiary.

This is roughly half the number of the studio's initial development staff, which was over 100. Gameranx reports this is because others have since found employment elsewhere, and as such there are a number of job openings at the studio.

In an update on social media platform X by Game File's Stephen Totilo, the reporter shared a statement from Krafton's PR, which said those 50 staff who are part of the transfer will "continue to work on new projects, including the expansion of the Hi-Fi Rush IP, at Krafton".

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