I've heard of riding outfits and hunting costumes and other such purpose-specific wardrobes of history. But the Victorians have nothing on Infinity Nikki, the open world dress-up adventure game where you'll unlock a floating outfit, gliding outfit (apparently not the same thing), shrinking outfit, fishing outfits, and more. Nikki showed up at Gamescom Opening Night Live today with a new trailer and also just opened registration for its closed beta.

Infinity Nikki is the fifth game in what was formerly a mobile-only series, now coming to PC (and console), as we found out during Sony's State of Play earlier this summer. Today's new trailer was more abstract than that reveal trailer, basically just a fever dream of cats, chickens, and sheep all singing "Nikki" over and over again as stylist Nikki and her cat companion Momo explore Miraland. Fortunately, Infold Games gave a more comprehensible explanation in text form:

"Sink into an immersive world with boundless opportunities including cozy open-world exploration, fun platforming, puzzle-solving, gorgeous style possibilities, and much more brought to life by former The Legend of Zelda director Kentaro Tominaga," Infold Games says. "Solve intricately designed puzzles and ward against dark energy with Nikki’s adventurous spirit. Commune with playful creatures and create specific outfits to fish in the river, catch bugs in the fields, and travel between lands."

I've always been quite keen on games where I can build and decorate, even without goals (Townscaper, Tiny Glade, etc), but I've never been one for open-ended dress-up, so fashion games have always been outside my sphere. But if you throw in some beautiful open world, a bit of exploration, traversal puzzle solving, I am so very in. Infinity Nikki has my extreme attention. 

Now I've not done any deep dives into the lore of the Nikki series but Mollie Taylor did once try to explain Love Nikki to me, which is apparently way darker than I thought this adorable fashion game would be. So I'm quite curious to see if there's a similarly dire story hiding beneath Infinity Nikki's bright surface.

What I hadn't quite clocked from the reveals so far was Nikki's premium currency monetization, though that'll come as less of a surprise to those familiar with the mobile games, I'm sure. You can spot on its official website the pre-registration rewards including multiple currencies that remind me a lot of what I'm now used to seeing in the likes of Genshin Impact and other gacha games. So know that, ahead of time.

Though we've not gotten a release date for Infinity Nikki, it has just opened up registration for its closed beta test (dates to be announced), which will include PC players. You can also find it on the Epic Games Store.

I wasn't expecting to see Dragon Age: The Veilguard turn up at the Xbox Games Showcase over the weekend ahead of the gameplay reveal it had already planned for tomorrow. But turn up it did, with a CG trailer that had a lot of fans, including me, very nervous about the plastic-y, poreless character designs. Partly to quell that public panic, I'm willing to bet, BioWare just gave us a "sneak peak" at 24 seconds of the planned 15+ minute gameplay reveal tomorrow. Everyone take ten deep breaths. It looks better—probably.

As my colleague Robin Valentine pointed out yesterday, the CG trailer debuted at the Xbox show had serious hero shooter vibes, with a "hello fellow kids" kind of banter that I don't associate with the dry, dark humor of Thedas. 

I was worried too, and spent the evening consoling myself with thoughts of the Sacred Ashes trailer for Dragon Age: Origins and the Dragon Age 2 Destiny trailer, both of which looked very different from the actual games. The Veilguard's trailer did say "game engine footage," though I'm not certain how much stock to place in that.

Anyhow, here's that new 24 seconds of The Veilguard which definitely is in-game footage:

"Rook and Varric arrive in the stunning—and seedy—city of Minrathous. Little do they know what dangers await," BioWare says in the accompanying post.

Now look, this thing is a somewhat compressed video posted to X in a maximum of 720p so I can't tell if the whole world looks just as shellac-ed as Scout Harding's face did in that reveal. We don't see either Varric or our protagonist Rook's faces here either, but this seems like something I might be happy to call a Dragon Age game. 

It's dark. It's moody. And if it's not as grimy and gritty as we're used to, well, we already knew that the cultural hub of Minrathous was going to be way more advanced than the backwaters of Ferelden where the series began. 

We'll see the remainder of this scene tomorrow, I'm sure, but for now we can hear Varric and Rook deciding to chase down one of the game's companions Neve Gallus to help track Solas, the presumptive villain of Veilguard who lost his name rights when the Dreadwolf title got replaced.

It is funny to me that this first peek shows us walking around on a quest with Varric. From the companion reveals yesterday, we assumed that he wouldn't be a full party member again. That's likely still true, but neither has he been relegated to hub areas like the advisors of Dragon Age: Inquisition. He's still got to get out and about. Please let that man put his feet up for once, damn.

I don't think this gameplay peek entirely assuages the fears I share with PC Gamer mag editor Rob Jones who worried that Dragon Age has lost its identity based on the cartoony physical gags of the reveal trailer. But it's a nod in the right direction, at least.

The rest of the gameplay reveal is scheduled for tomorrow, June 11 at 8 am Pacific / 11 am Eastern. I'll reserve my full judgment until then, but I'm feeling a little less leery than I was this weekend. 

The 10th annual PC Gaming Show has officially signed off, but you can catch all the trailers and reveals right here if you missed the premiere. As hosted by Sean Day[9] Plott, Mica Burton, and Frankie Ward, this year's show reached PC gamers around the world on Twitch, YouTube, and Bilibili. If it feels like PC Gaming is bigger than it's ever been since we started doing this yearly premiere, well, you're right. And this year's showcase sure made it feel that way.

This year we shared over 70 total trailers and 15 first reveals, including creature collecting and crafting game Among The Wild, sandbox RPG Streets of Fortuna, and solarpunk city builder Generation Exile. We also caught up with some regular favorites of the PC Gaming Show like the turn-based tactical Demonschool and narrative horror Still Wakes The Deep which, by the way, is launching this month.

If you just want to skim for your favorite announcements below instead of watching the full show that's alright, we won't tell our hosts. Check out the trailers for everything in the show down below and a quick brief on what we learned about each of them. You can also catch all these fresh trailers over on the PC Gamer YouTube channel.

Among The Wild

Starbirds

Lorn Vale

Ale Abbey

Streets of Rogue 2

Open world immersive RPG Streets of Rogue 2 announces its early access date on August 6. Build, craft, and survive in this sandbox with its procedurally generated levels that are 10,000x bigger than the original.

Wander Stars

How on earth do vocabulary and '90s anime meet up in a turn-based battling game? That's the premise in Wander Stars by Paper Castle Games in which you combine words to create attacks, which you can try out in its new demo.

Southfield

Silly farming sim Southfield is full of wobbly physics and gloopy characters where you'll farm crops that may do unexpected things like explode, it turns out. Cultivate dangerous crops and automate your base when it launches on June 24.

Steel Seed

Dark sci-fi platformer Steel Seed follows the journey of Zoe and her drone partner Koby deep into a mysterious facility. Check out the new trailer teasing some of its story and a new area of the game ahead of its launch later this year.

Fallen Aces

Comic book-style bloody FPS Fallen Aces is a pulpy, noir adventure in which you can go loud or stealthy to make your way through its episodes. You can catch the first episode when it lands on June 14.

Stormgate

We didn't just see a new trailer for the upcoming RTS Stormgate, we also got to play it. We also got some details on its factions, which you can study up on until it launches on August 13.

Mars Tactics

Mars Tactics is an upcoming tactics game that lets you choose between conquering the planet as oppressed Red Faction-esque workers or as a bunch of soulless corporate mercs. Its new trailer shows off base-building and a bit of its campaign, which we'll get our hands on when it launches later this year.

Toads of the Bayou

Toads of the Bayou is a deckbuilder-slash-roguelike game that blends cards with good ol' fashioned turn-based tactics. Baron Samedi, a nasty spirit, has trapped you and your fellow hoppers in a cursed bayou to wallow and suffer. It's hopping onto Steam in October this year.

Sumerian Six

All Systems Dance

Fumes

Fumes is infused with the spirit of Mad Max in its procedurally generated desert wasteland where you get to slam trucks together in ridiculous gun and chainsaw fights. You don't even have to wait to give that a shot, because it's got a demo available on Steam ahead of its early access launch.

Sulfur

Solo extraction shooter with roguelike and RPG elements Sulfur just got a massive update to its demo, as it showed off in a new trailer. You can try that out right now while you wait for it to launch later this year.

Phantom Line

Killing Floor 3

We got an up-close look at the sci-fi monsters of Killing Floor 3 ahead of its appearance in the PC Gaming Show and The Impaler looks like a real tank. KF3 is already looking excellent for pulling friends into co-op, but we'll have to wait for it to launch first.

Copa City

Tempopo

Last Moon

Independent French team at Sköll Studio shared a new look at its classic Zelda-like adventure Last Moon in which you collect Runes of the Ancients to become a more powerful Lunar Knight. It's launching sometime in 2025 but you can try its demo right now on Steam.

I Am Your Beast

This "short-form FPS" called I Am Your Beast is an adventure through the Alaskan wilderness in which you'll stalk, shoot, and chuck your gun at guard goons. It calls itself a "lightning-quick hunt-the-hunters action fantasy," that's launching later this year.

Cataclismo

Cataclismo is a survival RTS with a building system inspired by Legos from the developer of Moonlighter. You can catch several new types of enemy shown off in this new trailer and its July 16 release date announcement too.

Level Zero: Extraction

Level Zero: Extraction, a "multiplayer extraction horror" game from Ukrainian outfit Doghowl Games has a twist for the extraction genre: three squads of three playing as human scavengers competing for valuable loot while two other players take control of "deadly alien monsters, hunting the humans from the shadows." It will be coming to early access later this year.

Battle Aces

If you don't have time for a lengthy RTS match, Battle Aces is angling for breezy 10-minute battles as shown off in its new trailer. Take a turn with its PvP in the upcoming closed beta, which you can sign up for on its official site.

Citizen Sleeper 2

Developer Jump Over The Age debuted a new trailer for the tabletop-inspired sci-fi RPG Citizen Sleeper 2, giving us a peek at its expanded scope. Instead of simply trying to survive as a digitized consciousness in a robot body, you'll have a whole crew to take care of, too. It's launching early in 2025.

Demonschool

Turn-based tactics game Demonschool has returned to the PC Gaming Show yet again, looking just as cool as every other time we've seen it. This time it's debuted a fresh new animation sequence and a release date for September 13 of this year.

Unrailed 2

Hectic co-op game Unrailed 2 turned up to show off its new "terrain conductor" mode that will let players build levels for one another to navigate. The game itself is planning to pull into your Steam station later this year.

Space Station 14

After 13 years in development, the overhaul of free-to-play multiplayer RPG Space Station 13 is finally out in the wild. Space Station 14 just launched into early access on Steam so the wait is finally over.

Unbeatable

A rockin' rhythm and narrative game in which music is actually illegal, Unbeatable brings a punk attitude and tunes. We already think its demo, Unbeatable [White Label] is pretty rad, which you can still try out while waiting for it to launch in full next year.

Odinfall

You don't see many twin stick shooters about vikings but that's exactly what Odinfall is. Ragnarok has come and gone and now you've got to survive the deadly Motherstorm while murdering robot gods when it heads to early access in July.

Core Keeper

Core Keeper was a co-op survival crafting hit when it launched into early access. It's now nearly ready for that 1.0 launch, now scheduled for August 27, it announced along with two new character classes in this new trailer.

No More Room In Hell 2

We're all sick of mid zombie games, but the concept remains irresistible when done right, and developer Torn Banner has mastered the art of melee combat in the Chivalry series, so expect that baseball bat to feel just right as you introduce it to zombie skulls. No More Room In Hell 2 is all about 8 players in co-op trying to survive the apocalypse on huge open maps.

Striden

Catch a new look at unconventional alternate history FPS Striden in its new trailer above. The Half-Life throwback seems out of place next to the very dramatic, blue-filtered WW2-ish shooting—but then you get to the irradiated bear.

Drug Dealer Sim 2

This drug empire simulator sequel has debuted a new trailer sharing another look at its early 2000s setting complete with flip phones and parkour. It's launching soon, on June 20, and has a demo available right now if you don't want to wait to get growing.

Zero Sievert

Zero Sievert shared a trailer with us showing off looting and shooting in the tense apocalyptic Zakov City. After spending time in early access since 2022, it's getting ready to hit 1.0 this autumn. 

The Deadly Path

Otherworldly management game The Deadly Path has you gathering card-based resources to expand your operations and ascend a bunch of grisly deities. Check it out in the trailer above while we wait for it to launch later this year.

Incolatus

Incolatus is a "dripping pink Y2K girly-pop retro-inspired arena-style movement FPS," which means it's crammed with pink guns and the faster you move the more damage you do. Incolatus shared a trailer with us going over that extremely fast-paced FPS action and also a bit of dressup. You can wishlist it on Steam right now.

Inferni: Hope & Fear

Inferni: Hope & Fear calls itself the "first deck-builder battle royale" where you and a team play ability cards onto the battlefield last-team-standing style in real time battles. You can download its demo right now ahead of its planned release on July 1.

Deathsprint 66

Why race cars when you can race remote-controlled androids? Deathsprint 66 is like a foot race between off brand Master Chiefs, which is somehow even wilder to watch than it is to say. It's sprinting off the starting block later this year.

Crescent County

A montage from Indie.io

Forgotten Seas

This crafting RPG has a story mode and co-op and styles itself as a relaxing pirate adventure where you can work on base building or chilling on the beach. It's out now in early access, with plans to hit full release after a year or more.

Moon Mystery

"Moon's haunted," so goes the famous meme, but in the upcoming FPS Moon Mystery, it's true—and it's fallen to you to figure out what's going on. For now you'll have to wishlist this outer space FPS to find out what exactly is going on up there.

G.I Joe: Wrath of the Cobra

At last we'll nearly have a proper side scrolling beat 'em up based on the Real American Heroes. G.I. Joe and crew are getting together to bash Crimson Guards over the head, which you can take part in yourself in its demo.

Everholm

Unlike its cozy and cute farm sim cousins, Everholm is just a little creepy. Lily gets dropped in a mysterious town where everyone already knows her name while looking for her missing sister. You may not solve the whole mystery, but you can get started planting some pumpkins in its demo right now.

Shell Runner

Shell Runner is an isometric PvE tactical extraction shooter set in a world where corporations have taken total control, opening the door to a thriving but brutal underworld where making a buck is as easy as pulling a trigger. You can try out its demo on Steam right now.

Renaissance: Kingdom Wars

Reverie World Studios has returned to its roots: large scale medieval beatdowns in the upcoming Renaissance Kingdom Wars. It's promising a grand strategy-RTS hybrid that lets you conquer all of Europe, North Africa, and the Middle East launching later this year.

Debtors' Club

Debtors' Club puts you in command of a small army of lazy bureaucrats, cheap thugs, and corrupt officials as you attempt to squeeze all the money you can out of a failing city's debtors. You can beg, cajole, and bluster the city's tax payers right now in its new demo.

The Land of the Magnates

The Land of the Magnates is a world inspired by Middle Eastern myth and legends, in which Malik Shahbaz attempts to save his kingdom with the power of running, jumping, and a trusty sitar. We'll see the rest of that adventure when it launches later this year.

Cat Quest 3

The cat action series continue in Cat Quest 3, where you'll now be heading out onto the high seas. Full of action combat and lots of pirate-y cat puns, Cat Quest 3 has a demo right now and plans to launch on August 8.

The Crush House

Making a reality show is tough, as proven in The Crush House where you'll throw together sloppy singles in a pastel Malibu Mansion and film whatever it is they get up to. Capture the smooching but do it with a bit of cinematic flair if you want to turn both romance loving viewers and the former film students into loyal viewers. It launches on August 9 but you can start filming now in its new demo.

Go-Go Town

As the mayor of a rundown town, bringing the place back to life and persuading tourists to up sticks and become permanent residents by finding the architectural balance between business and pleasure should be great fun. This cute little city builder launches in early access on June 18.

Star Trucker

Ditch the long stretches of asphalt and all the rough weather of terrestrial trucking in favor of interstellar longhauling in Star Trucker. This Americana-infused job simulator is sending you out into the space highways when it launches on September 3.

Escape From Tarkov

Though we still don't have a release date in hand, Escape From Tarkov debuted a new trailer to show off newly announced content ahead of its next big patch. This includes features like transitions between maps, a brand new map in Escape From Tarkov Arena, and synchronization of game profiles across Escape From Tarkov and the separate EFT: Arena.

Splodey

Splodey is a platformer that "does away with the jump button" in favor of a throw button instead. Your little wizard will chuck explosive potions at the walls to propel themself through its hellish 2D platforming levels. It's out now, if you think you can finish a platformer without jumping.

Flintlock: The Siege of Dawn

Gunpowder and magic-powered "soulslite" action RPG Flintlock: Siege of Dawn debuted a new action-y trailer to show off some new enemies and its release window. You can finally try it in full this summer or hop into its demo new demo.

'83

Welcome to an alternative universe where the Cold War turned hot. A new multiplayer FPS from Blue Dot Games where the guiding principle is "accessible realism" around a core of tactical precision combat, 83's most ambitious element might be the number of players: Up to 100 per match. It doesn't have a release date yet, but you can sign up for upcoming beta events if you'd like to take part.

Mullet Madjack

In the '80s anime-inspired action game Mullet Madjack, you have ten seconds to live and you can only get more time on the clock by taking down rich androids. It's turned up with a trailer at the show to remind us that it actually launched last month in May so you don't actually have to wait to play.

Generation Exile

Reka

If you've spent enough time as a cute witch, crafting witch, or entrepreneurial witch and just want to escape into the woods, Reka is going to deliver. Based on slavic myths like Baba Yaga, you'll build your own chicken-legged house and wander the countryside to meet townsfolk and summon spirits when it enters early access in August.

Blue Prince

Blue Prince continues the long tradition of estranged relatives leaving dangerous mysteries to their descendants, which in this case is a mansion that you have to build yourself room by room. This mysterious architectural strategy game doesn't have a release date yet but you can wishlist it after checking out this new trailer.

Lok Digital

Lok Digital looks like a word puzzling game, and it is, but it's also one where you're using words to expand society for a bunch of inky little creatures. You can try out the demo right now to check out what this chill and challenging puzzle is all about.

Tactical Breach Wizards

We've had our eyes on turn-based mages game for a long time, which happens to come from former PC Gamer writer turned indie developer Tom Francis' studio. You'll be able to take your party of tactically kitted casters into missions starting on its newly-announced release date: August 20.

Aloft

The crafting survival genre is really going through a big second wave right now, and it's brought all sorts of wild new settings for us to explore, now including the tops of giant floating islands. Survival sandbox Aloft showed off some of its co-op crafting adventures in a new trailer, which you can try in its demo over on Steam.

Screenbound

For those who are already experts in the noble art of texting and walking, Screenbound is a platforming challenge where you're simultaneously navigating a 3D world and the sidescrolling one inside the Game Boy-like handheld in front of your face. It's not launching until 2025, so you still have plenty of time to work on your foot-eye coordination.

Hotel Galactic

Still Wakes The Deep

Last time we got a look at Still Wakes the Deep we were being introduced to the creepy metal sculpture used to make some of its sound effects. This time the narrative horror game set on a Scottish oil rig is sharing its June 18 release date with us.

Into the Dead: Our Darkest Days

Set in 1980 in Walton City, Texas, the outbreak has overwhelmed the town and fighting off the zombies is just one of the challenges that lies ahead in Into the Dead: Our Darkest Days. This side scroller looks full of tension between survivors for you to navigate when it launches in October.

Streets of Fortuna

Grit and Valor - 1949

Grit and Valor – 1949 is a real-time tactics romp that's evoking a lot of cracking games like Into the Breach, Iron Harvest and BattleTech. Developer Milky Tea and publisher Megabit showed off the RTS for the first time in this new trailer and shared plans to launch sometime in 2025.

Rise of the Golden Idol

The Rise of the Golden Idol—sequel to the excellent Case of the Golden Idol—just got a funky-fresh new trailer showing off its new '70s setting and a few of the ways you'll be piecing together the puzzle pieces of its many terrible, terrible crimes. The other mystery we still need to solve is exactly when this one launches, though it is expected sometime this year.

Every Day We Fight

In Every Day We Fight you take charge of a group of civilians caught in an alien invasion Groundhog Day. Thanks to some strange sci-fi tech tech, every time your untrained fighters die, they wake up back at the start of the day, ready to go again. It's due out sometime this year, and you can wishlist it right now until it lands.

Tales of Seikyu

No, this isn't one of those "Tales of" games, but it seriously looks like one. Tales of Seikyu is a cozy framing RPG in a town full of neat animal yokai civilians. You'll cultivate crops, care for livestock, and even pursue romance as you transform into your own yokai incarnations when it launches this year.

Island of Winds

Island of Winds is an action-adventure game, set in 17th-century Iceland, where you play as Brynhildur, the Balance Keeper mediating between our world and supernatural forces. With stealth, puzzles, and combat to contend with, this landscape isn't as quiet as it initially appears. This one launches sometime in 2025.

Airframe Ultra

Airframe Ultra is set in the world of Ultra Circuit racing, a future sport where players compete on combat jetbikes called airframes. In the dystopian Southlands, first place in an underground death sport is apparently worth the extremely high risk of decapitation. You can wishlist it now on Steam.

Stormforge

Crafting pretty houses and tackling giant bosses with friends is no longer enough, for a crafting and survival game. The announcement for upcoming Stormforge demands we also tangle with unnatural magical disasters like tornadoes, firestorms, and the inevitable firenadoes. Take shelter when it launches in 2025.

Windblown

The next game from Dead Cells developer Motion Twin is a super fast-paced action game called Windblown. Notably, Motion Twin wants it to be not just a good single player roguelite, but a cooperative one for up to 3 people. You can wishlist it now to keep track of development. In a similar way to Pikmin, you fight proxy wars in Worship, using your followers as foot soldiers to attack the enemy. Worship doesn't have a release date yet, but you can wishlist it for now.

Worship

Gunboat God

Our Sims 4 main menu experience is crowded enough already, but it's about to get more packed. This week players have managed to dig up proof of an upcoming "events" system that will dole out free rewards for logging in regularly. EA hasn't released any public information about the events feature yet, but there is, for now, an unlisted video on The Sims YouTube channel explaining it in full.

The events feature isn't live yet, but a current banner on the main menu screen says "What's so exciting? Come back in 1 week to find out." It could be related to something else, but I'd say it's a fair bet that's this new events system it's referencing.

As spotted by a few different players, including the (unofficial) Sims Community account, it sure looks and feels like a battle pass. It's located on the main menu screen with a horizontal track of rewards that you can claim for logging in a certain number of days during the given event period. Rewards are things like new hair and jewelry for Create-A-Sim, new furniture and objects for Build Mode, and what may be a new Sim trait as well. It looks like you aren't asked to log in every day, with a set of three rewards possible during week one, two during week two, and so on. And though it feels like damning with faint praise to say it, well, at least it's free.

Content creator SatchOnSims has helpfully done a bit of comparison of all the leaked items in the event rewards track to work out that most seem to be new color swatches or slight alterations on items that have previously appeared in different paid DLC kits and expansions. There's a recolor of a hairstyle from the Cats & Dogs expansion, a version of a mini fridge from the Discover University expansion, and so on.

Log in rewards are super common in online games as an incentive to keep concurrent player count strong but it's a weird thing for a singleplayer game to do. It's been a weird first half of the year overall for The Sims 4. 

Back in March it added a nagging store button reminding you to think about buying DLC all the time. Just last week EA announced that it had "assembled a team" to better work on fixing gameplay bugs that have plagued the game for years. And yeah, it doesn't feel great that another naggy sort of system is likely going to roll right on out while a major bug fixing campaign seems to be just getting off the ground. 

It's been a real mix of things nobody wanted and things everybody's asked for for years. It feels like The Sims 4 is getting pulled in four different directions like it's being stretched on a torture rack. Slapping in battle passes while that fad already feels on its way out of favor in the wider gaming community is just another shackle.

It's unclear whether this system is going to replace or coexist with the current "Sims Delivery Express" system by which The Sims 4 will occasionally add a new free item for all players regardless of when they log in next. And although these "events" look like they're currently free, I can feel everyone getting nervous that they may not always stay that way, if not in The Sims 4 then possibly in the upcoming The Sims 5. 

For now though, getting free variants on things like the mini fridge that were previously only contained in DLCs is something I'm generally in favor of, feeling "pressured" to play aside. If I could request a single-tile shower head like the one in Discover University to use in my base game tiny house builds, that would be great, thanks EA.

Former XCOM lead and pillar of strategy games Jake Solomon announced this week that he's co-founded a new studio and will be working on a life sim game, of all things. As it turns out, he's actually been hoping to work on a relationship simulation for a very long time.

"Right off the bat, it's going to seem very different from what I've done before," Solomon said after the announcement. "But this is where my passion is: emergent player stories. I want to make a game that you can't play without writing a story."

In an interview with PC Gamer last week, Solomon described a systems-driven life sim that, to my ears, sounded almost like everyone's favorite dwarf society survival game, at least in how he envisions the beginning of each story.

"What we want is for players to tell the game 'hey, I'm trying to tell this kind of story," Solomon says, whether it's about romance or family or running a successful business. "And then we actually generate a cast of characters to make this story more interesting.

"We are pre-seeding the town with relationships. So when you start the game, just like you would start up a book or a TV show, your character has relationships in the town. If you're trying to tell a romantic story then we'll say okay here's your starting cast: your ex-lover is your coworker and your neighbor is your high school boyfriend and your secret crush is this rival in town."

So it's like starting a game of Dwarf Fortress? I asked Solomon if the comparison fit.

"Nobody has said that, but that's a very good way to put it!" Solomon tells me, laughing. There are important differences of course. I don't get the impression that he's planning for players to read a giant wall of text that explains the tragedies, usurpers, and doom of society every time you start up a new town. "But yes, we want it to feel like a simulated environment," he says.

After choosing their story style and getting that starting town of neighbors created, Solomon says a player can go in and edit characters if they actually want those relationships to be different.

The concept of players always being able to concoct a story is one Solomon returned to often during our talk. He also described his ideal audience as Sims players on Tumblr sharing screenshots of their dramatic storylines.

For folks who have been playing The Sims for years, we can occasionally get that burnt out feeling where inspiration for a new project just isn't striking us. It sounds as though Solomon is envisioning a life sim where you never have to ask "what should I do next?" because the hooks of some dramatic tension are already waiting for you to pull on as soon as you start a new game.

That's most of what we know about the first project from Midsummer Studios—it doesn't have a name yet, and there are no screenshots or trailers to speak of—but you can find a few more details about Solomon's small town drama life sim vision in our longer interview.